Dr. Ian Dunbar — San Francisco
Adolescent Dogs

Friday 19th – Sunday 21st March 2010

$270 3-Day Registration
$145 Single Day (on a space-available basis)  Call 1 800 784 5531 for information
Lunch is not included

This seminar has been approved for 18 CEUs

DoubleTree Hotel San Francisco Airport
835 Airport Boulevard, Burlingame CA 94010

Friday (9:30am–5:00pm): Biting — Dog-Human Aggression
Saturday (9:30am–5:00pm): Fighting — Dog-Dog Aggression
Sunday (9:30am–5:00pm): Behavior & Training Problems


Friday: Biting — Dog-Human Aggression

Three Measures to Prevent Dog Bites
1. Teach dogs to enjoy the presence, actions, and antics of all people, first the family and then friends and strangers, especially children and men. Adult dogs tend to feel most uneasy around children and men, especially around little boys. A dog’s antipathy toward children and men is more likely to develop if the puppy grows up with few or no children or men around, and if the puppy’s social contacts with children and men have been unpleasant or scary.
2. Teach dogs to enjoy being hugged and handled (restrained and examined) by people, especially by children, veterinarians, and groomers. Specifically, teach dogs to enjoy being touched and handled in a variety of “hot spots,” namely, around its collar, ears, paws, muzzle, tail, and rear end.
3. Teach dogs to enjoy giving up valued objects when requested, especially its food bowl, bones, balls, chewtoys, garbage, and paper tissues.

Bite Inhibition — To Prevent Damage From Dog Bites
Puppies bite — and thank goodness they do. Puppy biting is a normal, natural, and necessary puppy behavior. Puppy play-biting is the means by which dogs develop bite inhibition and a soft mouth. The more your puppy bites and receives appropriate feedback, the safer its jaws will be in adulthood. It is the puppy which does not mouth and bite as a youngster whose adult bites are more likely to cause serious damage.

The puppy’s penchant for biting results in numerous play-bites. Although its needle-sharp teeth make them painful, its weak jaws seldom cause serious harm. The developing puppy should learn that its bites can hurt long before it develops jaws strong enough to inflict injury. The greater the pup’s opportunity to play-bite with people, other dogs, and other animals, the better its bite inhibition will be as an adult. For puppies that do not grow up with the benefit of regular interaction with other dogs and other animals, the responsibility of teaching bite-inhibition lies with the owner.

After all the above puppy socialization and handling exercises, your dog will be unlikely to want to bite — because it likes people. However, should your dog snap or bite because it has been frightened or hurt, one hopes that it causes little if any damage because it developed good bite inhibition during puppyhood. Whereas it is difficult to socialize a dog and prepare it for every potentially scary eventuality, it is easy to ensure that as a puppy it develops reliable bite inhibition.

Even when provoked to bite, a dog with well established bite inhibition seldom breaks the skin. As long as a dog’s bite causes little or no damage, behavioral rehabilitation is comparatively easy. But when, as an adult, your dog inflicts deep puncture wounds, rehabilitation is much more complicated, time-consuming, and potentially dangerous.
Without a doubt, good bite inhibition is the single most important quality of any companion dog. Moreover, a dog must develop bite inhibition during puppyhood, before it is four and a half months old.

Topics Include:
Misleading breed biting statistics and unrepresentative and sensational media coverage.
Hypothetical and practical behavioral models for the causes of dog bites, including instincts, drives, traits, interactive traits, situational behavior, subliminal bite stimuli, superstitious bite stimuli, and provocation.
Behavior vs. Temperament
Reasons why dogs bite
The relative danger of four types of dog based on whether or not they are socialized and whether or not they have well-developed bite-inhibition
Four stages of bite-inhibition training during early development
Easy and effective methods for prevention and treatment
Assessment of the severity of biting problems based on an objective evaluation of wound pathology:
1. Obnoxious or aggressive behavior but no skin-contact by teeth.
2. Skin-contact by teeth but no skin-puncture. However, may be skin nicks (less than one tenth of an inch deep) and slight bleeding caused by forward or lateral movement of teeth against skin, but no vertical punctures.
3. One to four punctures from a single bite with no puncture deeper than half the length of the dog’s canine teeth. Maybe lacerations in a single direction, caused by victim pulling hand away, owner pulling dog away, or gravity (little dog jumps, bites and drops to floor)
4. One to four punctures from a single bite with at least one puncture deeper than half the length of the dog’s canine teeth. May also have deep bruising around the wound (dog held on for x seconds and bore down) or lacerations in both directions (dog held on and shook its head from side to side)
5. Multiple-bite incident with at least two Level 4 bites
6. Victim dead

The above list concerns unpleasant behavior and so, to add perspective:
1. Levels 1 & 2 comprise well over 99% of dog incidents, and
Each year in the United States, approximately 20 people are killed by dogs, half of them are children.
However, each year in the United States, approximately 2000 children are killed by their parents!



Saturday: Fighting — Dog-Dog Aggression
Dog-dog socialization also deteriorates during adolescence, often at an alarming rate, especially for very small and very large dogs. First, teaching a dog to get along with every other dog is difficult. Groups of wild canids (wolves, coyotes, jackals, etc.) seldom welcome strangers into their midst, but that’s exactly what we expect of domestic dogs. Second, it is unrealistic to expect a dog to be best friends with every dog. Much like people, dogs have special friends, casual acquaintances, and individuals they don’t particularly like. Third, it is quite natural for dogs (especially males) to squabble. In fact, it is a rare male dog that has never been involved in a physical altercation at some time in his life. Everything was fine with young pups playing in class and in parks, but with adolescent dogs, the scraps, the arguments, and even the play-fighting seem all too real.

A dog’s first adolescent fight often marks the beginning of the end of its socialization with other dogs. This is especially true for very small and very large dogs. Owners of small dogs are understandably concerned about their dog’s safety and may be disinclined to allow their dogs to run with the big dogs. Here is where socialization starts to go down hill and the small dog becomes increasingly snappy and scrappy. Similarly, owners of large dogs (especially the working breeds) are understandably concerned that their dogs might hurt smaller dogs. Here too socialization goes downhill and the big dog becomes increasingly snappy and scrappy. Now we’re in vicious circle: the less the dog is socialized, the more likely it is to fight and thus be less socialized.

“He fights all the time! He’s trying to kill other dogs!”
The fury and noise of a dogfight can be quite scary for onlookers, especially the dogs’ owners. In fact, nothing upsets owners more than a dogfight. Consequently, owners must strive to be objective when assessing the seriousness of a dogfight. Otherwise, a single dogfight can put an end to their dogs’ socialization. In most cases, a dogfight is highly stereotyped, controlled, and relatively safe. With appropriate feedback from the owner, the prognosis for resolution is good. On the other hand, irrational and/or emotional feedback, besides being upsetting for the owner, can exacerbate the problem for the dog.

It is extremely common for dogs, especially adolescent males, to posture, stare, growl, snarl, snap, and maybe fight. This is not “bad dog” behavior, but rather reflects what dogs normally do. Dogs do not write letters of complaint or call their lawyers. Growling and fighting, however, almost always reflects an underlying lack of confidence, characteristic of male adolescence. Given time and continued socialization, adolescent dogs normally develop confidence and no longer feel the need to continually prove themselves. To have the confidence to continue socializing a dog that has instigated a fight, the owner must convince herself that her “fighting dog” is not dangerous. A dog may be obnoxious and a royal pain, but this does not mean it would hurt another dog. Whereas growling and fighting are normal developmental behaviors, causing harm to other dogs is not.

First, you need to ascertain the severity of the problem. Second, you need to make sure you react appropriately when your dog fights. And third, you need to give appropriate feedback when it doesn’t.

Fight-Bite Ratio — to ascertain whether or not fighting is dangerous.
1. How many times has your dog been involved in a fight? and
2. How many fights resulted in the other dog being taken to the veterinarian?
Ten-to-Zero is a common Bite-Fight Ratio for a one- to two-year-old male dog, that is, ten full-contact fights with opponents taking zero trips to the vet. We do not have a serious problem here. Obviously the dog is not “trying to kill” the other dog, since it hasn’t caused any injury in ten fights. The dog would have caused damage if it had meant to. Moreover, on each occasion, the dog adhered to the Marquis of Dogsberry Fighting Rules by restricting bites to the other dog’s scruff, neck, head, and muzzle. Surely, there is no better proof of the effectiveness of bite inhibition than, when in a fighting frenzy, one dog grasps another by the soft part of its throat and yet no damage is done.

This is not a dangerous dog; it is merely obnoxious in the inimitable manner of male adolescents. Yes, the dog is a bit of a pain, but it has wonderful bite inhibition (established during puppyhood) and has never injured another dog. Solid evidence of reliable bite inhibition (ten fights with zero bites while adhering to fighting rules) makes it extremely unlikely that this dog will ever harm another dog.
Fights are bad news, but they usually provide good news! As long as your dog never harms another dog, each fight provides additional proof that your dog has reliable bite inhibition! Your dog may lack confidence and social grace, but at least its jaws are safe. It is not a dangerous dog. Consequently, resolution of the problem will be fairly simple. Of course, you still have an obnoxious dog in dire need of retraining, since your dog is annoying other dogs and owners just as much as it annoys you. Find a trainer who is running a specialized “Growl Class.”

On the other hand, if your dog has inflicted serious wounds to the limbs and abdomen of its opponents in a number of its fights, then you have a serious problem. This is a dangerous dog, since it has no bite inhibition. Obviously, the dog should be muzzled whenever on public property. The prognosis is poor, and treatment will be complicated, time-consuming, potentially dangerous, requiring expert help, and certainly with no guarantee of a positive outcome. No dog problem presents such a marked contrast between prevention and treatment.

An adult fighter with no bite inhibition is the very hardest dog to rehabilitate, but prevention in puppyhood is easy, effortless, and enjoyable: simply enroll your puppy in puppy classes and take it to the park on a regular basis.

Do not wait for your adolescent dog to get into a fight to let him know you don’t like it. Instead, make a habit of praising and rewarding your puppy every time it greets another dog in a friendly fashion. I know it may sound a little silly – praising your harmless, wiggly four-month-old male pup and offering a food treat every time it doesn’t fight – but it’s the best way to prevent fighting from becoming a serious problem.

Growl Classes
Trying to socialize fighting dogs in a regular obedience class is potentially dangerous, disruptive for all concerned and often makes matters worse for the poor dog, whose insecurity and irascibility are fueled by the tension of leashes and people. Instead, in a growl class, all the dogs have tricky temperaments (so the owners need not feel embarrassed) and all the dogs are muzzled (so the owners may feel more relaxed and the dogs may be allowed off-leash). Even so, do not have gross size-mismatches in the same class and do maintain common sense at all times – if you even think a dog is unduly stressed, or is being excessively bumped and bullied, remove it (or remove the bully) immediately. Remember, removing a single dog will alter the social dynamics of the entire group.

A growl class has differing objectives, depending on whether or not the dog has bite inhibition. It is wise not to mix both types of dog in a single class. Hence, the first item on the agenda is to assess the bite inhibition of individual participants. Lack of bite inhibition is quite obvious from injuries inflicted in a single fight (and usually, most owners know this already), whereas a history of many altercations with little or no damage is fair indication of good bite inhibition.

To be realistic, given the seriousness of past and potential injuries (and given the busy time schedules of most owners), most hard-biting dogs are unlikely ever be trusted around other dogs. Rather, the purpose of a growl class is for owners safely to practice controlling their dogs when other dogs are present. However, for soft-biters, which may be a bit growly but have never caused appreciable harm, the ultimate aims of a growl class are to rebuild confidence and re-socialize the dogs so that 1. they no longer feel threatened by each other and so 2. they have no need to growl or fight and therefore, 3. they may be reintegrated into domestic life once more.

Topics Include:
Development of social hierarchies — male/female and puppy/adult dyadic and group relationships.
Complexity of cooperative social structure—friendships, allegiances, and sharing.
The physical “dominance” myth
“Temperament” tests — reactivity vs. Danger; condemning occasional “bad” behavior vs. Objectively quantifying good behavior.
Friendly quotient — absolute count of friendly/appeasing behaviors per minute
Atmosphere cues
The purpose of play
The crucial importance of play-fighting and play-biting
Good and bad play groups
Fight:Bite Ratios to determine whether the dog is dangerous or not
Growl Classes — Classical conditioning and stimulus-blocking


Sunday: Behavior & Training Problems
Lure/Reward puppy training techniques are quick and easy, extremely effective, and a whole lot of fun. All goes well until the puppy collides with adolescence whereupon everything goes downhill — surprisingly precipitously. Adolescent dogs develop competing doggy interests and would much rather wander and sniff, or play with other dogs, than pay heed to their owners.

Common puppy behavior problems, such as housesoiling, destructive chewing and excessive barking increase in severity and frequency as the dog becomes stronger and more active. Activity increases to hyperactive levels, and jumping-up and pulling-on-leash are difficult to control. Separation anxiety becomes more prevalent and as adolescent dogs de-socialize, they become more fearful (and maybe aggressive) towards people and leash-reactive to other dogs. Much of adolescent training comprises preventing or resolving dog-dog and dog-human aggression.

Teaching adolescent and adult dogs and especially, resolving activity and temperament problems, requires specialized training techniques to achieve long-term reliability. Also, specific exercises are required to troubleshoot each of the four basic adolescent/adult noise-activity problems — hyperactivity, barking, jumping-up and pulling on-leash. By alternating a problem behavior with the specific desired behavior — Jazz-up/Settle Down, Woof/Shush, Hug/Sit and Pull/Walk — it is possible to re-channel the dogs’ exuberance into equally enthusiastic obedience. Alternating the two behaviors allows the once-problem behavior to be used as a reward for the desired response and the dog soon learns to enjoy sitting, settling, shushing and walking by your side.

Topics Include:
Jazz-up and settle down
Classical conditioning
All-or-none reward train good behavior
All-or-none reward train attention
All-or-none reward train sit-stay and walk on-leash
All-or-none reward train “off” and “take it”
Lure/reward position changes and distance commands
Proofing Stays
Lure/reward heel on-leash
Woof/ shush