The Dog Blog

I didn’t think much of the 101 Dalmatians musical that’s about to hit stages around the country until I looked a little closer.  There are several very interesting things going on with this production.

First, all of the actors who are playing the part of a human character will be on special, metal stilts!  They have to dance on them, even!  This and the special backgrounds are meant to give the audience more of a “dog’s eye view” perspective.  The dog characters will also be played by humans, but they will not be on stilts, so they are lower to the ground.  Love it!

Second, at the end of the show there is a big finale with real dogs!  Most of the Dalmatians being used for the production are rescues.  At first, my trainer instincts felt a bit worried for these dogs.  What kind of training were they being subjected to?  Were they going to enjoy the stage, the lights and the audience? 

I recently had a client contact me to ask for some “refresher-training” suggestions for her aging dog.  Initially, she stated that her 11 year old dog, “Jenna” was experiencing some vision and hearing loss, and had bitten the behind of a worker who had come to the home.  I offered several alternative behaviors to teach and reinforce.  If Jenna can go to her “place,” or “touch” a visitors hand, she isn’t likely to butt-bite.  I also suggested that she teach the dog to gravitate to “heel” position so the owner can always be managing the interactions.

The client thanked me and said she would work on the suggestions, and then proceeded to mention that the bite happened when she was not home.  She explained that her dogs have a dog door, which gives them access to the yard, where they have an Invisible Fence containment system.

I have a dream program I would like to hear people raving about. It is called the ‘Car Whisperer’ (subtitled ‘Superwrench’).

Set the scene – we view musically-sharpened highlights of ruined shopping trips, disastrous holiday journeys. We see much rolling of eyes and self-conscious grinning from drivers as they attempt to explain why it is that their car plays up so much. In the intro sequence, they lovingly polish the car hood and offer ‘We just can not take this car anywhere. It’s become the bane of our lives – but - it’s a big part of our family’. They complain that their car ‘just passes without warning’. In one memorable sequence, a car simply sits at a red light and refuses to budge, indicators flashing akimbo. In another, the car jolts forward into the path of an oncoming car whilst both cars honk uncontrollably at one another.

Dogs growl.  It is part of being a dog.  Dogs growl to protect stuff, dogs growl to say "hey, that is enough of that" to other dogs, and dogs growl when they are having a good time sometimes.

Dogs growl for a reason.  Aggression is a very expensive behavior in the big scheme of things.  It takes a lot of energy and risk to react aggressively.  A growl is a down-payment on an investment in aggressive behavior.

If something happens that causes your dog to growl - STOP.  Do not push your dog any further.  Say "Thank you!!" and retreat.  Go sit at the kitchen table with a pad of paper and a pencil.  Write down what time of day this happened, where it happened, what the dog was doing, what YOU were doing, and what was involved(dog bed, particular type of bone/chew, toy).  Your dog was being polite when he told you, "Hey, I am not so sure about this.  You better back off."