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Men and Their Dogs

Michael Baugh CDBC, CPDT-KSA

Maybe it’s a guy thing.  It could be that whole a boy and his dog ethos.  There’s just something different about how we guys bond with our dogs.  Don’t get me wrong.  I know women love their dogs too.  It just seems like many men take the connection past special into the realm of mythical.

Stella! Photo courtesy Robyn Arouty Photography

I teach dog training in Houston and in Katy.  As it turns out, I have a lot of male clients, and have been thinking a lot recently about dogs and the men who love them.  I don’t know what it is, but we do love them differently.

Part of it, I think, is the shock. I met a guy recently who had a new puppy. It was clear to me right away that this man did not like the puppy, who was biting him, barking, and misbehaving in all the typical ways.  Puppies can be annoying, but this man was beyond annoyed.  He was mourning.  It turns out his last dog had died only a few months prior.  A well-meaning friend bought the puppy as a “replacement.”  During our coaching session I asked the man to call the puppy to him.  Without thinking, he called out the name of his late dog.  His chin quivered and he said, “damn.”  The sadness is not surprising. The shock is how deeply the loss resonates, how powerfully he’d attached to his old dog.  His buddy.

They find places in our hearts we didn’t know existed.  A lot of us guys play our cards pretty close to the chest.  That’s especially true for a veteran I had the pleasure of working with.  He has post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).  One day he asked me to take a picture of him with his dog, but he warned me he never smiles.  It’s part of the condition, he said.  I played along.  Truth is, I’d seen him smiling at his dog more times than I could count. The dog was reaching into places no psychiatrist or psychologist could ever reach.  He was touching the man’s soul.  Healing him.

We are defenders of our dogs, sometimes to a fault.  I know a man whose hard lines soften every time he looks at his Chihuahua mix.  It doesn’t matter that the dog pees everywhere in the house.  The dog is special.  One of my dear clients is spending his senior years with a Papillion in an assisted living facility.  The dog bites strangers, including the man’s caregivers.  That doesn’t matter.  He’s going to make sure the dog is with him to the end.

Maybe it’s not a case of men being different than woman.  We all have the capacity to fall for our dogs, and fall hard.  It just seems that men live the story a bit differently.  We are so surprised when these dogs break through to find the men we never knew we could become. Once they’re in our hearts, we elevate them, make them into a dog like no other, and tell stories about them.  Write novels, memoirs and movies.

I don’t know.  Maybe it is a guy thing.  The boy and his dog, but in this story the boy is all grown up.  The dog, it seems, is usually pretty much the same, a hero rescuing him from the deep well of his day-to-day life.  It’s the mythical dog incarnate, real, right here, right now.

Houston Dog Trainer Michael Baugh specializes in behavior solutions for fearful and aggressive dogs.

To Hug or Not?

If you spend any time on Facebook you’re going to see the pictures – people hugging their dogs, kissing their dogs, lounging on their dogs, even kids riding dogs.  The human faces are all aglow with rapturous bliss.  More often than not, however, the dog looks like he just wants to get the heck out of there.  Of course, most of us are oblivious.  Let’s not forget that ignorance is part of what makes the bliss so wonderful.  I mean that in the nice way.  We love our dogs.  We just don’t seem to know what they like and don’t like.

 I’ve been guilty myself.  That picture of me and Stella is the most glaring evidence.  I’m all this is great.  She’s all please just let this be over soon.  Look at her face, the eyes, the way she’s actually leaning away from me.  Her ears are pulled back, too.  That’s another sign.  You don’t have to believe the picture, though.  Right after that shot was taken Stella started to wiggle her way free of my loving arms.

Nobody wants to be a party pooper, but here’s the bottom line.  Dogs and humans don’t exactly show affection the same way.   We drape our arms around the shoulders of people we like.  To a primate (including human primates) nothing says you’re special like a hug.  To a dog, it can feel like a threat.  Watch what happens when a dog drapes his head over the shoulders of another dog.  Trouble.  That’s not to say dogs don’t learn to tolerate our hugs; they do.  But it doesn’t come naturally to them.

Author Patricia McConnell (The Other End of the Leash) was one of the first to point out this kind of miscommunication between people and dogs.  Humans are all about reaching with arms and touching with hands.  Dogs have neither.  They greet with noses, mouths, tongues and teeth.  It’s an odd pairing, no doubt.

Still, all is not lost.  There’s lots of evidence to suggest that dogs love to be touched.   In fact, the sense of touch is among the very first senses to develop in newborn puppies.  They root to nurse.  Feeling is essential to surviving.  That lives on in their relationships with us, and many dogs are quite cuddly and enjoy a good evening on the sofa with their favorite person.

Like people, though, dogs are individuals.  Some have sensitivities to being reached for or touched, much less hugged.  Many dogs have little or no experience with the way we humans show affection.  Our ways may be scary to them even if our hearts are in the right place.  A child lounging with his head on a dog’s chest may look postcard cute.  But for the dog it might be more than a little freaky.  That, along with hugs, can get a child bitten.  I know.  I’m the guy people call when their dog bites their child.

So what are we to do?  We have so much love to give and so do our dogs.  Here are some tips for a good, affectionate relationship with your dog.

Listen to your dog by watching your dog.  Your dog’s language isn’t verbal; it’s visual.  When you initiate some sort of physical interaction with your dog, watch to see how he responds.  Does he snuggle closer, or does he walk away?  If he does the latter, that means he’s not comfortable.  Wide-open frightened eyes, ducking head, ears pulled back flat are all signs too.  Some dogs also wrinkle their foreheads when they are worried.  Notice those things and then give your dog a break.  He’s communicating with you.  You’re his friend so respond by giving him a little space.

Let your dog make choices.  If your dog doesn’t want to snuggle and chooses to walk away – let him.  It’s not personal.  Try this.  Begin some sort of physical contact, like petting your dog’s face, and then stop.  What does your dog do next?  Does he nudge your hand for more petting?  That’s a choice that says more please.  Let your dog make choices and respect those, especially if his choice is to disengage for a while.  Never force physical contact.   He’ll come around.

Be your dog’s advocate.  Not every dog will want to interact with every person.  This is especially true when it comes to children.  If you notice your dog trying to communicate that he doesn’t want to be touched or approached, speak up on his behalf.  It’s okay to ask a person to stop petting your dog, or even to step away from your dog.  It’s is essential that you interrupt a child who is making your dog uncomfortable.  That’s a safety issue.

If a dog is really uncomfortable, he will let us know in all the quiet ways we see in those facebook pictures – wide eyes, clenched jaw, tense or leaning away.  If we ignore those, a growl or warning snap may follow.  And yes, people do get bitten by their own dogs.  It’s children mostly, hugging, kissing or riding the family dog.

We teach our dogs how to deal with our quirky human ways.  We have to really.  While hugging and having their head patted may not come naturally to most dogs, many still learn to tolerate it – even like it.  If we’re lucky we learn each other’s limits and work it out.  If we’re very lucky we get some of those amazing moments that only dog lovers understand, magical instances where we really connect with our dogs.  Sometimes it’s just a look. We’re not even touching at all.  If only someone had a camera.  We’d show the world.


Good Days and Tad Days

Michael Baugh CPDT-KA, CDBC

Seriously, most of my days are good days.  My best days are Tad days.

It takes me a little more than an hour to get to the clinic where Tiffany and Tad work. On the way I think about Tad, how much he’s improved, and the work we still need to do.  I also sing along (a bit too loudly) to some of my favorite music, but that’s off the subject.

The truth is Tad is improving – a lot.  I walked into the treatment area of the clinic unannounced and he didn’t make as much as a peep.  Tiffany says he’s not barking very much at all when he’s in that area looking out into the lobby.  He doesn’t bark at all anymore when the front door chime rings; and he greets people nicely in the lobby.

We focused this visit on teaching Tad some manners in the treatment area (go to your spot and stay).  We also addressed his habit of biting for attention during play.  Play biting isn’t the same as emotionally driven fear biting or so-called aggressive biting.  Still, it hurts just the same.  I was pleased when Tad and I played a bit and he didn’t bite me.  I was equally chagrined when he gave Tiffany a few good chomps.

For dogs, the function of bites that are rooted in fear or aggression are all about making something stop or go away.  The function of play bites is to get something going.  The motivation is totally different.  How do we stop it?  First, we teach Tad how to control his play.  Good dog play includes pauses, short breaks.  Watch dogs at play and you’ll see them stop and start often.  That’s the polite way to play.  So we’re teaching Tad how to start play with humans (when we prompt it) and how to “settle,” which means sit and take a short break.  The idea is to keep these training sessions short so Tad doesn’t get excited enough to bite.  If he bites and ignores the “settle” cue, he gets a “too bad” and a time out.  For a social animal like Tad, nothing could be worse than losing a round of play for a trip to the penalty box.  That’s how he’s going to learn to watch his mouth.

Tad uses his teeth a lot playing with dogs too.  That got me wondering about the great mystery of his past.  A lot of play biters were single puppies, or puppies removed from the litter too early (prior to 7 weeks of age).  Was Tad an only child?  Did he loose his siblings too early?  Puppies are good about teaching their littermates to mind their mouthy manners. I get the sense Tad missed out on this learning.

Dogs can’t tell their own stories.  We’re left to wonder, what was Tad’s life like before Tiffany found him, skinny and sick, lost and forgotten?  So much of his behavior tells us he lived with people.  Who were they?  Did they send him away or just let him wander off?  Was it because of the biting?  Do they think about him?  Do they miss him?

I think about that on my way home, south on I-45 toward Houston, almost 6 months to the day from when Tiffany found Tad.  I don’t know, but I believe dogs draw from a deep well of forgiveness.  I like to think Tad’s moved on and doesn’t dwell on the hurt of past offenses the way we humans do.  There’s lots to learn from all this.  The thing is it’s hard to tell sometimes who’s doing the learning and who’s doing the teaching.

It’s a hot Fall day in southeast Texas and there are plump promising rain clouds on the horizon.  Tad’s improving, and it’s already better than a good day.  Time to turn up the music and sing.