Bringing home a new pet is supposed to be a joyful event. You’ve been anticipating fun walks, games of catch, snuggling, purring and playing. But what if your new dog howls from separation anxiety? Or your cat scratches and pounces? What if your dog’s leash pulling nearly snaps your arm from its socket? Worse yet, what if your new dog or cat bites? Instead of locking yourself in a room crying, consult these 4 tips from pet owners and experts that offer up solutions:
1. Desensitize and counter condition. “To stop unwanted behaviors like leash pulling, aggression or separation anxiety, I use techniques called DSCC,” says San Francisco-based dog trainer Jeff Stalings. “Desensitization (DS) exposes the dog to low levels of the trigger then increases the level until the dog has become accustomed to the trigger. Counterconditioning (CC) teaches a dog to display a counter behavior to the unacceptable response to stimuli.”
The DSCC technique also worked for dog owner Niki Phaneuf from Indiana. “When I went to a local rescue looking for a job, I ended up adopting an extremely sad-looking dog instead,” she says. “He was a brindle Amstaff [American Staffordshire Terrier] mixed with a Presa Canario and had been there for months because no one wanted such an intimidating looking dog. It turned out he was wildly aggressive. I hooked up with a trainer who recommended DSCC training. Thankfully, that worked.”
2. Try the “Look At That” game. Author Leslie McDevitt’s book, “Control Unleashed,” teaches the “Look At That’” game. This positive training method teaches the dog to look at stimuli that they’ve reacted negatively towards. When the dog looks at the stimulus the owner uses a clicker. The click sound tells the dog to look away from the stimulus and back at the owner. The dog is then rewarded with a treat.
Dee Berkheimer McLaughlin, a retired RN, adopted a 15-month-old rescue English Springer Spaniel. “His foster mom said he was easy and calm but what I didn’t know was she’d never had him on a leash,” she says. “He had an extreme leash reaction and became a wild terror towards other dogs but after intensive DSCC plus the ‘Look At That’ game from Leslie McDevitt he can now walk nicely on a leash and lie down at the edge of a walking path and wait as other dogs pass by.”
3. Don’t misread behavior. “Some pet parents make assumptions about why their cat is misbehaving and create a solution,” says Tennessee cat behavior expert, Pam Johnson-Bennett, author of “Psycho Kitty: Tips for Solving Your Cat’s Crazy Behavior.” “The problem is when the behavior is misread, it makes the solution ineffective or counterproductive.”
In other words, a cat’s unwanted behavior is not because the kitty is “mad” or “getting even.” Pet owners have to observe their cat or dog’s bad behavior and try to identify the triggers of that behavior in order to come up with an effective solution. Animal behaviorists and trainers can often help pet parents identify these triggers and develop action plans for correcting the unwanted behaviors.
4. Trust in clicker training and use positive reinforcement. Kari Neumeyer, 38, from Washington State, adopted a 7-week-old German Shepherd puppy named Isis. But Isis proved to be a handful and showed early signs of fear and aggression. “We got all the books and did everything we thought we were supposed to,” says Neumeyer, whose challenging training experience inspired her to write the memoir “Bark and Lunge: Loving a Reactive Dog.” “She was very smart, but didn’t ‘get’ the obedience stuff.”
Multiple trainers recommended using training devices such as prong collars and shock collars, but Neumeyer believed they would make the German Shepherd even more aggressive. At the age of two, Isis bit a stranger. Instead of suing or reporting the incident, the bite victim referred Neumeyer to a positive reinforcement trainer. “With a clicker, a Halti Harness and force free training, I was able to finally alleviate her anxiety and train her,” she says.”
Corporate executive Cocoa Blohm from Illinois had a similar experience. She adopted a 10-month-old female Blue Heeler from a kill shelter after researching the breed for a year. “I expected scary smarts, lots of energy, and the classic herder behaviors,” she says. “What I got was a fearful, aggressive dog who bit three people and sent one to the ER.”
Blohm’s first trainer told her that the dog was out of control, strapped a prong collar on her, did a correction, and the dog attacked the trainer. In another incident, a different trainer put a choke chain on the dog and the animal was so terrified of him she began barking like crazy.
Answers finally came with a third trainer who taught Blohm how to read a dog’s body language and correct behaviors with clicker training. “This dog has never bitten another person,” she says. “[The trainer] taught me patience, compassion and that I had a ton to learn about dog training.”