How frustrating can dogs be...

Today while doing warm up control with our dogs and chatting, as we do while doing this, the subject of frustration with dog behaviour was brought up by me.

Fae, the little darling, has just discovered the world of birds, and bunnies and all things moving. At 12 months all her senses are very developed, including her sight, coupled with the fact that I have had to restrict her movement on the farm and at the lake just recently for her own safety, she is becoming incredibly naughty.

Fae is a terrier, she can be expected to be aggressive to prey and willing to stick with a run or a fight till the end. This is what terriers do. If I was unaware of this I should not have got her in the first place. I want her to hunt and kill vermin, rats, rabbits etc. Already she has a formidable record. She started killing rats and mice at four months and has continued with a passion.

Up until now she has come back quickly from her chases, been rewarded for returning and been a really great puppy to own. Right now though she does not come back anymore. She chases prey across roads, she has lost the ability to listen. All she wants is to hunt, on her terms. I have seen this before throughout my life. I know that in about twelve months as she matures she will be thinking far more about her desire to go too far from home. She will listen better etc.

However, right now it is hard. I am training her hard on lead. On longline, I am rewarding all the positives and I am not being grumpy or growly when she goes Awol. I do have to keep her locked up a lot which is a bother, but it is necessary. If I can't watch her and keep her safe, she will be flattened on the road or disappear with unscrupulous dog thieves, as she is a really delicious looking little thing.

So there is no point in my losing it with her.

Throughout my life and in spite of the positive influences of many doghandlers, through farming and hunting, upland game work and duck retrieving, I have witnessed a lot of violence against dogs. It seemed quite natural for a handler to beat the living daylights out of some poor benighted creature for a slow retrieve or a bad piece of hunting . Even when the dog did not know it was doing it wrong.

I have also seen people outside the Obedience Ring harsh handle their dogs. I have witnessed prominent Agiliteers overcorrecting and overhandling which is very close to violence.

Throughout my whole 61 years, the thing that I have noticed is how the face of the handler looks and how the dog looks through this performance. The handler looks bad tempered, is hissing through clenched teeth at the dog and goes all red in the face, bends over the dog and either beats it with a chain or a leather strap or punches or kicks to go with it. This is an ugly thing to witness. Even as a small child my view was that the dog handler was just getting rid of his frustrations and anger, using the dog as a whipping boy.

The dog cowers and looks really frightened and lies there blinking and shaking, not knowing why it is receiving this attack. At the end of the attack he tries to crawl away, sore and confused but is usually on the end of a chain or a leash and can't go anywhere so he is forced to follow the person who has just injured him.

When a dog doesn't do what you want, it is your problem, you are the trainer, you are the smart alec know it all person who bought the dog for the job you wanted it for. You knew exactly how to get the best out of this dog, so don't blame the dog for being a dog and getting it wrong when he doesn't understand what the hell it is you want in the first place.

A dog that is receiving the instructions clearly and understands the action required on those instructions, will do pretty much as directed. But it takes practice.

Let's go back to Fae again. I have praised her and hunted with her. She knows I want her to do this work, so she is going at it manically. I have not reinforced the stop button properly yet. Probably should have started with the stop button, but I did not want to pull her off the prey when she was keen. I didn't want to turn her off, just when she was turning on. It is a fine line. Now as I go towards her when she is hunting, she hunts harder. By that I mean she disappears under the riverbank to show me she means to get this rat. By doing that she puts herself at risk of not being able to get out. So I have to make sure she has sufficient line on her to pull her backwards. At home if she gets into the drains and starts digging it can be really hard to get her out of a hole. So I have management things to do as well.

Of course she disappears on a hunting foray just when I have changed into what passes for my best clothes, to get to an appointment with say, the doctor. So I have to lock her up an hour or more earlier to make sure I do not get caught with a missing dog at an inappropriate moment. As she hunts day and night 24/7 this is a mission.

I am laughing about it as I know this will pass. I have a 14 year old staffie x who for most of her life hunted herself stupid, but she did get over it enough to also have a career in agility and flygility and a bit of Obedience as well. So I know I will win and I will stick at it till I do.

In the meantime she will make decisions that frustrate me, torment me and challenge my training capacity to the limit. Under no circumstances will any of that be reason for loss of temper, harsh handling or bad attitude to this puppy.

When she is too overburdened by hunting to do other training, it is just too bad. Put her on a line and leave her to think about it for a while, or return her to her pen for an hour or two and try again later. Speak nicely to your dog.

When I am really frustrated that I have time to train and she is preoccupied, I get her eye and say'Fae this will not do'. Then I tie her up. I am absolutely sure she has no idea what I am on about, but I have had my say. That is the end of it.

I recently wrote about my trip to NZDAC where our club had the good fortune to win a few things in Flygility. At the opening ceremony the Chair of the Organising Committee read out a statement which included, among other things, that Harsh Handling would not be tolerated at the Show and that anyone who treated their dog badly would be dealt with very severely by the Committee.

I was saddened that it was even necessary at this high level of competition and then realised that it would be seen as the 'dog's fault' if they did not win a ribbon. What rubbish, every dog is only as good as his handler. Beat up on yourself if your dog messes up but whatever you do do not beat up on your beautiful dog.

If I truly believe that dogs are my best friends, then I need to make sure I treat them with the respect I would treat any of my best friends. I am pretty sure my human friends would not hang around very long if I treated them badly and beat them up.

When I see people harsh handling I am tempted to find out how many friends they have. Probably none. I wonder why....

Raewyn Saville 6-11-12