BARRK Dogs in Rehabilitation
Part One – Taming The Wild Beast
Blue is a young multi coloured male Collie, and when BARRK first encountered him he was a wild looking beast resembling a wolf, who was highly aggressive toward humans and dogs and anything else that moved and had to be kept muzzled on an almost constant basis. Blue had been under the care of not just one but two qualified canine behaviourists who claimed emphatically that Blue was wired incorrectly and no amount of training would remove his aggression, therefore for the safety of all concerned they strongly advised that he be destroyed as quickly as possible. On another occasion Blue so terrified an experienced dog walker who had been engaged to exercise him that she point blank refused to work with him ever again. At just eight months old and with no traumatic event in his life Blue should not have been so extremely aggressive unless his brain truly was cross wired, in which case there was little hope.
Despite all this BARRK agreed to help and sent him to the croft for rehabilitation. Blue arrived one cold afternoon in the back of a car, muzzled and I have never seen such a mixture of sadness and anger in a dog’s eyes. Blue was brought by his distraught owners who did not want to give up this dog they loved but knew they had no other option. I showed them onto a secure yard we have on the croft for receiving new arrivals and the instant Blue’s paws were on the yard, without a bark or a snarl, he flew at me with great ferocity aiming his strike at my kneecaps, which would have been ripped to bloody shreds had he not been wearing a muzzle. The owner in pure panic pulled back on the lead in a vain attempt to control Blue. I instantly instructed him to desist and allow Blue to continue his attack. He was somewhat surprised by this request but the more you pull back on the lead of an attacking dog the more aggressive it will become, the tension flowing down the taught lead acting like petrol on a fire. Blue like something possessed just kept flying at my knees, the muzzle smashing into my kneecaps time and again leaving bruise after bruise but at least the muzzle kept his sharp looking teeth from sinking into my flesh.
I stood my ground like a granite statue not making the smallest backwards step for one millimetre backwards would have signalled defeat and I would not be able to do anything for Blue. If he defeated me I would become his inferior and no dog will heed the instructions of an inferior. I waited patiently, watching for my opening, then suddenly I sensed the moment was right and moved forward a small step with determination. I could see that Blue had never experienced a challenge of this nature before, all previous targets of his aggression had been quickly driven away by his ferocity, he had never learnt to submit and rather than backing down to my challenge he threw absolutely everything he had into the attack, a snarling, salivating, biting ball of determination intent on killing me. Again, I moved confidently toward him at which point he made a sudden almost undetectable backwards step. That was his undoing, in that backwards step, small as it was, Blue had shown his hand. I now engaged eye contact, giving a powerful stare and moved right into his body space pressing my knees against his muzzle.
Blue dramatically fell silent and retreated behind his owner. Without delay I took Blue’s lead and had his owner accompany me as I set off for a brisk walk around our five acre field. Blue was appalling on the lead pulling like a steam locomotive. A series of sharp side checks with the lead immediately releasing the tension of the lead the moment the correction was delivered brought Blue under reasonable, though far from perfect, control. After about two hundred yards I stopped and applied light pressure to Blue’s rump at the same time issuing the command sit, I could feel the tension in his body, it was like touching an iron bar but Blue complied, slowly lowering his rear to the ground. I knelt down beside him to remove any suggestion of confrontation, took a firm hold of his front paws and with my other hand pushed just behind his shoulder effecting a kind of Judo throw that gently rolled him onto his side. Then placed one hand softly on his rib cage with the dual purpose of preventing him from standing up and to allow him to feel my confident and calm energy.
I began massaging down his spine, his front paws were tucked up close to his chest, his tail pressed down between his hind legs and touching his belly, both classic signs of tension. I moved the massage to his shoulders then his hind legs and then pulled his tail from between his legs and stroked it over and over again from base to tip drawing out the tension with every stroke, then did the same to his front paws. Blue felt like a spring that had been stretched to the very point of breaking and I could literally feel the spring begin to release as I massaged him, not by much, a tiny, tiny fraction but it was a beginning. I lent forward and put my face against his. Blue’s owner looked at me with utter astonishment, as if I had gone completely mad, this was the dog that had tried to savage my kneecaps and now I was pressing my face close to his but most dogs love this kind of close contact and it has the effect of putting them at their ease, and he was after all still wearing a muzzle, if he did attack I would only end up with a black eye, I was not going to have my face ripped off. Now I felt confident enough to place two fingers through his muzzle, which Blue could have bitten clean off had he wished, and stroked his snout.
“Unbelievable.” Said his owner with astonishment. “I would never have believed you could tame him so quickly.” I had got to a position where Blue would not bite me in about fifteen minutes but that was just the beginning of his rehabilitation. In effect I had pushed against a door and Blue had let me into his mind and spirit, which were rooms full to busting with dirt and rubbish, all of which now had to be cleaned out thoroughly and that was going to take a lot of time and a lot of patience. When Blue’s owners, satisfied that Blue was now in good hands, left the croft I took Blue to the building that was to be his kennel, a stone built structure with a deep straw bed. Now came the moment of truth, Blue could not remain in his muzzle all the time, in his kennel it would obviously have to be removed so that he could drink and eat and groom himself. We had known each other for about thirty minutes at this point. With complete confidence and a steady hand I undid the buckle holding the muzzle in place, to show or even feel the slightest bit of hesitation or fear at this point could easily have fuelled a fresh explosion of aggression and it would be a bloody and painful affair for I had nothing to fend him off, no stick or board, my only shield was my confidence and it had to remain absolute or I was going to get bitten. I slipped the muzzle off his very long snout, stepped backwards and sat down on the soft sweet smelling straw and opened my arms to invite him to me. He had three options, he could slink into the corner and have nothing to do with me, in which case I would stay quiet and passive, for hours if necessary, till he came to me. Option two was to attack me, in which case I would have to fight to get his scruff and pin him down. But he chose the third option, the one I was hoping for, he came to me, his body close to the ground, ears back and moving slowly, signs of uncertainty. I allowed him to crawl onto my lap then began to stroke him and give him praise. The voice is as important as the stroking it soothes the savage inside a dog and gives him confidence, a praising voice should be soft and gentle and melodious.
During that session of stroking and praising Blue and I bonded with one another as the first seeds of a deep friendship were sown and he has never attempted to bite me again, not that he was fixed, far from it but he had allowed me to take a position of authority in his life that provided the platform for me to help him. Blue had never spent a night in a kennel by himself before so that night as darkness descended he began to howl like his ancestor the wolf, an ear splitting chilling sound that could be heard for miles around, and anyone who heard it could have been excused for thinking that a wolf had escaped from one of the numerous wildlife parks in Scotland. There are various protracted methods for dealing with anxiety of this nature but I wanted an almost instant fix to the howling for the simple reason that Blue had experienced a very stressful day and he needed to relax, unwind and take the best medicine for such a day which is a nice long and peaceful sleep. I switched on the kennel light and marched in like an irate sergeant major, corned Blue, and standing over him in a domineering fashion told him in no uncertain terms to be quiet and settle down, you should never be afraid to tell a dog exactly what you are thinking, they understand far more than people give them credit for. I left the kennel, he howled again and I repeated the process and that was the end of that, I watched through the kennel window as he settled down in the bed of straw and with a deep sigh closed his eyes and went to sleep.
Some may consider my approach somewhat harsh but in little over five minutes I had brought an end to his anxiety and forced him to relax, the longer a dog like this is allowed to feed on anxiety the more he winds himself up and the more dangerous and unstable he becomes. I too needed to relax and went inside for a good sit down, some refreshment and a rest, make no mistake rehabilitating an aggressive dog of this nature is a draining experience that leaves you physically and mentally shattered after every training session, you have to be physically and mentally fit to take on such a challenge.
Part Two – Nemo The Healer
Blue had not been with me twenty four hours when I realized I had in my charge a dog that could given the chance kill, worry sheep, savage other dogs or put people into hospital with multiple serious injuries, this was a very dangerous dog and like gun powder he had to be handled with extreme care or he would blow up in your face and other people would get injured, most dogs will drive an attack so far and then break off when they feel the point has been made but some, thankfully rare dogs, will just press on and on with savage intensity till they kill their target, Blue was such a dog, a potential killer. Next door to our five acre field is a farmer’s grass field and between the two an extremely stout line of cattle fencing. In my wisdom I decided to walk Blue along the side of the fence in the farmer’s field whilst my brother walked our Labrador and Collie on the other side of the fence in our field. The intention, to familiarize Blue with our dogs from a safe distance. The instant Blue saw our dogs his eyes glazed over and he literally exploded flying at the fence in a demented rage. The lead was attached to a choke chain and Blue pulled it so taught with his ferocious lunges that he was chocking himself half to death but did not care. Blue like a missile was locked on his target, our dogs, which he wanted to kill and nothing was going to stop him from achieving his objective. Confident that the cattle fencing would keep Blue from getting to our dogs I had not muzzled him and was now faced with the task of bringing this snarling, foaming at the mouth savage under control with his sharp teeth at liberty to cause me serious damage if he wished. I grabbed his scruff with both hands and with a sharp twist of the wrists flipped him on his side and held him down for what seemed like hours, but was only minutes, till he had calmed down. I could now see why two professional dog behaviourists had branded Blue beyond help. The only solace I could take from this awful episode was that Blue at no time had tried to bite me, this was only very slight comfort for he obviously wanted to kill the rest of the world. On our next attempt to introduce Blue to our dogs I had him firmly muzzled, he hated the muzzle, the moment it went on his tail went between his legs and his whole body seemed to go into a state of agitation.
The muzzle was certainly not helping Blue to relax, if anything it was stoking the fires of aggression that burnt within him, but he simply had to wear it, he was too dangerous to come out of his kennel without it. For a fortnight we walked Blue around the five acre field many times a day with our dogs keeping Blue on a short leash and had him under fairly good control, but he was not happy, far from it and neither were our dogs, who walked behind Blue, heads down and dull. Our dogs are normally such energetic animated creatures, the Collie called Teasel running like a rocket from one end of the field to the other and back again in the blink of an eye, the Labrador named Nemo sniffing about in the grass for interesting scents, his tail upright and as straight as an arrow, for them to be so dull and lifeless in Blue’s presence was a clear indicator that something was dreadfully wrong, walks used to be such joyful affairs but now there was a spirit of sadness hanging over our walks like a cloud. Something radical had to be done to change this pitiful state of affairs but nothing I tried yielded fruit. Then one day I had a flash of inspiration and decided to walk Blue free with the other dogs but left his lead attached to his collar trailing behind him so that if he did attack I would have something to grab to bring him under control. As Blue walked about with his head down, stopping every few strides to paw frantically at his muzzle in an attempt to free himself from its incarceration, I noticed our Labrador, Nemo, kept trying to get a hold of the end of the lead for some reason or other but was having difficulty because the end of the lead was slim and snaking through the grass as Blue walked forward. I suddenly had the idea to tie one of Nemo’s gundog dummies firmly to the end of Blue’s lead. My brother could not see what good this would do and I myself had no idea what the outcome was going to be but I just sensed that Nemo was in his own way trying to help and so I wanted to encourage him in the belief that Nemo being a dog himself knew infinitely more about dogs than I could ever hope to learn in a thousand lifetimes. On seeing the dummy Nemo instantly perked up and seized the dummy in his large powerful jaws. Blue, who was walking forward at the time was brought to a rude halt. You see Nemo is built like an Olympic power lifter and when playing tug of war he can literally pull over a full grown man. At first I thought Blue would respond to the abrupt tug on the lead by turning upon Nemo with one of his savage attacks but no, Nemo set off at a trot giving a tuck on the lead and Blue to my surprise and delight followed. Wherever Nemo went, whatever pace he set, Blue followed and he looked happier, his body less twisted with tension, and when Nemo was in charge of his lead Blue made no attempt to remove his muzzle.
Nemo may be built like a muscle man but he has a very gentle yet strong spirit and you could visibly see that Nemo’s energy was flowing down the lead and into Blue like a blood transfusion. Our walks were once more happy affairs. Nemo was full of pride revealing in the responsibility he had been given to tame Blue and our little collie bitch Teasel was once more darting about the field with joy. Nemo achieved in a few sessions of walking Blue what I had been trying and failing to achieve for a whole two weeks. Nemo had brought about a turning point and I could now see with confidence that it was possible to rehabilitate Blue. Using one dog to heal another dog’s broken spirit in this fashion is a truly magical way to address behavioural problems but dogs like Nemo able to administer the healing do not grow on trees, the whole family has worked long and hard, over several years, using all our dog knowledge to make Nemo what he is today, a remarkably well balanced dog with a generous and caring spirit who has a visible concern for other members of the pack. After Nemo had administered his brand of medicine, simply by walking Blue around the field, Blue completely lost his desire to kill our dogs and was now showing an active interest in wanting to take part in what the other dogs were doing, he wanted to integrate with the pack, not to dominate it but to simply be a part of it and that was a very encouraging sign. I still felt the muzzle was a necessary precaution and after discussions with the rest of the family had decided that the muzzle should continue to be used for the next three months. There was still much to be done with Blue but at least the work was underway, the hardest part of rehabilitating an aggressive dog, finding that something that starts you moving forward had been accomplished and it was not thanks to the ingenuity of the human mind but thanks to the instincts of a dog called Nemo.
Part Three – Away With The Muzzle
Blue was now safe around our dogs and around the family but I decided that he should continue to wear his muzzle for the next three months when he was out of his kennel as a safety precaution, just in case he should have a relapse and the rest of the family agreed. So you can imagine my shock when just a few days later, as I was working in the barn, Blue, who now had complete free range of the entire croft, walked into the barn with no muzzle. I rushed him into his kennel and went to look for his muzzle which I thought he had somehow managed to pull off only to find mother on the yard holding the muzzle.
“He didn’t look happy in the muzzle so I took it off” she said, and I had to admit she was right, without the muzzle he appeared to have a bright and happy smile on his face which he did not have when wearing his muzzle, so the muzzle was abandoned.
Blue’s aggression toward dogs was now behind him but he was still highly aggressive toward humans other than the family, so I needed a volunteer who was willing to help condition Blue, on the understanding that Blue would be un-muzzled during the training sessions and that he would certainly attempt to bite the volunteer and may well succeed in his attempts. As you can imagine it was not easy to find a volunteer under those circumstances, but then a neighbour, ex army, stepped up, knowing full well that he might get bitten, but not seeming to care. Our first season was on the kennel yard, I told the volunteer, do not touch Blue, do not talk to him and whatever you do don’t engage him in direct eye contact and when Blue attacks stand perfectly still. The fact that my volunteer was ex-army was a great benefit because he was used to taking orders and when I told him what I wanted him to do, he simply did it without question.
I opened Blue’s kennel door and out he shot like a missile dashed behind my volunteer leapt up and bit, fortunately getting the end of his jacket rather than his backside. As Blue was about to strike again, this time for the leg, I was able to block him accompanying the block with a firm no command. Blue made fifteen to twenty more attempts to sink his teeth into my volunteer before he got the idea that his behaviour was not wanted. On the next session I had my volunteer walk about the kennel yard and of course Blue could not resist a moving target and went after him like a lion after its prey, again I swiftly blocked his attacks and this time he quite quickly got the message. Next time my volunteer came he accompanied Blue and me on a walk around the paddock, Blue walking between us, then I handed the lead to my volunteer and to my delight Blue allowed himself to be led, with no attempt at a bite and he didn’t even pull on the lead. It had taken six months to bring Blue to this stage and would take another six months to complete his rehabilitation at which point he could have been re-homed but Blue and I had built up such a bond of trust over the period of his rehabilitation that I was not going to let him go, so I adopted him and he will spend the rest of his life at the croft with me. He is the founding member of the BARRK pack and now spends much of his time helping me to rehabilitate other dangerous and disturbed dogs. It is hard to believe that two experienced canine behaviourists said that Blue should be destroyed because he was so dangerous and now he is helping other dogs to get rid of their dangerous behaviours.