Taexalia

wild.life

Learning To Speak Dog

Logan

This is Logan. He is a two year old blue fawn greyhound and he is BIG. He is also our new dog and has been living here for six whole days. He was lucky enough to be living in a place where one of @'s friends (my friend too) works while he was waiting for a new home to appear. This friend happened to notice that we were enjoying our stint looking after Gemma and that Gemma's extended stay had prompted us to think about getting a dog of our own. This friend is basically the angel of the piece as she was the link that connected the dog with his new pack and us with a rather large canine.

Logan is not Gemma. This is probably obvious to everyone. Even me. The idea that having a dog would be like having a GemmaDog dissipated very quickly. Gemma is thirteen and easy, Logan is two and, well, new. And big. And trying to figure out who is the pack leader. So am I.

I am sure I am not the only person who has a copy of Cesar's Way by Cesar Millan and I am sure I am not the only person who is waving it around saying "This is my bible!" - except when I am retrieving it from Logan's mouth as he tries to pinch it for a quick shredding. Which, in fairness, he only did once.

I have only watched a couple of episodes of The Dog Whisperer, and I have only read half of his book, but one of the basic tenets of Cesar's theory that I have picked up is the idea of being the Pack Leader with calm-assertive energy. I can't argue with the theory and I have come to the conclusion that my biggest challenge in being Logan's pack leader is not at all with Logan, but with myself.

My self-confidence has been at an all time low and there are some perfectly understandable reasons for that. Those reasons are now in the past and here in the present there is a dog who needs a calm-assertive pack leader - so even though I'm not feeling very confident or calm-assertive I'm going to bliddy well have to fake it til I make it.

Logan has been pretty fantastic to have around. He had been kennelled on a farm and he has had to meet lots of new things, people and dogs this past week and considering he is a shy dog he is doing very well.

One of the things that I assume he has never seen before is a flight of stairs. When he arrived in Burntisland we got out of the car about ten minutes from the house and I walked him the rest of the way to let him "migrate" to his new home and get a bit of smellavision of his new area. When we got to our house we had to climb the stairs from the pavement to the garden and he simply didn't seem to know what to do.  We brought GemmaDog out and he very gingerly climbed up. Later that night we resorted to a treat on each step to coax him up to bed.

Throughout the week steps have become The Thing - the place where he stops and I need to coax him. Burntisland is full of hills and steps and there's no getting away from steps. I developed a technique of letting him smell a biscuit and giving him the biscuit when he got to the bottom.  He didn't just stop at steps, sometimes he would stop when he saw something like a new set of roadworks traffic cones. I wasn't very sure about doing the biscuit thing then, but it was suggested that I was rewarding him for coming to me.

Then last night he had a wee growl when I went to take his rawhide bone away before taking him up to bed. I realised that this could be a sign that he is trying to dominate me. I don't want a dog that growls at me and I have to be able to remove things from his mouth at any time, so I went to bed considering whether I was doing as good a job at being a pack leader as I had thought.

I woke up with a migraine. This meant that @ decided to go out and get me some tablets and take Logan for his morning stroll. A few minutes later I got a picture text of Logan lying sphinx-like across the threshold refusing to move. Knowing that @ was limited for time, I threw on some clothes and went down. I didn't think, I just walked out the door past Logan clicking my fingers and telling him to c'mon. We were both at the bottom of both flights of steps before I even realised we weren't going to have The Stair Thing.

Off they went and I returned to bed with my migraine and the message that maybe I had been taking the wrong approach altogether with Mister Logan's Insecure Stoppages. I realised I had been unintentionally teaching him he'd get a treat for this behaviour and I realised I needed to re-assess my leadership messages.

Once the migraine had passed into fluffy brain syndrome I decided to take Logan for a walkie with a difference. This time I was mindful over who went out the door first (me!) and also ensured that he walked behind me. This was easier than I thought and quite a lot of the time he was doing this with a slack lead, although I held the lead closer to his head at the times he did try to get in front. I lead, my pack follows...

He did do The Stop Thing on several occasions and I do think it is to do with him feeling unsure about something and not always to do with him trying to choose our direction (through gorse after a scent of fox!). I tried a different version of the Nose-Eyes-Ears (or Scent-Sight-Sound) pointers from Cesar's book - I would put my hand under his nose to catch his attention with my scent and when he was focused on my hand I would move it to indicate the direction we needed to walk and then give him some calm-assertive voice coaxing.

We navigated several flights of stairs, two fields of curious cows, a tractor and an aggressive dog* before we turned around and navigated it all for the return journey (minus the dog). When we got home he was half-way up the steps before he remembered to stop ;-)

I think he's teaching me how to be a pack leader whilst I am teaching him how to be calm with everything he encounters. It's a good exchange :-)

*aggressive dog tale tomorrow

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Posted on November 6, 2009 in Dog Tails.

2 Responses to “Learning To Speak Dog”

  1. Lynne says:
    November 6, 2009 at 10:37 pm

    It certainly sounds as though this is going to be a very valuable and enjoyable process for you both. I’ve never had a dog, only cats, so the pack thing is rather alien to me. But I can feel that it can do either wonders or horrors for your self-esteem depending on how well you get it.

    Sounds you are getting it right atm, I really look forward to hearing your Logan stories! :)

  2. Taexalia says:
    November 7, 2009 at 9:12 am

    This is my first dog, although we’ve had dogs in the family so I’m not a total novice – but I’m a Logan novice if that makes sense ;-)

    Apart from the self-esteem workout, another added bonus is that I need to develop a routine – which has always been a challenge as a self-employed person. I’m finding I’m actually getting more done!

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