2012 IAABC CONFERENCE

The 70’s Funk band BT Express said it best , "Do it, do it, do it till you’re satisfied" this past weekend I did exactly that. A cosmic convergence of the greatest minds in animal behavior from the scholarly to the practical descended on Warwick, RI bringing with them their collective insights, not to mention, Vietnamese pigs, rabbits, crustaceans, a Costa Rican Armadillo and an African Horned Tortoise. You might be asking yourself, "Did I miss out on something truly bad ass?" If you weren't there, then yes, you missed something truly bad ass. I did not however and for that I will be forever grateful to Katenna Jones, Marje Alonso and Co. for having me along to thump the Thinkpads into submission whenever they acted up. A small price to pay for such unbridled awesomeness. Come now, surely I'm exaggerating and by the way, is awesomeness even a word? Well the bright red squiggly line that underscores every entry of the word "prestadigitation" (right there, I did it again) is absent so yes, it's a word and no, I'm not exaggerating.

This year's conference was very different for me than last year. My first time around as a conference volunteer, chronicled in this blog, was an experience that so expanded on my world and my role in it, no future conference could have the same impact. There was plenty of time to take notes, chat with the other volunteers. The glow from that conference stuck with me for several days. It was life changing. This for me was the best of sequels but by now I've lived for one full year in a world where these brilliant individuals exist, this was The Empire Strikes Back, awesome beyond measure, but not my first light sabre. When the conference wrapped I thought I’d better start collecting my thoughts before they start getting fuzzy, so here it goes. Last year I came away from the conference with some very big ideas to think about. It was broad and in many ways couldn't have been a better initial exposure. I don't think there's any conscious attempt at creating a theme, they seem to have emerged organically and to that end, this year seemed more nuts and bolts with a big emphasis on scientific method. Here's a brief outline of the speakers beating that drum. Dr. Sophia Yin on forming a hypothesis and subjecting it to scrutiny. Linda Case MS on understanding the science behind dog foods, Dr. Moon Fanelli on the influence of genetics in animal behavior, and that's just scratching the surface. Gail Fisher, Dr. Aubrey Fine, Dr. Ruth Colwill, one great speaker after another sharing the results of their hard work with us. Every speaker I saw stayed around afterwards to answer questions and every one of them was gracious with their time.

My favorite speaker was Brenda Aloff and while I couldn't manage a decent photo of her (see below) no one rolled with the punches like she did and no one I saw was more down to earth or approachable. There were technical problems with the rented equipment throughout the conference, and while everyone deftly made use of the time to answer questions from the audience no one had more fun with those moments than Brenda did. She should've bludgeoned me with that laptop, but she managed that whole room like a pro, myself included, with good humor and a great boisterous laugh. She could not have been kinder to me as I fiddled to kick start her presentation over and over again.

Lily Strassberg, a volunteer last year, was a presenter this year. Wowing attendees, including Karen Pryor, with her clicker training research on fiddler crabs and crayfish. Lily started with the genesis of this idea which started when she was a junior in high school, accepting a challenge from one of her teachers who warned her this was a nutty idea that will never work. She proved it did work, earned the nickname "Crab Girl" (though she prefers Poseidon) and just like that a future star was born. For the conference Lily walked attendees through this process and while this might strike you as a bit goofy, watching the crabs respond to cues and race across their small pools to "ring" a  sinker for a bit of food was one of the coolest things I've seen in some time. 

It was an exciting three days, running from room to room for spur of the moment problem solving, rubbing elbows with the best in the business, it was exhilarating. In the end though I had less time to sit through as many of the presentations as I did last year and less time still to talk with some of the other volunteers and new friends, many of them my peers in the training world. Joyce, Shana, Jenn, Sue, Liz and Alysha, you guys are the best. I hope we can all get together and do this again. 

One last thing. It's difficult for me not to notice how disproportionate the ratio of men to women are at conferences and seminars. At several points throughout the long weekend I took a random head count. The average I came up with was 1:5 men to women. Growing up in the 60's and 70's there were plenty of professions with gender contrasts including nurses, secretaries and librarians. Of course much of that has changed over the years but here's the rub, the contrast is only apparent when it comes to the academic component of training. There are easily as many male trainers as female so where were they? I don't have the answers, it's a genuine mystery to me and I'm surprised this contrast exists at all. To this point I echo my opening sentiment and say to my brothers in the training world, don't miss it if it comes this way again. You'll be missing something truly great. 

No veg from Cranston? Who knew?

Rage Against The Machine

I'm pissed off. No other way to describe it. It's been at least two years since a call from a dog owner left me feeling this way but that streak ended abruptly just twenty minutes ago. Long enough to get home, feed the dogs and get to the computer. Earlier I'd received a voice mail from someone asking for help "Scolding their dog". I've never heard someone phrase it quite that way and of course on it's face "scolding" is a word subject to interpretation. Are we talking Spanish inquisition or my son losing his IPod for a day scolded? Curious to find out I called back. The dog was described as a four year old female that came from an abusive home. The owner had great success training her with a shock collar,...wait, what? Had I heard that right? Best money they'd ever spent I was told.

Honestly folks, I try in earnest not to pontificate. After all there was a time I'd turned to shock collars etc. to curb behaviors but the truth is that I've had far more success since I stopped using them. It doesn't matter what anyone's feelings are about them, the science doesn't support their efficacy in any meaningful way and in fact provides us with empirical data to support that they do more harm than good. Dr. Sophia Yin's website, click HERE is a great place to start understanding why. Something I tried with all the sincerity and non-judgmental zeal I could muster to communicate to this dog owner. To no avail. I was talking to someone who steadfastly embraced dated and cruel notions that include sticking her dog's nose in her excrement when she had an accident; doesn't work, never has. Worse yet was that this dog has been "rescued from an abusive home". I tried to reach across the divide; explaining my experience with shock collars before and since; I tried to share the data, explain that there were locking trash cans she could get at the local home improvement store that effectively manage garbage surfing and the response was, "I don't want to have to shut doors in my house while I'm not at home, I am my dog's master" Holy shit! Where to begin? Uhhh,...no you're not. The notion of "Master" is the worst kind of dated nonsense. It shares a place in history with other nutty ideas like phrenology and spontaneous generation. It reminds me of the witch scene from Monty Python's Holy Grail, "If she weighs as much as a duck, then she must be made of wood, and therefore a witch". I'd bet my house that my dogs have no notion of what a "master" is. Even if they did I'd have no interest in playing that role. My dogs are family and in that dynamic there are rules but those rules are realized through a sense of cooperation and reciprocity.

I wanted so badly to reach some common ground with this dog owner but there was no getting through. I failed and now a bad situation is likely to get much worse. A dog who, if the account of her past is accurate, has no reason to trust humans, is now getting all the wrong signals from a yet another human counterpart uninterested in learning anything. Quite the contrary, she was clearly upset with me for trying. Will this dog end up at the Veterinary Clinic that referred her owner to me only to be euthanized for a bite? That's a distinct possibility (I did contact them to fill them in on the details.) More likely first will be calls to other trainers in an effort to find one that won't challenge her to think about it first. This poor dog has some misery in her future and there's nothing I can do to stop it.

Worse yet is that this is not an isolated case. This dog owner is in dubious company with countless other vapid, empty headed twits. Who am I to judge? An old friend once told me when he was asked that question, he responded with, "Someone has to, it may as well be me." Owen, if you're reading this for some strange reason, I get it now. I don't judge dog owners remotely as much for what they're doing so much as what they refuse to do. It's infuriating to be asked for help and subsequently resented for trying but I'll have a couple of beers tonight and get over it. I'm no slave to a "Master" bent on finding more effective means of scolding me.

The word's getting out that there are better ways, not better feeling ways, not ways that are much nicer, capital "B" Better, demonstrably better but every one of us in the training community has a responsibility to get that message out more effectively. Tonight was a wake up call that I need to do that. Tonight left me enraged, I'm still boiling, typing, deleting, and retyping so this doesn't end up just an angry rant. There are lots of good trainers out there, some of them I'm happy to say are my friends. If you call one of them for help, don't be afraid to learn something. Age has provided me with perspective and the blessed ability to be at peace with sometimes (often, if you ask my wife) being wrong about something. James Joyce once said that mistakes are the portals of discovery. This time it wasn't but if for no other reason than the dog I failed tonight, I'll do a better job of bridging that divide the next time I get the chance to. Good luck girl, I'm sorry.

What's The Big Idea?

Early this past Friday evening I’d worked with a young Lhasa-poo that while good natured and sweet had his owner’s nerves severely frayed by his compulsive behavior of eating every bit of road debris he could get his mouth on. This little guy has some manic energy to burn and was terrible on leash to boot. We’d had great success initially with a Newtrix head halter but after three days it was apparent that the classical conditioning routine I employ to introduce dogs to head halters hadn’t stuck, we needed a Plan B that would address both issues effectively. I pulled a ThunderShirt out of the car, paired it with a Premier harness and within a few minutes we were doing greets in a ‘sit’ followed by a walk free of trail mix, get it? Trail mix? Rocks, twigs…things you’d see on a trail…moving on. The lesson ended on a high note and as I sat later that evening with the owners of a pair of Welsh Cardigan Corgis it struck me what a great time it was to be a dog trainer.” Twenty years ago the tools I was using to work with the Lhasa-poo weren’t around and while it’s not my first instinct to wax “Q” like, festooning dog owners with high tech gadgetry it’s great to have them at my disposal when a leash and martingale aren’t getting it done alone, add to this the collective wisdom of generations of animal trainers evident in an exhaustive and ever growing library of training books, internet message boards not to mention living in a part of the world where interest in the subject appears to be peeking with everyday dog owners. It’s an embarrassment of riches.

Also this past Friday, I received an e-mail sent in error by someone who’d mistaken me for another trainer. She said she’d attended his recent “seminar”. Why the quotation marks? The Webster Dictionary defines a seminar as follows: A group of advanced students studying under a professor with each doing original research and all exchanging results through reports and discussions. I don’t doubt that it was described as a seminar, in full disclosure I haven’t attended one of them but I feel comfortable speculating that it no more qualifies as a seminar than it would a Bris. It could however be described as a sermon, defined as A religious discourse delivered in public usually by a clergyman as part of a worship service. I’m agnostic by nature so a sermon would require I suspend disbelief to enjoy and appreciate the spectacle dujour. The e-mail in question inquired what the best method was for fitting a pinch collar to a 6 month old Labrador puppy. I’ve worked with former clients of this trainer; no quotation marks there, technically there is training going on; there is however, nothing professorial about it. Eleanor Roosevelt once said that small minds talk about individuals and great minds talk about ideas. I’m no great mind, no delusions of grandeur here, but I’ll take a stab at the sentiment by sticking to the idea. With that, another quote from the recent IAABC conference, “I believe in science”, simple, easy to remember and with profound implications. Bob Bailey, a patriarch in the field of animal training said this in the second of two presentations. I believe in science as well. Science is evolving, it’s subjective and it requires those qualities in its practitioners, even we lowly dog trainers. For some time I relied on pinch collars to address a myriad of training issues. I had quite a bit of success with them as well but most of the dog owners needed a sort of indoctrination before they’d subject their dogs to something so draconian. Some of them wept openly they felt so badly about it and the dog owners who welcomed the notion weren’t ones I was connecting with in any meaningful way. I didn’t understand it very well at the time, pinch collars are a tool after all, like a chest splitter, an auger or a sledgehammer, I shouldn’t be all that difficult to remain dispassionate about them; but there were dogs whose response to them was so poisonous it would take weeks just to regain their trust. This was an aggressive measure for a problem that rarely required one. They’ve since been relegated to the bottom of my training toolbox, a tool of last resort and certainly not for any six month old Labrador or any other puppy I’ve worked with for that matter.

There were so many great ideas I came away from the conference feeling much more strongly about but the one that stands on top was the importance of free will in training and counter conditioning. Delivered with great poignance by Dr. Frank McMillan of the Best Friends Society, the merits of free will were contrasted with the horrors of forced confinement, and myriad other forms of animal abuse from around the world. Dr. McMillan outlined the kinds of permanent damage visited on animals forced to endure cruelty, both physical and emotional at the hands of humans. This subject was examined again later in the conference by Katenna Jones and alluded to by a number of other speakers.

A scenario I come across commonly involves a dog learning that it’s more rewarding to go to a designated place when they hear their doorbell as opposed to charging the door, barking and jumping on the guest(s). Less common is helping a dog crippled by fear learning to reevaluate the things in their environment that trigger fear responses from hiding to biting. Deconstructing these triggers requires patience and creativity and no small measure of cooperation with the dog’s owner. Coaching dog owners and their dogs so they can navigate slowly through these emotional mine fields is an awesome experience and it feels good, it feels really good. The big idea behind these experiences is education vs. subjugation. I’ve done both of these things and can tell you there is nothing special about controlling a dog through domination, been there, done that. Watching the wheels turn as a dog problem solves and/or learns to reevaluate scary situations is in contrast endlessly fascinating and satisfying.

As with most things there are exceptions. It is not alright for a dog to react aggressively towards another dog, person etc. Biting is not a reasonable choice. To that end there are tried and true methods that are not punitive in nature for modifying aggressive behavior. Counter Conditioning and Desensitizing (CC&D), Behavioral Adjustment Training (BAT) and Constructive Aggression Training (CAT) are three methods I’ve employed with great success. There is some discourse on both BAT and CAT as technically they fall under the umbrella of positive punishment, negative reinforcement. Both involve exposing a dog to a negative trigger, removing either the trigger or the dog when the desired response is given (calming signal). I take issue with the idea that these approaches can be associated with choke chains, pinch collars etc. for the simple reason that within the course of a normal day some dogs will encounter a negative trigger, i.e. another dog, cat, person etc. It’s not a decision, but a naturally occurring part of their environment. Add to this that the dogs I’ve worked with using CAT and BAT are clearly coping with these triggers with measurably more confidence and it’s hard to ignore their respective merits. In the end, both approaches afford reactive dogs the option of reacting to these triggers as they typically do or with relative composure.

Bob Bailey discussed how in his early years he spent a lot of time observing how animals behaved without thrusting himself into the equation. What were animals doing? Why were they doing it? It formed the basis for a career that’s stretched from the 1950’s to the present. Aversion methods turn a blind eye to this kind of inquiry. If the goal is to control through domination then it hardly matters much why an animal is doing something. They need to stop doing “that”, whatever “that” happens to be. Ethology based training assumes our pet dogs are, as Brenda Aloff mused, “trying to conquer the world”. Imagine Charlton Heston in “Planet of the Dogs”,…”Get your paws off of me you damned dirty mutt!”

Memories of The 2011 IAABC Conference

Several weeks ago I got a surprising e-mail from Katenna Jones asking if I'd like to attend the IAABC (International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants) conference on the bubble in exchange for working the conference as a volunteer. I'd wanted very much to go but was still reeling from last spring's vet bills. Katenna was giving a presentation on animal stress research and was allowed to invite three friends to join the corps of volunteers. I happily accepted. The conference was this past weekend and well, I owe Ms. Jones a solid, maybe six or seven, I'll have to get a head count of all the amazing speakers, (Katenna was one of them) to be sure. She'd also invited Connie Buldoc from Providence Animal Rescue League, a remarkably kind hearted and needlessly self effacing energizer bunny and the keystone of the volunteer effort and Joyce Gauthier who I'd first met several years ago at a Kathy Sdao seminar and again at symposium held at Brown University. Joyce is a gifted and extremely smart trainer who I got to swap notes, anecdotes and ideas with throughout the conference. Both contributed to an amazing weekend that I'll be thinking, reading and talking about for years to come. While I'm still digesting everything I saw, read and heard I'll share some of the highlights while they're still fresh in my completely blown mind. Here it goes.

The volunteer effort began this past Thursday night stuffing conference bags and organizing name tags. It'd been an exhausting day that started at 3AM and ended with me whining about organizing the name tags. Right away I met Lily, a college student who'd clicker trained a crab to ring a bell with mussel meat (later gaining the attention of the esteemed Karen Pryor) and her friend Nikolai, a 17 year old immigrant from Moscow studying chemistry at Tufts, yup, I was the dumb guy in the room again and I'd only been there five minutes. Lily and Nikolai were modest, deferential and mature beyond their years. I've had decades to forget how relatively not like these two I was when I was their age. How's that cloning business coming along guys? We could use more young people like these two. I copped to having used a digital projector a few time and just like that I was handling audio/visual for several of the speakers, making sure they were seeing the same images on the big screen and their respective laptops. That started in earnest Friday morning with Dr. Nick Dodman, a pioneer in the field of veterinary behavior at Tufts University. I managed to get a laugh from him before he got things off the ground with his presentation on compulsive behavior, in the process expanding my vocabulary to include words like “stereotypie”, disorders like Acral Lick Dermatitis and phrases like “flank sucking”. That segued nicely to the first of two presentations by Dr. Frank McMillan of Best Friends Animal Society who shed light on the affects of animal abuse including truly horrific practices like bile farming, click HERE to help and learn more and the plight of the Spanish Galgo click HERE for more information and to help that rescue organization. I came away from Dr. McMillan's presentation feeling fairly Pollyann-ish. This was disturbing stuff not strictly in relative terms, I appreciate that a good deal of the rest of the world does not share the same kind of relationship with dogs Americans do. Nikolai explained to me that children in Moscow are taught to fear dogs in fact and that he was still acclimating to life here where dog ownership is comparatively common. This was disturbing on basic human terms. The complete absence of empathy exposed in Dr. McMillan's piece was on a measure previously unimaginable to me. Thankfully, a break followed and the first opportunity to start talking to Connie, Joyce etc. about what we'd experienced so far. I'm still taken aback by the restrained egos, the sense of community, there were rock stars in attendance without the rock star bowl of green M&Ms and pitted apricots. Even early on the conference was proving what my friend Darcy would call “juicy”. However, nothing could have prepared me for the next presentation. It was the “Inception” experience of the conference, that small totem still spinning in my brain for hours afterward. Dr. Myra Milani's “Where the Sun Don't Shine”. You should probably sit for this one.

Before I give you my impression of Dr. Milani's presentation I should say that, like Inception, I should probably see it a few more times, there's a good chance I missed what she was driving at, I ordered the audio and may revise this post accordingly. Alright, there's my disclaimer, now, everybody someplace cozy? This presentation looked unblinkingly at Zoophilia, defined as either consensual or non-consensual sexual intercourse between a human and non-human animal. I'll give myself credit for not giving into a sophomoric giggle reflex, (used to come in handy in life drawing years ago) What Dr. Milani postulated was that climatic changes are assumed in part responsible for the increase in documented cases of animal hybridization (e.g. The widely covered case of a grizzly/polar bear hybrid killed by a hunter in Northern Canada) and that there may be a corollary with documented cases of Zoophelia. Furthermore, that as climate changes unfold we should expect an increase in these documented cases. That's right, Zoophelia may in fact be a form of hybridization. This was not your grand daddy's conference folks. I was in dog nerd heaven. All of the ickyness of bestiality aside, is there, at the core, a biological impulse to procreate with animals of another species, even if the odds of yielding successful offspring was infinitesimal? Forget labradoodles, we're talking labrapeople, hippopotahumans. Moving on,...

Next up for me was probably the most amusing presentation of the conference, Ken McCort's piece on intentional thinking which started with an idea posed by Tufts University philosophy professor Daniel Dennett, in his book “The Intentional Stance” that we humans are only capable of six levels of intentional thinking. Funny right? It was in the hands of Ken McCort who spends some of his time chumming around with Ray Coppinger (author of the “Dogs” a terrific book on the subject of canine ethology and human canine relationships) as well as wolves, coyotes and foxes at Wolf Park in Battle Ground, IN. Ken McCort is who I want to be when I grow up. With respect to intentional thinking, he believed the rules of parsimony provided dogs, cats etc. with no more than two levels of intentional thinking. Attendees challenged him with some terrific anecdotes and you had to be there to appreciate how funny it all was but it was a concept that came up again and again throughout the conference.

Of course the big draw for many conference goers was Victoria Stillwell. Oddly, I've never seen her very popular “It's Me or the Dog” show on Animal Planet so I wasn't star struck when she sat down next to me. Her presentation drew some of the most enthusiastic applause when in a segment from her show she was seen bringing a client keen on breeding his American Bull Terrier to the Fulton County Animal Shelter to see first hand, kennel after kennel of homeless bully breed dogs, the euthanasia log and finally the shelter freezer wreaking from recently euthanized dogs. It was a powerful and potent message delivered with a great deal more effectiveness than any attempt I'd made to get across the importance of spay/neuter to would be hobby breeders. It was the most polished presentation of the conference.

Next up was Dr. Sheila Arpino who's work with food aggressive dogs was a model of the patience, smarts and thoughtfulness that goes into a good counter conditioning protocol. Steve Dale followed with his excellent presentation on animal enrichment. I left that with renewed appreciation for food puzzles, it also occurred to me that moving the bird feeders away from our front windows was a bad idea. That's high definition tv for my three dogs. They're getting moved back, nose prints on the glass be damned!

One of the more shocking revelations of the conference came when Marilyn Krieger announced Katenna Jones; I'm paraphrasing but it went something like, “Animal behaviorist, educator with American Humane with a Masters Degree from Brown University, Katenna Jones lives at home with her cats, two husbands and her dog...” Who knew? No gay marriage to date in Rhode Island but polygamy is apparently alive and well. Amidst the many useful bits of information on research into animal stress was the revelation that an unsheathed penis was a sign of stress for male dogs. Over the years I'd witnessed countless “pink lipsticks” as they're often referred to; little did I know that something other than the prurient interests of the dog was at play.

Bob Bailey, a chemist/zoologist (are you reading this Nikolai?) for over fifty years and a pioneer in operant conditioning in animal training proudly proclaimed no less than six times by my reckoning, “I am not a clicker trainer” so frequent were these proclamations that I suggested to Joyce and Connie that they “click” every time he said it or that it might make a neat drinking game. “This was done without a clicker!”,...click!, gulp! Sure Bailey was poking fun at the throngs of clicker trainers in attendance but amongst his many achievements he retains a more comprehensive grasp of the history of animal training I've ever witnessed. This is one smart guy and while he took time to applaud the work of luminaries in the clicker training arena like Karen Pryor, what I think he really wanted was to share his unique perspective on the subject. He made the last presentation of the conference, shortly after I hit the Dogwise table to see if they had copies of his “Quiet like the Chipmunk” DVD. Bob walked up behind me put his hand on my shoulder and said, “I hear that's a good one, would you like me to autograph it for you?” I hadn't even purchased it yet and he'd used his Jedi skills to seal the deal. Bastard!

Finally, a presentation that had the biggest impact on me. Brenda Aloff's “Negative Reinforcement Is Not an Evil Phrase”. I couldn't wait to see what this was about. Hardly an attempt to swim against the tide, this was more about things like body language, using high and low arousal and tension to shape behaviors. Admittedly this was not a revelation but an affirmation by one of the brightest minds in the business that I've been on the right track and was developing important instincts. I know next to nothing about horses but the what I saw there was truly impressive.

What an amazing, mind blowing experience this weekend's been. Today I had to come back down to earth but I come back with renewed vigor and inspiration to last until next years conference. Finally, in a generous show of thanks, volunteers were awarded with a membership in the IAABC. To Katenna Jones, Jaimie Whittaker and Marjie Alonso (I hope you found your Macbook) I'm extremely grateful.

All You Need is Love

Warwick Animal Shelter volunteer Mary Lou with one of the Dennis Dogs.

“A book is like a mirror, if an ass peers into it you can expect an apostle to look out”. 

- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

I was talking to shelter staff about the well publicized case of Clifford Dennis; a Warwick resident known by the shelter crew for breeding Pit Bull Terriers and at least a couple of times a year, dropping some of his dogs off there. Dennis tethers his dogs to dog houses with chains manufactured for use in heavy construction. With one of the worst winter storms in recent history on tap, an anonymous call was made to the Warwick City Council president alerting him that the dogs were outside. Quickly and with an apparent dime dropped to TV news outlets his dogs were confiscated by the Warwick Police and brought to the animal shelter. Dennis has been by the shelter quite a bit since then. I’ve seen him there from time to time over the years. He’s an imposing character, driving around in an old pick-up truck, often with two of his more prized PBT’s riding shotgun. To me it feels like being in the presence of darkness, foreboding. Aside from the observable there are equally unpleasant rumors about his personal politics and then the obvious question for which there can be only one answer, “Why do you breed Pit Bull Terriers?” When queried he’ll sometimes refer to Biblical passages. His dogs are a mixed bag with a couple of common denominators. They are all well fed, all, except for the puppies were extremely tactile sensitive, never having set paw on a tiled floor and while they were confiscated for fear of exposure none appeared to be suffering from it. In the south, hunting dogs are frequently housed strictly outdoors in enclosures that use chambers, wind flaps and hay to keep the dogs warm and dry. They are not family pets and while the life of working dogs seems terribly out of context for many pet dog owners it is not by it's nature inhumane. Strictly speaking these were not working dogs either. I'm not trying to beat around the bush; only Clifford Dennis truly knows what becomes of his dogs. I can only speculate and to me, it looks bad, it looks very bad. This to me is a case of "If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck then it's probably a duck." The lucky ones, thanks to the staff, volunteers and efforts of people like Sue Parker and Tammy Mello end up at the shelter and eventually find good homes. The others, I suspect, are destined for misery.

For all of this there’s a stinky cheese irony to this story that I can’t get away from. Beyond the initial “something smells amiss” aspect, by all accounts Clifford Dennis knows his dogs very well, helping Ann and co. with useful insight into their personalities. He’s quite tuned into them, his frequent visits suggest concern for them. All of this stands in glaring contrast to the strange disconnect, the degrees of separation that exist when you’re breeding a type of dog that suffers in mass at virtually every municipal and private shelter in the country. Dogs who’s “job” is all too often to fight other dogs. Again, the obvious and bewildering question is why? Why on earth would any thoughtful person perpetuate such misery while on the surface appearing to have an affinity for the breed? Of course you can’t talk about Pit Bull Terriers without a heavy, we’re talking black hole heavy, sense of irony. PBTs are vilified in the press every time someone is mauled by one, yet statistically you are far more likely to be bitten by other supposedly less aggressive breeds. I, for the record, have never been bit by a Pit Bull Terrier. If I’m talking broad strokes, they’re some of the sweetest, smartest dogs I’ve worked with. They are, in theory, bred to cope with an extraordinary amount of abuse from humans while being equally intolerant of other dogs and yet, like any other breed there are frequent exceptions, i.e. that rare dog that is aggressive towards humans. Finally, outspoken fans can still find themselves working in earnest to promote low cost spay/neuter programs that limit their numbers.

Ultimately this is a dilemma of an existential nature. In the perfect world we would be blissfully indifferent to the physical prowess that leads to their exploitation. We would appreciate and breeders would breed for the qualities my friends and peers hold in such high esteem. Of course that’s not the case at all and while people like Clifford Dennis are singled out for our collective scorn, he’s only one of many and might easily of escaped any public outing had he been doing this in a more remote location as opposed to a stone’s throw from Route 95. In the meantime, for all the references to biblical chapter and verse this is one “apostle” that at least for now, appears an ass to me. A deeply ironic ass, but an ass nevertheless. Maybe being around the shelter staff (That's Marylou in the picture above with "Baby Bear") has been a positive influence, I hope it has.

The sudden impact of bringing in several dogs all at once put a strain on the shelter's resources. A quick e-mail to my clients, past and present resulted in a flood of donations that helped fill the void. Thanks to everyone who reached out to help. Their acts of kindness was the silver lining to this still unfolding story.

Deep Thoughts About Big Stuff

The last ten years have marked a period of dramatic change in the dog training world. Training models based on the work of author/trainer William Koehler and Nobel Prize winning animal psychologist Konrad Lorenz, began to appear flawed in some important ways. Emerging figures like Ian Dunbar, Jean Donaldson and Karen London were shedding new light on the subject and what's emerged is a far more nuanced, thoughtful approach that appeals to our better natures. In an ironic stroke, the last ten years has also given rise to the celebrity dog trainer. Sure, the 70's and 80's had Barbara Woodhouse and Matt Margolis but they've given way to Cesar Millan who's “Dog Whisperer” program on National Geographic is easily the most referenced source for dog training amongst my clients. The ubiquitous “psht!...psht!” while pointing is a dead giveaway. The irony lies with the approach. The pack leader or ethology based model espoused not just by Cesar Millan but by scores of dog trainers across the country, appeals to a lot of dog owners but relies on sensibilities more than it does on hard science. I want to be careful here; as my old friend James was fond of saying, “Don't let your mouth write a check your butt can't cash”. (always liked that one) I am not a scientist, let's get that out of the way, this is only my take on it; the science appears to support a shift in the language of dog training; specifically, treating dogs like members of our family, canine members but family members nevertheless. Now families have hierarchies; mom, dad the kids. So what's the difference, why the shift from expressions like “pack leader”, aren't they basically the same thing? I agree the difference appears to be subtle but in practice it's very important. Ultimately it defines the battle for the hearts and minds of dog owners across the country who are “psht'ing!” their dogs in earnest and trying to act like canine pack leaders as opposed to having a better grasp of how their dogs think and behave.

Regular watchers of Dog Whisperer have seen Cesar work through some remarkable transformations. Now thems' is fightin' words in some corners but I'm reminded of another favorite adage, “Get a room full of dog trainers together and the only thing two of them will agree on is that the third one doesn't know what they're talking about.” Whether you're a fan of Cesar or not, the guy's worked with dogs that were facing euthanasia and turned some of them around. His high profile renders him a target for sometimes harsh criticism by default. It also means you can't have a discussion about the current state of dog training without taking the massive impact of his show into consideration. It would be like talking about global economics without considering China's role in it, it's too big to ignore. Dr. Dunbar himself conceded as much by contributing to Millan's new book “Cesar's Rules” click HERE for more details on that. The AKC censured Milan in a high profile show of angst but as an organization the AKC is not devoid of controversy and no moral authority by my estimation. The last time I checked you can still walk into a pet store and purchase a dog with AKC papers, no questions asked. Some of these outlets try to blur the details of their puppies' origins with semantics, the sad fact is that they're likely coming from puppy mills, for me, a badge of shame for any pet store and at the very least a noteworthy chink in the AKC's armor.

So the current state of dog training is complicated. I'd go so far as to say it's a mess but that's to be expected when the basic culture of training is changing as dramatically as it has been. Discussions on the APDT LinkedIn member boards (say that ten times fast) have been lively and interesting, while others like Positive Dog Training Professionals, seem stifled by comparison; a shame since these forums have the potential to broaden the dialogue to such a great degree. The technology that makes possible an (in theory at least) open dialogue amongst trainers around the world has changed on a very basic level the way trainers debate the important issues that define how we go about doing what we do. Of course there's the untethered aspect of internet boards that allows for new words (for me anyway) e.g. "flaming" defined by urbandictionary.com as "An online argument that becomes nasty or derisive, where insulting a party to the discussion takes precedence over the objective merits of one side or another". Ultimately I think the ledger sheet reflects far more positive than negative comes from these forums and as younger generations turn more and more frequently to the internet for information it makes sense that this is where a lot of the cultural changes in this business will play out.

While not a practitioner of ethology based training, I am a byproduct of it and there's no question that practitioners of it have had success with it for decades. Let's face it, when something doesn't work it simply doesn't have a decades old shelf life, however it has been brought into the light of day, exposed to high definition and like the news anchor's complexion on your plasma TV, not as flawless as we once thought. Early on in my career I was impressed to read that the many of the brightest minds in our field, individuals who could be forgiven for having a healthy ego, were instead open minded to emerging techniques. It was an epiphany for me and I'm glad in hindsight it happened early on. I took from it a healthy disregard for zealotry. None of us should be so self absorbed as to think we've got this completely figured out; a lot of good headway's been made but like any other science this field is evolving.

This latest chapter in this evolution is “Positive Reinforcement Training”. Even casual observers of positive reinforcement based training will note there is no monolithic doctrine. There is a discourse amongst the very best in our field about what defines the “do no harm” approach and how it's realized in a practical setting. Frankly I'd be disappointed if there wasn't one. It was the stagnant state of affairs that could be blamed for a polarized mindset that exists on both sides of the training spectrum; the “Pinch Collar for Every Dog” and the “Throw Treats at Every Problem” schools respectively. In engineering, flexibility is fundamentally important for large structures to prevent catastrophic failure under extreme circumstances. I believe that same dynamic applies with respect to the training of dogs and I predict the science will bare this notion out in time. As a practical matter training is best governed by common sense and science. I think it's imperative that the training community embrace their responsibility to educate the dog owners they're working with. To make it about the dogs and their human counterparts. The most profound training moments in my career have happened quietly in people's homes where the likelihood of it sticking, of being meaningful is at it's highest. Our ability to access various training scenarios honestly evaluate our individual ability to address them and stay abreast of training theory are fundamental to that cause. Dog owners are not without some responsibility in this process. I'm vetted every time I conduct an evaluation. Dog owners should feel confident about their veterinarian, they're groomers and their trainers. Some red flags dog owners can keep an eye out for? At the risk of appearing self serving, reject training “guarantees” or boasts of “can train any dog”, that's the stuff of circus carnies not responsible, self aware dog trainers. I've got nothing against circus carnies but there's a lot more at stake when you're training a dog than a giant, stuffed ,blue panda. Dog's are not autonomous creatures; assuming you can predict their every whim is just foolish. Assuming you cannot makes for a more realistic approach, it might even give would-be dog owners a reason to reconsider whether they're cut out for dog ownership in the first place. Dr. Dunbar's Dog Star Daily website has a link to a compelling podcast on the subject HERE. Give it a listen, it's very sobering.

When I sat down to flesh this post out, I knew I was going to take a stab at a subject that was the proverbial hornet nest. I hoped my thoughts at this point would coalesce into something that would bring some clarity to the debate but I find myself conflicted about it myself at times. For example: A training scenario that has a dog rescued from a gas chamber in the deep south. It's found it's way with the help of a rescue group to a nice home here in Rhode Island. The dog owner is struggling with aggression issues that were not seen or perhaps revealed by the rescue group. After several weeks of counter conditioning, the dog is not responding to non-aversive techniques to curb it's aggression issues. I could be criticized as lacking the skill required to execute a non-aversive approach with that particular dog, fair enough. There are however scenarios where, without a change in a particular dog's behavior the long term prospects for that dog are in jeopardy. Those situations unfold from time to time, that's just the way it is. What if positive punishment/negative reinforcement, as a means to graduate to positive reinforcement/negative punishment yielded the desired effect? Are they mutually exclusive as some schools of thought allow for? For now, those scenarios are few and far between but when they do come about I've been inclined to do precisely that, so far with positive results. I'm not trying to break new ground, not even pontificate. These are tough situations that sometimes call for pragmatic solutions and while I don't count these amongst my most profound training moments I take some comfort in knowing that dog's on steadier ground than it was before the lesson. Are the hornets buzzing around my head yet?

Reality Check

For many professionals, e.g. teachers, lawyers, medical professionals; individuals must have a degree and pass a certification test in order to practice in their chosen field. Dog training is, by comparison, the wild, wild, west. No test (not yet anyway) is required, and of course dog owners are left having to do the vetting. I'm not editorializing, that's the way it is and while there are a number of certification programs available for dog trainers to distinguish themselves by, the CPDT-KA ("Certified Professional Dog Trainer, Knowledge Accessed", say that ten times fast.) program is amongst the most well known. Trainers who want to take the test have to qualify, meeting certain minimum requirements including hours spent as a head trainer and endorsements from a veterinarian, colleague and client. It's an unusual system that takes into account the nature of this professional beast. I've wanted to take the test for years but never had the time to focus on preparing for it. 2009 was a terrific year despite all my fears that the economy would ring the death knell, with dog owners tightening their belts like everyone else. This year has been a different story. With recovery seeming much farther out than most probably anticipated, the belt tightening began in earnest. Asking friends in the business it was clear that things hadn't slowed down only for me. So there were no more excuses. The only question was whether to take the test in a couple of weeks or a couple of months. Things can change a great deal in a couple of months and while it would've given me more time to study, I threw caution to the wind and scheduled to take the test sooner rather than later a few short weeks ago on September 17th.

I felt good coming out of the test. I'd finished it with an hour to spare. My strategy was to answer all of the 250 questions I had quick answers to first and return to the remaining questions in order once that was done. I returned home confident that I'd passed it but learned Saturday afternoon that I'd failed by two questions. The test is skewed heavily for group trainers though the questions only require a healthy amount of common sense to answer correctly. There were questions with answers I didn't prepare adequately for, Kinesthetic learning for example, one of those things I'm aware of but knew no formal name for. Parsimony is a different story however, an idea I know as Occam's Razor, parsimony poses that the simplest answer is most likely the correct one. As the saying goes, "I got robbed on that one". I've got my gripes about the test, some erroneous information I received from the testing agency prior to taking it; it's sour grapes as I'm all too aware that other trainers who work the way I do have cleared the same hurtles I have and passed the test. Instead, after imbibing a couple of potent cocktails and some wound licking, I assert myself with renewed humility and a sense of earnestness. The people in this business I respect most share some compelling similarities. They are first and foremost, thoughtful and intelligent. They are both passionate and humble, understanding that like all science, there is much yet to learn.

So there it is. I'm outing myself. I've been measured and been found wanting. There is a loud, annoying, voice in the dog training world that would suggest the CCPDT is no way to judge whether someone is a good trainer or not. On it's own, and certainly given the qualifying aspect of the test itself, it would appear that is self evident. In what other profession does an individual actually work hundreds of document-able hours before they can qualify to be certified? As an old friend once responded to the question, "Who are you to judge?" he said, "Someone's got to judge, it might as well be me." The CCPDT does not appear to my amassing an army of trainer automatons so I'm comfortable with being judged by this particular group of peers. In the meantime, it's time to hit the books. The next time someone asks me to define "Parsimony", I'll know the goddamn answer.

You've Got A Friend

Fifteen years ago, Sue and I made the decision to move into our first apartment together. It was the second floor of a home in Taunton owned by the Dunn family who lived on the first floor. Rich and Linda were the best; accommodating, friendly and as it turned out, breeders of Miniature Pinschers. We'd talked about getting a dog but when we saw Mia, some six weeks into her gestation period (full term for dogs is 8-9 weeks) it seemed like fate. Linda liked the idea of one of her puppies living just upstairs, we liked the idea of a small breed dog. This is where some of you might be saying, "Isn't Jim big on adopting dogs from shelters and isn't he wary of so called back yard breeders?" This is true and this was fifteen years ago; I've learned quite a lot since then. Due diligence was not on the menu, this was impulsive. I'd once heard that most people can summarize their lives down to eight critical decisions. In hindsight, this was one of them.

If you've gotten this far and thought, "Fifteen? This must be an eulogy." I'm very glad to say it is not. Louie remains lively and happy. This entry is a tribute to my most unappreciated dog and oldest canine friend, as we call him "Lou Lou". Sue and I had both had dogs growing up but we were the farthest thing from experts. Nevertheless, we did one thing right and that was to bring Louie up for some face time starting at about 3 weeks old right up until 8 weeks when he came upstairs to stay. He'd come up for 20 - 30 minutes at a time. Developmentally, 3-16 weeks of age is referred to as the Critical Period. It's marked by development of the dog's nervous system and, as it's suggested by it's name, a critical time in a dog's life when their brains are "programming" for the world around them. We were bonding and easing the transition from his life with mother Mia and his litter mates to life with Sue and me.

Louie (aka "Big Lou") was a tiny little potato with fur as a puppy. He loved walks at nearby Massasoit State Park but was a bit of a grouch, snarling and grumbling to express his disgust at wearing a winter coat, brushing his teeth or clipping his nails. Tempering our image of him as a malcontent were those times when he'd cuddle up with Sue and fall into a deep sleep on her chest. It was very sweet.

About a year later Linda was breeding Mia again with the same sire. We took a little longer to consider our second dog (5 minutes vs. 3 minutes) but the Dunn's were again receptive to the idea. We chose the runt with a bald spot on his head. Keeping with the prohibition era influence, we named Louie's brother "Floyd". They were thick as thieves from the start apparently aware that they were kin. Louie's temperament mellowed considerably with Floyd's arrival. Having a canine foil to play, cuddle and walk with was just the ticket. They were inseparable, sleeping with each other, scrapping, eating together, walks in the park. The brotherly love between them was endearing and deep. Sadly, regrettably, this would be short lived.

Early the following summer Linda and Rich let us know they wanted to take back the second floor of the house. Their kids were growing up and it had become cramped quarters for them with just the first floor alone. We'd planned to begin looking for a home the following year once we'd saved for a down payment. Suddenly we were scrambling to find one right there and then. In hindsight we'd been pushed into what will likely be the best buyer's market in my lifetime. This was was prior to the bubble so prices were low and interest rates were very aggressive. We settled in the same home we live in now; nestled in a working class neighborhood near what is now my son's school and Warwick City Park where we walked Louie and Floyd so they'd have a chance to check out where they'd soon be living. A few weeks before the closing I was letting Floyd out to pee in the pen Rich had put up for all of our dogs on the side of the house. Once he'd finished I opened the pen to pick him up and bring him back in the house. What I would do to have that moment back again. This would become the reason I push the dog owners I work with to leash their dogs whenever they're outside with them. Behind me in the bushes was a feral cat. I hadn't seen him but Floyd did. He squirmed out of my hands and chased the cat into the street. Sue was around the corner and screamed, "Noooooo!!!" Screeching tires, "Oh no!, Oh my god, Jim!" The cat had made it safely across the street into a nearby cemetery. Floyd had been hit by a passing pick up truck. This happened 13 years ago, it remains painful to think about. It was preventable. This was my fault. Floyd was not killed by the impact but was severely injured. We rushed him to Dr. Mike Bruzzi at Dighton Rehoboth Animal Hospital. Mike's a terrific old school vet and we'd still be going to him now if he weren't so far away. He stabilized Floyd so we could catch our breath and discuss our options. Mike felt Floyd could recover but that he needed to see the specialists at Tufts. What followed were two weeks of visits back and forth to spend time with Floyd while the team there, led by Dr. Dorothy Michaels, worked with Floyd to keep him stable and sedated while he healed from the trauma. Floyd had suffered a spinal injury and the prognosis was for a long rehab with limited activity that we would have to closely monitor. Late into Floyd's second week at Tufts we received a call from Dr. Michaels. During the night, Floyd experienced an intestinal obstruction, something they hadn't seen. He'd passed away and I knew it hadn't happened peacefully. There are a handful of moments in my life when I've been reduced to inconsolable wailing. This was one of them, and it was for Sue as well. Dr. Michaels asked that we come up one last time both for some closure and to make final plans. Sue couldn't bear to see him now that he'd passed, I had to. Again, upon seeing him, I was struck with waves of sadness, regret and guilt. I wanted Louie's brother Floyd back but he was gone. When you work for someplace like Tufts, it's incumbent to develop a thick emotional skin. Things like this happen frequently, it's going to take it's toll if you don't. Nevertheless Dr. Michaels was right there with us, sharing in our grief. I don't know how she does it frankly but I'm grateful she was there for us. After a long gray ride back home, Louie jumped up on the couch clearly aware on some level that something was terribly wrong and doing his best to console us. I'd loved Louie from the moment I'd seen him born to today, October 1st, 2010 his fifteenth birthday but at that moment I had a new appreciation for him, for dogs in a broader sense.

There was no time to languish in this tragedy, we had to keep things in motion for the move that was just two weeks out. In the midst of all of this Sue and I worried that Louie, who had mellowed so dramatically with Floyd around, would revert back to Louie the Grouch. We began to look for a small breed dog, not wanting to pair him with a larger dog for fear of a physical mismatch. Again, my relative ignorance coming into play, preoccupied with size like two boxers at the scales before a fight. Temperament would and remains a wiser preoccupation. Our search brought us to a breeder in Exeter, RI who had a litter of Jack Russell Terriers. Another one of those "eight decisions", hooo boy! There was one puppy left, a fat little white puffball that had been overlooked for some reason. Sue and I were quickly vetted. Young couple, no children, fenced in yard, check, check, check. We'd brought Louie with us to get his impression of this puppy. I'd describe him as indifferent and their first meeting passed without incident. The calm before the storm. We brain stormed for a name, I can't recall all of ones that we passed on but when I said, "How about Archie?" well, sometimes you just know. That was his name, it couldn't be anything else. Understandably, the bond between these two was not immediate and has never been as obvious or deeply felt as the one Lou had with his brother but as the idea for this post struck me, Louie has always made the first effort to ease into friendships with the other dogs we've brought into our home. With Archie I was relieved they were getting along but I didn't

really appreciate it yet. In the years that followed, I would have my first introduction to training with my friend Ron. My son Keir was born in January 2002. While there was nothing about either of our dogs that raised any flags with respect to our new arrival, we went through the motions bringing home linens from the hospital to ease them into it. A far more thoughtful approach has been designed since then by Katenna Jones and Jane Demming, "Baby Ready Pets". Nevertheless Keir's arrival was a bright ray of warm sunshine and once again, Louie was the quintessential canine friend. Of course this relationship has proven tenuous over the years. These guys can rub each other the wrong way from time to time, of course Lou's not one to hold a grudge. If Keir's got some string cheese, Lou's doing whatever he asks him to. As a client once told me, "every dog has it's price"...indeed. When Keir was 8 months old Reno came home to live with us after I'd worked with him at the shelter for several months. Again, Louie was the first one to extend a paw of friendship. Reno's reputation at the shelter was both dog and on occasion human aggressive. Shelter environments, even the best ones, are stressful for dogs. They're immersed in an ever changing landscape of scary sounds, new dogs and people. It's hard on them and it can manifest in their behavior. Reno had introductions to Archie, Lou, Keir and Sue on neutral ground. That was a must; I had to see how everyone responded to each other. That went nicely. The real test was when he was in his new back yard. Would this hooligan make short work of Lou and Archie? That was his modus vivendi at the shelter. Ann didn't think so, neither did I or this would not have happened. As it turns out neither did Louie. Was it because he was small? Because he was neutered? I would've loved to ask Reno, as it is, I can only speculate. Reno seemed very happy to be there beneath the trees, lying on grass instead of a concrete kennel floor. Louie was quick to begin chumming around with him and in that first afternoon I snapped this picture. I couldn't wait to bring it to the shelter. It confirmed what Reno's friends at the shelter suspected was true. There was a good dog in there, a great dog as it turned out. I think on some level it gave everyone an opportunity to evaluate the dogs at the shelter with a little more perspective. I certainly did and of course this was yet another moment for Louie to show his flexibility with another new arrival. Louie and Reno remained friends until we lost Reno this past April to cancer. We were fostering Miles at the time though the dogs were not completely aware of it. To minimize stress on Reno and Archie, both very ill at the time, we played a shell game, putting our dogs behind closed doors while Miles would come up from his kennel to go outside and "commune with nature",...ahem,.. of course get some exercise and hang out. It wasn't until we'd lost Reno when we decided Miles was going to stick around. It'd been seven years since we'd brought Reno home. Louie was an old man, maybe he was too old for this shit? Archie's been rebounding the last several weeks but at the time I didn't want to subject him to a new dog. Miles had a reputation as well; for going after dogs, particularly small ones! Hoogah! What had I gotten us into? The protocol was to use baby gates during the day, kennel at night and lots and lots of leashed walks with Louie, while Archie continued to get healthier, responding to a waning dose of drugs to address what we think is Evan's Syndrome. It was habituation by osmosis and we had to be patient. The first time I let them see each other off leash, I'd invested in a muzzle for Miles. I needed to see how he'd adjust knowing he couldn't use his teeth. After going stiff, flagging and moving away, he offered a play bow. That was an eye opener. You can see the video on YouTube by clicking here. His name was still "Smiley" at the time of the post. If you watch the whole thing you'll have to forgive Archie for taking a dump a few minutes into it; no class. A few months have passed since then and it should come as no surprise that Louie took the lead to help ease Miles' transition into our family. The age difference makes for some expected friction; at fifteen, Lou's not keeping pace with a one year old JRT. Nevertheless, the muzzle's off and the baby gate's are gone. Even Archie is showing some tolerance for the new guy. Notice who's between them, keeping the peace.

When I say that Louie's the best, I say it with unapologetic bias. He's been with Sue and I through thick and thin. He jumps up on the back of the arm chair in the living room every night I come home, moaning and whining with happiness. He's still anxious to learn, still accommodating, still lively and joyful. I often say it to him when I'm scratching his chest, "You've got the heart of a lion Lou." and he does.

Talk to the Hand

Anyone who’s worked with me will tell you that I emphasize a “less is more” approach to teaching their dogs what it is they want from them. That includes certain rules like not repeating instructions; no need to say, “Sit,…sit,…sit…” unless your instruction for ‘sit’ happens to be, “Sit,…sit,…sit…” I also like to incorporate hand signals with verbal cues. There are a number of reasons for this. First, since an underlying theme of training is to cultivate more focus from your dog, hand signals give dogs a compelling reason to look at us. I imagine my dogs having an inner dialogue of sorts, “Hmmm,…pretty sure when he throws that hand up he wants me to lie down. Pretty sure if I do that some string cheese will happen.” Then “Woomp!” down they go. I’ve also found that when I’m talking on the phone and one or more of my dogs become vocal, I can give them a ‘down’ hand signal without a break in the conversation and get quiet, focused dog in a ‘down’. The least important reason (but still fun, if not indulgent) is the vanity component. Dogs that respond to both verbal and vocal cues aren’t something you see everyday at the park. It seems like something special. Recently however, I’ve become aware of another important reason for teaching both hand and vocal cues. It has to do with having a 2/3rds geriatric brood of family dogs. More on that in a minute.

Last night I was working with Mary and Eric, proud owners of Toby, a beautiful Bassett Hound they’d adopted from a Bassett Rescue organization. Toby’s issues circled around a fear aggressive response to people coming into his home. Our goal was to incorporate counter conditioning and desensitization into a regimen of basic training. It’s one thing to habituate a dog to an individual. Dogs with fear aggressive behaviors can make that adjustment fairly quickly in some cases. The real goal is to expand on that idea so that dogs with these types of issues are responding in general to anyone coming through the door in a fundamentally different way. Toby’s lesson saw a important change in the way he responded to the door with Mary and Eric taking turns responding to a knock at the door by giving Toby the opportunity to capitalize on a reward by going to a spot they’d designated for ‘down’ and ‘stay’ while they answered the door. Hand signals played a roll in this exercise since we’re emphasizing quiet vs. the loud din of a howling Bassett Hound. Mary and Eric confessed their doubts about Toby’s ability to make the right decision. He seemed happy to surprise them choosing the conditioned response they’d been teaching him over his usual unconditioned response of howling and charging the door. In the midst of this important break through Eric asked if my dogs were trained to behave this way when someone was at the door. Louie and Archie have been but Eric’s question reminded me they’d do well to have a refresher course. For Miles, new to our brood, I’d be proofing his ‘stay’ just as they’d been doing with Toby.

Bright and early this morning I commenced door training exercises, alternating Louie and Miles with Archie going solo. I wanted to take advantage of Louie’s knowledge of this behavior to yield some learned behavior for Miles who quickly began to pattern what Louie was being rewarded for. In the interest of full disclosure, Louie and Miles are acclimated to each other while Archie and Miles continue to experience each other on leashed walks and through a baby gate.

Archie, who’s health issues have been chronicled in earlier posts, has limited vision but very good hearing turned 13 years old on July 9th. Louie will be 15 years old in October and while otherwise healthy and lively has suffered some hearing loss in his later years. Herein lies my epiphany with respect to hand signals and vocal cues. Early in their lives with both good hearing and eyesight, hand signals helped keep them focused and quiet while my son Keir, then an infant, slept. Now 8 years old, I’m confident Keir could sleep through an invasion (but not a dinner bell) Louie and Archie on the other hand are adjusting to old age; their ability to respond to both vocal and visual cues has come full circle with Louie responding best to hand signals and Archie to verbal cues.

While learning to adjust to the changing needs of an aging dog(s) is often the last thing on the minds of dog owners with dogs in their prime this will be part of that dialogue thanks to a timely question. Thanks Eric.

To Err is Canine

Ten years ago I was hearing about positive reinforcement training for the first time and I have to admit that it struck me as well intentioned hubris. Correcting at the end of a leash connected to a choke chain was standard operating procedure for me and many other trainers. When I first saw my friend and fellow trainer Ron sporting a bait bag, he might just as well walked into the room dressed in bunny pajamas made by his auntie. It seemed very silly. I've learned quite a bit since then, perhaps most important of all is that there's so much still left to learn. New and intriguing ideas are emerging all the time; that keeps me on my toes and forever humble. Yesterday I worked with a young bright, Mini Aussie, "Hef". It was his 'Down/Stay' lesson, the goal for the lesson was for Hef to go to 'place', a designated spot away from the door when he heard the door bell and sit/stay. Next, he was to respond to a hand signal for 'down' from the door, stay in down while his owners took turns opening the door. The idea of establishing goals is very important. Goals give relevance to the training effort. I'm training for down/stay because I don't want my dog at the door when someone rings the bell. Goals can open a broader dialogue with dog owners about the science of training, training theory, subjectivity, etc. In this case, Hef progressed so quickly, we were able to push our established goal to emphasize going to place without excessive barking, something Hef was prone to. There are a lot of reasons why dogs bark. Experienced handlers can differentiate between a bark that's intended to communicate "go away" from one that says "Come in! Come in! Come in!". Hef's was the prior. While not unfriendly, the doorbell and what it was predictive of, was a source of stress for him. In other words the doorbell made him upset. In these cases, a quiet go to place and stay is as much about bring an end to the commotion as it is about teaching your dog to reevaluate an scenario so that it's predictive of something positive. Doorbells no longer make me upset, they make rewards happen but only when I go to place, stay, respond to a 'down' instruction and let my humans open the door. The question now was whether Hef could do the problem solving necessary to realize it was his barking that was getting in the way of getting a reward for doing the aforementioned. It's in this paradigm that positive reinforcement is so intriguing. If the reward is compelling enough, taking it out of the equation gives pause to reevaluate. Hef was asking himself "What did I do to screw that up?". If he's going to change the paradigm to one that makes the reward come back into the picture, he's got to figure out the answer to that question. It didn't take long, and while it remains a work in progress, watching Hef problem solve and be rewarded for arriving at the right conclusion is simply put, the reason I like doing this so much. Life is in part about learning from our mistakes and it seems that idea is not limited to we humans. to err is canine as well.

Miles of Smiles

For more than a year my family has grown accustomed to frequent, often weekly trips to our local vet as well as the emergency veterinary hospital and the veterinary oncology center in Massachusetts; the reasons for which have been chronicled in my last last two posts. It's been a painful process, affecting all of us in various ways. It's also been an education; throughout the process Sue diligently researched the symptoms and changing diagnosis of both Reno and Archie as well as the treatments they'd been prescribed. Several times throughout this time period we would talk to our now eight year old son Keir about what it meant to struggle with life threatening illness, about death. We worked in tandem and in earnest not to dumb it down or make light of it. That what lied after death was a mystery. These conversations, sometimes initiated by Keir, sometimes by us, were very emotional, often ending in tears and lots of hugs. During difficult times in my life I've turned to a personal journal, like many people, getting things on paper was cathartic, healing. It turns out that Keir found comfort in writing and drawing much the same way I did; writing a poem, a short story as well as drawing captioned pictures of Reno. This past week he's talked about Reno less. There are no hard fast time lines for grieving that I'm aware of but I was growing anxious that he had not found closure the way we'd hoped he would more than two weeks following Reno's passing. Some of you know that in the midst of this ordeal, Sue and I had agreed to foster "Smiley", a wired haired refugee from the flooded Warwick Shelter, for two weeks. "Our cups Run'th Over". I still haven't digested the irony of having Smiley under our roof at the same time we would lose Reno to cancer. We'd never fostered before. With a small home and three dogs we weren't the ideal candidates, but with the shelter decimated by the flood, the need was there. As it turned out, Smiley's presence had little to no impact on us or the dogs. A high strung terrier (is there any other kind) we were concerned there would be additional stress on our dogs. By cordoning them off to different parts of the house, scheduling time out to play, go for walks, etc. it all worked out.

It wasn't long after Reno slipped away that the thought occurred to me that we should consider adopting Smiley. Things had changed so dramatically at home with the loss of Reno, I worried that while Sue and I had made it clear to Keir that Smiley was only with us for two weeks; Keir had grown attached to him, that he had made it somewhat easier for Keir to cope with Reno's loss. Would handing him off re-open some wounds?
I was working with Smiley to curb his aggression issues which include resource guarding and dog/dog aggression. He'd responded in dramatic fashion to a counter conditioning approach developed by Karen Pryor and Dr. Jesus Ruiz which involves (I'll summarize this to the best of my ability) the provocation of calming signals over aggressive overtures. Still, I knew that with me typically in lessons, Sue would bare the lion's share of the additional work, shuffling the dogs back and forth, walking, feeding etc. If this was to be a viable choice, Sue would have to make the suggestion not me. It wouldn't take long. Sue, never one to shy away from hard work paired with the kindest of hearts made the suggestion that same day. We agreed to pose the idea to Keir since we felt he should begin to shoulder some of the work that would be involved in making this work for the long term. To Keir's credit he gave it careful thought before agreeing we should bring Smiley into the fold.

First order of business,...change the name. Deb Niose, who works for the Warwick Shelter and is one of the kindest people I know, had given this poor creature the handle "Smiley" for the odd "smile" he made baring his teeth when he felt threatened. Cute, but not for us. There was a problem however, he'd heard that name for several weeks and had begun to respond to it. We brainstormed for something similar that we thought would suit his diminutive British frame. He seemed like a "Buster" to me, I also liked "Hagar" remembering the old comic strip "Hagar the Horrible", the titular character sharing a beard very similar in appearance to our little guy. Finally, and I honestly can't recall who came up with it first, we arrived at "Miles". A name only one dog owner I'd worked with, Kirsten, Nick and their Standard Poodle of the same name. had ever used. It had an aristocratic flavor to it that was appropriately tongue in cheek for this little guy (not your "Miles" Kirsten, he is an aristocrat!) It sounded enough like "Smiley" that we thought it would be easier for him to adapt to so, "Miles" as he's now known, is officially a member of our family. There's a lot of work to be done; the food guarding appears so far to have dissipated, though we remain watchful and cautious. Acclimating him to the other dogs is a slow deliberate process of controlled exposure. The opposite of "Familiarity breeds Contempt" thought process. He goes on daily walks with Louie. Archie, who's activity level is pragmatic at best having lost so much of his eyesight as well as having restricted exposure to sunlight (a side effect of the drug treatment) has become aware of Miles' presence through a baby gate as well as from the other side of a crate. The process will expand to other avenues as seems appropriate, patience and diligence being the main ingredients as well as fodder for future posts. For now, we once again grateful to the Warwick Shelter for the gift of another great dog.

RENO

Today I held my dear friend Reno, with my head to his chest, and listened as he drew his last breath, as his mighty heart thumped it's last beat. It is powerful, to be with someone you love with all your heart and feel them slip away. Within two weeks of learning what had happened to Archie, a mass on Reno's foot that started looking like a harmless bug bite had grew exponentially. Tests revealed that mast cells, normally a component of a healthy immune system, had become cancerous. Sue and I were referred to the New England Veterinary Oncology Group in nearby Massachusetts. Chemotherapy began in earnest a month ago. Two weeks later we learned it was ineffective and the treatment was altered. His appetite slipped almost immediately, then, this past Saturday morning at about 2:30AM, we heard him wandering restlessly around the bedroom. I turned the light on to find that his tumor had begun to hemorrhage terribly. Sue and I worked together to change the dressing, control the bleeding and clean things up. The next morning we got him to his vet, Dr. Patricia Ader. She and her staff worked throughout the weekend to stabilize him. It was possible the chemotherapy was doing what it was supposed to, killing the tumor, we became hopeful, optimistic; it’s always darkest before the dawn.

Emotions are hard to keep in check when your dog is facing a life threatening illness. Our dogs are members of our family, but while euthanasia remains at best controversial with respect to humans, it is all too often the last act of kindness available to pet owners. Quality of life, cost of care, prognosis, all factor in when making decisions on behalf of our dogs. We had our eight year old son Keir to think about as well. How would he deal with the loss should it come?

Sunday afternoon I called my good friend Ann Corvin for some perspective. She’s been there from the start with sage advise and great perspective, I feel very fortunate to count her amongst my friends.

It was nearly eight years ago that I walked into the Warwick Animal Shelter for the first time as a volunteer. Ann was the shelter keeper, now the director. I was going to hone my skills as a trainer working with shelter dogs. Who was going to be my first dog? Reno was amongst the first dogs I considered; peering into his kennel he stared back at me with a look that said, “You might want to skip me buddy” I chose a fairly harmless looking beagle mix named “Snoopy”,…Snoopy promptly bit be on my forearm. I had a lot to learn. When I mustered the fortitude to work with Reno, I was immediately impressed with his intelligence. How did this dog end up at the pound? I knew nothing. Dogs like Reno are so often misunderstood. He was a stray, most likely allowed to simply walk away. Maybe he’d growled at another dog, perhaps the other family dog. We’ll never know. No one had ever come in to claim him. His first experience with humans was to be let down. For the first few months I worked with Reno frequently, teaching him some basic commands, modifying his aggression towards other dogs. I thought, this is a beautiful dog. If the right person sees me working with him he’ll get snapped up in no time. The months passed; he’d been there for nearly a year. Reno was so strong but life at the shelter was taking it’s toll on him and no one was showing interest.

I talked to Sue about him. Keir was only eight months old, Louie and Archie were two small to be a match should he turn his aggression on them. It wasn’t the smart thing to do, but Sue knew it was only a matter of time before I brought home a dog from the shelter. After an introduction on neutral ground went without incident or concern, we brought Reno home. There’s so much I could say about him, he found his way into our family so quickly, there was no looking back. It’s been an inspiring adventure ever since.

Reno has been a prince. Good to his core and intelligent beyond measure. I feel remarkably fortunate to have known him. Like Archie, he’s taught me so much. He’s been mischievous, funny, courageous and a great, great friend. Some of you will remember him as the dog I’d bring to lessons to gauge your efforts at modifying issues of aggression. In that light he was a teacher. At once an example of what is possible and an inspiration to dog owners to do the hard work necessary to curb aggressive behavior.

At 1PM this afternoon, on the advice of Dr. Ader, he was transferred to Ocean State Veterinary for a transfusion. He’d lost so much blood to hemorrhaging, however, the vets there felt the tissue damage to his forepaw was too great. The likelihood that there was enough healthy tissue their to make it through the gauntlet of chemotherapy, surgery and radiation was poor and so to was any hope for quality of life.

A strange thing happened as Dr. McAllister came into the exam room to discuss Reno’s prognosis. Time slowed; amidst the various and likely scenarios that included words like “sepsis” and “necrotic” and “amputation” I heard what Ann had said to me the day before. That there were no right answers. I’d been relying on the expertise of a team of vets in two states, and despite their efforts, my friend was suffering,…needlessly. I also recalled a conversation I’d had with my friend Ron who only months ago had been faced with the same decision for his wonderful dog Kaiser. That the decision is ultimately easy when you know your friend’s suffering has gone on too long. I was ready to let Reno go. It was up to me and to Sue to decide that he’d had enough. So I said it, I interrupted Dr. McAllister to tell her I thought it was time to let him go.

Sue was waiting outside with Keir. She walked towards me, she knew. We agreed she'd go inside to say goodbye while I talked to Keir about what was going to happen. It was hard for him, he was angry and terribly sad. Sue returned 10 minutes later, we hugged and I went in to be with my friend one last time. The staff there gave me time to be alone with him. I don't know how aware he was of what was to come. I told him that I loved him, I'd remember him forever, that I was honored to have him as a friend. He rested his head against me giving me one last lick. The vet came in, and, assured we'd had enough time, began the injection. Reno slipped away while I held him. I'll never forget him. Keir's still angry and confused. I wish I could make it easier for him.

Life sometimes manifests itself in unique and wonderful ways. Carl Sagan remarked once that life was the Universe's way of knowing itself. I like that idea. It rings true. The next several days are going to be hard. I want the Universe to give Reno back to us as he was nearly eight years ago. Beyond that, grief will give way to gratitude for the great time we had together. I don't know what happens after this, our life here on earth. Wherever Reno is, his family loved him enough to let him go.

I want to thank all my friends and family who called to check in on Archie and Reno. In particular I'm grateful to Ann and Ron for their insight.