Porter Nips the Wrong Pants and We Bring in a Trainer

Porter in a field of violets

If, like me, your last five dogs were labs or golden retrievers, it might come as a shock to realize your 1-year-old brindle rescue is NOT a lab and will NOT behave like one. In fact, your little rescue may come with a myriad of issues you have never seen before and did not even know existed. Enter The Trainer.

I had read many books, but, alas, Porter had nipped the pants of yet another one of our family friends, and we had no idea what to do with that. We didn't know if this was the tip of the iceberg and there was a lot more aggression behind that nip. I remember being really, really upset that I had this damn dog and I couldn't take him out and in public without him snapping at someone and I couldn't have people over without him nipping at someone, but over time we learned his triggers and they became non-issues. At that time, though, I still did not have a lot of experience with rescue dogs and this behavior was a BIG DEAL to me. I never would have believed my future self if they told me that this was all going to work out...eventually...in time.

Porter's other issues were air snapping at people he didn't want petting him, air snapping at dogs who got too close to him, and nipping fingers of visitors who dared to walk faster than a zombie. Any trainer was going to have their work cut out for them.

Baby Porter Attacking Anything Scary

Finding a Trainer

I got to work scouring the local dog trainers and their websites and filled out the lengthy information forms. A few trainers wouldn't work with me since Porter was human aggressive. I understood but I remember get really frustrated that I couldn't find someone to help me deal with him before any of his issues got bigger. Finally, after getting some denials and a lot of ghosting, I talked to a board-and-train trainer that I liked, but I couldn't imagine Porter being very productive in a board and train situation. He's an anxious guy, and I felt like all that anxiety would have overpowered any training that the trainer was trying to do, so I finally settled on getting an in-home trainer.

More forms, etc. More ghosting. By the time the trainer we hired called me back and said he work with me, I was like "you're immediately hired." Looking back, I should have spent more time asking him about his training techniques and his training plans, but at the time he was the only person willing to work with me in the home and willing to work with Porter. So, even though I didn't love his entire training method, we still did learn a lot from him and he was one of the few trainers willing to help us in the beginning.

Trainer Doug (as we will call him for this post-not his real name) came over the first night, asked questions, gave advice, and took a lot of notes for TWO HOURS. By the time he left we were wrung out.

We started the conversation as you would expect: He wanted to get to understand what Porter's issues were, and I later realized, what exactly his triggers were. Basically, we would tell Trainer Doug something Porter had done that was bad, and then Trainer Doug would follow up with a lot of questions about who, what, where, and when.

Porter's Triggers

We narrowed Porter's triggers down to these specific scenarios:

• People stepping over him

• People stepping over him while he was sleeping (like, for example, hypothetically, asking for a friend--when we took Porter to a brewery after a long hike in New Mexico and Porter then decided to take a nap in the middle of an aisle, which made it so a waiter had to step over him, which made it so Porter lunged and tried to eat his pants...which made some bros in the corner go "brrooooo000000-Did you see that? That dog is meannnn" (while chuckling). We paid and ran out of there with our tail between our legs. Hypothetically.)

• Strange men who moved quickly and used their hands a lot ( ie: My entire New York family)

• Strangers (male or female) who got too close to me or tried to give me a hug.

• Kids hugging him

• Any stranger or dog trying to say "hi" to him after his parents have dragged him through a long day of hiking (which he likes) and breweries (which he hates).

We then got into strategy. Now that we had a good sense of his triggers, what were we going to do about it? Below are the problems paired with the solutions that we agreed to try:

• Problem: People stepping over him.

  • Solution: Start a PSA campaign to warn friends and family.

• Problem: People stepping over him while sleeping

  • Solution: Don't let him fall asleep in a place where people will step over him. Especially don't let his dum dum parents let him fall asleep in the middle of a public place after a long day of hiking in an unfamiliar state.

• Problem: Strange men moving their hands quickly

  • Solution: Porter either needed to be on his leash with a handler who was far away from the person or in his crate. Ideally, in his crate, because this would allow him to get used to the Strange Men Moving Their Hands, but would not give him a chance to nip at said hands. (Porter has gotten a lot better with this over time and can handle a lot men Men Moving Hands, but now we know his body language and can tell a mile away if someone walks in for a bbq and Porter decides That Man Is Moving Too Fast and Must Be Nipped. Porter will start sending off all of his signals (crazy eyes, tailing the person) so we just grab him, put him on his leash, and give him to someone not greeting the guest. We move him to the bedroom depending on how many more people are coming over.)

    
    

• Problem: Strangers getting near me

  • Solution: Same as a above. Put Porter in a crate or leashed for away where he could monitor the situation but not take action.

• Problem: Kids hugging him. Porter does not nip children but he will snap at the annoying ones. This is scary for any parent, so we try to avoid getting Porter and the children into situations where Porter has to give his warning snap.

  • Solution: Launch 2nd PSA campaign to parents of children. Tell child to leave dog alone. If child is teeny or in their terrible twos, threes, fours, fives, sixes, sevens, eights, nines, tens, elevens, twelves, etc., and won't give Porter space, Porter goes in the spare bedroom until that child goes home. (We found that if we put Porter in his crate THE CHILDREN always find him and continue to harass-I mean, play-with him, so Porter has to be out of sight to get peace.)

    
    

• Problem: Any stranger or dog trying to say "hi" to him after his parents have dragged him through a long day of hiking (which he likes) and breweries (which he hates).

  • Solution: Get new dog parents who won't do this to Porter.

All of this came out of Round 1 of training. Rounds 2-4 coming up next.

Porter Looking Handsome