What Do Dogs Know and What Can They Tell Us?

In the early 2000s, we had a wonderful dog named Ezzie. Her registered name was Jubilee All Eyes On Me, named for the way she stood out from all of her nine littermates. We showed her a few times, including a trip for her to our breed’s national specialty at Montgomery. She won a few points and came in second in her class at the national specialty. Some Airedale people loved her and some hated her: when I asked for what these people liked or didn’t like, the list read exactly the same for both groups.

Ezzie was a special dog to us. Her registered name reflected the fact that she was the one dog in a litter of nine who always came to the front, who was always in our faces so to speak. She had a very healthy sense of who she was and how special she was.

She gave us a litter of 11 wonderful puppies, and as she was in everything she did, she was a terrific mother. After we bred her, another breeder wanted to lease her from us and breed her. We let her go to that breeder, but it did not work out. She exhibited some behaviors that worried that breeder, and we decided to bring her home.

While she was at that other breeder’s, a very interesting thing happened. On the same day, that breeder, an animal communicator in Florida whom we often consult, and I all received a message from Ezzie. She wanted a new name. What was incredible about this incident was that all three of us on the same day came up with the SAME name. The animal communicator told me that her name was Mary Lee, saying that she wanted a two-name name. The other breeder told me her name was Marilyn. And I got the name Merrily. All without any consultation with each other. Totally out of the blue.

We went to the breeder to pick her up, and when I called her as Merrily, she came running happily to me. After consideration for the others, we settled on calling her Merry Lee.

She came home with us and settled into her life. She was affable and tractable, but it was very obvious that she really wasn’t our dog. We decided that we would find her a good home. I told the Universe exactly what I wanted for a home for her, listing all the good things I could think of that would make her happy.

Within 24 hours, I received a call from a family in upstate New York: they sounded wonderful and it appeared that if I would let her go to them, she would have an incredibly happy life. But I demurred because I did not want to place an adult in a home where I couldn’t easily get her back if it didn’t work out. I went back to the Universe, repeated my requirements for a home for her and this time I said within driving distance of Dallas.

Less than 24 hours later, I received a call from a couple in Albuquerque. As I listened, I knew that this was Ezzie’s home, and within three or four days, they called to set up a time when they could meet her. They rented a mini-van and made the trip from Albuquerque to Dallas at the end of the week. When they had settled in their hotel, they came to see us and asked if they could take her out for the afternoon to see if they bonded with her. They left money with us, saying that we should either have the dog or the money at all times. They took her to a park; they walked with her; they played with her; and they went to a pet shop and bought her a leash. They came back in time to have dinner with us, telling us that they wanted to adopt her.

At dinner, the husband asked me: “Why did you change her name from Ezzie to Merry Lee?” I didn’t know what to say: how do you tell someone that the dog told you what her name should be? I hesitated, and the husband said: “The reason I ask is that our last Airedale’s name was Ozzie.!” I gasped. All I could say was “I think she wanted a name of her own.” I knew, deep in my heart, that this truly was her home, and she had known about it for much longer than we had.

The couple asked us if we would keep her overnight: their hotel room was small, and they would pick her up in the morning to take her home with them. After they left, Merry Lee was very upset. She paced; she laid on a dog bed looking like she had lost her last friend. I decided to take her into the guest room and let her sleep with me that night.

After I turned off the lights and lay down to sleep, I was assaulted by mental noise: “They were my people. Why did they leave me? I am supposed to go with them. They left me.” This continued for quite awhile. Finally, I sat up and turned the light on. “Merry Lee,” I said, “Did they buy you a leash while you were with them?” She looked me in the eye and acknowledged that they had bought her a leash. “Well,” I said, “Why in the world would they buy you a leash if they were not going to take you with them?” She looked at me. I told her they were coming in the morning to pick her up, that they wanted her to have a good night’s sleep before the long trip to Albuquerque. She lay back down and went to sleep.

When I woke the next morning, she was still sleeping soundly. I got her up, took her out, fed her, and brushed her up. When the doorbell rang at 8:30, she got very excited. When the people came in, she rushed first to one, then to the other, back and forth. She was obviously very happy to see them. We had breakfast, gave them food for her for a few days, and sent them on their way.

That was many years ago. We get letters from them thanking us for putting her in their home, they call her their good friend and share her likes and dislikes, and they send us pictures. She is obviously in her perfect, meant-to-be home.

The Peace of Being Within the Moment

When it comes to meditating, I often do 30 and 45 minute meditations when I had only expected to do but 15 minutes: Once I am in this space, I am unaware of the passing of time. However, finding time for this during a busy day with dogs and other responsibilities is not always possible.

I start every day on the rebounder. Until recently, it seemed to be forever before the time was up. But this all changed once I turned to mindful rebounding. Some time ago, during a very stressful time, Br. ChiSing of Awakening Heart here in Dallas suggested that I do mindful walking and pointed me to some books by Thich Nhat Hanh. I started practicing mindful walking, and that led to turning otherwise ordinary moments, minutes, and hours into what Br. ChiSing calls “the art of mindful living.”

Recently, while reading Anat Baniel, Move Into Life: The Nine Essentials for Lifelong Vitality (Harmony books, 2009), I was fascinated by her discussion of physical movement and the power of attention. In Chapter 1, she wrote: “Each time we combine attention with movement, millions and millions of brain cells are activated. . . . clusters of brain cells begin communicating with one another . . . The more we combine attention with movement, the greater the number of brain cells [are involved] . . . creating new possibilities for our lives. . . when a person continues to follow the path of movement with attention, every area of his life begins to change. . . The one overriding benefit . . . is increased vitality . . .”

In short, mindful movement sparks a chain reaction for our good.

I liked this idea, and I decided to use it for mindful rebounding. For me, this means that I am acutely aware of the movement of different parts of my body in response to the rebounding. Up and down, up and down, I feel the movement in the top of my feet, the sides of my lower legs, the periphery of my knees, all the way up through my body to my head and down my arms from my shoulders. Mindful of how each part of my body feels as it moves with the rebounding, the time flies and I am spending more time on the rebounder bringing all kinds of positive benefits to my day.

The time on the rebounder flies, and I finish feeling more awake, more aware, and more comfortable all over. This practice of mindfulness on the rebounder first thing in the morning has helped me be more mindful throughout the day.

Today, I was sitting at a table putting supplements for our three dogs into individual packets to be given with their meals, one packet for each of the three dogs for each day of a week. I fell into mindfulness, seeing, feeling, the body moving, the powders and capsules dropping into each of the little packets, aware of each movement that I made, the colors of the supplements, and soon I was unaware of anything beyond what I was doing. It seemed a very short time before the seven packets were filled for each dog, a total of 21 little packets of powders and capsules. When I started, the three dogs crowded around me, eager to get in on the action (or what smelled like food). I stayed mindful of what I was doing. I didn’t notice when but all three dogs laid down, each in their own place, circling my work table, totally relaxed, in a deep sleep by the time I finished.

Once again, the dogs reminded me of the peace of being totally within each moment.

Baniel says that we can maintain a routine activity for years, but "unless we also remind ourselves, again and again, to bring our attention to the movements -- intellectual, emotional, and physical-- that are involved in that activity, we begin stagnating. . . . We become less and less aware of the world around us . . . producing exactly the opposite of what we are seeking--vitality. . . . vitality comes about by bringing attention to our movements."

In short, every mindful movement starts a chain reaction for our good bringing us to the peace of being in the moment.

The Joy of Showing Your Own Dog, or How I Learned to Love the Show Ring

Handling a show dog in the ring takes lots of practice, good teachers, lots more practice, and lots of experience. It requires a willingness to make mistakes and to learn from those mistakes. Above all, it requires a willingness to lose and know that in the losing you have learned something. And it requires that when you lose, you smile and congratulate the winners, knowing that tomorrow is another show.

When I was a child, my mother bred and showed Boxers. She loved showing her dogs,
and the handler she emulated was Jane Kemp. She took me to shows with her, and I don’t think I ever saw her happier. But my father, who had chosen the breed and purchased a bitch with the agreement to show her, to breed her, and to return a puppy, had little use for the show ring, or as he called it, the beauty ring. To him, it was nothing more than a beauty pageant: the dogs and owners only had to walk around the ring and stand at attention. I grew up believing there was nothing to showing dogs.

I didn’t learn how wrong he was until I was in my 50s and had to show my first show
Airedale. I look back with embarrassment on my first attempts in the ring: stiff, stilted, no clue of what it took to show off a dog or how to train a dog to do this. Handlers told me there was nothing to it. People who called themselves mentors told me what to do: loose lead, keep the head up, make sure that the dog is moving correctly, hold the head up, make sure her tail is up, and keep the dog stacked. Every time I entered the ring, I felt like “Baby” learning to dance in the movie, Dirty Dancing.

Handling classes were of no help: every Tuesday evening, I took my first show Airedale to handling class. No one gave us any instruction. We just lined up, kept moving up to the front of the line, stacked our dog, took it down and back, and went around to the end. Every week, I looked desperately around the class: What was I supposed to do? Who could I emulate? Each week, I picked someone who seemed to know what they were doing and tried to copy them. Even though many of the people in the class were very experienced, I did not have a clue whether I was copying something that would work in the Airedale ring or not. In short, to quote Corally Burmaster, a good friend of mine, all I was doing each week in handling class was rearranging my ignorance. My first show dog and my second show dog were finished by professional handlers.

Years later, with 16 Tom and Kay Lams workshops and four George Alston workshops
under my belt, with one owner handled champion to my credit, and even teaching a
successful handling class, I still did not feel confident in the ring. I was showing Dilys, a granddaughter of that first show Airedale, and when she was finally in good coat and condition, she decided that judges could not go over her. Looking back on this, I now know that she was reacting to my stress as the judge approached: “ooh, mum’s clenching and the judge is coming towards us.” She did this at three shows under three wonderful judges who gave her every opportunity. Each judge counseled me to get her out more frequently during the week. But I was doing that, and I knew that was not the problem.

The problem was me. I was tense and insecure in the ring. I had to get over that, and I had to do it with that dog. By then several friends had asked me to teach them what I had learned from Tom Lams and George Alston. I agreed, and I ended up teaching a handling class the way I would have liked handling classes organized when I was learning: a six- week course focused on two weeks of gaiting, two weeks of presentation, and two weeks of putting it all together.

In my classes, I had both AKC and UKC exhibitors. The UKC exhibitors seemed to be much more relaxed about showing than the AKC exhibitors. So I decided to go to a UKC show with them.

I entered a UKC show in Giddings Texas. I had the only Airedale entered. The judges
were excellent, and the people were very friend ly. The first judge I showed to gave us best of breed and then a Group 2. But more importantly, I was so relaxed when I went into the ring that my girl stood rock solid for exam, with her ears alert and her tail up. At the second of the three shows that weekend, she was so solid that she took Group 1 and then went Reserve Best In Show. And I was having so much fun and getting so many good wishes from all the exhibitors that I did not think twice about being nervous.

Not only did I have fun in the ring, but I got to talk to other exhibitors, learn about their breeds and what they were doing, and I got to talk with the judges. On Saturday night, we all went out to dinner with the judges. And the judges talked freely at the show and at dinner about what they liked, what they were looking for, and, when they were talking with us individually, they talked about what they liked about our dogs and what we were doing right as handlers. The atmosphere removed the fear and the nerves that I had always experienced at shows, fear and nerves made worse by all the critics I had outside the ring who pounced on what I did wrong and never told me what I did right. Above all, these judges renewed my confidence in my dog.

After the fun I had at that UKC show, I decided to try another venue, the International Shows that were held in Hutto TX on New Year’s weekend. This would be four shows in two days under four AKC judges, two from the United States, two from Canada. Once again, we were the only Airedale entered. And once again, we had a great time. At both the UKC and the International shows, there is no focus on grooming. My Airedale was well groomed, but instead of spending hours getting her ready for the ring, I kept track of time, and about 10 minutes before we were to go into the ring, I put her on the table, brushed her out, and took her to the ring.

At the International Shows, as at the UKC shows, the atmosphere was friendly and
relaxed. Judges talked to exhibitors throughout the day, during breaks, and not only gave you written critiques in the ring, but gave you more information about how they saw your dog in informal conversations during breaks. At these shows, the first level championship requires three certificates from judges who rate your dog as conforming well to your standard, and one of those judges has to come from another country. If there are more dogs of your breed, you still compete to win classes and the breed, but every dog in the ring, regardless of whether they finish first or fourth, can get the coveted certificate. All weekend, my girl went Best of Breed (no competition) and then went on to go Group 1 at two shows to show in the BIS ring. So we ended up with 8 ring experiences and an International championship.

But the most significant part of these experiences was that I changed. I became a more relaxed handler, and I started having fun in the ring. I actually looked forward to going into the ring, and regardless of the outcome, I had fun. Win or lose, I praised my dog and I could feel the difference in me. I am sure that my dog felt it too.

Our next show was an AKC show. Instead of going to the show early, I got there in time to set up, brush my dog, and go in the ring. Instead of being fearful and nervous, I was eager to show my dog to the judge. And it worked: she won a four-point major under a top terrier judge. We went to three more shows together before she finished. We did not always win, and one weekend, we didn’t even win our class. But she finished with four majors, and, win or lose, both of us showed well and we had fun in the ring.

These non-AKC shows provide an excellent venue for building confidence in yourself
and your dog. They also provide good venues for introducing a new dog to the show ring and for introducing puppies to the show atmosphere. Both UKC and International shows have classes for three to six month puppies, and the judges are very good with the puppies. Other exhibitors make much of the puppies, and the casual, sometimes chaotic, atmosphere of these less organized shows give puppies great experiences. And you come home with ribbons and medallions that your dogs recognize as significant.

By the end of our first weekend at a UKC show, when the last judge handed me our huge best of breed rosette, Dilys grabbed the rosette and pranced out of the ring. This was her rosette, and it was meant to hang on her crate! She and I had become an equally invested team.

Relax and Clear Your Mind

This is a side bar to the article, Picture the Behavior and Make It Happen, which is the first article for today, March 7, 2010.

Relaxing and clearing your mind, whether you use prayer, meditation, or animal communication, takes you to a state of mind called the alpha state. According to Jose Silva in his book The Silva Mind Control Method, our mind cycles through four frequencies: Beta, the conscious level in which we take care of business and daily chores; Alpha, a relaxed state in which we can consciously form intentions and solve problems; Theta, a deeper state in which most hypnotism is done; and Delta, a state of very deep sleep. Our minds slip in and out of the Alpha state throughout the day, often when we are not focused on anything. At night, we go through a series of 90-minute cycles from alpha to theta to delta back to theta and then alpha. Whether you call it prayer, meditation or communicating with the animals, the steps for relaxing and clearing our minds are simple and similar. In the beginning, you will find it easier to find a quiet place and sit or lie down, whichever you find more comfortable. If this is new to you, you will probably find it easier to do with some form of entry ritual. Eventually, you will be able to click into a relaxed state without any preliminaries.

Entry rituals may include:
•bowing your head and making a petition to a supreme being;
•taking a series of deep breaths;
•breathing positive energy in and exhaling negative energy;
•counting backwards mentally saying and seeing the numeral for each number;
•scanning your body while focusing on what you feel in each part of your body
and relaxing each part as you proceed;
•listening sounds that are near, then further and further away, then your own
heartbeat and other sounds within yourself,
•and more.

All of the methods depend on being patient and letting go of distractions, thoughts, and pictures of other things. Penelope Smith says that if you are going to communicate with an animal, you also need to feel that the animal is listening to you in the same way that you sense other people are with you in a conversation. During such relaxation, it is normal for your mind to wander. When this happens, just bring your attention back to where you left off. Occasionally, you will fall asleep. This is also normal. As you gain more experience, you will fall asleep less often. No matter how much you increase your concentration and focus, you will always find your mind wandering to some extent. Just accept it and know that this is normal.
While you are in a deep state of relaxation, you can set goals and solve problems. This is done by visualizing the problem or the goal in a picture and by imagining the desired solution or outcome in a picture. When you imagine the solution or outcome, be sure to use all of your senses. The more detail you can put into the picture of your imagined outcome, the more success you will have. Finally, trust that you can do this, and enjoy yourself and your relationship with your dog.

See It In Your Mind’s Eye and Then Do It (Exercise)

This is a side bar to the article, Picture the Behavior and Make It Happen, which is the first article for today, March 7, 2010.

1. Stand up with your feet shoulder distance apart. Lift either arm and point straight ahead.
2. Without moving your feet, turn your upper body, arm and your head in the direction of that arm as far as you can go. Note what you see on the wall at that point.
3. Let your eyes go further and see a different point on the wall. Note that point.
4. Come back to your starting point.
5. Close your eyes and visualize what you just did, going to the point where you stopped.
6. Then imagine your body, arm and head turning so you stop at the further point on the wall, the one that you noted but did not reach when you actually did the exercise.
7. Open your eyes, and physically repeat the exercise, going in the same direction that you did the first time.

How far did you go the second time? On the second try, most people go effortlessly to the point further away. When asked what the exercise means, they usually say if you can picture it in your mind, you can do it.

Picture the Behavior and Make It Happen by Joyce Miller

Depending on which study you read, dogs and humans have worked together collaboratively and cooperatively for at least 15,000 years (150 centuries) and maybe as long as 100,000 years (a thousand centuries). That means that dogs and people may have been cooperating with each other since before humans had any spoken language. If that is the case, the working relationship between dogs and people originates in a mind-to-mind connection with both the dog and the person knowing what the other needs.

While recovering from breast cancer, I did a lot of spiritual and intuitive work. In the course of several mind-body workshops, I learned how to use visualizations to change outcomes. This work not only changed my own life; it had a dramatic impact on my work with dogs.

Changing an undesired behavior with visualization
For example, in one mind-body workshop, we did an exercise using visualization to change a behavior we did not like into a good behavior.

First, we were asked to think of a behavior that bothered us. That was easy for me: it was bathing my dogs. Nothing could reduce me to shouting and yelling faster. It bothered me that I got so angry with these animals that I love so much.

The leader told me to see the whole event: I visualized my clumsy efforts at catching the dog, getting her into the tub. I “saw” her fighting me every step of the way, turning away from the water and the soap, and refusing to turn when I needed her to turn. I saw myself getting angrier and angrier. Finally, I visualized rinsing her off and getting covered with water as she shook herself when I finished.

Then, the trainer told me to imagine what I would like to happen: I imagined a picture of one of my dogs happily getting into the tub, standing quietly while I calmly wet her whole body and soaped it up. I saw her turning when I asked her to turn and standing quietly to be rinsed off.

The next morning, when I was ready to leave the house, our five month old puppy came up to me, wiggling with happiness, soaking wet. I asked my husband what had happened.
He said she had peed in her crate. “Oh, and you washed her?” “No,” he replied, “That is pee.” I only had about 30 minutes to get to the seminar, but I picked the puppy up, put her in the tub, bathed her, and toweled her off. My husband came into the dog room and asked, “Are you going to bathe her before you leave?” When I told him that I had already
\ bathed her, he said that he hadn’t heard me shouting at her. I realized that the puppy had behaved exactly the way I imagined in the exercise. I was calm, and my clothes were dry: I didn’t have a drop of water on me.

Thinking in pictures
When you call your dog to come to you and work, she comes to you with a clear focused mind. Yes, she can be distracted by just about anything: the sight of something moving within her range of vision, a scent of another animal, or a far-off sound. Those things happen in the moment and are as fleeting as the moment. If you can quickly regain her focus on you, she is all yours.

Holding the dog’s attention depends on how well you can visualize what you want her to do and how well you can hold that visualization in your mind.

Clutter Chatter diffuses the picture in your mind.
Unfortunately, the modern dog owner comes to her dog with a lot of clutter chatter on her mind. Whether she sees it in words or pictures, her mind is full of many things competing for her attention and diluting her focus: an important report is due tomorrow, the meeting today went badly, her performance review is next week, someone is blocking her work, it’s almost time to start supper, she needs to stop at the drug store and pick up a prescription, what’s going on with the kids, and her personal concerns are mixed with the innumerable threats in the world that are in television and radio news, Internet reports, newspapers along with advertisements for thousands of products. Anyone who works in marketing can tell you how hard it is to break through the clutter and get the attention of one person for 15 seconds a day.

So, if we are designed to connect with our dogs mind to mind, and our mind is cluttered with so many other things, how can our dog clearly see what we want the dog to do? To complicate the situation even more, we tend to remember the last time we worked with our dog and the dog did it wrong. In fact, we tend to think of all the times that the dog did it wrong, and that picture is in our mind when we pick up the lead and start a training session.

As the dog’s mind ferrets around in our cluttered mind for a picture of what to do, she sees a picture of herself misbehaving, and that is what she thinks we want her to do! I ask my students, what do you see in your mind’s eye just before your dog acts out inappropriately? Always, the answer comes back that they saw the dog doing what it did.
Congratulations, I tell them: your dog is doing exactly what she thinks you want her to do!

How can we connect mind to mind?
1. Relax and clear our minds. The dogs come to us in the present moment; we must do the same. We must put aside worries about the past and the future, and we must concentrate on the moment and what we are doing with the dog. We can clear our minds
using the techniques of prayer, meditation or animal communication

Prayer, meditation, positive thinking, and animal communication techniques open us up to a universe in which we are all one in spirit, enabling us to communicate mind-to-mind with others, both humans and animals. You know this is possible: Just think of how many times you have thought of a friend that you have not talked to in a long time, and within 24 hours, you hear from that friend.
2. Form a clear picture of the desired behavior: If we erase all the clutter chatter from our minds and come to our dog’s training or working session with one single clear picture in our mind, a picture of what we want our dog to do, the dog will have no confusion. She will receive a clear intention of what we want her to do.

Sassy is a miniature American Eskimo Dog. The first night she came to class, we heard her before we saw her. A natural show dog, Sassy did not need to be taught how to show, but she and her owner needed to learn how to work cooperatively if they were going to succeed in the ring.

At one class, when Sassy was refusing to stand for exam on the table, I stepped back and asked the owner what she saw in her mind’s eye when Sassy acted out. She said she saw Sassy squirming and moving around, refusing to stand still. I knew that the owner would never be successful with Sassy if she continued to think of her misbehaving.

I asked the owner if she meditated. No, she replied, but she prayed. Both meditation and prayer quiet the mind and eliminate the distractions of clutter chatter in your mind. I suggested that the owner work Sassy just five minutes a day. I also suggested that just before starting each training session, she relax and say a prayer to quiet her mind and in the prayer, I asked her to imagine a picture of Sassy doing exactly what she wanted her to do. I told her to keep that picture in her mind all the time that she worked with Sassy, praising Sassy when she complied with the picture, ignoring her misbehavior or removing her from a distraction that she wanted, and keeping any pictures of bad behavior out of her mind.

The owner agreed to give this approach a try. Within four days, she called to tell me how much better her work with Sassy was going. At classes, Sassy behaved like a little show dog, doing what she was supposed to do, with none of the sassing and disruptive behavior we had come to expect of her.

Within four weeks, the owner called to tell me that she had shown Sassy to a Best
In Show at a United Kennel Club (UKC) dog show!

3. Keep that picture foremost in your mind while you are working.
Vanity is a young white German Shepherd. She is a beautiful dog who moves effortlessly around the ring. But she would not let anyone touch her. As a judge approached, Vanity could disappear, slipping back, down to the floor, or to the side. At one time, I would have told her handler what I had been told: that if she physically kept control of the dog’s head, the dog would not be able to move. But having had to work with a dog that could slip away from a judge no matter how much physical control I had of her head, I knew that we needed more in order to get Vanity under control.

I asked the owner what she saw in her mind’s eye just before the judge came to her dog.
The owner replied by describing Vanity’s behavior. “Is that what you see in your mind?”
“No, that is what she is doing.”

We did an exercise that demonstrates the power of visualizing, and the owner immediately understood. Then I showed her a way to hold Vanity while she visualized Vanity standing steadily for exam.

The owner stacked Vanity. I stepped back and looked at the dog. Then, acting as the judge, I walked toward her and reached out for her. She stood rock solid. I went over her and she did not flinch. Four other class members went over her, and she stood quietly for all of them. That weekend, Vanity showed very well, and two weeks later, she went Best of Breed over eight other German Shepherds and won a Group placement at a UKC show.

4. Generalize the use of pictures to other aspects of your work with your dog.
This is the hard part. It is very easy to slip back into the clutter chatter, and the dog slips back with us. Or we fail to generalize the use of visualizations to other exercises, and we send confusing messages to our dogs.

Five weeks after Vanity’s success, we were in class and there were thunderstorms somewhere in North Texas. Wherever they were, we could not hear them, but Vanity heard them. She stood in place, trembling so badly that everyone in the class saw her trembling like a leaf. I walked over to go over her. She stood for exam, but the trembling intensified.

Her owner said, “If there is a storm, I cannot show her.” I asked her why, and she said because Vanity is afraid of storms and trembles continuously. We talked about dogs with thunder and noise phobias. Then, I realized, as the owner came back repeatedly to the statement that Vanity could not show when there were such noises, that she was visualizing Vanity doing that. I asked her to change the picture in her mind.
The owner re-stacked her dog as I walked back to the middle of the ring. I turned and looked. Vanity wasn’t trembling. I walked up to her and went over her and there was no trembling. I asked others to go over her. Vanity continued to stand steadily without trembling. We were all amazed. I asked the owner what had changed. She said, “I see her standing calmly and looking beautiful.” Her smile widened as she realized what she had done.

Conclusion: Visualization is very powerful in getting behaviors. If we can focus on a picture of what we want, we will get the behavior. If we become complacent, we can easily slip out of the moment. As we get more and more experience, we will make pictures without thinking. These pictures enable us to stay in the moment and keep our focus on exactly what we want the dog to do.

The idea of a mind-to-mind connection with animals is not new. Neither is the idea of seeing mental pictures of what we want the animal to do. Penelope Smith, a pioneer in animal communication, says that the thought or image that we project is more important than the words we use. She says that dogs “get confused when people say something that is not what they are thinking.”

See "See It In Your Mind's Eye" and "Relax and Clear Your Mind" following this post

12-STEP PUPPY TRAINING

Dear Jubilee:
Help! Our puppy won’t stop biting.
We have a 10-week-old Airedale puppy, Annabel. We love her dearly, but she is biting us and our five-year-old son like crazy. My son is used to a 12-year-old dog that used to let him do anything with her. I tell our puppy to stop biting and give her a toy to bit, but it does not help. How can I help her understand what I want her to do?
At Our Wit’s End

Dear Wit’s End,
Congratulations on your new puppy. Please remember, she is a very young puppy.
You need to bring your son into the training program and do some things so that Annabel understands that he is above her in your pack. I have recommended that people with a child of this age give the puppy its meals for a couple of weeks, and the first thing that your son and the puppy need to learn is that the puppy has to work for her food. That means nothing more than Annabel sitting down and waiting while your son puts the food down. At first, you might have to put a leash and collar on her so that if she tries to break the sit and jump on your son, you can hold her in the sitting position. Your son does not put the food bowl on the floor until Annabel is sitting and waiting and your son says "Eat!" (Don't use O.K. We all use OK too frequently in conversation and the dog may be on a sit stay, hear you say it, and think it is all right to break her stay).

Also, five year olds are as excitable as 10-week old puppies. Squealing, racing around, and other normal child behaviors are invitations to such a young puppy to do the same! By bringing your son into her training program and having all of you use the same terms for her commands, Annabel will learn to behave for him as well as for you.
Forget your other dogs when thinking of what Annabel should do. First, she is a puppy, and mouthing and jumping on people goes with the territory. You can teach her to be careful, but the word NO! means absolutely nothing to a puppy or a dog. What you want to do is show the dog what you want and how to fix her mistake (miss-take means take it again). Here are twelve steps (and half steps) to help you calm Annabel or any young dog and get her working with you in a training program:

1. When she pinches you, do what her littermates did: Screech ouch. She is not biting; she is mouthing in play. Her mouth is the only way she can show you how much she enjoys being with you. Let her know, her teeth hurt. That is the only way she will learn to control the pressure she uses when she mouths you. And say it like it hurts. Not too excited. Not like a game. This is serious. You hurt me! But she cannot stand still for long enough for you to say all of that, so just OUCH! or some other sharp sound you would make to indicate a hurt. Then turn your back and walk away. Same goes for your husband and your son. You must all be consistent in the way you train her so that she doesn't learn to manipulate different members of the family.

2. Give her directions for what to do instead of what not to do. Get into the habit of using positive commands which you can immediately reward with a treat or praise. For example, you can probably tell when she is going to mouth (and please, call it mouthing, not biting -- puppies do not know the strength of their teeth, but all dogs mouth -- they just learn to do it without hurting you). When you see that she is going to mouth, toss a toy for her to fetch and reward her for going after it. Turn this into a way to teach her to retrieve or fetch. Children love to do this. I was once visiting my grandsons who were five and three. I had two six month old puppies with me who were jumping on the children and that hurt. Both children looked hurt and disappointed. Then my older grandson said: "I know what to do, Granny, let's teach her fetch." And we did! With a stick from a tree in the yard, we taught fetch. The children and the puppies ended up having a blast, and they got over the jumping on the children (read they used up a lot of energy) so that when we went inside, the children started playing races with the puppies, and suddenly, there were two little boys and two little puppies (Airedales) running circles around the house with no jumping on the children and no mouthing.

3. In giving her directions for what to do, form a picture or thought in your mind of exactly what you want her to do. Not a picture of her misbehaving. Whenever you think of her misbehaving, she reads your mind and thinks she is doing what you want her to do. So, get rid of all thoughts of her biting. Every one of them. I teach puppy classes, and I can give you story after story of how effectively this works. In one of my classes, a puppy was acting out horribly. I helped her owner with a program of daily working with the puppy - a program in which she replaced her thoughts and mind pictures of the puppy behaving badly with the puppy behaving just the way she wanted her to behave. Within four days, there was a tremendous difference. Several weeks later, when the puppy had been behaving wonderfully so much that the owner had forgotten my training, the puppy lapsed. I asked her what she had been thinking when the puppy did the bad behavior. She started laughing: she had had a fleeting thought of the puppy acting out! The whole class was amazed. The owner changed her thought pattern, and the puppy started behaving again. This is not easy to do, especially when you are afraid that the puppy will do the bad behavior again. But remember, every time you fear the puppy will do something, you have a mental picture of the puppy doing it, and that is what the puppy thinks you want her to do.

There is a good book about this, April Frost, Beyond Obedience: Training With Awareness for You and Your Dog.

4. Get rid of "No!" Annabel does not understand "No!" It makes no sense to her and when she hears it so often, she tunes it out (or even worse, thinks that it is her name as in "I think my name is No-No). Use terms like "Leave it!," "Off!," or "Stop it!" Say these words firmly and dramatically: Scowl, glare with your eyes, turn your lips down, pull yourself up full height and very rigid. She will know that she has displeased you and she will want to please you. Don't scream at her; just be very very powerful (dramatic, firm, etc.).

5. Give the puppy nothing, no attention, no food, no treats, no acknowledgement unless she earns it. She has to do something. For example, you are sitting in the family room watching a TV program. She comes over and nuzzles you to pet her. You pet her. You have just given her control of the situation. Instead, when she comes over and nuzzles you to be petted, tell her to "Sit!" or "Down!" and then pet her when she does what you have told her to do. She will quickly get the idea that she has to earn her attention, that she cannot demand it.

6. One of the best techniques that I know for working with a young dog is to "tether" her to you for a certain amount of time every day for at least a week, maybe two weeks. Put on her collar and her leash and attach her leash to your belt or a belt loop (I use a double ended clip for this but you can tie the lead around your waist). When she is tethered to you, she has to go with you wherever you go. If you are working in the kitchen, she is sitting or lying down beside you. If you go to answer the door, she goes with you and you have her sit and stay when you greet a visitor. Some people train their dogs so that they think the doorbell is a command to get a toy. You are going to have a lot of children in and out, and she needs to learn that she cannot jump on them or mouth them. So give her jobs that she can do. Being tethered to you will do several things: you can teach her the alternative behaviors and she cannot get away from you; she will learn to pay attention to you (because if she doesn't, you may surprise her and you go in a different direction; she will learn to follow you around the house and yard).

7. Teach her to walk on a loose lead. To do this, use a six-foot leather lead and your regular collar. Hold the leash so that you have control of the loop for your hand (so she cannot get loose) and loop a large section of the lead (about three feet) so that she has only three feet of leash; When you start out and she rushes ahead, stop, let the leash out to its full six-foot length, and let her keep going. When she jerks herself at the end of the lead and turns to look at you, be full of concern: "What happened, Annabel? Are you all right?" It may take her three times of running to the end of the leash, but she will know that she did this to herself. Be very friendly, very concerned. Kneel down, tell her come to you, and praise her for coming to you. You may have to repeat this for several days, but quite quickly, you will see that when she starts to run ahead, you can just let the three-foot loop open, she will feel its weight, and she will stop! Another thing to do for walking and getting her to walk without forging ahead is to keep changing direction (reverse, right turn, left turn, circle around, etc.). She will quickly learn that she cannot rely on you to be going in a straight line, that she has to watch out for you because you are unpredictable!

7.a. Teach her to "Come". Come is a very important command for every dog to learn. All of you, teach her to come. When you say "Come!", say it happily and joyfully. Never call her to come for punishment. Coming must always be the most wonderful thing she can do, and you must be a constant source of fun, treats, anything that makes you the only thing she wants to get to. So when she is running around, say with great enthusiasm, "Come, Annabel, Come!" Kneel down a little in the beginning, throw your arms open wide, and watch her come flying. Then reward her with a treat or a hug or whatever. NEVER PUNISH HER FOR COMING. This and stay are her most important commands because they could save her life some day. So when you say come, she must stop whatever she is doing and come to you whenever you give that command. There is nothing in the world that she is going to prefer to do than to come to you on that command.

8, Get the video, Puppy Kindergarten. You can order it from www.clickertrain.com, and it is worth every penny you pay for it. It was produced by Corally Burmaster, one of the top clicker trainers in the country. Corally has been breeding and training Airedales for nearly 40 years. When you see how easily you can get great behaviors from Airedale puppies (and all the puppies in the video are Airedales and you will see them with children), you will have every confidence that you can raise Annabel to be the best dog that you have ever had. I cannot recommend this video highly enough.

9. Continue using her crate. Whenever you cannot supervise the puppy, put her in her crate for her protection and for the protection of your house and child.

9. a. Show your son how to act calmly around her and not squeal when she jumps or mouths him, but to let her know she has hurt him. Teach him to pull himself up and demand that she stop it! And do have him feed her for a couple of weeks (you get the food ready; he puts it down, but only if she sits and stays).

10. Training treats. Use something that you can both eat. Use very tiny pieces. Even popcorn broken into several pieces. When you give a command, and she does it, celebrate together by giving both of you a treat! When she doesn't do it, just say "wrong" quietly and calmly, and give yourself a treat. You are showing her that you are a team: when both parts of the team do it right, both celebrate with a treat. When only one does it right, only that one gets the treat. Wait and see the expression on her face when you eat your treat in front of her because you did your part correctly and she didn't! She will learn that in order to join you in a treat, she has to do what you ask her to do.

11. Don't always use the same treat because Annabel may lose interest. Keep your treats where you can get them easily when you are training (I use a carpenter's apron with two or three pockets that ties around my waist, or if I am outside, I use a fisherman's vest with lots of pockets).

12. You are training your dog so that she learns that the faster she responds, the sooner she gets what she wants. This makes her think that she is training you, and this is good because you are training with an awareness of how her mind works and celebrating how wonderful she is.

Good luck, and have fun with Annabel. They grow up very quickly, and we want them to grow into wonderful companions. Every moment you spend on training will be rewarded. You do not need to train for more than 10 minutes a day as long as you reinforce it by making her work for all attention, all treats, and all meals. I would discourage roughhousing with her because you don't want to confuse her.

Follow-Up from At Our Wit’s End:

Dear Jubilee,
Thank you so much for the steps you sent me on training Annabel. I am so excited on how wonderful and how quickly she is learning. When we do OUCH!, she immediately stops the pressure. She is still mouthing but not nearly as hard. My husband was like Wow! That really works.

I got on the Clicker web site, my husband isn't convinced that something like that would work on training but at least he is willing to give it a try.
I would like to maybe look into agility training & competition for her and my son. We have 4H up here. I don't know if you are familiar with that or not. And since we don't have cows or horses they do allow dog agility competition at the fairs and such. I think that would be fun for the whole family. My husband is looking forward to having her in the woods with him when he hunts and such. She is going to be definitely loved by everyone. My mother watches my son for us while we work and she just adores Annabel and Annabel adores her too. So everyone is helping with her training.

Dear No Longer At Our Wit’s End:

Agility is really good for Airedales, but please focus on obedience training first and wait until she is at least a year old before doing agility (unless they offer a pre-agility course with no jumping). Airedales should not do serious jumping until their growth plates have closed: too much danger of hurting themselves and their bones before they are mature. I started my agility girl when she was nearly two, and she has enjoyed it. At our national specialty, there are now four days of agility trials and it is so much fun to go watch the terriers do their interpretation of agility. Same goes for obedience.

Please be sure that the instructor has a positive attitude towards training an Airedale. Airedales do not learn by monotonous repetition: three times a training session over a period of time is the trick to getting them to work for you. Anything more than three is boring, and they quickly tune you out. I am very choosy about trainers for this reason, so I often ask people who know a lot about Airedales for referrals.

There are many good Airedale people in Ohio. You husband might be interested in contacting someone on the Hunting/Working Committee about working with your Airedale in the woods for hunting, etc. Every year in March, there is a big get-together for hunting working weekend that takes place in Ohio. He can find out more about this group of avid hunting people by going to http://www.huntingworkingairedales.com. It is a great group of people, and they always have a lot of fun. These people might also be able to refer you to good trainers in your area of Ohio.

Jubilee

Dogs that forge ahead on walks

Dear Jubilee, My dog won't pay attention to me: he drags me whenever I try to walk him. What can I do?

People often ask me what they can do about dogs that pull them whenever they take their dog for a walk. I tell them to be the crazy lady.

I teach my dogs to pay attention to me, all the time, and I do that in part by teaching them that I am not predictable when we go for walks. They have to pay attention because I don't always walk in a straight line. I stop, I turn to the right or the left, I turn around and go back the way we came, I zig-zag back and forth on a little used street, I change my mind frequently, and I ask them to sit or wait in the middle of a straight walk. All this is what I mean about being a crazy -- or unpredictable -- lady.

When I stop or change directions and my dog is not paying attention, she is apt to come to the end of her leash rather abruptly. I call to her: "What happened? Are you all right?" in a voice full of sympathy. Then, I enthusiastically say, "Come!" and I reward the come with a treat. I do this often enough, even after they are well trained, that they know better than to let their minds wander because there is no telling what the crazy lady will do next. Best to be alert.

Dogs are smart: they know when they have to pay attention and when they can lunge off toward another dog or after a cat pulling you along behind them. If this happens, they know they don't have to pay attention to you.

In addition, to lock in responsive behavior, take your puppy to regular classes: obedience is my favorite. Don't stop after that first six week class. Once you have finished that puppy beginner class, find a novice practice class that is given every week, and go every week. These classes are typically full of people who compete in obedience: they not only know the value of going every week, they are also great people to help you when you have a difficulty. And your dog will enjoy the constant working with other dogs. There is really nothing like a large novice obedience class for learning to deal with the distractions of other people, other dogs, and strange noises that you encounter on long walks.

After your dog is working really well for you, explore other options like agility,freestyle (dancing), herding, frisbee, tracking, dock dogs, or any other dog sport you have heard of. They are all fun for your dog and for you, and they help your dog burn up so much energy and give them so many new experiences that they don't have time to think about the old distractions.

Doing all this, you will build a remarkable relationship with your dog. Your dog will have eyes and ears for only you. And you'll be able to do fun things with your dog that you never dreamed you could do.

Puppy! Puppy! Puppy!

Dear Jubilee, How can I train my puppy?

Puppies have minds of their own and they are continually busy. It's a time for training manners and hosebreaking, but it is not necessary to work at making yourself the boss. Fun training will reward you with a puppy that is eager to do what you want her to do.

Many people feel they have to establish their alphaness with their puppy. I feel that too much emphasis is put on people being alpha with their dogs. Stop worrying. Think instead about bringing up a well-behaved companion who is a joy to be around.

Others worry about whether they are providing enough exercise for their puppies and they figure that long walks are necessary to provide that exercise. Your puppy can get all the exercise it needs in your yard: running and playing on the grass. Long walks on sidewalks and surfaced roads are not so good for puppy until she is at least a year old, and for larger breeds older than that. The repetitive motion of walking on concrete and other hard surfaces is not good for the puppy's long-term structural health. Puppies will exercise as much as you let them, but it should be playing on grass. Walks are important for training the puppy to walk politely with you on a leash. Puppies, however, learn quickly and there is no need for long walks during the first year or before your puppies growth plates close. Growth plates close for different breeds at different times. For our breed, Airedales, this happens sometime between 10 and 24 months. So talk to someone who can help you figure out when this happens.

This time in your puppies life, however, is a great time to train a well mannered dog. Do you know that puppies never forget what they learn between eight and 16 weeks? I recommend that you get a copy of Corally Burmaster's DVD, Puppy Kindergarten, and start training your puppy with a clicker and a bottle of baby food as soon as you bring puppy into your home. Short sessions: as short as five minutes at least once a day will lock in things like "come!", "sit!", "down", "stay" and much more. The DVD shows how much fun it is to work with young puppies. You can find it at www.clickertrain.com And remember, puppies never forget what they learn in this critical period of their life.

Purpose of This Blog

The purposes of this blog are to share information, answer questions, and explore our spiritual connection with the animals in our lives. There is a lot of information on our website at http://dearjubilee.com/faq/dog_questions.html

So, if you have questions, please write to me at jmillerwolfe@gmail.com or comment on this blog -- I will answer them on the blog.

How Can I Train My Dog To Walk Calmly On His Leash

I teach my dogs to pay attention to me, all the time, and I do that in part by teaching them that I am not predictable. They have to pay attention to me because I don't always walk in a straight line. I stop, I turn, I turn a right or left corner for no reason, turn around and go in the reverse direction, zig-zag on a little used street, change my mind for no apparent reason, ask them to sit, tell them to wait, etc.

When I stop or change direction, and the dog is not paying attention, the dog goes to the end of the elash and pops herself. At which point, I call her to me, voice full of sympathy: "What happened? are you all right? Come!" and I give my dog a reward for coming directly to me when she I say come. I do this so often that the dog learns to focus on where we are going together: indeed, it is better to be alert because there is no telling what the crazy lady might decide to do. Most dogs learn how to do this after just three stops or changes in direction.

Dogs are smart: they know when they have to pay attention to you. If they can lunge off toward another dog, pulling you along behind them, then they know that they don't have to pay attention to you. But if you gently and repeatedly change directions or stop moving, they learn that they have to pay attention to you.

The other thing I do is operate on the rule that they are never too old for classes: obedience, agility, freestyle (canine dancing), tracking, whatever appeals to you. Don't think that the first six week class is it: you must continue going to classes if you want to train your dog to be the companion you want to walk on a leash. There is nothing like a large novice obedience class for learning to deal with the distractions of other people, other dogs, weird noises, etc. And when you can go and learn something like agility, freestlye, herding, or frisbee or some of the other fun dog sports, you will help your dog burn up so much energy and has so many new things to think about that those old distractions will pale by comparison.

This combination of lots of walks in many different places and lots of classes, at least one a week, keeps my dogs on their toes and eagerly working with me. The great thing about this approach is that you build an incredible bond with each dog, and they are much more interested in you than in anything else.

For whatever you do, you need a collar that enables you to communicate what you want with your dog. No matter what collar you use, you do have to learn how to make it talk to your dog so that the slightest pressure on the leash gives the following information to your dog: be aware--we are about to do something different (go in a different direction, etc.). Whatever collar you decide on, be sure to get good information on how to use it to communicate. You want to communicate without yanking your dog and without your being dragged along behind an out-of-control dog.

And keep your mind on the goal. No making excuses for distractions. Just keep your mind on the idea of your dog walking so easily beside your left leg that you could walk her off lead and s/he would not run off after something. When your dog has eyes and ears for only you, you will have built a remarkable relationship: You’ll be able to do fun things with your dog that you never dreamed you could do.