Today marks week two with Wellington. It really does seem like she has been with us a lot longer.
This week has been harder than the first. When we brought Wellie home, we knew that we would have to work with training and pack leadership, but what neither of us knew was the emotional aspect of it all. This week has been a bit emotionally draining.
It is important to me to foster good relationships between all of the dogs. This is stressing me out a bit because I am really worried that doing things wrong at so early in the development of their interpersonal relationships will affect them later.
I have noticed over the past week that Wellington’s dominant humping of the other dogs happens mostly at times of excitement – during our play time mostly. She hasn’t been doing it as much this week, but has snapped at Paddington a few times and that is something that will not be tolerated. Every time she snaps I put her on the ground on her back and get whomever she snapped at (most of the time it’s Paddington) and have the dog stand over her. She doesn’t like this and the past few nights she’s bared her teeth at Paddy standing over her so I am working on correcting that as well.
I supervise their playtime very closely because of this. If it gets a bit too heated for my liking, I’ll break it up and have them play with something else. But constantly being this aware all the time is exhausting.
Thomas and I are both trying really hard to be calm and assertive leaders, but when I get that exhausted I find myself getting emotional with Wellington and I, myself, need to work on that. It’s hard not to get emotional though when she is asserting herself over our other two dogs.
One incident in particular happened last night. I was talking on the phone with Mom and the dogs started playing. I watched them while on the phone but in hindsight, I should have hung up to supervise more closely. While talking to my Mom I realized that both Wellington AND Paddington were ganging up on Corduroy. I was not happy about this at all. I attempted to break up the play but they just moved into the bedroom and did it again. Then I saw that Paddington was trying to dominate Corduroy in a way I hadn’t seen her do before. I quickly realize that Corduroy was becoming the Beta dog and I am not happy about that. Thomas was extremely unnerved when I told him this and it is something that emotionally affects both of us. We need to work on this. Playing is one thing, but ganging up and dominating is another. It is my understanding that if Thomas and I are good pack leaders, the dogs won’t try to dominate each other because we are already leading them. I am not sure this is entirely correct though.
I have to remind myself often that Wellington has only been with us two weeks and is still learning. What she has accomplished already is nothing short of amazing, and there are just a few things we need to work on. We didn’t train Paddington and Corduroy in two weeks so I need to stop expecting myself (and Thomas) to be able to train Wellie in a short period of time.
Something else we need to work on is Wellington’s nipping. When she gets really excited, she nips at your fingers. It used to be a lot more, and now she only really does it when I get home from work. I’ll be trying to unlace my snow boots and she will be play biting my fingers (and sometimes a bit harder) to get my attention. I’m not 100% sure how to deal with this as our tactic that worked with Paddy and Cordy seems to make it worse with Wellie. We would “bite back” by poking them in their neck – this makes Wellie bite MORE. Our new idea is to shout “OW” really loudly and it seems to be working. She seems to respond well to auditory correction.
We also working on “drop it” when playing with the ball. Last night she was doing really well and was dropping it more often than not, on command. We are also working on the barking. She is pretty good, unless she thinks she hears something – but Paddington is THE SAME way so we will work with both of them together to break this habit.
The house training is going better. At the beginning of week two, Wellie was pooping inside and eating it to get rid of the evidence so we have been working really hard and standing outside for a long time to make sure that she does it outside. I am happy to report that she has pooped outside for 3 days in a row now with no accidents inside (except a pee accident this morning Thomas informed me about – so close!). She is staying in the kitchen while we are out and has been very good about holding it until we get home so I am hopeful that she will be house trained soon.
Over the past week I think that Wellington has become even more cuddly. She likes to be near us all the time and will curl up with either Thomas or I if she can on the couch. She is eating really well and will sit and wait for her food – she is very good about that.
One other thing I want to mention that is very positive is how well she walks on leash – she has actually taught the other two proper leash manners and Thomas and I couldn’t be happier. The past week brought some of the best walks we have ever had. Ever. The 5 of us walk together and it’s fantastic. Maybe a few slight corrections here or there if one dog gets out too far beyond us, but once corrected we are all back in formation, walking in a line.
Overall, Wellington is doing very well and we are both proud of her. Thomas and I both understand that we still have a ways to go with her and I think I need to stop placing these unrealistic expectations on myself to make her perfect right away.
Until next week – wish us luck in week three!
p.s. Once again, any tips and advice is very much appreciated!
Read Week 1 here | Read Welcome to Wellie here.
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Liz Bradley is a dog lover who lives in Ottawa, Ontario with her husband,
16 Users Responded in " Week Two with Wellington "
I’ve heard that when adding another dog to your home, it’s sometimes best to work with their natural energy level and pack order. Even if you are the leader, they will then have their own pecking order beneath you (like each pup in a litter will have its place from most dominant to least). If you work against their instincts and try to impose a pack order that suits you instead of them, it could create conflict. Maybe Wellington is a born leader, and the other two wouldn’t be bothered by letting her be the top dog – beneath the two humans of course! Are you more upset by the dominance than the other dogs are?
As for play biting – I have the same issue. The “ow” hasn’t worked for me this time, so I’m being more assertive by ending the game. Anytime he bites clothing or uses his teeth on skin, I end the game immediately by going to a different room and closing the door. It seems to be working because we’re having less and less mouthing.
@Kerri – thanks for the tips. I think you may be right, WE (more specifically I) might be more upset about the dominance than the dogs are… I will pay closer attention to that in the next few days. I may be humanizing their feelings.
The biting tips are great. I will try that if OW doesn’t continue to work.
Hi liz. I know the feeling as I introduced a third dog to my crew and he wasn’t really the dominant pack leader type just very jealous of his human’s attention. He would suddenly lash out at my leader dog. At first the leader dog wouldn’t resppnd and would get away but as time went on he had enough and would go for the attack. Yes I had to intervene and separate the dogs, the spray bottle came out and the pack leader, me would stand tall and elevate my voice. The newcomer dog would also be tied to me for direction and this way he lost his freedom. This probably lasted for a week as he’s a smart little dog amd got the message pretty quickly. He was given no attention,no talking just direction as to what I needed him to do. We would walk around the others,watching his reaction and took notice of his triggers and worked with them. We determined that he would lash out around food and if I gave more attention to the top dog. Now they are supervise around food and he always gets fed last and he is not allowed to sit with me on the couch as
The nasty boy appeared. Anyways keep it up and they will all get along sooner than later. Hoping it makes sense as I’m sending from my blackbeery and finding it hard to review the text
@Joan – very good tips thank you. I will try tethering her to me if we have issues.
Another trick to try to curb unruly biting is to simply put your fingers in the dog’s mouth when it bites, and hold them there. The dog will eventually gag, which sounds cruel but it is an unpleasant stimulus stemming directly from their actions, making it very easy for them to associate.
I am very turned off of reading your blog by the bandying about of outdated information I keep reading. What you’re doing to Wellie is very detrimental to her mental wellbeing, please look into “the dominance myth” and great behaviourists like Patricia McConnell and Karen Pryor. You can achieve a “perfect pack” without having to wrestle your dogs and fight them tooth and nail. Rolling a dog on its back is a direct threat to its life, no wonder poor Wellie gets mad at the other dogs when they’re made to stand over her.
I’ve fostered and cared for 8 dogs at a time, and never had to roll anyone around to maintain a happy group of dogs.
@Blac lab – good tip – thanks!
@Amber – I had no idea there was another way. I’ll definitely look into it.
I must just add in here that Liz has provided pet owners all over Ottawa helpful, educational and resourceful information for helping their pets. Amber, I hope you aren’t offended by that post so terribly that you won’t continue to visit this site. This blog has been a life saver for us in certain instances with our new puppies when we just didn’t know what to do or resources available. People discipline their pets in different ways, and different methods work for different dogs. Being small dog owners, we know how small dogs can think they are very big, too. For us, utilizing different techniques like laying them on their back really helped to instantly establish ourselves as the “pack leader” in a non-aggresive way. Just my thoughts because we love reading Liz’s blog
@Stephanie – thanks so much for your support and for your passion for the blog
It makes me so happy to know that the blog has helped you in the past.
I do want to point out that I am definitely not upset about Amber’s comment and in looking into the “Dominance Myth” she mentioned, it does make sense. I want to explore this more and get someone to write about it on the blog. It’s more about training positively than with punishment. It’s extremely interesting and although I still have much more to learn to be able to relate it to our lives, I am intrigued by the concept.
A while ago I posted a video by Dr. Ian Dunbar which actually touches on this, but I didn’t really connect the dots before. I just re-watched it now and if you’d like to as well, you can see it here: http://ottawadogblog.ca/2009/05/great-training-talk-by-ian-dunbar/
I’ll report what I’ve learned and how I’ve applied it to Wellie in next week’s update.
Thanks again all for the support! I really really appreciate it.
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