The art of ignoring

We recently welcomed in our first temporary foster dog since adopting Mama Julep (which if you do the math, means that we had three dogs here) and I was quickly reminded that there is no better teacher for a young dog than another dog. At 9 months old, foster dog Floyd is full of energy, and sometimes naughty. (Lucky for him, he’s also dangerously adorable.) Floyd’s puppy behavior helped him learn his name, thanks to us hollering at him to get his attention, but he learned a much more important lesson while he was here.

Thanks to our older dogs in large part ignoring the foster puppy when he would act obnoxiously, in a mere 10 days he learned how to appropriately interact, cohabitate, and play with other dogs.

Take a look at this short video to see what I mean (and sorry it’s recorded vertically):D

Did you notice how Floyd the puppy approached Beau towards the end, like a bull in a china shop, squeaking his toy to try to engage Beau in play? Beau, who was already sitting down, yawned. That subtle cue told Floyd that Beau didn’t want to play (and in fact was quite bored by him) and Floyd immediately changed course, away from Beau.

That, dog people, is the art of ignoring.

Of course, as any of us who have trained (or attempted to train) a dog know, sometimes ignoring an unwanted behavior isn’t enough. But take a look at how Beau corrected Floyd when his behavior was particularly egregious:

Here’s my play-by-play:

1. Floyd approaches Beau while Beau is drinking water, and rests his chin on Beau’s back, about to mount him.
2. Beau stops drinking water and walks away, attempting to simply ignore Floyd.
3. Floyd follows Beau, and attempts to mount him again, this time getting as far as one of his paws on Beau’s back.
4. Beau immediately turns and growls loudly at Floyd, and shows his teeth for a split second, causing Floyd to immediately move off of him.
5. Beau and Floyd disengage, but Beau continues to tongue flick a few times while walking next to Floyd.
6. Beau’s “shakes off the stress,” and just like that the interaction is over.

This was actually one of the harshest corrections Beau gave to Floyd while he was here (I was lucky enough to catch it on video!) and it was enough to teach the puppy that mounting was rude and not going to be tolerated. Surprise surprise, my verbal corrections when Floyd would mount Mama Julep (who would let the puppy slide quite a bit more than Beau) were not nearly as effective.

Having a derpy puppy here reminded me that we can learn a lot from dogs about how to train other dogs, and specifically that ignoring can go a long way.