Rambunctious Teenagers

By Sindhoor Pangal, Bangalore Mirror Bureau | Jan 26, 2015, 09.37 PM IST

The most common case I encounter at work is of juvenile hyper big dogs. Many pet parents are ill-equipped with information. So they struggle with the dog. Some abandon dogs. Some endure till the dog becomes mature and calmer. Some dogs may never get there. Pet parents even start to resent the dog. It's all very unfortunate because all it takes is some minor changes to lifestyle and attitude to fix these issues, as long as the health of the dog is good.

Most pet parents are ill-informed that if a dog is hyper, then the right thing to do is to tire the dog out. So they walk the dog endlessly on stressful walks and play fetch countless times. But all of this does not calm down a dog. It only stresses a dog further. So the stressed dog acts more hyper at the end of the walk. So parents walk their dogs more and play fetch more. Thus they are stuck in a dreadful loop. Break the loop. Stop all the things that stress the dog out for a few weeks. Stop tug, fetch, long walks, runs and other activities that make the dog more hyper.

The second thing to do is to start giving the dog better outlets for his energy. Dogs are chewers by nature. Give your dog plenty of things to chew. A few old toys will not cut it. Get creative. A coconut on one day. A twig on another. The branches of coconut trees that vendors just toss aside. These make for great new interesting objects. Bones, chicken feet, raw hide should be a must in a canine household and should be available to the dog in plenty and then some more.

When you have a dog, you have essentially signed up for a lifestyle that will not allow the most clean of houses. The house being littered by toys and chews is a common sight and dogs do need that. Look around your room and see it from your dog's perspective. Everything is off bounds to the dog. The house could be empty for all he cares. Don't you think that among all your things, he is entitled to a few things of his own. After all, it's his home too now, right?

Dogs also need outlets for their minds, not just physical exercise. The best way to exercise a dog's mind is to exercise his nose. Treat search, where he has to use his nose, is the easiest way to do this. If your dog is not searching for treats, then the treats are perhaps not tempting enough. Try sausages or paneer cut up into tiny bits, the size of your little fingernail. A few short sessions a day should do. If your dog is on a kibble diet, you can strew his meal around too, instead of serving it in a bowl. Multi-dog households can also manage this very easily. As the treats are scattered wide, dogs focus on getting the treats and don't fight. But remember to use an entire room or even the entire house. Lawn is the best.

Shorten walks to tolerable durations. Don't stress yourself out. Switch to a long leash and walk during odd hours where you are unlikely to encounter too many dogs or people. Slow down your walk to a snail's pace and allow your dog to sniff. Get some help if you have to. But get your dog walking calm. This is completely worth investing some time and patience in.

As all the hormones that made him hyper in the first place start draining from him, you will see less of destruction, pulling, jumping, chewing etc. Until then, refrain from yelling at him too much. He is already very stressed. He does not need more. A hyper dog needs help in calming down. So focus entirely on things that calm your dog down. You will start seeing results in a few weeks. And teenagers will calm down around the age of two. Give them time, space and peace until then.

Day 1 of pet parenting

Bangalore Mirror 20th Jan 2015

I recently hand held a friend through an entire adoption process and it was fascinating for me to face the kind of questions he had. First time dog parents have questions that are such a unique perspective on pet parenting. Day 1 of pet parenting can be overwhelming. So here are some tips.

If you are heading out in an automobile to get your new pet, take newspapers, towels and a few old sheets. The dog may get motion sickness. Let the people caring for your dog you what time you are going and ask them not to feed the dog at least an hour before the ride.

If you know what dog or pup you are getting, then you can make a visit to the pet shop for supplies, before getting the dog or pup. If you are adopting and don’t know what dog you are going to return with then you have to visit a pet shop close to home or to the shelter. Keep the car ride back home as short and smooth as possible.

When shopping for supplies, at the pet shop, make sure you add the following items to your shopping cart – a soft collar, a name tag, a good harness for walks, a long leash at least 8ft long, a big bag of food that you have researched to be the best for your dog, a soft rubber brush for a soft coat dog, a slicker brush for a long coat dog, at least one bed and one blanket, at least two bowls, poop bags, toys, chews and treats. You might need some deworming medicines if you are taking a dog or pup home from a muddy holding area.

When getting your dog, don’t forget to collect your dog’s health and vaccination card. Once you have your dog, find a vet close by and make an appointment to see the vet a day or two after arrival. You can also make an appointment with a good groomer who will handle your dog with care. But don’t make that visit to the vet or groomer on day 1. Day 1 is meant to just settle in.

Once home, walk the dog for about five minutes on the long leash in a quiet street. After the long car ride, the dog may want to stretch his legs and relieve himself. Once indoors, put out water, food, newspapers for the dog to pee on, the bed, a few chews and toys on the bed. After the dog eats walk the dog for another five minutes and then let the dog settle down. Your dog may take a day or two to settle. That’s perfectly normal.

Puppies might wake up several times the first night. Be prepared to lose a few night’s of sleep. Dogs, especially puppies need company at night. Do not leave them alone. Put their bed near your bed and let them sleep where they can see you or some person. During the day, put some soft blankets or carpets out near places that you spend time. Ex: outside the kitchen, near the TV, near the desktop etc.
An interesting question I was asked was if the dog’s name can be changed after adoption. Yes. It’s easy to teach name recall. Pick a name you think best represents your dog. Use the name in a soft loving tone. Everytime the dog looks at you when you use the name, praise or treat the dog. The more positive situations you use the name in, the better the name recall.

Do not play fetch with your dog. Instead do some treat search, where your dog can use his nose to sniff out some treats. Do not attempt to pet your new dog. Let him come to you when he is ready. Be as calm around him as possible and plan for as little activity as possible on arrival day. The calmer the arrival day, the better the dog settles in. This is a cheer to all first time pet parents opting to adopt. Cheers!

Why Punishments don't work

By Sindhoor Pangal, Bangalore Mirror Bureau | Jan 12, 2015, 08.23 PM IST

Of late, a few people have been asking me questions about punishing dogs. I'm touched by their honesty on the matter. Many of us cringe at the thought that we punish our dogs. So, we sometimes slip into denial about punishments. This is perhaps because of the ethical issue that surrounds punishments. While, ethically, I don't subscribe to the idea of punishments, today, I want to put that aspect aside and look at punishments from another aspect. I argue that punishments are poor training tools that backfire often and hence should be avoided in behaviour modification, training and the everyday life of a dog.

Let's look at this issue objectively. Punishments are defined as infliction or imposition of a penalty - "Infliction of pain, or infliction of fear".That means that understanding the effect of punishments on dogs will be relevant even if you yell out "NO" at a dog when you perceive a dog's behaviour as naughty  or come back home to a mess and stand hovering over a dog and say in a low threatening voice, "Who has been a bad boy? Huh?"

Now, I am not suggesting that one does not reprimand a dog at all. I certainly hope people will try to get there consciously. I am purely focusing on discussing the downside of punishments. Once aware of it, I believe a loving pet parent always knows how to do right by their dogs.

Talking of punishments, one of the first things to remember is that the timing has to be precise. If not, it's easy to get a dog to believe he is being punished for some other action all together. For example, if a pet parent came home to find that their dog has pooped, punishing him can lead the dog to believe that he is being punished for leaving poop behind; and he may pick up the habit of eating it. No evidence, no punishment! Now, one might have inadvertently punished a dog, without meaning to do so, by walking in on the mess and letting out a cry and saying, "What did you do Buster? You have really messed up! You dirty dog!" 

Another example is when walking on a collar/choke chain and leash. When a dog sees another dog and we pull on the leash, the collar/choke can hurt the neck and the dog associates the pain with the other dog. So he starts expecting punishment and pain when he sees another dog and decides to react before the pain starts. So he gets aggressive.

The other problem with punishments is that we tell the dog what not to do, but not what to do. So a dog who is trying to get your attention by barking at you, if punished, may resort to mouthing or jumping as an alternative behaviour to barking. The problem with punishing him is that we have not really taught him how to ask for attention.

Punishments are also dangerous to the punishers themselves. Irrespective of whether we realise it or not, punishments cause us to punish more and more. If our punishment has the effect we expect, we get positive reinforcement from it and continue to punish more and more frequently. If it does not have the effect we expect, we start to escalate punishment. It goes up from a verbal punishment to a time out to a light tap to a smack to a slap to a hit to a beating. It requires some serious effort on our part to catch ourselves in time and reverse. The problem with this escalation is that at the end of it all, the relationship is entirely ruined, unpleasant and we might not like what we have become. Just having a dog turns to be very stressful, instead of the loving relationship it can be.

So, you see it's not just an ethical issue. It's really a practical issue and an issue of our well being to seek methods to communicate with our dog that does not involve punishments. Punishments in every form harm the recipient and the punisher.

Letting that love in

By Sindhoor Pangal, Bangalore Mirror Bureau | Jan 5, 2015, 10.56 PM IST

Happy New Year to all my readers. This year, I wish that each of you experiences love in its purest form. Each person will find that love from as unique a source as the person himself or herself. For us, it has been our dogs. The beauty of love is that our heart knows how to accept love in any means given to us. Is it not fascinating?

Dogs don't speak English or Hindi or Kannada or French. Yet they seem to tell us easily that they love us. For the skeptics, I offer a simple test. Let's start with a small test. Take a dog showered with love, change his diet to a veg diet. Dumpsters are now better sources of protein for a dog. The food you offer is lower grade. Now, will your dog, that you love so much, choose to live with you or turn into a street dog. The answer always is YOU! So if you are a skeptic, just get this into your head already...dogs do experience love and that unjudging, unconditional love is all in your name and your name alone.
See what it feels like to be loved like that. But to do that, you have to first accept your dog as an equal citizen of the world. As important as you are in the grand scheme of things. A dog's emotional contribution to you should in no way feel less validating than the emotional contribution of a person. Love is love, remember!
Now when you have let go of the skepticism and the prejudice of gradation of love, there appears a fascinating love in all its slobbery glory, tail furiously wagging, fur flying all over the room. A being whose highlight of his entire day, regardless of his basic needs, is that you have come home. No matter how bad a day is, no matter how bad you messed your day at home and work, irrespective of how low you feel about yourself, you know there is one strong-willed animal/person saying "Nothing but love matters. That's why I love you.

That's why you will love me. And that's why it works". After this profound thought, you wonder who is the animal and who is the person.
You walk in that door and there is that profound message delivered with a punch. Could you ask for more. This message is literally being beaten into you each day. So how are you a skeptic?
So shall we look at this more scientifically. Broad strokes, of course. Wolves chose to walk away from us. Some wolves stayed behind and decided to build on their PR skills with humans. This group called itself the "Cool Dawgz" (joking. They just called it dogs). Then they became better and better at building and managing relationships with us. And thus here they are. Dogs have years and years of experience in making us feel great about ourselves from one of the finest universities - University of Evolution. And their thousands of years of training has taught them that the best ways to set up a great relationship with us is to fall madly, deeply and truly in love with us. So they kept that part of the brain and experience love just the way we do. That's what dogs do best - fall in love with people.
So Mr Skeptic, believe it or know, the next time you feel no one likes you, you are factually wrong, if you have a dog. But for this time of the year, I wish for you Mr Skeptic and to everyone else around there, a year full of healthy loved ones to lean on and forge forward.

And for those who chose to add dogs to their family, I assure you they have been shaped by thousands, if not tens of thousands, of years to be masters of giving us love and reassurance. Enrich your own lives by letting that love in.