Jacquie’s dog FAQ

Why do dogs attack?

There are four reasons for attacks: territorial, sexual dominance, other dominance, and fear aggression. Or you’ll get the odd mad dog that’s sick in the head. That’s rare. A dog that’s fear-aggressive will attack because it’s been attacked before. Or not correctly socialised. So it doesn’t know how to communicate, it feels threatened, and so fights. A dog approaches and it’s trying to say, “go away.”

Some stray dog approaches when you’re walking your dog -- what can happen?

A lot’s going to depend on the breed. If the dog’s loose and it’s a habitual loose dog, with freedom to run around when it chooses, generally it’s a well-socialised dog. He’s dealt with other people’s dogs. Chances are, he isn’t going to do anything aggressive. He’ll go through all the body language, because they all do that.

He’ll come up to your dog to find out “Who are you, and what are you all about, where have you been, what do you know?” That’s what dogs do. And they’ll want to sniff. So if your dog is on a leash, and it’s a well-behaved dog, then just drop the leash. The dogs can interact without a problem. But of course if your dog will run off, then dropping the leash isn’t a good idea.

JIM: I’ve got a long leash and can let it out.

But you’ve still got tension in it. If I have a long leash on a young dog, I bring it back to a short leash. Then make the dog stay next to me on a loose leash. A very quick give and take, bring the dog back, then ease off. So it’s only a split second that I’m interfering with the body language. That way my dog can express whatever he wants. If he feels the dog is a threat, he can lower his body posture and say “Look, I’m really a friendly guy.” Or if he’s assertive and thinks he’s got one over on the other dog, he can say, “Listen here, mate, you come over here and I’ll give you what-for.” And the other dog might go, “I don’t really want trouble. I’ll pee on this tree and go away.”

JIM: So this well-socialised dog comes along, and depending on my attitude -- if I’m all tense -- then that communicates to my dog and he’ll be uptight. And I’ll also be yanking on the leash and putting him in the wrong posture. And the other dog is more likely to take an aggressive view. That right?

The other dog is interpreting signals from your dog. Raised shoulders, raised head, and eye contact are generally a challenge. Your dog might prefer not to do that, but because the tension is on the leash, you’ve raised the shoulders. He knows he’s giving that signal, but he can’t stop it.

JIM: what about me staring at the other dog too?

You have to think that this dog isn’t a one-off escape. True, there are dogs that aren’t social and on an odd occasion the gate gets left open. Always the risk of that. But if you know the neighbour never keeps the dog at home, it’s always on the street, you can bet that dog isn’t going to pick a fight. Because he’s met everyone and been all around the neighbourhood and met all the local boys and girls.

You sometimes go down a street and you’ll see a dog in the corner of a front fence, and you’ll think this is really an aggressive dog. And then you see the gate’s open and think, my God! But as soon as the dog gets to the gate it stops barking, because the gate’s open and it’s got no protection. All the aggression goes away. It doesn’t come out the gate because it’s vulnerable. So there are some dogs that exhibit like that, maybe even doing a wide arc outside, saying “I’m in control.” But really not that dominant in its personality.

JIM: say I’ve got my dog on a leash and the oncoming dog isn't on one. The dogs go through their introduction. The other dog would tend to go off and pee?

They both would. You could put your dog on a long line instead of a retractable leash. I recommend something like cotton clothes line. Then just let go. If you step on the line, it will stop the dog. (If you use nylon, it tends to whip under your boot and keep going.) You need one say 30m long. Just let the dog drag it along. It won’t get caught around anything. It will slide around the trees. But it gives your dog total freedom. But you can stomp on the end, if the dog’s going to disappear over the horizon. Don’t let him get too far away, so you can still stomp on it. So that way you aren’t interacting, you’re not pulling up, because the leash is on the ground. But you can stop his advance, let him go, stop him.

If your dog is on a leash, that tends to get caught around the other dog. Then it’s round you and a bush.

JIM: OK, if your dog can’t go off and pee where it wants to, what then?

As long as your leash is loose and you’re not interacting with their dancing, it’s OK. People can calm themselves by talking out loud. It’s a good idea to control your subconscious by instructing it verbally, out loud. So I would probably be saying to the other dog: “And who are you? Where do you come from? Don’t you have an owner out with you?” I’m acting as if this is someone I might know and I’m concerned about. That feeling is coming through your body and sends a visual signal to your dog. It’s such a better message than a posture that says: “OH, hell! I wonder what’s going to happen next here? I’ve never seen that dog before!” Because our subconscious takes over and we give out these signals.

Your dog also hears your voice, and you’re also sounding like this dog is one that’s OK, for some reason. Your dog has another look and thinks: “Do I know you too?”

If the other dog is social, it’s going to be another cue to you. Because the dog’s going to break eye contact with your dog and look at you and maybe wag. “Oh yeah. I like you too!” And then go back to your dog. If your talk doesn’t break the dog’s eye contact with your dog, it might give you a signal what that dog is about. But if the dog signals to you: “Oh right, who are you?” then you’re going to relax. And you’ll think: “Friendly dog, thank God for that.” Problem gone.

JIM: if the dogs are fairly friendly but not quite sure, a bit tense, and if the incoming dog goes off to pee, I guess you should allow your dog that’s on the leash to do that too?

No. I’d just amble along my way, trying to encourage my dog to come with me without pulling it. You don’t want to stay there forever.

JIM: there’s a lot of complexity with this simple case of one dog coming along by itself.

The other dog is free to express himself. Your dog on a tight leash isn’t. But if you can control the dog verbally, the leash can hang loose.. His shoulders, posture, can be natural. He can express himself.

If your dog can learn two things: don’t pull on the leash, and come when called, your problems are basically over. If you come around a corner -- oh, here’s a big dog! It’s going to be hard for you to let your dog off the leash and hope you’re doing the right thing. Better if you can say “with me” but the leash stays loose.

JIM: this is asking quite a lot of millions of dog owners.

They’ve got to want to. You’ve come here because your dog got attacked. I would feel dreadful if my dog attacked someone else’s. But some of those people don’t seem to care.

Two aggressive dogs jumped a wall and came at us. Was this territorial?

JIM: I was walking Mono along a road. A German Shepherd and a big mixed-breed dog jumped a low wall around their property and rushed up to us. All the dogs were bristling. What were they doing outside their boundary? (Their owner happened to be home, and ran out and saved us.)

You’ve got two dogs coming, so a pack is forming. When you’ve got more than one dog, you’ve got a pack. In a house like that, it’s even more important for the owner to be the leader. The fact that the dogs left the territory would imply that the owner isn't the leader. I’d almost put the two dogs into the category of a hunting pack.

JIM: our reaction wasn’t very good. We would have had heavy trouble if the owner hadn’t been there. The two big dogs were growling and showing teeth, so was Mono. I was trying to drag him back. I didn’t know anything at that stage.

Not a nice situation.

Controlling aggressive dogs with food treats.

I was called into a case when a dog was trying to attack a man next door, a neighbour. It was getting out of hand. It was obvious the dog would eventually go over the fence. I told the man with the dog: first you’ve got to make friends with your neighbour, who now has a big thing against your dog. Then have your dog on a leash, so it can’t jump the fence. I then told the neighbour: don’t look at the dog, chuck a bit of cheese over the fence and go away. Dogs like cheese and normally don’t get it. (Dry dog biscuits can be a bit boring, if that’s what they happen to get fed.) The idea of the cheese is that the dog perceives when you appear, there are tasty morsels around. As soon as you come out, the dog is going to start to look around. Once it’s doing that, you wait by the fence, say the dog’s name, and chuck the cheese over. And now the dog is by the fence looking at you and thinking, “Here’s the bloke with the cheese.” And before long, you’re hand-feeding the dog.

JIM: Mono loves cheese. At the moment, I can’t get him away from another dog without dragging him. Maybe cheese would work?

Add a few words to it. So you could say to Mono: “Watch me!” Then give him cheese. So in the house, in quiet situations, you get the dog to make eye contact with you. Say the same word each time, to get him focused. Because if he’s intent on another dog on a walk, you might have problems getting the cheese noticed. You need a word that he associates with cheese.

JIM: He gets so wrapped up in the situation, it’s hard to imagine even cheese breaking into it.

Train him by holding the cheese or treat up high. Sooner or later he’s going to look at you to see what’s going on. When you see the eye contact, say “Watch me!” And give him the treat. And repeat it. Gradually the dog learns that “watch me” means he has to make eye contact to get the treat.

Calling your dog

You need a cue word with a high motivation. Rather than say, COME HERE. If there’s a problem, use the cue word.

JIM: People shout their dog’s name in a rough voice. I hear that all the time and it doesn’t work!

It makes the dog think you’re growling.

My dog Chilli is young and goes everywhere at 150 km/hr. If I yelled at her: CHILLI! COME HERE! She’d stop for a second, but think: “Oh, I’m in trouble. I’m not coming back.” Instead I always use a very playful, “Hey, WOW! How about we COME back here?” I don’t use the word COME to call her for a bath or for worming, or to tell her off. The COME word means: hey wow, this is good!

Most of this needs to be started at home, in a non-distracted environment. I remember a lady with a Jack Russell, who was having similar problems to yours. The dog, if she let it go, was just gone. I couldn’t get her to understand how to train it, so I ended up taking her dog out with mine. The only way the dog would learn was to take it out and treat it like a dog, and not like a little person. It worked. And it was all play and go, and teaching her dog some cue words. It was working its little socks off. It never nicked off, because it was all just too exciting.

I put a long line on that little dog. It wasn’t my dog and I’d hate to lose it if I made a mistake. I went down to the oval at a certain time when there’re pigeons. I used to let the dog go flat strap, chasing these pigeons. Then I’d call it. Its name was Tasha. I use to say “Tash-sha!” in a merry tone. Because that call always meant we were about to do something ever-so-exciting. She’d come back at 100 km/hr.

Once I got that working, I took the owner with me. And showed her everything -- pay attention to tone of voice, pay attention to timing. Every time the dog started to go off somewhere, we’d stop it by calling it. I never stop working when I’m teaching a dog, because I’m the leader. But this woman had actually been waiting for her dog, which was thinking, “Oh, I’ll be along in a minute. I’ll just carry on sniffing.”

But even this training may not work if the dog gets really over-the-top -- like a dog that likes to chase roos [kangaroos]. You might as well shut up and go away. I had a dog like that once, and I was always alert for a warning signal, early enough so she’d still listen to my commands. If she started to airscent, then I knew there was a roo around. And I could see her muscles go tense. I’d say to her: “With me!” That’s how much I watch dogs.

What about some tips on leash walking?

It doesn’t matter what you do on a leash, if you’re not perceived to be the leader in your own dog’s eyes. You aren’t going to avoid fights. Simple as that. You can’t go out and say: well, my dog’s not really trained but I want to avoid fights. You can’t! If you have no control over your dog, you can’t do anything about anything.

You’ve got to become the leader. The dog has to learn when he’s on a leash and you give him the quick snap signal, a quick pull on his leash, he doesn’t take it up again. It’s got to be hard enough so that the dog thinks, “Oh, OK, you mean it.” Particularly if you’ve allowed the dog to keep tension on the leash.

Walking dogs on leashes is hard because it allows the dog some control over you. It stops for a pee and you run out of leash, so you wait for it to finish. But dogs don’t need to pee all the time! It’s a territorial marking thing, so unless my dogs are off leash, they aren’t allowed to pee. It’s hard for you to keep up the dog’s impression that you’re the leader and “we won’t be stopping for a pee” if a dog’s on a leash. So you have to set yourself a pee-quota. Like: the first kilometre from home, the dog doesn’t pee. Because it’s already peed in the garden before you left! If it needed a pee, if would have. For the first kilometre, “I’m not stopping! No peeing!” All the time the idea is to walk with a slack leash, whether it’s short or 5m long. You’re the leader. You’re setting the pace.

Then you get to a place where there’s a rock that all the dogs pee on. So you give the dog permission: do you want to pee here? Or whatever word you use, considering there may be people there.

After that, you should set yourself targets. Like: I’m going to go 25 lampposts down the road. And vary it on different walks. Next time it may be five. Get so you always tell your dog where it can pee.

A woman I know has the problem that as soon as she gets the leash out, the dog goes ballistic. If it was my dog, it wouldn’t go anywhere until it stopped that. My attitude is, “Oh, you don’t want to put the leash on? OK I’ll hang the leash up and do something else. Oh dear, we’ve run out of time, you won’t get a walk today.” The dog will soon work it out. It’s making the dog think. (People don’t let their dogs think enough.) Meanwhile, here’s this woman struggling to get the leash on, then the dog drags her out the door and drags her out the gate and up the street. But she wants the dog to walk on a loose leash! But the dog is taking her. She’s never taken the dog for a walk.

But when I told her, you can’t do that -- you’ve got to go back to the beginning. You don’t go until the dog sits quietly to have the leash on. You can’t correct the dog pulling out there, if you can’t stop it from leaping all over the place when you put the leash on. She told me: “Oh, I haven’t got all day!”

When I train a dog and it starts to pull on the leash, what’s the reward for the dog? It’s to go forward. And how do you make it a negative? Answer: you stop. So the dog stands there.

It comes back to you putting the patience in, which is where people tend to fail. So I just stand there. What I’m waiting for is the dog to lighten the leash and just look around at me for a moment. That’s when I highlight to the dog what I want. I say the same cue word each time the dog has lessened its tension on the leash. After a few times, the dog will actually come back to me.

How do you train a dog?

I’ve written newspaper and magazine articles about controlling dogs in public places. People read them, tell me it sounds good, but don’t want to put the time in. It’s all too hard in people’s lives. They have too much on their plate. I ran dog training classes for 15 years. Years ago I used to have a book full of people on the waiting list. Now it’s hard to fill a class. They don’t have the time to commit. And you can’t train a dog in a day. People say, “My dog needs to come for lessons.” No, it’s the owner who comes for lessons! Almost every phone call, unless they’ve done training before, their opening line is: “Oh, I’ve been given your number because my dog needs to learn to be obedient.” No, you need to learn to train your dog to be obedient. They have this picture they’re going to come once a week to you and the dog will learn all these things. But it’s what they do when they go home -- repeating it again and again and again, until the dog understands.

It’s not just going once a week for six weeks, between netball and tennis. They have to get there once a week -- in itself a task. But then when they realise they’ve got to do it daily in order to educate their dog, it gets too hard.

Dog training should begin at eight weeks and end when the dog dies.

But I don’t spend hours at a stretch when I train my own dogs. Five minutes here and there. If I was outside with Chilli when she was little and I was putting washing on the line, I’d call her over and say “Hey baby, sit for me.” And I’d put three socks on the line, and say, “That’s a very clever dog!” It didn’t interfere with my job. And it got a message to the dog.

That’s really how people need to look at it. Take the opportunity as it occurs and turn it into something.

How many people in the house watch TV? Everyone. Who really wants to watch the adverts? That’s two minutes dog training. Why not do a sit-stay then? You don’t even have to leave your chair. I teach my dogs: drop, stay. What a good dog!

But people don’t know any of this. I watched a young lass yesterday coming up this road here with two dogs that were dragging her off her feet. She walks them every day. And I think: this is madness! But she doesn’t know any different. By the time she gets to the point of despair and comes to a trainer, it’s going to be hard work. Because it’s now a well-established habit. Or it’s going to go the other way, where it’s too upsetting and she doesn’t bother to walk the dogs any more. Then they bark all day or learn to jump the fence, or more trouble comes, and they end in the pound.

Dogs that jump up on your visitors

One lady asked me how to stop her dog jumping all over visitors. The dogs are loose when she lets people in -- she doesn’t really want to be holding onto them.

But look at my dog bed there. See that leash tied to it? I always have it there. If my dog is going to be a pain, I say: “On your bed!” And on goes the leash.

But some people try to order their dog away, try to make it sit somewhere and be good. Even if that works for a while, the visitor might say: “Oh, is mummy being hard on you?” This makes the whole business unpleasant, because you’ve got to order the dog back. So the dog gets confused. It’s responding to the visitors being friendly and wanting to come up and say hello. And you’re saying NO. But doing it my way, using the leash on the bed, I don’t have to be rude to visitors. I don’t have to tell them, “You’re teaching my dog to be disobedient.” I just tie the dog to the bed.

Problems with dog training classes

JIM: In the group class I did with Mono (when he was a puppy), it was all walking the dogs around in a circle and weaving in and out. Nothing much happened. The only thing he remembered from all that is if he wants something, he’ll sit! Nothing was mentioned about connecting his training with his behaviour around the house.

Generally that’s what happens. In a class, you see a few people concentrate on every word. You know they’re going to go home and work on it. But the others are thinking: I just wish she’d get on and train the dog!

I find you have to give people an early success somewhere, in order to get them to understand. But you can’t just fix a problem, like a dog that pulls on its leash, because it all comes back to how the dog perceives its level in the pack. In the UK, they train a lot the way I do here. But in Australia they’re still doing it in mostly the old regimented dog-club way -- drill work. You bore the dog senseless, you bore the owner senseless. You’re marching across some big green park area, and the dog thinks “there’s a tree!” But the next minute you’re going back the other way. The dog spots another tree, and thinks, “When are we ever going to get to one of these damn trees? All we’re doing is walking up and down.”

Sometimes the dog stops playing up in these classes because it gets stupefied with boredom. Or the owner does a bit of reading and starts to put a little bit together on their own and things start to work.

But usually, because of the pace we live, real dog training now has to be done as you live. You might need guidance, by going somewhere and having a private lesson to get some understanding of what to work with. Or have a trainer come to your home. I now think that people have to be ready to pay more for a trainer, one-on-one. Get a trainer into their home and say: this is how you’re living with your dog, and here are some things that are wrong. Here’s what to do.

And people should stop this business of their dog living outside. You have a dog, you are the pack and you’re putting that dog out in solitary confinement. You’re not going to have the rapport with your dog. You want to enjoy the dog. Like these three dogs I have here. They aren’t pestering you, upsetting you, or pinching the biscuits, right?

I’ve tried telling people with single dogs: you build rapport by living with your dog. It doesn’t have to sleep in bed with you. But it needs to live with you, because that’s what a pack does. They say: “I don’t want dog hairs in the house!” Why have a dog then? I vacuum every day, because I live with a pack of dogs. It’s part of my life.

Training dogs -- or children

JIM: when we get guests, we have to shut Mono away in the washroom. Otherwise he shows off and charges up and down.

He’s attention-seeking. No different from children really. Say you go to talk to a parent. At the moment before you began talking, the child wasn’t interested in talking to the parent. But the moment you sit down to have a conversation, it’s “Mummy!” If the mother steels herself and doesn’t respond, the child learns not to do that. But mothers find that really hard.

One couple approached me and asked: “Do you train kids?” They knew I was a dog trainer, but they asked anyhow.

I said, “Well, what’s your problem?

“We’ve got to go down southwest on trips, and every time the kids fight and squabble. Such miserable trips.”

I said, “Do they like lollies?”

They said, “What kid doesn’t?”

I told them to buy a bag of lollies, their favourite. Then open the bag and put it on the dashboard. And tell the kids, “If you behave, you get the lollies when we get there. Otherwise you don’t!” And every time they do something naughty, take one lolly and throw it out the window.

Another example, I went shopping with another woman. She had a horrible four-year old who wouldn’t shut up. I had a word with the mother: “Could we just try something with him?” She listened and said OK.

I then approached the boy and asked him what he’d most like to buy. He mentioned a certain kind of lolly. So we went to that section. I said: now you show Auntie Jacquie what pack of lollies you’d like. Then I told him, “Right, if we get around the whole shop and you don’t make a sound, you’ll get those lollies. But not otherwise.”

We went around about four aisles, and he made a noise. I said: “Don’t you want those lollies?” He then shut up and we got around the whole shop quietly.

So you reward the behaviour you want, not punishing what you don't want. That works with everything.

You can train a dog to a whistle. Blow the whistle and give the dog a treat. Then if you’re out in the bush, all you have to do is use the whistle.

Or use a clicker, like the English trainers. This is a clicker. [She showed me a small, lightweight metal thing that made a loud metallic click when she pushed it and released it.] The first thing you have to do is condition the dog to the sound. Give them a tiny treat each time. So for a while, you click and treat, click and treat. People say, “You’re bribing the dog!” But you’re not. Because the dog is going for the click, not the food. If the click doesn’t go off, the food isn’t going to follow.

I use that to shape behaviour. For example, dogs are notoriously noisy. You can’t keep saying, “Be quiet!” They have no idea what it means. I trained that one [pointing] when she was a puppy. She was screaming the place down. I couldn’t talk on the phone. So I started: the moment she drew breath, click, treat. Bit by bit, she held longer pauses. She worked out that being quiet caused it to click. Then she got a treat. At first she was going noise, noise. Then stop for a rest. Then she got a click. I could see her trying to put it together, wondering.. what did I do then, to get a click? How can I make it click again? She’d lose focus because she couldn’t work it out. She’d start singing again, she’d draw breath, click, treat. Then she started to think, “It’s when I’m quiet.” So she holds her quiet a bit longer. So the fact that she’s being quiet, you click again, treat. Then counting to myself to lengthen the period of quiet before the click.

People phone me and ask, “How do I get the dog to stop barking? I tell it to shut up but it doesn’t.” I ask them: how do they know that “shut up” means to stop barking?

You have to pinpoint the quiet time to say that’s what you want.

Even with training a dog not to pull on a leash, the old method is to put a choke chain on. As soon as it pulls, you yank hard and say HEEL! That’s negative. You’re punishing the dog for something it doesn’t understand it’s not meant to do. It’s like saying, I’ll teach you how to play Waltzing Matilda on the piano by rapping you on the knuckles when you hit the wrong keys!

Demoting a leader

Any situation you want to control, dog attacks or pulling on the leash, you have got to be the leader. That isn’t going to happen by doing a formula in a situation. As I said, if the dog doesn’t see you in normal life as the leader, nothing else is going to fit.

For example, when dogs get up on furniture, it raises their status. You’re at the top of the pack, so you should have the higher resting place.

JIM: how DO you keep them off the furniture?

You can put the cushions up on end. You can crate-train dogs. If I’m not there to supervise, they don’t get the opportunity to do it behind my back. They go in the crate. Or you can build a pen for them, somewhere they can be where they can’t keep doing sneakies.

If you’re telling them not to get on the furniture when you’re there, what you’re telling them is: don’t get on the furniture when I’m here, but it’s OK when I’m not.

JIM: I had that with my childhood dog. He was good when we were in the room, but when we came back we’d see him jumping off his favourite arm chair, the one he wasn’t supposed to be on.

He didn’t think he was wrong to get on there. He just knew that when you were there, he wasn’t allowed there. You have to make it so it can’t happen. I had one case of a Dalmatian where it was hopeless. We ended up banging a bunch of nails into a plywood sheet, the heads up, not the sharp points, and put that on the settee. You have to keep doing something like that for a few weeks, and the dog gets the idea that it never gets up there. It breaks the habit. The dog had to find somewhere else comfortable. Once it found that spot, it was quite happy to be there. Sometimes you can put a balloon under a pillow and it goes bang and scares them. (But don’t do that with a timid dog.)

People come in from work and the dog rushes up and greets them and they pat the dog. The dog goes: “Pat me, I’m here! I’m important, give me attention!” And you go: “Oh, what a wonderful dog!” But I walk in and say nothing. I avoid eye contact with them for at least five minutes. For one thing, I ride a motorbike to work, so I have to get out of my helmet and all the gear. Then put it all away. By the time I’ve done that, they’re all sitting patiently going: “Is it our turn yet?” Then I say, “Chilli, come here! Have you been good today? Good. Sit, Chilli.” Because I’m only going to interact on my terms. Just little things like that. I had one lady say, “I don’t think that’s acceptable. My dog will think I don’t love her.” A dog is not a human being! It’s a dog!

There’re a lot of people out there with specific problems, and they want to just fix that. A dog pulling on a leash. Or my dog won’t come. They don’t want to change anything else. You can’t be in control in that situation if you aren’t in the others.

You’ll notice, once you start changing all these little issues, which to the dog is lowering its status at home, that it improves when you’re out on a walk.

JIM: that’s right, because I sense change, even making sure I go through doors before Mono.

You’re controlling the situation, not him. It’s your door, not his door. And you’re not the doorman!

They are a pack animal, and you have to know their code. If people want to train their dog they usually pick up some book, “How to Teach Your Dog to Sit.” I’ve got a bookcase of those books -- because people will come here with something they’ve read. The same reason I always watch Harry’s Practice, because people will phone up and say, “I saw this on the TV the other day.” But they’ve misinterpreted the situation or they’re applying a technique not suited to their dog.

Stopping a dog fight

JIM: Say you’ve got a dog on a leash, a strange dog comes up, they do a sniff but things don’t go well. They start fighting. One bit of advice I’ve read is to turn your back and let them do it.

It depends on what the attack is like. If you’re on your own, what can you do about it? Not a lot. If you try and pull your dog away, when dogs bite, the teeth go in if they mean business, they make a puncture. The moment you start pulling the dog, you cause deep tissue damage. It rips.

Hitting and kicking either dog just makes them think it’s the offending dog that’s causing the problem, so they fight harder. A lot is going to depend on the kinds of dogs that are fighting. If you get a Staffie or a Bull Terrier, they’re not going to let go. Generally a German Shepherd will grab hold, shake, let go. Not good, because they can break an animal’s neck, if they’re small enough.

I owned a Shepherd years ago that wasn’t friendly to dogs or people, but he was well trained. A rescue dog. I was walking down a road and a Silky Terrier came out and had a go. Some little dogs notoriously think they’re big dogs. But my dog was beautifully trained. HEEL! He never took the slack up on the leash ever. He walked by on the leash under full control, but the little dog shot out and tried to grab him by the front leg. My dog reached down and had it in his mouth. I just said, “Leave it!” And he let go. But he’d punctured its lung in that one grab. What could I do? My dog was well behaved. On a loose leash. But this little dog thought: “This is a prime target. He’s on a leash. I’m safe and I can have a go.”

I’m entitled to walk my dog and it is under control. Their dog’s loose on the street and their problem. So I’ve encountered it as an aggressor. As much as my dog was trained, it was a stressed situation. A Silky Terrier is trying to grab your Shepherd by the leg, there’s only so much you can do! If I tried to kick the terrier, I may have broken a rib or leg. Which wouldn’t have been much different from my dog biting it. And the chances are it would have made it more aggressive towards my dog. Even as a trainer with a controlled dog, I can’t control the situation if the other dog isn't under control.

That gives you both sides of the story. People have to control their dogs, whether they’re friendly or aggressive.

JIM: say that both owners are there, but one owner or the other can’t control their dog, and there’s a dog fight. What are they going to do? Let go of the leads?

If I was going to protect my dog, I’m going to let go of my dog, because I’m going to deal with the other dog. I assume the person isn’t going to listen to me because they’re yelling and freaked. It all comes back to the level of control you have on your own dog. Mine do as they’re told. If I pull the attacker off, I’ve got enough control of my own. My choice would be to hold the attacking dog by the back legs, if I could, and get its bum higher than its head. It just depends on your own confidence. If you get the dog’s back legs above his head, he doesn’t feel right, he lets go. When he lets go, that’s when you pull him back. You keep pulling backwards until you’re far enough away. But you’ve got to know you can stop your dog. Because it then perceives you’re helping it. So it now can get stuck in! And this is where it’s hard if you’ve got one person who can do something, but you can’t control your dog.

If you can calm both people down, you can say: “Here’s what you’ve got to do. Get your dog’s back legs off the ground, and don’t pull until I tell you.” Very difficult to deal with that situation.

If I go in to defend my dog, I know the chances are I’m going to get bitten. But that wouldn’t stop me. And I wouldn’t let go of the dog if it turned around and bit me. Chances are if I get its legs off the ground, it can’t get around to bite me. But it depends on the size and weight of the dog. But I don’t suggest that average dog owners put themselves at risk like this.

What if your dog pesters you to throw a ball?

JIM: Every time I wash a few dishes, Mono runs up and drops his ball at my feet. He wants me to kick it. A nuisance, but I do it. Should I?

I would tend the take the ball away. Because he’s controlling you. The ball should be yours, not his. If a dog went up to a leader and wanted to play, and started to nip at him, if the leader wasn’t in the mood to play. WOOOOF! Get out of my face! And they’d go away.

I have a lady I work with who has a Collie. She plays ball with it in the house and it won’t stop. “Oh yeah, but that’s the dog’s treat.” And that’s the only thing she really hasn’t changed, and it’s breaking down the training process. The dog is still in control.

It doesn’t mean you can’t play ball when you’re washing up. But put the ball away and start when you want to. And I’d start off by saying to your dog, “sit”. If it doesn’t, I’d put the ball down and keep on washing up for a bit. Always end the ball game when it’s at its height. Not when he’s tired. When he’s saying “Oh, I want another ball now!” and you go ”No, my ball. That’s it.”

I have a basket of toys, and I tell them to bring me a specific one, like the dumbbell. If they get it wrong, I won’t play.

I’d better stress that dogs need brain stimulus, as well as physical exercise. A lot of what’s happening with dogs today is that people are getting them very fit, but with no control. You can get the dogs fitter and fitter, which may only mean they can pull you down the street faster. But they need mental stimulus too. Training not only gives you control but makes them think too.

A ball can help with that. If your dog likes to play ball, it’s one way of getting a little more control. You could find yourself an empty place and get your dog focused on the ball. Take off his leash, but maybe put on a long trailing line, like I told you about. If someone goes past with a dog, you keep throwing the ball and if he chases it and ignores the other dog, you’re actually teaching him to ignore other dogs and not respond to them and interact with you more. If that doesn’t work right away, step on the trailing line!

Weapons to carry

JIM: let me ask you about things that people might carry to ward off attacks on their dog, if they can’t cope with training their dog. Apart from pepper spray, what about deodorant or even air freshener?

No, I don’t think it would have any effect at all. If you get close enough, it may cause an irritation. Maybe it wouldn’t be very nice for the dog. Also it’s windy a lot here. It’s unlikely you’d ever have a day that’s calm enough for something to reach the dog. Or will you have an owner calm enough to wait for the dog to get close enough? If the dog got that close, the owner probably wouldn’t be prepared for it anyway.

JIM: OK. It probably wouldn’t work. But maybe you’ve heard of someone quickly hooding their dog?

No. You’re going to traumatise the dog something incredible. If you’re about to be a victim of an attack, would you like to have a bag pulled over your head?

JIM: and you obviously aren’t going to get it onto the OTHER dog.

No. You’re never going to be in that much control, the way they move around you. If you had that much control, you’d do it the correct way, which is to leave your own dog and control the one that’s attacking. But that ability is rare, because people get hysterical. I’ve been around when people had their dogs attacked, and they’re screaming and pulling their dog around. And I’m saying, “Let go of your leash! Keep quiet.” But they won’t listen. You can’t penetrate, because they’re over the top.

As far as stuff to carry, I think you could carry a stout walking stick. Because you’d feel braver. “I have a weapon, so I’m more dominant.” And that may give enough body signal to penetrate, and the dog would think: “This might be a bit too much to take on.” Whereas if you’ve got nothing, you feel vulnerable and give out those signals.

The first thing we do as humans is assess who we’re going to compete against. If it’s too big, the competitive urge doesn’t come up. Same with a dog. He’ll size things up: can I take this on? If the picture to him is, “This is too big,” he’s going to go pee on a tree and walk away.

If you have two motorbikes at a light, and they’re about equal, then it can cause a competitive urge, a chemical release that triggers it. It would be the same with dogs, I guess.

A lion will take on a certain number of buffaloes, maybe five, but greater than that, they don’t.

If a German Shepherd sees your Jack Russell, he’ll think, “I stand a good chance here.” But if the owner is someone like myself, perhaps who’s very dominant, then he doesn’t just see a Jack Russell. He sees a great Dane and a Jack Russell. Or maybe an ape and a Jack Russell. Anyway, a bit too much.

Giving a person a stick or pepper spray, makes them feel a bit more in control. And their body language is saying, “I’m in control and I’ll fix you.”

JIM: what about fire? My dog is terrified even of a match. Are they all scared of fire?

No. And you can train them out of fears like that.

When I had Chilli as a young dog, for example, she couldn’t stand me ripping off a sheet of Glad Wrap. Now she doesn’t care, because I desensitised that. Another dog might not like the sound of a dust bin lid being put on.

I think you’d have to go in like Schwarzenegger with a great flame thrower before you’d convince some dogs there’s a problem.

JIM: there are those little boat flares. A purple-orange flame shoots out. I thought maybe that would scare them.

Very expensive. You still come back to people who cannot identify a dog’s aggression, compared to its simple interest. They’re going to be releasing their flare at the wrong times.

How do you read a dog’s body language?

You can develop the ability to read a dog’s body language. Then you’ll already know at a distance what the dog’s going to do.

Not that long ago I was on my motorbike and I saw this Bull Terrier at the top of a long drive. Because of the way it was standing there, I thought: I have a problem here. And then I looked down at the front gate and it was wide open! I knew I had a major problem. I thought: could I outrun the dog past that gate? I tried. Other people might not have noticed the dog until it was hurtling out the gate. But I knew right away. He was assessing, and I could tell by his posture that he thought I was fair game. And I knew he’d try to latch on. He did. He latched onto my leg. If they get behind you, with your helmet you can’t see back. I slowed down, put my visor up, and gave him a few choice words. And he let go. Obviously this was a habit with him. Motorbikes were on his list of things to chase, and he must have frightened a lot of people. People act scared and shout, and act fearful, try to shake their leg. When I stopped and said to let go, he looked as if I wasn’t meant to do that. And my posture was: if I have to stop, I’m going to kill you. And it was like to him: this might be too big. And he let go.

But if someone got in a panic and tried to shake him off, that’s what he wanted. He wanted a conflict.

It’s years of reading the total body language. The eyes, what their tail is doing, what their legs are like, their ears. So if you get some dog running up, basically for a play, you don’t wallop it with a stick. But I’ve seen friendly dogs like that that have been kicked, that’s then made them a problem. One of my dogs hates cyclists for that reason: he got kicked by one as a puppy. He only went to say hello. But obviously the cyclist had been bitten before, and kicked him.

So this is where, if you aren’t careful, you end up with people creating more problems with dogs. In over-reacting to a threat that isn’t there.

You said dogs all like cheese. Could that be a kind of weapon?

Yes. Sometimes, if you’re really worried, I think you’re better off going armed with a handful of chopped-up cheese. A strong smelling cheese. The dog runs up, you scatter a big handful. With a bit of luck, the dog might be greedy. He thinks: “Hey, this is nice. You come along with your dog and I get fed!”

I carry chopped-up bits of treats, in a little bank-change bag. When I need it for heightened situations, or to reward my dog for something special. I keep my dog focused. “You’ll get a piece if you watch me. What have I got here?” Chuck some cheese or whatever and feed my dog too, so my dog’s attention is on getting a treat.

JIM: so if that other dog is interested and sniffing the cheese, then what do you do?

It should break the tension. Because first the dog is approaching: you’re on my territory, or whatever. And dogs are very piggy for things like sausage and cheese. If you chuck down dog biscuits, it’s no big treat. Garlic sausages are good! Something strong enough to override the intensity of the dog coming toward your dog. So if it’s mild cheddar, he might go past it before he even realised it was there. He’s too fixed on your dog.

But dogs like both garlic and sausages! So garlic sausage is perfect. Chop them up into five-cent piece sizes. I cook them in the microwave, on paper to draw out a lot of the fat, chop them up. (You wouldn’t want to be giving a lot of that every day to your dog as a treat.)

Experiment with it. Try a little piece of garlic sausage on a friendly dog, or one that’s aloof.

JIM: anyone could be confident about doing that. You don’t have to go out and buy some weird thing.

I’d use garlic sausage in preference to Smackos. Smackos do have a smell, they’re dried meat. But wouldn’t be strong enough to get the dog’s attention in a crisis.

If you’ve misread the dog, and the dog isn't aggressive, it will definitely stop for the treat. It isn’t going to attack your dog anyway.

If you are a person who usually worries and stresses, if you do that treating regularly, the dog will come to think: “Here come the treats! A great person. I like your dog and we all get on.”

Your dog is also rewarded to keep his attention on you. He sees other dogs arriving at a time he gets a reward from you. So it makes meeting other dogs rewarding.

What about a strong personality as a weapon?

JIM: an ex-cop told me he could always stare down an attacking dog, even a group of them. It never failed.

He had to be used to facing down people. His body language would say, don’t mess with me. The dog would pick it up.

JIM: the RSPCA would say the opposite. Don’t move, look away.

That’s because most people would be giving off the wrong signals. If you stare at an animal and you’re a little uncertain, you’d be inviting them to take you on.

What happens when loose dogs meet by themselves?

It depends on what they decide about whose territory it is. If you walk from home, you’re increasing your dog’s territory. Your dog sees where you walk as part of his domain. Wherever they wander, and squirt on a tree, it’s their patch, this is my territory. He might defend it.

But it’s rare for them to fight. Most dogs are social. And they’re not meeting on the loose as competitively as they would in the wild. They aren't competitive for food. Very unlikely they’d fight. Probably one in a hundred. They’re going to assess whether it’s worth being competitive. So one or the other is likely to go, “No, this is too much for me. I’ll just go my way.” He won’t go into range to be attacked. Won’t even go to the sniffing stage.

If the dog has escaped (wow, freedom!) and he’s bowling down the track without thinking, and runs around the corner and ooop, there’s this dog! Generally, it’s a quick assessment. If he feels very vulnerable, he’s going to roll on his back and expose himself. The dog’s way of saying: “I don’t want to fight, I’m weak, a total wimp.” The other dog then perceives it’s not worth taking on. He would go off, pee and carry on with his business.

If they’re very social, say a Poodle comes around the corner and bumps into a Golden Retriever, they’ll go through the sniffing, running in circles, play around, jumping about. And they may go off and see who else they can meet, and generally go together. Until one returns home, or the owner finds them.

Sometimes several dogs will get together, and they start to become a pack. And that’s when you can get attacks on livestock. The instincts of the wild dog is still there. And it only needs certain triggers, and you have a pack. It starts with something like a rabbit or someone’s lamb, and goes from there. Whereas one dog wouldn’t do that.

It would be worth going to the park in Kalamunda and watching there. A lot of the dogs are loose. You’ve got trees and bushes, fairly natural (not like the oval in Darlington). It’s quite big. You can see what dogs know one another. Also see the people’s reactions. If the people know one another, the dogs would too.

What to do when your dog is on a leash, when a strange dog and owner approach?

It goes back to observation. If you’ve got a person who’s full of swagger, the chances are you’re going to have a problem. The dog will be assertive too.

If the person is an ageing hippie type (“I’m a peace loving person walking with my good-karma dog”), chances are the dog isn’t going to do anything. Dogs are like their owners. If you get an uptight owner, you have an uptight dog. If you have an assertive owner, half drunk who thinks he owns the whole track, the dog will be the same. If you see that kind of person, he doesn’t own a miniature Poodle.

If a burly guy comes along with a pipsqueak dog, then the dog isn’t going to do anything, because the dog isn’t right. Doesn’t fit the picture. It means that big guy is actually quite friendly, just a big boof himself, and the dog is a little boof. Compared to a guy covered with tattoos, acting like he owns the trail, with a Pit Bull.

The best thing to do is say: “Hi, how you’re going? Isn’t it a great day for a dog walk?!” But instead people go quiet. They stare at one another and stare at the other dog. And everyone gets tense.

If people have a relaxed dog, then when they approach, nothing usually happens.

But if you get a person who can’t control their dog and they’re worried their dog will jump all over someone, and you get another person who feels the dog is going to attack, all their signals feed to the dogs.

If I see someone coming with dogs, I try to assess what picture the person gives me.. Like a calm-looking woman I saw with a well-controlled dog. She told me at a distance that hers was on heat. That’s all she was worried about, what my dog would do. I explained my dog didn’t have the tackle. We were talking, so it became very relaxed, and the dogs reacted like: “Hey, good, do we know each other?”

But you’re always going to get caught out sometimes if you walk around the corner, and boom!

I saw one woman coming down the path with very tense shoulders, almost like her shoulders were holding her ears up, and her step was short and quick. An anxious person. And she had a small Terrier, held up in the air, trying to protect it. That told me, even though my dogs weren’t going to fight, it would terrify her to death if they went over there. So I had to put all mine on leashes and sit very quiet beside the track while she climbed beside the trees to get past them. And mine were totally social, and hers would have loved to play. Her dog was going: “Oh, let me get over there!” But she thought her dog would get eaten. The dog didn’t have a problem, but the owner was very uptight.

Another man came along with two Dalmatians. He was cautious, he walked slowly, he had long strides. I could see him think about what was coming towards them. He kept his dog in. He put the leash on. But it was all natural. There wasn’t any hanging on to the dogs. It was just being in control, because we don’t know exactly what’s coming. I was watching, and as I said, on the Heritage Trail it’s unnatural for the dogs because you’re coming head-on. It doesn’t give them a social relaxed situation. I could see we weren't going to have a problem. Our dogs never actually got to meet. He kept his dogs with him, and so did I. We stopped and talked. The dogs were communicating at their distance. But because they were trained, they weren’t going to move, because that’s what the boss had said. I don’t think anything would have happened if we’d let them meet.

One man phoned me who owned an Irish Wolfhound, and said the dog was getting more aggressive with other dogs on walks. I tried to explain to him about the Heritage Trail. His dog had been attacked twice and had become very sensitive. He was pulling back on the leash, and was probably causing fights. And his attitude was: my dog’s on leash, under control, so I can’t be wrong!

How to handle conversations between dogs on leashes?

You can let them sniff. But it should be on a loose leash. Because if there’s tension, it can turn into fights.

JIM: I find what happens is the other owner says, “Oh, let them say hello”. They go nose-to-nose, and something normally goes wrong. One or the other starts snarling, I guess because we’ve put them in the wrong posture?

A good idea is to have both dogs sit down, if you can, and you have a conversation with the other owner. Let the dogs sit next to you for a couple of minutes. That allows the tension to settle. A loose leash, and they’ve got to sit. The way I do it with mine, particularly when they’re young and they’re learning, I’ll tell the other person, “My dog is really good and friendly, but I just want her to learn not to rush. So if you don’t mind bearing with me for a moment.” And if my dog goes forward, I wiggle the leash. Which says to my dog, no, no, no. Going forward is the reward. So unless you stay with me, you’re not going to get to meet the other dog. I play that sort of game until she learns to stay on a loose leash. It lets things settle down. She’s dead keen on meeting these other dogs.

If the leashes are loose and stay that way, there isn’t that intensity to get to one another. Because they’re within reach anyway. And if you have treats, you can say: “Do you mind if I give your dog a little treat?” And the dogs then think, when they meet you, you’re friendly and your dog’s friendly.

JIM: if there’s a scuffle, when both are on leashes, the reality is that you don’t get a fight, you get both dogs pulled apart. You get an annoyance.

Let’s say your dog makes the first growl. You snatch your dog away and it’s learning a habit. So when you meet a dog that’s loose, you have a problem. So you’ve got no chance of ever doing anything else. Every time you meet a dog on a leash, he tries to beat up the other dog. So what’s the difference with one off the leash? To him, none.

So the best hope is with a young dog that hasn’t yet learned that behaviour. Once a dog’s been attacked, it becomes defensive. Once that happens, you can’t tell the dog it won’t happen again. You can’t reassure him. They don’t know language and it’s not in their nature.

Doesn’t too much training ruin the fun of a dog?

JIM: We’ve been training Mono at home, demoting him from honorary leader. We go through doors first, feed him after we eat. But when I come in, the dog runs up to greet me. I want a dog that does that -- fun to be around and spirited. My tolerance for training the dog runs up against that. People must have different tolerances for that. You must get that a lot. People think: OK, I’ll train him up to that point, but I’m not going to do this or that.

Yeah, we all do. Even trainers, we have our weaknesses for little peculiarities we like in our dogs, even though we know this is really a no-no in a pack. But you can’t have supreme control, unless you follow the rules. Because you confuse the dog. They don’t have our emotions. I really like the dog greeting and jumping all over me and giving me a big slobbery kiss and all. Kind of cute. But the dog doesn’t think: “Well I’m allowed to do this because it’s cute when she comes home. But I still have to do as I’m told later.” The dog just sees it as manipulating you.

I come home from work. I love my dogs. They’re my kids to me. They have everything. When I come home, of course I want them to greet me. I can see them lined up at the door and think: isn’t that cute. They’re doting on me, they just want me, I’m so important! I’m a great value in someone’s life. Because that’s what we want as humans. We want approval. In our jobs. In our ability. In our love life. That’s our make-up. But dogs don’t seek approval as such. They see it as a hierarchy of who’s in control. Of course they like our praise, they like to get on with us. But basically their instinct to greet you is in the hope that you might regurgitate, like a wolf cub meeting its mother. They aren’t really saying: I want to show you how much I love you.

When I come in, with my helmet, I have my hands full. I could fall over the dog and break a leg. Then who’s going to walk the dogs?

So I have this routine with them. They’re pleased to see me, their tails are going. I rock in and all I say is: “Wait a minute!” They part, then stand there, all pleased and waiting. I sort myself out and then invite each dog to come up, in the pack order. And I give them a pat. So it’s on my terms.

JIM: you actually greet them in pack-rank order?

Yeah, because Muffy is top brick of the chimney, so she gets her pat first. Chilli is the pushy one, because she’s young. If I were to pat her first, Muffy would then see her as a problem, to be put in place.

People think: we’ve got to knuckle down to the dog, or it won’t love us. But that’s not how a dog works. The dog will still give you a greeting -- it won’t go sulk in a corner -- but it’s when it’s convenient to you, because you’re leader.

Sometimes a vet will say: you have to feed the dog a bland diet. The owner will say: “oh, I can’t do that!” But it’s really us! The dogs don’t care. They don’t think: “Oh, God, chicken and rice!!”

Not long ago I had a lady whose dog was demolishing the house. It had chewed everything. I said: put a pen in the garden, where the dog can dig and make a mess. And if you’ve got it in the house and have to leave for an hour, put it in the pen. To me, that solves the problem. The dog won’t wreck anything and you’re happier with the dog. It’s got its toys in its pen. And it’s learned: well, this is life. Just like we get used to having to go to work, the dog does too. But she said: “Oh, I can’t do that!”

If people can’t be realistic and they let their emotions rule, well they’ve got no hope with dogs. The problems we have with dogs are lack of control, because people want a relationship with a dog like they would have with a child or another person. They don’t see how much better their life would be and their dog’s would be. Dogs love having a leader.

That's the end of the chapter, but I'll add one other question that came to me by email from someone who hadn't read the book.

I currently have 2 dogs: a 9 year old Jack Russell Terrier who couldn't be more lovable and a 3 year old Lab/Husky/German shepherd mix and who else knows who runs the house! When he was a puppy we took him everywhere. Then his first winter, we didn't get him out very much. That spring, when we tried to get him back out and socializing with not only people but other dogs, he was very aggressive. He has been this way ever since. It was to the point where visitors were carrying sticks to come into our house (it's still like that). He even bit my 10yr. old cousin under the arm and he had to have 6 or 7 stitches.

The dog is very lovable toward my mom, dad, brother, myself, and even my boyfriend now. But if anyone comes into the house, it's like he goes into protective mode. He will growl and bare his teeth, and we have to hold him back. Super Bowl Sunday, my brother brought a friend to the house and we had to sit and hold the dog the entire time. Whenever his friend would speak, my dog would bark and everything. We even have put a muzzle on him. But he's so big that he would just jump on people, and he can even manage to get out of his muzzle.

What is interesting though is that when we take him to the vet, we put him on the leash, put his muzzle on and take him in the clinic and he is scared to death and will do anything to get on my lap (this is an 80-pound dog). And we take him to the back and he growls like he has to protect us. He had to have blood work done the last time he was there and we handed the leash off to the nurses. They took him, and he was upset at first, but when they came back in they said they took the muzzle off and he was just the sweetest thing they'd ever seen. But as soon as he got back in the room with us, he wanted nothing to do with the nurses and even barked at them.

I am lost at what to do. We would love to be able to take him places. Please tell me what we can do to correct this situation. I feel like it is my fault in some way but I just don't understand how he can be so loving and affectionate toward me and my family and be so aggressive toward everyone else.

My answer:

When things get as intense as you describe, you need help on the ground, not email advice. A qualified dog psychologist can come to your house, see how the dog interacts with everyone, and guide you carefully. It may take a little while, but you'll be doing the correct things and you'll get there. And you'll learn a heap about your dog, and every dog.

Jim Heath