Empowerment Training for Your Power Dog: Unleash the Positive Potential in Bully and Mastiff Breeds, Pit Bulls, and Other Strong Dogs

Index

Preface

Unlike my previous training books, this book was a surprisingly difficult one for me to write. The training portion of the book was relatively easy to put on paper; I use these types of exercises on a regular basis with my training students who own bully breeds, mastiffs, and other physically strong dogs. It was the breed histories that I struggled with—I was definitely not prepared for the emotional rollercoaster I would be on while researching the power breeds. The past always informs the present, so it’s foolish to ignore it, no matter how unpleasant that past may have been. Every type or breed of dog we have today was developed for some specific purpose. Humans were pragmatists throughout most of our history with dogs; dogs were kept primarily to serve mankind in one capacity or another. Owning a dog strictly for companionship was a luxury only the wealthiest people could afford until well into the late 1800s; most people could only afford to keep a dog if the dog could work to earn his keep. The type of work dogs historically did still influences behavior in today’s dogs, even though we rarely ask our dogs to perform their ancestral jobs anymore. I believe that understanding a breed’s history is essential to helping that breed adapt to the present and move positively into the future, so we don’t lose the wonderful diversity we have in our dogs.

So, off I went, headlong down the rabbit hole, chasing after historical information about the power breeds. I approach my canine research in the same manner I approach my legal research. I collect as many facts as I can and investigate all sides of an issue as thoroughly as possible. But I simply wasn’t prepared for how emotionally difficult much of the information I gathered was going to be for me to process. I read books that I would never otherwise have any reason or desire to read. I read about the ferocious war dogs the ancients used against one another, the savage use of power breeds against native cultures and enslaved peoples throughout the world, and the use of power breeds in the bait sports (historical gambling and social activities pitting dogs against nearly every imaginable form of life, including bears, bulls, monkeys, tigers, badgers, donkeys, horses, and even humans) and dog-fight pits. I read historical and contemporary accounts of dog attacks on people and other dogs (outside the fighting pit context), and the disturbing issues surrounding present-day illegal dog fighting. I waded through websites extolling the aggressive virtues of certain lines of power dogs, which all but explicitly state these dogs are still being bred for use in the pit, and read disturbing arguments for allowing these breeds to do what they are being bred and trained to do—fight. I examined statutes and ordinances related to vicious dogs and dangerous dog breeds, as well as the social and legislative history behind their enactments. This is all an unpleasant, but important, part of modern power dog history that can’t be ignored or whitewashed. It is what it is and needs to be understood by every power dog owner and anyone who works with power dogs in training or rescue, if the power dogs we know and love today are to be respected and protected for the future.

Thankfully, in contrast to the depravity and cruelty that riddles the history of the power breeds, I also found just as much information related to the bravery and intelligence of these dogs. They have served as family guardians, police and military dogs, therapy dogs, service dogs, and faithful companions to countless people over the centuries. Beautiful power dogs have graced the rings of dog shows, instead of the rings of fight pits. There are many educational websites that share the numerous positive virtues of the power breeds that are often overlooked because of the negative reputations many of these breeds have acquired over the years. I read through websites discussing the efforts conscientious breeders are making to develop lines of dogs with less fire in them than previous generations had, so they can fit better into modern society. These positives certainly didn’t diminish the negatives I learned about power dogs, but they did serve as bright counterpoints to what I learned about the dark brutality that fueled the creation and development of most power breeds we have today.

Power dogs continue to capture the minds, hearts, and homes of people, just as they did in previous generations. The vast majority of power dog owners and their dogs go about their lives uneventfully, just like owners of so many other types of dogs do, each and every day. Power dogs are neither angels nor demons; they are dogs, developed for specific historic purposes, altered somewhat over time to better fit into our current society. They are influenced by instincts but capable of learning how to control them (if properly taught). They are capable of neither malice nor idol worship, but can certainly experience joy, fear, pain, and loss. They are dogs and, as such, can only react in canine ways to our human world. It is our job to help them adapt to, and behave in, our world, for their sake as well as ours. Power dog success stories almost always come from those dogs and owners who live their lives together somewhere in the middle—a balance of nature and nurture, genetics and environment, love and training, combined in a way that meets the needs of the individual dog and his human family.

Living successfully with a power dog requires you to understand both the bad and the good in your dog’s past, assess and acknowledge the unique dog you have today, and manage and train him so you two can have a quality future together. I hope that by writing this book I can help you and your power dog find that middle ground and start writing your own power dog success story.

1

An Introduction to Power Dogs

Empower (v.) – to encourage and support the ability to do something.

Cambridge Dictionary, online edition

The power dogs, as I define them, are an eclectic group of breeds. The work these breeds did ranged from serving as animals of war and big-game catch dogs to ferocious fighters and personal and property guardians. They are physically and mentally strong dogs, regardless of their size, originally bred to perform physically demanding and often dangerous work for the benefit (or amusement) of humans. For the purposes of my book, I’ve defined a power dog as any dog who possesses one or more of the following traits:

• Extreme power due to his physical strength or simply his massive size

• An ancestry rooted in hunting big game, fighting other animals, or guarding people or property against other people

• Exceptional devotion to his family, which may express itself in extreme wariness and aggressive behavior toward anyone outside his immediate family

• Extreme tenacity, coupled with high pain tolerance, intelligence, and independence

• Aggressiveness toward other dogs and animals that is not due to fear or defensive behavior, that would likely result in injury to the other animal without human intervention

These traits allowed power dog ancestors to do their work successfully, but most are not as desirable (or necessary) in our modern world as they once were. Some power breeds have been selectively bred to be less aggressive, and more social, but these ancestral instincts still exist to some degree in every power dog alive today, evidenced by the fact that purebred dog registries and breed clubs worldwide still acknowledge these traits in the breed standards of many of the power breeds. These traits can be challenging to live with. And even if your power dog doesn’t openly exhibit any of these traits, it is important that you recognize the potential that still exists in your dog, based on his ancestry. Owning a power breed is definitely not for the lazy or uneducated, but the work it takes to live successfully with one of these dogs is rewarded many times over with the funny, playful, family-oriented personalities these dogs share with us. Many of these dogs are loyal, energetic, playful, and able to learn many useful behaviors; they can make fabulous pets and well-behaved canine citizens if you use the power dog–centric management and training techniques we will explore throughout the rest of this book.

Which breeds are power dogs?

The largest genomic map of dog breeds developed to date was unveiled in 2017 by Heidi Parker and her colleagues in the journal Cell Reports. This enormous canine family tree shows that all dog breeds fall into one of 23 different clades (groups of dogs who evolved from a common ancestor). Nearly all the breeds I chose to include in this book belong to the European mastiff clade (dogs with Mastiff breeds origins) or the Asian spitz clade. A few other breeds were selected based on their original primary ancestral work or their physical attributes alone. For example, I chose to include Dalmatians in my power dog group because of their historic development as property guards (i.e., horses and coaches), even though Parker’s genetic analysis reveals they are most closely related to pointers and setters. I also included Rottweilers; although originally used to drive cattle and pull butchers’ wagons, the breed was also used to protect the livestock and wagons against thieves, and Rottweilers are exceptionally powerful for their size. I don’t, however, include most livestock guardian dogs such as the Great Pyrenees, nor certain herding and working dogs like the German Shepherd, in my grouping of power dog breeds, simply because their original uses were primarily in herding or protecting livestock from other animals (rather than humans). Emphasis on other types of ancestral work gives these dogs a different set of breed traits than the power breeds typically exhibit, even though several of these excluded breeds were later used to protect property against humans. Clearly there is a great deal of subjectivity in the breeds I chose to include in this book. But if the behavioral or physical characteristics of your dog fit with any of those I described above or later in this book, please consider your dog a power dog, whether or not I included his breed in my group! Power dogs are simply those dogs who fit a set of criteria I created for the purposes of this training book, regardless of the breed. (See Appendix A for a complete listing of power dogs.)

Looking at power dogs objectively

While writing this book, I tried to avoid the emotional and political baggage currently associated with many of the power breeds, particularly the American Pit Bull Terrier (and any other type of dog that politicians or the public choose to include under the generic label pit bull), as well as the social pressure that often comes to bear to be on the correct side of the pit bull issue. I don’t think any other breeds have such a divisive effect on the public as the power breeds. Ask people if they have an opinion about any of the power breeds (particularly pit bulls), dog fighting, or breed-specific legislation, and many are more than happy to weigh in on the subject, regardless of the factual basis for their hard-held beliefs. It seems that everyone knows someone who heard about somebody who once had a relative who had either a magically wonderful or horrifically awful experience with one of these types of dogs. Opinions are often quite extreme—people seem to either curse the power breeds or worship them, regardless of whether they ever actually owned, met, or worked with one. Many people blindly agree with the imposition of breed-specific legislation as the only way to keep humanity safe from these vicious dogs, or equally blindly oppose the imposition of any ownership requirements to hold owners accountable for their dogs’ behavior, labeling such legislation as an overreaching restriction of property rights. Some people absolve humans completely and blame a dog’s pedigree alone for any violent behavior the dog engages in, while others believe that humans are 100% exclusively responsible for their dogs’ behavior, completely ignoring the role instincts and organic factors play in all canine behavior. Some people see absolutely no need for any of these breeds to exist in modern society, while others will do anything possible to preserve these dogs and help them adapt to the modern world. Some people I’ve met consider their power dogs as living weapons to use against all comers, while others see them as literal child substitutes. These extreme viewpoints polarize power dog owners and non-owners alike and can make finding common ground or having a meaningful conversation about these dogs very difficult.

I believe these extreme viewpoints arise, in large part, from the all-or-nothing beliefs many people have about how an individual dog’s behavior is developed and expressed. At one end of this belief system spectrum is the notion that any dog, if simply loved enough and raised in the correct environment, will be perfectly stable and predictable in any situation he will ever encounter. People who believe this way think a dog’s environment is entirely responsible for his behavior; with appropriate environmental comfort and enough compassion, any dog’s instincts or personal history of abuse, training, etc. can be completely overridden, or, conversely, developed to extreme forms of expression. This is the Disney view of dog behavior; a dog knows what is expected of him and how to behave appropriately (based on human values, morals, and expectations), just like dogs do in the Disney movies. A dog’s genetic makeup, past history, and breed instincts are completely ignored in this view of dog behavior. His owners are absolved of all responsibility for managing and training the dog; all they need to do is provide the dog love and a safe environment to live in and the dog will take care of the rest. People with this view of canine behavior may say things like:

• "My dog would never harm a child—he knows better!"

• My dog ripped up that pillow just to get even with me for not giving him a treat last night!

• My dog was rescued from a fight ring, but he knows he’s safe now, so he’ll be fine at the dog park.

This is a very dangerous belief system for any dog owner to have.

At the other end of this belief spectrum is the idea that a dog’s breed sets his behavior in stone from the moment he’s born. People who believe this way think that power breeds (and mixes involving those breeds) are inherently aggressive, unstable, and unpredictable due entirely to their ancestry (or, conversely, are unfailingly stable, loyal, and willing to tolerate any type of treatment from their families without responding, simply by virtue of their pedigrees). These people view genetics and instincts as immutable, and believe no amount of training, management, or motivation will ever change the expression of those genes and instincts. This is the hell hound view of dog behavior, which condemns or sanctifies a dog simply because of his parentage, regardless of the individual dog’s behavior and training. This view plays a big role in the imposition of breed-specific legislation in many jurisdictions; in some cases, it can even cost a dog his life for no reason other than he looks like a dog who might be dangerous. This view completely disregards the impact proper basic care, consistent management, and humane training can make on the expression of instinctual and previously learned behaviors. People with this view of dog behavior may say things like:

• My dog will let my kids do anything to him—after all, he’s a________!

• My ________ can’t walk around the block with me because he’s too big.

• We need to ban all ________; everyone knows they are simply too dangerous to allow in our community!

These are all statements that represent this viewpoint; simply fill in the blank with your power breed. This view also absolves the owner from all responsibility for his dog’s behavior, but for different reasons than the Disney view.

Unfortunately, there is no direct, simple way to change someone’s core beliefs, including those about dog behavior, if that person doesn’t want them changed. (This is why discussing politics or religion can be very difficult with some people.) Emotions often run high during these types of discussions and sometimes they degrade to meaningless personal attacks completely unrelated to the topic at hand. There is a psychological phenomenon known as the backfire effect that explains why this happens. The amygdala is a part of the brain that helps protect a person from any real threat in the environment, but it also sometimes tries to protect against imagined threats, as well. It plays a role in emotions, and in research studies it becomes very active when a person’s core beliefs are challenged. Most core beliefs develop over a lifetime, as a result of personal experiences and the information a person collects from various sources, like books, other people, the news, and the internet. Because the human brain really likes to keep its world consistent and the body safe, it resists any idea that is in direct conflict with a core belief. The amygdala treats that idea as if it were an actual physical threat, resulting in emotional, and sometimes very irrational, responses to the new information. Adding more information, no matter how factual or persuasive, only causes the brain to continue to ignore or attack the new, dangerous ideas. Trying even harder to convince someone a core belief is incorrect will continue to backfire and cause the brain to further protect the belief if that person isn’t prepared to consider changing it. If you’ve ever had a conversation with someone who constantly responds to anything you say with Yeah, but…, you were probably touching on one or more core beliefs that the brain was trying to protect. Core beliefs can only be changed if a person wants them to change; even for people who want to learn and possibly change their core beliefs, it takes time for the initial emotional brain response to the imaginary threat to subside and the logical part of the brain to take over, listen, and process the new information. Put simply, you can lead people to information, but you can never force them to accept it, regardless of how factually correct or persuasive you are. Trying to change a person’s long-held beliefs about how dog behavior develops can be a challenge and will only work if that person wants them to change.

Finding the balance between nature and nurture

I believe strongly in the importance of objectively working with both nature (a dog’s genetics and instincts) and nurture (a dog’s environmental experiences and training) in order to live a successful, middle-of-the-road life with any dog. My reason for writing this book is not to change anyone’s core beliefs about power breeds per se. I am simply presenting information for you to consider that will enable you to find your own balance between nature and nurture with your power dog, and to learn how to work with his breed instincts, instead of against them, to effectively teach him how to live successfully in today’s world. I hope this information will help anyone who owns, trains, or rescues power breeds expand their appreciation and understanding of these incredible dogs and the instincts that drive their behavior. The training exercises I’ve included will help power dogs cope with life in the modern, often urban or suburban, world they must live in. Of course, every dog is a unique individual, so not every trait described will apply to every power dog and not every exercise described will be necessary to teach each dog. But even if you don’t believe your dog fits within the power breed group as I define it here, the training and management exercises I’ve included will still benefit both of you and will help you learn to work together. And the joy and satisfaction of a journey well-traveled together is what dog ownership is really all about. I hope this book will help you along your way.

How the rest of this book is organized

Understanding power dog history in a broad sense and working with your power dog’s instincts as they are expressed in his unique personality are the best ways to empower him to become an exceptional companion for many years to come. This book provides you the keys to unleash that potential in your power dog using empowerment training.

Chapters 2 and 3 will explore the first key to power dog empowerment—understanding the good, the bad, the ugly, and the beautiful of power breed history. Chapter 2 will examine a selection of breeds that represent the wide range of historical uses for these types of dogs, as well as the common instincts and behavioral traits in these breeds and some of the differences between them. Chapter 3 will then help you decide if a power dog is the best choice for you and your family if you don’t already own one or are considering adding another one to your family.

Chapters 4 and 5 explain the second key to power dog empowerment—understanding how nature and nurture play roles in dog behavior and how dogs learn. The Humane Hierarchy is also defined here; the remainder of the book is organized according to this approach to changing behavior. How to select and use motivators to train your power dog is covered in Chapter 6.

Chapter 7 deals with the third key to power dog empowerment—activities to help your power dog remain physically and mentally healthy. Without appropriate exercise and mental enrichment, it will be difficult for your dog to be an exceptional companion.

Chapter 8 is devoted to the fourth key to power dog empowerment—socialization. This is the most important activity you must do with your power dog to minimize the chances he will be aggressive with people or other dogs. If you purchase a puppy, your socialization work starts as soon as you take him from the breeder’s house; if you adopt an older puppy or adult dog, the process is slightly different, but nonetheless critical for you to go through, right from the start.

Chapters 9 focuses on the fifth key to power dog empowerment—management. Proper training equipment and management will produce quick behavioral results for many common problems power dog owners face. These techniques don’t teach your dog what to do, but set him up so he won’t (or can’t) do certain undesirable behaviors in the first place. Making changes in your dog’s environment and eliminating things that previously triggered undesirable behaviors are key steps to take before trying to permanently change your dog’s behaviors through training.

Chapter 10 provides the sixth, and final, key to power dog empowerment—training. Training and behavioral modification exercises may take longer than simple management techniques to effect changes in your dog’s behavior, but this is how new learned behaviors, and permanent changes in your dog’s previously learned behaviors, are acquired. Training is how you specifically show your dog what behavior you want him to do. Combined with management, training will help your power dog become a wonderful family companion and a positive ambassador for his breed.

Chapter 11 addresses legal and insurance issues you need to be aware of when you own a power dog. Even if you don’t live in an area that has a breed-specific ordinance in place, if you travel with your dog, it is possible you might find yourself in a place where there is an ordinance you must comply with, depending on your dog’s breed or predominant breed mix.

Finally, selected resources are listed at the end of the book to help you research your breed in more detail and obtain equipment that will make your training easier. Unlike my previous training books, I purposely excluded many of the references I found that contain exceptionally graphic historical descriptions and suggestions for using power dogs to injure or kill other animals (and in one book, how to track and maim humans!), glorify the use of power dogs in this way in contemporary society, or promote raising dogs for dog fighting. Some of the books I did include in the reading list do have a few disturbing descriptions, but I don’t believe they glorify these types of activities. Rather they provide historical context (regardless of what some of the book titles alone might suggest). I also included the primary research papers that I cite for anyone who has a scientific interest, as well as sources for training equipment mentioned throughout the book.

Power dogs have been valued family companions for generations, and are some of the best-known dog breeds that exist today. They are also some of the most misunderstood and emotion-evoking breeds. By learning all you can about your power dog, applying the management and training techniques in the following chapters, and complying with any applicable ordinances that affect your dog, you can help your dog become an exceptional companion, a positive breed ambassador, and a means to help change people’s attitudes toward these dogs for the better, one interaction at a time.

Understanding Rocky’s instincts will help his owner teach him to be the best Rottweiler he can be.

2

Power Dog History

Power (n.) – great or marked ability to do or act; strength; might; force.

Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, online edition

More than any other group of dogs, the power dogs (specifically those of molosser, mastiff, bully-mastiff, bull-and-terrier, and bull