Expert Q&A With Famed Dog Trainer John Gagnon

My dog hates to be brushed. We even muzzle him, but he snaps at the brush. What should I do?

John Gagnon says: He needs to be desensitized to the brush. Assuming that the dog is not matted and we are not causing him undue pain by brushing too hard, then what I will do is just take the brush out, put in on the floor in front of the dog and give him treats while the brush is there. While he’s eating the treats, I will pick the brush up and just hold it in my other hand and I will continue to give him treats. And if he is happy and wagging and excited about the treats, then I will touch him with the brush, but I won’t actually brush him, and I will continue to give him treats.

And you can see where I am going with it. You gradually progress. Depending on the dog, this might take a week or two or three weeks to get to a point where you are actually brushing him productively. The trick with this is being very patient and not rushing it. You can’t move onto the next step until the dog is really accepting and 100-percent comfortable, wagging his tail when you are at this [point].

How do I keep my dog out of the trash and/or kitty litter?

John Gagnon says: This is an area that is management. You have a couple of options. First, you can get litter boxes that can’t be penetrated by the dog, like ones with covers or lids so that the dog can’t get in. Secondly, you can put the litter box in a garage. What I do with my own dogs is put the litter box in the garage with a cat door where the cat can go in and out of the garage, but the dogs can’t.

So again, preventative stuff. You can put the garbage underneath the sink, behind the cabinet, etc. I once had a dog that knew how to open cabinets so I had to put baby latches on the cabinets. It is a management thing. Keep the dog away from those items because the temptation is too high in your absence.

I have complete control of my dog except at the dog park. He plays well with other dogs, but exhibits dominant behavior there. He rushes dogs when we arrive and he crowds new dogs as they enter. How can I correct this and make him a polite dog in the dog park?

John Gagnon says: That is one that is really going to need a trainer on hand. I realize that the behaviors may not be desirable to the owner, but they may not be bad. The dogs need to have a healthy pack interaction and ... the dog may not be acting unreasonable. He may be establishing pack order and being perfectly normal and healthy. We wouldn’t want to interrupt that.

If he were being inappropriate in various ways, then I would redirect him. I would loop him up, put a leash on him and just lead him away from that area. Every time he crowds, we just take him, we pull him away and let those other dogs come in. When he’s settled down, we drop the leash and allow him to interact again. Really, it is an isolation. We don’t allow him to do the things that are inappropriate just simply by leading him away and then re-directing him. We don’t allow him to re-engage the pack until he is calmed down and focused.  

How do I stop my puppy from chewing or biting on people?

John Gagnon says: Biting is completely normal in a puppy. It’s like a baby putting things in his mouth. You just kind of stop them from doing it, but you’re not going to scold a baby. So I definitely don’t want to punish a normal, healthy puppy behavior however inappropriate it may be. But I always carry things that are better for him to chew on, so I have rope toys everywhere. I will have chew bones or whatever it is everywhere I go, in every room in my house.

When my puppy and I are interacting, I will put a rope toy in his mouth. Tug of war is completely acceptable. It doesn’t make aggressive dogs. So I'll play tug with him or give him things to bite on. If he lets go of that and bites onto my hand, game is over. Biting me ends the game because you, the human, have to act like a real wimp. Stand up and cross your arms where he can’t get to them and turn your back. They might whine and cry and tug at your pant leg, but just ignore that until it stops. With enough repetition, he begins to realize that, "Wow, this guy really is a wimp" and "I can’t put my teeth on him because it ends the game and I don’t want the game to end." So, you just need some patience and lots of things that he can chew and bite on that are acceptable.

I am trying to train my puppy to walk beside me when I take him for a walk, but he gets overly excited and pulls ahead on his leash. How can I teach him to heel?

John Gagnon says: The best way is to start your walks with a long leash and lots of exercise. I take a 50-foot leash and I go out in my backyard or to the park, and I will let him run around. I’ll just stand, I may even walk a little bit, but I will let him on that 50-foot leash run all over the place and burn off a lot of that initial energy. If he will retrieve, I will throw the ball, but give him 20 minutes of just going crazy until he starts to mellow out a little bit and he’s not going nuts.

Then I will start to walk. I will reel in maybe half or two thirds of the leash, and let him on a 10-foot lead so that he’s still kind of bouncing around. As this progresses, he gets more and more relaxed because he’s burning that energy off, and then he’s going to be more apt to walk next to me at that point. When we walk and he’s next to me, I am rewarding him, praising him. I may be slipping him treats as we are walking. And we reward that heeling behavior, but we have to get that behavior [going] before we can reward it. Allowing him to burn off all of that energy first is the best way.