Abstract
Despite the vast public policy efforts to promote the consumption of healthy foods and the public’s growing concern with weight management, the proportion of overweight individuals continues to increase. An important factor contributing to this obesity trend is the misguided belief about the relationship between a meal’s healthiness and its impact on weight gain, whereby people erroneously believe that eating healthy foods in addition to unhealthy ones can decrease a meal’s calorie count. This research documents this misperception, showing that it is stronger among individuals most concerned with managing their weight—a striking result given that these individuals are more motivated to monitor their calorie intake. This finding has important public policy implications, suggesting that in addition to encouraging the adoption of a healthier lifestyle among overweight individuals, promoting the consumption of healthy foods might end up facilitating calorie overconsumption, leading to weight gain rather than weight loss.

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Background

In introducing today’s paper, I am reminded of an old joke/quip to the effect that “All that separates man from the animals is our ability to rationalize.”   I’d add “And accessorize” but that’s neither here nor there.  But the reality is that humans are able to do a wide variety of mental gymnastics in how they approach life.  Effectively, we appear to be slave to what psychologists call cognitive biases, ways in which we think about the present, past, future or ourselves that often lead us to make some fascinatingly bad choices.  This is a topic that many recent books has discussed in a variety of contexts.

And while I don’t know if I can say that it occurs to a greater degree in terms of eating and health behaviors, there is no doubt that people often engage in some exceedingly interesting mental gymnastics when it comes to those topics.  Some of this is conscious but much of it can be chalked up to either unconscious behaviors, misunderstandings (or a lack of information/education) or mishearing/misinterpreting the message.   And these types of things, as much as anything else, often derail many people’s attempts to eat healthy, lose weight or simply avoid weight gain.

In the realm of exercise for example, many people grossly overestimate the actual caloric expenditure from activity, as I discussed in Normal Weight Men and Women Overestimate Energy Expenditure – Research Review, and this leads them to either expect far more of an impact on weight loss than is realistic or to eat more calories than they actually need based on the assumption that they burned it off during activity.

In the arena of eating, this issue can show up in a myriad ways.  A classic example of a misunderstanding/garbling of the message occurred back in the 80′s during the low-fat eating craze.   While it’s hard to say where the blame lies, the general public sort of got the message that so long as they kept fat intake low, nothing else really mattered.  Caloric intake and portions went out the window. 

Food companies capitalized on this by rushing plenty of energy dense, high-calorie (but low-fat) foods to market and it all went wrong.  Studies routinely found that people ate more food when it was labelled ‘low-fat’ compared to one that was labelled as being higher in fat.  Either consciously or unconsciously, they gave themselves permission to eat more of it.  And often ended up consuming more calories than they would have otherwise.

Another example deals with artificial sweeteners where you often see a pattern where artificial sweetener (or diet soda) intake is associated with weight gain (or a lack of weight loss).  And while there is some speculation that artificial sweeteners do some odd things in the brain in terms of driving appetite, it’s probably more related to people rationalizing that they can eat more of something else because they are getting less calories by choosing diet soda or using artificial sweeteners.   That is, they figure that since they are ‘saving so many calories’ by making one choice, they end up compensating (or more than compensating) by choosing something unhealthy.  Call this the skim milk and chocolate cake or Diet Coke and cheeseburger approach to eating. 

I’d note before continuing that this much of the above rationalizing tends to be more for people who are only paying somewhat ‘superficial’ attention to ‘eating well’ (or some other fairly abstract goal).  That is, the type of thing I’m going to talk about doesn’t generally occur among folks who are diet obsessed and track macros or calories or what have you.  Rather it’s for folks who, while they may say that they are concerned with their diet or body weight or body fat, are focusing on the wrong things (a topic I addressed in more detail in Fundamental Principles vs. Minor Details).

Finally type of behavior seems to occur more prevalently in people who tend to divide foods into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ categories (a category that many popular diets and dietary approaches tend to promote).  ‘Good’ foods become equated with healthy and, altogether too often, can be eaten without consequence (i.e. weight gain).  Researchers call this the ‘health halo’ by which supposed ‘healthy foods’ have a halo of invincibility around them  In the same vein ‘bad’ foods are equated with being unhealthy and this categories are not only absolute but cause us to do some of those strange mental gymnastics when it comes to how we approach our food intake.

You can find examples of this all over the place where people assume that ‘healthy/good’ foods can be eaten in uncontrolled amounts whereas the tiniest amount of ‘unhealthy/bad foods’ mean that the diet has failed, the dieter is immoral and weak, and health will simply be destroyed (this is seen at the greatest extreme in a psychological condition called orthorexia whereby people see food as a moral choice judging not only themselves but others by the foods that they choose to eat).  You can see some good examples of this in the comments section of Straight Talk About High-Fructose Corn Syrup: What it is and What it Ain’t. – Research Review. 

Which basically segues into today’s paper which examines a behavior pattern that is often seen whereby folks tend to get fixated (or perhaps ‘blinded’ is a better word) by the concept of ‘healthy’ foods and end up missing the forest for the trees when it comes to their food and caloric intake.   There is also evidence that people who are (or at least state that they are) more ‘weight conscious’ are even more prone to make these kinds of mis-estimations which was a secondary aim of the study.

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The Paper

The study recruited 934 people, of whom the majority (74.2%) were female aged anywhere from under 20 to over 50.  Subjects were then shown 4 meals which either consisted of ‘unhealthy’ foods or those same unhealthy foods coupled with a healthy option.  The four meals, with the healthy addition shown in parentheses, were a hamburger (three celery sticks), bacon and cheese waffle sandwich (small organic apple), chili with beef (small salad without dressing) and meatball pepperoni cheesesteak (celery/carrot side dish).   So, for example, subjects were either shown a bacon and cheese waffle sandwich (which sounds amazing in so many ways) either by itself or side by side with a small organic apple.

Half the subjects were shown the unhealthy choice alone and the other half were shown the combination of the unhealthy choice with it’s healthy add-on and they were asked to estimate the caloric value of the meals.  I’d mention that this design is problematic because it’s not comparing how a given individual might rank each of the two meals; rather it’s comparing the average estimate of the caloric value of the different meals between people.  All subjects were also asked to rate how concerned they were with managing their weight on a scale of 1-5 (with 5 being extremely concerned).

The study generated a total of 2750 total observations of the different meals and, on average, subjects estimated that the unhealthy meal alone contained 691 calories.  Now, logically it’s obvious that a food consisting of an unhealthy item PLUS a healthy item would have to have more calories than the unhealthy item alone.   Clearly two foods can’t have less calories than either food alone.

Yet, on average, subjects estimated the unhealthy plus healthy choice as having only 648 calories.  I’d mention that as a third part of the study, a separate group was asked if they believed that the healthy foods contained negative calories and this was not the case.  So it doesn’t appear to have been the case where subjects figured that the healthy addition was literally ‘reducing’ the caloric value of the food by containing negative calories.  Rather, the ‘health halo’ effect caused people to systematically underestimate the caloric value of the combination of an unhealthy and healthy food.

But it gets even odder.  When the estimates were ranked by how folks reported their concern with managing their weight, the values changed even more.  The most ‘weight conscious’ subjects estimated the unhealthy meal as containing 711 calories while the combination of the unhealthy and healthy choice was only 615 calories. In contrast, the non-weight conscious individuals estimates were only 684 for the unhealthy choice versus 658 for the combination and there was a direct relationship between how weight conscious the subjects were and their mis-estimate of the different meals.

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My Comments

I really don’t have a ton to add to the above, the paper goes into lot of discussion that I’ll spare you here since it’s a lot of detailed examination of the possible underlying mechanisms behind these types of odd cognitive biases.   One point that was made was that while one might expect more motivated/involved people to have less problems with these types of conceptual biases, this research found the opposite.  To whit:

The negative calorie bias is more pronounced for more involved/motivated individuals. Thus when evaluating vice/virtue combinations, greater motivation does not necessarily result in greater accuracy but instead can lead to more biased judgments.

I would add that I think really has more to do with what I mentioned in the background above, the issue isn’t with dietary motivation per se but rather with how people often conceptualize the process.  By focusing on things like good/bad foods, clean vs. unclean eating, meal frequency exclusively or organic vs. non, people lose sight of the issue of portions and calories which are what really matter when it comes down to it. They rely on estimates which are oh so often off.  And which appear to be colored heavily by the cognitive biases that many humans are so prone towards.

Make no mistake, certain types of eating patterns often automatically get people to reduce their intake, often by the outright removal of a so-called ‘bad’ food.  What is defined as good or bad depends on the diet in question and certainly these types of good/bad approaches to dieting can work in at least the short-term (and sometimes longer than that).  The problem is when people start focusing on the goodness/badness of the foods they are eating to the exclusion of everything else.  That’s when it often goes wrong; this is not helped by many dietary approaches telling folks that calories/portions don’t count and that focusing only on the aforementioned ‘good/healthy’ foods is all that matters.

In this vein, the paper’s author notes that:

In particular, the negative calorie illusion has been shown to be less pronounced when individuals pay attention to the quantity of the combined items, instead of focusing solely on the healthy/unhealthy aspects of the items.

In a related vein, the author points out that:

Another public issue raised by this research concerns the viability of promoting the very notion of stereotyping foods into vices and virtues.  Despite it’s intuitive appeal as a decision heuristic to simplify choice, vice/virtue categorizations focuses consumers’ attention only on one aspect of the meal [my note: whether the food is a 'vice' or a 'virtue'] and ignores other important aspects such as its overall quantity.

And I really think that that’s the big take home message of this rather odd paper: people often get so fixated and focused on the wrong things that they end up hamstringing their own attempts to reach their goals.  Because while it’s all well and good to focus on healthy/unhealthy, good/bad, clean/unclean or whatever, at the end of the day quantities always count.  When people lose sight of that and focus on the wrong aspects exclusively, they often end up hurting their own progress.  This paper just points out one way that this happens. 

I’ll finish by pointing interested readers to a book by the paper’s author titled  The Dieter’s Paradox: Why Dieting Makes Us Fat that addresses not only this research but a great deal of other research looking at similar issues.  How humans tend to categorize foods into good and bad and how it can lead them to make a lot of really weird assumptions about what they are actually eating.  It was a pretty fascinating read and shows how many different ways we can end up screwing our own progress by relying on our (often incorrect) intuition, primarily by focusing on the wrong factors that are relevant to what we are eating.

Answer: As always, the short answer is that it depends.  Mainly on how they are done and the person doing them.  Frankly, this is truly the only way to analyze if a given exercise is ‘safe’ or not, any exercise can be relatively more safe or unsafe for a given individual for a given set of circumstances.  That said, the upright row does tend to be surrounded by it’s share of ‘unsafe exercise’ beliefs so let’s look at why.

I think the first place I saw it asserted that upright rows were categorically unsafe was in the old 7-Minute Rotator Cuff Solution from Health for Life (a now defunct company that put out a variety of different manuals).  And this was based on the mechanics of the movement.  Specifically, upright rows put the shoulder in an internally rotated and horizontally abducted position.  And this is a potential problem because it puts the shoulder/rotator cuff at risk for impingement.  Hence, to avoid shoulder problems, upright rows became one of the big no-no exercises.

But is this strictly true?  In my opinion, no and much of it has to do with how the exercise is performed.  Certainly, the traditional bodybuilder method of performing the exercise is pretty high risk.  I’ve shown the typical form below.

High Ouchie Potential

As you can see, the elbows are being brought very high (often the goal is to get them to the ears) and certainly that tends to put the rotator cuff in a high risk position even with excellent shoulder control.  As well, you don’t really get a whole lot more involvement of the deltoids in the first place by pulling the bar this high.  So you increase the risk without really impacting on the movement’s benefit as a shoulder movement.

So for those reasons, I certainly wouldn’t recommend folks do upright rows using that technique.  The risk is high and the benefit relatively low.  This is especially true given that it’s easy to modify the movement into one that is not only safer for the shoulder but targets the deltoids just as effectively.  And that is to do the movement where you stop with the elbows only going as high as the shoulders themselves (this typically put the weight/bar/dumbbell about sternum level) as shown below.

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Less Ouchie Potential

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The above has far less potential for impingement issues, simply by limiting the range of motion.  Yet it still provides full stimulation for the medial deltoid. I’d mention that it does still require some ability to control the scapula (in terms of setting the shoulder down and not letting it elevate) so someone with a previous rotator cuff injury might still have problems with it.  But for someone with good scapular control and no other shoulder issues, I see no problem with doing upright rows in this fashion.

As a final note, I would suggest doing the movement either with a rope handle (off a cable stack) or with dumbbells.  The wrists tend to get a bit cocked using a barbell so even if the movement doesn’t bug your shoulder, it can jack up your wrists.  And, of course, if doing upright rows even in the above fashion still bugs your shoulders, drop the movement.  As I said up above, movements can only generally be rated as safe or unsafe for a given individual under a given set of circumstances.  If a movement causes pain, it’s not a good one for you.

Hope that clears things up.

So to remedy that problem, I always hear the advice to blast the failing body part with more volume, which doesn’t make sense to me because they already ‘burned out’ in that workout. I think it would make more sense to isolate the chest because it wasn’t worked to the point of exhaustion like the triceps were.

So I myself think lowering the triceps volume may be beneficial while others want to increase it. This scenario does lack context and I’m sorry for that, but I’d figure there are reasons to bump up volume and decrease volume to be able to progress.

Answer: There are a couple of different ways to look at this. On the one hand, it does make a certain logical sense that the failing muscle group is getting the largest training stimulus and that extra work would be overkill.   By that argument, your suggestion of doing more pec work seems logical at first glance since, in premise, it is your triceps limiting the training effect to the pecs during compound movements.  And certainly systems such as pre- or post-exhaustion have been used based on that logic.

At the same time, just hammering away at a compound movement doesn’t seem to really ‘catch-up’ the lagging muscle groups.  So the logic doesn’t seem to correspond to the training reality.  For whatever reason, the muscle group that is holding a compound lift doesn’t ever seem to catch up with the prime movers when it’s a big weak point.

And this seems to be especially true the worse that a person is built for a movement.  That is, consider someone with long arms, who will typically have problems benching in terms of triceps giving out (simply as a function of the long lever arm due to their mechanics).  In practice, these folks seem to benefit more from isolation work (or a combination of isolation and specific assistance work; see below) than folks built to bench. 

Just benching and benching and benching some more seems to work more poorly even if you’d expect it to work better (just as a function of the limiting muscle being trained more due to it being limiting).  I can’t honestly say why this is the case but, again, practically you tend to find that the people who often benefit most from assistance work (of whatever sort) are the ones who are least well built for it. 

And you see this approach in systems of training that, empirically at least, seem to work for the most varied groups of people.  In Olympic lifting for example, as I discussed in the dreadfully overwritten Why the US Sucks at Olympic Lifting Series, while many seem to think that the Bulgarian approach may be ideal, it works best when lifters have no weak points.  The Soviet approach, using more variety and specific assistance work, seems to work for a broader population, especially those lifters not ideally biomechanically suited to the movements. 

A similar idea would exist for something such as Westside powerlifting training (where a combination of both isolation work for individually lacking muscles along with specific assistance work for the competition lifts) is used to bring up weak points.  Louie Simmons has said something to the effect that “Movements don’t fail, muscles do” and much of the setup of Westside type approaches is using assistance work of varying types to bring up limiting muscle groups.

Finishing up, I’d also argue that there is often an efficiency aspect to using specific assistance work to shore up weak points and this can be especially true for the big compound movements.  Just benching and benching and benching some more (or squatting or deadlifting or what have you) can get old fast.  If plugging in specific isolation work for a lagging muscle group (or even specific assistant work that uses the limiting muscle group more in it’s limiting range; think board presses for a lifter having trouble at lockout) fixes the problem faster and/or with less grinding effort on more fatiguing movements, that can only be seen as a benefit.  So rather than just bench endlessly and hope that the triceps catch up, I’d see doing specific triceps work (and this might be a combination of both isolation work for muscles and carefully selected assistance work) is a more efficient way of fixing the problem.

I’d mention, in finishing, that I am in no way suggesting that you replace your compound work with isolation or even specific assistance work.  But adding in either direct work for lagging muscles, specific assistance work, or a combination of both along with the compound work is a time-tested way of bringing up weak points for folks who have major limiters.  But you’re unlikely to get any real transfer if you’re not still practicing the compound movement itself, effectively ‘integrating’ any gains in strength in the limiting muscle that you make with the assistance work.

In practice, the most typical approach might be to do some direct work for the lacking muscle group (i.e. direct triceps work of varying types) on one upper body day and something more specific (like board presses of varying heights depending on where the weak point was) on the other upper body day.  That would be in addition to any specific work on bench press and generally done after the bench press work.

Answer: It depends.  Simply there is no single proper way to squat despite what many will have you believe or vigorously contend.  At the very least most will define three primary ‘types’ of squats which are:

1. High-bar/Olympic squat
2. Generic Power Squat
3. Geared powerlifting squat

And I’d note that that only begins to scratch the surface of the different types of squats which have been done over the years.  But those general categories tend to encapsulate the three ‘primary’ types of back squats that are done by trainees.  I’ll describe each generally and try to look at some of their various pros and cons below.

The high-bar/Olympic squat is done with the bar held high on the traps and the goal is generally to keep the torso as vertical as possible; this is usually facilitated by wearing shoes with a slight ‘heel’ on them as this lets the lifter get the knees further forward.    The focus is generally more on squatting ‘down’ than ‘back’ in this style of squat and it’s critical to push the knees way out and squat ‘between the knees’ (as Dan John puts it so simply).   A slightly narrower stance is also usually used (as this tends to have more carryover to pulling and the jerk in Olympic lifting). 

Olympic lifters use this as a general leg strengthener as well as to strengthen the muscles used in the Olympic lifts.  Generally, lifters using this type of squat aim for maximum depth (often called ass to grass or ATG) although bodybuilders often use a high-bar style but stay above parallel.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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The second type of squat is what I call the generic power squat.   In this style of squat, the bar is held a bit lower on the back (but typically not as low as some powerlifters would do it) and the lifter sits more back although there is also a down component.  Generally, there will be more even involvement of the lower body and the low back tends to work harder since the torso will tend to be tipped further forward.  Depth is typically just below parallel and a wider stance is often used; this can be perfectly appropriate for raw powerlifting competition and the following video shows a fairly generic ‘power’ squat.

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Finally is the geared powerlifting squat.  Frankly, technique here can vary massively depending on the type of gear allowed, whether or not a monolift is being used and how strict the federation is about depth.  You will see anything from a squat that looks almost like a high-bar squat (in IPF competition) to insanely wide stance squats.  The focus is generally more on squatting back than down but, again, there is huge variance here. Unless you’re planning on competing in a geared powerlifting federation, this probably isn’t relevant to you.  You can go Youtube videos and you’ll see all kinds of different techniques, again depending on the gear and federation and what’s being passed as a ‘squat.

And of course, there are endless other details to squatting which is what I suspect you are actually asking.  Debates over head position, how much torso lean, whether you break at the knees or hips first have been going on for years and aren’t going to end soon.  All techniques have their pros and cons and there are always trade-offs in techniques and you will see top competitors doing all kinds of different stuff along with differences in ‘style’ between two people doing the same ‘type’ of squat.  I doubt this really answers your question but short of writing a lot more, that’s the best answer I can give you.

So which is the ‘right’ way to squat?  That’s a question with no answer.  For most, either the high-bar style of squatting or generic power squat is going to be the better choice than the geared power squat (unless they are planning to compete in a geared federation).   

To really do a high-bar squat right usually requires Olympic shoes (especially if the goal is to hit depth without getting up on the toes); if a lifter doesn’t have those I’d tend to teach the generic power squat with the lifter sitting both back and down and aiming to hit parallel if they can do it without tucking their butt.

Which brings me to your second question, about the ‘butt-wink’. This is a term invented by, I believe, Mark Rippetoe, to describe the phenomenon whereby the butt tucks under (and the low back rounds) during a squat.  This video shows a pretty exaggerated version of tucking the butt under.

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Frankly, this can be related to a lot of different things often various aspects of flexibility or mobility in the lower body.  Tight hamstrings are often a culprit, tight glutes can be a problem too.  Often a lack of ankle mobility sort of ‘moves’ up the chain and causes problems higher up.  Sometimes it’s just an issue of the lifter not consciously trying to keep the back arched. 

I will note that with ATG squats, some amount of butt tucking is almost invariable. What I personally look for is what’s going on at the low back.  If the butt only tucks to the point that the back is flat, it doesn’t concern me; if the back actually rounds (as it does in the above video) then that has the potential to put a lot of stress on the spine due the combination of flexion and compression.

How you go about fixing it depends on the problem and I usually use a combination of static stretching, what’s usually called the squat stretch and focusing on keeping a hard arch.  The squat stretch probably has the most potential to do benefit here, since it’s about as specific as it gets. 

To do it, load up a bar with maybe 50% of your best squat.  Now holding a hard arch in the low back lower yourself to the point in the squat just above where your back would normally start to round.  Now trying to hold that arch (you may need a helper to let you know), let the weight push you down a little bit deeper; this is stretching all of the tissues that might be limiting in as specific a way as possible and over time you should be able to lower your depth without tucking.

If you want to get more information about squatting than you ever hoped for, I’d refer you to Boris Bachmann’s Squat RX blog and video series.  Excellent stuff and he’s got an entire video on correcting low back tuck somewhere on the blog.

Answer: There are actually two different issues that you’re bringing up here which are the general fatigue and the soreness and I want to address them separately.

First, the easier of the two which is soreness.  Simply, this doesn’t matter.  Soreness appears to mainly be an issue of connective tissue damage more than anything muscularly (despite still being called Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness or DOMS) and there is no problem training through it.  Most find that by the time they finish their warm-ups (see Warming Up for the Weight Room Part 1 and Warming Up for the Weight Room Part 2 for detailed information on this), the majority of the soreness is gone and even more find that as they get used to a higher training frequency soreness becomes much less anyhow.  They also usually start growing better.

The general fatigue issue is something else.  Mind you, without knowing more about your weekly setup, it’s a little hard to address this totally.   Because while it could be related to the previous workout it could also be related to lifestyle factors like sleep (or a lack thereof), nutrition, overall life stress, etc.  Making sure that those are in order often fixes any problems. 

As well, realize that many people find that they have some of their best workouts when they walk into the gym feeling a bit under.   They’ll be yawning and a bit apathetic and then just proceed to blow it out or have banner and PR days.  I suspect this is just an issue of not wasting a lot of mental energy ahead of time and relaxing during the workout and letting it happen instead of trying to force it.

But that’s far from universal.  My usual recommendation for folks when they get to the gym or training not feeling really up for it is to at least go through their warm-ups.  Often by the end of it they feel great and have a good workout.  If it’s still not happening, I’d either recommend calling it a day and going home or just going through a short active recovery workout (read Active Versus Passive Recovery for more), keeping volume and intensity dialed way back.  Ideally you should leave the gym feeling better than you walked in.  If not, you went too hard.

I’d mention that often the problem is related to the previous workout simply being overwhelmingly intense.  Many people who start to increase their training frequency don’t dial it back in their workouts and get themselves into trouble.  You may find that reducing the workload even slightly (not taking any sets to failure, reducing  volume a bit) at the previous workout (i.e. the Monday workout before a Friday workout) prevents the soreness and fatigue issues.

Finally, I’d mention that people who are using considerable poundages (i.e. who are very strong) often can’t pull off the higher training frequencies without adjusting their total work load majorly.  A heavy/light system (where only one workout is truly heavy and the second workout for that exercise or muscle group is much lighter) often allows the same higher training frequency while improving recovery.  Again, that’s usually for more advanced trainees who are handling very heavy weights and for whom two truly heavy workouts per week are simply too much.

Answer: With early morning training (and here I’m talking here about resistance training specifically) there are a few issues that need to be taken into account.  One of them is food intake and here there is a lot of variance.  Blood glucose is usually on the lower side in the morning and not everyone performs at their best under these conditions. 

In this situation, getting something (ideally with some carbohydrate and protein) before lifting is a good idea (I’d mention here that the studies which found that pre-workout carbs/protein were more anabolic were looking at morning fasted training so this is one place where getting something into the system is probably ideal from a training adaptation standpoint).  This isn’t universal and some people do just fine without eating.

But let’s say you’re one of those people who needs to have something in them to lift at their best.  Now we have another issue, some people don’t do well with food in their stomach during high-intensity activities.  At the same time, others can eat a big meal and go train and have no issues.  Some of this depends on the type of training as well: folks doing low repetition work with longer rest intervals don’t tend to have the same issues as those doing more ‘metabolic’ type work (with higher repetitions and shorter rest intervals).

Mind you, you don’t need a lot of food to get blood sugar into the normal range and I wouldn’t recommend a huge meal prior to training regardless.  A small amount of protein with some carbs is all that’s needed.  But what if you can’t handle any solid foods prior to a workout?  Then what.  In this case, liquids can be invaluable.  A simple glass of low- or non-fat milk or even a premade carb/protein drink will get carbs and amino acids into the system without sitting in your stomach during an intense workout.

So that’s issue one.  Another has to do with the training itself.  Research back in the day suggested that most people show optimal performance about 3 hours after they wake-up, it simply takes some time for the body to warm-up after you’ve been asleep.  And for folks who train first thing in the morning, this can be a real issue because odds are you’re not getting up at 4am for a 7am lifting session.  How to get the body warm?

A hot shower is one approach although it’s more of a passive warm-up.  Mainly realize that you may need to do a bit more extensive warm-up for early morning training than you did while training in the afternoon/evening (when you’d been up all day).  That may mean a bit more cardio to get the body fully warmed and you may need more warm-up sets prior to heavy lifting (read Warming Up for the Weight Room: Part 1 and Warming Up for the Weight Room: Part 2 for more details on optimizing your warm-up).  Of course, stimulants are usually part and parcel of early morning training as well.

Finally realize that there is likely to be an adaptation phase as your body gets used to training first thing in the morning.  You may have 2-3 weeks where your workouts just aren’t that great until you adjust.  But the body does eventually adjust (and there are plenty of folks who have gotten to their goals despite very early morning training).  The body’s circadian rhythms to adjust to training (and there is evidence that you perform best when you habitually train) but it can take a little while.  You may have to reduce your volume or intensity a bit initially but within a few weeks you should be back to your normal workouts without any issues.

Hope that helps and good luck.

For the body obsessed or even normal dieters, the holiday period from around October through to January can be a true minefield. Between the specific holidays of Halloween (mercifully passed), Thanksgiving and Christmas, along with endless goody baskets and parties, folks can run into problems maintaining the habits they strive to follow the rest of the year.

A lot of strategies exist to deal with this time, especially among the body obsessed, although I’d consider few of them particularly healthy from a mental or psychological standpoint.  One is to become a social pariah. Can’t control your food at parties? Simply skip all of them. While this might avoid food issues, it’s also a way to make your friends and co-workers think you’re an anti-social asshole.  Which is fine, I guess, if you are an anti-social asshole.  But it won’t do much for your inter-work relationships.

Another common one is to take the needed meal or food (e.g. turkey, broccoli, plain sweet potato) with you in a Tupperware bowl. I’ve heard of folks doing this at Thanksgiving dinner, usually so that they can sit and look down upon their family members with an air of superiority. “Oh, I can’t believe you’d eat that, that’s why you’re fat.” Newsflash folks, not only are we talking about a borderline eating disorder at this point (see also: orthorexia/Chris Shugart), that kind of insanity just makes your family uncomfortable. So don’t do it.  Better to stay home than be an asshole.

Of course, at the other extreme are the dis-inhibited eaters who just go completely crazy and eat everything in sight, gaining a considerable amount of weight and fat in the three months of holidays. It can happen and I’m not saying that it can’t. Of course, if you’re a bodybuilder or powerlifter, you can just say “I’m bulking” as you shovel down the third piece of cake but I’ll assume that you actually want to keep a lid on weight/fat gains during this time period. Balance please.

As always, being a middle of the road kind of guy that I am, I’m going to suggest some strategies that, while not quite as disturbed as taking broccoli with you to Thanksgiving, also doesn’t put you in the trap of gorging on fudge. In no real particular order of importance, here are 10 Tips to Deal with Holiday Weight Gain from getting out of hand over the holidays.

1. Make Better Bad Choices

I forget who I stole this idea from offhand but it’s nothing new. The simple fact, and I’ll come back to this in point 10, is that many people fall into the trap of “If I’m going to eat junk, I might as well jam as much of the worst stuff I can down my food hole.” That’s silly.

Instead, try to make better bad choices. Limit portions (you know that you don’t really NEED three pieces of cake to be satisfied). Pick the lower calorie or lower fat/high-carb stuff at the dessert table. People training hard can handle an influx of carbs acutely better than fat so pick that stuff.  Maybe have a little bit of two or three different desserts, just get a taste and move on. You get the idea.

2. Take a Lowered Fat/Calorie Dessert or Dish to the Party

Whether a work party or holiday dinner, it’s not uncommon for people to bring their own thing to add to the food table. So make something that you’ve de-fatted or lowered in calories, there are zillions of recipes out there. And, please, I’m not talking about black bean ‘cake’ that you think tastes like the real thing.

Find a happy medium between the high-sugar/high-fat stuff and clean eating. Most American desserts have about twice the sugar and butter that they usually need and, who knows, you might even convert someone into realizing that they can eat sweets without it having to be 1000 calories per piece.

3. Train with a Bit Higher Volume Prior to the Event

One of the best ways to increase the ‘sink’ for incoming calories is to deplete muscle glycogen. When you do that by using a higher volume (more sets, higher reps) of training, not only do you increase fat oxidation, you give incoming carbs somewhere to go for storage instead of being used for energy.

You can simply bump up your volume a bit in the days before a specific event where you know there will be junk. Even a heavy training session on the day of the party can be beneficial here. And, bonus, you’ll be pumped at the party.  Great for pulling that hot co-worker so you can both be really uncomfortable the next day at the water cooler.

Train in a nice hypertrophy zone (get about 40 reps per muscle group) and you’ll increase protein synthesis so that incoming calories will support growth. Training also tends to acutely blunt hunger so if you train right before the party, you’ll be less likely to overeat. Well, unless you’re a typically dis-inhibited eater who falls into the trap of “I trained, I deserve 10 pieces of fudge.”

4. Start with Lots of Lean Protein and Vegetables Before Hitting the Dessert Table

This one is for the body obsessed and dieters alike. Lean protein has the highest short-term satiating power (this means it keeps you full) and the high-bulk of vegetables helps to fill your stomach which also sends a fullness signal. I’ve yet to be at a holiday party that didn’t have a vegetable plate (limit the high-fat dip) or plate of cold cuts. Load up on that to get some fullness going before you hit the desserts.  You won’t be as hungry and, assuming you don’t like eating yourself sick, this alone will do damage control.

5. Have a High-Protein Snack with some Vegetables or Fruit about 30′ Beforehand

If you’re in a situation where Number 4 won’t work or won’t be available, have a small snack before the party or dinner. Some lean protein, veggies and fruit about 30 minutes will give you a feeling of fullness and help to limit overconsumption of ‘junk’ at the party.

6. Consider Intermittent Fasting on the Day of the Event

Intermittent Fasting (IF’ing) is a recent dietary approach that involves not eating for 14-18 hours per day and then either having an ‘eat period’ of roughly 4-6 hour or even a single meal. There’s some interesting research on it and I’ll discuss it at a later date on the site. But it’s one good way to deal with holiday parties.

Know that you’ve got a 7pm dinner party where there will be lots of yummy food? Try IF’ing (or only have small meals of lean protein and veggies) most of the day. Unless you go completely berserk, you’ll be unlikely to exceed your entirely daily caloric requirement in the one meal. If you can train beforehand, even better.

7. Consider a Short Mini-Diet in the Days Before the Event

Let’s say you have an event or two coming up on the weekend and you know that there will be lots of food and you may have control issues. Well, consider doing a short, possibly hardcore diet in the days before. My Rapid Fat Loss Handbook would be perfect, 4 days of it can actually reduce body fat by 1-4 pounds (depending on your size) and you can schedule the free meal and/or refeed for your events. Call it pro-active damage control.

8. Ok, I Was Actually Kidding in the Introduction About the Tupperware

Let’s face it, you know that nothing tastes as good as lean feels, you know how good discipline feels, you know that you’re better than all of those weak willed candy and dessert eaters; you read Chris Shugart’s insane ramblings and actually take his bullshit seriously.  You know the truth. You know you’re better than them and 50 years from now when you’re old and decrepit, you’ll know that it was worth it, sticking to your diet 365 days a year and never actually enjoying a moment of life.

So you go ahead and take your Tupperware with chicken breast, broccoli and sweet potato and eat it while everyone else around you actually gets some joy out of life and you feel miserable, alone, deprived and isolated.  Know deep down that you’re not only physically superior but also morally superior.

No, really, I’m seriously kidding about this, don’t do it. If you do, I hope someone pins you to the ground and force feeds you fudge until you throw up.  Just because you’re an asshole.

9. Stay Off the Damn Scale

No matter what happens, folks often see the scale spike up after a big party; this is especially true after Thanksgiving. The typical carb-depleted trainee is especially prone to this; the high-carb intake of your typical holiday event along with extra sodium both can jack up scale weight a bit. But you know deep down it’s not really fat. The simple fact is that, unless you go nuts, you can’t eat enough in a single meal to put on appreciable fat. It’s only water and it’ll come right back off in a few days.

But stay off the scale anyhow.

10. Don’t Be Your Own Worst Enemy

This goes back to what I alluded to in point 1, a lot of people fall into a dreadful trap over the holidays, figuring that if they’ve eaten a little bit of junk food, clearly they’ve blown it and might as well retire to the corner with the entire tray of fudge and eat themselves sick.

I’m going to quote from the foreword of my own A Guide to Flexible Dieting here:

Then the problem hits. Maybe it’s something small, a slight deviation or dalliance. There’s a bag
of cookies and you have one or you’re at the mini mart and just can’t resist a little something that’s not on your diet. Or maybe it’s something a little bit bigger, a party or special event comes up and you know you won’t be able to stick with your diet. Or, at the very extreme, maybe a vacation comes up, a few days out of town or even something longer, a week or two. What do you do?

 

Now, if you’re in the majority, here’s what happens: You eat the cookie and figure that you’ve blown your diet and might as well eat the entire bag. Clearly you were weak willed and pathetic for having that cookie, the guilt sets in and you might as well just start eating and eating and eating.

 

Or since the special event is going to blow your diet, you might as well eat as much as you can and give up, right? The diet is obviously blown by that single event so might as well chuck it all in the garbage.

 

Sound familiar? Yeah I thought it might. The above is amazingly prevalent and exceedingly destructive. Extremely rigid dieters fall into a trap where they let events such as the holidays become a problem because of their own psychology. They figure that one piece of dessert has ruined all of their hard efforts so they might as well eat ALL the dessert. Which is, of course, nonsense. Say that piece of dessert has a few hundred calories, or say 500 calories. In the context of a weekly plan that is calorie controlled with training, that’s nothing.

Unless the person lets it become something. They figure 500 calories is the end of the world and eat an additional 5000 calories. Instead of just taking it in stride and realizing that it’s not big deal, they make it a big deal with their own reaction.

Simply, don’t do that. Realize that there is only so much damage you can do in the short-term. Apply the other strategies in this article and realize, at the end of the day, what you did for one meal that week simply doesn’t matter if the rest of the week was fine. Not unless you make it.

And that’s that, 10 strategies I hope will help you to enjoy the holidays. Eat a piece of cake for me.

Unfortunately, most of what I had learned at the shelter had left me unprepared for this since we don’t do a lot of dog interaction stuff outside of very controlled playgroups (and I’m only now qualified to be involved in those).  So basically I was making it up as I went along, asking friends with dog experience, and doing a whole lot of Googling.  Many of the higher level BRATTs at the Austin Humane Shelter also have multiple dog households so I picked their brains constantly as well.

I’d note as I go through some of what I did and what happened that you should be able to pick out clear examples of the types of positive reinforcement and negative punishment (along with ignoring behaviors and the occasional use of positive punishment) that I discussed in such irritating detail in Because We Let Them.  Put differently, there are going to be some suggestions for dog training throughout this article if you pay attention.  Or you can ignore the dense blocks of text and just  focus on the dog pictures.

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Puppy Loud, So Freaking Loud

In the year I’ve had him ALFIE! has been distinctly non-vocal.  I’ve heard maybe 10 barks total (and several of those are recently), he’ll whine when he really has to poo and yelp from time to time.  Which is just fine with me; there are plenty of chronically barky dogs in the neighborhood (my neighbors has given me several 4am wake up calls) and I didn’t need one in my life.

In contrast, NORMAN! is very vocal.  I had remembered him doing this in the shelter before I brought him home and saw it a lot when I got him here.  Especially in his kennel early on.  I even identified three different types of noises he’d make.  One was just a loud continuous sharp bark which he still does, mainly just to get attention, just a ‘look at me kind of thing’.  He’ll also do it out of boredom or if I put him behind a door in another room (rescue dogs often have a bit of separation anxiety and just constantly want to be with you and NORMAN can’t stand it if he can’t get to me).

Another, that he did in his crate a lot early on, was this breathy hyperventilating bark where he’d just keep getting himself wound up more and more and more.  It usually happened if he was in his crate (as he had to be for the first few weeks) and could see ALFIE! in the room.  He’d want out and just work himself up.  That was easily solved by draping a towel over the front of his crate.  Out of sight out of mind and he’d usually settle down and go to sleep.

He also had  a whining, I need to potty thing he did.  Sometimes it’s just him being pathetic and he does it now when he just wants to go outside (and I haven’t found a way to distinguish wanting to go outside to be outside versus having to potty).  Usually if he does it once or twice it’s an “I want to go outside to be outside” whine.  If it continues or morphs into barking, he’s trying to let me know he really needs to potty.

Now, this is common with new puppies, they bark and bark and bark.  Sometimes out of boredom, sometimes because they do actually need something, sometimes just to make noise and get attention.  And what most people do is actually the wrong thing to do: they yell at the dog to shut up and the dog just yells back by barking some more.   Now it’s game and every time you yell at them you reinforce the barking because you’re talking back to them.  They bark, you yell, they bark, you yell.  And it gets worse because barking has become a fun game to them.

This is one of those cases, where most of the time it’s best to just ignore the issue, even if it’s driving you insane. Sometimes I literally had to put NORMAN! in another room behind a closed door to muffle the barking until he would give up and go to sleep which usually took about 10 minutes.  And I’ll be honest that sometimes I’d reactively shout at him but only once with a stern ‘STOP’.  It wasn’t a yelling match because, again, that just makes it worse.

Because it’s one of those places where acknowledging it all ends up reinforcing it.  Instead what you can do is wait for the dog to quiet down and then reinforce that.  So the dog is barking and barking and barking.  And then gets tired or bored with being annoyed and is quiet.  Now give it a high pitched ‘Yes’ (or click) and treat it.  It learns that being quiet gets it a treat while barking it’s head off gets it nothing.  A clicker works well here too but mine was always in the car until I was smart enough to buy a second one for the house.

Tangentially, a similar thing occurs if you have a dog that is perpetually scared.  Most people’s instinct is to go coddle the dog and hug on them and use the exact same voice that they’d use to reinforce a good behavior (we are told to ‘channel our inner 13 year old girl’ since that’s the voice pitch dogs associate with good things).  And all you end up doing is teaching the dog that being scared is ok because it’s getting reinforcement for crying all the time.

Instead, use a cheery voice and be happy.  They’ll vibe off of your happiness and cheer up because you’re not just reinforcing that being scared is ok.  When Norman would be stress or sad barking (the tone is different), I’d just talk at him in a cheery voice like an idiot “It’s ok NORMAN, it’s ok, buddy.” until he’d cheer up.  And then give him a high pitched ‘yes’ to reinforce it.

But I dealt with this a lot early on, recall that NORMAN! was technically on rest because of his leg and even if I let him run around a bit more than he probably should have, his existence early on was pretty much crate, potty, play a little bit, back to the crate.   Which wasn’t much of a life but it was necessary.

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Into the Crate, Beast

So after whatever we had just done, NORMAN! would go back into his crate and would usually spend the first 10 minutes barking hsi head off.  As I mentioned above,  it was worse if he knew I was home but in another room, he was just lonely and didn’t understand why he couldn’t hang out.   To be honest ALFIE! used to do this in a more muted fashion if I put him in a room I wasn’t in and I suspect it’s an issue endemic to rescue dogs.

Because of their situation, whatever they went through before the shelter and then being in what amounts to dog jail, they see you are their rescuer in a very real sense.  They also seem to have a bit of separation anxiety because of it.   This is both part of why they are so awesome (they love you to death for saving them) and also can be a bit irritating at times. At this point, both of my dogs feel the need to be underfoot and I often have no room at my desk because of it.  It also makes them more likely to get haired out with one another.  Here are some pics.

Yes, my floor is filthy.

I vacuumed

Now, NORMAN! has been a bit hit or miss with his crate.  I think having to spend so much time in it early on, along with a couple of mistakes I’ve made with it (you’re not ever supposed to use the crate for punishment but there have been situations where he was out of control and I had no choice) have made him a bit wary of it although I’m finally retraining both of them to go into their respective crate’s voluntarily. 

He is also very odd in his crate, I had put a mattress in it but either he didn’t like it or was just doing a weird burrowing thing I’m told a lot of pitbulls do and, well…this is what I’d come home to.  In a related vein, he has this new thing where he crawls under the couch to hang out and he’s started deciding he wants to sleep under the covers.

Is this right?

Is this right?

In any case, the crate was also marginally useful in terms of potty training which was the next headache I’d have to deal with.  ALFIE! came potty trained so it was never an issue.  But oh what a headache it was with NORMAN!  This is another thing that is lacking at the Austin Humane Shelter, the dogs always potty on our schedule (i.e. when the volunteers get to them) and don’t ever get trained to tell us when they need to go.  Many do learn to hold it until they get to the runs or the field but it’s not quite the same as them letting you know.

So it was another thing I’d be learning about in a very hands-on (pun intended) fashion and I’d note that this is actually one very good reason to crate train a puppy.  Not only do dogs like crates (it’s their own little home away from home and sort of a cave for them), they have an instinct not to potty where they sleep.  So the crate sort of ‘forces’ them to hold it until you take them out so they can start associating pottying with outdoors.

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Puppy Potty

When I took the blue class we had a small module on puppies and house training and they gave us a list of when puppies need to potty.   Frankly, it’s easier to list when they don’t need to potty because, like human babies, they process so quickly that they have to go all the time.  They also haven’t learned how to hold it.  Sometimes you get a deluge, sometimes a trickle.  Here’s a good rule of thumb: if they aren’t sleeping, assume they have to go.

And this is another place that people run into problems with new dogs: unaware of how to house train a dog they get angry at the dog for doing something that comes very naturally to them.  We wouldn’t expect a human baby to know better which is why we put diapers on them (and you can get dog diapers too; proper training is better).  But somehow we expect the dog to just know better and then punish them for a completely normal behavior.  You shat and peed all over the place when you were a baby and your dog is no different.  It’s worse because a dog going in the house is as much our fault as anything else; we should have taken them out sooner.  Yet we hold them responsible for our lack of attention.

Because just like with human house-apes (err, children), you have to teach puppies where to potty.  Just like potty training a kid but you can’t explain it to them (or that the toilet isn’t going to eat them).  With dogs you have to show them where they are suppose to potty.  Some also try to use positive punishment to show the dog where not to potty: spray bottles or putting the dog’s nose in it.  This can work but ONLY if you catch it while it’s happening because otherwise the dog doesn’t associate the punishment with what it did.  If you come home to a mess and yell at the dog, it has no idea what it did wrong.

And it’s better in this case, when you catch them about to go scoop them and RUN to the back door and put them outside.  Rather than teach them where NOT to go, try teaching them where to go.  If they have an accident, you can take the poo to the field so they can sniff it and learn that poop goes outside.  Pee is a bit harder.

With puppies, simply assume that they need to go after they do just about anything.  When they wake up, eat, drink, play or most anything else, assume they need to go.  So take them out just in case.  Odds are they will potty something (and make sure and stay out 5-10 minutes, some dogs like to wait until they poop even if they really have to go; they just have to find the exact right spot to pinch one out).

And that’s when you reinforce the absolute hell out of them.  Lots of ‘good boys’ and ‘yesses’ maybe treats.  Just to let them know that pottying outside was a good thing.  Eventually this teaches them that’s where they are supposed to go.  Just realize that if they are only pottying 4 times per day, it takes a bit longer to get the number of repeats to really teach them.

I made this mistake a few times and we had a few accidents.  NORMAN! would be out of his crate and running around and then I’d look over and he’d be going to the bathroom.  Totally my fault and I learned only to leave him uncrated (to play with ALFIE!) if he’d already gone in the last couple of hours.  If I broke this rule, I had more dog pee or poop to clean up.

To teach him to hold it better, I also started to keep him crated longer, just to get him used to dealing with the discomfort over time.  You can train their bladder just like you train yours but you have to do it gradually or eventually they will give up and just let fly.  The rule of thumb we use is that a puppy can hold it’s potty for it’s age in months + 2 hours.  So a 4 month old can hold it 6 hours.  Not that you necessarily want to push this if you can avoid it (we ideally get the shelter dogs out every 3 hours but most can make it 5-6 if they have to).  You wouldn’t want to hold it when you have to go badly for that long, don’t torture your dog by making them go to the limit.

From the time I brought him home, I’d say it took a solid 8 weeks for him to be totally accident free (though I haven’t pushed his time limits).  He’s gotten pretty good about letting me know when he has to go at the back door (by whining, I’m going to teach him something less noisy eventually) and if he’s peeing in the house, I don’t know about it.

But I’d say those were the two major NORMAN! specific issues, now I want to talk about the stuff I had to deal with in a two dog household.  Especially with two dogs who are on the edge of being a bit reactive.    Most of these revolved around food, toys and playtime.  For the past 9 months ALFIE! has been an only dog and it was going to be a bit of an adjustment to having a sibling.  Dogs can be toy protective or food protective (meaning they will attack anybody who tries to take either from them) and clearly that would be an issue with two dogs in the house.   NORMAN! also seems to have a bit of sibling rivalry going on, he’ll get aggro if I try to play with ALFIE! and not him and that’s something else I’ll have to fix.

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Feeding Time

This was actually the easiest of the three situations to deal with as it turned out; ALFIE! is a bit of a piggie and I had a feeling he’d be a bit food defensive.   And I dealt with this initially by not dealing with it; I simply fed them separately.  In the short-term this was the simple solution, I’d feed NORMAN! in his crate (which also helped him to form positive associations with it) and feed ALFIE! in another room.

At the time I was using a KONG Wobbler to feed ALFIE!  It’s a toy that he has to work at to get his food, both intellectually stimulating him along with slowing him down (he wolfs his food down otherwise).  Exactly once, on the first day or so, I I made the mistake of giving ALFIE! his wobbler before I had NORMAN! in his room.  NORMAN! made a move towards ALFIE!’s food and almost paid a hefty price for it.  ALFIE! snarled and lunged with teeth bared and it would have gotten ugly if I hadn’t gotten NORMAN! out of there.   I also knew that ALFIE! was likely to steal NORMAN’s food if he got the chance since I’d be feeding him more.

I did eventually teach them to eat together without trying to steal each other’s food or murder one another.  It was really as simple as setting out their separate food bowls in the same room but fairly far apart.  Over time I’d move the bowls closer together, but only when they were focused on their own food and not moving towards each other or the other’s bowl.  I can feed them side by side now without problems; took a few weeks tops.

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Back to Playtime

Many dogs love to play although not all of them. And when dogs play with one another it can take a variety of forms.  Dogs in the runs will often chase each other from one end to the other since they can’t get to one another.   So they play modified tag with each other. Usually they will let the other know that they want to play with a play bow.  This is a move that dogs just know where they drop their head and front torso with their feet wide apart.  It’s just sort of a request to play and if the other dog returns it, it’s on.

Often, dog playing takes the form of mock fighting like in the video I showed in NORMAN! Part 2.  Most animals do this, young animals hone their fighting skills (lest we forget, dogs are just immature wolves) with each other in a non-lethal manner.  That means trying to shove one another over, biting and snarling and things that look to the untrained eye like fighting.  Dogs who have just met are also trying to establish dominance in this fashion.

I wanted ALFIE! and NORMAN! to play but, as I said, I had taught ALFIE! some bad habits and I didn’t know what NORMAN! might do.  You also don’t want the dogs to necessarily learn that playing by biting and being rough is a good thing (or they will confuse a small child with another dog and bite it).

So I watched very carefully when they would play.  Basically, when this is going on you have to watch dog body language.  If they are relaxed, tails wagging and ears are up all the growling and teeth and biting is just play.  Generally if someone gets too tough, they’ll get a loud yip or yelp (or get checked by the older/bigger dog to let the other one know that they are playing too hard).  But if the ears go flat, the tail stops wagging and they get tense, it’s about to get real.

So I’d let them go although, as noted, I’m now breaking them of play fighting inside the house.  Outside only from here on out.   It’s as simple as stopping it instantly when it starts and putting them on time out.  If it’s a playfight over a toy (see below), the toy goes away with a ‘Too bad’ so they realize that their behavior just cost them something that they wanted.  Basic negative reinforcement (removing a reward).

But most of the time it would turn into play. They’d wrestle, bump one another, flip one another, hump one another, bite one another.   Again, just like the video from last time.   And so long as it stayed calm I’d let it go.  But when things started escalating I would immediately call ‘TIME OUT’ in a loud voice to get their attention and separate them.  More negative punishment: when play gets too rough play time is stopped.  You take away what they enjoy to tell them that this behavior is not ok.  They also had to know that I was in control ultimately, regardless of who was alpha between them.  I control whether or not play time happens and they have to respect that.

But if things escalated, after TIME OUT I’d sit them both down and use a soothing quiet voice while petting both of them gently telling them to relax and mellow and chill out.  Just like humans, this is all about stress hormone response and you have to chill them out just like you’d calm a stressed human.  Soft voice, slow talking, slow stroking to fire off a big parasympathetic volley and get them to chill. 

Then after a minute or two of this, I’d call ‘Time in’ and let them play again.  And usually it would resume on a lower level of aggression.  And that would get them some ‘yesses’ and ‘good boys’.  Not only did they get positive reinforcement from being allowed to play again, but they were getting verbal reinforcement that playing less roughly was good.

However, if they went straight back to being too rough, I’d call ‘TIME OUT!’ a second time and play time was over.  They got the one warning and the lesson was: If you can’t play nicely, you can’t play at all.  Usually NORMAN! is the issue, once he’s wound up he can be a challenge to calm down and I often have to stand between him and ALFIE! and wait for him to settle.  When he sits quietly, he’ll get praise to let him know that that is good.

Sometimes I would kennel them for 10 minutes for time out; you’re not really supposed to use the crate for punishment like this but it’s the only way to keep them apart without their destroying the house (and this was what I referred to above when I said I had done some things to make NORMAN! not like his crate).

But this didn’t solve the toy issue.

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Sharing is Caring

As I said above, dogs can be very toy protective.  It didn’t help that ALFIE! had been an only child to this point.  And honestly I haven’t done much work with him to even get him to give his toys to me.   He doesn’t get aggro with me if I take them but he doesn’t give them up easily necessarily.  My fault and I’d be paying for it now.

But now we had NORMAN!, a puppy who like a child, has an understanding of possession about on the level of “If I can see it it’s mine.” Not that ALFIE! is much better.  I’ll give them each an identical toy and usually they find it far more fun to get the other dog’s toy, or fight over the same one.

And he and ALFIE! almost immediately had an issue with toys.  First and foremost, ALFIE! is a bit ADHD, he wants whatever toy he doesn’t currently have and I’ve seen him swap out balls with himself for long periods which is pretty funny.  He’ll pick up one, see another one and then drop the one in his mouth and get the other one.  I can sometimes play with him by just switching out balls in front of him, he’ll drop one to pick up the next and I’ll just swap and swap.  He drops and grabs and I just laugh.

And invariably NORMAN! would want the toy he had and as soon as he took it, ALFIE! would want the toy NORMAN! now had.  Even if he had his own toy that he had been perfectly happy with.  And it would get ugly if ALFIE! would be under my desk with a ball and NORMAN! would try to take it.  ALFIE! would snap and I’d give NORMAN! a different ball to play with. Which ALFIE! would then want.  I think you get the idea.  It’s like having two two year olds in the house.  But with very sharp teeth.

It almost got ugly when NORMAN! decided he wanted ALFIE’s Goliath chew bone.  He had it in his crate at one point and ALFIE! sat outside just staring at him.  And growled once or twice.  Because NORMAN! had HIS bone.  And I understood this and made sure to get NORMAN! his own chew bone.  Though this invariably led to a game of ‘Now I want the other toy’ as they’d switch off.

And if they just couldn’t work it out, I’d take the toys away from both of them.  Negative punishment again: if you both can’t play nicely, nobody gets toys.  In contrast, if I could get them laying on the floor quietly playing with their respective toys, that got positive reinforcement.

Talking to some BRATT’s this is apparently just another more or less intractable problem.  Dogs are possessive and like the toys that they like.  So you just get them their own toys and try to keep them from killing each other for the other’s toy.  However, I still wanted them to learn to play with toys together.  And here I came up with a solution all of my own that actually worked.

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Tugging the Toy

No, not that.  During my roughly third trip to Petsmart in the first two days it occurred to me to get a tug toy.  I wanted to see if I could get them to play (without roughhousing) with a toy (a rope) without trying to murder one another.  Basically to share their toys.  Or at least the one toy.

And here’s what I did: I took them to the main room in my house (nice and empty) and gave them the rope.  Immediately ALFIE! took it and ran.  It was officially ‘his’ now.  Which was unacceptable so I took it from him.  Negative punishment.  And we tried again.  I sat them down in front of one another and offered them each one end of the rope hoping they’d get the hint.

And they did.  They started playing tug of war even if wasn’t always the most organized thing. Invariably one or the other gets to the middle of the rope or chokes up and they end up on the same end or one lays down with the rope while the other is on his feet and pulling.  But soon they learned that playing tug of war with each other was more fun than just having the toy to themselves.  And so long as they’d share I’d give them lots of positive reinforcement.  If one took the toy and ran, I got it from them and playtime was over for the time being.

Then we’d try again.  Effectively they only got to play with the rope so long as they were playing with it together.  Either they both play or nobody plays and they learned that lesson fast.  Within about 2 days I could give it to one of them and they’d offer it to the other to see if they wanted to play tug.   Here’s video of my budding army playing tug of war with the rope.  When I can teach them to load and fire a cannon….

Click here to view the embedded video.

Even funnier, shortly after they learned share, I had the two of them in the backyard.  NORMAN! likes sticks in a way ALFIE! does not.  He loves to play fetch, to pick them up and either carry them around or chew them.  In any case, I saw him pick up a fairly small stick in his mouth and go get next to ALFIE! and offer him the end of it. ALFIE! would have taken it had it been longer. But in about 2 days they had learned share or at least that tugging was more fun than having.  I’d actually see them both sit chewing on a long stick a couple of days later.

Make no mistake, it often turns into mock fighting, usually they both want the same end of stick or they are fighting over something (I’ve seen them play tug with a single tennis ball, heads turned 90 degrees and each clamping down) and someone gets too close.  Then the toy is forgotten and it’s time to roughhouse.  Which is ok so long as it doesn’t get out of control.  And if it does, I break it up and/or take away the toy.

But by the time they learned to (mostly) share toys, I knew that they’d be fine together.  I still have tons of work to do (leash walking is my current focus and would take an entire article to write up) and it’s pretty much a full time job dealing with the two of them.  But that’s what I signed up for in adopting both so I’m ok with it even if it can be frustrated.

We’re now 10 weeks weeks into it with NORMAN! officially adopted and part of the family, they are doing fine.  I’ve joked about wanting to put together an army of mildly mentally deficient white dogs and I’ve already got my core group started.  My hope is that once they are well trained, they can help with new recruits.  The army grows….

Let us Do Your Bidding, Master

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The Second First Impression

When we do dog introductions at the Austin Humane Shelter, it’s effectively neutral ground (I’m not sure that any of the shelter dogs really see the shelter as their ‘territory’).  But it was different bringing NORMAN home to the house since this was ALFIE’s territory and he’d been an only dog going on a solid 8 months (and we’d been in the house since January). 

So now I was bringing the young interloper NORMAN into ALFIE’S territory and had to be prepared for the worst in case ALFIE! lost his shit and a fight started.  He didn’t but the first few interactions were pretty similar to the initial introduction.  A bit of growling and aggression, maybe a bit on the rougher side, I mainly had to just watch carefully.  So long as it wasn’t escalating into an all-out fight (and make no mistake they still play a bit roughly and I have found small cuts from time to time), I wasn’t too worried and felt confident that they’d work it out.  Hopefully without any straight up murder going on.

Jumping ahead, I’ve had NORMAN! here for just over 10 weeks and most of the initial problems, some of which I’ll describe shortly, are gone.  Play time can still get a bit rough but I put them on time out when it gets too mouthy or bitey for my liking.  Just so that they don’t learn that biting on each other (or worse yet, on people) is an acceptable thing.  Some of this was even training myself not to roughhouse with them.  It may be fun but ultimately teaches them that being rough with humans is acceptable and that’s not a good thing. 

Also, as much as I enjoyed watching them hump one another (sometimes you have to get your entertainment where you can), I did decide to break them of it and they’ve mostly stopped.  Mind you they’ve now replaced humping with another related behavior; the picture is always a great conversation starter.

TAKE IT!

Oh yeah....

Anyway, I think the main reason I wanted to make sure that they got along well is that, by the time he’s full grown, NORMAN! will outweigh ALFIE! by quite a bit.   I didn’t want NORMAN! to finally realize that he could kick the crap out of ALFIE! once he got to his maximum weight of about 60-70 pounds (ALFIE! was already at his adult weight of 40 pounds).

Mind you, the lack of straight up murder didn’t mean that there wouldn’t be plenty of other specific issues to deal with.   Puppies, effectively, are a full time job in a lot of ways and this was compounded by the presence of a second dog.  And I really didn’t know what I was getting myself into when I decided to foster/adopt NORMAN!   And to a great degree, despite all of the things I’ve learned volunteering at the Austin Humane Shelter, I wasn’t prepared for a lot of things I’d have to deal with because it’s not stuff we do at the shelter.  But before I get to that.

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Foster to Adopt

The short version of what happened with NORMAN! overall was that I was initially just fostering him.  As I talked about in NORMAN! Part 1, this goes on a lot, folks will take a dog home on a temporary basis (a few weeks to a few months) for a variety of reasons, generally with the intention of bringing them back to the Austin Humane Shelter after the foster period is over.  The foster program, like everything at the Austin Humane Shelter is well set up and organized; if nothing else the shelter covers medical costs for anything that happens during the fostering period.

And even though I had every intention of adopting NORMAN!, I was told to keep him on foster at least until his leg was checked out.  He was on kennel rest (meaning he was really supposed to be constrained to his crate and short potty breaks) for a few weeks before his second x-ray.  If it went well, he’d be fine and I could adopt; if not he’d need surgery but the Austin Humane Shelter would cover it.  Keeping him as a foster was mainly to avoid my having to pay for the surgery if it happened.

As a foster, my job was to give him that extra bit of socialization and mental well being during his kennel rest period so he could heal.  I will admit that I probably let him run around a bit too much while he was supposed to be healing but I was told that so long as he didn’t show signs of pain or discomfort it was ok.  Frankly, I didn’t have much control over it because of the presence of ALFIE! They’d get together and want to run around a bit and I’d let them for a little while.  As NORMAN’S leg healed, I also would take him for very short walks outside so that his life wasn’t constrained to kennel, back yard, kennel, back yard.

Three weeks later, I took him to his final vet visit, his leg was checked out and everything came back 100% so he was cleared.  I went to the shelter and filled out the paperwork, would take NORMAN for his free vet checkout at VCA (this comes with the adoption) to make sure he wasn’t carrying any residual stuff and now he was mine.

Now the real headaches would start.

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Two Dogs, Three Issues

Basically, I had three different dog issues to deal with in general.  The first, of course, was continuing to train ALFIE! and making sure he didn’t feel like he was getting replaced by the ‘new kid’ (I continually call NORMAN! little brother although he’ll end up outweighing ALFIE! by the time it’s all said and done as I mentioned above). 

He’s still high-energy, he still needs daily cardio and NORMAN! wasn’t up for long walks initially because of his leg.   That would mean taking ALFIE! out on his own and I basically maintained his training as it was working on the stuff I was working on (which I’ll detail in another ALFIE! post at some point).  And giving him sufficient individual love so he didn’t feel like the second child in the house.

The second was starting NORMAN!’s training by himself.  In one sense this was the least of my issues as I was simply going to train him on the same exact stuff I’d been doing with ALFIE!  Things like Red Light/Green Light, not to pull (I only recently learned how to teach loose leash walking), my version of down, etc.  But I had to start with the basics and build up until I could maybe train them together; certainly I had figured some stuff out over the past 9 months that would make it easier the second time around.  And at least on some things NORMAN! did pick it up faster.  Whether it’s because he’s a puppy, was watching ALFIE or because I’m better at it I have no idea; I’ll just assume all three are involved.

One issue that having the two of them brought to light is that I had missed some of the very basic training stuff with ALFIE!.  Frankly, a lot of it never occurred to me.  Things like getting him to come on command as an example.  ALFIE! basically followed me around the house as it was so it was never an issue.  And on walks he was always on leash.   Now ALFIE has gotten to the point where he doesn’t pathologically follow me all the time; NORMAN has taken up in his stead.  A lot of rescue dogs seem to have some separation issues, I suspect they fear abandonment again.  So NORMAN is a bit needy at times and I’ve pretty much always got at least one dog underfoot or underdesk.  Usually two as shown below.

Two Dogs, No Room for Feet

But once I started walking him with NORMAN! it became an issue since I needed to be able to call them back to me during the chaos that was dual dog walking.  As well, I had never really worked specifically on name recognition, never an issue with one dog.  But with two dogs I needed them to respond to their individual names which meant teaching them to respond to them (short version, you call their name and when/if they make eye contact you treat them so that they learn that responding to their name is a good thing).  There were other things and mainly I’d just worked with ALFIE! on things we did at the shelter; but there were definitely gaps in his training.  I’d have to back up to square one on a lot of stuff and do it with both of them.

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Two Dogs, Two Distinct Personalities

I noticed fairly early on that ALFIE! and NORMAN! are very different dogs in terms of personality and learning.  NORMAN is, a bit, shall we say, obsessive and he seems to pick up certain things faster.  He also seems better at generalizing behaviors meaning that once he learns something somewhere he understands that it applies in other situations.   At the same time he’s also got that puppy enthusiasm (and being on kennel rest early on didn’t help since I couldn’t just walk him to exhaustion) which interacts with his breed and temperament and it can add up to me getting really frustrated at times.

I also had a tendency to forget that I had had ALFIE for longer and a lot of the basic stuff I had taught him were already well-established.  With NORMAN! I fell into a trap of thinking he should be responding as consistently without remembering that he hadn’t had 9 months of consistent work on fundamental stuff.  That was my fault and I still have to force myself to be patient with him.

Probably NORMAN!’s biggest issue is that he seems to have a trigger switch, something will set him off (and mind you some of this is just being a puppy) and when that happens all bets are off.  He won’t respond to commands when he dials himself up to about 11 and he just goes nuts until I wait him out.  This was a real problem with walks sometimes as he’d lose his shit for some random reason (like he’d sniff a pile of mud and then just lose it) and start snapping or barking/growling.  And that would set ALFIE! off who is still a bit dog reactive and can get snappy when he gets worked up.  And there’s not a lot you can do when you have two dogs attached to you by 6 foot leashes and they are going at one another.

In contrast, ALFIE! seems to take a bit longer to pick stuff up and it seems like I have to teach it to him more places for it to sink in.    He’s also, well, a bit of a pushover and I can get him to do what I want a bit easier.  It certainly helps that both dogs are insanely food motivated so treats can pretty much get them to do anything.  I can even use kibble (considered a ‘low-value’ treat) as a reward and they are plenty happy with it; no need to use anything more expensive.

Honestly, I can sum up the difference in the two dogs with this picture, possibly my favorite of all that I’ve taken (it’s currently the picture on my phone).

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Two Dogs, No Cup

Make no mistake, I love ALFIE! but he’s, well, he’s not the brightest bulb in the bunch.  You can see it in his face, he has the joy and pleasure of the simpleminded.  NORMAN! on the other hand is intent and serious and I’m fairly sure that if he ever figures out how to get to the food, I’m out of here.  Here’s another couple of NORMAN, still with his puppy head (it’s been interesting watching it and him change shape) and you can see the murder in his eyes.  Maybe.

NORMAN!

I'm going to kill you last.

Like I said, there are distinct differences between the dogs, surely as a function of breed, age and just overall temperament (animals, like humans differ in ‘personality’ to a great degree).  And this does actually impact on how I have to interact with them. 

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Of Dominance, Submission and Semantics

As it turned out, about halfway into my initial time with NORMAN! I was invited to take the Yellow dog class (the next ‘level’ up in terms of behavioral issues) at the Austin Humane Shelter.  I had been on the fence (so to speak) about it for a while, wasn’t sure I wanted the responsibility or not but went ahead and signed up.  It turned out to be a good thing if, for no other reason, it gave me some tools and games I could use with my own beasts to get them better trained.

But among other things that we have discussed is the current debate in the dog training literature over the issue of dominance, submission, leadership, etc.  In brief, there is sort of a developing idea that the strict dominance hierarchies that exist in wolves (and were thought to exist in dogs) may not exist in such strict forms in either. 

And that the idea of dominance and submission (in their strictest sense) may be an incorrect approach to dog training.  In addition, there is great debate over whether dogs see humans as ‘part of the pack’ and look upon them as dominant or what have you.  This was something that got brought up in the comments section when I first wrote about ALFIE when I made some comments about things like going through the door first and such.

Frankly, it seems to me to be a bit of semantic wordplay more than anything although it has some subtle implications for how many are going about actually doing the dog training.  Overall there is just more of a focus on positive methods and avoiding most forms of direct punishment compared to more old school approaches which seemed to revolve around more force, positive punishment and things of that nature.. 

Frankly, the Austin Humane Shelter focuses on positive training methods anyhow and a lot of what is talked about is how the humans establishes leadership through things like controlling the resources, consistency in training, etc.  Which again, doesn’t seem to change much.  Mainly the idea is to eliminate a lot of ‘old school’ ideas like the alpha roll (rolling a dog on his back and pinning him) and other hardcore punishments of that nature.  And the positive approach works pretty damn well, at least in that type of controlled setting; even in the year I’ve been there I’ve seen it do some pretty amazing things.

There is also the idea that dogs aren’t necessarily dominant or submissive, at least not in the popular sense of what those words mean.  Rather, it’s more an issue of how intent they are in getting what they want (i.e. pulling towards something) versus what you want (not having them pull).  Again, I see this as more of a semantic issue than so much of a practical issue; it’s about who’s in charge of the situation and whether the dog does what it wants or does what you want it to. 

But overall the human still establishes that they are in charge through things like controlling resources like toys (when the dogs are allowed to play), food, and who gets to do what.  In my mind whether you call this leadership or dominance seems to be more an issue of semantics than much anything else; it’s all about who is in charge.  And that who should be the human.  I also disagree that there is NEVER a time to use punishment which seems to be the most extreme version of the ‘positive approach’ methodology.

There are simply situations where I think that you can’t just ‘wait a behavior’ out or ignore it although they tend to exist at the extremes of behavioral issues (certainly you don’t need to spank your puppy for not sitting on command).  One I deal with fairly consistently is when ALFIE and NORMAN are roughousing and it’s escalating towards an actual fight. 

If I ignored it, they’d just start fighting for real; this isn’t a place where I can wait for something good to happen to reward because it’s simply not going to.  So I can keep ignoring it and let them bloody one another or I can step in and break things up.  Usually that means calling a time out/red light on both of them.  If that doesn’t get it done, something more extreme may be required (usually involving body blocking the puppy and or restraining him physically.  But it’s one I deal with almost daily.

And it’s one I deal with more with NORMAN than with ALFIE.   Again, because of his age, breed, possible lack of socialization and such NORMAN is, well, let’s just say that he’s a lot more stubborn about what he wants.  Call it dominance, call it wanting to be in charge, call it whatever you want, the end result is sort of the same and NORMAN will fight a bit harder to get what he wants which may contrast with what I want. 

In contrast ALFIE is much more of a pushover, again a function of his breed, age, and overall temperament; call it being submissive or whatever you desire but he accepts my commands a lot more easily.  In a lot of ways, my time with him didn’t really prepare me for either a puppy or a harder case dog.

There have also been situations where NORMAN has done things that I think most would have have trouble separating his action from a true dominance display.    One that came up very early on was when I started letting NORMAN sleep in the room out of his kennel.  He started giving me a 6-6:30am wake-up call when he needed to potty (usually by licking my face) and one time I didn’t get up as quickly as he wanted.  He stood over me and growled directly in my face.   And I smacked him instantly and unapologetically with a loud ‘NO!’ 

Because if that’s not a dominance display on his part, I’m not sure what is and I wanted to let him no in no uncertain terms that it was unacceptable.  I’d note that it never happened again which is ideally how positive punishment should work (it worked with ALFIE’S humping me so long ago, two smacks to the head and the behavior was extinguished); if you have to keep using it, it’s not working very well and you should probably stop.

Make no mistake, I still try to use positive training methods with both dogs as much as possible for as many training tasks as possible; I don’t like imposing punishment and don’t want them to either fear or hate humans or me.  But regardless of whether you want to call it dominance or leadership or whatever, I expect both to recognize who’s in charge; and this whole debate really just comes down to establishing that it’s the human and how that is best done.  I’d note only in passing that ALFIE certainly seems to be submissive to NORMAN overall, letting him go through doors first, giving up toys most of the time or where he’s sleeping if NORMAN wants it.  I don’t really care where they see each other in the pack; just so long as they recognize that I’m the only one who knows where the food is kept.

And that’s actually where I’ll cut it today; on Friday I’ll talk about some of the specific training issues I dealt with, how I dealt with them (or how I’m still dealing with them) and then I’ll get back to talking about whatever this site is ostensibly supposed to be about.

Read NORMAN! Part 4.

At this point, NORMAN! had been put on kennel rest.  He was limited to the runs, no walking in the field, and basically would get 4 weeks of this until his leg healed and he got the follow-up X-rays to see if he’d need surgery or not.  That meant he was limited to his cage, going out to potty and whatever time/energy volunteers could give him beyond that.  The kennel is tough enough but sick or injured dogs have it worse because they are even more limited in what you can do with them.

In cases like this, and in many other cases, dog are often sent to foster homes, presumably temporary housing where someone will give them a bit more attention and loving than they would get otherwise.  Sometimes it’s just to free up space in the kennel; folks will foster dogs to give them temporary homes until we have cages.  When we took in the 179 dogs from the Bastrop hoarding situation, we had had an immense number of folks put them in foster to help us out.

So at this point NORMAN! was available for foster; and yes, BRATT’s do a lot of fostering since we know how to keep up with their training, etc.  Often long-term fosters by BRATT’s turn into full fledged adoptions.  After weeks of having the dog in your home, you’re in love with it so you just keep it.  Eventually he’d be up for adoption and if I was going to consider fostering him at all it would be towards long-term adoption.  I didn’t see any point in taking care of him for 4 weeks and then letting someone else have him in any case.

Three Obstacles to Overcome

I’ll be honest, despite my mentor’s concerns (which I did take into account) my mind was pretty much made up at this point.  But there were three obstacles that had to be overcome before I could consider fostering NORMAN!.  The first was that, simply I considered Mary in receiving to have first dibs on him.  When NORMAN! had first come in, I had only half-wanted to adopt him, she really wanted him and that gave her first right to refusal (basically) so far as I was concerned.  I wasn’t going to poach her dog.

We’d communicate every time I was at the shelter and she did eventually take him on an overnight foster to see if adoption was possible.  She actually has three dogs and a key to adding a dog to a household with any dogs is that they get along.  She reported to me that her dogs had not liked NORMAN! so adoption for her was completely off the table.  And that basically meant that I got next shot at him.  And now there were two other issues.

The first was that, when I was looking at taking him home was right before the Chicagoland Inline Marathon.  I’d only be gone for 48 hours (from about Friday afternoon to Sunday evening) and I had friends who could take care of ALFIE! food and potty wise.  But I didn’t know at this point how much care NORMAN! would require and wasn’t sure if I could ask them to do any extra work that might be needed (as well, he’s a puppy which means he needs a bit more effort than an adult dog).  But neither did I want to wait 2 weeks until after Chicago in case someone else decided to foster and adopt him.

But I checked and NORMAN! didn’t really need any extra work.  He had one med that he’d be done with before Chicago, he needed to be fed and pottied just like at the shelter.  He could stay in his crate the rest of the time.  Effectively, all my friends would need to do is feed and potty him (more or less) when they watched ALFIE!  Worst come to worst, I’d put NORMAN! back at the shelter for 2 days and then get him when I got back. 

And with those two issues out of the way, there was the biggest one of all: would ALFIE! get along with him or not?  Because while the other two obstacles were easily dealt with, this was far more important.  Whenever someone with a dog wants to adopt another dog, a dog introduction is required; if they don’t get along, the adoption is off.  And it would be no different here.  If ALFIE! didn’t like NORMAN!, I couldn’t foster him much less adopt.

I wasn’t going to risk taking NORMAN! home without bringing ALFIE! in first to see if they’d get along.  It would just be a day of stress for everyone.  I talked to many higher level volunteers about how to approach this and got all the advice I could.  Basically, NORMAN! was unlikely to be the issue, he loved everybody.  But kind of like me, ALFIE! can be a bit persnickety towards people.

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The Importance of First Impressions

So I scheduled the dog introduction for 2pm on a Thursday.  That would allow me to skate and get ALFIE! two walks in to try and burn off some energy.  Some volunteers felt that the initial meeting of the dogs can set the tone although that’s not only the case.  If we could get them to get along off the bat, it might go ok.

So we brought the dogs into the auditorium and gave it a shot.  And it didn’t go well.  NORMAN! wanted to play, ALFIE! was getting aggro.  Here I have to take some responsibility. I play rougher with ALFIE! at home than I should; I’ve taught him some bad habits with it.  Some of what he was doing was his normal dog reactivity although it’s often hard to separate that from just doggie play.

So we broke them up and took them to the field.  Sometimes walking the dogs about 6 feet apart (the dog’s critical distance, their personal ‘space’ if you will) lets them get used to one another while staying calm.   This is actually one way to teach dogs not to react: you walk them close to another dog and click or yes/treat so long as they stay calm.   Basically it’s just a way to reinforce that staying calm around other dogs (or people) brings good things.  But it wasn’t a game I had learned yet (it’s part of the Yellow dog class at the shelter) or worked on with ALFIE!  I had just kept him totally away from other dogs.

But, in contrast to ALFIE!’s normal behavior, he was actually pretty collected even if he was having to check the young interloper (older dogs often do this to puppies who don’t know any better).  When we had tried to introduce him to the beautiful Lupe, he had sat back with an erection (a sign of agitation) whining and getting stressed. He wasn’t doing this with NORMAN!, he’d just get a bit rough when they played.  This was workable.

We took them back to the auditorium and the same thing happened.  Play time was rough but keep in mind that dogs, like many animals, play with fight type behavior.  It’s practice for real fighting and how they establish dominance.  But so long as the tails are a wagging and the ears are up, it’s just play.  It’s when the tail stop and the ears go flat that shit is about to go down.  Here’s a video of them playing at my house (clearly it all worked out) to give you an idea.  You can see lots of teeth and aggression but it’s all just play.  Tails are wagging, ears are up and it’s just dogs being dogs even if it is a touch on the aggressive side (they are both being a bit mouthy).

Quick note here: if you have two dogs who are getting aggressive for real the LAST thing you do is reach in to break them up.  Because if a hand comes shooting in-between them they will decide on a common enemy: YOU.  What you do in this case is use your leash like a lasso and pull them apart by the neck.  If they are already on leashes, of course, you can just drag them apart.  Don’t worry about hurting them, whatever you might do to them is far better than them biting the hell out of one another or killing each other.  Because it will get ugly if you let it continue; they won’t magically settle down once it’s fight time.

Gradually they worked it out, they did keep trying to hump (another dominance behavior) but it was turning into playtime more than fight time.  And, again, ALFIE! wasn’t doing his normal agitated boner/whining thing like he would do with dogs behind fences when we’d get them apart.  He just doesn’t know good play habits because of me and his lack of time around other dogs.  So long as he wasn’t attacking outright, I could work with this.

And after about an hour of this, the foster was approved by the staff member (if she had said ‘no’ that would have been the end of it).   I was told that it would be best to get NORMAN! his own crate so that ALFIE! wouldn’t feel like his was being taken. So I ran ALFIE! home and ran up to Petsmart for supplies.  A separate dog/water bowl to feed them apart, a crate, some toys, etc.

And then I went back to the shelter, got NORMAN’s meds (just anti-biotics) and signed some papers and took him home.

I had no idea what I was in for but I’ll pick that up in Part 3 next week.  Read NORMAN! Part 3.