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Hersch Wilson

Firefighter, Writer, Speaker

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Raising “Bomb-Proof” Dogs, Part 2

Two Words: Treats and Exposure!

Bomb-proof: Not easily frightened, able to calmly deal with new situations and stimuli, won’t go through screen doors when the UPS guy arrives.

In the first part of this series I wrote about picking a puppy that was a match for your lifestyle and how important the breeder was.

This column is about when you bring the puppy home—now what?

My obsession is training our dogs to be bomb-proof—dogs who sit, observe and calmly watch the world go by.

We have a long, long way to go. I learned too late the skills needed to train a calm dog, and thus have spent the last years chasing our Berners down roads, over fields and profusely apologizing as they jump through the car windows of strangers.

Our dogs are past the best canine learning age—that first year of puppyhood—so I consider them remedial learners. But against all odds, we are making progress.

I’ve been taking the sage advice of Joey Padilla of Santa Fe Tails and Jill Felice of Assistance Dogs of the West.

The two big ideas I’ve taken from them are lots of exposure and “let the treats fall from heaven.”

Here is a simple principle: the more of the world that puppies are exposed to early, the calmer they will be later. The critical brain developmental time for a dog is those first few months. For comparison, human brains seem to continue to develop until the early twenties, when a child finally gets that, just because there are checks in the checkbook doesn’t mean that there is money in the checking account. (“Wait, what?” is their normal reaction.)

Back to puppies. From the day you bring a puppy home, it’s a hands-on job of exposing them to you and a new environment. They need to be regularly and gently handled in all circumstances. As a kid, I freaked out when our ten-week-old German Shepherd growled when I started to pet her while she ate. My mom made me sit with her and continue petting her until she realized I wasn’t going to take her food. I was a little sensitive about this because that same year I had reached for my friend’s French fries and was stabbed in the hand with a fork.

There is a debate within the veterinarian community about when a puppy’s immune system is strong enough for exposure to the bigger world. But as soon as possible it’s crucial to expose them to all the things that cause consternation. Kids: puppies are suspicious of little humans. Other dogs: dogs are hierarchical and social pack animals. You want to keep your puppy safe, but it’s crucial that they learn how to interact with other dogs. And it’s best that this interaction is off-leash so they can follow the time-honored rituals of canine meet and greet. Also, guys with beards and hats: apparently dogs haven’t accepted the whole hipster thing.

The solution is… exposure! As Joey Padilla pointed out, some of the calmest dogs you’ll ever see are the partners of the homeless. They are exposed to everything all the time. Lots of exposure reduces that innate fear of the unknown.

The “how to” takes time but it pays off. Take your puppy to a park, a mall or, if in Santa Fe, to the Plaza at least twice a week. Take them to places where they will be exposed to all sorts of stimuli. Here is the key: take along lots of treats.

When your puppy encounters something or someone that causes barking, whimpering or lunges, let the treats, in Joey’s words, “Rain from heaven.”

After a few trips your puppy will associate the guy with the beard and hat with treats and probably search them out in the crowds.

Testimonial: I began using this strategy with our Nellie and Tank. They’d always bark and lunge at a neighbor on our morning walks. After a few walks when treats “rained from heaven,” they now see him and turn to me ready for the celestial downpour. It’s pretty cool.

So apparently it’s never too late to train “late bloomers” as if they were puppies. Or as Tank would say, “treats rule!”

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Raising “Bomb-Proof” Dogs, Part 1

Part 1 in a series about raising awesome, calm dogs.

I was walking our Berners, Tank and Nellie, one morning. Over the hill came another couple with an older Lab. Our dogs immediately went crazy. The Lab just looked at them as if they had a screw loose.

The man yelled down (in a nice, yet subtly judgmental voice) “Did your dogs flunk puppy class?”

Sigh. When I was eleven, our German Shepherd named Shawnee and I got kicked out of puppu class. The truth of the matter is that every dog I’ve had since Shawnee has struggled or failed in puppy class.

Maybe, I thought, it’s me…

I forgot about that incident until a few months later when I visited Assistance Dogs of the West to write a column on Anxiety Dogs. While there, I hung out with five two-year-old trainee dogs, all Golden Labs. They were ridiculously calm and friendly. Anna Wilder, one of the trainers, saw my look of astonishment and said, “Our dogs have to be ‘bomb-proof.’”
“Bomb-proof: Not easily frightened, able to calmly deal with new situations and stimuli, won’t go through screen doors when the UPS guy arrives or jump up on my mom.”What, I asked myself, was the secret—that I had apparently missed—to raising bomb-proof dogs?

Time to do research! I talked to two of my favorite dog people, Joey Padilla of Santa Fe Tails and Jill Felice of Assistance Dogs of the West. They are studied and deeply experienced in the art of raising puppies to become great, bomb-proof dogs.

And I immediately discovered that the quest for this kind of dog starts long before you bring a puppy home.

“Bomb-proof” starts with breeding.

Consulting the Experts

“Genetics are more important than training,” Jill told me. “Our dogs need to be ‘no-failure’ dogs because of the people we work with. They are folks with disabilities, veterans with PTSD and people with significant anxiety. It’s like dogs in the military. To have a dog willing to jump out of an airplane at 10,000 feet with his trainer requires a no-failure dog. We work with dogs who are bred for the right temperament: calm and confident. The dogs we work with have to come on to the planet with patience.”

Joey was even more blunt. “If we want bomb-proof dogs, it starts with breeders. They need to be licensed, and breeders need to stop breeding dogs for looks and start breeding for behavior.”

Although, according to the ASPCA, the majority of dogs are acquired through friends and family, approximately thirty percent of dogs come from breeders, and another 30 percent from shelters.
I’ll cover the amazing process of choosing a shelter dog in part three of this series. But here are some things to think about if you are planning on acquiring a life-time friend through a breeder.

1. Don’t acquire a life partner animal on an impulse. Never do that! Resist! A puppy bonds with you, and if you break that bond, it can be devastating for the dog…and for you.

​2. Understand that having a puppy means devoting time every day to training and nurturing it. Seriously, at least an hour a day of training and bonding, which doesn’t include you watching TV and leaving your puppy in a crate.

3. Do your research! What kind of dog or breed fits your lifestyle? Do you want a companion that will outrun you on the trail, or one that will out sleep you on a rainy Sunday while you nap on the couch (like Tank and Nellie with my wife in this photo)? Don’t get a Jack Russell and expect it to nap with you. As Jill emphasized, no amount of training will change the essential nature of a dog. Nellie and Tank will never “fetch.” In Berner mind, it’s way too much work for no food. And “fetching” is beneath them. They believe they were meant to hang out and be loved.

4. Do your research on the breeder. Are they licensed? Are they local? Joey, for example, will not fly puppies by themselves because it is too stressful. Joey and his family will drive out of state to get the right dog, because the bonding can begin immediately, and he’s able to see the breeder’s home. Also—let’s hammer home this point—getting a canine partner is a big deal! Taking a day or two to drive and bring your puppy home is a small investment for a lifetime of dog-love. Joey will also not work with a breeder who doesn’t have kids. Puppies who have early exposure to kids will not be frightened by them later on.

​5. Look for temperament! If you’re like me (the snowy day on the couch guy), once you’ve determined the right breed, then look for the calmest puppy in the litter. If, on the other hand, you’re looking for the dog that will keep up with your athletic kids, get the one that climbed over the barrier to lick their faces.

In the next column I’ll write about training that puppy to be bomb-proof when you bring her home. Here’s a hint: It’s a “hands-on” job.

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Is A House Really A Home Without A Cat?

She just sat there judging me. She reminded me of a woman I had tried to talk to in Paris when I was twenty-five. The woman slowly looked me up and down, then rolled her eyes and turned away.

Never spoke.

But this wasn’t The Parisian Woman. This was a cat. Specifically, a year-old cat named Clover. Yet she had the same effect: I felt invisible and somehow diminished.

Then Clover stretched, silently hopped off the couch and walked by me without even looking back.

Just like in Paris.

So. How did a cat end up in our dog-centric house?  I blame my daughter, Brynne and her new husband, Luke.

Now, Luke is a great guy; we all loved him immediately. But there was a problem. Not a religious or political problem—worse! One night at a family dinner Brynne mentioned that Luke was a cat person and they were getting a kitten.

There was an uncomfortable silence after Brynne’s announcement. We were dog people. I could handle different political persuasions, or religions…but cats?

(The silence was like when the oldest son announces at a family dinner that he’s quitting college to become a dancer. Not that I remember that as if it were yesterday…)

I decided to break the silence by proposing that getting a cat was not a great idea. But then all the women in my family stared me down like the Eye of Sauron exerting his will over Middle-Earth. I was not to speak.

A month later they adopted a kitten from the shelter. Six months later as I had predicted, we were cat-sitting. Thus my first relationship with a feline began.

At first, Clover stayed in Brynne’s old room. I was admittedly curious. What do cats do? Mostly they lounge. I’d find Clover on the bed, in baskets or asleep on a stack of towels.

She wanted to have nothing to do with me or our dogs. By the way, our dogs started out curious, then they ignored her, and finally they became somewhat nervous. Clover would silently appear anywhere at any time, bat Tank on his nose, hiss and then disappear. I’m sure our dogs believed she practiced the dark arts of feline magic.

After a few days I noticed Clover peeking out around the bedroom door and sizing up the situation. It wasn’t that she was shy, it was more like disdain. If you’ve ever had teenage girls, you know the drill. “Fine, even though you are the most embarrassing parents on the planet, I will lower myself to eat dinner with you.”

Cat Attack!

At some point Clover realized that not only were dogs and people not a threat, but they were essentially lower life forms that she could rule. We entered the period of Cat Attack, where she pretended to be a velociraptor. I’d be sitting on the couch reading and “Bam!” there was a cat on my shoulder! We’d be asleep at 4:00 a.m. and then, “Yikes!” Clover would jump on my head and then be gone.

I was astonished at how quickly she could bite or scratch me and then vanish. It was like the old western movies. Someone would be shot, they’d look down and say, “Hah! Just nicked me.”  Then five minutes later they’re bleeding out.

Bleeding aside, I did warm up to Clover. One morning before work we actually played “bat the stuffed mouse,” “hide under the pillow,” and “attack the hand” for ten minutes. Then, in a totally manipulative way, she did the arch-the-back, purring, wanting-me-to-pet-her thing. She finished by curling up next to me and falling asleep. We were apparently bonding.

Take that, Parisian Woman!

Cat Got My Tongue?

I would never admit it to my family, but after day five, I could see having a cat in our house. (If you quote me, I will deny it.)

I thought about why. It occurred to me that although dogs are amazing, a cat inhabits a house. They move in and own it. Every room, every corner and every window sill is lived in. I’d look up and there would be Clover, peering down at me from a kitchen cabinet. Her presence was felt even when she was out of sight.

​After Clover left, our house felt a little emptier. But I had learned something: Maybe, just maybe, you need a cat to make a house a home. (But I never said that.)

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The Perfect Thanksgiving (At Least Someone Had Turkey…)

Growing up, my family’s Thanksgivings were massive undertakings, usually including four very Irish Catholic families, which meant twenty children, all under the age of thirteen, eight parents and grandparents.
The particular holiday in question was at our home, which introduced the star character of this story, our three-year-old German Shepard, Shawnee.The activity level in the house and outside before dinner was like a school recess. The kids were running, playing, yelling, fighting and crying.

The adults were trying desperately to make sure no kids were missing or seriously injured. Shawnee, after attempting to herd kids, just jumped in and played; lots of chasing, finding hiding kids and barking in delight.

Finally, my dad had enough and he pointed at me and at Shawnee. That was my cue to take Shawnee to my room. I grabbed my cousin Johnny, who was my same age, and we hightailed it upstairs. As we ran up I heard my mom yell at my almost teenage sister and the girl cousins, “You can’t wear black eye shadow to Thanksgiving dinner! Your grandmother will have a stroke!”
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In my room, with a couple of other hanger-on cousins, Shawnee jumped on my bed, curled up and watched us. Johnny and I continued the serious conversation that we’d been engaged in all day. We’d both been promoted to senior Altar Boys at our churches and we had discovered girls at the same time. We were weighing the pros and cons. This was an intense conversation, so I never noticed Shawnee slip out of the room.

But apparently Shawnee had plans. With all the dads either drinking, changing diapers or chasing children, Shawnee saw opportunity.

But let me set the stage. In the eye of the family hurricane was our kitchen. There, with the planning and execution that would make a general weep with jealousy, the moms were preparing, cooking and setting the tables.

I wouldn’t say they were militant, but no one was allowed in the kitchen, not weepy three-year-olds, sullen pre-teens, husbands or a loveable pet. This was the place of perfection, where the moms wanted only to lay out, once a year, the perfect family meal. Once a year they strove to gather us all under one roof. Once a year the wish was to have us each hold our breath at the bounty and perfection of a Thanksgiving Day meal. There was a lot of “artistic” tension in that kitchen.

Reality Comes Knocking

But perfection exists on the edge of chaos. There is always an agent of change ready to knock down the first domino.

None of us noted that Shawnee had somehow gone missing.

At about 4:00 p.m. we were called to dinner. The Minnesota sun was a pale ball setting in the west over a prairie of snow. The little ones were being seated at the kids table and the teenagers were wondering, “would this be the year that we sit with the grownups?”  The turkey was cooling on the kitchen counter. The grandparents were led to sit at the head of the table. It seemed to be coming to pass; that moment of a perfect Thanksgiving.

I recall still being assigned to the kids table. I recall that we had cracked open the door to the backyard because it was warm and a little smoky.

The next thing I remember is my Aunt Betty yelling, “The dog has the turkey!”

We all looked and sure enough, Shawnee had come out of nowhere. She had leapt up on the counter and grabbed a twenty pound roasted turkey in her jaws and sprinted out the door.

Of course all the kids jumped up to chase, knocking over glasses, yanking tablecloths in excitement, but Shawnee was gone, past the tree line into the dark.

There was shock in the dining room.

The kids came back, out of breath from the chase. We all gathered around the “grown-up” table waiting for cues. How should we react? Anger? Frustration?

We waited. And then, my mom just laughed. Then my grandfather, Dinty, joined in. Soon, even the “cool” girl cousins were laughing out loud.

Perfection had again been bested by reality.

I’m sure that Shawnee had not planned any of this, but after we stopped laughing, the entire family visibly relaxed. There was nothing we could do. We ate mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie and sweet potatoes. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a great Thanksgiving. And a very full dog was let back in the house around midnight…

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Firefighter Wisdom: Never Wake A Napping Dog For An Alarm Check

I was sound asleep on the couch with a blanket over my head and a dog passed out on my lap. The pager app on my iPhone toned out, “Alarm check, 700 Old Las Vegas Highway.”

This was a “frequent flyer” restaurant. Always with the alarm checks.

I reached out from under the blanket, got the phone, brought it under my blanket and…

dialed the number of the restaurant. The owner answered and he apologized (again), saying someone left a door open to the kitchen and grill smoke had set off the alarm.

I said, “got it.”

I hung up, called fire dispatch, explained all of the above in fire department detail and lingo and said we could cancel the call.

I put the phone back on the table, readjusted the blanket and went back to sleep. Nellie, our Alpha dog, never woke up.

Total time: 2 minutes.

My kind of call.

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Home Officing With Dogs: Six Rules To Help It Go Smoothly

You woke up thinking it would be a great idea to home office. After all, thirty million Americans already do (at least once a week). You think, why not me? You clear it with your boss and your significant other. You’re set!

Then, you look your dog’s face. He looks up at you adoringly, maybe holding a ball in his mouth. You don’t notice the tiny glint of obsessive/compulsive “I need to be with you every moment” in his eyes. So you think, what could possibly go wrong working at home with a dog?

This is a question that affects, hmm, let me do the math here: 1 in 4 homes have home offices. 40% of homes have a dog. 40% times the difference between 1 and 4, divided by seven (English majors always divide by 7) that equals, well, on the back of a napkin, a lot of homes with someone working at home with a dog. Woof. As an experienced working-at-home/dog partner, let me explain what lies ahead.​

Personal Dog House

On a video conference a few weeks ago, one of the participants dove off camera yelling “Stop that!” Then there were the sounds of multiple dogs barking. When she came back on camera, she was a bit disheveled. We also noted that under her business jacket, she was wearing pajamas.

Of course I’m just as guilty. Our dogs need to be the center of attention at all times. Nellie, our Alpha female Bernese Mountain Dog seems able to sense when there is a teleconference. Once I was standing, wearing a suit, looking all corporeity making a video presentation, Nellie slid into the shot, leaned against me and nearly pushed me out of the picture, much to the amusement of everyone else on the conference.

It’s not just communicating with the outside world. Dogs also have no regard for the amount of focus required to work alone. They believe they are the center of the world and they don’t seem to get that the work we do pays for their dog food. Work? Money? Pay? These seem to be foreign concepts to dogs. Food just appears magically in their bowls. Of course, our kids thought the same thing for years.

After a few years of “canine interruptist,” I suggested to Laurie, my wife, that maybe I should buy a small shed and put it in the back, so I could work uninterrupted. She looked at me and asked, rhetorically, “So you want to get a dog house for you?”

“So you want to get a dog house for you?”

Well, when you put it that way . . .

But far more disruptive in my opinion is when, at 2:00 p.m., they decide to nap. They curl up right next to you! They look so comfortable. Why do we have to work all day anyway? Maybe I could just close my eyes for a minute . . . And then it’s 3:30, they want to play and I’m hours behind.
But don’t be discouraged. I’ve come up with a few simple ideas to help you successfully be productive at home with even the most obsessed-with-you canine.

Hersch’s Home-Officing Tips

1. Sit your dogs down and explain to them how important work is in a capitalist economy. Hold a handful of dog food as a visual to make the point: no work, no dog food.

2. Master the mute button on your phone! You need to be able to anticipate when your dog is about to bark and hit that button within a quarter of a second!

3. The exhausted dog is the best work companion. Long walks in the early morning guarantees that they will sleep the rest of the morning when we typically are at our best.

4. On important calls with bosses or clients: Dogs sense our stress and bark because they’re worried about us. Have a safe room. I often sit in my closet with the door shut.

5. Follow the dog schedule. Don’t try to work during play or meal times. They will not let you. Just go with the flow, learn their schedule.

6. Include your dogs! Bounce ideas off them. Some of my best work has come after long conversations with Tank, our male Berner. He is especially good at helping me stay focused on what matters, namely food.

A last thought. When things aren’t going as planned, when it has been a bad day at work, nothing beats curling up on the floor with your dogs for a long afternoon nap.​