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Where does the “time” go??

Friday, July 16th, 2010

This is another post in a series about what is “bad” about owning dogs

Of course, this isn’t truly a “bad dog” issue, it’s about people’s expectations. In full disclosure, I am planning a single breeding from my dogs, but I cannot do so lightly, having recently seen so many dogs in rescue situations. Thus I feel it’s my duty to harp on all the bad things that may happen just to be sure that anyone who gets through this gauntlet of warnings will truly be motivated to “be in it for the long haul” which is what this rather depressing series is about. I’ll offset it with more positive posts shortly. Hang in there. :)

Now, as this is a Boerboel site, arguably the issues with Boerboels will be a bit different mostly because there’s a non-trivial cost involved: People might tend to pay a bit more for the dogs because breeders are paying a bit more for hip certifications, importing, etc. so the buyer is maybe taking a little bit more time in considering how much time and commitment they honestly have. I know I have had that “whoa, okay, this is something I better be pretty sure about…” conversation upon calculating the price (I’ll write some more on the Boerboel specific issues when I wrap up that other article.)

Anyway, over and over again I see people giving up dogs because they “don’t have the time they deserve”. Here are some notes from a few random classified ads found this morning:

I have to sell [my Doberman puppy] only because my family does not have the time for her anymore, or i would never give her up.

And…

We are having to place our purebred English Bulldog in a new home. She is loving, affectionate and great with kids. She has been fully vaccinated and fixed. We just don’t have time to give her the time and attention she needs due to our crazy schedules.

And…

hi i am selling my female american bulldog, i just dont have enough time to train her or watch her like i need to shes a awsome dog well behaved she gets along very well with other dogs

And…

advertised as "free to good home"

Dont have time for her [yellow lab] any more. Her name is Tia.
Free to a good home.

My question is, are these people really being honest? Is time really the issue here?

If “time” is not really the issue, what else could be? I have been through some pretty annoying dog habits, so here are some alternatives I could see being possible issues that are not being voiced directly. I would assume that if they were part of the reason they may be “hidden” from the advertisement because they don’t want to wreck the “sale”:

1) Cost (not expecting some chronic vet expenses? cost of boarding?)

2) Behavior (totally wrong assumptions about what a dog does when you’re either there, or away? Did the owner assume the dog would sit on the deck all day beside your chair, like out of a Norman Rockwell scene?)

3) Soiling, etc. (is it just that people are working too long a shift, and come home after twelve hours to find carpets soiled, etc.?)

4) Destruction (not set up for surviving the entertainingly challenging “puppy years”? Bladder/bowel control issues compared to time away from home, which leads to anxiety?)

5) One spouse/family member, etc. not as accepting as the other of the commitment (sometimes one person is 100% committed to have a dog in the family “until death do us part” yet a spouse may be willing to jettison the dog at the first chewed shoe.)

I sort of expect that the “we don’t have time” is often a cover for some of the above, however, I still do think time is an issue. So, let’s look at what time does a dog take, and when?

First off, I think time becomes a massive problem in the puppy months, of course, but at that time the dog is new, cute, and the cost is still fresh in our mind. We are eager to go to those puppy classes, the chewed shoe is still cute, the “didn’t sleep because of the pup” is still a funny story for the coworkers.

Hopefully, up until the doggy “teen years” (8-20 months or so) — and even through — these months, you are going to training classes. This would be great for learning training, but it’s also a relatively safe place for socialization, and frankly for some group therapy: It’s great to hear someone else’s horror stories. Misery loves company… or something. :)

It’s usually not until around 8-14months when the “free to good home” ads start up.

At this point, I have a hypothesis. I think there’s a bit of a behavior thing that goes on, and people realize that they should have been spending more time training instead of watching Lost or playing World of Warcraft or whatever. This leads to thoughts and discussions of a “Can we do this? Are we up for this?” flavour. I suspect at this time, people decide they are not ‘up for it’, they made a big mistake. They want out. They’d rather be watching Lost instead of going to puppy classes after all.

The unfortunate thing is that IF you can get through the “teen years” with your dog (the 8-20 months or so) things tend to calm down into a better routine. The trick is getting through there with enough structure that the other end is a tolerable routine, not a convoluted “work my life around my dog’s quirks” thing.

If you haven’t been up on all the training, etc. you’re still in luck: You can teach old dogs new tricks, and dogs at this age are still pretty malleable. I’d suggest a training class, unless they’re totally anti-social, in which case I’d suggest more of a one-on-one setup with a trainer.

Also, in the time category, there’s exercise. This is also not so compatible with TV and WOW. If at all possible, it’s worth taking dogs for good exercise workouts once a day. Before work is great, as it burns off energy, gets you and the dog in a good headspace, and gets the bowels moving so you have no surprises later in the day. Sadly, sometimes that daily run or walk isn’t possible. If it’s never possible, and you find you’re just opening a door so a dog can pee then it’s all over, you probably shouldn’t have gotten a dog (unless you can drop them off at doggy daycare during the day.) Not that if you don’t have a dog yet and would like to get one to force you to start an exercise regime, be honest with yourself: Will you really be going for runs with the dog, or is that just a fantasy like the “I’m going to join a gym in January” or “I’m going to quit smoking” or any of the other resolutions that you have made and broken?

Finally, there’s… time. It’s sort of common with parenting now to discuss the difference between quality time and quantity time. The thing in the 90′s was to spend very little time with your kids, but to do so intensely. You’d book an appointment with Johnny and go do two hours of rock climbing, or fishing, or whatever. But then you don’t see him again until the next ‘appointment’, but it’s such great quality time that you must be a good parent! I think now people are realizing that you’re a role model for the other, boring stuff. The trudging to the grocery store, waiting for an oil change, fixing the fence, reading at home, sitting in the yard and talking about nothing important. I believe there’s a good parallel here, in that most dogs really gain a lot out of this sort of time with The People in their lives, and if that can be maximized by taking them along to work or wherever, it doesn’t matter, just spend time if you can. I recently took a dog on a vacation that ended up being so much more memorable thanks to having the dog hanging out in crazy places (up on 8000′ mountains waiting for the kids to come in from the ski slopes, in the back of MGM Grand in Vegas, sneaked into hotels, etc. etc. :) )

I guess the point is, dogs take a hell of a lot more time than you expect, especially in the first year or two. Know this before you buy one, really think about it ahead of time so that you don’t end up putting your pup on some classified ad a year from now.

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Dogs will be Dogs — Part 1

Thursday, September 3rd, 2009

[Legal speak: This is just my opinion. Don't use it without using your brain. -- I discuss some pretty hairy concepts here of dog interaction, and while it works for me, it may not for you. Some dogs will always be a problem with each other, and this will NEVER work with them. Know your dogs. Also, accidents happen, and are more likely to happen with unfamiliar and younger dogs, but not eliminated even when dogs are totally "cool" with each other. Risks aplenty, don't even read on if you are not willing to take responsibilities for your own actions.]

I stumbled on this article while researching another upcoming installment of my “Dogs will be Dogs” post, and thought I’d mention this first.
Some researchers suggest eliminating challenges to reduce aggression:

“Treatment of inter-dog aggression with normal dogs that are fighting is easily achieved by establishing “hierarchy”. The dog that is physically most likely to win will be fed, walked, or given attention first. If the fighting only occurs over special food items or toys, these triggers can simply be removed from the environment.”

I actually find myself disagreeing with rather a lot of the above (the whole dominance/hierarchy myth is another topic entirely and is pretty embarrassing in a document dated 2007, IMHO, but I’ll ignore that for now). Note that I suspect that it would partly work, especially the removal of the “offending toy”. It’s like seeing your child attempt to ride a bike. If you stop them, “Whoa there, son! What are you thinking? Let’s just put that crazy thing somewhere safe. There we go.” they will not get hurt. Remove the bicycle. Done. Problem solved. But, wouldn’t you rather see your child learn the SKILL of riding? Learn that falls do happen, but they are not the “end of the world”? With dogs, especially dogs that are bred to be intelligent enough to make judgment calls, shouldn’t we be considering the teaching of social skills to be just as important as “doing what you’re told”?

We have in fairly recent history gotten into the habit of exerting so much control on our dogs’ world, that it’s almost at the point that they are hardly even able to remember what it is like to be a dog. This actually can be handy for non-working breed dogs that are not bred to have judgment as part of the breed goal, but for a Boerboel, it’s sort of wasting a lot of grey matter, IMHO.

Here is an alternative strategy: Just last night after feeding, I gave a single bone to one of the dogs in isolation (he is a V rated Schutzhund (SchH) 3 GSD who has tons of extra energy, and he gets a few extra perks for that sometimes) and once he had taken a good amount of the meat off of it, I allowed all the dogs to be together, with the one (still meaty) bone. One of these dogs is new and still learning to deal with SchH-guy as she doesn’t really like him, but LOVES food items. This can only be described a challenge for all the dogs. Who gets the bone?

Before I go on, a whole LOT of caveats:

  1. This is not something to try if you’re a passive person, if you’re not able to control your dogs or break up a ‘real’ fight if one escalates to that level.
  2. I’m not a “dog whisperer” just some guy on the internet with an opinion, so make sure it matches with your opinions.
  3. This is not a “Dogs 101″ lesson. I’m doing this as a more advanced lesson, after already letting them stress over space issues (sharing a space in the yard, then advancing to the house, then a couch, then the tight space of a car, etc. etc.) and while I’m pretending to ignore them, I will not leave them unattended while they work through this. As I mentioned, some of the dogs are new, but they have been worked through “getting along” exercises for two months before I deemed them ready for this.
  4. These are relatively intelligent, stable working dogs, Boerboels and GSDs, with known pedigrees and basic manners. They have been bred to make judgment calls.
  5. We have already set down rules, and I spent over two months ensuring they all know them. Rule one is “we do not eat our friends” as we jokingly call it: We don’t fight if at all possible, unless they have been provoked, and even then, only correct others within reason (more on symbolic fighting another time)
  6. You probably don’t want to do this sort of food based challenge regularly, or when they are hungry. I did this after a feeding, and typically it’s best to have more bones than dogs, so that it appears to be an endless fountain of bones out there, a well of yummy calcium and gristle that will never run dry, as this will desensitize them to the NEED to protect over them.
  7. Reduce variables. Don’t do this when the cable guy is over to wire up the new TV, or when the kids are having a sleep over and having a pillow fight. :P

On the point #5, above, if my one Shep decides to bite the other just because he’s chasing a stick (that — the “bite the running GSD” — seems a popular game here, for some reason) the one who was running is totally within his rights to say “stop that!” with a symbolic fight (which tends to leave the biter on his back saying “uncle!”)

So what happens with the bone? There is a lot of really tense negotiations over it. One dog will leave it on the ground, possibly because he or she is done with it, possibly because they can’t stand the pressure of the others watching (this actually reminds me of what it’s like for me when I take a drink from a busy fountain on a hot day. Your “empathy sense” will make you either say “screw those behind me in line” or “ya, well, I guess I can come back in a bit and get in line again”.)

Describing this sort of setup to a more traditional “Dominance” based trainer will raise their hackles (so to speak :) ). I have discussed this to a long term show breeder and he says simply “I don’t tolerate that.” While I see his point, that’s not exactly the skill sets and judgments that I am striving to achieve here, but I do believe that truly “working your dog” via Schutzhund, etc. will also teach some of these framework skills, at least as far as judgment goes.

Eventually the bone have been passed from one to the other all evening, and once the Boerboel bitch is sure it has been stripped of every scrap of sustenance, it sits unattended in the corner while all the dogs sleep together.

Anyway, if you do allow your dogs to discuss things like bones, expect a bit of growling. With more socially aware dogs, growls are just a tool, a part of the language. I sort of imagine it like those crabs in Finding Nemo who look at each other saying “Hey!” a lot. :P Really, it’s communication, and fundamentally it’s fine — in moderation. If they are not getting along, then I prefer if they would just time themselves out. Once the dogs get comfortable with each other, they sort of hone listening skills and can tell the fun little playful “my bone” growls, to the more serious “if you come any closer I swear to god I will flatten you and those you love!” sort of growls. It’s actually quite fascinating.

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