Thursday training tips: Is my dog stupid (or is it me)?

“People frequently assume that certain breeds or types of dogs are stupid, smart, stubborn, lazy, aggressive, friendly. And their beliefs shape their actions, sometimes most unfortunately for the dogs involved. Very often, what we label as stupid or stubborn has little to do with the dog’s level of intelligence. What we really mean when we say that a dog is stupid or stubborn or lazy is that he’s not in agreement with us, that he’s not doing what we want him to do. When we try to force a dog to accept our particular methodology and ignore what he tells us about its unsuitability for him, we are really saying that our toolbox does not contain a teaching approach that will work for him and that we don’t really care.”

-- Suzanne Clothier, Bones Would Rain from the Sky

The ritual has been the same for the last 19 years… Wake up (or, more accurately, get woken up by a wet dog nose in my face), do a quick check to straighten out my bedhead, and then head for the backyard so the pups can have their morning pee. This week, I was surprised that instead of heading out the door with her four companion collies, Westie pup Peaches veered off to the dog crate I keep on my back porch. She squatted, and started to pee in the crate. Well, how stupid is that?? Everyone knows you put a dog in a crate so she won’t pee.

My question should have been: how stupid am I? Peaches was only doing what she had done for the first formative months of her life in a puppy mill -- where she likely lived, ate, pee’d, and pooped in a crate. Her past life required me to re-think our housetraining, to go against crate-training orthodoxy. So, I’ve locked up the crates. I’ve also cancelled events where I’d be gone more than two hours, at least for the next week, so we can focus on “let’s go potty!” timing and treats. I don’t think it’s my imagination that cairns and Westies, more than a lot of breeds, will try to get away with eliminating indoors -- if we let them. And it sure doesn’t help when a rescued pup was restricted to a crate, or was left outdoors, or had their noses pushed into feces or urine when they had an accident. (I remember back in the 1970s, when my first husband threw our puppy against the wall after she pee’d on the floor. Sadly, that was a fairly accepted "training" method back then.) Now, there is no end of advice on housetraining, so our job is to find the positive method that works best for us and our pups.

BTW, while we’re on the topic of positive approaches, I’d like to share a tip that works for us when we have especially onerous challenges. I reserve special high-value treats for special tasks. The pups only get that treat when they perform that specific task. For instance, the collies get dehydrated salmon treats when I dremel their nails, so they look forward to nail trimming. Well, “look forward” is a bit of an overstatement; “sit calmly most of the time” is more accurate. Peaches’ special task, twice a day, is accepting a squirt of heart medicine in her mouth, and her high-value treat is dehydrated ground rabbit. Anticipating a treat she loves, she will happily jump up into my lap when I announce “time for medicine!”

I had a big dose of reality from the vet during our initial “welcome to your forever home” vet visit. After going over all Peaches’ heart problems, I mentioned that I had signed up Peaches for a puppy behavior class. Dr. K advised me to cancel it. While I was thinking that I needed to perfect Peaches’ responses to “come” and “settle,” to keep her from getting too excited or stressed, the vet gently reminded me how exciting puppy classes are. Since Peaches loves to play, putting her with five other playful pups and asking her not to play could be sheer madness for a dog that needs to avoid stress. It looks like homeschooling for Peaches!

My collies have fallen in love with Peaches, so separating them is essential for training.

Collies Eddie and Nemo team up to give Peaches a tickle fest.

My smallest bedroom makes a great training space. It’s small enough that I can keep Peaches’ physical exertion to a minimum, but large enough to play games that strengthen our relationship. I covered the main portion of the floor with interlocking foam tiles, and we have puzzles and a snuffle mat to start.

One of the most valuable dog classes I’ve participated in is called CCC -- Connection, Cooperation, and Control. I’ve taken three of my collies through the program (which is expanding rapidly across the country), and I kept the manual (yay, me!) so Peaches and I will start our own CCC training this week. Hopefully, I can keep my stupidity to a minimum.