My Stepson's Dog is a Jerk!

A long time client sent me an email message about a month ago about her stepson's dog.  The subject line for the email read, "my stepson's dog is a jerk!" That sure got my attention, lol.  I met with her family and the dog in question and they gave me permission to share their story as they figured they couldn't be the only family with these issues.  I appreciated their candor and their willingness to learn.  Here's their story:

My client has two dogs, an elderly, though spry, small, mixed breed dog and a middle-aged, easy-going Labrador Retriever.  Her stepson came home from college, bringing his 14 month old Shepherd mix with him.  According to my client, she became concerned the second she saw them in the driveway!  Why? Because her stepson had the dog riding loose in his car, no harness or leash in sight as he let the dog jump out and make a beeline through her rosebushes.  When she opened the front door to ask if he needed a leash, the dog bolted past her, making a mad dash toward her two dogs, toppling the little dog and t-boning her Labrador!  When she yelled at the young dog, he continued to growl somewhat playfully and stand over her little dog.  Her stepson acted like nothing was wrong and proceeded to carry his bags in the house, ignoring the chaos his dog was causing the resident dogs.  Apparently it was downhill from there with his dog running across furniture, swiping food and dishtowels from the kitchen counter, and busting through a screen door to get out into the backyard.  This all happened, according to my client, in less than an hour's time.  When she spoke to her stepson about the dog's behavior,  he told her that he didn't believe in restricting the dog, instead taking a "dogs will be dogs" approach to raising his new companion.  She told me she secretly wondered if his roommates were okay with this approach.  At that point, she emailed me and we set up a time for me to come over and meet with them all before this situation got completely out of hand.  I told her that while I was more than willing to be the "voice of reason," so to speak, I would need her stepson to listen with an open mind.  Everything I planned to tell him about raising an adolescent dog was science-based, factual, and proven to work.  It most certainly was not, however, a "dogs will be dogs" approach.

First off, I explained why he would need to put his dog on a collar and leash, or harness and leash. Suburbia is no place for an off leash dog with zero recall; the dog was going to get hit by a car before the summer's end at the rate he was going.  Luckily, I'd brought a martingale collar and six-foot leash with me, so we started there.  I reminded this young owner that while wild canids navigate the world without leashes and collars, they also are doing so at risk of getting hit by cars too.  Next, we moved on to house etiquette.  Dogs should be taught boundaries, not because we are squelching their dog-ness, but precisely the opposite: We are teaching them to be dogs who know the rules.  Dog society is based on rules, boundaries, and enforcement.  That's true whether you are talking about wild dogs, wolves, coyotes, or house dogs.  Canid society is structured and there are consequences for those who step out of line repeatedly.  In the case of house dogs, it is our job as their humans to teach them to stay off of counters where they could hurt themselves.  If furniture is off limits, they need to be taught where they CAN be, even if that means tethering them in places, using x-pens, or having a crate.  Dogs should be encouraged to be polite; sitting for attention and petting, sitting and waiting to be fed, etc.  Even with wolves, adolescent animals who are too boisterous or overly-enthusiastic are quickly corrected by their elders. And when it comes to dog-dog interactions, boundaries are no exception. While older dogs typically will correct an adolescent dog who oversteps, in the case of my client's dogs, this was difficult.  Her older dog was too small (he was literally a seventh the size of her stepson's dog!) and while the Labrador could hold his own from a size standpoint, his attempts to correct the younger dog were being ignored and his frustration was leading him to spend more and more time hiding in his crate in the owner's bedroom. This meant that it was up to the humans to enforce the rules:  No running in the house; no running over the other dogs; no stealing the other dogs' food; no rough play.  I told her stepson he can put the dog on a long line and take him to the park for his runaround time.  He can take him to the dog park to play with other dogs whose play style matches his, but I did warn him to expect his dog to get corrected by other dogs there as well. At meal times, his dog needed to be fed separately from the other two dogs and not be allowed out of that separate area until the other dogs finished eating and their bowls were picked up.  To control his enthusiasm a bit in the house, he could keep a leash on his dog, tethering the dog to him so the dog learned calm, following behaviors, rather than responding to everything with unbridled enthusiasm.

Her stepson indicated that he really didn't want to "yuck his dog's yum."  That cracked me up!  I told him he was actually doing his dog a great disservice by NOT establishing rules and structure for accepted behavior.  Ultimately him not doing so would get he and the dog ostracized; dog lovers love dogs, but they don't love dogs who are over-the-top and ill-mannered.  Structure and boundaries are not mean, again, look at how dogs interact with each other.  There is give and take.  If one dog oversteps, say pinching another dog during play or stepping on them when they are asleep, there are repercussions. That isn't aggression; that's a reminder about boundaries and consequences.  Consequences teach a dog what's acceptable and what isn't.  And if a dog won't accept those consequences being dished out by another dog, or by the humans for that matter, then that's a real problem.  With my client's stepson's dog, we were dealing with a very active, untrained, adolescent.  Adolescence in dogs is characterized by boundary testing and setbacks as it is, so adding in that this dog had received no training before coming home for the summer, was just complicating matters.

I set up some ground rules for this family that everyone agreed on in principle.  This young dog would be tethered to his owner when he wasn't in the owner's bedroom.  He would be walked twice a day, on leash, and given an opportunity to run around outdoors on a long line.  He would be taken to the dog park every day to run and play with other young dogs.  The owner would spend five minutes, three times each day, working on training with his dog.  I taught the dog a handful of tricks which the dog seemed to really enjoy, so that gave me hope that the owner would follow through.  Meals would be in the owner's room or in the laundry room, and after the other dogs had been fed first.  All interactions between the dogs, whether indoors or in the yard, would be completely supervised.  If the older dogs corrected the younger dog and the younger dog ignored the corrections, then the humans would step in and remove the younger dog for a time out.  Clear consequences like that would help the older dogs to see that they were being supported in their attempts to teach this young dog some manners.

All of this happened just over a month ago.  I did my follow up this week and huge progress has been made.  The situation isn't perfect, but everyone is feeling relieved that much of the boundary enforcement and on-leash work is helping to keep the peace.  There was one setback at the dog park:  The owner was quite upset when his dog was "beat up by another dog he was just trying to play with."  When I had him describe the encounter, it was quite clear to me that, once again, his dog wasn't heeding another dog's warnings and this time there was a more serious consequence.  That wasn't the fault of the other owner or his dog and that was a hard pill for this young dog owner to swallow.  A learning opportunity for them both, right?

As always, if you have questions about your pet's behavior, you know where to find me.

Play time! This was Henley playing with Westley while Ozzie looks on.  Ozzie has never liked rough and growly play, but Henley always has.  Westley was patient with this...to a point.  If Henley overstepped, Westley corrected, and Henley respected that. That's how good play works.

A Few Final Thoughts on Puppy Class

This weekend, the five puppies in my puppy class will graduate, all with honors, I might add. No, seriously.  They have all done so well and their owners have accomplished quite a bit in the six weeks we've been together. Very few setbacks and a lot of forward progress is always worth celebrating! At last week's class, I reviewed everything that we'd accomplished so far, and frankly, the class seemed astounded. I asked one of the participants after class was done and I was cleaning up our space, why she was so surprised at what had transpired over the previous five weeks.  She told me that she'd taken puppy classes a couple of times before, and while she enjoyed the classes, they just weren't like mine.  She felt that she'd learned so much and that her puppy had learned so much, way more than her previous puppies.  I appreciated that feedback as it provides reinforcement for instructors like myself who put their time and energy into understanding the science of puppy brain development and finding ways to implement that science to benefit puppies and their people. I thought you all might find it interesting to know exactly what this group of puppies accomplished in just five weeks time:

1.  The basics of cooperative care:  Teaching cooperative care exercises to puppies (and kittens, for that matter) is much easier than trying to teach an adult dog who has already made negative associations with body parts handling.  We handle feet, ears, mouths, and tails, looking to see where the puppies might resist, if at all.  Any resistance is met with understanding and a different approach.  For puppies who don't like their mouths messed with, we don't force those mouths open!  Instead, we smear peanut butter on a finger and present that for them to lick, guiding the yummy coated finger into their mouth to rub their gums and teeth.  Each session, we do the same, rubbing around a bit longer until the puppy loves having their mouth opened and explored with peanut butter.  Then, we put the peanut butter on a finger toothbrush, and ultimately a dog tooth brush. Once that all works, we move on the dog toothpaste and we're able to open that puppy's mouth, and a bonus, brush their teeth!

2.  Games with a purpose:  The puppies in my class all knew their name, but a couple would choose not to come when called, both at home and in class. So, we took their leashes off (counterintuitive, I know) and dropped a treat in front of them.  Then we took a couple of steps, said their name, and when they looked at us, dropped another treat.  It's like Hansel & Gretel!  Then, we started tossing the treat away from us about 18 inches, watching the puppy scamper after it and then look back as if to say, "Where to next?"  We'd toss treats in several directions before returning to drop a treat at our feet, bringing the puppy back to us.  Now, we've got the puppy's attention and can add in the word "come!" in an upbeat tone when we drop the treats at our feet to get them closer.  Once we could get puppies to come without a leash, we put long lines on them and let them wander off and get distracted.  Funny thing happened.  Because we'd worked so hard getting them to come to us without a leash on, they came readily when they had the leash on, even with those distractions.

3.  Loose leash walking:  We all dream of dogs that don't drag us down the street.  Loose leash walking starts with puppies wearing no leash at all.  Counterintuitive again, I realize. We walk all around the classroom using a handful of treats and our most upbeat voices to get the puppies to follow us around. If they wander, we guide them back with the treats and our voices.  When they can do this reliably, THEN we put the leashes on....and we throw a bunch of really interesting "trash" on the ground to distract them!  At that point, we can not only practice loose leash walking, but we can practice "leave it" and "drop it" in a very real-world situation.  

4.  Tricks training:  We didn't just teach the puppies to "sit," "lay down," and "stand" when asked.  We taught them to "touch" an outstretched finger or hand; "crawl" on the ground; "flop" on their side; "rollover" completely; "turn" both left and right; "bow" and hold that position; "weave" through our legs while we walk; and "back up" when we step toward them.  Why teach all of these tricks?  Well first and foremost, because it's fun.  Second, because each of those tricks has real-world application.  A dog who knows "back up," for example, will move out of your way reliably and with ease when you walk through the door with your arms loaded, maneuvering in a narrow space. But the big reason we teach all of these tricks is that puppies' minds are sponges just waiting to soak up directions and guidance.  If you don't teach them things, they get bored and then they get into trouble.  Because they can learn so fast, the real shame is all those adult dogs out there who weren't taught all of these fun tricks as puppies; sure, they can learn to do them as adults, but it's so much easier with that puppy brain guiding the learning and soaking it all in. Plus, you give that puppy a foundation for learning and show them that learning is fun.  Then, their only limitation is you, their owner, coming up with other fun tricks to teach them as they continue to grow and mature.

5. Play is valuable:  We have two play sessions each class, one at the beginning and one at the end.  It's fun to watch how play changes when puppies are a bit more tired.  Play is a big part of their learning process: Learning to get along with each other, learning different play styles, learning that making another puppy squeal means you might lose that friend, at least for a little while.  Puppy play is really fun to watch, but it is so much more that just entertainment.  Play is a critical part of development in young animals.  Those who are deprived of play are often timid and behaviorally stunted.  They don't read the body language of other dogs with ease like dogs who played when they were puppies do.

As you can probably tell, I love a good puppy class, and this one was no exception. I'll be excited to follow the development of this group of puppies as they move on to adolescent classes and beyond. I have high hopes for a rally dog in this group, and one for agility as well.  Keeping their options open is important; they are just puppies after all!

As always, if you have questions about your pet's behavior, you know where to find me.

People are always surprised when I tell them that Henley did puppy classes too!  Why?  Because he needed to play with other puppies and he needed the opportunity to do all of the things I outlined above, with the distraction of other puppies around.  He attended my puppy classes under the watchful eye of my daughter, since I was the instructor.  That was good for him too; he had to listen and follow directions from someone other than me.  The result? He's incredibly bonded to my daughter and takes direction from her just as well as he does from me.  He's a very good boy indeed.

Musings From My Latest Adventure

As many of you that follow me on social media know, I spent three days last week in Colorado visiting my friend, Lise Morgan, at the beautiful ranch where she and her husband raise, care for and nurture many animals, including their beloved collies. Foxhaven Collies takes a very different approach to the breeding, raising, and preparing of puppies for their next adventure as someone's beloved canine family member.  Zelly is a Foxhaven collie: She is confident, inquisitive, loving and lovable, with beautiful movement, carrying herself as a collie should.  While staying with Lise, we shared many conversations about how puppies of any breed should be raised and the kind of challenges those puppies face right out of the gate as they head to their new homes.  I wanted to share one of those conversations with you all as I thought it was particularly important for anyone raising a puppy, or thinking about acquiring a puppy.  

Giving puppies a leg up on life begins even before they are born.  Nurturing their mothers with an appropriate diet, a predictable, comfortable space, and adequate rest and exercise ensures that mother dogs are not under undue stress as they prepare their bodies for the birthing process.  Those puppies will then come into the world and nurse from a mother whose body hasn't been constantly flooded with stress hormones, affecting the quality and quantity of her milk.  Even before their eyes and ears open, puppies are absorbing the experiences around them. These "puppy potatoes" respond to the warmth and care provided by their human caretakers.  Once eyes and ears open, it's a race to keep up from a developmental point of view!

The environment your puppy is raised in between birth and 10 weeks of age should be ever-changing.  Their space should grow in size and complexity and include safe spaces for hiding or resting in addition to chewing, climbing, and play opportunities, as well as the introduction of novel foods to prime their gut.  The variety of items available in their space should be rotated daily, at a minimum, to maintain interest and encourage exploration. Puppies should be observed after these rotations to see how they are responding to the novel items, placement of objects, etc., noting what objects garner immediate interest, if any items spook or startle a puppy, and if any are actively avoided.  Any puppy that startles, note whether they recover quickly or whether they move away and continue to avoid what startled them.  You want your puppy's response to be elastic, like a rubber band; you want them to bounce back and try again, as if to say, "I was afraid of that crunchy tunnel at first, but once I saw a sibling run through it, I wasn't afraid anymore!"  That's bounce back and that's learning.

As puppies mature even more, you want to know that they were exposed to situations and experiences outside of their breeder's home.  That might mean a stroller excursion into town with a visit to a coffee shop, or it might mean having a couple of friends come by to meet and engage the puppies.  You want to know that your puppy was exposed to all different kinds of people so, again, if they are startled the first time seeing someone in a hat, they bounce back the second time that they are exposed.  Which brings me to my main point of telling you all of this in the first place.

You can flood a puppy (or a dog) with experiences, one right after the other, over and over, sort of like having a puppy party where you invite twelve people over and a bunch of screaming kids and have them meet your new puppy.  Flooding is a therapeutic technique, yes, but it isn't generally a successful one, particularly with puppies.  Flooding refers to rapidly exposing an individual to fearful stimuli in the hopes of them overcoming their anxiety and moving past it.  Puppies who are flooded with fearful experiences, like that puppy party, become quickly overwhelmed, making a permanent negative association in their brain that their caregivers can't be trusted to protect them.  If instead, you introduce your puppy to one new person, or a couple of new people at a time, allowing the puppy to choose whether to interact with those new people, or simply observe, you are providing your puppy with supported exposure.  This falls under the category of systematic desensitization, a much more successful means of exposing a puppy to new people or novel environments, allowing them to build confidence through successive, successful exposures, with rest in between.  And, yes, rest is not just important, it is critical to the process.

I'm always harping on puppy owners to make sure their puppies get multiple naps every day.  The timing of those naps is important as they should occur, in particular, after your puppy has been somewhere new, acquired a new behavior, or solved a difficult problem.  That nap afterwards is when your puppy's brain processes what they learned, building new neural connections and pathways.  If they aren't allowed to rest, those new neural connections don't happen.  Rest is restorative in more ways than one!

Just as (hopefully) your breeder did with your puppy during those first 9-10 weeks, it is your job to curate your puppy's experiences every day once they are in your home.  Gradually exposing them to new situations, objects, and people.  Watch their body language and be aware of what they are telling you.  Are they moving away or boldly approaching?  Are they leaning away from new people, or leaning in?  Are they yawning, scratching, shaking their bodies as if they were wet?  That's a puppy who's overwhelmed.  Read your puppy's body language and respond immediately; don't let them get flooded or overwhelmed.  Instead, build trust in you and confidence in themselves through relationship rapport, responding to each other.  Your job is to provide your puppy with supported exposures to new things, building on the lessons they received from their breeder.  Your breeder gave your puppy their head start and the foundation. It's your job to continue to help your puppy thrive, becoming the well-balanced, confident, capable dog they were born to be.

It really was a joy to observe puppies raised this way.  When I temperament tested this recent litter of three Foxhaven puppies, I was reminded yet again why choosing a good breeder is so important.  For myself, I want to know that my puppy had all of those benefits right from the start, including a happy dam and a warm, nurturing home environment.  Daily, age-appropriate challenges, including novel food and food puzzle experiences as well.  And most importantly, humans who loved them, nurtured them, held them, played with them, and watched them carefully for signs of stress or anxiety.  If you can find a breeder who loves with their whole heart, uses science-based methods, and revels in every little developmental step with awe and wonder, then you've found your next puppy. I know I have.

As always, if you have questions about your pet's behavior, you know where to find me.

Here I am with Lise Morgan of Foxhaven Collies

 and her three, nine week old collie puppies!

Time For Some Fun!

As many of you know, I've studied, researched, published and logged thousands of hours of observation on play behavior in animals.  What's currently grabbed my attention is something slightly different: The importance of dog owners playing with their own dogs.  While I've certainly spent a lot of time watching puppies play with each other, as well as adolescent and adult dogs playing together, I'd never specifically thought about people playing with their dogs beyond the obvious "you should play with your dog to help foster a relationship with them." Turns out just spending an extra five minutes a day playing games with your dog is even more beneficial to your relationship with them than spending five extra minutes on training exercises.  Now, before you get too caught up in this, one caveat.  You still need to spend time training your dogs!  Even if doing so isn't the sole foundation on which your relationship is built, it's still important.

The type of games you play with your dog also makes a difference. For example, a game of fetch wasn't even included as part of the study. Instead, they looked at games whose focus was on the social interaction between the dog and the human.  So, games that included rough-housing, tug-of-war, chase, and hide-and-seek were seen as social bond building, creating a foundation for the formation of a solid relationship between the human and the dog.  I found this fascinating! Just a few years back, there was a backlash against people playing tug-of-war games with their dogs or engaging in rough-housing style play.  At that time, the argument was being made that doing so fostered aggression in dogs.  Consequently, I'd have puppy owners roll up to puppy classes and ask what they should be doing with their puppies since they "weren't supposed to play tug or rough-house."  I was always quick to debunk the mistaken connection between aggression and rough and tumble play.  That's not where aggression comes from and playing this way with your puppy isn't going to make them aggressive. If it did, then every dog I knew during the 70's and 80's (including my own!)  would have been aggressive because that's how we all played with our dogs!  The bottom line is this: They are most likely to be aggressive if they inherited some form of aggression, not because you played with them a certain way when they were puppies.

Now, it's certainly also true that not all dogs enjoy rough-housing play, and that's okay too. You know your own dog.  Most of the dogs I meet love tug-of-war, even if they don't love to wrestle.  And if they don't like tug or wrestling, they enjoy hide-and-seek.  I love encouraging the kids in my puppy classes, in particular, to play hide-and-seek with their dogs.  It's a great way to have a child get their dog to come to them by having their dog try to find them as part of a game. That doesn't mean that you, too, can't play hide-and-seek with your dog.  Try it yourself; a return to a game from your childhood will be good for you as well.

As Ozzie has gotten older, he likes to be tickled.  I don't know how to describe it, but I hug him and make tickling gestures and sounds and he makes that dog laugh I talked about last week. It's really quite funny.  When he was younger, he loved tug-of-war and hide-and seek, but he never liked rough-housing at all.  Henley loves tug-of-war and his favorite game involves me making my hands into spiders that wiggle around and try to tickle his feet or grab his toy.  He will bounce around, bark, and make the dog laughing sound, so I know he's having a good time too.  I have always enjoyed playing with my dogs, so now knowing that it's actually helping to foster a lasting bond between us is just the icing on the proverbial cake.

That's it for now.  Henley is asking to play tug-of-war and I'm certainly not going to say no to that.  As always, if you have questions about your pet's behavior, you know where to find me.

Here's Henley playing tug-of-war with me!

Dog Laughter!

It turns out, dogs do laugh, and it has nothing to do with their wagging tails.  I stumbled upon an interesting research paper, documenting a study conducted in 2005 by Patricia Simonet.  She and her team had previously collected audio of dogs socializing and playing using a parabolic microphone so that researchers could remain at a distance sufficient to keep their presence from altering the dogs' behavior. They discovered that when dogs made a particular chuffing sound, much like a pant, but with a more complex frequency range, other dogs responded with similar sounds, play bows, or even a play face and initiation of a game of chase. When these recorded sounds were played back to dogs in a shelter environment, they discovered that the dogs who heard the laugh playbacks had a significant reduction in stress behaviors. Most fascinating to me was the fact that not only did their stress markers decrease, but most offered pro-social behaviors, including chuffing back and bowing.  She repeated the experiment with a group of fifteen puppies and found that one and all responded to the recorded dog laughter with happy romping about.

Interestingly enough, a few other researchers have tried to recreate this chuff sound themselves and it's not easy.  For a human to make this breathy pant, without creating vocal vibrations, is tough!  They discovered that mostly they just confused their canine subjects or the dogs had no response at all. For those who could mimic the sound accurately enough, they were rewarded with those same pro-social behaviors Simonet noted in her study: play bows, wagging tails, and friendly approaches.  Through trial and error, Simonet was able to create the sound for herself and found that even when she offered the canine laugh to shelter dogs, it resulted in similar pro-social behaviors.  Why is this important?

Reducing canine stress, wherever it shows up, is a worthwhile endeavor.  Whether in a shelter, veterinary hospital, or your own home, reducing your dog's stress increases their quality of life.  For people like myself who spend a lot of time observing, treating, and interacting with anxious dogs, I'd love to be able to recreate this sound.  I already go to great lengths to present myself to anxious dogs in a non-threatening fashion:  I don't stare, I don't loom, and I let them choose whether to interact with me or not.  It would be interesting to see if I could convince some of them to choose to interact faster if I could laugh like a dog.  I don't believe, however, that it would help every anxious dog, even if I could make the sound.  For dogs who are profoundly anxious, playing that canine laugh, or a human attempt at it, would likely be viewed as confusing at best, and downright rude at worst.  Sort of like someone trying to jolly you out of your stressful mood by cracking jokes and making light of it, which just ends up making the situation worse.

Okay...here comes the fun part.  Dogs will laugh when initiating play with their owners as well, so we can all conduct little mini-experiments of our own.  Grab a toy or position yourself as you do when initiating play with your dog and then watch and listen to them carefully.  See that wide grin?  That likely precedes the canine laugh once they get into play mode.  If you have more than one dog, watch their play sessions.  See what happens when one dog exhibits pro-social behavior (a bow, perhaps); does the other dog laugh and then the game begins?  It's really a fascinating way to spend an afternoon and I can confirm that it's a lot more fun than balancing your checkbook.

As always, if you have questions about your pet's behavior, you know where to find me.

This is Zelly offering the smiley face, slightly opened mouth grin, that precedes her emitting the canine laugh and initiating play with me, since Henley is sound asleep on the floor behind her, and thus uninterested in her shenanigans.

Not Every Dog Is An Einstein

 There was a wonderful article in the New York Times last week about why people think that their dogs are smart.  Did you read the article too?  If you didn't, and want to, here's the link:

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/15/science/pets-dogs-intelligence.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20260416&instance_id=174162&nl=the-morning&regi_id=119526550&segment_id=218310&user_id=5b6f3acda3c1e75ce5f119e547e74d2e

I really love when science and mainstream media meet as it gives us all an opportunity to think about a topic in a more thoughtful way, looking more closely at where our own biases effect the way we think about the world.  In this case, the way we think about dogs in general, and our own beloved canines, specifically.

Here's the gist of the article and why it's important:  Researchers have consistently found that dog owners rank their dog's intelligence with what's called a "better than average effect," or what we referred to in the psychology classes I taught at UC Davis as "cognitive bias."  Basically, we dog owners tend to overestimate the abilities of dogs in general, but we really tend to overestimate our own dog's intelligence.  Remember that Border Collie that made the news and was even in a story on 60 Minutes?  Her name was Chaser and she was a female Border Collie who could identify over 1000 toys by name.  This is a feat known as "word learning" and it is actually rare as it takes a combination of dedicated direct instruction by the human caretakers and the dog's own natural ability to eavesdrop on human conversations about objects and make inferences. For some reason, herding dogs like Border Collies seem to excel at these tasks, but not every Border Collie excels like Chaser. So, why do people who participate in these studies consistently rank their dogs, regardless of breed, as being so cognitively gifted?

I was fascinated by the data here:  While it is often stated that a dog's cognitive skills are on par with a human toddler (aged 1-3 years), this is really too simplistic a claim given the number of skills a toddler has that a dog doesn't and vice versa.  And, yet, in a 2025 study, people consistently ranked their dogs as having equivalent cognitive skills as 3-5 year old children, and many people ranked their dogs as being on par cognitively with a 16 year old kid. In one study, about a quarter of the participants ranked dogs as smarter than most people! Only 6% of the study participants said their dogs possessed a lower than average intelligence. The conclusion I found most interesting was that the dog owners who were most emotionally bonded to their dogs gave higher cognitive skill ratings to ALL dogs, not just their own.  So, somehow that emotional bond the study participants had with dogs caused them to rate dogs as more intelligent in a general sense.  And they also rated their own dogs more favorably than the average dog on markers such as loyalty and friendliness, and not just intelligence. That, I think, is really important.

Dogs excel at reading people. They read our body language, facial expressions, etc. and make inferences from that.  For example, when we look out a window, they'll often go over and look out too.  Or if we point at something, they'll look where we are pointing.  They'll get your attention when their ball rolls under the couch, demonstrating that they have object permanence; even though that ball is out of sight, they know it still exists.  Some scientists even believe that dogs can understand that others have a different perspective than they themselves have, a skill previously thought to be limited to primates and dolphins.

So, while at least two thirds of us dog owners might be like those in the 2025 study, stating unequivocally that our dogs are smarter than the average dog, the truth is this: Most of us are, statistically speaking, more likely to be living with dogs on the lower end of the intelligence spectrum. And, you know what?  That's not just okay, it's better than okay!  There is absolutely nothing wrong with a dog who can't remember where they left their ball or has to be reminded every time to sit before they go out the door.  Think of it this way:  Intelligence in dogs is a gift and a curse.  Really smart dogs like Chaser the Border Collie need almost constant engagement in the form of enrichment opportunities and mental stimulation so that they don't become bored, anxious, or destructive. In my opinion, a dog who excels at being a beloved family member is a dog to be desired and appreciated. Just because your dog has to be shown where you dropped the treat for him because a finger point in that direction is met with a blank stare, doesn't make your dog any less valuable than any other dog.  There are so many ways to be smart other than showing a knack for word learning or object permanence. 

Generally speaking, dogs have the uncanny ability to bloom where they are planted and that's a skill I wish more people had.  They find joy in the mundane, they relish schedules and routine, and they are happy just to be with us.  Your dog loves you unconditionally, so love him back for who he is: Your faithful, devoted companion whose most special ability is the one that allows him to bond to you and your family.  Frankly, that's the skill that I value the most in a dog.  In my mind, any dog can learn a party trick and the names of a few toys.  Bright dogs know when it's time for dinner and get you into the kitchen to prepare it as if they were the ones wearing the smartwatch.

As always, if you have questions about your pet's behavior, you know where to find me.

Here's Henley, ready to work.  He loves learning new tasks and tricks and is a pretty quick study.  He's learned to follow a finger point but may seem to forget the name of a familiar object.  But you know what amazing skill he has?  He knows when it's time to take his anti-seizure medications and he'll come get me if I seem to be forgetting that it's time.  Frankly, I find that absolutely incredible as, (1) I often lose track of time and it really helps that he doesn't and (2) he needs those meds twice daily on a schedule and he knows the schedule better than I do. Do I think Henley is brilliant? No, but I do think he excels at love, friendliness, and a desire to learn. He's the perfect dog for me.

Surface Preferences & Toileting Habits

A few weeks ago, a long time client reached out for help with her adult dog.  I've known her since this dog was a puppy and they lived here in California.  She's since moved to the Midwest to be closer to family and that seems to be when the issue with toileting habits began.  You see, her dog was trained as a puppy to toilet on artificial turf as that's what she had in her yard here.  We began with a patch of artificial turf in an xpen to keep her tiny puppy safe and he eventually graduated to using her entire backyard, no problem.  Other than the fact he hated going outside to toilet on rainy days (we added an area covered by an awning to fix that issue!), all went well with his house training.  All went well, that is, until they moved four months ago.  Since then, he's been toileting everywhere, except where she wants him to go!  She actually suggested that I share her story as she'd not seen it here on my blog before and she felt that my suggestions not only made sense, but that they would work for her. 

It's really important to start with the way puppies learn to toilet appropriately.  If their breeder exclusively uses puppy pads, for example, never introducing them to other substrates such as fake grass, real grass, ground cover, or bark, these puppies will develop a surface preference for puppy pads and other soft surfaces like furniture, backpacks on the ground, throw rugs, towels, and piles of laundry. This means that when you bring your puppy home and try to teach them to toilet outside on your lawn or in the ground cover, they'll look at you confused.  They'll play and romp in those areas, but they won't toilet out there, no matter how long they're outside, or how much you cajole or bribe them.  Then, you'll bring them indoors and within minutes they'll void on the rug by the door or the laundry you are sorting.  Why? Because their breeder trained them to do so! If, instead, your breeder introduces several different toileting surfaces, especially adding in those surfaces outdoors, rewarding the puppies for using them all, they won't develop a specific surface preference, instead developing a preference for going outdoors, whatever surface is available there. That way, no matter what your yard situation is, your puppy is primed to toilet appropriately.

Back to my client's puppy.  He had come from a breeder who exclusively used puppy pads for toileting.  The pads were always inside her house and always inside an xpen.  When the puppy came to live with my client, she was instructed by the breeder to continue to use these pads as they "made house training so convenient with a little dog."  My client knew she didn't want a dog who toileted indoors for its entire life, so she reached out to me days after bringing that new puppy home. I quickly debunked what her breeder had told her.  What we did instead was begin with a pad on top of a piece of fake turf inside an xpen near the backdoor.  We gradually keep cutting that pad smaller and smaller until the puppy was toileting on the piece of fake turf religiously.  We then moved the xpen and fake turf just outside the backdoor and gradually moved it further and further from the house until it was out on the larger fake lawn.  As the puppy grew and could be safe in the larger yard, we removed the xpen but left the piece of fake turf in place.  The puppy continued to toilet there as he'd learned that was his bathroom.  We were then able to remove that smaller piece and he continued toileting in that spot regularly up until they made the recent move. 

Her new home has hardscape, stamped concrete winding paths, with a combination of ground cover and bark.  She tried getting him to toilet on any of those surfaces and he wouldn't go, choosing to hold it until she walked him, at which point he'd go on a neighbor's fake front lawn!  I reminded her that he's got a preference now for fake turf and she needs to accommodate that preference, rather than trying to retrain him to a surface he's never had experience with in the past.  Per my instructions, she bought him one of those turf kits with the tray underneath for ease of cleaning. She began with the fake grass inside of an xpen again, just outside her back door on the hardscape surface.  He immediately used the fake grass!  I told her to reward him just as she'd done when he was a puppy (a treat, a good boy verbal reward, and then some free time in the yard).  Over the course of a week, she gradually moved the pen further from the backdoor, toward the corner where she wanted him to toilet going forward.  He continued to use the fake grass in each new location.  So now, no more xpen and he's using his fake grass religiously, not her green bathroom rugs, kitchen floor, or the neighbor's fake lawn.  Yes, she does have to clean that fake grass porta potty for her dog, but it's a huge improvement over the way things had been going for the last four months. Problem solved, to my client's relief!

My wish is always that breeders won't solely rely on puppy pads for teaching toileting habits to puppies. By introducing multiple novel and appropriate surfaces for toileting, experienced breeders know that they will be setting their puppies up for success wherever they go and whatever bathroom area is provided for them in their new home. And if you, like my client move to a new home with a different toileting surface for your dog, know that you now have the tools to make this work right from the get go.

As always, if you have questions about your pet's behavior, you know where to find me.

Here's ten week old Henley getting some free time on the grass after using the bathroom outside. He looks pretty happy about it as well.