Law of Unintended Consequences

A few weeks ago, I decided my dog, Maggie, aka Dumb Dog, needed grooming. She is actually my dad’s dog, but he doesn’t do any of the hard work or training with her. I gave her a bath, and then every other day or so, I groomed her.


I don’t think anyone ever tried to groom her, before. She immediately started snapping at my hand. I held her collar and when she held her head still, I clicked and treated her. The first day, I got piles of hair out of her. When she was good she good she got clicked. When she was bad, I ignored her and didn’t stop grooming.

Each time, she got better, and now, a couple weeks later, she sits beside me and lets me groom all I want and just waits for her periodic clicks. She seems to like it.

Now, here is the unintended consequence. We have had her since October, and whenever she would sit on my lap, she would constantly mouth my hand. Nothing I did would get her to stop, so I eventually just threw her on the floor whenever she did it—which was nearly always. She was fine with everyone else. Shortly after a started teaching her to lie still during grooming, she started to lie still on my lap. I would then pet her and tell her she was good—no clicks. It has taken me this long to make the connection. I taught her to lie still and good things will happen. She is treating me completely different than she used to. If this keeps up, I may start to like her, someday.

Thunder doesn’t like the new Maggie, and typically he will start to cry from the other room in a few minutes. Then I have to leave Maggie and see what he wants. He is quite the tyrant.