Alternate Route Available

I learned to drive in Boston. I’m proud of this fact because it means I can drive almost anywhere in the world and be unfazed by the culture of the roadways.

In Boston the use of directional lights is often an afterthought and don’t even think someone will slow down enough for you to change lanes and get to your exit in time. One must be careful, but be bold. I drive a fair bit in Puerto Rico as well and if the dented front fenders of many of the cars is an indication of anything, it’s that they’ve upped the ‘bold’ a notch. The main difference I’ve noticed between Boston and San Juan is that there seems to be less lingering animosity when one cuts someone off in San Juan. I’ve wondered whether climate has anything to do with it. But I digress, a comparison of the driving habits of New Englanders and those in the Caribbean was not my topic for the day.

I am neither proud nor embarrassed to admit that I am what I call a ‘directional dyslexic’. That some people can find their way back to locations they’ve traveled to once, or remember which direction they originally came from when leaving a shopping mall has always been a source of awe and envy for me. One of the biggest complaints I had about my years of driving around Boston was the ‘one detour sign’ rule that seemed to apply to roadworks. If a road was closed there was one obvious sign pointing drivers to a DETOUR. After that you were on your own. I was often on my own and lost.

One of the challenges dogs face when they are punished for performing inappropriate behaviors is that they, like me driving around, end up going the wrong way before stumbling on the right way. The alternate options may seem obvious to us, sit instead of jump, don’t pull rather than pull, move away rather than lunge, etc., but they may not be obvious to our dogs.

It’s helpful to show dogs the alternate routes available to them for getting what they want or need and what we want or need from them. Teaching dogs a variety of skills can help build a repertoire of behaviors we can steer our dogs toward when detours are necessary. Start at home and then take training on the road. Our dogs are often looking for the signs pointing them in the right direction. Make it easier for them to see them.

Put A Muzzle On It

In the contest of who dislikes the thought of putting a muzzle on my dog, I’d come in a close second to the dog who has to wear it. That is unless I think about the alternatives to not wearing one. A muzzle is not an excuse to put a dog into situations in which they’re inclined to bite a person or another dog, but should it occur, the muzzle will help minimize damage.

I have been getting both Sunny and I used to having him wear a muzzle. We will be spending time visiting family this summer and though in the past we have rarely run into people during our daily walks, the more often we do it, the more likely it is that we will. I decided that I’d feel less stress if he was wearing a muzzle. A big step for me was to replace the image of ‘Hannibal Lecter’ with ‘hockey player’ when I looked at him.

The Baskerville Ultra Muzzle has large spaces in the grid of the muzzle which make it easy to feed your dog treats. One problem that I ran into with it is that the holes in the strap are not easy to locate and require a bit of extra fussing when fastening it on. I attempted to remedy this with a pair of vice grips and a hot nail, poking a number of easier to find holes in the strap. It’s not a perfect solution but I think the more I use the ‘right’ hole the easier it will be to find it. I tried the additional head strap which snaps onto the top of the muzzle and reaches over his head to clip on his collar. Maybe I didn’t snug it up tight enough but as the collar slid around his neck it took the strap with it.

So far any of his attempts to remove the muzzle have failed. This is important. If a dog successfully gets the muzzle off they are more likely to continue to try in the future. I am also coming up with sequences of putting the muzzle on and taking it off that I hope will effect how Sunny ‘feels’ about it. Immediately after the muzzle goes on either the door opens and he can run in the unfenced area outside the house, or his leash comes off so he run around where in the past he hunted feral cats. The muzzle predicts good things. I take the muzzle off and bring him inside or put him back on leash. Neither of those outcomes is horrible, but being outside and off leash is better.

This is by far my favorite and the most inspiring training video I’ve seen on teaching dogs to wear a muzzle.

This recent post on the Notes From A Dog Walker blog shows how you can turn your muzzle into a treat dispenser.

The One Dimensional Dog

Play or a contest of dominance?

The last few weeks have left millions of dogs feeling the way I’d feel with my parents at a dinner party where other parents were talking about their kids getting ready to attend medical or law school, after they finish competing in the Olympics or return from the junior astronaut program at Cape Canaveral. The social media outlets have been rife with stories of dogs; dogs pulling unconscious owners off of train tracks, getting their families out of burning houses, grieving at gravesides, raising litters of kittens or piglets or the odd squirrel, guiding blind dogs, even winning the grand prize in Britains Got Talent show. How the heck is a pet dog suppose to live up to that?

The complete irony is that while dogs are out there being heroes, performers, parents, and damn good friends, the range and sophistication of their abilities remains unrealized by many of us, not least of all by the very people who should know better; dog trainers, or as some label themselves, rehabilitators or psychologists. When dogs behave in ways we approve of we ascribe them with emotions and behaviors as varied and rich as our own. They are selfless, loving, brave and intelligent. Should they behave in ways we do not approve of they are……dominant. Growl at a person to keep them away-dominant. Jump up on someone in greeting-dominant. Rush out the door to explore the latest scents-dominant. Pull on the leash because the world beckons-dominant. It would be funny, except that it isn’t.

When trainers and owners see dogs’ behavior through a single lens they not only do a huge disservice to the dog, it’s an insult to the animals who will sit for years at a train station waiting for their never-to-return owner to step off the car. If you’ve ever been the victim of a misinterpretation of your behavior and intentions you know how upsetting it can be. It’s a popular theme of many movies, the protagonist, accused and prosecuted for a crime they did not commit spends the next hour and a half risking their life to prove their innocence. As a kid my habit of leaving dirty dishes in the sink was interpreted as a way to ‘upset my mother’. Though a therapist might disagree, my real issues were laziness and immaturity. The biggest impact of the mislabeling of my lack of dishwashing behavior was that my parents took it personally, and it was upsetting to them on a whole different level than it might have otherwise been.

Does the desire to be dominant exist in dogs? It does, to a much lesser degree than currently being touted, but the desire to cooperate, avoid conflict, play and have a friend, also exist. Misinterpreting and labeling a dog’s behavior as ‘dominant’ often causes them be treated in ways that range from merely inappropriate to downright cruel. This can lead to a further degradation in their behavior and unfortunately in the scripts of many dogs’ lives there is no last minute reprieve from the governor.

Becoming

By the looks of Sunny’s half-hearted feints at whatever was in the leaf litter that had caught his attention, I was guessing snake, or toad. I am a fan of amphibians and have no grudges with reptiles so hurried over to be sure Sunny didn’t do any damage. What I found dragging itself through the leaves surprised me. I was sure it was some kind of mutant, a poor insect, its tiny wings stunted by pesticides or a cruel genetic mishap. Its body, at least 2 inches long was larva shaped, covered with a thick coat of white hair and as fat as my thumb. With three pair of maroon colored legs it clutched a brown leaf as I reached down to pick it up.

I debated what to do with it. It had a pair of perfect antennae each one shaped like a leaf that had nothing left to it but the veins. If I put it down a swarm of ants might attack it, and have dinner for months. I could try to carry it home and see what became of it but I feared I’d crush it or break something if I wasn’t paying attention. Stepping off the trail I found a small beech tree and let it crawl off my finger and onto the trunk. It clung to the bark and as its body had three strong contractions I realized what Sunny had found.

My four dogs continued up the trail, as this was our habit. One by one I heard their paws pounding on the packed dirt as they returned to find me. Sunny was the first, Finn the last. I called their names as they raced past, not looking for me off to the side in the trees. When they realized I was not going anywhere they discovered a variety of things to keep their attention. Nibbles bounded after chipmunks and squirrels rustling in the leaves, Annie and Sunny had a short squabble over who had the right to put their head into the hole being excavated in the dirt at the base of a stump, and Finn chewed first on sticks and then began pruning saplings while making noises that would make you think he’d been angry with them for years.

During visits to the cloudforest in Costa Rica I’d watched Blue Morpho butterflies emerging from their chrysallis. Their wings are initially pliable and small, but as they hang from their former home they begin to pump the fluids from their bodies into their wings. I watched as the same thing began to happen with the insect I had placed on the trunk. Its two pair of wings were a soft green, the same color as the young leaves of the tree it was on. The larger wings had a line of a deep maroon along their top edge. There were hints of spots, one on each wing.

No matter how closely I stared and tried to see the changes I could only note that they had occurred, the process was so gradual. The wings were soon longer than the body, which was gradually shrinking. I sat for an hour watching big changes I couldn’t even see. Once I was sure that I was watching a Luna Moth becoming itself, with the dogs’ hearty approval we headed off again. We follow a loop that brings us to what remains of the orchard of an old homestead, through a pine forest and across two streams. Back at the start of the loop I decided to repeat it and see if I could find the moth again. I remembered that once their wings are fully formed they need to harden and set. I’d hoped to be able to see its first wingbeats. I was able to find it and the tendrils of the second set of wings, that had been smaller than the first, were now longer and still slightly curled and soft.

I’d never seen a Luna Moth during the day. They are rare, but not unusually found battering the lights on the porch at night. I’d certainly never seen one in their journey from pupa to adult. Not knowing how long the whole process took I decided I was satisfied with what I had been fortunate enough to see. The dogs had enjoyed the delay and the detour but were happy to turn around and head home. Two of them were unrecognizable from the dogs they were when they first came to live with me.

It was a great day to have wings.

The Belly Button Rule

Creating positive associations with water in a safe place

When I was a young child and our family visited a body of water to swim in my parents instituted the the belly button rule. The older, more proficient swimmers could swim out to rafts in the middle of the lake or play in the waves, but the little kids could go no deeper than their belly buttons. If we lost our footing we would be safe and it was deep enough for us to pretend to be swimming. With our hands on the bottom of the lake we could kick our feet, put our faces in the water, blow bubbles, all the skills that one needs in order to swim, for real.

People living with fearful, shy or reactive dogs are often reluctant to limit their dog’s opportunity to go out into the world, for walks or car rides because they feel as though they are depriving their dog of exercise or variety. It’s thoughtful to take a dog’s needs in these areas into consideration, but not if they routinely end up over their belly buttons and have a bad experience because of it.

I remember wanting so badly to be able to swim with the big kids. My father shot Super 8 movies of me putting my entire face into the water and then coming up, wiping the hair and water from my eyes triumphantly. This was a milestone enroute to becoming a swimmer. My parents did not feel guilty that they were limiting my exposure to deeper water. They did not impede my ability to learn when they called me in when I went too deep or my lips turned blue and my fingers wrinkled.

Until a dog has the skills to come into contact with the things that cause them to react negatively, don’t risk them getting in over their heads. I didn’t have to almost drown to learn to learn to swim.

Grab Em By the Dopamine Not the Neck

I realize it’s a simplistic way of looking at a brain’s reward system, and that’s because of my limitations, not yours dear readers. But if we can sneak our way into our dog’s brain’s reward system we can grab a hold as tenacious as any baseball fan’s in the stands who manages to snatch a foul ball.

It’s glaringly obvious that brains have people and animals doing all sorts of things to feel good, negative consequences be damned. You know that 3pm cup of coffee may keep you up at night, but it tastes so darn good. The credit card is maxed out but whatever you’ve found to buy is so fabulous and you’ve wanted it for so long, and the price is too good to pass up on, so you buy it. The doctor and every magazine you read has encouraged you to eat less fat, sugar and salt, and you know it’s time you did, but somehow you just don’t seem to ever be able to. Rewards are powerful things.

When brains (and I say brains because this is true of so many brains currently on the planet, not just ours or dogs’) anticipate something good is about to happen there’s a release of the neurotransmitter dopamine. It causes that ‘oh goodie!’ feeling. Then when we get the anticipated reward we get another hit of dopamine, this time it’s not quite as big as the ‘oh goodie!’ hit, but it’s still worth working for. Over and over again. There are ways we can manipulate this process, taking advantage of when and how often rewards are received, and how good they are, to get consistent and reliable behaviors from dogs. That’s what trainers do to get the behaviors they want dogs to perform, over and over again.

There is no shortage of misinformation and controversy about how dogs learn and the most humane and effective ways to train them. One of the most frustrating comments made during the numerous debates on the subject is that the trainers who eschew force, pain and coercion based training are merely jealous of the financial success and notoriety achieved by some of the trainers who don’t. And though I can’t speak for every trainer, my own feelings and experience with other trainers indicate that there’s not much that could be further from the truth.

Professional dog trainers are like professionals in any field. When we see talent and skill we seek to emulate it, and learn from it. We support the trainers who can painlessly teach a range of simple to complex behaviors- whether it’s to an aggressive dog, a tiger, cockatoo or goldfish- by attending their seminars and lectures and purchasing their books and DVDs. We eagerly share their websites and videos with each other and with our clients. We applaud trainers who make the very scientific and ordered mechanics of training look like magic, not combat.

In The Second Sex in which Simone de Beauvoir addresses human history from a feminist perspective she wrote, “All oppression creates a state of war.” Professional dog trainers, the ones who I cheer for, understand that when we use force, pain or the threat of it, to control an animal’s behavior we are not only setting up a very specific dynamic of struggle between us, we are significantly and possibly forever, effecting what a dog can learn. It doesn’t matter if the animal we are interacting with is happily wagging their tail or trying to bite us.

Somewhere along the line many trainers and pet owners have gotten it into their heads that because a dog’s behavior is aggressive it must be taught differently than a dog whose behavior is tolerant and compliant, as though the organism itself no longer works according to what we know about how animals learn. What great trainers understand is that we work with behavior, however that happens to look at the time. We either like it or we don’t, and we know the key to maintaining or eliminating it lies in our ability to keep our hands on the switch controlling the rewards.

The Behavior Sandwich

People often think of a dog’s behavior in much the same way as they think about a sandwich. It’s usually the meat in the middle that they are most concerned with. But behavior, like a sandwich has more going on than just the filling. What’s around the filling can matter a lot. Imagine going into a deli and ordering ham & cheese on rye and being handed ham & cheese on a sundried tomato wrap. It may not seem like a big deal to some but for others, thanks, but no thanks, it’s not what was ordered.

When we are trying to get a dog to change their behavior, what happens before and after the behavior plays a role in what the behavior looks like. There are some who treat behavior like an open-faced sandwich; the behavior and what follows it. If they can figure out a way to either reward or punish the dog, they’ll get the behavior to increase or stop.

Thinking about what comes before the behavior occurs is often overlooked, or misunderstood by us. It may appear one way to us but what matters most is how it is perceived by the dog. There are many behaviors which would change if we were able to adjust what happens before they occur. And there are many ways we can do this, if we only took a moment or two to think about it. We can adapt the dog’s environment to make it easier for them to do the right thing, and make the wrong behavior require more effort. We can do this without ever having to hurt, scare or startle a dog.

Whether we are trying to get a dog to perform a behavior, or get one to stop, if we think, just stop and think, we will discover that there’s a lot more to choose from than just white or whole wheat.

Words that make me go hmmmmm….

Dogs trainers are veterans when it comes to hearing- “I tried that, it didn’t work.” This is often spoken by a client or potential client who after finally contacting a rewards based trainer explains why they don’t use food rewards. Their immediate assumption is that because they handed a few treats to their dog, and didn’t see an immediate change in the dog’s behavior, using food, or any kind of reward to train, doesn’t work. Clicker trainers also hear it when after picking up a clicker at a pet shop, aiming it at their dog and not getting an appreciable change in their dog’s behavior, an owner declares clicker training to be ineffective. Unfortunately, and disturbingly, there are even trainers who say the same thing.

Are there dogs who are not highly motivated by food? Sure there are, but there are very few so unmotivated that they’ll starve themselves to death. And there may be dogs who are too overwhelmed and scared to either play or eat, but that’s because they are overwhelmed, not because they lack a reward system in their brain. Even if a dog is afraid of the sound a clicker makes, the principles of clicker training can still be applied.

If the underlying principles, in our case, how dogs learn, are sound, then we should be able to take advantage of them. If we can’t, it’s telling us something other than that the principles are wrong. We know that we can make it more likely that a behavior will be repeated, or not, and we know that we can respond in ways to a dog that will either cause an emotional response to become more less intense. Depending on whether we want more or less of a behavior, or the emotion which drives the behavior, we behave i.e., train, accordingly. Good trainers also understand that dogs learn behaviors faster when they are rewarded for doing something right, compared to being punished for doing something wrong.

If you hand someone your keys so they can borrow your car and they return, hand you your keys and say, “Keys don’t work to start cars,” what are the chances you’d nod your head and agree? Not likely I’m guessing. There’s the chance they used the wrong key, or went to the wrong car, or there was no gas in the car or the starter was on the fritz. Or perhaps you have a replacement key that doesn’t fit quite right and requires a ‘special touch’ to get it to work. I rented a car and whenever I left it parked for any length of time it then wouldn’t start. The battery was dead. I wanted a different car, or at least a new battery put in it. It turned out that in this particular car it was possible to remove the key from the ignition when it was in the position that kept the alternator on. Unaware of this I thought I was turning the car off, but was in fact leaving the alternator on and it was draining the battery. I thought I knew how to turn off a car, but in this instance I didn’t.

People try different techniques to change behavior in their dogs. Perhaps it shouldn’t surprise me, but it does, how infrequently they question how well they are performing those techniques before claim they don’t work. Don’t throw out the baby, or the treats, with the bathwater.

Grasping the basics

The clip art I could find to illustrate gladiators were of bulky men slaying bowling balls. Go figure.

Understanding the physiological effects of fear on a dog’s autonomic nervous system (ANS) is not just a bunch of big words tossed out to make me feel smart. Truth be told, it’s sentences like that that make me grateful for spell check.

Fear can cause a dog to become more or LESS aggressive. When frightened, some animals will experience an increase in heart rate, others a decrease. It can vary within species based on the threat. Being less aggressive when frightened has proved to be such an effective response that some animals take it to an extreme. Some will display what is called ‘tonic immobility’- think possums. That ‘calm’ or ‘submissive’ behavior is based less on animal’s psychology and more on an immediate and dire response to a perceived life-threatening situation.

If your own psychology is making you feel proud every time you manage to get an animal to stop trying to escape or defend itself by using force or intimidation you are reveling in the fact that you’ve managed to scare them so thoroughly that another possible life-saving, out of their cognitive control, response has kicked in. Let this sink in for awhile. When we applaud trainers who proudly display this approach, whether on television, youtube or in person, we are not unlike spectators at the arena who cheered on gladiators as they slaughtered unarmed opponents or wild animals.

When I think of it that way, bowling seems like a better option all around.

Would you get on that bus?

Professional dog trainers often seem like a touchy bunch. There’s little we don’t have an opinion on, and a strong one at that. When someone seeks advice on the best way to market themselves as a ‘dog trainer’ boasting of little experience other than growing up with a dog or training their own family pets, it might be best to either step away or put on your flack jacket. But seriously, who can blame us?

Imagine announcing to a group of professional truck or tour bus drivers that you were going to begin selling your services as a driver. You had after all been driving since you were 15 and had ridden in plenty of trucks and buses over the years. There is even the chance that you would be a great driver. But it’s a moot point, in the U.S. anyway, because you would not be allowed to drive without the proper license. No company is going to risk hiring someone without a license and few individuals have a truck or bus sitting around needing a driver. This is not the case for dog trainers. Anyone, and sometimes it seems like everyone, can claim to be a dog trainer, or dog psychologist, or behaviorist, if they are bold enough to stick it on a business card.

You might argue that it’s totally different, an unskilled driver could get someone killed. But it is not that different. When a pet owner contacts a dog trainer and is unsuccessful having their dog’s behavior accurately explained, and given the skills to change unwanted behaviors, dogs die. There are people who will go for a second or third opinion, early attempts at training not getting the desired results or having a trainer decline taking them on as a client (often wisely). Many others will give up or quickly tire of throwing money at the problem.

Certifications and licenses are not a guarantee that a dog trainer is a good one. There’s always going to be a surgeon who graduates at the head of their class, and the ones who don’t. There are dog trainers who hold no certification and are good at what they do. But when it’s time to board that bus, who do you want to see behind the wheel, someone who has proven themselves to have at the very least the minimum level of competency and skill to qualify for a license, or someone who just always enjoyed taking road trips?