Who’s a naughty boy?
Dogs behaving very badly? There’s a reason for that, and it might be you, says British dog trainer Graeme Hall.
Seasons 1-3 Weekdays CBS Reality (*132) 18:50
Graeme Hall’s motto is “any dog, any age, any problem”. That doesn’t mean that he can solve your dog’s issue in the one day that you all spend together for his TV show Dogs Behaving (Very) Badly. “It doesn’t necessarily mean I can fix everything on its own. It means I’ll take anything on,” he explains. “When I first started dog training, an awful lot of people would say, ‘This dog got kicked out of dog training. They said it’s impossible to train.’ And I said, ‘Well, I’ll give it my best.’ With TV, it’s very much the case. As soon as you’ve named your show Dogs Behaving Badly, bet your bottom dollar that the TV producers are gonna find you the worst dogs in the country!”
But to Graeme’s mind, even the worst dogs are potentially all Good Boys and Girls – their dog moms and dads just need a little help and guidance to avoid some common mistakes. Read on as he talks about kissing dogs, using the correct language with your pups, and his favourite Good Boy…
What are we as humans particularly resistant to learning as dog handlers? We are not good at timing. When we get ourselves in a bit of a bad mood with a dog and we’ve decided he’s been a bad boy this morning, that’s it. He’s done nothing but he’s a bad boy for at least this morning, if not the rest of the day.
But typically, when the dog’s been a bit naughty, quite often half a minute later, they stopped and they started to do something better instead. Then we forget to actually say, “Good boy,” for what they’ve now moved onto. We are pretty resistant to letting go of the emotion that bogs us down.
What do humans like doing that actually makes dogs uncomfortable? We think that face to face is the way to be. We make eye contact but dogs don’t normally do face to face. Face to face in the animal kingdom is pretty much fighting talk. Dogs would rather have a sniff around the back end. Now we as humans find that a bit embarrassing, but that’s how dogs shake hands! And they really don’t want to be kissed. I’ve seen some terrible cases where children have been bitten in the face because they just thought it was okay to go in and treat the dog like a teddy bear that they kiss every day.
A hug with an owner, the right kind of dog, the right kind of hug, is okay. What dogs really don’t like though, is being restricted and pinned. And what we think it’s a cuddle, a dog thinks it’s some sort of pinning down restriction of movement.
How do you get the dogs you’re working with used to the camera crew? It’s particularly difficult when you’ve got a nervous dog. Since the lockdown, it’s become more of a problem because dogs didn’t see strangers coming into our houses so much. And there we wade in with not one big bloke, but often a couple of other big blokes, and a couple of guys carrying big, weird black machines on their shoulders, and a couple of mic stands. It’s just guaranteed to cause a problem.
The truth is, there is no magic way to do it. The methods that work for getting a dog used to one person coming in, I may use the same with the crew. Occasionally, if a dog’s really anxious, I’ll put the camera down where they can get a little sniff of it, and pick it back up again. It’s just a very, very slow process. Often what’s not realised is when we get a good result, in cases like that, we got a good result despite the fact that there was a television crew in the house as well. But rewarding the right behaviour is always the secret to dog behaviour and helping them.
Any behaviour that you reward, you’re always going to get more of.
Which of the dogs in the first three seasons really challenged your “any dog, any age, any problem?” motto? The one that pops into my head was Diego, the Rottweiler cross Ridgeback who was found as a stray in London in bad circumstances. The curious problem was when he got wet, he started to get aggressive. He would run amok and start biting people. I don’t think he meant it in a nasty way, he just got bonkers excited and couldn’t contain himself. So what we did with that was we just introduced him to water bit by bit by bit. He was a good boy, but that really was one of those where you think, “I’ve bitten off more than I can chew here, because he was a powerful dog and super-fast.”
REBUILDING THE SHOW
It’s ironic that the main theme in season 3 of Better Things is centred around Sam losing control of her life as Pamela gained full control of the show this season. At the end of season 2 in 2017, Pamela’s friend, collaborator and the cocreator of Better Things, comedian Louis CK was accused of sexual misconduct by women writers.
Later he admitted to the allegations and he was fired from his role as executive producer and writer on Better Things, leaving Pamela to continue the show as the sole producer. During the storm, Pamela admits that she considered quitting Better Things altogether. “My heart was no longer in the comedy show at all,” says Pamela, who also co-wrote and starred alongside Louis in his comedy show Louie.
But after taking a break from her show and with plenty of support from her loved ones, Pam decided to return to Better Things. She channelled her devastation into art. Pamela hired new writers and she gave Better Things a different tone in season 3, in which the storylines explore serious topics such as ageing, morality and mental health issues. “It is really hard to function when you’re in shock. I’d lost my passion and I was devastated over the things I heard about the women involved, For my partner and friend, because [Better Things] was something that we did together, but I find that change is extraordinarily good. Having the ability for flexibility is one of the advantages of being in charge.”