Preface
This is rural America; the entire county had less than 4,500 human inhabitants last census; who knows how many dogs there are, as no county dog licenses are available to keep up with the canine population. Although we--people and dogs--share our environment with coyotes, porcupines, raccoons, skunks, and other wild critters, we know that cats, now American's most popular domestic pet, come in second around here.
My husband, dog, and I know intimately the people and dogs inhabiting our small community. Smokey is the 150-pound, cat-hating malamute who howls at the mailman; Chow is a friendly, black-tongued extrovert prone to wandering; Tiffany is the hyperctive canine companion to a five-feline household; and you'll meet Tiger in nearly every chapter.
A four-pound Chihuahua, Tiger rules his home with sharp teeth and a snarl that is more reminiscent of a rattlesnake than the feline species for which he is named. Tiger "trees" bears, who seem not to know that one swat from a large paw would send the bearer of that ferocious bark to Kansas or Oz, whichever is farther. Tiger can bluff, but he himself is hard to fool.
If Tiger's human companions, an accomodating couple in their seventies, want to travel via foot, four-wheeler, or car and leave Tiger at home, they can't say "go" or "vamoose" (Tiger knows Spanish, too), nor can they spell GO. Tiger knows what's being communicated and becomes excited at any hint of an impending trip, raising h... if left behind.
Tiger's owners try nonchalantly to sidle away before Tiger realizes that he's being left behind. In this scenario Tiger has trained his owners by his loud protests not to leave him, and more often than not, they take him along, even when they don't want to.
The move to a close neighborhood has rekindled my interest in the canine species. My own dog, an elderly keeshond inherited by marriage over nine years ago, has proved to me that dogs, like people, are a product of their community and environment. In the city where my husband and I previously resided, our dog named Bear was, frankly, a nuisance. He barked excessively, jumped on people, and dug up the yard, had a phobia for thunder and rainstorms and escaped--or attempted to escape--from the fenced yard on a regular basis. Here on the mountain where we now live, however, Bear is transformed.
He rides down the mountain in the pickup camper or back of our four-wheel-drive vehicle to "woof" a greeting to the canine gang at the post office. All of the people on the mountain know Bear and call him by name; he seems to feel no need to seek their attention by jumping on them. Here our dog runs free, and he has never abused the privilege by running away. He is happy--you can tell by the alert way he holds his head and ears, the waving of his curled tail, the lilt of his bark when he spies us picking up our walking sticks for a stroll, and his jump off the porch after an intruder. Bear is our security guard, a job that he likes, barking at and chasing away wandering bears, marauding raccoons, and pesky Steller's jays.
Although Bear is still frightened by thunderstorms (I have not bothered to treat the phobia by methods covered in Chapter 11), his other behavioral problems have disappeared. Apparently, his misbehavior was the result of a setting that he perceived as stressful. When the stress was eliminated, the motivation for the undesirable behavior was removed, as well.
An owner must understand what motivates his dog's behavior in order to take steps that will bring about desired change in that pet's actions. This is what this book is about: understanding dog behavior, and steps you can take to ensure that your dog or puppy's actions will be the most appropriate for life in your household and environmental setting. It is an important task--understanding and training your dog or puppy--because the alternaives--misunderstanding and lack of appropriate training--are major reasons why dogs are relinquished to animal shelters. At one large-city humane society, 25 percent of its dogs were surrendered because of owner-reported behavioral problems, while 65 percent of adopted dogs were returned to the shelter owning to misbehavior.
Factors influencing behavior are varied and broad, encompassing communiation, breeding, conditioning, training, environment, and the physical and mental health of the individual dog and others, human and animal in the household. I use obervations of my dog and my canine neighbors, interactions with canine patients and their owners, correspondence with readers of numerous pet-related magazine and newspaper columns I have written, and research in the field of animal behavior to help you understand and better control the factors influencing your pet's behavior.
The goal is to have an enjoyable relationship with your canine compaion, whether than companion is a toy poodle in a New York City high-rise or a Great Dane protecting your island paradise in the Puget Sound.
