In our shelter, we are lucky enough to get to work on some socialization isues by making play groups. This is a little more “risky” than your normal day care play groups. Some of our dogs have never been or are undersocialized, & don’t know how to act properly, some need a little help, & quite a few are great.
I had a great high-energy group of 2 in our front yard, and an ok high-energy group of 3 in the back (they can act like buttheads at gate). The dudes in my great group can play rough for a second & get a little overstimulated, & look like gonna get into it. They generally correct each other then take a break, then get back to playing. At one of these moments, a fellow worker happened to be in my room, looked out the garage door, in an elevated energy level (than his normally anxious level) “dude, you got a standoff, its about to go down!” If this was the group in back, I would’ve been more concerned, but still stayed CALM but moved a little more determined. Instead, as he ran toward the door “dude, its going down! We gotta get out there!”, I CALMLY said “naw, their good. Best buds.”, then walked to door, opened it, and guess what. I didn’t have to do/say anything, they were already just laying there still close to each other.
Later, when bringing the more complicated guys in (remember I said they can be buttheads at the gate), they were all doing their “me out first” b.s., the one did his as he BackedAway, the other Agitator & the StandYourGround one got a little more intense w/ their determination to be first. I gave a matching energy & firm “hey, uh-uh” as I had Agitators focus for one sec; unfortunately StandYourGround guy just had to get the last word in. Agitator yelled back & it was time to actually step in. Again, this whole time I’m CALM & projecting it’s not going to escalate. When it does, I’m prepared to CALMLY be the their leader by asserting the rule they have forgotten in that moment. It’s recommended to not put your hands around the head (so they don’t redirect their bite, & also mainly it’s the “unknown” dog reaction; I’ve known both these guys for months – still I would recommend you & others to do other things than what I’m fixing to say I did…), I simultaneously grabbed each by their collars (touch in excited times works to redirect attention, however it should be toward rear end as their excitement is in their head so touching them there does nothing), stomped (working on the orienting reflex), and pulled them away from each other (it’s important if you are crazy like me & attempt this that there is not an actual bite happening, the separation during a bite would cause more damage than if you used other methods to get them to stop, everything is situational!) to make a little distance between them. By this time BackAwayGuy decides he wants to chime in, making my situation a little more precarious, I CALMLY instructed my partner to get back away into front yard, get StandYourGround on leash & into middle space, this pretty quickly quieted the excitement (although, not totally, because they stil, have visual), at this point I CALMLY got into Agitators way to help break his view (this whole time I still have control of him) my partner gets BackAway then StandYourGround inside.
Unfortunately, it takes quite a few of these incidents for Agitator to learn that he needs to be more polite to get out when he wants. It not only takes repetitions for them to learn, but it takes us people as their leaders to stay CALM, and react the same way each & every time the situation happens.
Lesson learned? How many times did I just scream “CALM/CALMLY”, in a stressful & highly stressful situation (which even the high intensity one only lasted maybe 3 or 4 mins, but felt like about 30 or 40!). 7, 7 times I screamed “CALM” (now 10x). Get the point? Whatever you do, even if it’s a “not recommended” action, in normal/high/extreme energy level situations do it CALMLY and CONFIDENTLY!
