30 Days to a Well-Mannered Dog: The Loved Dog Method - Softcover

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Tamar Geller created, owns, and operates The Loved Dog™, Southern California's first cage-free doggy boarding and day care center. An advisor to The Humane Society of the United States, Tamar also works with many rescue organizations, and is the founder of the non-profit program Operation Heroes & Hounds™, which champions homeless dogs and wounded military personnel. She lectures on dog behavior at Pepperdine University and speaks at engagements around the country. When she’s not taping QVC on the East Coast, Tamar lives in L.A. with her own loved dog, Clyde. Visit her website at www.tamargeller.com.

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DAY 1
BRINGING THE DOG HOME

The first day! Today we’re going to cover one of the most stressful (and easy to remedy) issues that every dog and puppy owner has to contend with: housebreaking.

NEW HOME, NEW RULES

I was once invited to the Today show to demonstrate a few Loved Dog techniques for bringing a new dog into the home. We had just finished a practice run, having set up the stage and rehearsed the segment the day before I was going to film it live. The stagehands were working their butts off to clean everything up, and I happily joined in—until one of them asked me to stop.

I felt surprised and confused—I was just trying to help, to show them my gratitude for all of their hard work. Why on earth would they ask me to stop? What I didn’t know was that there was a set of regulations, established by the unions and the insurance companies, that assigned specific tasks to specific people. Even something as small as moving a salad bowl from one table to another represented a violation of the rules.

It felt unnatural not to be able to help, but as I was learning, the TV world had its own rules that I had to obey. Thank God the stagehands were patient enough to understand that I didn’t know those rules, explaining them to me instead of smacking me with a rolled-up newspaper, spraying Binaca in my face, or choking me with a chain, telling me that they were the alpha leaders and that I shouldn’t misbehave or act so dominant.

When dogs enter our homes, they’re in unfamiliar territory. They don’t speak the same language that we do. Their wolf instincts don’t naturally mesh with the rules and customs of our homes, our society, or what we would consider to be good manners. Even if we could provide our dogs with great coaching every minute of the day, they’d still make mistakes, at least at the beginning. Is it right to blame the dogs for being ignorant? Of course not! It’s up to us to communicate the rules in a way that our dogs can understand. It’s our job to teach them to make good choices, remaining patient and consistent while our doggies are doing all that they can to understand us.

It’s like that kids’ game where you hide something and tell them whether they’re getting “warmer” or “colder.” Dogs are never going to learn what’s expected of them if you only tell them when they’re cold—or if you’re only going to say, “No!”

Nothing is going to happen in a day. Your dog will need time to absorb and implement your lessons. Building trust and rapport takes time. So will learning the skills you’re going to need to be a successful dog coach.

HOUSEBREAKING

One of the first unwanted behaviors you’ll probably face is the inevitable accident. Housebreaking a puppy or dog who has not yet mastered the skill will require a crate. However, if you adopt an older dog, you may not need the crate—just a few repetitions of going out and celebrating a successful pee or poo will do the trick. When your new dog soils your favorite rug, you may feel the urge to yell, smack her with a newspaper, or rub her nose in the mess. Your instincts may tell you that you’ve got to let her know she’s done something wrong.

But what has she done that’s so wrong? Think about it from her perspective: In wolf society, it’s appropriate to poop or pee whenever the urge strikes, wherever happens to be convenient, without having to ask for help or permission; the same is true of toddlers. To live in your home, your dog is going to have to learn (from you, her coach and teacher) an entirely new set of skills and rules:

1. 
   She has to learn how to “hold it.”
   
2. 
   She has to learn the appropriate places to go.
   
3. 
   She has to learn how to get to those places, or how to ask you to take her to one of those places.
   

That’s a lot for your dog to digest, although not that much for you to teach. It isn’t brain surgery, but it will take a large chunk of your time and will probably test your patience in direct proportion to the value of the rugs, books, and curtains your dog is soiling. (Again, it’s a good idea to move your most treasured possessions to a safe place until your dog has better control over her bladder.)

Housebreaking is nowhere near as hard as it sounds. It does, however, take time. The average dog takes four weeks to learn all the housebreaking rules. She might not seem to get it at all, until one day it clicks and you realize that it’s been a week since the last mistake.

Let’s start with number one: The fastest way to teach her how to hold it is to use a crate, which you’ve hopefully set up as described on Day 0.

As I said earlier, the crate should always be associated with pleasure, not pain. Toss a few small treats into the crate to get her inside. You can feed your dog in the crate during mealtime—you want your dog to associate the crate with the things that are good in her life—but you should remove any food and water once mealtime is over and take her outside immediately to relieve herself. Also, teach your dog that she gets her toys only when she goes into her crate. She can come out right after, but she will learn to associate walking into the crate with pleasure.

Remember, we’re trying to teach her to hold it, hopefully for a couple of hours at a time. There’s a direct connection between drinking water and peeing. If you let your dog drink randomly, she’s going to pee randomly—you’re setting her up to fail.

For your first few weeks together—until you’re fairly sure your dog knows the appropriate places to do her business—the schedule should go something like this.

1. Two hours in the crate, then let her out. Some of my clients ask me what they should do if their dog is sleeping. Let her sleep! Puppies grow during their sleep, which is why they sleep so much.

2. Immediately offer her some water. When you take her out, rush her to the water bowl. I call this “loading up.” While you don’t want her to drink inside the crate, you want to make sure that she’s getting plenty of water—dehydration can damage your dog’s kidneys. If you make sure she gets all the water she’d like with every meal, plus every two hours when you let her out of the crate, she should be getting plenty.

Designate a specific area for the water bowl so you can monitor your dog’s intake. It’s best to keep the water by the door that leads to the housebreaking area, or even outside, so as to limit any opportunities for accidents along the way. If your puppy can’t make it to the water bowl without peeing, take her outside first. After she’s done, let her drink some water, and take her out to pee again in five or ten minutes.

3. Take her outside. Lead her to the place where you’d like her to poop or pee. If you’ve got an unvaccinated puppy, she won’t be ready for the outside world, so designate a toilet area in the corner of your yard (preferably behind bushes, someplace where children are unlikely to play), on a patch of grass, or on a balcony where you can lay down a “pee pad.” It’s crucial for you to accompany your dog—she may find other things to keep her busy outside and wait to come back inside before doing her business. Accompany your dog to the area you’ve chosen and wait for it to happen. As she’s going potty, give the behavior a name, something that you won’t use in any context other than this one—I like to use the phrase...