When dogs first come to the Potsdam Animal Shelter, they typically spend about three weeks in the intake wing for assessment and essential care. Gils, a two-year-old who arrived at PHS the second week of November, spent two months there. Why that long? Here’s the description of Gils on the shelter’s Facebook page,
“Gils came to us underweight, starving and with an understandable mistrust of the creatures known as humans.”
He needed the extra time to get used to the idea that people can bring good things into his life. The staff mentioned him as a dog I might like to work with. Given Gils’ rough start, the plan was that I’d meet him with a staff member along.
I suppose this is where I’m supposed to build suspense about that first visit. But given Gils’ sad start, I’ll jump right to the good news. Check out this video of Gils in the Annex. to see for yourself how far he has come. Then check out the photos below.
Bu that’s not the vibe Gils was giving off when I first saw him. His adoption kennel is right next to Teddy’s, one of the two dogs I usually visit these days. Here’s a reminder of who Teddy is –
At first, whenever I’d stop at Teddy’s kennel, Gils would bark wildly as though he were trying to scare me away. If you don’t recognize this behavior as possibly a coping strategy for dealing with stress, it can be a very convincing show of ferocity. But I ignored the show, and he soon learned that when I stood in front of his kennel and asked him to ‘sit,’ I’d give him a treat when he sat. He was still barking some, but the serious tail wagging when I turned my attention to him was a give-away that he was learning I could be trusted. (And I don’t mean the slow wag that can signal anything from “Hi,” to “Mmmm, what’s this person up to, maybe I’ll bite them.” I mean the kind of tail wag that’s got the velocity of windshield wipers set on high).
This week I got my chance to do more than talk to Gils from the other side of his kennel door. I happened to come in with Teddy at the moment a staff member discovered Gils’ kennel had just turned into a poopy mess. I offered to take Gils outside to make clean-up easier, and she got him out of the kennel and we did a hand-off. Gils was happy to go with me; I was happy to discover that although he was a puller when it came to leash behavior, he wasn’t too powerful for me. We headed for the Annex where play and good times commenced.
Gils has lots of personality and with all that extra skin he sometimes has the look of a plush toy dog.
When I started volunteering at the shelter, I had some early success in training dogs in the basic cues that would help them be more adaptable in a home environment and therefore more adoptable: sit, down, wait, leave it, look, touch. I could teach them to take treats gently and to greet me without jumping up. I knew how to do that from the obedience and agility classes I completed with my dog, Gudgeon. But I also needed reminders that would help me fine-tune my training, and I needed new information that would help me advance it.
For online inspiration, I turn to Victoria Stillwater, a high-profile trainer whose popular “It’s Me or the Dog” television episodes condense the path to great results into what she acknowledges are deceptively short time frames. Still, for a dose of cheer leading and excellent basic guidelines to dog training, the show works. Her website offers a greatly expanded window onto the wisdom she has to offer.
But when I have a training issue to puzzle over and want the step-by-step-by-step path to great results, I look to the McCann Dogs website.
Of course, both of these links will lead you to ample opportunities to spend your money – but there are also many, many free videos that you can easily access online. Here’s a link to free videos by McCann: McCann Videos.
And here’s a link to information from McCann that promises to teach you simple exercises to teach your dog manners: McCann’s Simple Exercises to Teach Your Dog
Or, if you are looking for advice on early steps with a puppy, you might want to check out this link: McCann’s Easy Steps to Teach Your Pup Not to Jump Up
I’ve visited with several dogs at the shelter who’ve made progress in their behavior and/or in reducing the level of stress they experience. For some of them, like Belle, Cedric, Dorito, Donnie, Mowgli, and Teddy, I think it’s fair to say they made progress in part because of the time I spent with them. That’s not because the conditions are ideal or because I have any training secrets up my sleeve. I just work on my training skills and try to offer the dogs positive guidance to better behavior. I also work to fit in some quiet, loving time to help them feel more secure.
I love dogs, but believe me, nothing I do besides offer affection comes naturally. When I encounter a behavior that stumps me, I scour my books and the Internet for ideas on how to improve my training.
Any willing person can make a real difference in the life of shelter dogs. (Or cats, if you’re a cat person.) If you think this kind of volunteering might be for you, I hope you’ll contact your local shelter and give it a try. And if you have a dog and aren’t sure how to deal with a behavior or move beyond teaching them “sit,” I hope you give those free videos a try. And, of course, I’ll be glad to hear about your experiences with training and to get your recommendations for the training resources you’ve tried.
Eudora Watson 