My Favorite Training Tool: The Gentle Leader

The Gentle Leader Headcollar

The Gentle Leader was designed to work with a dog's pack instincts, helping to communicate with your dog in a way he immediately understands. The pressure applied to the nose is can be very calming, as is the pressure on the back of the neck, which simluates the mother dog gently mouthing a puppy telling him to stop the behavior. After your dog has become accustomed to the collar, he will immediately understand what you want since you are communicating in his language. It is NOT a muzzle!
My Dog Hates It!
A lot of people have told me over the years that they have tried the Gentle Leader but their dogs "hated it". Well, of course they do, because they aren't in control anymore-You are! The more they hate it, the more they need it. Most dogs will fight it but 99 % of them will 'give in' within minutes because our dogs are looking for a leader, and by using the Gentle Leader, you are telling them that good things happen when they calm down 
The best thing about the Gentle Leader is that it doesn't cause pain or fear like other training tools can. If fit properly by a trained professional, it will allow you to create a happy, secure bond with your dog and make walks more enjoyable. Additionally, if you have a dog with behavior problems, it will assist in re-conditioning those behaviors without pain - making life better for you as well as your dog.
The Gentle Leader straps will resemble a "V" for "Victory"!, not an "L" for "Loser."
The Neck Strap MUST 1-Be positioned as high on the neck as possible, directly behind the ears and touching the base of the skull in back, and above the Adam's apple in front. 2- Not be able to rotate around neck. 3- Fit very snugly at top of neck so that you can barely squeeze only one finger underneath. This is the MOST important part of the entire fitting process! It is different than other collars you may be used to, but does not cause discomfort to your dog. Please resist the temptation to make the Neck Strap loose - if you loosen it, either your dog will be able to paw the Nose Loop off, or you will wind up making the Nose Loop too tight or the Nose Loop will rotate causing discomfort.
The Nose Loop should:
• Be loose and comfortable so that your dog can freely open his mouth (even fetch a ball!).
• Be able to move freely from just in front of eyes to beginning of the fleshy (wet) part of nose.
• Rest behind the corners of mouth.
• Not be so loose that it can be pulled off over the nose (after snap clamp is adjusted).


FITTING STEP BY STEP
Throughout the fitting process and during initial use of the Gentle Leader, motivate and encourage your dog with praise and special tasty treats. If your dog is especially wiggly, have someone help you by feeding treats while you fit and adjust.
1. Attach leash to Control Ring. (Fig. A)
2. Open Neck Strap and hold one end in each hand. Nose Loop and leash should hang down, like the letter (T). (Fig. B)
3. Prefit Neck Strap high on the neck touching base of skull in back, with Center Bar Ring in the niche just above the Adam's apple in front. Center Bar Ring should be parallel to neck, not the underside of jawbone. (Fig. C-1) Neck Strap must be snug so that only one finger can squeeze under it. Gently grasp skin at back of neck and pull downward toward shoulders, while at the same time holding Neck Strap against base of skull. Tighten if needed. (Fig. C-2)
4. Take Neck Strap off your dog. Slide Adjustable Snap Clamp down to Control Ring (as in Fig. A).
5. Pull Nose Loop up through Center Bar Ring. (Fig. D)
6. With dog at your side, in front of you, or between your legs, hold Nose Loop open. Reach under dog's head to slip Nose Loop onto base of muzzle (Fig. E-1), and give a treat to keep him occupied. Snap Neck Strap high on neck at its prefitted position. (Fig E-2) (Some people find that taking a few moments to gently "massage" their dog's muzzle and cheeks prior to putting on the Nose Loop may help him more quickly accept the new sensation.)
7. Make final adjustment to Nose Loop. It should be behind corners of mouth and loose enough to pull forward to fleshy part of nose, but not so loose that it can be pulled entirely off muzzle. Slide snap clamp up or down to adjust (Fig. F-1). With thumb and index finger, pinch Nose Loop underneath snap clamp, temporarily holding it from moving. Test size of Nose Loop by pulling it forward as far as it will go (Fig. F-2). When it touches the beginning of the fleshy part of the nose, but is not so loose that you can pull it off, close the snap clamp by pressing down on the tab - you'll hear a snap as it locks.
When your dog has reached full growth, you can remove any excess length of Neck Strap. With the Gentle Leader® off your dog, cut the end of the strap with scissors and use a match or lighter flame to seal the cut edge and prevent fraying.


Thin Nose Loop or Thick?
Several of the national and local pet store chains sell the Gentle Leader, but most of the staff do not know how to fit it, or which kind is most appropriate for which dog. Plus, they only sell the 'thin' nose loop kind (5/8"). I prefer to fit the 'thick' nose loop (3/4") on larger dogs, especially those with broad noses like labs and shepherds. If you are using a Gentle Leader for your dog and it is wearing off the hair on his nose, or causing sores, try switching to a ¾" nose loop. You may also try wrapping some moleskin or fleece around the nose loop to decrease friction.  Quality Paws in Denver sells the 5/8-inch Gentle Leader for our clients. 


Acclimating Your Dog to the Gentle Leader
It’s very important that you acclimate your dog slowly to the Gentle Leader. The neck strap is a pressure point that reminds your dog of the pressure the mother dog puts on the back of the neck when she picks up the puppies in the litter. The nose strap reminds your dog of the Alpha dog as it’s similar to the pressure a higher ranking dog may use as a correction. Therefore, when your dog first experiences the Gentle Leader, he may think the mother dog and Alpha dog are sitting on his head! As long as you associate really positive things with the Gentle Leader, and never take it off when you’re dog is struggling, he or she will begin to enjoy having it on as it means walks and treats.
Always put the Gentle Leader on with a leash attached. If your dog fights it immediately when you put it on, GENTLY lift up on the leash at a constant rate towards the sky until your dog settles down and stops struggling. As soon as your dog relaxes, immediately loosen the gentle pressure on the leash so there is a ‘J’ in the leash, and praise and treat. Please DO NOT tug, jerk, or pull on the leash like you would with a choke chain correction. When lifting up on the leash, you only want to apply gentle pressure to the head collar so your dog will ‘give in’.
In the beginning, put the collar on your dog several times a day for 2-3 minutes, give him treats, throw a toy, feed him, etc while he has it on. At the end of the 3 minutes, if he is not struggling, take the Gentle Leader off. Never take it off if your dog is struggling, because that is a reward for struggling. Gradually increase the amount of time he wears it in the house, and then begin putting it on at the end of your walks when he is tired. Increase the amount of time he wears it towards the end of the walk until you are actually putting it on in the beginning. If your dog tries to rub his nose on your leg, or sweep his head through the grass, don’t let him. Lift up on the leash as stated above, and then loosen the leash and praise when he stops. Above all, make the time he has the Gentle Leader on FUN!
If your dog continues to fight it, make sure it is fit properly. If your dog’s nose begins to chafe, make sure it is fit properly, change to a thick nose strap collar, or add some moleskin to the nose strap.
For photos, click here
http://www.wagandtrain.com/Portals/1/pdf/How%20to%20fit%20a%20Gentle%20Leader2.pdf

The Lost Art of Butt Sniffing: How to Ensure Safe and Friendly Dog/Dog Greetings

Picture this: You are out for a walk on a sidewalk in Central Denver. Your dog is sniffing, and fixating on squirrels, doing her business, and generally having a jolly good time. Then around the corner comes another dog who is attached by the leash to his owner. Or, in some cases, off leash with the owner nowhere in sight. As the dog approaches, your dog becomes uneasy or starts to bark. The other dog stares at your dog and says hello right in your dog’s face. Both dogs are nose-to-nose, attached to their leashes with no way out. They sniff quickly and then start growling and reacting or worse, the strange dog attacks your dog ‘for no reason’.

I hear this excuse every day. “The dog just attacked for no reason!”. I assure you, rarely do dogs attack for no reason. These two dogs started a defensive argument because both owners let them go face-to-face and feel threatened. It would be similar to if I walked up to you and slapped you across the face as I said hello. In addition, each dog most likely showed several appeasement or ‘calming’ signals that the humans missed. Calming signals include:

• Lip-Licking

• Tongue Flicking

• Blinking

• Head turns

• Yawning

• Sitting

These behaviors are essential in reading a dog’s other body language, too. In this case, one or both of the dogs may have stiffened, pinned her ears back, lunged forward, or raised her lip, which could be attributed to fear and insecurity. The best offense is a good defense, especially for an insecure, anxious dog greeting another dog face-to-face. Worse yet, if you let your dog go face-to-face, you are inevitably setting them up to fail. And who wants to do that?

Ideally, dogs should be introduced face-to-butt, rather than face-to-face. Dogs instinctively smell one another’s anal region in order to introduce themselves. Humans shake hands, dogs sniff each other’s butts. Nice, huh? When they smell, each dog gets a ‘picture’ of who the other dog is, such as gender, hormone status, health, level of stress or friendliness, and general demeanor. If dogs aren’t given the appropriate opportunity to introduce themselves, they can become scared and defensive, and then act aggressively.

If your dog is leash reactive or extremely afraid of other dogs, I recommend pursuing professional help. But if your dog just doesn’t know how to greet other dogs, or you don’t know how to teach him, here are some helpful hints:

• Make sure your dog doesn’t have full use of the entire length of the leash. Give him slack but keep him close. Just because the leash is 6-feet long doesn’t mean you have to use it.

• Use a head halter or front-clip harness. I prefer the Premier Gentle Leader (wide 5/8” nose-loop for larger dogs) and/or the Easy Walk harness. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t fit correctly or your dog is too adrenalized. Every dog hates the Gentle Leader at first. Slow acclimation, positive associations, and proper fit are very important. Do not use leash corrections!

• Avoid allowing your dog to make prolonged eye contact with another dog. Teach a Watch Me command and use it in all different environments and stress levels so your dog will pay attention to you no matter what is going on around him.

• When you see another dog approaching, take a few steps backwards and lure your dog around to face you, or hold your lure (treat or no treat- just give your dog a visual cue) on your belly button. Either allow him to gently lick on the treat while the other dog sniffs, or ask him to sit so the other dog doesn’t think your dog is a threat. If he remains calm while being sniffed, praise generously and let him walk away if he wants.

• If you want your dog to sniff the other dog’s rear, ask the other dog owner to turn his dog around.

• Never, ever punish, yell, correct, poke, or hit your dog for acting defensively. If your dog is afraid, and you punish her when she acts afraid instead of building her confidence and showing her what you want, she will only become more fearful and associate dogs with punishment. It is much more effective to help her understand good things happen when she is around other dogs, and that you aren’t going to set her up to fail by making her go face-to-face with another dog.

• Lastly, if your dog is afraid of other dogs, or doesn’t know how to interact, please do not bring him to the dog park. Please do not put a muzzle on your dog and expect him to not feel threatened. Dogs just don’t ‘get over’ being scared if you force socialization. Flooding rarely works, which is why many dogs at the dog parks have aggression issues.** Of course, it depends on which dog park you go to, but a scared dog will still be afraid at a ‘good’ dog park. Always set your dog up to succeed!!

The process sounds a lot more complicated than it is, but if you manage your dog by turning him around, the other dog will most likely know what to do. Dogs know which end is the good end! The end with eyeballs and teeth is intimidating, but the sniffing end is a wonderland of information to a dog. Next time you have a friendly dog in close proximity, turn your dog around and watch the magic happen. Your dog will thank you. If your dog is aggressive, has bitten another dog, or bitten you trying to get to another dog, please call for professional help as the behavior is a symptom of severe underlying causes. Using this technique before focusing on those causes could make your dog worse.



**“Flooding at dog parks has been used with fearful dogs as an old-school technique to get them over their fear. The process entails taking a fearful dog to a dog park and allowing 20 other dogs to run up assertively, sniff, pounce, growl, bully, lunge, bite etc to ‘teach’ the fearful dog not to be afraid- or in old school dog training terms, to teach the dog to ‘submit’. It is a torturous, scary, awful situation to put a fearful dog in. Some people even put a basket muzzle on the dog so they can’t defend themselves, and if the dog growls or reacts badly, the dog is punished for it. In this case, flooding doesn’t teach the dog to submit, it makes her more fearful. It teaches her that other dogs are bad and scary, not fun! Flooding doesn’t teach a positive association at all. Flooding teaches the dog to suppress the anxiety and fear until he is one-on-one with a dog, and then lash out.”

We Made It!

After three months of auditions and interviews, we finally made it!

Our final phone interview was last Wednesday with Victoria herself... Victoria Stilwell, that is!
We have been chosen to be a part of her Positively Dog Training team and are so honored!
This means wonderful things for Wag & Train, but also for dogs in general.  Not only do we get to be a part of her shows and marketing campaign, but we are going to help get the message out that force and fear are not necesary.  We are going to strive to educate dog owners on the importance of positive dog training, and we have Victoria to back us all the way.

Stay tuned for some exciting things to come!

Oh- and our new website is up, too!
http://www.wagandtrain.com/

So Long, Flat Stanley

I have a wonderful cient, Lauren, who rescued a puppy from a horrible situation.  She named the fuzz-ball Twix (which also happens to be my favorite candy bar, aside from Whoppers...how cute would it be if someone named their dog 'Whopper"!), and he appears to be a Great Pyreness/Airedale/JackRussell/Husky/Greyhound/Lab mix.  His paws are huge and he is 10 months old.

At our last session, I brought Paisley, and she and Twix played and played and played.  Twix is very fond of dogs, people, and everything else he can get his paws on.  He chews A LOT, and his reputation precedes him.  Lauren's family and friends know that Twix is a chewing machine (hence the need for private sessions), and are cautious about their belongings when they visit.  Twix has taken to breaking out of his kennel to chew on shoes (flip-flops are his favorite) when there are 100 chew toys INSIDE his crate. 

Last week, Lauren told me about her 6-year old nephew's Flat Stanley project.  If you don't know what Flat Stanley is, check it out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Stanley

And then showed me this lette (look at the drawings of Flat Stanely and Twix at the top, priceless!):

It says:
"Dear Lauren, When you get Flat Stanley, please take care of him and maybe send some candy back.  Dont let Twix eat him.  Send notes and send pictures.  Love, Ben."

Isn't that just the cutest letter?

Well, guess what.  Things didn't bode well for Flat Stanley.  Twix got a hold of him and chewed him up.  Lauren was freaking out because she didnt know what she was going to tell her nephew.  BUT- apparently his teacher had another one that she could send, thank goodness. 

I wish I had a before and after photo of Flat Stanley at this moment to share...I'm workin' on those.  But thought you'd enjoy the story!  In a profession where most dogs want to bite me, it is nice to have a reprieve with such a wonderful puppy who's only vice is his affinity for shoes and kids' school projects.

IAABC Conference

The Wag & Train crew are all back from Rhode Island where we attended the IAABC Conference.  It was an exciting line-up!  We learned lots of valuable information about cats and dogs and met Victoria Stillwell, too- one of the greatest highlights of my career.  We also met up with Dr. Dodman again and bugged him for another photo op. 

Steve Dale, Brenda Aloff, and Bob Bailey were also there, among others.  We also enjoyed the East Coast seafood with our fair share of oysters and lobsters...yum!

Can't wait for the next one!

 



Dr. Dodman...Again

I just got back from a wonderful weekend in Boulder, where I attended a 2-day lecture by Dr. Nicholas Dodman.  I have written about him before- he is my idol!
He wrote the Well-Adjusted Dog.  I learned even more about canine and feline behavior modification and pharmacology, and look forward to putting my new knowledge in to practice. 

Here is a photo from yesterday...

Scout's Rescue Story

Earlier this week, I received this emailed Success Story from a client about her dog Scout.
At the end she says "we learned that rescuing doesnt end when you sign the adoption papers.  It is a process".  That is so true!  Those of us who have rescued and adopted  Secondhand Dogs know this all too well.  It can be a challenge but SO rewarding!
 

My husband and I adopted Scout from the LifeLine Puppy Rescue in Brighton when she was six months old. The only information we had received about her was that she was a cattle dog mix and had come from a ranch in Las Vegas, NM. It was love at first sight, even though we were both concerned with her overly fearful and docile nature. At the time we figured it was something she would outgrow. As Scout got older her fearfulness morphed into aggressiveness. She began snapping at our friends and showing her teeth to people who tried to pet her. Though she had made great strides in other areas in terms of building her confidence, her fear of strangers, especially men, was increasing and making us more nervous about keeping her. It was our Vet who recommended Wag and Train for Scout after she had an extremely difficult visit with her over an ear infection. Kari worked with Scout and within a week she was turning around. We followed Kari's instructions to the letter and Scout has not snapped or snarled at anyone since. It almost sounds too good to be true but the work Scout has done has made her a less fearful and a more confident dog. We have both fallen more deeply in love with her as we have watched her progress and grow. We are so happy to see her so happy. We have learned that rescuing doesn't end when you sign the adoption papers. It is a process and such a rewarding one. Thanks to Kari at  Wag & Train for saving our dear Scout!

Sincerely,
Pam and Mike