Dear Jubilee:
Our dog has become outrageous on leash and off: on leash, he has taken sandwiches out of peoples hands and has learned that ripping plastic bags means food falls out, such as chicken cacciatore. We have resorted to putting on a muzzle when walking the streets.
Off-leash is just as bad: People leave sandwiches and stuff on the bench at the off-leash park. He’s even grabbed grocery bags with raw steak. This has not helped his behavior problems because by the time I get to him, he has eaten his reward. Now, he is even grabbing what people are carrying and won’t let go, even dragging one person to her feet and scaring her.
While we do the obvious things that training books say to maintain dominance such as make sure we enter a doorway first, he must work for treats, has to wait for permission to eat, we have also taken him to two obedience courses, my daughter does agility with him informally in the back yard. None of this has worked: He seems to think he was the right to take the food off a total stranger. His recall is inconsistent when he is distracted or is very playful and wants to be chased. He was the "pick of the litter" and was considered to be the alpha, so I don't know whether this is part of the problem. He has not been aggressive with other dogs and is very social with people.
At Our Wit’s End
Dear Wit’s End,
Training a dog doesn't stop with courses or with good manners around the house. You have to train your dog for every situation you want him to be in. And in this case, you need to train and reinforce two very important commands: "Come!" and "Leave
It!" These are two commands that I teach our dogs as early in their lives as possible; these are also commands that can be taught at any time in their lives; and these are commands that can save their lives.
You can teach "Leave It!" with just about anything. The first dog I trained to leave it was in a class with other dogs, and we used paper plates on the floor, each plate containing an attractive treat. The object was to walk with our dogs on leash from one end of the training facility to the other, passing the plates, and as you approached and the dog was eyeing it, you said "Leave It!" and kept walking past. This was repeated several times, each time getting closer to the plates. By the time the dog finished doing this exercise, even with giving no treats or rewards other than "good girl" or "good boy" or "good!" walking back past the items was a breeze: All you had to do was say "leave it!" and the dog ignored the "it" item as you kept walking.
I consider the "leave it!" command as important as come! Both commands can save your dog's life; both can spare you a lot of problems and issues. With dog laws becoming tougher and tougher, the incidents you describe could get you and your dog in a lot of trouble. And the problem is that you have not trained your dog to be out and about with you in public.
You can use "Leave it!" to stop a dog from jumping on someone, snatching something that could be dangerous, grabbing something you or someone else has dropped on the floor, something on the floor that could harm the dog, counter surfing, and more. I am sure that you could use it in the situations that you describe.
Until your dog has a reliable "leave it!" and "come!", I would not let him off lead in dog parks or anywhere else given his predilection for snatching stuff from people or stuff left laying around. And I wouldn't use anything longer than a six-foot lead, a lead that you can gather up to keep him on a short lead when necessary. Whatever you do, do not use a retractable-lead to train or exercise your dog.
If I am in a large field with no other dogs around, I will work with a long lead (I use a 20 foot lead if I am training in an open area), and at home in the house, I don't use any lead: I just say "come!" enthusiastically, and I make coming to me the most wonderful thing the dog can do. Nothing is more attractive to my dog when I say come than coming to me and sitting right in front of me looking at my face. "You called? Here I am. What do you want me to do? Or do you just want me to sit here in front of you? Up to you."
Recently, one of my dogs went out a door that had accidentally been left open. All the gates to our yard were open because we had contractors fixing a bunch of stuff on our house. I saw the dog go out the door, walked quickly out the same door, called her name, and said firmly and enthusiastically, "Come!" She looked at the open gates, looked at me, and came running to me and sat down in front of me. I praised her as I took her collar in my hand and we walked easily back into the house.
You want your dog to come when you call no matter what he is doing, and no matter where you are. When you say come, you can stop incidents like you describe with one enthusiastic word, one that has been trained in as a fun game with lots of rewards. "Come!" makes coming to you the most exciting thing in his life. I can call the same dog away from squirrels and birds or anything else that catches her interest because she knows "come!" means good things.
"Leave it!" is a firm voice, loud in the beginning, softer when the dog understands what I mean. I can say "leave it!" so softly that others around me do not hear it, but my dog will leave it.
You cannot shame your dog in the incidents you describe because your dog is doing what an untrained, uncontrolled dog will do. So use a happy but firm voice, and teach come and leave it. I think you will see a difference.
Until your dog is trained, don't put him where he can get in trouble. That means don't take him to the dog parks or out on long walks with a long lead until he knows what you expect him to do and does it. You have to work up to these places slowly, one step at a time. You cannot expect him to do something he doesn't know he is supposed to do. You have to show him, and you have to take the time to do this in a positive fun way.
Keep in mind that it took 18 or 20 years for you to master being on your own in the world, and you had lots of educators, parents, and trainers telling you what you could and could not do. You cannot expect your dog to do it in a few months or even a year if you are not giving him continuous good training.
Good luck,
Jubilee
Saturday, June 18, 2011
OUR DOG IS TOO EXUBERANT
Dear Jubilee:
I have an Airedale that is just over 2 years old, Duke! He is a very, very energetic dog and loves to play, and I have been trying for some time now to teach him when play time is and when the time is to be calm. He just never really seems to be calm. If I am around he is jumping and licking, and whining if I don't give him attention.
What Can I Do?
Dear What Can I Do:
It sounds like Duke has you very well-trained! I have a male who when he was five months old was a real pest: whenever I put him out, he would bark up a storm to be brought in. I was bringing him in because I did not want him disrupting the neighborhood, and as it got worse and worse, I realized that I had made it much worse because by bringing him in when he barked, I was rewarding his bad behavior. I was able to take him to a breeder and leave him in her kennel for a month. While there, his barking was not rewarded, and he returned home less prone to do that. Oh, he tried (he knew he had my number), but every time he did it, I marked the behavior with a negative "eek" sound and squirted him with a little bit of water from a squirt bottle to get his attention. Now all I have to do is pick up the bottle, and he finds something else to do.
As for Duke: He obviously does not respect your space and he needs to learn to respect it. He should not have been allowed to jump on you as a puppy, but I am sure you know that now. I had the same problem with a female that I allowed to jump on me as a puppy. But what was cute when she was three months was not cute when she was two years old. Once I decided that was going to stop, I learned how to approach her and it did stop. So here are some suggestions:
1. When he jumps on you, turn your back to him. Keep turning away from the jump, even if he jumps on your back. He will get confused and frustrated and will either stop or even sit down to figure it out. Reward the cessation of jumping (remember yelling at him or pushing him off to stop his jumping is a reward in and of itself, and you will get what you reward).
2. Yawn at him. Yawning is a dog calming signal. Turn your head away from him. Turn your entire body away from him, break eye contact. These are all calming signals. Older dogs do these things to calm rambunctious younger dogs. All dogs around the world know the language of calming signals. Consistently applied, they work. I have two very wired younger dogs who would love to jump on me but I stand still and do not push them away. Instead, I yawn, turn my head, turn my body. When they settle, I pay attention to them. If they resume the jumping, I repeat the calming signals. To learn more about calming signals, you can get a video entitled Calming Signals of Dogs that will give you a lot of other ideas.
3. Catch Duke being good. This will be hard in the beginning and take a lot of patience. Stand perfectly still and do not make eye contact with him Wait out the bad behavior and when he has all four feet on the ground, praise him. If he resumes the bad behavior as soon as you praise, go back into the standing still. Always end this exercise when he has all four feet on the ground. My two younger dogs will jump on the gate or the door when I go to let them in the house. I do not open the gate or the door until they have all four feet on the ground. If they settle and I start to open the door/gate and they resume the jumping, I take my hand off of the door/gate and wait until they are calmer. They are not stupid, but they are pushy. They know that if they continue to jump, I will not give them what they want.
4. Keep a squirt bottle filled with water handy. When Duke jumps on you, make the unpleasant "eek" sound and gently squirt him. He won't like this, and he will learn that bad behavior has uncomfortable consequences!
5. What would you like Duke to do instead of the bad behavior? When you train, you cannot train a negative, you can only train a positive behavior. So think about what you would like him to do, and then reward that behavior. For example, when you go to feed him, make him sit and stay before you put the food down. When you come to him and he jumps on you, make him sit and reward the sit. He has to know that you will reward his good behavior and that his bad behavior will not get attention
6. Never give him attention unless he works for it. In other words, do not let him demand attention. If he comes to you to be petted, have him do a sit or a down, and then praise him and pet him. Same when he wants food. Same with anything he wants. You have to work to provide yourself with your food and your pleasures; he needs to do the same. I have a friend who has been in dogs for over 50 years. He says, every dog needs a job. What he means is that the dog needs to have something positive to do, and if he doesn't, he will make up a job for himself. It sounds to me like Duke has made up some very negative jobs for himself, and that you have been "paying" him by pushing him off of you, etc. I am sure in the beginning, it was totally unconscious on your part: he would jump on your legs and you would bend down to pet him.
7. Don't give up on Duke. Remember, it is never too late to train a dog, especially an Airedale. Really rambunctious, untrained, older dogs come into Airedale rescue and they become very good house pets in their new homes with dedicated, patient owners. It is really up to you, and your consistency in expecting and demanding good behavior. Duke needs to learn what you want him to do: Airedales love to please. Duke does not know what will please you because he has not been shown what will please you. He does know that his jumping gets your attention.
Now you have to show Duke how to get your attention with more positive behavior. You can do it. We all had to learn how to do this, and most of us did not learn as kids: it is something that we learn and get better at with time and patience and understanding of the dog's behavior.
In addition to the video, The Calming Signals of dogs, I will recommend that you get a book entitled Culture Clash (go to www.dogwise.com and search first on Calming Signals and then on Culture Clash to get the real titles and authors). This book will give you more understanding of the differences between how we perceive the world and what is expected and how dogs perceive it. It is fascinating.
Then, if you have time, I suggest that you put all of Duke's exuberance to good use. Get involved in training him in something like agility, or tracking, or search and rescue, or flyball or a canine Frisbee club. You will be amazed: he will have you all to himself while you are doing this and you will both be working on something that will use a lot of his energy. Even going out in the yard and throwing a ball will help him use up his energy.
So think about rewards and consequences and take a whole new look at your relationship with Duke. Start now and be patient. It has taken two years for him to get to where he is now. It may take a few months to get him where you want him, but celebrate every step in the right direction. Oh, and don't let friends let him jump on them. Have them do the turning away thing and have them keep their hands down so he doesn't jump up to get at their hands. Be firm with your friends. Especially the ones who say they don't mind because they love dogs. Just tell them that you do mind because you love your dog.
Keep in touch and let me know how it works out.
Jubilee
Bladder Control and Housebreaking
Dear Jubilee:
Our Airedale puppy is 18 weeks old and still not well house trained. As long as we take her out, she goes potty, but she is giving us no indications when she needs to go out. We have used the small crate approach but she still will go in her crate. We have disciplined her when we catch her in the act so she know it is not acceptable behavior. She is extremely smart - has learned sit, stay, come (when she wants to), and is doing a pretty good job at heeling when we take a walk. BUT she can't tell us when she needs to go outside even though she does know what to do when she goes out.
Help!
Dear HELP!!
Puppies do not develop reliable bladder control until they are five or six months old. Until then, you need to focus on catching them being good, and then you praise them for being good.
Take her out whenever she has been excited, has been playing, has just woken up, after she finishes eating, before she goes to bed, and when she wakes up. And when I have a young puppy, I get up once in the middle of the night and take the puppy out to potty.
While you are at it, tie a small bell on a sturdy string to the door you want her to go to when she needs to go out. Jingle it just before you take her out. As she gains more control over her bladder, she will start nosing the bell to make it jingle when she needs to go out. Always take her out when she asks.
Don't shame her for a puddle. Don't punish her. Dogs live in the moment, and what is past is past. They don't think about it, and you might end up punishing her right after she has been good for a puddle or pile she made 10 minutes or even just a minute ago. That is very confusing for the dog. Praise good behavior; forget naughty behavior. And don't punish something they don't have control over and/or haven't learned to control.
Jubilee
Our Airedale puppy is 18 weeks old and still not well house trained. As long as we take her out, she goes potty, but she is giving us no indications when she needs to go out. We have used the small crate approach but she still will go in her crate. We have disciplined her when we catch her in the act so she know it is not acceptable behavior. She is extremely smart - has learned sit, stay, come (when she wants to), and is doing a pretty good job at heeling when we take a walk. BUT she can't tell us when she needs to go outside even though she does know what to do when she goes out.
Help!
Dear HELP!!
Puppies do not develop reliable bladder control until they are five or six months old. Until then, you need to focus on catching them being good, and then you praise them for being good.
Take her out whenever she has been excited, has been playing, has just woken up, after she finishes eating, before she goes to bed, and when she wakes up. And when I have a young puppy, I get up once in the middle of the night and take the puppy out to potty.
While you are at it, tie a small bell on a sturdy string to the door you want her to go to when she needs to go out. Jingle it just before you take her out. As she gains more control over her bladder, she will start nosing the bell to make it jingle when she needs to go out. Always take her out when she asks.
Don't shame her for a puddle. Don't punish her. Dogs live in the moment, and what is past is past. They don't think about it, and you might end up punishing her right after she has been good for a puddle or pile she made 10 minutes or even just a minute ago. That is very confusing for the dog. Praise good behavior; forget naughty behavior. And don't punish something they don't have control over and/or haven't learned to control.
Jubilee
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 do an immediate correction (a quick pop on the leash when the puppy jumps) and your son does not relinguish the food until Annabel is sitting and waiting and your son says "Free!" (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 LOL) 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 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). Whenever she is out of the crate, for a week at least, have her tethered to you. This means that 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 make 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 step on her or jerk her when you go in a different direction; and 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 a flat-link chain collar that you can jiggle and she will hear. 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 and jerking herself, but she will know that she did this to herself. Be very friendly, very concerned. Kneel down and let 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". 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 is her most important command because it could save her life some day. 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. Finally, 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 five 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, and I require that all my puppy clients buy it. It is so wonderful and so easy to follow that we give it to people who buy a puppy from us.
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. Do the tethering when she is not in the crate for a week or two.
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.
From Dear Jubilee: 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.
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 do an immediate correction (a quick pop on the leash when the puppy jumps) and your son does not relinguish the food until Annabel is sitting and waiting and your son says "Free!" (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 LOL) 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 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). Whenever she is out of the crate, for a week at least, have her tethered to you. This means that 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 make 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 step on her or jerk her when you go in a different direction; and 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 a flat-link chain collar that you can jiggle and she will hear. 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 and jerking herself, but she will know that she did this to herself. Be very friendly, very concerned. Kneel down and let 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". 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 is her most important command because it could save her life some day. 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. Finally, 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 five 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, and I require that all my puppy clients buy it. It is so wonderful and so easy to follow that we give it to people who buy a puppy from us.
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. Do the tethering when she is not in the crate for a week or two.
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.
From Dear Jubilee: 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.
Always Have a Back Up Vet: In Memory of Sire , April 4, 1999 – March 5, 2002
Sire was a healthy nearly three year old Airedale, dearly loved by his owner. He was never sick. He was weaned to the raw diet, and his owner continued the diet throughout his life. Her regular vet, an alternative DVM, was a staunch supporter of the diet.
On a Wednesday night in 2002, Sire appeared to be sick. He wouldn’t eat, and he was vomiting clear liquid. He did not have any bowel movements. Concerned, his owner called her vet who told her to pick up a remedy and see how he was in the morning. By morning, he was vomiting quite a bit of clear liquid. His owner called the vet and discovered she was out of town. So the owner looked to her colleagues who referred her to what they called the best vet practice in her city. She took Sire to that practice, and during the initial exam, she mentioned that she fed the raw diet, BARF.
Sire’s symptoms were definitely the symptoms of a blockage, and the vet immediately jumped to the conclusion that Sire must have a blockage of bones. She x-rayed and did ultrasound and found no sign of bones. Instead of looking for gas in the stomach, feeling to determine how sore he was and where the blockage might be (remember, things like socks, towels, plastic bags and more do not show up on x-rays or ultrasounds), she decided that since there were no bones appearing on the x-ray, Sire must have an “overwhelming bacterial infection caused by tainted meat.”
She admitted him to the vet hospital and put him on fluids and antibiotics. By Saturday morning, when his owner called to tell me that Sire was sick, Sire had a high temperature and profuse
bloody diarrhea. Not knowing that his initial symptoms did not include diarrhea, I assumed that the vet must be treating him correctly and that he had gastroenteritis.
Saturday afternoon, the vet told the owner to take him to an emergency clinic for the weekend where he would be kept on fluids and antibiotics. This clinic followed the vet’s instructions and did nothing more. No notice was taken of Sire’s condition deteriorating; and the owner was not allowed to visit him. When the owner picked him up on Monday morning, Sire could neither walk nor stand.
At the vet clinic, he was now tested for parvo, which came back negative. Since no amount of fluids and antibiotics were helping him and he was continuing to deteriorate, the vet decided to send him to a specialty practice for a barium series. The specialist decided not to do a barium series, but suggested exploratory surgery, explaining that Sire might not survive the surgery and that the only alternative was surgery or just watch him die. The owner chose the surgery.
At this point in time, the results of a barium series or surgery would have been the same. Sire died on the table, just as they started to look for what was wrong. He was one month short of his third birthday.
On my request, the owner ordered an autopsy. The vet found a blockage: a piece of a green towel along a length of his small intestine. Bacteria under the toweling had eaten through the walls of his small intestine, causing extreme sepsis in his abdominal cavity.
If the attending vet had not been blinded by her prejudice against a diet that she did not understand, she would have continued to look for a blockage by some material other than bones, materials that may not show up on e-rays. If the vet had found the toweling, she could have surgically removed it, and Sire would be alive today.
Always have a back up vet: As a result of this tragedy, we followed our own recommendation about always having a back-up vet. A vet we trust as much as our primary vet. We recommend everyone have their dogs checked out by the back up vet from time to time so that vet knows you, your dog, and your breed or type of dog. Airedales, for example, are very stoic and often don’t let you know they are sick until they are really sick (and then they may just appear or act a “little off.)”
If the vet knows you and your dog, knows the health of your dogs, and knows your dietary preferences, what you feed your dog will not enter into a diagnosis during an acute crisis. Your vets will both know that you have very healthy dogs and will remark on their good condition at every visit. Then, if you have an emergency, they will look for the real cause.
This having a back-up vet recently paid off big time for us, at that time, a sometime breeder. With our last litter(April 2002), one of the puppies got stuck in the birth canal and the mother needed a C section to finish delivering her litter of 11. Thanks to what we learned from Sire’s tragedy, we had found a back up reproduction vet. Our vet was out of town that weekend, but the back up vet knew us, knew our dog, and held his practice open to take care of the mother and her puppies.
We feel that Sire saved many lives that morning.
On a Wednesday night in 2002, Sire appeared to be sick. He wouldn’t eat, and he was vomiting clear liquid. He did not have any bowel movements. Concerned, his owner called her vet who told her to pick up a remedy and see how he was in the morning. By morning, he was vomiting quite a bit of clear liquid. His owner called the vet and discovered she was out of town. So the owner looked to her colleagues who referred her to what they called the best vet practice in her city. She took Sire to that practice, and during the initial exam, she mentioned that she fed the raw diet, BARF.
Sire’s symptoms were definitely the symptoms of a blockage, and the vet immediately jumped to the conclusion that Sire must have a blockage of bones. She x-rayed and did ultrasound and found no sign of bones. Instead of looking for gas in the stomach, feeling to determine how sore he was and where the blockage might be (remember, things like socks, towels, plastic bags and more do not show up on x-rays or ultrasounds), she decided that since there were no bones appearing on the x-ray, Sire must have an “overwhelming bacterial infection caused by tainted meat.”
She admitted him to the vet hospital and put him on fluids and antibiotics. By Saturday morning, when his owner called to tell me that Sire was sick, Sire had a high temperature and profuse
bloody diarrhea. Not knowing that his initial symptoms did not include diarrhea, I assumed that the vet must be treating him correctly and that he had gastroenteritis.
Saturday afternoon, the vet told the owner to take him to an emergency clinic for the weekend where he would be kept on fluids and antibiotics. This clinic followed the vet’s instructions and did nothing more. No notice was taken of Sire’s condition deteriorating; and the owner was not allowed to visit him. When the owner picked him up on Monday morning, Sire could neither walk nor stand.
At the vet clinic, he was now tested for parvo, which came back negative. Since no amount of fluids and antibiotics were helping him and he was continuing to deteriorate, the vet decided to send him to a specialty practice for a barium series. The specialist decided not to do a barium series, but suggested exploratory surgery, explaining that Sire might not survive the surgery and that the only alternative was surgery or just watch him die. The owner chose the surgery.
At this point in time, the results of a barium series or surgery would have been the same. Sire died on the table, just as they started to look for what was wrong. He was one month short of his third birthday.
On my request, the owner ordered an autopsy. The vet found a blockage: a piece of a green towel along a length of his small intestine. Bacteria under the toweling had eaten through the walls of his small intestine, causing extreme sepsis in his abdominal cavity.
If the attending vet had not been blinded by her prejudice against a diet that she did not understand, she would have continued to look for a blockage by some material other than bones, materials that may not show up on e-rays. If the vet had found the toweling, she could have surgically removed it, and Sire would be alive today.
Always have a back up vet: As a result of this tragedy, we followed our own recommendation about always having a back-up vet. A vet we trust as much as our primary vet. We recommend everyone have their dogs checked out by the back up vet from time to time so that vet knows you, your dog, and your breed or type of dog. Airedales, for example, are very stoic and often don’t let you know they are sick until they are really sick (and then they may just appear or act a “little off.)”
If the vet knows you and your dog, knows the health of your dogs, and knows your dietary preferences, what you feed your dog will not enter into a diagnosis during an acute crisis. Your vets will both know that you have very healthy dogs and will remark on their good condition at every visit. Then, if you have an emergency, they will look for the real cause.
This having a back-up vet recently paid off big time for us, at that time, a sometime breeder. With our last litter(April 2002), one of the puppies got stuck in the birth canal and the mother needed a C section to finish delivering her litter of 11. Thanks to what we learned from Sire’s tragedy, we had found a back up reproduction vet. Our vet was out of town that weekend, but the back up vet knew us, knew our dog, and held his practice open to take care of the mother and her puppies.
We feel that Sire saved many lives that morning.
A Snapshot in Time by Joyce Miller
I “met” Nicki, an Airedale Terrier, purely by accident. Just before we were scheduled to leave for Montgomery last year, I was given an old collage that contained a picture, a championship certificate, and 42 show ribbons. The certificate identified the dog as CH Texas Nicki Teeschaw, the only Texas Airedale to finish a championship in 1932. The picture had hung for many years in a veterinary clinic in Dallas. It spent even more years in storage.
But this is not just a story about an Airedale Terrier. The collage provides a snapshot in time that underscores and illuminates the emergence of new fanciers in areas of the country that were outside the mainstream. These new breeders imported breeding stock from England, cooperated with others to set breed type in their litters, showed their dogs nationally, publicized their dogs in national magazines, and exerted a lasting influence on their breeds.
Until the early 1930s, most of the winning Airedales in the United States came from the large kennels of East Coast, the West Coast, and Chicago. When Nicki became a champion in 1932, he represented the success of these new breeders. Breeders like Elmer Sheaner, owner of Dal-Aire Kennel in Dallas and Nicki’s breeder, did whatever it took to put good dogs into their breeding programs and to breed dogs that could win in the show ring.
Around the turn of the century, Sheaner, then in his early 20s, moved to Dallas with his wife and first child. In Dallas, he earned his living as a plasterer. During the next 20 years, he developed a passion for Airedales. By the time Nicki finished, Sheaner had been breeding Airedales for at least 10 years. From the beginning, he used English imports, worked closely with other breeders, and bred good dogs under his Dal-Aire kennel name.
Imported dogs enabled breeders like Sheaner to have access to the stud dogs and good bitches they needed to lift their dogs onto the national stage. Canadian brokers imported the English Airedales and sold them to kennels in the United States that resold them to breeders nationwide. For example, Nicki’s sire, Flornell Walnut King, was imported in 1928 and sold to a breeder in San Antonio where Sheaner bred to the dog in 1929.
In addition to using imported dogs, breeders like Sheaner worked with other new breeders to breed better dogs from the offspring of the imported dogs. In the late 1920s, Sheaner worked primarily with two breeders in San Antonio. Later he provided a new breeder in Plainview, Texas, with bitches sired by Nicki. By the end of the 1930s, a reverse pedigree of Nicki’s dam reveals descendants of Sheaner’s dogs in the pedigrees of breeders throughout the Midwest.
When Nicki finished his championship, Sheaner sent an announcement to the show dog magazine, Popular Dogs. Delpha Ray Blakely, the editor of the Airedale column, reported in April 1932 tha t only three Airedale champions finished in March: One of them was Texas Nicki Teeschaw. Blakely wrote: “I am not familiar with this dog as he is a Southerner and we do not get much news from out that way. Nicki must be a really good one as he has defeated many fine dogs.”
In a letter to Blakely, Sheaner outlined his career showing dogs. His need to write a letter to a magazine columnist illustrates how little communication existed between mainstream breeders and those from outlying areas. It also demonstrates how difficult it was to breakinto showing at the time.
Getting into showing Airedales has never been easy. But today, newcomers can learn how to groom and handle from experts who also teach. These experts include nearby breeders who mentor new exhibitors and professional handlers who teach grooming and handling seminars hosted by local breed and kennel clubs. In the early 1920s, Sheaner had none of these resources.
In 1923, when Sheaner decided he was going to show his first show dog, Texas Rose, he just took her to a show. She had never been trimmed or plucked but Sheaner did bathe her the night before the show. He also had no idea how to present her in the ring. The judge, Jack Bradshaw, didn’t give Rose a second look.
Dog shows at this time were benched shows, where dogs had to be on their benches throughout the show. Benching made it possible for the general public to see different breeds up close, but, more importantly for someone like Sheaner, they provided the opportunity for a newcomer to learn from judges, breeders, and more experienced exhibitors.
After the Airedales showed, Jack Bradshaw walked over to Sheaner’s bench and explained that if Sheaner had removed some of Rose’s coat, he might have been able to tell what the dog looked like. Sheaner vowed he would come back the next year and show a good dog. He then asked people at the show to teach him how to pluck his Airedales and how to show them in the ring.
The next year, Sheaner went back with two dogs: a male and a female. The female won the puppy class and the male won the novice class, going reserve with 54 dogs benched. After that, Sheaner’s dogs started winning: By 1934, he finished five champions, including Texas Nicki Teeschaw.
Sheaner did not handle Nicki. The dog’s owners placed him with handler Richard L. Davis, owner of Davishill Airedales in Kentucky. Davis was well known at the time for showing CH Warbride of Davishill to the group win at Westminster in 1925.
Davis showed Nicki for three months: October and November 1931 and March 1932. During those three months, the ribbons in the collage show that the dog traveled more than 7200 miles and showed at 16 shows from San Antonio to Detroit. These were not clusters of dog shows. These were single dog shows, formal evening affairs, held over two or three evenings. Nicki would show in one city Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and then be at another venue Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Since most shows were evening affairs, Nicki and his handler had all night and the daytime of the next day to travel.
Handlers and dogs covered a lot of ground. The handlers mostly traveled by rail with their dogs in crates in the Railway Express baggage car. During the trips, the handlers, hung out in the baggage car, grooming their dogs for the next show, talking dogs with each other, telling stories, drinking, and playing poker.
The handlers wired ahead to their destination to arrange for transportation to the show sites. When they arrived in town, Model A pick-ups were lined up at the station to collect the handlers and their dogs. For a travel kit, the handlers stacked two wood crates and put a table top with a drawer and a place for a grooming arm on the top crate. If lucky, the handlers might get to spend an occasional night in a hotel, but more often, they slept at the show grounds on folding wood and canvas cots. If they did not bring their own cots, they slept on benches around the grooming area.
Grooming and conditioning a broken-coated terrier has always been important for both show and non-show dogs. As Sheaner learned, an Airedale’s coat had to be removed, but show grooming was not as refined as it became later in the century. The differences between the Airedales shown in this period and today are so startling that some think the structure of the dog has changed.
This is not so. In July 2001, Airedale breeder and judge, Forbes Gordon, gave a judges presentation, showing that the dogs have not changed. Gordon had artist Chris Crowell, who is an Airedale breeder, exhibitor and judge, put a modern trim on several pictures of early Airedales.
Looking at Nicki’s 1932 picture, the dog looks very different from today’s Airedales. No one is holding him, and he is not, in any sense of the word, pulled up for the picture: His tail is relaxed, and he is standing informally. Because of the amount of hair on the top of his head, his ears appear to fold off to the side of his head. There is so little hair on his foreface and so much on his cheeks that his face looks pie shaped. The heavy hair on his neck and back makes it difficult to see the length of his neck, his shoulder assembly, his short back, and his flat topline.
To illustrate how much the way we trim Airedales has changed their appearance but not their struc ture, Chris Crowell put a contemporary trim on Nicki. She took the thick excess hair off his neck and head, and she added the foreface hair and beard along with the well conditioned leg furnishings that we see today. She cleaned up his backcoat and sides, removed the excess hair from his tuck-up, and lifted his tail the way it would be shown today. Her work shows that Nicki, by today’s standards, was a powerful and beautiful Airedale.
Nicki was just one dog who finished a championship in 1932. Without the safe storage of the collage for more than 70 years, we would know nothing about him, just as we know nothing of thousands of dogs that showed that year. Thanks to the wealth of information that a picture, a championship certificate, and 42 ribbons revealed, this dog’s experience helps us understand how breeding and showing purebred dogs became a popular hobby nationwide.
The writer wishes to thank the following for their assistance with the research for this article: Stephen Dwyer for sharing information from his extensive Airedale database about Sheaner’s Dal-Aire Airedales, the importing of English Airedales, and breeders in Texas; Barbara Kolk, AKC librarian, for answering questions about dog shows and providing copies of articles about the history of dog shows; Roland Bartlett, retired Airedale breeder, for sharing his knowledge of showing dogs before the Second World War; Forbes Gordon, whose judge’s presentation enabled me to recognize the Airedale that Nicki really was; Lyn Kalinoski, secretary of The Toledo Kennel Club, for finding information about Nicki in a 1932 show catalog; Chris Crowell for putting the contemporary show trim on Nicki; and Herbert (Mike) Sheaner III for telling me about the life of his great grandfather, Elmer V. Sheaner, who had “a passion for dogs.”
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Missed Takes or Mistakes
Watch your dog playing in the yard, catching a Frisbee, or doing a new trick. If your dog misses a turn, a catch, or the new trick, what does your dog do? Does she blame herself? Think of herself as not good enough? Or does she take it again.
Do you ever play solitaire? You know, that card game that is on every computer?
Well, I was just playing solitaire, and five games in a row went south. As I finished the last unfinishable game, it struck me that there is a great lesson in this game for all of us.
Think back to when it was a real card game: you shuffled, you did what you could, if you lost and had time, you would shuffle again and once again do what you could. The computer version is not much different except you don’t have to shuffle and you can play more games in less time.
Do you ever get frustrated when you have a losing streak or a high when you have a winning streak? Do you ever blame the losses on yourself? Do you ever think that every game is winnable? Does that idea make you feel inept?
Probably not. We play on and on, losing or winning, maybe for the mindlessness of the game, or maybe for some real reason. Who knows? What we don’t do is point the finger at ourselves for our not winning, no matter how many times we replay the same hand. We know this is just a game, a game of chance, and what we don’t take wins or losses very seriously. Like our dogs, we do it again, or not.
But then we walk out into the world, if we do something wrong, or if we just do what we always do:often, if it doesn’t work, we blame ourselves.
A hand of cards or real life: what’s the difference? Even if we messed up in the card game, we really don’t blame ourselves: we deal another hand or we put the game up and come back and play it another time. We don’t blame ourselves. It is what it is.
So why do we blame ourselves in our daily lives? Why do we look at mistakes and blame ourselves for those mistakes?
Why don’t we do what Bill Thurston, a very wise CEO, taught me years ago. Bill told me that a mistake is nothing more than a missed take. Like a photographer, he said, we should take it again, and again, and again. No reason to blame ourselves. None at all: it is just about either taking it again or not, and that is up to us. Win or lose: It is just what it is. If it is a mistake, a missed take, take it again . . . if you want to.
This is something that should be taught to everyone when they first start school or home schooling. A mistake is just a missed take: you can always take it again. It in itself says nothing about us; all it says is that it may need to be redone a different way.
Mistakes are not about right and wrong. They are not about who we are. They are not something to be ashamed of. They are simply missed takes.
So go take it again. Or not. But don’t blame yourself.
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