Rugby the Teacher

One of my clients needed to go out of town, and I decided that I'd dogsit his puppy to help him out. That way, I could offer some additional training, and also to introduce the puppy to Rugby. The puppy, whom I'll call Fido, has had little to no socialization to other dogs, and Rugby hasn't had a good, young playmate for a while. Fido is a middle of the road puppy, not terribly dominant or submissive, which is really the best personality mix for the average owner! He was adopted very young, at 6.5 weeks, which means that he had very little pack interaction with his other littermates. This can often lead to more behavioral issues that are persisstent and no fun. In Fido's case, he learned no bite inhibition, and he's a nasty nipper! Add to that equasion, the fact that he's teething, so he's become a chewing machine on top of being a little nipper! He jumps and nips at hands, legs, butts, pants, jackets, etc. both in play and to get attention. (Needless to say, his owner is less than impressed with this naughty behavior!) He weighs a bit more than Rugby, and is much more solid, but size-wise, for now, they're pretty well matched to one another!

We spent the first hour, outside in the freezing cold, trying to get Rugby to stop bouncing off the end of the leash, to stop barking and charging and to calm down enough to be able to meet the baby! Fido, on the other hand, thought Rugby was a complete lunatic, and well, you know, with the behavior Rugby was exhibiting, we couldn't have agreed more with that assessment!! Rugby has crazy leash aggression, but he often will do better with a young puppy in the mix. Not that day. So, we separated the dogs, brought everyone in, and decided to try that a little later, when it was warmer, and maybe when Rugby would be a little more tired. Thank God for a two story home! Fido got the basement, and Rugby got the main floor, which worked out quite nicely. Even though Rugby heard Fido in the basement, he didn't seem to really care, which was surprising, because if Lindsay's cats yowl, Rugby comes apart at the seams...but that's a different blog. Rugby had opportunities to sniff the puppy in his crate, and didn't seem to mind him one bit. Of course, he was off leash, and the puppy was confined, which will make a huge difference. However, the fact that both dogs were sniffing nicely through the crate was very promising after the ugly encounter outside!

So, a couple of days went by, and quite by accident, Rugby snuck downstairs, just as I was getting the puppy leashed to go out. So, for a moment, I froze, because I just envisioned the worst possible scenerio happening. The puppy looked a little like, "Oh my goodness! It's that maniac dog come to eat me again!" Rugby, on the other hand, trotted up to Fido, and was all wags and relaxed and happy to meet him. Go figure. So, we took the two dogs out for some play, and sat back to oversee and watch. Fido wanted to wander around the yard, and Rugby spent a great deal of time barking, nipping and herding him right back to the door. Any time Fido got very far away from the door into "Rugby's yard," Rugby would charge him back, barking, nipping and herding him. The puppy finally just laid down on the doormat and refused to try. At that point, Rugby went on about his merry little way, ripping up and down the full length of the yard, absolutely as happy as he could possibly be. The little guy is in his element when he runs, and he's a thing of beauty to watch!

After a little romping outside, and when I was simply too cold to tolerate anything more, we brought the boys inside. The inside activity and noise level increased immediately. Rugby is just a loud dog to begin with. He's a barky, exciteable boy, and when there's a second dog in the mix, it's nonstop barking, snarking and play growling. Fido was clearly a little nervous, because he had never been in this part of the house, and he knew he was on Rugby's home turf!! He also doesn't get a lot of house privileges in his own home, so he was like a country bumpkin at the county fair for the first time! We encouraged both of the boys to play nicely, and they really didn't do badly at all, right from the very beginning. Fido was happily exploring the nice assortment of new toys, and Rugby was busy trying to communicate his dominance.

I absolutely love watching Rugby with puppies. He is nothing short of amazing. For all of his neurotic behaviors in general, he really is absolutely amazingly wonderful with teaching puppies how to be dogs. He is incredibly patient. He snarks and barks, and growls, even pinning a puppy to the floor when necessary, but all in the most gentle of ways. As I said, Fido is a very feisty puppy, who thinks his solution to everything is to bite or nip his way out of it. When any dog takes that approach to Rugby, I'm going to go on record as saying, "Rugby don't play that." He really doesn't appreciate a puppy's rough play biting in any form or fashion. He doesn't like ANY dog to think that they can show ANY kind of dominant behavior with him. No paws at his face, no chin over his back, no paw on or over his back, and for God's sake...PLEASE don't ANY dog think that they can mount him!! So the first day was a lot of Rugby correcting Fido for all of those types of infractions. Keep in mind, that much of Rugby's school is teaching that he IS the dominant dog! Initially, I correct all of that, because Rugby also needs to know from me, that I'm the dominant one, and I'll decide if he's allowed to mount or dominate anyone else in the house--dog or human! As time went on, the two settled into some very nice interaction, blowing up with snarking from time to time when Fido would forget Rugby's house rules.

Out in the yard, Rugby continued to herd Fido, and rolled him silly when Fido would try to run the yard with Rugs. As we got into day two of the dogs together, the herding behavior stopped, and Rugby would allow Fido to wander his yard. Occasionally, Rugby would plow into the poor puppy and send him rolling, and the puppy would quickly get up, shake it all off and come back for more. As awful as it looked to us, Fido was really loving the rough play, and Rugby was carefully teaching him his place in the pack.

There was one interesting behavior we consistently saw Rugby do over and over and over, often as he was being corrected for trying to mount the puppy. We noticed that Rugby continued to lay full body all along the top of Fido, pinning him completely to the floor. Then Rugby would gently mouth Fido's face, ears, legs, neck, etc., play growling all the while. These little episodes were short duration--a minute or less, probably. But they happened over, and over and over for the entire time that Fido was here. Each time, Rugby would look up at me to make sure he was allowed to do this behavior, which was actually really cute, because it was so gentle. It occurred to me after a while, that Rugby was teaching Fido how to play bite gently. Fido spent a good amount of his play time nipping and snapping at Rugby, connecting with an ear now and then, and quickly being put in his place. Rugby has no hesitation to get all up in another dog's business if he thinks that's what's needed to express his opinion. However, even while Fido was being so rough in his play, Rugby, on the other hand, was gently teaching Fido that biting gently was allowed in play, as long as it was G-E-N-T-L-E...something this puppy simply has never learned to do!

By the final day, both dogs were running the full length of the yard together, and they were starting to play tug-of-war with the leash and toys. There was far less snarking sounds and far more quiet play growling going on. Both boys clearly loved being together, and really came full circle in terms of working through their respective issues to get along together well. After we took Fido home, Rugby was a little forlorn for the next couple of days, looking high and low for the puppy, thinking that we had hidden him. Fortunately, Fido lives very close to us, and his dad has agreed to allow regular play dates for the dogs, so I'm sure this story will be continued.

Dogs are just far smarter than we ever give them credit. As neurotic as Rugby is, he knows what he needs to do to parent a puppy, and he's a delight to watch and to own!!