Summer succumbed to hemangiosarcoma on 8/25/17. I wrote this on 7/10/17 and have left it as it was when I wrote it: a tribute to a dog who I thought had many years left.
I currently have three dogs: Summer, Zani, and Clara.
Clara is the youngster, and has a dramatic backstory. She was a feral puppy, and also my first puppy. Life gave her lemons and we have made lemonade together.
Zani has “all the cuteness going on,” as a friend puts it. She is adorable, wicked smart, sensitive, and feisty—all at the same time. Whenever I teach anything to all the dogs, Zani picks it up the fastest (unless it’s a verbal cue, in which case she is dead last). Zani has quite the fan club on social media.
My friend Kelly Viscosi has stepped forward to share how she prepared Dennis, her 9-year-old vizsla, to meet Saya, the new vizsla puppy. But actually, the story starts long before they meet, because Kelly did a ton of very clever preparation with Dennis.
Here are her words.
When we were expecting a puppy last summer, I asked the breeder to send me audio of the puppies crying and whining at their loudest (which happened to be right before breakfast time for them). She video taped it with her smart phone and sent it to me.
First I classically conditioned Dennis to just the sound of the crying puppies. Once I was getting a good positive conditioned emotional response to this, then I set up a stuffed dog in a crate, placing a small, wireless speaker under the stuffed dog. At random times throughout the day, I would play the audio and treats would rain from the sky right in front of the crate with the stuffed puppy.
Before long, Dennis would just choose to park himself in front of the crate, waiting for the “puppy” to cry. From here, I also began putting the stuffed puppy in an ex-pen (also with wireless speaker under stuffed puppy). We repeated the same thing: puppy cries, treats rain down. This worked very well to prepare Dennis, who is sound sensitive AND fearful of dogs outside the family.
When we brought the real puppy home a month later, he was very well prepared for all the extra noise his baby sister made. She would cry/bark, and it sounded just like the stuffed puppy had, because he had been listening to his sister and her littermates for several weeks now. I still tossed treats to Dennis every time his sister cried or whined, and he would park himself a few feet away from the ex-pen, waiting for her to cry so he could get treats.
Yes, he gained some weight during this time, but it was well worth it because he had a positive association and we just reduced his calories a couple months later.
Classical Conditioning Done Well
I just have to editorialize about this, to elaborate a bit on all the things that Kelly did right.
She got a recording of the exact sounds that Dennis would be exposed to.
She used classical conditioning: she played a few seconds of the crying, then rained the treats down. Notice that she did not just leave an audio recording going. She played a short segment and followed it with treats.
She played the noise (and followed it with treats) at random times throughout the day. She made it clear that the noise, and the noise alone, predicted the special treats.
She then made a further association: she made the sound source appear to be the stuffed dog. Even though Dennis doubtless knew that this was not a real dog, it gave a focal point for the sound and a visual that was similar to what he would later see with the real puppy.
She did the “noisy puppy” show in two different locations, the crate and the ex-pen.
She didn’t skimp on the quality of the the treats.
This work she did made a huge difference for Dennis. He could have been miserable from the noise and the new stranger. But with Kelly’s careful preparation, the arrival of the puppy meant enrichment opportunities for him. How cool is that?
But Wait–There’s More!
Here’s some other great training Kelly did before the pup came. She set up a group mat exercise for Dennis, the future puppy, and Trixie, her other senior dog. She used the faithful stuffed dog as a stand-in for the puppy. Again, Dennis surely knew this was not a puppy. But the exercise helped create a routine. He learned that the object on the adjacent mat getting a treat predicted his getting a treat. Learning the routine was another thing that helped him adjust faster to the real dog when she came. (Kelly mentioned that Trixie, the black and tan senior dog, was gregarious and happy with other dogs, so this exercise was just a bonus for her.)
One of my favorite things in life is seeing the imaginative and thoughtful things that people all over the world do to make their dogs’ lives better. I hope Kelly’s work with Dennis plants some seeds of ideas out there for others who are preparing resident dogs for a newcomer.
Care to share? I bet there are some other great stories out there.
Remember “Lessons for My Puppy,” my collaboration with Marge Rogers? She made some videos that I loved so much that I wrote blog posts to go with them.
Marge is still out there working with dogs and making great videos, and I’m featuring another one today. Although there is a lesson for a puppy in this video, and also a lesson for the adult dog, the biggest lesson here is for puppy owners. (Isn’t that usually the case, when you come to think of it?) In the video she shows how she gradually introduced Tinker, a fox terrier puppy she was boarding, to her own dog, young male Portuguese Water Dog Zip.
How many of you, when adding a new dog to your household, follow the “stick ’em together, stay close by, and pray” method? I have certainly done that in the past, though I don’t recommend it. I was more prudent and conservative by the time I got Clara, but even then, my situation was so unplanned and complex that I basically made digital decisions: this dog can hopefully be with the puppy, and these dogs definitely can’t.
Thank goodness for Zani!
When Clara came into my household, I kept her permanently separated from Cricket, my small, elderly and frail rat terrier. Clara could easily have knocked over Cricket with her wagging tail alone. I also kept Clara separated from Summer for a good while. Summer has a history of moderate dog aggression and I wasn’t sure she would grant Clara a “puppy license.” But I immediately turned Zani loose with Clara, since Zani is incredibly friendly, likes puppies, and was well matched in size. Zani lived up to my expectations and became Clara’s buddy and babysitter.
But what I didn’t do was any controlled introductions and gradual exposures. If and when I get another puppy, I certainly will do that. All the dogs in a household, both the residents and the newbie, can benefit from good planning and making acquaintance with each other gradually with good associations.
A common and effective method that pro trainers often use when introducing a puppy into their household is classical conditioning of the adult dogs: whenever the puppy is brought into proximity, fabulous food rains down on the adult dog. This can help build pleasant associations and prevent jealousy, since puppies can be obnoxious and can take up a lot of the owner’s time. That method was not necessary in Marge’s case. Her dog Zip is naturally friendly and gregarious and was likely to enjoy the pup; he just needed some time to calm down and learn to be gentle.
This is not really a how-to post. All of our individual situations are different, and it would take much more than a standard-size blog post to cover even the basics of doing introductions.
What I want people to see is the visual of the dog and the pup getting to know each other safely and gradually, through a barrier and with good associations.
The Timing
Tinker play bowing to a wagging Zip
One of the things I love most about Marge’s approach is that she didn’t have any sort of time schedule mapped out for “releasing” Zip and Tinker to play together. In fact, it would be great if we could even stop thinking about it in those terms. At the time the video was filmed, the puppy Tinker was a baby, and at an age where a scary experience could potentially have negative residual effects for the rest of her life. Zip, although a friendly dog as Marge points out, had zero experience playing with a puppy now that he was a (very) young adult. He was much larger than Tinker and had a history of exuberant play with dogs around his size (i.e., not tiny and breakable) as a youngster. So before even considering putting them together, Marge had to be sure of two things: Tinker wasn’t scared of Zip, and Zip wouldn’t be too rough for Tinker.
I love the visuals in this movie. It’s something that we rarely see, and it is so incredibly valuable. You can watch as Tinker gets acclimated to Zip with the fence of the exercise pen between them. Marge reinforced Zip for calm behavior in Tinker’s presence, and built good associations with Tinker for being near Zip. After a few days, Marge allowed them together, but kept Zip on leash as a safety precaution. Tinker was comfortable enough to climb on him!
Tinker was there for a week. If she and Zip hadn’t indicated that they were getting comfortable with each other, Marge would simply have kept them separated, using the ex-pen and other means. And if Tinker had indicated that even the ex-pen barrier put Zip too close for comfort, Marge would have kept them separated even further. The paramount concern with a puppy this age is providing positive experiences.
When Not To Do The Ex-Pen Setup
Putting the two dogs adjacent with a fence in between was a good method for this friendly adult dog and confident puppy. But there are many situations in which it would not be appropriate. Here are three of them.
If you have a grumpy, snarly mature dog, the last thing in the world you want to do is park him next to a puppy with only a wire fence between them.
You also wouldn’t do this if you had a large breed, exuberant puppy (who would enjoy bouncing on that fence) and a tiny, fearful, or frail adult.
And you wouldn’t do it with any two stranger dogs unsupervised, no matter how well they were apparently matched.
But take a look at how well it worked out for Zip and Tinker.
Whatever method you use to integrate a new dog into your household, patience and barriers are your friends. Even if you are a gregarious person, you probably don’t want to spend 24/7 with an acquaintance you met yesterday. Most dogs probably don’t either. Take the introductions slow and easy. For instance, I didn’t let my dog Summer interact directly with the new puppy Clara until Clara was about 5 or 6 months old. That was more than 2 months. Some people wait a lot longer than that, depending on the situation.
If I had it to do over, I would probably do some classical conditioning with Summer: associate the appearance of the puppy with great food falling from the sky. I didn’t have it together to do that at the time. But when I did finally let them into the same space, I supervised closely and kept the sessions short. Summer in particular needs her “down time” so I made sure she had it. Clara needed to learn, without getting hurt, that Summer would probably never want to play with her and that it was not wise to pester her.
Back to Marge and Zip. As it happened, Zip never did get to play with Tinker off-leash during that week. He was too clumsy and goofy (did you see the paw to her head?). He did learn a lot though, including a softer approach and play style. Marge may have an “uncle dog” in the making! (That’s a term for a good-natured male dog who is good with puppies and good in general at putting other dogs at ease.) But she knew better than to rush things. This is another situation where “slow is fast” though. Zip earned off-leash time in two days with the next puppy who came to visit!
Being gentle with a puppy is not something a human can directly teach a dog, but Marge facilitated it with carefully controlled exposures and lots of breaks in the play. I know she is counting her blessings that between her efforts and the fact that Zip is friendly and socially savvy, he is learning gentleness through direct experience with the puppies themselves.
You can view Zip’s lovely interactions with his next puppy guest here: Off Leash Puppy Play.
