Tug - Part Two

In my last post I yapped about the ills that often arise when people tug with their dogs. If not the cause for permanent hyper-arousal, mouthing, competition and even aggression, it is often a major contributor, and that statement is based on my professional experiences. For most of my career I circled in like-minded company. Neither people I learned from, nor my friends, including a few agility buffs, were tuggers. That changed a few years ago when, as a result of our move across country, I connected with a number of new colleagues who do tug - and have a wonderful cooperative relationship with their well-behaved, well-rounded canine sidekicks. Especially Adina MacRae jogged my brain and got me to rethink.

So, why is it that dogs with similar backgrounds can play the same game, with the same intensity, and some turn out better than okay, while others develop a number of nuisance behaviors problematic enough that their owners seek professional help?

A fundamental difference is that my tugging friends entertain their dogs with a variety of physically and mentally stimulating activities. Tracking and other nose games, herding, fetch, agility, learning tricks, hanging out together, going for a walk, and obedience are some of the things their dogs are, at least equally to tug, motivated by - and yours should be, too. If your pooch is fixated on the toy, and only interested in tugging, eliminate it, get him keened on a number of fun activities you do together, and then introduce the toy again. Hopefully it won’t be most sought after interaction any longer, just one of many he likes.

Another thing that all pro-tuggers have in common is that their dogs know and obey commands. The ones particularly important in relation to tug are: tug, give and settle.

“Settle” means that the dog, after you convey that you are done attending to him, is able to chill. My command word is “all-done”, not settle, and serves as general information that I am about to return to human-only stuff.

If the pooch stays aroused and scans the environment who he could pester next, don’t tug, or interrupt the game often with calmer activities, for example finding the toy you hid while he obeyed a down-stay position.

“Give” and “tug” put the game under your control, and that is a crucial, possibly the most important aspect of playing tug the right way.

“Tug” starts the interaction, and it should never start without that command.

With “give”, your dog must instantly release the toy, and not re-grab unless prompted with another “tug”. Lay-tuggers rarely have a give command that actually works, and pro-tuggers characteristically have a solid one in all kinds of situations.

The dog should never snatch for the toy unless he gets verbal permission. You should be able to dangle a leash, the toy, or a rope in front of your dog’s nose without him grabbing it, and you should be able to run without your dog hanging on to your pants legs, or even the toy you’re dragging behind you.

To recap: the word “tug” serves as a clear invitation that the game begins; “give” interrupts it and you absolutely can, in fact should, reward your dog with continued play, and “settle” or “all-done”, whatever word you like better, ends it and the dog is expected to chill and leave you, and others, in peace. Those are the rules, and my tugging colleagues have them and most of my clients, well, don’t, and that’s why they have wild dogs and my friends good dogs. That is not to say that theirs don’t get quite excited during play. There is nothing wrong with that. It is unrealistic to expect that a living, feeling being is always in the same, calm mood. That is not natural, so be prepared to hear some fierce growls coming from your little darling, but as long as tug is cooperative play and not a power struggle, the growls are happy sounds and not warnings.

If played by those rules, it doesn’t matter who ends up with the toy. No, your dog won’t transform into the alpha if he gets to keep it after you disengage, but he will be dominant, at least in that context, if the game is a competition over the toy and he always comes out on top. Dogs should be more driven to interact with you than possessing a toy, and then who wins in the end is irrelevant.

Even with rules, tug is still not my favorite, first choice activity with a dog. I like to channel his mouth in a work-oriented way – retrieve, carry things, open things, but I can also, now, appreciate its usefulness for certain dogs, in certain circumstances:

~ You can redirect a leash, sleeve, and pant-leg grabbing puppy to have an appropriate object between his teeth.

~ Agility and flyball aficionados energize their dogs with a tug toy before a run, and distract them from darting into the crowd after.

~ Tug is great to train a dog who rudely, or very exuberantly uses his arms and paws naturally, boxers come to mind, to use their mouth more.

~ It can be a great distraction for the canine worrier who reacts to environmental triggers, for example other people or dogs. The tugging dog’s focus is with you, and while the environment is still on his radar, it is not a big deal.

~ Every playful interaction with the owner increases the bond, and raises confidence and security, and thereby helps a timid and shutdown pooch come out of his shell.

If you must tug, if you can’t help yourself, at least do it right. Done wrong, you foster instinctive, competitive mouth games your dog inherently is already good at. When you bring rules into it, you teach obedience and train the thinking brain. Not from the top down, but as a collaborator. You convey that you are a wonderful playmate as long as he keeps his senses and stays responsive while excited. And that’s a good thing.

Tug - Part One

People can call me opinionated, but I am not close-minded.

A little more than a year ago I published a post about the popular, and controversial, dog-human activity tug. I am against tugging, and the reasons why I explained then, and again today. Said that I, well, let’s say broadened my mind a bit on that topic. The “no tug ever” changed to “no tug, but”, and that was catalyzed by discussions I had with sublime local trainer Adina MacRae and video clips Rob Van Tassel, another superb local trainer, made and generously forwarded.

So, here is the revised post against tug, which will be followed with a pro-tug with rules post I’ll publish in a week or so.

There are two chief reasons why frustrated, sometimes desperate, dog owners ask for my help. Anxiety/fear is one, and aggression the other. The latter is typically owner-diagnosed, spoken in the same sentence as dominance, and solely based on popular media information. Thus, I always take a layperson’s behavior evaluation with a grain of salt. Reality is that most dogs aren’t hostile and ambitious challengers for the pack’s head honcho position, but misbehave because they are pumped and outta control. Both can involve the inappropriate and hurtful use of teeth, but the motivation is different. Compared to the truly aggressive dog who aims to change a situation: wants distance to or get rid of a real or perceived threat, the boisterous pooch misbehaves because he is emotionally over-aroused. Contrary to needing more space, or eliminating an opponent, he’s seeking interaction.

Whenever I meet a dog with behavioral issues, I investigate where his humans blundered. With out-of-control ones, I found a common denominator: the dog playing tug-of-war, and other contact sports, with his humans.

Many dog pros of all fields of thought and method: compulsion, positive reinforcement, and trainers that straddle the middle, warn against it. Interestingly, it is the opposite with the public. Especially male owners love rough physical contests with their dog, and sometimes it is the primary way they entertain him. Some quit when the juvenile becomes more and more brutish and unruly, but others don’t see the correlation between training the mouth and the dog using it, and are perplexed when I point it out.

Dogs love mouth games. Holding on and pulling with teeth is how a pup interacts with his littermates and buddies. It is inherent, programmed into the beast, fun. When a person initiates tug, he is teaching the pup that such peer games are okay to play with humans also. Because it is so natural, the dog learns that eagerly and quickly, and henceforth instigates it whenever he is bored, with whoever is nearest. After all, that is how he’d relate with a canine friend.

And it doesn’t have to be a rope or appropriate toy, either. He’ll tug with whatever is available: a stick he finds and shoves against a person’s legs, the ball or Frisbee he doesn’t let go of during fetch, pants, a sleeve or flowing coat, and especially the leash will do nicely. Furthermore, any person will do. Particularly the ones closest to his size, children, are targets. Children are especially rewarding for another reason: they become very animated when a dog’s teeth latch onto them, make high-pitched sounds, resist, maybe run, or flail their arms, all of which is a lot of fun for the dog and charges him up more.

The man of the house might be able to physically overpower rowdy Rover, but his child, or female partner can’t, and so Rover treats them like he would another dog of same, or weaker, size and strength. On walks, he grabs the leash and happily play-growling pulls back, which puts the person in a dilemma cause she can’t just let go of it, but when she holds on there is automatically resistance, and that’s a tug game, and that reinforces the leash grabbing. The leash, like a rope or tug toy, can become a cue that turns the dog on the moment he sees it. Eventually he is labeled bad, hyper, disobedient, aggressive and dominant - unjustly so cause often he’s none of it. He’s a dog playing fun dog games with people who invited him to do so at one point.

Said that, ongoing physical contests train and foster competitiveness, and there is a risk that some dogs, indeed, become aggressive.

Play is injury free practice for real life. Humans play sports to test their strength, and to gain or establish superiority over other humans, at least for the moment. Dogs play with other dogs to test and boost their strength and agility to increase the chance that they, if there is a dispute over a resource, come out on top. Even a dog who self-handicaps when he interacts with a physically weaker friend, might do so to practice in a safe context how to get out of a future compromising situation.

The relationship your dog has with you, and all humans in your family, should be cooperative, never competitive with daily battles to determine who is the strongest. With each physical game, your dog becomes brawnier and mouthier, and possibly permanently pumped and ready for action. Like chronically adrenalized humans, they too have the tendency to be aggressive outside of play.

In addition to aggression, tug can train inattentiveness. When the person has had enough and disengages, he leaves the dog physiologically aroused with no release. The still pumped pooch will scan the environment for another outlet and if he finds it, maybe in form of another dog, he learns that the environment fulfills his needs, and that tuning the owner out is rewarding. Roughhousing with another dog is hard to top with pretty much anything a person can offer, and next time when both are out and about, the dog’s focus is not with his human, but his surroundings. If he finds entertainment there again, owner inattention and independence quickly become a habit. Plus he always anticipates canine playtime, which not only raises arousal even more, but if it doesn’t manifest leads to frustration with barking and lunging on the leash, or the pestering of every dog in the park, oblivious to its back off signals.

One of my early teachers said something that is still stuck in my mind: “Don’t teach what you don’t want in any other context.” A tugging dog practices the use of mouth and teeth in a competitive way. Practices holding on to something that wriggles in his mouth. Is building jaw strength by not letting go. Skills he might need to survive amongst dogs, and that is debatable, but certainly not for a life in the midst of humans.

Stay tuned to Part Two, when I’ll discuss how you can not only enjoy tugging with your dog, but when it can actually be beneficial.