Clifford: The "Untrainable Dog".

Remember the stories about the Big Red Dog named Clifford? Well, I’m lucky enough to have a real Clifford of my own to love and cuddle with every day. Clifford came into my life 8 years ago when I first met my husband. My husband had rescued Clifford a month before my husband and I met and it’s really funny because, before Clifford, I was not much of a dog person. I was really a cat person, or so I thought. When I met Clifford and started to get to know him, my love for him grew immensely and he became my first fur-baby. Greg told me from the beginning how he was warned that Clifford was the “untrainable dog” and “would never be able to be in a home with cats”. I witnessed first hand how Clifford would bolt out of, my now in-law’s, home the second a door was left cracked and he saw an escape route. He was mighty fast and would take off.

One Easter, shortly after my husband and I started dating, Clifford took off running out of the house and into the neighborhood which is on a busy street. My husband was so scared and took off running after him in his bare feet. He obviously caught Clifford but was so panicked about this recurring again and again despite all their best efforts to keep Clifford from getting out. I, myself, am I Behavior Consultant, so using the principles of Applied Behavior Analysis was immediately on my brain as I decided it was my mission to train Clifford (aka “the untrainable dog”) to not only stop bolting from the home when a door was cracked open but to eventually be able to walk off-leash. I asked my husband, “what are some futuristic goals he had for his relationship with Clifford that we could eventually achieve?”. My husband said that he always wanted to take Clifford to the beach to dig in the sand. So once my husband and I moved into together, the work began! I started using a shaping and positive reinforcement system of cheese (Clifford loves mozzarella cheese sticks!) to slowly shape his behavior of sitting and stopping at the door when commanded with certain verbal requests given by me and then later we worked my husband in. This progressed to using discrimination training of practicing this skill with the door being opened a little bit more each time and Clifford receiving his cheese reinforcer each time he didn’t move towards the open door. I’m proud to say that Clifford was able to be successful and stop bolting out of doorways to attempt to get outside within one month of us living together. BUT! That wasn’t enough, I had to make sure this worked for all entry ways, not just our home. So I did the same procedures at my in-laws and at my parents house and guess what!? It was successful.

Next we moved on to training Clifford to respond well to two new cats that we had rescued and brought into our home using again a shaping procedure, positive reinforcement with cheese, and also differential reinforcement which is a big word for replacing negative behavior with a more positive alternative behavior for when Clifford became overstimulated. This again was successful and within 6 months Clifford was napping with our one cat and tolerating our other cat (he’s a male, I get it, competition). Now onto the beach! We continued with shaping procedures, positive reinforcement with cheese, the addition of positive praise for positive behavior and follow through for Clifford because how could I forget…Clifford loves being told he’s a good boy and getting lots of massages. We started with a restrictive standard leash and then slowly gravitated toward a leash that let Clifford determine how much distance he wanted to take (within reason) and then one day after about 6 months of training, he went off leash for the first time and followed all my commands. I tested his new progress intermittently for two weeks before I determined he was sufficiently trained to be off-leash and then we tested it with my husband giving the commands to make sure that Clifford was able to respond to both myself and my husband. Clifford (the “untrainable dog”) was no longer “untrainable” and was instead very successful.

I’m happy to say that we are going to the beach in July for a long weekend and we are so excited to take Clifford with us so he can dig in the sand. We still use the leash on occasion when we go to a new place for Clifford’s safety and the safety of other people who may not be comfortable with dogs but when we are home, around friends or at the dog park, Clifford is free to roam off-leash and no longer bolts when a door is open. Even if it’s wide open. I’m so proud of my furbaby. He’s amazing!