(I ran this post a year ago because I was so impressed with this product. I just used it again on my dog over the weekend and I have to say, the stuff is great. It made sense to me to run the post one more time.)

I’ve never been afraid of winter before. I actually used to love it — but the last six snowstorms have changed my views.

Even disliking winter as I do these days, I never thought I’d associate it with fear.

After all, I grew up where winters were long and cold and very, very snowy. I learned to drive on snow-covered roads and have fought my way along a highway through more than one blinding blizzard.

But winter never bothered me — until Maddie.

When you have a 65-pound very excitable dog yanking you right and left as you go for a walk, you learn to appreciate firm ground and traction.

Obviously, you don’t get either on the ice.

“Well then, don’t walk your dog, for God’s sake,” said one of my friends. “You don’t have to be out there at the crack of dawn every morning for two hours.”

Uh, yes I do.

Maddie without exercise is like … let’s see … me after drinking a cup of coffee? (I can’t even drink decaf, so you have some idea of the bouncing-off-the-walls effect I’m envisioning.)

The dog needs exercise at the start of every day, and if I am going to be totally honest, I’ve become addicted to our early-morning walks as well. I feel flat, dull and without energy if I don’t roll out bed and hike through one of the nearby parks for at least an hour.

So not walking isn’t an option. And this presents two problems:

1) How do I avoid having Maddie yank me down on the ice?

2) How do I prevent Maddie from stopping every 10 feet and pathetically holding up one of her paws because she’s bothered by an ice or snow clump that’s wedged its way in between the pads of her paws?

Problem #2 seemed easier to solve, so I sat down at my computer a few weeks ago and began researching … yes … dog booties.

You have to understand how difficult this was for me. I HATE putting a coat on Maddie, and I only do it when the temperature is in the single digits.

It’s not that it’s hard to get the coat on her — for some reason, she doesn’t seem to mind. But I don’t like the idea of walking a dog who’s wearing a coat. It’s just not very … dog-like. She might as well have bows tied to her ears or have her toenails painted pink. To me, it’s the same thing.

So you can imagine my feelings on booties.

But what were my options? Walking her on snow and ice is a living hell because she’s the classic Princess and the Pea. Every other step, something cold has invaded one of her pads and she refuses to move.

Makes the walk loads of fun, let me tell you.

But while I was searching for stupid booties, I found something called Invisible Booties — or Musher’s Secret.

Sled dogs use it, said the ad.

Really? Then it has to work, right? I mean, they’re in snow up to their knees (do dogs have knees?). If it’s good enough for huskies, it must be good enough for a labradoodle.

I bought a small tin and when it arrived, I sniffed it. It’s organic, so if she licks her paws, no problem (always a good thing with Maddie). It smells nice — kind of menthol-y — and it has the consistency of chap stick.

I smeared it on her paws, doing it slowly and giving her lots of praise as I’d run my hand down each leg to get her to shift her balance (if you’ve ever picked a horse’s hooves, it’s the same principle). Strangely for a dog who HATES having anyone touch her feet (she’s a groomer’s delight), she likes me putting on the Musher’s Secret.

Once her pads were covered, we headed outside. That day, we did a 2-hour walk. Maddie stopped once — and that was because she’d jumped into a huge snow bank and probably got some really cold clumps wedged in her pads.

I am thrilled with Musher’s Secret — and have since bought two more huge tubs of it. I’ve given their pamphlets out to my friends and recommended it to strangers when I see them stopping to pick ice or chunks of salt out of their dog’s feet.

Now onto the other problem — walking Maddie on the ice.

Today was pretty bad. We started out early and the side roads were your basic sheets of ice.

I took a deep breath and decided to try something. Cesar Millan is forever talking about being calm and assertive. If you watch The Dog Whisperer, you know it’s his mantra.

I have come to realize I’m doing pretty well with the assertive part, but I’m not calm. At all.

When I see another dog approaching us — Maddie’s Big Issue in life — I feel fear and anxiety from my head to my toes. Can she sense that? I’d bet money on it.

So I vowed this morning would be different — because it had to be. If she saw another dog coming and began pulling, growling and yanking the leash everywhere, I was going down.

But maybe if I could even just fake being calm, it would keep everyone calm at the other end of the leash.

“OK. So how do I make myself seem calm?” I mumbled out loud. (I’m sure my neighbors have long ago realized I’m on the less sane side of things.)

And it suddenly came to me. I can’t talk. At all. Once I talk, all the nervous tension comes spilling out in a torrent of high-pitched words.

So, I would shut up and communicate to her through body language and the occasional grunt, if necessary. Even a throat clearing has been known to get her to pay attention.

Clamping my jaws shut, we set out — and wouldn’t you know it, a dog suddenly comes bounding down from a snowy hillside a short distance ahead of us.

“Pluto!!!! Pluto!!! NO, no no no no no no no, PLUTO!!!!” The yellow lab’s owner is frantically calling him as Pluto merrily prances around the street.

He hasn’t seen us yet — but Maddie’s seen him. Her body tenses, she leans forward (Can dogs have beady eyes? Her eyes got beady) and she’s about to do the yanking-jerking-pulling thing which requires every ounce of strength in my not-so-tall body.

We’re on ice. Did I mention that?

I have nothing to lose, and I absolutely have to DO SOMETHING immediately.

So I exhale deeply, don’t say a word, just shift my body so I am leaning authoritatively toward Maddie — and I give her a very in-your-face kind of look.

If you don’t have a dog — or if you don’t have a difficult dog — this may sound ridiculous. You may be wondering how on Earth Maddie will have a clue what I want.  But body language speaks volumes louder than our voices in the animal world. My problem is, I’m always talking too much to make use of it.

So there we were: Pluto getting closer, Maddie ready to snap, and me leaning over her with my best  “Don’t mess with me” expression.

If you had asked me to guess what was going to happen next, I would’ve thought of a million things … except what actually did happen.

She sat.

Seriously. While Pluto remained romping in the road ahead of us, his owner charging toward him with his leash, Maddie sat looking at me.

Her body quivered — she wasn’t a happy camper. She wanted to go after that dog. But she just sat there.

Pluto eventually went into lab submission and was leashed and removed from our sight.

I took a deep breath, exhaled and we continued walking.

I still hadn’t spoken a word, but after a few minutes, I stole a glance at Maddie. She looked up at me. “Not bad, huh?” her eyes said.

Not bad at all.

There are a lot of dog training mantras — and I’ve mentioned some of them here — and here’s one I find myself repeating often to people:

Mental exercise will tire your dog out more quickly (and thoroughly) than physical exercise.

And as we all know, a tired dog is a good dog.

It’s an easy enough concept to grasp, but how do you mentally stimulate your dog?

I’ve talked loads of times about throwing away your dog’s food bowl and feeding him from a Kong. It may not seem like a ton of mental stimulation to you, but it’s a different story to your dog.

Another great “tool” I’ve discovered to wear Maddie out is a puzzle made by Nina Ottosson (see the photo above).

Several times a week Maddie is delighted to have the dry part of her dinner served to her in her Dog Brick puzzle.

If you look at the above photo, you can see how the black squares slide along the wooden grooves. When your dog moves a square, he discovers a few pieces of kibble hidden in the inset hole.

I love this particular puzzle because it’s so cool watching Maddie:

• use her nose to track down the hidden pieces of kibble.
• figure out that the squares will only slide vertically and not horizontally.
• come up with a way to move the squares with her paws, since she seems to only want to slide them toward her and never away from her (her answer is to simply walk around to the other side of the puzzle and then slide the squares toward her as before).
• flop down in the recliner after dinner because she’s pretty tired from working so hard for her food.

These puzzles aren’t cheap — in the $50 range. But someone has a birthday coming up next week … and I think we might just take a trip to the pet store to get another puzzle.  The Turbo perhaps?

She’s turning 6 and part of me wonders how I’ve managed to deal with all the “Maddie issues” I’ve had to put up with for so long.

But we are truly a work in progress.

And I can say with absolute confidence she’s taught me as much as I’ve taught her. Maybe more.

Happy Birthday, my labradoodle!

We’ve been told we’re the pack leaders; we’ve been told dogs respect dominance.

We’ve been told not to let dogs go through a doorway in front of us, and we’ve been told never to let dogs on the bed or furniture without being invited.

This is nonsense, to put it plainly.

How do I know? The work I do at the shelter training 90-pound pit bulls, german shepherds, boxers, rotties and all kinds of powerful breed mixes has nothing to do with dominance. And what I do works.

I’ll give you a quick example that happened today on my morning walk with my own issue-laden and wonderful labradoodle, Maddie:

We ran into my friend Gavin and his amazingly intuitive border collie, Bud.

Maddie really likes Bud — he’s maybe the only dog she truly enjoys being around and doesn’t just tolerate — and it’s because he’s intuitive.

In short, he gets her. He picked up right away that Maddie doesn’t want to be sniffed, jumped on or focused on in any way. She just wants to amble along next to another dog and be left alone. That’s how she starts to feel secure and can trust the other dog won’t come at her and hurt her.

Bud got this right away and my dog now wags happily when she sees him.

As we walked together, Gavin and I talked about this and that. Let me tell you about Gavin:If not for our dogs, I doubt we’d ever spend 5 minutes in each other’s company.

He’s a strong-willed guy — what he says, goes. A real “my way or the highway” type. I can tell from our conversations that he’s like that with this family, and he’s like that with his dog. He’s also smart, powerful and clearly used to getting his own way. I think you get the picture.

As we were walking this morning, we heard barking from about 50 feet behind us. We all turned — people and dogs — and saw a portuguese wagging happily and pulling on the leash to get to us.

Maddie went into her usual “strange dog approaching” mode, which means lots of barking, yanking and seemingly aggressive behavior toward the new dog. (She really just wants it to go away and leave her alone.)

Bud, on the other hand, went into typical border collie mode: He flattened himself on the ground and began boring his eyes into the portuguese.

In the few seconds that these behaviors occurred, Gavin and I took very different approaches to keep our dogs moving forward instead of waiting to stalk/scare the other dog.

Gavin forcefully yanked Bud’s leash, physically uprooting him from the ground by his neck. I inwardly frowned (poor Bud’s neck!) but I can’t tell Gavin anything. I’ve tried. He’s always right, of course.

Another second passed, and Bud had tried again to flatten himself on the ground and wait for the new dog. Gavin yanked even harder on the leash and Bud was thrown into the air — and quickly decided it’s best to keep walking by his human’s side.

I on the other hand, reached into my pocket and pulled out a microscopic piece of cheddar cheese. “Quiet,” I said to Maddie. I pointed to my noise, which is our signal for her to look at me and pay attention to what I’m saying.

Not only did Maddie stop barking on the spot, but she sat and stared up at me. I popped the cheese into her mouth.

“Let’s walk,” I said to her, giving her my hand signal for walking (it’s like a “come on” wave with my hand at hip level). She trotted next to me, got another tiny piece of cheese — and never once looked back at the portuguese.

Gavin is a firm believer in dominance over dogs. He’s told me so. I’ve tried to put forth my argument, but Gavin is always rights.

But just look at today’s situation: 2 dogs, both interested in another dog to the point of halting the progress of our walk.

The real difference in how we handled it? I gave my dog something she wanted more than to bark at the dog behind us. Maddie wanted to do as I said and that made the whole process easy and uneventful — not to mention, painless.

Bud was simply being told the old “No, because I said so!” and was frustrated and clearly still interested in the dog.

It’s kind of funny, but Gavin wound up stopping so Bud could smell and play with the portuguese, while Maddie and I stood on the sidelines.

So Bud got what he wanted in the end but a) isn’t that confusing for him? and b) is his neck OK?

Forget dominance. Pit bulls become lap dogs if you give them a good reason to motivate them to sit, lie down or just stop pulling on the leash. The reason may be food, praise or a brief neck massage.

But the dog who wants to be trained is so much easier on both of you.

Of the many challenges I’ve faced with Maddie, getting her to be quiet has been one of the toughest.

She’s an anxious, insecure dog, so barking is her go-to outlet for anything that concerns her — which is most things.

I know barking comes naturally to dogs and I’d be the last person to try to stifle any of her instincts. But every now and then … you just want your dog to be quiet, right?

After spending weeks working on “Quiet!” with her, I stumbled upon the quickest and easiest method of getting through to her what I wanted.

Every night, Maddie gets a Kong stuffed with her dinner. I’ve mentioned here before that I think everyone should toss their dog’s food bowl and only use the Kong.

Why? It mentally stimulates your dog to work for his/her food — and that’s what Mother Nature intended.

Not only does it give your dog pleasure to work to eat, but it makes for a tired dog at night — and at least in my case, that’s a good thing.

I was filling Maddie’s Kong one night with her dry food (I recently switched to Innova and it’s been working out great. Check out the top three ingredients — all protein) brown rice, and organic low-fat plain yogurt.

I realized she always barks with joy while she waits for me to fill the Kong. We both sit on the floor, and I have her Kong and a bowl with her dinner in it. She carefully watches as I scoop handful after handful into the toy.

Every so often, she’ll throw back her head and bark (or howl) in a wolf-like manner. I know this is pure joy. It’s her version of Snoopy’s suppertime dance.

But the light bulb went off in my head one evening, and as soon as she began happily barking (even though I didn’t mind it), I said, “Quiet!”

She didn’t get it at first, so I stopped scooping her food and curled up into a ball, refusing to make eye contact with her. In other words: “Unless you’re quiet, there’s no Kong action.”

She picked up on this … fast.

Since that night, I let her bark her happy bark — and then I’ll interrupt with, “Quiet!” She stops immediately, and gets rewarded by having a few pieces of the yogurt and rice-covered kibble fed to her by hand.

I didn’t realize how firmly this lesson had sunk in until we were outside the other day. It was just a quick bathroom walk — so I didn’t go outside with my pockets laden with treats, as they normally are.

Suddenly, Maddie noticed a tiny Yorkie off in the distance and she launched into serious barking.

“Quiet!” I said, not really expecting anything to happen. After all, I didn’t have any chicken or cheese in pockets. Where was the motivation for her to stop barking?

But she did stop — right then, right there.

I praised her to the skies and then we ran into the house to get a piece of cheese.

Since then, I’ve noticed her “Quiet” is as consistent as her “Sit” — which is pretty consistent.

Moral of the story: Take a look at your dog’s everyday activities and routines, and see if you can make it a learning time as well.

For a solid year, I’ve been begging the animal shelter where I volunteer to let me come in and walk the dogs on the holidays.

Not just Christmas and Easter, but any of the holidays when the shelter is officially closed: 4th of July, Memorial Day, etc.

And I have continually been told “No.”

The reasoning has never been quite clear. Something about the uncertain hours of when the kennel techs are going to show up to take care of the animals’ basic needs, the difficulty in arranging when the volunteers should show up, yada, yada, yada.

I am guessing the translation is: Too much bother.

So the dogs (and the cats — but come on, it’s harder on the dogs) just sit in their cages for the entire day and night. No exercise, no socialization, no way to relieve the stress and the sheer boredom of the constant confinement. And for dogs who are more often than not housebroken, they have to go where they sleep and eat.

But this year I got lucky. Or I pushed a little harder (insert a smiley face here, if you want).

This year I got the OK, and with 3 other volunteers, we arrived at the shelter Christmas morning and went to work for more than 4 hours.

Our shelter has been under construction for months but is now beginning to expand into its newer, roomier facility. This means more dogs to walk.

We have about 20 dogs right now and they’re all fantastic.

• Meg, a slender and very energetic brindle pit, who just wants to run.
• Niko, a stunning white husky and a mellow boy.
• Hutch, a young German Shepherd who retreats to the back of his cage if you enter, but once he’s sure of you, he wants loads of hugs and love.
• Mac, a heavyset yellow lab mix who ducks his head whenever you reach toward him with your hand and makes me wonder: What has some poor excuse of a human done to make you so hand shy?
• And then there’s Willy, a tiny black pit puppy, who at 10 weeks of age is an irresistible sweetie, and I worry that he’s locked in a cage when this is the crucial time for him to get socialized.

We walked all these dogs and many more on Christmas Day and everyone got out at least 3 times. My goal was to exercise them enough that they wouldn’t be totally miserable when they’re left all afternoon and through the night until the following morning.

Meg ran until her tongue was hanging out, happily chasing a squeaky red football I found for her.

Niko sniffed through the woods and ambled along contentedly as he did lap after lap of the grassy area outside the shelter.

Hutch was my own personal triumph because — I will admit this — I am scared of German Shepherds. It is the only breed that makes me anxious when I see it. I guess it’s because every bad experience I (or one of my dogs) has ever had with another dog has been with a German Shepherd. So when I saw Hutch, I just took a breath, told myself to stop the nonsense and slowly went into his cage. When I saw how he backed up and was nervous about me, I could have laughed. “We’re going to get along fine, Hutch,” I told him. And when we’d both relaxed enough where I felt I could comfortably collar him, I found myself stroking his head and ears as he jumped up on me, wagging his tail. “We’re kindred spirits,” I told him. Our walk was pure fun.

Poor Mac, who is so hand shy, required me to go even more slowly. Entering his cage, I let him smell me and get used to me before I reached for the collar. It was a martingale (I like them best and keep a few sizes stuffed in my pocket whenever I’m at the shelter) and so it forced me to not only reach over Mac’s head, but wriggle a collar over it and pull it down over his ears. It took a few minutes — he was not happy. So I spent some time just petting him with the collar, rubbing it soothingly down his back and using the collar as a source of comfort and relaxation. Finally, Mac looked at me and said, “OK, you can go ahead and squeeze that thing over my head.” And boy did he get praised when the collar was on! Once outside, Mac was a happy camper, sniffing away and jogging here and there. A good, happy boy with a fear of hands I hope some wonderful family can eradicate. Best news: He was fine when I needed to remove the collar by squeezing it back off his head.

And finally, I spent loads of time with tiny Willy, taking him (carrying him) outside to experience life in the Big World. He wasn’t wild about it. He was much happier flinging himself onto one of my sneakers and tugging at the laces. But I kept him out long enough to breathe the air and find a few choice rocks to sniff and then went inside, where one of our wonderful volunteers had scrubbed down his cage and given him loads of fresh, soft blankets and a wonderful nest of a bed. I sat in his cage playing with him for at least a half hour and when I left him, he was curled up in his bed, sound asleep.

So maybe our shelter dogs were a little less miserable, cramped and lonely this Christmas than they’ve been in the past. It was quiet when we all left — and that’s always a good sign.

We’ll be back again New Year’s Day.

Happy Holidays to you and the special animals in your life!

If you’ve ever lived with a dog, you are familiar with this scenario:

You come home after being away for several hours and you find … mass destruction.

Maybe paper towels have been pulled off the kitchen counter and shredded all over the house.

Or maybe the remote — which had been carefully wedged between the sofa cushions — has been discovered and  chewed beyond recognition.

Or — always my favorite — underpants were dragged from beneath the bed? Behind the dresser? From the top of the toilet tank? And are now wet and mangled and … minus the crotch.

My dogs have done all this and far, far more. You can only imagine the sheer horror of coming home from a long day at work to discover your dog has not only figured out how to unlock the door to her crate, but managed to unravel a not insignificant patch of brand new berber carpeting.

Like any normal human, your reaction to any of these events will be: “Oh my God! What have you done?! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!! Look at this!! Did YOU do this?? Did you???!!!”

And on and on.

While I’ll be the first to say there’s tremendous value in venting, I will also be the first to tell you: You’re wasting your time.

Your dog has NO conception of what you’re yelling about.

If you yell at your dog even seconds after an incident has occurred, THEY DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE YELLING ABOUT.

This is not theory. This is fact.

If, on the other hand, you catch your dog in the act of chewing/destroying/ripping/shredding/eating something you don’t want chewed, destroyed, ripped, shredded or eaten, by all means, say to your dog, “LEAVE IT.”

If you have been working with your dog on the “leave it” cue, they will — believe it or not — leave the object of their desire.

Just this morning, Maddie found the most delectable filthy, food encrusted napkin lying in the grass as we went for our one-hour walk through the park. If I see her eyeing these treasures ahead of time, I can snap out, “Leave it!” and she won’t go near it.

But this morning, I was [foolishly] gazing at the geese on the pond and the rising sun behind them, and Maddie … well, she had her eye on that napkin.

So when I saw her duck her head and snatch the napkin into her mouth, I knew I had my work cut out.

I resisted the urge to pry open her jaws and yank out the filthy napkin. I have truly trained myself to regard every “negative” experience with Maddie as a Training Challenge.

“Leave it!” I said firmly and in a low voice (Tip: If you’re a woman, lower your voice when you give cues. Dogs respond to it more quickly than a higher pitched voice.)

To my amazement, Maddie dropped it and looked at me. I instantly popped a piece of cheese in her mouth.

Because that’s the other side of “timing” — which is what this post is trying to stress:

Not only do you need to time your corrections so the dog actually knows what you’re talking about, but you need to reward the dog instantly when you get the behavior you like.

I have a friend who wears legging when she walks her dog. OK, so do I — but I also wear a camping skirt that has a zillion pockets (I’ve found it’s far more comfortable and efficient than pants). I keep treats, a water bottle, bags for cleaning up after Maddie, my keys … you name it … it all goes in my pockets.

For some reason, she won’t put treats in her jacket pockets (assuming it’s even cold enough for a jacket). So when she praises her dog for not pulling on the leash or not barking at someone, it’s a 10-minute process for her to remove a plastic bag, which is tucked in her waistband, open the bag and remove the treat. Then, she says, “Good dog!”

Her dog has no idea why she’s being given a treat. She’s experienced 50 things between her “good behavior” and the treat being given to her.

It has to be immediate. I’ve read you have about a 3 second window and that sounds right to me.

You’ll know you’ve got your timing down when you give your dog a verbal cue/correction and your dog immediately looks at you to get a treat.

This is a good thing. Your dog has figured out “Hmmm … it’s much better to get a piece of cheddar cheese than to randomly bark at some dog.”

Your dog has put it together — what you’re asking for makes sense and is the more rewarding behavior.

So if you want to believe the old camera commericial that “Image is everything,” go ahead. There’s definitely an unfortunate truth to that.

But when it comes to dog training, TIMING IS EVERYTHING.

Clint was big and tough looking, and I didn’t want to take him out for a walk.

He was alternately barking, lunging and pacing around his cage at the shelter like a lion waiting to be fed a slab of raw meat. I didn’t want to be that meat.

But this is always my dilemma at the animal shelter: The dogs who need the exercise and training most, are usually the ones who intimidate me.

I looked at Clint, slipping him a piece of freeze-dried chicken. He sniffed at it and looked at me. “What else have you got?” his hard eyes said.

Oh, boy. My hands shook as I unlatched his cage and — being careful not to make eye contact — went inside with this black lion of a dog.

He began jumping on me instantly, his mouth nipping at various parts of my body — nips which would later leave black and blue marks on my arms and stomach.

Exhaling with elaborate slowness, I managed to slip a collar around his neck, hook up the leash and get him outside.

Walking Clint was like hanging onto a Mack truck as it heads downhill. After several minutes of letting him rip my arms out of their sockets, I thought to myself: If this is going to work, we need to lay down some rules.

The words may sound brave, but I am not a fool. I didn’t want to get into an argument with Clint. So the next time he tugged with the full force of his 85 pounds of muscle, I hung on with both hands, bent my knees slightly (think “water skiing”) and refused to budge.

We stood locked in that position for several minutes. My arms and back were screaming, but I refused to move until, at the very least, Clint would deign to turn around and look at me.

And finally, he did. The instant he made eye contact with me, I sang out, “Good boy! Oh, what a good boy!” and held out some chicken.

Clint sniffed at it. “What else have you go?” he asked again.

I tossed the chicken on the ground and as I took a step, Clint pulled me forward. Again, I held my ground and wouldn’t move.

This time, he made eye contact with me a little quicker. “Oh, what a good boy!” I said happily, meaning it. He trotted over to me and knowing he wasn’t interested in treats, I did the only thing I could think of: I reached over and rubbed his neck while praising him in a high-pitched happy voice.

“Yes!” said Clint, gazing up at me with eyes of love. “Now that’s a reward!”

I watched as this powerful guy simply melted at the touch of my fingers digging into his neck, pulling at the loose skin there the way a mother would pick up one of her puppies. He shivered in delight.

We spent the next half hour working on not-pulling-on-the-leash, and I have to say, I was pretty impressed with both of us. Each time Clint tugged, I stopped and waited for him to give me eye contact. Then I’d call  him over and give him a quick neck massage.

Feeling full of myself, I finally took Clint back inside the shelter. We entered his cage — I didn’t think twice about it — and unclipped his collar.

As soon as the collar and leash hit the floor, Clint lunged at me. This was full force, 85 pounds of power and strength, lunging — and he was using his mouth in a way that was making the hair stand up on the back of my neck.

I tried to get away from him and reach for the latch of the cage door. But Clint went at my hands. He went at my legs, my shoulders, my stomach and I could feel the sweat breaking out on my forehead. I remember only one other occasion of feeling frightened at the shelter, but now I was definitely frightened.

I could hear a staff worker nearby. “I need to get out of this cage,” I said calmly but loudly.

Between the two of us, we managed to pull me out through a small opening without letting Clint escape.

“You OK?” she asked.

“Uh huh,” I said, shaking.

“Clint can get kinda weird,” she said, “but he’ll be better once he’s neutered.”

Oh. Well, lesson learned. I will always check the card on each male dog’s kennel before entering. If he’s not yet neutered, I will enter with caution — if I enter at all.

Clint was waiting for me the following week. He’d been neutered and I was curious if there was a change in him.

I’ll give you the short version: There was.

Clint will still occasionally pull me with all his power and we have to go back to square one, where I stop and wait for him to look at me. The reward is always a neck massage and Clint loves it.

He’s been at the shelter now for more than a month. He is not going to be an easy adoption: he’s black (unlike cars, black dogs are not as adoptable), he has short cropped-looking ears (the photo above is a stock photograph; we’re not allowed to take pictures of our shelter dogs), and his behavior in his cage appears very aggressive.

But now I know differently. Our routine is the same each weekend: He remains fairly calm in his cage while I collar and leash him (he knows if he lunges around, I won’t move. The sooner he stands still, the sooner he gets outside). We head outside and do one big lap, where we work on walking with a loose leash.

Then … I sit down on a bench under a tree and Clint hops up and into my lap. He curls up as much as an 85-pound pit bull can curl up, and he hangs out there while I massage his neck, his shoulders, his legs and his sleek back.

We stay outside sometimes for more than an hour. Every now and then, Clint will look up at me and give me a big slurp on my cheek. I know he’s saying “thank you.”

Because here’s the secret behind Clint: He just loves being outside, out of his confining cage and having human hands on him. He’s starved for touch, for love, and I am happy to comply. Sometimes I lean forward, trying to spill him out of my lap so I can take him on another lap of the woods and he can stretch his legs.

But nothing doing … Clint likes it just where he is. Being a lap dog.

I sincerely love spending time with this big guy who scared the hell out of me. I love that I was able to figure out what he wants, and what it takes to keep him not just calm but content.

But I worry every day that Clint won’t find a Forever Family who can unlock the lap dog within this big scary looking body.

(Note: We are still waiting for someone to adopt Clint. In the meanwhile, he enjoys being a lap dog on the weekends and I spoil him rotten!)

“Garret, get back here!” my friend Paul yelled at his dog.

He gave the leash a hard yank and Garrett, a typically easygoing black lab, found himself standing next to his human, instead of pressing forward as usual.

“What?” Paul demanded, looking at me.

“I didn’t say anything,” I said, laughing. I do not have a poker face.

“You think I should let him pull on the leash like that?” he asked.

“If you really want to know what I think, I’ll tell you,” I said.

He wanted to know. Here’s what I said:

“Pulling on the leash is probably the top behavior people complain about with their dogs. We think it’s cute or just frisky behavior when our dogs are little. Then they grow to weigh 60 or more pounds, and suddenly it’s not only irritating, it’s painful and even dangerous. (I won’t even get into humiliating, when they pull you down and maybe drag you a few feet through the mud. Not that I would know anything about that …)

“But if you don’t let your dog know every single time he pulls on the leash that this is undesirable behavior, he isn’t going to get it.”

Paul frowned. “So I’ve missed the boat with Garrett? Because I only correct him some of the time?”

I shook my head. “Not at all. You can turn everything around this second. In fact, you can get him to stop pulling on the leash within 15 minutes.”

“I don’t believe you,” Paul said, glancing at Garrett who was sniffing some deer poop with interest. “He’s nearly 3 and he’s always pulled. You’re saying I can get him to stop pulling on the leash in 15 minutes right now?”

“Yup.” I studied Garrett, who as usual, was standing alertly with all his body weight shifted onto his front feet. There’s only one word in Garrett’s vocabulary: FORWARD.

“OK,” Paul said. “What’s the secret? What do I need to learn here?”

“Nothing at all,” I said. “Just wait.”

“Wait for what?”

I smiled because it seemed so obvious to me. “Wait for Garrett to stop pulling.”

I began to take pity on Paul and so I explained: “For the next 15 minutes, every time you take a step and Garrett pulls so the leash is taut, STOP. Don’t move, don’t look at me, don’t do anything … until the leash goes slack.”

“We’ll be standing here forever!” Paul exclaimed.

“No, we won’t,” I said. “You just need to have patience — and trust me, we are a more patient species than dogs. Paul, I know this works — I’ve done it with 90-pound adult pit bulls at the shelter who are as strong as trucks and never had a day of training in their lives. This works.”

I had Maddie with me. She had automatically gone into a lovely sit because we weren’t moving. We both looked at Paul.

“Maddie’s pretty good at walking on a leash,” Paul noted.

I loved hearing it. There’s not a whole lot I can brag about with this crazy labradoodle. I like to think of us as a work-in-progress. But walking on a leash? She’s the champ of loose leash walking.

A minute or two passed. Garrett was starting to looking around, even the deer poop wasn’t as interesting as it had been. But the leash was still taut.

“Notice his body,” I said to Paul. “You can see he’s still thinking FORWARD. His nose is pointed forward — even though his eyes are glancing around — and his chest is in that forward mode. He’ll realize this is getting him nowhere eventually, and he’ll stop pressing forward.”

“Then what?” asked Paul.

“Here,” I said, digging into my pocket for some freeze-dried chicken. “Keep these ready in your hand. The second that leash goes slack, you’re going to praise him and reward him. But it has to be instantaneous, or he won’t understand what he’s being rewarded for.”

“I have some of his breakfast kibble with me,” Paul said.

“Would you be more motivated to work for a piece of toasted white bread or a cheese omelet with hash browns on the side?” I asked.

“I see your point,” Paul said, taking the chicken from me.

We watched Garrett together, waiting for that magical second when the leash would go slack and he would stop pulling forward.

Finally, I think we were 5 or 6 minutes into it, it happened.

“There!” I said, making Maddie jump.

“Good boy, Garrett!” Paul said, rewarding him right away with a piece of chicken. I happen to know Garrett loves the chicken because given half a chance, he’ll stick his nose in my pocket.

“Now?” Paul asked.

“Now we take another step,” I said. “But as soon as he begins pulling — and it’ll probably be right away — you have to stop and wait.”

And that’s when it occurred to me: More than any other skill in dog training — if you can call it a skill — there is nothing more valuable than the ability to wait it out.

Just wait — and do nothing.

This is probably the time to mention I am the least patient person I know. But somehow, I have been able to summon up patience with all my shelter dogs and, of course, with Maddie.

Paul, Maddie and I waited throughout that afternoon while Garrett tugged and pulled on his leash. He’d eventually give up, the leash would slacken, “Good boy!” and a piece of chicken. Then another step. Then another.

I’m guessing it took us a good half hour before the light bulb went off in Garrett’s mind: Ah, slack leash means chicken and another step forward. Pulling on the leash means … nothing.

I see people walking their dogs and jerking on a choke collar to bring their dogs back to their sides. I don’t know how shocked you’ll be when I tell you I used to be one of them.

But that’s not how I trained Maddie to walk at my side. I finally stuffed chicken, liver, and cheese in my left pocket, right where I wanted Maddie’s head to be. Every time she was at my side, she got a treat popped in her mouth.

Not so startling when you think about it.

Would you rather walk at someone’s side because they’re hurting you — or because you get a delicious treat for it?

Just remember to be patient. You can’t hurry the “ah-ha” moment in your dog. Give it time and it will happen.

Even dogs who aren’t the Einsteins of their species, know a good thing when they get it.

I’m a big fan of do’s and don’ts on just about any topic, and since I’ve written numerous posts on what you should do regarding dog training, I figured it was time for a few don’ts.

And just so you know, there’s nothing holier-than-thou going on here. These are all based on personal experience.

So here we go:

1. Don’t yell. Does this sound familiar? “Sparky, sit. SIT. SIT!” And Sparky’s just wagging happily and looking at you. Resist the urge to yell. In fact, you’re doing more harm than good if you do yell. Sure it’s frustrating when you ask your dog to sit for the 80th time, and he looks at you like he’s never heard the word before. But haven’t you ever blanked out on a test, made a typo, or fallen on your butt simply by putting one foot in front of the other? We all make mistakes, and we all zone out. Don’t yell — mainly because it’s going to wind up stressing you even more, and then you can just toss any training efforts out the window.
2. Don’t be inconsistent: Let’s say you’re working with your dog on not pulling on the leash. You come home from work after a particularly bad day. You’re fried — mentally and physically. You put the leash on Sparky, go outside and yeah, he starts pulling right away. You mumble to yourself, “Whatever. Let him pull. I’m too tired to deal with this right now .” OK … bad idea. Why? Sparky’s having a tough enough time learning the English language — and learning what you want from him. If he pulls on the leash, and you stand still every time and refuse to budge until the leash slackens, trust me, he’s going to get it. But if sometimes you won’t walk with a taut leash and sometimes you do — what’s Sparky to think? And on top of it all — I guarantee this — you’re going to get angry the next time you really want Sparky to stop pulling, so you’re going to yell at him. Can you blame him for thinking, “Why are you yelling when I’m not doing anything differently from the last time we went outside?” Inconsistency just confuses your dog.
3. Don’t kid yourself: Your dog isn’t going to perform something for you just because you say so. The worst trainers refuse to motivate their dogs because, “He should do it because I told him to do it.” Give me a break. That’s both cruel and unrealistic. If you want your dog to do something, give him a reason to do it — you’ll both be happier. And my suggestion is, let your dog choose the motivator. Most animals are food motivated (training is best when they’re hungry, by the way, so before meals is a great time to train). If you’re not getting the desired result when using biscuits or cheese, keep trying out different foods. And if your dog is truly turning up his nose at a treat, think of something else he loves, a favorite toy or, like one of my wonderful shelter dogs, a nice neck massage. The point is to reward the behavior you want with something that will make it worth his while. My dog Maddie flips for cheddar cheese. I’ve actually seen her pull back from lunging toward another dog the second I have waved a tiny piece of cheddar under nose.
4. Don’t reward behaviors you don’t want repeated: This is related to #3, but it’s a bit different. If you come home from work and your dog is barking, inviting him to jump on your chest while you fluff his head and say, “Oh, you’re such a noisy boy! Did you miss mommy??!!” is about as rewarding of that behavior as it gets. Don’t like the barking when you walk in the house, pooped from a day at the office? Turn your back on your dog and don’t move a muscle … until he’s quiet. You can then turn around and say, “Good dog!” or just pet him. If he starts barking again, turn away from him, don’t move and make yourself about as un-fun as possible. Yes, it’s time consuming and you have to fight that “Who feels like it?” feeling most of the time. But you’ll get results. Maddie, my crazy labradoodle, barks like mad as I am stuffing her dinner into her Kong. Because I am trying to get her to stop barking at other random times of the day (like when a leaf blows past the window), I’m using this opportunity to train her not to bark. If she barks while I’m filling the Kong (I do it on the floor next to her), I turn away, don’t make eye contact, and my hands stop moving. As soon as she stops barking, my hands return to stuffing the Kong. This is tough for her because it’s happy barking — it’s dinnertime and she’s hungry and excited. But with us, it’s always about work, and I see this as a great opportunity. Once she masters it, I’ll let her go back to barking at dinnertime — because now I’ll be able to get her to stop barking at everything else.
5. Don’t ever think of your dog as ‘trained’: Training your dog isn’t like getting a tattoo: Once you get it, it’s there forever. Maddie will sit at a moment’s notice — she’s a champion sitter. But I’m well aware that if she’s running off-leash in the park and another dog trots near her, her fearful nature will take over and our training may go out the window. We practice all the time. Not every day, but at random moments — especially when there are distractions. Think your dog has mastered sit? Ask him to do it at random moments on a walk, when you’re competing with rabbits and squirrels and deliciously rotting lumps of crud lying in the grass. Training is a work in progress … but then, aren’t we all?

“I don’t think I could ever get a dog from the animal shelter,” my friend told me the other day.

And just for the record, she is neither stupid nor uneducated.

“Why not?” I asked.

“Well,” she gave me an apologetic look and lowered her voice, “you don’t know what you’re getting with a shelter dog.”

I just stared at her, beyond speech. This myth about shelter dogs (or any shelter animal) goes far beyond being a pet peeve for me. It strikes where I am most vulnerable and can make me go temporarily insane.

But I kept it under control (remembering a mantra one dog trainer told me: “Educate, don’t alienate”) and forced myself to think rationally. When I’d regained the power of speech, this is what I told my friend:

It’s ironic that many people think they don’t know what they’re getting with a shelter dog — because the reverse is true.

You actually know far more what you’re getting in a shelter dog than in one you get from a breeder or, God forbid, a pet shop.

Like people, dogs get stressed, and shelter dogs have to endure more stress during their stay than you’d wish on any creature. (And we’re not even getting into whatever horrific conditions might have brought them to the shelter in the first place.)

I realize for many dogs this is the first time they’ve been in a safe environment, had a cozy bed with a blanket and received regular meals.

But.

The shelter is no Andrew Wyeth painting.

The dogs are confined for most of their waking hours to a cage that lets them stand up and take two steps. That’s about it. Exercise, for animals whom Mother Nature created to run, is minimal.

The smells of a shelter are pretty much like the smells at the vet’s office — but worse. There’s fur, saliva, pee, poop, blood, chlorine and half-eaten food.

The noise of a shelter — which I actually find more disconcerting than anything — is non-stop. You can’t pack dozens of dogs into side-by-side cages and expect to have quiet. There’s barking, growling, crying, whining … a cacophony of sounds that makes you want to put your hands over your ears as you walk through the kennel (and I’ve seen many younger kids do just that).

So let’s say you’re the dog and for whatever reason, you’re managing OK. You’re dealing with the abysmal lack of exercise, the frightening smells and nerve-rattling, never-ending barking.

You also have to deal with well-intentioned strangers squatting down, poking their faces into your space and making direct eye contact. You have little enough to call your own in a shelter — this cage is about it. Yet you have to endure people you don’t know and don’t trust leaning into your space, threatening to take the small area you’ve claimed as your own.

Now let’s just say a family decides to meet with a dog that has put up with all this for, oh … 3 weeks. The dog wags, licks their hands and faces, and happily trots next to them when they take him out for a trial walk.

I defy anyone to tell me they don’t know what they’re getting.

A dog who has gone through an undoubtedly abusive past and tolerated — even accepted — living in the stressful institutionalized environment of a shelter … a dog who can come out that environment with a wag and a lick … well, that dog is nothing short of a treasure.

And I know this because I have the privilege of working with dozens of treasures every weekend.

I know I will never have their resilience or their capacity to “forgive and forget.” They’ve turned me into a very humble human.