The One Time Training Failed

I thought I had everything under control. Then the stroke of midnight approached. My dogs flipped.

   

      Last year a new and prosperous neighbor moved into our street. Upon moving in across our place, they spent three months remodeling the house they bought, built a high wall around their property and installed a close circuit television camera at the front gate. Their family business was a local chicken fastfood chain. Of Chinese origin, they kept to themselves.They always arrived at their house blasting the peace of the neighborhood with their horn at all hours of the day, to hustle their house help inside to get up and open the gate. It seemed they would never -- over their dead bodies -- ever alight from their cars or vans to open those gates themselves. They will persist in blowing their horns, ignoring the glaring looks of nearby neighbors, until those doors are opened by a team of house help.

      A few posts back ("The Dogs Survive a Thunderstorm"), I discovered how to distract an upset dog when there's thunder. Spot, especially, would be distressed by this explosion in the skies and I used to try various tactics to deal with this. Until I noticed the power of a dog's focus.

Spot crawls under a seat during a mall tour before our agility demonstration. The music, played loudly to attract mallgoers, was obviously too loud for his ears. 

      The Mexican "dog whisperer" in the United States, Cesar Millan, used to teach dog owners walking their dogs to poke their pets at the ribs with a foot whenever their dog lost his cool in public -- such as aggressive behavior when it saw another dog, refused to obey because of distractions, etc. The poke (not a kick!) was to break the dog's concentration. It has nothing to do with your foot or that there was a special spot on the dog's ribs to make them obey. It's just meant to break the dog's focus. You can do anything else to replace that action.
      Millan's technique was just for practical reasons. You're walking with a dog and your hands are busy when the dog fights the leash. Your feet are the only things free. The foot has proven handy because it's a disciplinary tool the dog won't see coming (if you use your hand your dog will see it). 

      If you have a can of coins you can throw it on the sidewalk to give the dog a jump. But you'll have to pick it up (worse, when it rolls away from you, you have to chase it). At home, we use a big metal cowbell I bought in Germany which the big cows there use to signal to their farmer-owners they're coming home. It makes an excellent banging sound when we drop it against cement. Scares our dogs and stops the misbehavior.

      One night, I was awakened by a thunderstorm. I got up and sat at the kitchen counter to wait it out. Soon, I felt the presence of a dog against me. It was Spotty. His face was anxious. I had left my bedroom and him alone there.

      I looked at those trusting eyes thinking what to do with the distress behind it. Then I remembered he was focused on the thunder and it upset him. I must snap him out of it.

Spot stares intently at temptation. He's easy to train because his food drive is intense.

      I reached out across the counter to our ever-present biscuit jar, the doggy treat canister. The dog's eyes lit up as he saw me twist the top. Aha, the focus was beginning.

      "Speak!" I commanded, using the familiar hand signal. Spot looked intently, gathered his thoughts, gathered his energy, then gave a sharp bark.

      "Good boy!" I squealed, offering him a biscuit. The dog happily crunched it up.

      I timed the next command to the next roll of thunder. "Speak!" I commanded again, as lightning flashed our walls. The dog barked obediently as the thunder erupted, unflinching. He did not seem to hear it. His eyes were on the biscuit I held in my hand.

      So that's how you do it! I exulted in my mind, feeling victorious. Just have a jar full of treats and your dog will forget every else upsetting around him.

      Before New Year's Eve, I filled the biscuit jar. There were spare packs of more biscuits on stand by. My only challenge, of course, was how to keep the training up while the fireworks erupted outside our house sporadically. I won't be able to time the commands simultaneously all the time. But I was willing to try.

     As the night deepened, my method worked successfully. The fireworks distressed the dogs as they barked at the explosions, concern written on their faces. I'd call all four of them to a training session.

     There would be long pauses before the next firecrackers out in the street are lit, of course, because the stroke of midnight was not yet approaching. So would our training sessions. I'd stop too. 

      Another technique I used to assure the dogs was to assign each of them to one of us. I had a house guest that night so we were also four people. Lourdes had Toby, Dominic had Packy, my guest Fe had Toto, while I had Spot. We did not cuddle them to avoid reinforcing the nervousness. We just let them lean against us, assuring them of our presence. That calmed them too -- until the eve of the festivities approached.

Spotty (left) and Toby (right) enjoy a doggy nap. My house guest Fe claimed she prayed fervently that Toby would not have a seizure during that stressful night of New Year's Eve. Thankfully enough, he did not. But that was Toby's last New Year with us.

      Then a quarter to midnight came. Suddenly, a long string of fireworks burst loudly out in the street like machine gun fire, lit up by our Chinese neighbor. This is the notorious Judas Belt, a long belt of firecrackers strung together like a necklace, around a hundred or so of them. The sound reverberated throughout our house like a sensurround (or a 2D) movie. Toto jumped out of his skin and barked hysterically. Spotty, Toby, and Packy followed, barking noisily. I got up and called the dogs to me. But the rapid-fire explosions were so loud I could not hear my own voice as I spoke. The ear-splitting crackles, amplified within the walls of our house, got louder and louder. We tried to cover the dogs' ears as a last resort but they kept shaking our hands off. They were on alert mode and extremely anxious.

      The explosions lasted a long and agonizing 45 seconds while the dogs yelled with all their might to try to make it go away. When it finally ended, they were exhausted, eyes glinting, worried that that the sounds might come again.
      Now it was my turn to be concerned. New Year's Eve was less than 15 minutes away. It seemed my training session wasn't going to work against what we were up against.

      Last year, when media bombarded us with advice on how to protect pets from the firecrackers of New Year, I tried gathering the dogs in an air conditioned room with the curtains drawn and a TV playing on the night of New Year's. But they stayed as long as I stayed there with them. Once I stepped out to watch the spectacle outside, they crowded the door to go out with me.

      I was still trying to figure out what to do (and I didn't want to miss the New Year's Eve fireworks) when our Chinese neighbor lit the second Judas Belt. The loud machine gun fire filled our ears and drowned everything else. The dogs jumped up in fear and barked in agitation. I had all our doors closed to muffle the sound somewhat but it helped little. The explosions crackled loudly, filled the atmosphere with smoke and threw paper debris all over the street and into neighbors' yards and roofs. It seemed an eternity.

      But soon as it ended and we were able to breathe a sigh of relief a third Judas Belt followed and the dogs flipped again. 

      Another eternity of nervous exhaustion. Outside, the sky lit up in all directions with all sorts of colorful explosions. It was New Year's Eve. It's a time nobody wants to miss.

      When the third Judas Belt was finally spent, it was past the stroke of midnight. There followed pyrotechnic fountains and varied other small fireworks but no more Judas Belts. The dogs had survived another New Year's Eve but not without extreme distress. I looked around our house and it was smokey. So was our front garden with its shrapnel of paper debris and small tubes of cardboard from which the Judas Belt is strung of. I looked out into our street and saw a carpet of paper on the road -- and two house help of our Chinese neighbor sweeping them up into hills. The mess left behind covered the frontage of 6 neighbors' houses on both sides of the street.

      I realize now we have no other way but to shut the dogs out next New Year's Eve -- with someone willing to sacrifice the spectacle of that night by staying with them at the stroke of 12. That someone might be me. I'm their leader, am I not?

      I have to be with them next time. I will not let this happen again.