Your role during supervision of off-leash dog play is to become a good leader and understand how to implement the keys to good leadership which will earn the respect of the dogs and make your job much easier.
In this lesson you will learn to understand the key qualities, events, and tools used by effective dog leaders to manage small off-leash play groups. You’ll use your body to effectively control dog movements in a play group. You can begin to learn to use your body to control dog movements without having to resort to any physical punishment or harsh handling. You will also use obedience, commands or cues to effectively manage dogs in play group. We encourage you to take notes as we go through the material.
Leadership Traits
There are a number of leadership traits that are useful to establish your role as leader in a group of dogs. When we are talking about leadership, we mean a benevolent leadership style and not one of a dictatorship. Everything you are learning about how to work with dogs should help you to have a relationship that is based on trust and mutual cooperation.
You want the dogs to look to you for guidance and feel safe knowing that you’ll work with them and not intimidate them. The dog should feel like you are there for them, that you’ve got their back. That’s the leadership that good leaders instill within the group.
Qualities of a Leader
Posture
Your overall posture should be one of confidence without being intimidating. Think of it in terms of royalty. You’ll walk tall, carry your shoulders back, hold your head high. Actually, you probably heard your mother say these things to you as a kid when she said “no slouching.” This is a posture that shows confidence. When initially working with dogs, don’t stare at them or initiate too much eye contact. A slouching posture will usually encourage dogs to jump up on you, they’ll learn to ignore your obedience cues and it doesn’t help the dogs to see you as a leader. Just as you are learning to understand dog body language, dogs are masters at understanding human body language. And these human postures will mean a great deal to the dogs.
Watch the video below and see how your posture will affect the dog’s behavior.
Attitude
Another leadership quality is in your attitude. Generally speaking, if you’re keeping your posture good, your attitude is going to go along with it. Again, think of an attitude of confidence. You remain calm, display an air of self-reliance. Good leaders also don’t yell and scream at the dogs, they speak quietly with authority and only when they need to speak. While good leaders praise when necessary, they also intervene and help direct the dogs with calm
Consistency
One of the challenges in working with any animal is being consistent when we enforce limits. If you want to create a no-go zone around a gate or door, it’s possible but it is a behavior that must be reinforced repeatedly in order for the dogs to learn. Allowing dogs to push through the gate one minute, and then trying to stop them in the next, is inconsistent and hard for the dogs to understand.
Think of the way a slot machine works, just a tiny quarter that falls out in response to one pull of the handle, now the slot is enough to keep many people playing for hours. It’s the same with dogs. Good leaders are consistent in enforcing whatever limits they set.
Proactive Intervention
Finally, good leaders use proactive intervention, after all that’s the whole reason for learning about canine body language.You want to become an expert at reading dogs so that you can be proactive. Being proactive means understanding canine body language, understanding the individual dogs in your care, and being able to use those concepts to make decisions on the fly.
Canine interaction happens quickly and is very fluid. It takes a great deal of concentration and awareness to prevent problems, and it’s not unlike the job of a lifeguard who must watch everything happening on the beach and in the water, making judgment calls on when to blow the whistle and when to intervene by hopping off their chair and offering assistance. This is your challenge as the daycare handler and supervisor of the dog play.
Challenging Events
You’ve learned about some of the qualities of a good leader, and in general you will always try to embody all those qualities. However, it is important to know that there are some key times when you really need to become even more focused on your leader qualities. These challenging events are times when the arousal level of the dogs increases and the potential for a fight will increase as well. During these times your leadership is more important than ever.
- Dogs pulling on lead-
- Require loose leash walking.
- Territorial barking and high arousal
- Acknowledge alert and cue quiet. Stand between dog and threat, facing dog.
- Dogs joining playgroup-
- You decide when to allow them to join.-after all dogs show self-control.
- You decide when to greet the new arrival.- not when they are demanding attention.
Watch the video to see a great example of asserting your leadership while dogs are doing playgroup.
Controlling Resources
Here is a link to the Standard Obedience Cues K9 Club uses. The handout should already be in your handbook but please use this as a reference if needed.
Controlling resources is a great tool to use when managing dogs in off-leash play. If there is anything that a dog really enjoys, you can use that to your advantage and control that resource to help you establish a better relationship of being a leader with the dog.
- Space
- Toys
- Petting
- Playmates
- People
- Water
- Poop
- Vomit
All these things are valuable to most dogs, although some of them are more important to any one particular dog. As you get to know the dogs in your center you’ll learn to recognize which ones are most important to them. Obviously, not all of these resources lend themselves to control by the leader, such as poop, but you can use a lot of these things to help you manage the dogs. For instance, if you know the dogs like to play, have them calm down before you open the gate for the fence. You learned about this previously in terms of how to manage the arousal of new arrivals. Or if a dog loves to be petted, then use the petting as a reward after you ask the dog to sit at the gate.
By understanding what resource a dog finds valuable you can be more proactive in keeping the dog out of trouble. If you know a dog loves to eat poop, you can be proactive by redirecting that dog when you see another one going to the bathroom. If you know a dog likes a lot of space him, you can be proactive by moving that dog away from the gate when others are coming in and going, because he’s likely to get too close to all the other dogs crowding at the gate.
Controlling Space
In addition to recognizing what the dogs find valuable and using that knowledge to help you be proactive, you can also use your physical body space around you to maintain leadership and control. By controlling space you can send a signal to the dogs that you are the leader and help move dogs away from things without having to physically manhandle them.
There are a number of considerations in controlling space. There’s physical space and access to you. You can allow dogs into or move them out of this space around you. There is space around doorways, and it’s important to control the doorways to get some semblance of calm when the dogs are coming and going
In addition, controlling space that is higher than the other space also might be a consideration by making dogs get on or off certain types of furniture. Height can be an important aspect to dogs and making dogs get off of things can be a good way to establish leadership. This is also a reason to limit the picking up of dogs in playgroups. Picking up dogs unnaturally raises their height and some dogs will respond by jumping up and nipping at the dog being carried.
Taking space means controlling the space in a way that you remove it from the dogs by making them back away from something or get off of something. You’ll see in this photo that the person is using a Chuck It as an extension of her arm not to scare the dogs, to help establish a boundary around her without touching the dogs or bending down.
Through practice they have learned they don’t get in by pushing their way through. Here you’ll see the staff member body block the Boxer. This type of respect is learned through consistent practice, excellent body blocking and repetition.
Taking space doesn’t mean you have to be intimidating and overwhelming to the dogs. Watch some of these videos that show you good leadership really means carrying yourself with good posture and providing some guidance to the dogs.
Practice Taking Space
Taking space works well and strong leaders will use this often. But remember it does take practice and consistency to earn the respect of the dogs and it’s not something that needs to be done with force or intimidation. This is about benevolent leadership, not physical force, pain or manipulation. Note that body blocking is not using your hands; it’s about using your body to claim space from the dogs to establish better control of the group.
You’re going to see a video now of a game that you can use to practice to get better at body blocking.
Controlling Other Resources
You learned about using things the dogs enjoy to your advantage. Here are a few examples of other tools you can use to help manage the play. Games can help you establish a fun way of interacting with dogs. By doing things like follow the leader, chase, or fetch, you can help the dogs look to you for leadership. In these situations the leader should initiate and end the game and also watch for resource guarding from any of the dogs, especially when playing with toys.
Obedience Cues
Finally, you’ll want to use obedience cues to help establish positive communication between you and the dogs. Your supervisor should have given you a handout of the standard obedience cues that are used in your pet care center. Make sure you know which commands are common for your center. You always want to be consistent and practice with the dogs each day. Always reward their good behavior with something that dog enjoys. Once several dogs know a cue, you can begin practicing group behavior like having all the dogs sit before you play a fetch game.
Be sure to spend plenty of time practicing obedience cues with the dogs. Try to remember to reinforce consistently and avoid repeating cues over and over. You don’t want the dogs to ignore you. Always remember to praise.
Now you’re going to see some video of using obedience cues during group play sessions.
Remember that if your dogs aren’t used to doing obedience, you’ll need to start slow and work with each dog throughout the day. With practice, the obedience will help you build a relationship with the dog and the dogs will respond better.
We’ve covered a lot of ground in this lesson. You’ve learned some of the basics of being a good leader and how to use your body to help control the movements of the dogs. Keep in mind the leadership qualities and the key times when those qualities become even more important. And begin practicing using some of the leadership tools and obedience cues as you’re working with the dogs in your next shift.