Learning under duress

I distinctly remember that day. I was in 2nd grade. The new frock that had been sitting in the closet, that I had coveted for months had been pulled out and I was allowed to wear it to school to celebrate my birthday. I sat in class, shaking in my new frock, terrified out of my wits and asked my friend, "What do you think? Will she take it easy on me today because it's my birthday?". My teacher was known to be one of the toughest. She used metal rulers and hit us on our knuckles till they split open. "What if I threatened her that I would complain to the principal if she hits me on my birthday? Will she leave me alone?", I asked my friend. My friend looked at me like I had lost my mind. "Nooooo! Don't do that. She will get angry and hit you harder!", she said. Despite my friend's wisdom, when my teacher approached me, I snapped and screamed "If you hit me on my birthday I will complain. My father loves me and he will hit you back!". Oh boy....did I regret that!

But here is the thing. Today I deal with many many dogs. Dogs just as scared as I was that day. Dogs who have tried to tell us, in every way possible, that they are terrified. And dogs who eventually snap. They don't have anyone to complain to. So they defend themselves. Instead of recognizing the hopeless corner we push them into, we label them as aggressive or dominant and push them further and further. One fine day they give up, go into a shell. They become completely apathetic and then we claim to have "cured" the aggression. To my mind there really cannot be a solution unless one gets to the bottom of the problem and address that, instead of merely dealing with the symptoms. At the basis of canine aggression is fear. To fix aggression, one needs to understand fear and stress - there are no two ways about that!

To understand fear and stress, we need to understand where it comes from - the brain. Somewhere, a long time ago, in biology class, I learnt of two parts of the nervous systems - Voluntary and Involuntary. The Involuntary nervous system was something that had a mind of it's own and there was little I could do to control what that system did. This involuntary part of the brain has two modes of functioning - an emergency  mode that's turned on during times of stress and a regular mode. (For those who like technical terms, it's the Sympathetic nervous system and Parasympathetic nervous system respectively) When one mode is on, the other mode is off. And considering all of this is part of the involuntary nervous system, there is not much point in telling a dog "NO! Bad Boy! Sympathetic system off!". No amount of training, no amount of dog whispering, no amount of leadership is going to teach a dog to turn off his Stress Response or the emergency mode. The only way is for the Stressor itself to go away. But with us, hovering there, trying to be dominant leaders, we ourselves become the stressors, constantly keeping our dog in emergency mode. What does this do to our dogs?

The Parasympathetic system or the regular mode of the body focuses on long term projects of the body - digestion, storage of nutrients, growth, immunity, learning, memory etc...When a dog is stressed all of this is turned off. The emergency mode kicks in. This system's focus is survival. So it puts all senses on high alert and gets the muscles pumped up and primed for a mad dash. That means that all nutrients in the body, that were being stored for learning and growth are now being poured out for the mad dash. The heart is beating hard and fast to get all of this to the muscles. The muscles are sucking up oxygen which was meant for the brain. The senses are focusing on the entries, exits, defense tools etc...and don't really care about learning.

At this point, we have some trainers who come in and insist on training the dog. There is talk of "obedience training". There is talk of leadership. There is talk about "manners classes". I remember once when I was being punished badly for botching up history classes. Between sobs I was trying to learn the dates of the damned battle of Panipat and who fought who. Looking through my tears I could see the letters and numbers floating around and doing an obscene dance in front of me that made no sense at all. Nothing made sense. All I could think of was "please don't beat me any more with that metal ruler". I tried so hard to get those sentences to make sense, but the numbers and letters just sniggered and continued their insane dance. "What are the dates Sindhoor?". I heard the question but the question did not make sense. I repeated the question in my head a few times. I looked at the dance. Nothing made sense. I sobbed and blurted out "Please don't beat me!" and I bolted across the room. Continuing to recount this story is just going to be hard to read. When trainers recommend manners classes for such dogs I relive that day. I look at the dogs eyes and I see the same sentiment in the dogs eyes. The feeling of helplessness, fear and complete inability to comprehend anything. Trainers are not always tuned into their dogs. But good pet parents are. I sincerely hope that they look into the eyes of their dogs and see what the trainers are asking these poor dogs to do and rescue their dogs from this impossible misson.

Off late, I have been dealing with many dogs who are under severe chronic stress and are being subjected to additional stress in the attempt to train them. My mind is filled with all of this, to a point where, a few nights ago I had a night mare - I heard my little sister crying. She was being punished for not learning well. She was sobbing. I often look at my dog and my sister similarly. So in my dream, they both were the same. It was a little girl of about 5 or so, sometimes representing my sister, sometimes representing my dog and sometimes representing the 5yr old me, terrified, being yelled at, sobbing and trying to learn. I ran out, called out to this little girl. When she came to me, I hugged her, wiped off her tears. Told her that she was OK and there was nothing to be afraid of. I asked her to take a break and that she could learn later. I told her I would come play with her in a bit. I went looking for the person who had hurt her and ensured that there would be no more punishments. If we think about it, dealing with our dogs should not be very different. The concepts are the same - ensure it does not happen again, a reassurance, a break from learning and some help to feel better again. So for a dog, this is what we would do:

1. Remove the stressors. Stop the scolding. Stop the yelling. Stop being dominant. Just be a loving pet parent
2. Provide reassurance to the little one that there will be no more of that. For a dog being left alone, calm reassuring voice and stop changing scenes on a dog. If a dog is guarding resources due to fear of lack of resources - just flood the dog with resources so that the dog is confident that there is no reason for fear
3. Give the little one time to recover and cope. For chronic stress, like in the case of dogs, nutrition and sleep are critical in this. Consistency in the home a dog is absolutely critical. So don't move the dog around from foster home to foster home. Stay. Let the dog recover. 
4. Build confidence in the little one that she can indeed cope and learn. In the case of a stressed dog, work with a good behaviourist on confidence building measures. When faced with potential stressors, reassured the dog that the dog has the choice to walk away and avoid the stressors, thus helping gain more confidence.

During the worst of her days, Nishi sought comfort in her toys. 
She took them to bed with her. 
Back then, I could not take pictures of all of her. It was too horrifying. 
So I took pictures of the best part of her - her coping spirit!

Love, patience and nurture are critical in helping a stressed dog. Leadership, obedience and manners are futile, counter productive and almost cruel on a stressed dog. I can relate to this and for those of us who were brought up in a culture of punishment, we don't need to understand the Sympathetic and Parasympathetic Nervous Systems to know how all of this works. We just know what works and what does not. And if the voice inside us is not something we want to rely on, then understand the functioning of the brain. Either way, the answer is the same - remove stressors, reassurance, recovery & confidence building. 

We like Dead Skunks and we cannot lie

Yeah! I know...we all want to think our dogs are posh dogs. We want to wash them in shampoos that smell of berries, put shiny collars on them and think that our dogs love the good things in life. Yes, they do love the good things in life. But their idea of good things and our idea of good things are perhaps a tad different.

All said and done, dogs adore half dead or fully dead rodent. Yeah...squeal all you want. But that's what it is. So, it does not take much to figure out that a toy that looks and feels like a half dead rodent is going to be popular with them.

Check out those eyes!

One toy that I found that comes very close to this is Skineez. These are squeaky toys, have little beady eyes, are limpid like half dead rodents. There are a few others who make squeaky toys with this structure. But what I like about these specific toys is that they have no stuffing! Yep. They are stuffing free.

Tigger is my true hunter dog! She likes to not just have a kill but actually dismember the kill! So she goes after all her toys and pulls all the stuffing out. Not that she likes eating it, but she loves pulling everything out. In the process, I fear that she might accidentally eat some. So a toy that does not have stuffing that she could eat is always very attractive to me.

Note the "No Stuffing" sticker. I like that a lot

Nishi is my gentle girl. She picks up the toy in her mouth, prances around the home, shaking her head side to side, swinging the toy. Again something dogs love to do with half dead animals rodents - playing with them till they die. So the toy is fun for her to play by herself. In addition, it is a good toy to play fetch with. I have also seen the girls play tug with the toy quite frequently.

So a tug, fetch, engaging toy that the girls can use to play with us, play with each other and play by themselves and not destroy it in the process or harm themselves by ingesting stuffing - That's why it's my pick of the day today.

Skineez makes this toy in 2 sizes, shaped like a few different rodents - squirrel, raccoon, skunk or meercat or something like that. I don't know. Not that I care much, neither do the girls. They have also introduced something called Crazy Critters. We have not used it. So this review does not apply to that toy yet.

Pros: No stuffing, squeaky, good fetch toy and tug toy, dead rodent like structure makes it very interesting for dogs to play with it by themselves.

Cons: Is a furry texture. So can get dirty and might be hard to clean. Not indestructible

Not sure if this is a pro or a con. You decide: It looks so much like a dead rodent that Uttam once saw it in the garden and jumped back thinking it was indeed a critter from our garden that had met an untimely death on our vegetable patch! :)

Where to buy: Dogspot, Paws (CALL:+91 80 41317297), Glenands Koramangala, Most leading pet stores

Note: All pictures are taken from Dogspot.in

Dogs dig bones

Do you remember watching on cartoons that dogs find bones buried in gardens or that they take bones from their meals and bury them in gardens? Well, let me assure you that I have no idea if that is true or not. But one thing I can vouch for is that they dig for something. Could be a treasure. I don't know. All I care about is that their digging makes them the gardener's arch enemy.

I find gardeners very polite people with a very sarcastic sense of humor. I don't know why that is. When I was a kid, my parents had employed a gardener. He used to point at the destroyed garden and say, in a very sweet tone, smiling all along, "ಪರವಾಗಿಲ್ಲ ಅಮ್ಮ , ಡೆನ್ನಿ ನನಗೆ ಸವಾಲು ಹಾಕ್ತಾನೆ " ("It's alright madam. Denny seems to be challenging me"). I see a similar relationship between Nishi and Arasu (our current gardener. I should write about his name. It's so interesting. But that's for another time). Arasu seems to look at Nishi with a veiled disinterest that freaks me out. It seems that polite-interest in her, which tries to mask his feigned disinterest, might actual be masking something far more sinister. So I decided that I had to either make Nishi a garden friendly dog or make my garden Nishi friendly. I opted for the latter.

Sand and Soil clearly demarcated

First things first. As I mentioned in my previous post, the garden design I went in for is "Container Gardening". The main part of the garden has been covered in 3" of sand. There is a line of soil exposed along the edges and there are plants growing there. I did not have the heart to uproot the plants. So I retained them and separated soil and sand with a line of bricks. Duh! Most obvious thing to do, you might say. True. But one thing we realized is that the bricks, coupled with the colour and textural difference between sand and soil makes it easy for us to define boundaries for Nishi. And when boundaries are well defined, it's easy for Nishi to respect them.

Nishi is a slow learner, but she is an obedient girl. She respects rules. So she is slowly learning to stay away from the soil. But her ball is a bit out of control and happily rolls over into the soil, destroying saplings. So a nifty little idea I picked up is to put in a "Sapling Guard". It is a simple thing, cut out of plastic pet bottles. I just cut out 3" rings, slit the ring open, wrap it around the sapling and press it into the wet soil. I figured out that Gatorade bottles are the best thing for this. These bottles are tough. The next best thing is coke/pepsi (any aerated drink) pet bottles. Kinley and other water bottles are not good for this project. The bottles are flimsy and don't do much guarding. Now I just got to see how the saplings hold up. So far, they seem to be doing fine.

Upcycled pet bottles as sapling guards

And last but not the least - lawn. I could not completely do away with the lawn. But lawn takes time to grow and if it has to stand a chance, Nishi cannot set foot anywhere near it. So the lawn area has been segregated by a picket. But keeping with my theme of using natural and upcycled items, I decided to stick to a rather rustic idea of weaved coconut leaves. Not the most genius of ideas. Our villages are a treasure trove of eco-friendly effective ideas. One simple youtube video later, I was able to weave my own garden gate.

Weaved coconut leaves for garden gate

But my fingers were chaffed in the process. Then my dad told me of a simple trick and I was wondering why it did not occur to me. Soak the leaves in water for 2 days before weaving! Duh. So the next one will be soaked. But where? I am trying to find someone who has a bath tub. Coconut leaves are surprisingly easy to find in Bangalore. I have my own personal source - the neighbours tree. Their leaves keep falling into our garden. But as soon as our gardener saw what I was up to, he managed to find several of them in minutes. Pays to be nice to Arasu I guess. So, for now, the quest for the bathtub continues and below is the tutorial on weaving coconut leaves. I used dried leaves.

Meanwhile I spend send several happy hours watching Nishi prancing in our garden. I love it. Making the garden dog friendly is so much fun. Adds a whole new dimension to the garden and makes spending time in the garden that much more entertaining. For those with a garden, I would strongly recommend thinking along these lines. It's worth it.

Project Casa-de-Nishi Commences

We recently moved into our new home. It was not really our choice to move out of our old apartment, nor was the current choice of apartment something that thrilled us to bits. I want to say, we did not have much choice in the whole matter. But I refuse to say that and there is a truck load of ranting that will unload if I decide to discuss this. I'm guessing no one reading this blog would care for that truck load. So let's just move on...

Anyways, our current apartment is half the size of the old one and clearly anyone would wonder if we have suffered attack on our coffers. Steering clear of the coffers issue, let me assure you that the real reason we moved into this house lies hidden outside the house. Yup...you heard me, we moved in for what was out - the garden.

I figured that I am out of the house for 12 hours a day. Uttam will perhaps do the same. So the only person who will be at home most of the time is Nishi. Oh yeah, I did call her a person. Anyone surprised by that? If you have read any of my previous blogs, then I guess not. So back to this "person", who spends most of her time at home, I figured, that a house that works best for her would work best for our family. The garden space here is twice that of indoor space and so far, this arrangement has worked great for us.

Now that we are here, with such a massive garden, we got to think of gardening right? So I have been doing intense research on dog friendly gardens. I think my name should be Binary. My erstwhile bosses have mentioned and my sister often teases me that if I take up something it is with all gusto else I don't give two hoots about it - All or Nothing :) So in my gardening "all", I have picked up several tips that I think might be very useful for pet owners. I am going to combine that with the infrastructural availability in India to present what best we can do in India for our doggies.

Dog-Friendly Garden Tip #1:  "Go for Container Gardening". Meaning: take off everything from the floor and put them in containers of different kinds. This tip was repeated in almost all resources I referred. There are far too many ways in which dogs can destroy lawns - they can just charge up and down the lawn, dig it up furiously looking for God knows what, crap on it (and then you have to spend hours inspecting every sq centimeter of your lawn). Plus, the way Nishi bolts in and out of the garden, she brings in half the garden into the house. While I love the concept of living outdoors, I think Nishi and I have different notions of bringing the outdoors indoors. So, a filler like wood chips, gravel, tiles, sand etc are highly recommended.

I'll briefly visit why I rejected most of the suggestions and settled on sand. Anything permanent like tiles or mosiac was out, as this is a rented house. I don't intend to stay that long. So making something permanent sounded absurd to me. Wood chips could be dangerous because some dogs tend to chew on it. Nishi herself might not. But I frequently have other dogs over and I cannot risk them choking on splinters. Uttam was quite partial to pea gravel, but for me it was a big no no. Given Nishi's poor hind legs, I was keen on providing her a soft surface. Plus, when there is a dog "pawrty", some dogs get too excited and poop on the party...or during the party...whatever. Cleaning it up from gravel when I am in pencil heels is not an option for me. So, sand was eventual choice. As I write this blog, sand is being packed into the garden. Let's see how that works out. If it does not, do follow this blog and you will be duly notified :)  

Now we come to the containers - the most exciting part. Containers don't have to be boring pots. Any area with barriers will work. We started building out our first "container" yesterday - A spiral garden. I bought 200kgs of rocks from the nursery close to home and it took Uttam, Nishi and I a few hours to build this last night. I don't know about Uttam, but Nishi and I had a blast. Nishi kept trying to add her toys into the spiral garden. She would come, inspect, sigh disapproval and then leave only to return with a toy and chuck it in. After the whole thing I played a few rounds of fetch with her and we wrapped up nice and muddy. Just the way we all like it. Wonder how long this vacation period will last. But for now, we are having fun. I will post more tips as I "unearth" them :)

The Beginning of a Spiral Garden - Part of Container Gardening

What kind of Leash Training is right for me?

In my previous post I explained why I find Leash Training so daunting & important. Given that,  I spared no expense in finding a trainer, who claimed to have been trained in Malaysia and would train my dog to pass the Canine Good Citizen Evaluation. Sounded fancy enough. "Ah! Now I am going to get my Walt Disney's Buster-like-doggie". What did I get instead? A verdict from the trainers that she had attitude issues, did not like to walk and was not really trainable! And in return, Nishi promptly disliked them. If I have learned anything at all from dogs, its this: if your dog dislikes someone, there is good reason for you to dislike them too.

So I looked deeper into their training technique. Their take on this: "walk with your dog next to you and everytime she leaves your side, yank her back hard". In my opinion, this is bad technique, for two reasons and I present my case below.

Firstly, this concept of "yanking her back hard", requires me to use my strength. Anyone who has had medium or big dogs, will be familiar with how strong they can get. Considering how pathetic my upper body strength is, the outcome of this battle of strength with the dog is a no-brainer: Dog Wins! And I am left with a battered ego at not being able to train my dog, a chaffed palm and pulled muscles. So, when I decided to get a boxer, I made up my mind that I was not going to use any training technique that required me to use my strength to overpower Nishi. If I found myself doing that, then I had to stop, and rethink my approach. Consequently, in our household, there is no yanking, beating or pulling. Even if there are stronger people around, who actually can overpower Nishi, I know that there will come a time, when I am alone with her and I don't want her to quickly realize "Ooh! Weak lady! Me wins this time...yaaaaay!".

The second discussion is about the "dog leaving your side". When training a dog to walk on a leash, there are two types of training: 1) Heel Work 2) Loose Leash Walking or LLW. Heel Work is what one sees in dog shows -the dog sticks close to your heel and walks almost in step with you. Impressive to watch! When I was growing up, I had a dobermann who was trained by a cop on Heel Work. So naturally, when I got Nishi, I started researching on Heel Work. I picked up Monks of New Skete, almost a cult classic. But soon I started running into a few dissenting voices on Heel Work and recommending LLW instead. The most compelling voice that reached me was that of Turid Ragaas. She has heavily influenced me and I have all of her material. Her website is also very handy. Her approach is one of give and take. You allow your dog to have some fun on his/her walks, who in-turn behaves well and asks "politely" for permissions to explore.

I think back at the times when I have not had a chance to step out all day. After about 10 - 12 hours, I am going nuts and just want to get out and do something. Wouldn't Nishi feel the same? She stays home all day, just waiting for the 5 PM walk. So when I finally take her out, I don't have the heart to insist that she focuses just on my heel. I like treating her to the smells and sounds of the great outdoors. She is a curious girl who want to sniff everything. And if it's a popular doggie-pee-spot, she wants sniff away for several minutes, gathering all of her doggie-social-information. If I am going to spend hours on facebook, I feel I owe her at least a few minutes at that popular street light post. She is not really the facebook type. She prefers pee-sniffing :) Of course, if she were a show dog, I might have required her to do Heel-Work. But she is not one, so why expect that out of her?

Given that I really want her to enjoy her walk, we walk with a leash loose enough for her to walk in the direction that she wants to go, and as long as she walks "politely", I follow her patiently. However, if she loses her manners and starts pulling, then I get adamant and stand still. Absolutely still. No movement in any direction at all, no matter how long it takes. She sits or releases the tension on the leash by taking a step back. We then resume our walk. This method is sometimes referred to as "Be a Tree". I'll write about my experiences with this technique a little later.

The other thing people talk about is training your dog to walk off-leash. But, given our past experience, my opinion is set in stone here: I have a zero risk appetite when it comes to taking my Nishi off the leash. If it is not an enclosed space, if there is ANY opportunity for a crazy cabbie or auto driver to zip up the road, then Nishi will not be risked an encounter with such driver. I have seen fully grown humans, take stupid decisions on roads and meet with accidents. How can I count on a dog to actually evaluate ramifications of running after a very interesting cat or squirrel when a car is zipping down the road? According to me, that evaluation is my responsibility and I will gladly shoulder it for her sake. Her safety is my duty!

I found it very useful to take a step back, before training and think about what's important for us. There are several techniques out there. I have at least 10 books and DVDs on this, each author with a different approach and opinion. This indicates to me that there is no one right way. But what I found useful, is to have a clear opinion on my priorities for Nishi and let that guide my training. For me, these rules are sacrosanct:

1. No causing Nishi ANY pain (exceptions might occur if every there was a human being hurt badly. I hope that day never comes)
2. No use of strength. If it comes down to it, take a break and rethink the whole strategy. I am not going to lose battles with my dog
3. Training should be fun for Nishi and I. Rules for the sake of rules don't benefit us.  

I will put down more details on LLW and "Be a Tree" in subsequent posts. But I leave my readers with a question. If you had to write down your own philosophy on training what would it be. Leave me comments. I would love to hear from you.

Walking Buster from Walt Disney

The first chapter of Nishi diaries has to be - Walking the dog. This topic is closest to my heart for reasons that will soon become obvious. I have read so much about it, ruminated so much and filled my head with so much on this topic that if you brought up this topic after I have had a few glasses of Chardonnay, you WILL regret it, irrespective of what you have been drinking all evening. I will go on and on and on and then some more.

The dogs I grew up with did not walk well at all. They were so bad that, one even dislocated my dad's shoulder. At this point we got dog walkers and considered the problem solved. Today, I spend hours everyday observing dog walkers closely. Most are not even dog-people and don't give a damn about the dog they are walking. The dog eats rubbish along the way, runs into oncoming traffic, gets into fight with strays...and they don't care. Most don't even walk; they just linger on the street, chatting with their friends. And the few, who do care, know so little about dogs that it's a pity watching them struggle with the dog. End result - an under exercised dog, with bad walking habits, frequent stomach upsets, complaints by neighbours of the dogs harassing them when he is on his walk, and in extreme unfortunate cases, accidents as well.

For those of you who don't know our story, one February evening, when Nishi was not yet one year old, we took her out on a walk. We made one critical mistake and a car ran over her face. Bless her brave little heart, she still fights it with such courage. While I know that beating myself up about what happened will not reverse the events of that evening, I also know it makes me so much more careful & thoughtful with Nishi. That is something I can never expect of any dog walker. So, really no dog walker can ever be good enough for my little puppy girl.

The Walt Disney dog has really created a warped image in our mind on what dog walking is. The freckled kid, Timmy, cheerfully calls out to Buster, Buster comes skipping along with leash in his mouth, they walk side-by-side - boy and dog, go to a park by the lake, Buster fetches a stick that Timmy throws at him, the lovely neighbourhood lady who has her baby in a stroller stops by to pat Buster on his head, they all laugh and walk back home, to the sound of birds chirping!

LIES! All lies. When was the last you heard birds chirp in Bangalore?

Most of my reading on dog training made me realize that walking a dog seems to be one of the biggest challenges dog owners and dog trainers face. And this is the one thing that dogs tend to take the longest to get trained. So, it's not just me who thinks this needs special attention, it seems to be quite a common issue. But, in India, the story gets more interesting, as always :)

I compared the Walt Disney set-up to what I was up against. So where do those serene streets exist in Bangalore, that are not infested by insane cab and auto rickshaw drivers who seem to be on a mission to kill? And where are those enclosed parks that prevents your dog from bolting on to the street in hot pursuit of a squirrel? And say you found that elusive park, but looked away for a second to smile at the cute neighbour (those do exist right?) , your pooch has his face buried deep in a gorgeously stale paneer dish from Nandini Palace or worse, in some "holy droppings". In fact, on one of our vacations, we found ourselves rather embarrassed to bring back a happy Nishi, whose face was covered in...ahem..., lets say, fresh manure! Our friends, all too familiar with this scenario saved us embarrassment by trying to "dignify" this taste of theirs, and christened it Grass Mousse :)

Anyways, after an evaluation of Disney's Rue de la Buster versus Koramangala, I abandoned the Walt Disney guide to dog training, and looked at other dog training books and manuals. Almost all of them said "start in a quiet place, with minimal distractions to start training". So I tried starting in my basement. Drivers were driving like F1 drivers, in and out of their parking spots. I tried the apartment gardens and children found Nishi too cute to let her train. I looked for a quiet street.; If there were no cars on the streets, there were stray dogs. If not strays, others were walking their dogs. Milkmen and newspaper guys during early mornings, crazy cabbies at night..so where could I start this training?

That's when I realized that I needed a training strategy and technique unique to India. I am still working out what works best for our conditions. I will share all of my experiences on this blog. I want to end this entry with some good & bad advice I have received on this topic of leash training:

Bad Advice 1: (this one was by our breeder) Don't put your dog on a leash or training till she is 6 months!

Has anyone seen how big a 6 month old dog is? How fast they can get? How am I supposed to take this dog for potty breaks without a leash? And how do I put a dog on a leash and not have the dog leash trained? A 6 month old boxer is a strong dog and when she pulls, I eat mud!

Bad Advice 2: (this has come from so many areas, it disgusts me) Put your dog on a choke collar, so that you can use her strength to deter her from bad walking habits

I did try this once. I heard Nishi choking on it & abandoned it. A quick internet search showed me the health risks of this inhumane contraption. It is apparently effective if used rightly. But it is so easy to use it incorrectly. As far as my Nishi is concerned, I don't see a need to risk using this thing incorrectly. If there is a more pleasant way, I think she deserves it. The number of times I have seen "experts" putting their dog on a choke chain and the dogs tongue turning purple, while on it! Looks cruel to me and nothing will convince me to do it. NEVER!

Good Advice along with some misguided information: (this one was by a friendly neighbour) Start training early and finish all training by 4 months. Dog's cannot learn after that

Initially I did freak out about the 4 month time limit. I felt I was doomed as my dog was "too old for new tricks". But to my relief, I learned that this saying is just a myth. Nishi learns so much faster and better today than when she was a puppy. She can concentrate much better.

However I did see some merit in starting early. Delayed training gives dogs room to pick up some bad habits that they need to unlearn. Unlearning is actually hard. Also, physically controlling an older dog is harder and having completed lessons, particularly leash training at a younger age, makes walks a lot easier. But, it is never too late and always worth the effort. Happy walking!

Why Nishi Diaries

I have always grown up with animals. At home we always had cats and dogs. Each year we visited our grandparents who lived on a farm. So there were all those farm creatures - big and small. Starting from adopting strays that wander into our house to actually buying pedigree dogs - we did it all. Mutts, Doberman, Dalmatian, German Shep...All creatures great and small. We even had fish, but that was quite short lived. One of our dogs ate the fish and to this day, we are not sure which one was the guilty one.

We also had all kinds of attitude towards animals at home. My dad, having grown up in a farm, thought of animals as integral part of life, but never got used to the idea that keeping animals in urban settings was different from keeping animals on a farm. My mother hated them and could only think of all the fur and dirt and flees and the smell. My sister adored animals so much that she would sneak in the dogs at night, after my parents were asleep and hide them under her sheets. And me...I am still not sure what I thought of them then. I know I loved our pets dearly. But, being just a child, I had no philosophy on how they should be kept at home.

One would think that with all these animals around, we would be experts at rearing them. But that cannot be further from the truth. All our pets, like most animals, had enormous hearts and we adored them. But they were badly trained. So badly trained that our doberman actually dislocated my fathers shoulder on one walk. Our German Shepard actually ran away from home to grab rubbish to eat. Running away from home was such a common thing among our pets that our gates had double and triple locking mechanisms - kalapani (or Alcatraz) for our pets!

That was all in the past. Then I moved out, got married and started living in an apartment. Having seen the circus that these pets turned our house into, I did not think I was ready for a pet, when I was starting a new life with my partner. But, the thing is, you are either a pet person or you are not. And if you are a pet person, you will get one...sooner or later. So, I promptly got my adorable, reverse brindle, dark boxer puppy - Nishi. She changed our lives and I will be ever grateful for her being in our lives.

But, more importantly, she taught me that having a pet does not end with just buying a fancy collar or finding a groomer who will make your pet smell like a meadow. It is about having a conscious philosophy on pets. Nishi is neither the first pet I have had nor will she be the last one I will. But I know that she is the one who got me thinking about various aspects of owning a pet and for that reason, this blog is "Nishi Diaries".

After getting Nishi home, I have read more, watched more, heard more and learned more about dog training. Experts from the US, Canada, Europe and "experts" from India who have "foreign training". I have come across several fascinating insights into canine behaviour and even human behaviour around canines. I have covered books that are old classics to cult classics like Monks of New Skete. From the controversial Culture Clash to the hugely popular Clicker Training books by Karen Pryor. I am also hugely inspired by Turid Ragaas, the European trainer who thinks that Americans expect too much of their doggies and seems to have a tolerant approach towards training. And not to omit the latest trend - Ceaser Milan. At one point, I even considered going to Cambridge to get some formal training. But it soon dawned on me that to be a good dog training, I need to train, not as much the dogs, but their owners. At this point I abandoned any notion of being a dog trainer and returned to software :)

Going through all of these, I realized that, while there is some sound advice here, none of them look at the special needs of India. Training suggestions that work like a charm in other parts of the world fall flat on their face when in India. For example, not one of them talks about handling stray dogs. In fact, I even got in touch with these trainers to help me. They find it hard to even comprehend the Indian scene, let along give you solutions.

So...it is no doubt going to be one long learning process. One in which, I hope to minimize my mistakes for Nishi's sake. And I realize that all of my dog owning friends are in the exact same boat. So why not share our learning? Perhaps some critical mistakes can be avoided? In this blog I will try to focus on my experience, my learning, the advice I have got and highlight the bad advice, the interesting advice and the good ones and some tips and tricks I picked up along the way. I am on a wonderful journey with my Nishi and I would not trade it for anything else in the world. I hope your journey is just as beautiful.