No my dog is not perfect…in fact he’s a bit of a puzzle.

It’s a difficult thing to stand up and say when you are a dog trainer, because you’d think, my dog should be the shining example of my dog training skills right? In fact what sort of mental case am I sharing this information with clients and potential clients? Grant me the grace of reading the article and I hope you will understand. It’s also a long read and a tad self indulgent to get it all written down! However, I know it will help people to hear the story.

Most dog trainers, on social media in particular, will do demos with their perfect dogs and hold them up as what you should be aiming for. I can actually do this with one of my dogs, she is pretty damn awesome for a 8 month old dog. I can do it with Elvis too if I want, on demo videos he can look like the most attentive hardworking dog you will see. However, Elvis is and has been a struggle for a while now and the pressure to try and make him ‘perfect’ as a dog trainer is immense and I’m willing to admit mostly self generated.

The first thing to say is that I love this dog, I love him down to his bones. He causes me an absolute bucket of stress some days, makes me doubt my own abilities constantly, but he also teaches me every day how to be a better dog trainer and genuinely a better human. He cuts me zero slack and shows me up every chance he gets. But by heck is he a special little dog.

So a bit of background. I got him as a Puppy at 8 weeks old from a lovely local family home. He’s a pedigree Border Terrier from excellent lines and turns heads with his handsome looks everywhere he goes. He’s now 2 and half years old and he’s still entire. Looking back on his behaviour when I first brought him home with more experienced eyes I can see the personality traits that make him the way he is flashing like a huge beacon, at the time I just thought he was a puppy. Oh how naive I was….

He would get hyper excited around other dogs, throw himself at them almost manically. He would happily take off to go visit (harass) any dog and couldn't drop it until he was physically pulled away. He would scream (like really scream) at the sight and sound of food. Again a huge over reaction and an obvious key to his tendency towards over arousal. He suffered from travel sickness too, poor lad. The arrival at any place in the car would be announced with screaming (still is quite often) because he was just so unbelievably excited (overwhelmed, unsure, nervous…) about life and in fairness pretty desperate to get out the horrible sick generating tin can he was in. He lived in a high state of arousal and high dopamine from day one. It’s not unusual for a Terrier of any sort to be like this. They need to be able to hit that mental high to push through, to focus and to independently hunt and kill prey - in the Borders case a fox, not exactly an easy enemy to face. We’ve bred them for years to be that way. In many ways Elvis is an absolutely A1 first class Border Terrier. However, because of that he is quite a tricky pet. I should add he’s a good lad around the house, never ever thought of chewing the sofa, he never made a fuss about being left alone and mostly sleeps when he’s not otherwise occupied. He’s also fiercely loyal, he’s my dog and I know it and as we will get to a brilliant big brother too.

I was keen on making him a well trained dog from day one, even though I wasn't a professional trainer at the time. (that’s a whole other story). He was brought up in the ‘no sofa, pack leader, no food in training’ style initially. Nothing awful, no choke chains or severe corrections were used but he was set apart and on a level down from the rest of the family. He was trained in that traditional gun dog style. ‘No’ you won’t do that and you’ll be pleased with a stroke on the chin when you did a good job. Sit, stay, come etc. (In a nutshell, please don’t tell me I know nothing about real gun dog training - I know I don’t) Which I will add, works pretty well for a lot of breeds bred to work with and for us or more person focussed dogs in general. (I’ve worked with labs, spaniels and other breeds who will work for praise alone or just for works sake since so I get it) This is not me criticising other methods of training, this is me talking about why they didn't work for Elvis and me.

My first, innocently made error was treating him like a (typical) Labrador. Terriers are bred to work alone, to be independent, to be high arousal and go all in all of the time and Elvis is an EXCELLENT Terrier. While he was a puppy who needed me, on the face of it this style of training worked for him. He was to all intents and purposes pretty good. He certainly wasn’t able to make great decisions on his own but he would recall in most places and we rubbed along mostly off lead and mostly OK most of the time.

His early socialisation was poor. He grew up in lockdown in a very quiet, calm and easily predictable world. I took him to meet other dogs, on lead and off lead he needed to build those dog to dog social skills, or so I thought. Trouble was he was practicing pretty bad social skills! He was in horrible state of high arousal forcing him to make bad decisions. He came off on the wrong end of some dogs quite early on in his life, mainly because he was pushy, rude and totally unable to disengage. Understandably, he was told off. Being a Terrier he looked like he brushed it off and then took the meeting of other dogs as a challenge from then on in. More arousal, more excitement and more poor decisions. He looked confident on the surface, still does, whether he truly is remains unanswered in many ways. He is at heart a friendly, sociable dog - it’s his arousal state that causes the problems. Something which I unintentionally let run free for far too long.

Every dog has the ability to ‘talk’ to other dogs. We don’t need to teach them this. It’s one of those very human and really quite wrong ideas that we some how need to teach them this stuff. In fact what we should see as our responsibility is to set them up in the right way to allow them to succeed on their own. Not all dogs can execute appropriately, same way as not all humans can, you know what you are meant to do, talk confidently to others around you using words and body language, however the environment and your own emotional state can work quite spectacularly against you at times. Because we have so much control over how our dogs interact we often, as looking back I was, hinder rather than help them. I wish I’d given him an alternative, a reason to ignore other dogs and encouraged far far more calmness and disengagement.

As a small aside, it’s the fact that we have so much control over our dogs by default, just due to the nature of how we live with them, that makes the whole pack leader idea so totally ludicrous. You already have control, no matter what you call yourself, leader, guardian, owner….it matters not. You have the keys to the door, the lead, the food, the fun….. ALL OF IT. It’s why the people who I regard as the best dog people try their hardest to give as much of the control back to the dog as possible. If you think you need to take control and put your dog down, that’s your ego talking. Mine talked to me for a while, I’m happy to admit.

Elvis is much much better than he was for the most part around other dogs, I genuinely can recall him away from another dog in most situations, but it’s much harder to undo problems than it is to prevent them and his dog to dog interactions are still unpredictable and tricky at times. He still needs my support, I have to direct him around other dogs or it will go wrong. My apologies to anyone who’s dog has come off on the wrong end of Elvis’s growls. He doesn’t and I don’t think ever will actually bite another dog, but he’s a Terrier and when he makes his feelings known it sounds AWFUL. Even when other dogs have gone for him, he’s not bitten. He has a Terriers jaw, precision and when needed aggression. If he wanted to harm dogs he would have done so, of that I’m sure.

I have never willingly or unthinkingly let these incidents happen. Believe me it’s the last thing on the planet I wanted to happen and if I thought it was the likely outcome I would have managed the situation appropriately. He is under control around other dogs in 99% of situations and only gets loose with other dogs when I know all is well now. When it has happened, thankfully on very few occasions, it’s always been something I was not expecting, even if looking back I probably should have seen it coming a mile off. I have made mistakes, I’ll make them again at some point in the future no doubt.

So besides his behaviour around other dogs, I could for a long time happily disappear into the hills with him for lovely long walks and he’d be off lead and this was my pleasure and saving grace with him in many ways. Then the prey drive happened. It was always there in him, always. He’s a Terrier and his tendency towards over arousal didn’t help. But for a long time the situation just never occurred so we were fine. Knowing what I know now I should have seen it coming but hindsight is a wonderful thing.

I’d switched the way I was training and thinking about him and dogs in general by this point. Training with games, food, play etc. Still a novice though I was missing a part of the puzzle. Tentatively stepping out into teaching others myself as well at the time I was and still am a huge believer in the type of training I teach. The key I was missing with Elvis was the wider picture, arousal levels, physical health, mental health. The whole dog and the environment he was in. Not just on the face of it the fact he could do all the games and look so cool doing them. That’s nice, it really is and it’s part of the puzzle - but if the rest is missing then it’s just not enough.

It started with a Deer. A young one that was innocently sleeping at the very edge of the fire road in the forest as we came around the corner. He was innocently sniffing around and disturbed its slumber. It took off and he followed. Now it’s a big ask for any young dog not to chase that. Especially a Terrier already highly excited about everything in life. That chase flicked the switch in his brain. He was born for this, this is what his future happiness depended on and he would find more of this high adrenalin, high dopamine drug at all costs. He didn’t catch the Deer and although it felt like an age he was probably only gone for a minute or two. It was the best two minutes of his life to date though and months later he hasn't forgotten.

Now what I should have done, is not go anywhere near a forest, any where where there might be sight or scent of a deer or anything else to chase for that matter for at least 6 months. Had I done that I might have managed to dodge the huge prey drive that he now has, or should I say has been awakened within him, it was always there. At the very least I should have put him on lead for a good while to make sure it wasn’t repeated any time soon. I didn’t. I thought, I’m learning to be a dog trainer and his recall is actually excellent. That was one of those things and we will be fine, I’ll avoid that particular forest for a while and go somewhere nice and open for week or two. In a twist of fate only me and Elvis seem to manage to find, there was another deer the very next day. It had come out of the forest from quite a distance and was in the middle of an open field. Off he went…..he came back much quicker as it disappeared over the hill but still that was the nail in the coffin. The one which I may never fully recover from, because let’s be honest about this, he’s perfectly happy chasing things around forests. The eyes bulging, the tongue lolling, the ear to ear metaphorical grin of sheer joy he showed after coming back - it’s my problem that he does it, not his. I cried in the bathroom when I got home that day. F**K.

So with renewed efforts to avoid the Deer I went to a totally Deer free environment. Still off lead (IDIOT) and with his now even higher arousal levels and vigilance for opportunities for his new favourite pastime he found a rabbit to chase instead. More arousal, more dopamine, more adrenalin and the high from it all finally seared into the neural pathways of his brain. Sadly there is no Chasers Anonymous that he could check himself into. However even if he could he wouldn't. Why would he want to…getting a dog over the idea of chasing potential prey isn’t like helping them be less reactive. As a general rule give a dog an alternative to fear based reactivity and they will take it. Finding an alternative to high prey drive, that doesn’t involve a huge dose of pain and fear for the dog is more challenging. It’s genetically anchored, hugely rewarding and you can’t control the environment to stop it. It’s why E-Collars are a thing. It’s why they make you sign contracts for rescue greyhounds that they are never allowed off lead.

So now I had a dog with hyper vigilance for chase. I’m not joking to say he was beyond alert, in crazy high arousal and basically totally deaf to me anywhere where there was trees or potential chase opportunities. His nose would hardly ever go down to the ground and he was WIRED. Pulling on a short lead, attempting to chase off into the woods on a long lead. Nightmare….horrible horrible nightmare. His behaviour around other dogs also getting worse due to this crazy high arousal which was now a permanent feature of any walk we went on.

I should add that at this point I got help and continue to do so, alongside a lot of my own study, from many amazing professionals. Michelle at Devon Dogs, Absolute Dogs, Behavet, Mantrailing with Kevin at Borders Scentwork and the communities I’m part of have all been part of the picture. As well as the medical stuff we’ve been through and are still working through which I haven’t yet covered with Ian Mckelvie - Borders Mobile Vet, Two Rivers Vet Surgery and local physio Collette Wood. I’m now combining a lot of the training foundations I’ve laid over the last 8 months with Predation Substitute Training which seems to be the icing on the cake I have been looking for.

So for what seems like forever but is probably only about 4 months Elvis and I have been working on my problem with his prey drive. He likes his prey drive. After many sessions on a short lead hanging around the edge of forests working on reducing hyper vigilance, we have succeeded and he’s given in and accepted that he won’t chase shadows, flapping trees or any other obscure unidentifiable things of the forest. He will however still be vigilant for actual chase opportunities. So we are back to more pleasant walks under the management of a long line and I’m working towards providing him an alternative to chasing that he finds acceptable. I can whip out the squeaky tennis ball of desire when needed, he will call off even a Deer for it. However, it leaves us in an ever increasing circle of excitement, arousal and eventual totally wired dog and while it is the emergency backstop I will probably always need, it isn’t the long term solution to the problem. Calmness around wildlife, breed specific outlets and general wellbeing are. Watch this space as we take his latest trick, which is pointing (yes like a pointer) at wildlife, instead of chasing it to the next level!

You may think that’s it dear readers, however it’s not. There is more to the puzzle that is Elvis and it does all contribute to the bigger picture of his health, wellbeing and behaviour. About the time the prey drive kicked in, perhaps a little before actually he started getting obsessive about licking his paws. Not as bad as I’ve seen some dogs but more than I’d like to see. He also got what was either a UTI or local infection to the boys area, which I actually think was the reason he had his very first grump at a dog. He was sore and the dog in question was another young male who went to lick where he wasn’t welcome. Essentially Elvis’s first actual learning experience that if you are sore or the attention you are getting is unwanted then growling at it is a way to solve the issue. This was the reason I took him to the vets, he must be sore somewhere as it’s not usual for him to go for other dogs like that.

Now we don’t know if the infection was a result of the start of the allergies and some excessive licking of irritated skin on the area, or the double dose of antibiotics he ended up having were a bigger causal factor (antibiotics destroy gut microbiome and auto immune response to foods is triggered?) and the infection was unrelated, either way after testing I have a long (It’s LONG) list of both environmental and food allergies he is affected by. He is on a controlled diet, which thankfully includes all meats so isn’t to difficult to maintain and a monthly injection to control the itch from the pesky grass and trees. (Thank you insurance as it’s expensive) Since all this is under control he has been a marginally calmer, less whiney dog. I had higher hopes for the discovery and treatment of the allergies, I had held on to the idea that the allergies were such a big factor in his discomfort that his behaviour would see a massive improvement with treatment in place. Alas not for us, although it really does make a huge difference to lots of dogs. For me it just gave the information that I think I already knew, he will plough on regardless of pain and discomfort - that’s just who he is. However, his guts are no longer swollen and no more obsessive licking and scratching so I know overall he is a happier dog.

There has always been a niggle in my mind about his behaviour and that there may be other factors at play, I had hoped the allergies were the answer and sorting it did help, however he has for some time displayed an intermittent limp going down stairs. It’s the only place it shows and I always suspected a luxating patella (slipping kneecap) might be the cause. It’s a very common ailment in Terriers, show by that characteristic Terrier skip. However, no vet was able to move his kneecap, even under sedation and I was told it was unlikely to be causing him any pain so to put him on a joint supplement and carry on. However, knowing his ability to just get on with it I had my doubts and felt that some of his at times quite erratic behaviour could be attributed to pain, even if not severe a constant niggle will wear down even the happiest person in time. I’ve had cartilage surgery on my own knee after an Army injury and it’s true it wasn’t particularly painful but the constant worry about if it was going to move, slip or I was going to fall because it was weak isn’t massively pleasant to live with and I suspected my wee guy was in a similar situation. After what must be nearly a year of my own management with physio and being convinced it was a bigger factor I asked the vet to check again and surely enough he was quite clear with the vet that their was pain in the leg. X-rays showed nothing more serious and now it’s degraded enough to diagnose my suspicions are confirmed.

With a referral in place to the Dick Vets in Edinburgh to start looking at his leg and some intense physio to support the knee and big leaps forward in the arousal levels around prey drive over the last few weeks I feel like we are on the up again. Watch this space for updates on this very special, slightly bonkers and much misunderstood wee guy.

And remember - if you are struggling with your dogs behaviour, there is likely to be multiple factors at play and you won’t be able to fix it with just training - in fact if just one thing helps it’s likely to be the health and wellness factors that make the biggest difference.