Earlier this week, I spent an hour with a lovely woman who bought an 8-week-old purebred puppy a month ago. She was at her wits’ end, she said. She wanted the puppy to stop constantly biting, stop digging in the backyard, stop jumping up on family members, and to stop grabbing things, like curtains and knickknacks on tables and shelves.
As I observed the puppy and surreptitiously worked to teach her to sit and lay down as I asked my client questions and listened to her describe all the things the puppy was doing that were vexing, I heard her say these things:
“Our last dog practically trained himself.”
“Our last dog never used his teeth on us, even as a very young puppy! This one draws blood on our arms or hands daily!”
“Our last dog would never dream of grabbing things off the side tables, or any table!”
“Our last dog was never a barker. Maybe one woof if someone was at the door, and that’s all.”
The “last dog” in question had died a few years ago, but his memory was alive and well—and was quite unfairly affecting my client’s relationship with this new puppy.
Maybe the last dog really was perfect—some dogs and puppies really are a dream, and adapt to life in our homes with hardly a toenail put wrong. But I tend to believe that by the time our dogs have lived a long life, and then passed away, we simply fail to remember any anxiety or trouble that they ever gave us. Oh, we may remember a funny quirk or two, something that they learned to do in a unique way, like barking at our laundry as it tumbled around in the glass-doored dryer, or chasing the shadows of passersby on the sidewalk at sunset, as those shadows are cast moving along our living room wall. These behaviors are remembered fondly, with humor—unlike the painful or messy behaviors we are dealing with our new naughty puppy. At some point, our “last dogs” become our sainted, perfect last dogs.
Here’s what I told my client: No dog is perfect. All dogs are different. This one is just a baby—and a stranger—whereas your “last perfect dog” was an adult with a long learning history that you’ve perhaps forgotten in the glow of your love for him and the pain of missing him.
I asked my client whether she had kids. Yes, two girls, she said, adults now. I asked, “Are they very different from each other?” She laughed and took the bait. “Oh my gosh yes,” she said. “One was solemn as a judge, it was like pulling teeth to get her to talk to me. The other one told me more than I ever wanted to know. When she called me from her honeymoon and said, ‘Mom, I have to tell you something,’ I told her ‘No! I don’t want to know!!’”
We had a huge laugh about that.
And then I brought her back to the puppy and Saint Last Dog. “Well, then, that’s how you know that we can’t blame this puppy for not being as easy as your last dog. She’s not a dud; I wouldn’t even say she’s naughty! But some dogs take more of our time and attention and patience to train than others, just like some of our kids take a lot longer and are harder to bring into responsible adulthood than others!”
Also, I told her, “All of the behaviors you described as so naughty are super typical puppy behaviors—and I can teach you how to manage them and direct her into behaviors you like better! But first we have to accept the idea that she’s actually quite a good puppy!” And by this time, I had the puppy offering sits and downs and lying calmly on the rug in front of us as we talked. I had started with using tiny bits of freeze-dried chicken treats to lure her into a down and then back up into sits, and then tossing the treats to send her away, and giving her tiny treats when she came back for more and sat politely without a lure. I hadn’t used a verbal cue, so the client barely noticed I was training her dog at all. And yet, there she was, lying quietly on the rug watching us.
She looked at the puppy as if she just noticed her there in the room for the first time. “My gosh!” she said. “How on earth did you do that?”
And with the discovery of the fact that this puppy, too, had the potential for greatness in her, we were able to get to work building the foundation of their new relationship—with no disrespect for the perfect last dog whatsoever.
