Temperament Training
Unlike obedience training and behavior modification, temperament training must be viewed in a developmental context and MUST be accomplished during puppyhood. Preventive intervention is the key; to delay is utter folly. Preventative measures are easy, efficient, effective, virtually effortless, and even enjoyable, whereas in most cases, treating temperament problems in adult dogs is so time-consuming, so difficult and often, so dangerous.
Just as it is impossible to breed a dog that always scores a perfect 300 in the ring and never breaks sit-stays, it is impossible to breed a dog with a perfect temperament – a dog which never fights and never bites. Certainly good breeding is essential but by itself, selective breeding is not sufficient. Perfect scores and reliable stays are largely the product of good training. Similarly, dogs have to be trained not to fight and TRAINED never to bite people.
The temperament of every dog needs to be modified to some degree – molded to suit the owners’ lifestyle. All dogs are different: some dogs lack confidence, whereas others are too pushy, some are sluggish and others are too active, some are shy and reserved, standoffish, asocial, or antisocial, whereas others are overly friendly, or rambunctious. People tend to forget that a domestic dog is not domesticated until it has been adequately trained and socialized. If the dog is not socialized and has not learned to inhibit biting, then the so-called domestic dog (of any breed) is much worse than a wild animal.
Puppy programs that promote early socialization, an enriched social environment and temperament training, with the liberal use of training games plus food, toy and social lures and rewards in training, are the only workable solution for temperament problems. If owners allow their pups sufficient opportunities to play with other puppies and dogs, most potential dog-dog problems take care of themselves. The pups virtually train themselves to be friendly and outgoing.
A socialized dog would much rather play with other dogs, than hide or fight. Indeed, the generalized fearfulness prevalent in far too many adult dogs is virtually nonexistent following off-leash, puppy training and socialization classes. Certainly, even well-socialized adult dogs will have occasional scraps. In this respect they are not much different from people. There are very few people who can honestly say that they have never lost their temper, never had an argument, and never physically grabbed another person (usually a child, or spouse) in anger. On the other hand, very few people have seriously harmed or killed anyone. Whereas it is absolutely unrealistic to expect dogs (especially males) never to squabble, it is absolutely realistic to expect dogs to know how to resolve their differences without ripping adversaries limb from limb, in fact, without even making tooth contact or drawing blood.
Furthermore, these social skills MUST be acquired early in puppyhood. The primary reason for puppy-play is for pups to learn to inhibit the force of their bite and develop soft mouths, before their jaws develop the power to inflict serious damage. Puppy play also enables the youngsters to learn the appropriate context of individual elements of their entire behavioral repertoire. An inadequately socialized dog lacks confidence both in social interactions as evidenced by hiding and snapping, or by mucho ‘macho’ snarling and growling and in sexual encounters as evidence by mating problems, small litter size, maternal problems etc.
Puppies do, however, require considerable human guidance to prevent the development of fearfulness and aggressiveness towards people. Owners are simply dying to learn how to desensitize the dog to potentially threatening and provocative situations such as, around valued objects, (e.g., food bowl and bones), with strangers, children, or during friendly (but unwanted) petting and hugging, or aversive (painful) handling and restraint.
In addition, puppy classes are essential to teach owners how to teach their pups to inhibit biting behavior – to systematically inhibit firstly, the force of its biting (until all pressure is eliminated) and then secondly, the incidence of biting (which by now is only mouthing). When dealing with a potential problem as serious as dog-human aggression, it is prudent to have several lines of defense at the very least, a dual intervention program:
- To attempt to desensitize the puppy to every conceivable potential provocation; and
- To teach the puppy to inhibit both the force and frequency of its biting.
Thus, should situations arise, for which we have not adequate proofed the dog, (e.g., should a child Batman jump on the dog’s ribcage, or shut its tail in the car door), the dog has at least been socialized with children, it has been exposed to a variety of weird happenings, it has been desensitized to painful handling and by and large it knows it should not bite, but if it does… a dog with good bite inhibition will barely break the skin, that is if it makes skin contact at all.
There are so many different desensitization and confidence building exercises – a number are described in my Preventing Aggression booklet and some are demonstrated in the SIRIUS Puppy Training video. Most of the exercises rely heavily on the use of food lure-reward training, being the method of choice when working with fearful or aggressive dogs. Often unfortunately, during initial temperament training it is counterproductive to praise and/or pet the dog, since the puppy/dog is frequently afraid or irritated by a stranger’s voice and hand contact. Ironically, these were often the cause of the problem in the first place.
To describe just a single exercise: hand-feeding. By hand-feeding the initial portion of the dog’s supper, the dog learns to enjoy human company around its food bowl. It learns to take food “Gently” (bite inhibition) and it learns “Off!” or “Wait!” (also useful in teaching bite inhibition) and “Take it!”. “Off!” means don’t touch the food unless told to “Take it! Initially, the dog is trained that if it doesn’t touch the food for progressively increasing time intervals, it will always be allowed to take it. Once learned, the owner has the option not to veto the “Off!” command, which now means don’t touch at all.
There are numerous applications for these commands: “Take it!” encourages a fearful dog to take a food treat or toy from a stranger. (And it makes a doddle out of teaching Malamutes and Akitas how to retrieve.) “Gently!” instructs the dog how to take food from an unfamiliar child, and how to play with the cat, or a shy dog. “Off!” is useful to instruct the puppy to stop mouthing as well as not to touch a variety of items such as, the baby’s diapers, the baby, the Sunday joint, the neighbor’s Easter bunny, a dead crow, fecal deposits of unknown denomination, a rattlesnake, a fearful dog, or a large aggressive dog.
Ian Dunbar PhD, BVetMed, MRCVS
SIRIUS Puppy Training
copyright 1999 Ian Dunbar
