Old dog, new tricks
Training a dog
By Cherie Chun
is easy; its owner is
another story....
Star-BulletinThere are no bad dogs, says Carla Young-Elsman. Just bad owners.
And the age of the dog doesn't matter. "It's a question of are you too old to be trained," says Young-Elsman, owner of a 5-year-old border collie named Gage.
Gage attended obedience training for about a year and a half starting when he was 5 months old and learned how to do standard tasks like sit, stay and heel. But Young-
Elsman says that after she stopped taking Gage to class when he was between 18 months to 2 years of age, he wasn't exposed to many other dogs and seemed to have difficulty socializing with them as a result.
Gage would lunge at dogs passing by when Young-Elsman took him for walks, and he would snap at one of her other two dogs when they passed in the hallway of their house.
If he behaved like that, Young-Elsman had been told she needed to control her dog and that she was to blame for his behavior because she wasn't strict enough. So she'd pull on his leash when he tried to lunge and yell when he'd have showdowns with her other dogs.
At one point, Young-Elsman was so afraid of Gage making a nuisance of himself or embarrassing her that she didn't want to take him out in public.
"I kind of had the idea that he was a bad dog and I was a bad owner," Young-Elsman said.
Not wanting his behavior to escalate to a point where he might hurt fellow canines or people, she took Gage to an adolescent dog class with Sirius Puppy Training this year.
She learned to change her reactions to Gage's behavior with what she says are positive and precautionary methods. They are ones that have helped her, for the most part, to break her old habit of yelling or panicking when he behaved badly. Although Young-Elsman said she still has to keep an eye on Gage when they meet other dogs, the techniques she's learned have made her more comfortable in handling his behavior."I've found a way to deal with (Gage's behavior), and I've found a way to not hold it against him or myself," she said. "He's happier, but I'm much happier too because he's a much better dog," Young-Elsman said.
Initially, Young-Elsman thought it might be too late to change Gage's behavior because of his age, but she found that to be untrue. And trainers will say the same about older dogs.
There isn't any age that dogs are not trainable, according to Betty Fujinaka, a trainer for Art's Obedience.
Jeff Wong, director of training for the Obedience Training Club of Hawaii and owner of J N' C Dog Obedience Training Program, agrees that age has no bearing on a dog's ability to learn.
"A dog will learn as long as it's alive," he said. "'Old' only comes from the mind of the owner... The dog will learn if the owner will learn."
"It's like that saying, 'Each dog looks like the owner.' They also act like the owner," he said.
As for those who insist their dogs are stupid or can't learn?
"The dogs don't make those excuses, the people do," Wong said. "Like I say in my classes, I've never met a dog I couldn't train, but I've met a lot of students I couldn't teach."
Wong says those students must learn to understand and communicate with their dogs, and learning how to talk to their dogs is part of the process. Owners need to make their voices higher if they're praising their dogs, for example.
A mistake many folks make is focusing too much attention on their dogs' bad behavior.
"They'll scold their dogs a lot, but they won't praise them for doing something good," Fujinaka said. "Some people are not that vocal so I guess they're embarrassed about saying, 'Oh, what a good dog.'"
Wendy Mah of Sirius says that those dogs will behave whatever way they want because they haven't been told what proper behavior is and because they think they'll be scolded regardless of how they act.
Mah's approach to bad behavior is to ignore it. Let's say your pooch jumps on you all the time. Mah suggests ignoring him when he jumps and giving him lots of praise or a treat when he sits nicely. Ignoring a dog's bad habit and paying attention to a behavior that is counter to it can get rid of the bad habit because the dog can't jump and sit at the same time."Whether it's barking, jumping, peeing on the carpet, spend more time on what they do right," she said.
Do this by keeping a close eye on what your dog is doing and rewarding him when he does something good instead of only scolding him after you've caught him in the middle of trouble.
"People need to be watchful of their animals. Supervision is key," Mah said. "It's the owner's responsibility to teach the dog the rules of the house in a positive, humane manner."
You'll also have to set reasonable goals, Mah says. If you've never trained your dog and want to teach him to sit, don't expect him to automatically drop his butt on the floor every time you give him the command.
"Training is not all or none, it's in steps," Mah said. "It's like, would you expect a 2-year-old to do long division?"
Your dog can't be expected to behave like Lassie if you haven't spent time training and if your dog has only been recently introduced to training.
"It is not just the quality of time, it's quantity," Mah said.
Dog owners hoping for improved behavior from their canines will probably need to get professional help in the form of a trainer or class, Mah said. Keep in mind also that different trainers use different methods of training, so you have to find the one that's appropriate for you and your dog.
From there, Wong says training will require perseverance, patience and praise.
"You need these three ingredients to get your dog to learn," he said. "Without those it's not going to work."
Of course, there are exceptions to the trainability of older dogs. Some individual dogs may have genetic defects that affect their mental development, but Wong says these are rare and usually the result of poor breeding.
And if you happened to choose a breed that you've now found is not quite suited to your lifestyle -- maybe an active breed if you're a couch potato -- you'll have to educate yourself about the breed as much as you can to help it fit into your life.
As Young-Elsman will tell you, making a commitment to your dog is the first step toward improvement.
"You don't have to live with bad behavior," she said. "There is hope out there. You just have to go out and find it."
Fetching facts
Help is a phone call away for dog owners who are ready to train themselves and their dogs
J N' C Dog Obedience Training Program, 523-8489
