Progress Report

Last night, Don and I got the first disk of the first season of the Dog Whisperer and watched the whole thing - all nine episodes! So far, all of it is pretty much the same advice, approach, and techniques as he gives in his book, but it is still very insightful to see it in practice with real live subjects. Don has started reading the book too now that I have finished it and after watching a few episodes, he was able to take the techniques and took Seumas on his first one on one walk last night and they did beautifully together.

After the first full week of training with the dogs, I am so impressed and so proud. If I were to give them a grade on their leash progress, I would give them an A. It is exciting to see how well they respond to direction, and how much they crave it. Just like people, dogs seek fulfillment. Dogs are working animals and they need a job to do. When they sit at home all day with no direction, they get a lot of built up frustration and have no way to release it. This results in unhealthy behaviors such as chewing on household items, over excited energy jumping up on people, or fixations on certain toys or activities.

Cesar is really good at helping people understand that the dog's problem behaviors come from an unhealthy mind. And that unhealthy mind is usually created or at least reinforced by us, it's pack. When a dog has problem behaviors, people usually try to correct the behaviors with dog training. Dog training teaches the dogs to obey commands such as sit, stay, down, heel.... These attempts at training are often met with frustration or temporary fixes because they merely try to change the dogs behavior rather than addressing the source of the problem and are often met with poor results or temporary results.

The source of the problem is in the dog's mind. The problem may be fear, anxiety, aggression, frustration, or dominance issues and these things must be addressed in the mind first and then the behavior will follow. First you have to establish that you are the pack leader. For a dog who is fearful, insecure or anxious, there is no reason for them to be afraid in any situation if they trust you and are concentrating on following your command. For a dog who is dominant aggressive, obviously they are not going to follow a command unless you do the work to establish that you are pack leader first.

The good news is that a dog's mind is not nearly so complex as a human's mind. Unlike human beings, it doesn't takes years of psychotherapy and thousands of dollars to help rehabilitate an unbalanced dog. Cesar says that a dog has three very simple basic needs to achieve a balanced state of mind: 1. Exercise; 2. Discipline; 3. Affection. And always in that order.

I think, of all the things I have learned from Cesar so far, the only thing that makes me feel bad is that by not setting firm boundaries for the dogs and being a strong pack leader, I did not realize that I was contributing to an unhealthy mind and creating an unbalanced dog. Out of my love for them I gave them too much freedom and affection without strong leadership. Since they are such small dogs, there were not a lot of things that I needed them to do for me. It was o.k. if they jumped up on people when they came in the door because they were so small that they couldn't do any damage. It was o.k. if they barked a bit here and there because it wasn't too loud that it bugged the neighbors and I always could just throw them in the kennel if it got too annoying. What I realize now, is that even though I didn't need those behaviors from them, they still needed the boundaries from me. Without rules and limitations, they didn't know what was or wasn't expected of them. They had no job to do, no purpose, and no way to expend their anxious energy and pent up frustrations.

It is amazing to see the transformation in them since we have started working with them on a daily basis. Finally by walking with them every day and teaching them to heal they have a job to do. Their job is to walk beside their owner following my lead while we migrate. If I stop, they stop, if I speed up they speed up, if I slow down they slow down. It makes me so happy to see them trotting along beside me with their heads held high. They are so excited to be able to please me because they understand what it is that is expected of them and finally someone is telling them what to do instead of having to be the ones to make the decisions. It also gives me incredible joy after our walks to see them in deep relaxation mode with all of their nervous energy burned off, laying down, happily, peacefully and submissively, enjoying life in a much more balanced way.

Even though I feel bad that I didn't stand up and be the pack leader that the dogs needed me to be sooner in life I don't have to feel too bad about it. The other thing I have learned from Cesar is that dogs are always in the moment. Though humans may carry around baggage from past experiences, dogs do not. Unfortunately, humans often make the mistake of assuming that they do and these assumptions are then projected onto the dogs and can then hinder their rehabilitation. Because dogs are a live-in-the-moment-species Cesar believes it is almost never too late to rehabilitate an animal. Because of this he has been able to help rehabilitate and save many animals who have been deemed hopeless causes and were headed for death row. I think in our culture, almost everyone has grown up with the old proverb, "You can't teach an old dog new tricks." Because of this prevalent myth in our culture, before reading Cesar's book I believed that at just 2 and 3 years old, I had already "ruined" my dogs and would be stuck with their behavior for the rest of their lives. Thanks to Cesar, by helping me to understand my dogs needs a little bit better, in just one 30 minute walk, I was able to see a dramatic difference in both Cordy and Seumas. That's how much time it took them to get the message and respond to their deep need to be led. By continuing these daily physical and mental exercises, I am excited that I will be able to give them a much happier life than they had before.

Now that we are seeing such progress with the daily leash exercises, the next step for Don and I will be to sit down and decide what the rules of the house are going to be. Will the dogs be allowed to jump on on people when they come to visit or do we make them sit quietly until released? Can the dogs be in the bed with us or on the furniture, and if so when? Do the dogs eat before or after us? What do we do when the dogs bark? The good thing is that there is no right or wrong answers to the above questions. As the pack leaders of our domain it is up to us to decide. But for those "freedoms" that we do allow, it still has to be on our terms and it needs to be consistent, otherwise the dogs will not understand it as a rule that we have set, but they will think of it as their own domain where they get to decide what they do and don't do.