Lindsay Wood and Alexandra Horowitz

I got lucky.

Lindsay Wood, the Director of Animal Training and Behavior at the Human Society of Boulder Valley (HSBV) (Read Lindsay’s bio here. She’s amazing!), has been observing and assisting Nan Arthur, our instructor, in the Karen Pryor Academy class in which Sadie and I are enrolled. Final assessments are today Monday, September 26. Yikes!

A few weeks ago I signed up too late to attend a very special HSBV event: Lindsay interviewing her beloved mentor, Alexandra Horowitz of Inside of A Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know fame, in the style of James Lipton of Inside the Actors Studio, another favorite.

I was wait-listed. Not surprisingly the event filled to capacity in a matter of hours of it being announced.

I heard Alexandra speak for the first time last year at APDT in Atlanta. I didn’t want her to stop talking. She’s eloquent, evocative, charming, empathic, and very, very smart. (Alexandra’s currently a professor at Barnard College. Read about her and her work at the Canine Cognition Lab here.)

During lunch at the previous week-end KPA class that preceded the interview by a few days, Lindsay fretted about what questions to ask and how to ask them. While I understood her stage fright, I knew Lindsay had nothing to worry about. She’s one of the most poised women I’ve ever met.

I dissed myself for dilly-dallying instead of registering.

Then manna landed in my inbox. At the last minute, someone cancelled and I was next in line. I accepted the invitation and hit ‘reply.’

I arrived early to attend a reception in Alexandra’s honor where I enjoyed champagne and a dash of dishing about the dog world with Roxanne Hawn and Hilary Lane, two blogging buddies I hadn’t seen in ages.

Lindsay and Alexandra were delightful together–mutually admiring student and professor, sharing thoughts and reflections about the love of their lives—dogs. The interview was pitch-perfect.

The easy ebb and flow of their conversation carried me along. Then, over halfway through the interview, I had a V-8 moment. I could have been blogging about this!

I’ve been so out of blogging mode since the beginning of the KPA course in May, I forgot to take my laptop. I didn’t even have a pen. I had to borrow one in order to write a few notes in the margins of the program.

Let’s begin at the end. You might be familiar with James Lipton’s now famous ten questions with which he concludes every interview. Lindsay did the same with Alexandra. Unfortunately, I remember only two of the questions—Alexandra’s answer to the first one is Lindsay’s personal favorite. Alexandra’s reply to the second one is mine.

“What is your favorite word?”

“Pumpernickel.”

Pumpernickel, or Pump for short, was Alexandra’s dog who lovingly graced many pages in Inside of a Dog.

“What is your favorite sound?”

“My dog snuffling as he smells my face when I come home.”

It doesn’t get more onomatopoetic than that. I wish Sadie was a snuffler, but, alas, she is not.

Lipton doesn’t ask this question, but I’m glad Lindsay did: What is the biggest fallacy in our understanding of dogs?

“That dogs form hierarchical packs and you need to be on top.”

On dogs having a theory of mind:

Alexandra watched hours of dogs at play in slow motion (30 frames per second) for her dissertation.

“Dogs do just enough attention getting behavior to get the attention of the other dog. They match their attention getting behavior to the status of the other dog.”

“What a dog is communicating to another dog, and what the other dog seems to understand: ‘Whatever I say is untrue because I just did a play-bow, so if I bite or growl, it’s just play. I didn’t really mean it.’”

In research with Marc Bekoff, she identified “atmospheric” cues between dogs. “Dogs do a play-bow before a hip slam. This suggests the dog is communicating to another mind, that of the other dog.”

For more on Alexandra’s thoughts on dogs having a theory of mind and her critique of the research I wrote about in the previous two blog posts – here and here – read this by Alexandra, “Theory of Mind in Dogs? Examining method and concept.”

On anthropomorphisms:

“We should not reject anthropomorphisms out of hand, but consider them hypotheses worthy of investigation.” (See Alexandra’s research on the ‘guilty look’ here and “Naturalizing Anthropomorphism: Behavioral Prompts to Our Humanizing of Animals,” an article she co-authored with Marc Bekoff.)

My favorite quote:

“We need to be asking: What is the problem for my dog? Not: What is the problem for ME? Why is my dog not heeling on the left? Why does she keep going to the right? Maybe there are better smells on the right. Maybe the dog is right pawed. Just as with most people, most dogs have a preferred paw.”

Every time I listen to Alexandra speak, I’m left with this desire: I want what she has. I want to intelligently and empathically imagine myself into the inside of my dog.

The bad news?

The good news? I’m glad I didn’t post on Thursday. Yesterday I received my July issue of Whole Dog Journal in which Pat Miller covers highlights from the recent 21st conference of Professional Animal Behavior Associates (PABA), May 14-15, 2011 at the University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario. The theme of the entire conference was “Exploring the Dog’s Mind”!

Check out Pat’s article, “How Do Dog’s Show Emotions: Some thoughts on — and recognition of — canine cognition and emotions.”

That fits nicely with our current theme here at The Wag–canine cognition and more.

Last week I promised links to institutes around the world where scholars are researching canine cognition. If you know of any I missed, please leave a comment with a link to the lab or institute!

Here they are in no particular order:

Max Planck Institute (Leipzig, Germany)

For a number of reasons, the domestic dog (Canis familiaris) is a very interesting model for investigating different questions regarding the evolution of cognitive abilities. The fact that dogs have been living with humans for at least 15.000 years may have led to the selection of cognitive abilities by humans or even the co-evolution of dogs’ cognitive abilities with those of humans… . Our research with dogs focuses on the following topics: Human-dog communication; Visual perspective taking; Social learning; Meta-cognitive abilities; Physical cognition.

If you click on the Dog Studies badge (above) you’ll go to the main site for the Max Planck Institute where you will find links to research papers by Dr. Juliane Kaminski, who was featured in the BBC documentary, “The Secret Life of the Dog,” among many other luminaries.

University of Florida Canine Cognition and Behavior Lab (Gainesville, Florida)

Here at the University of Florida we are setting out to answer questions about the behavior and abilities of domestic dogs. Domestic dogs share a unique relationship with humans and through scientific investigation we can gain a better understanding of the characteristics and behaviors that make dogs mans best friend. We are interested in many areas of canine behavior and cognition including: Responsiveness to human gestures; sensitivity to attentional state; social behavior and development; imitation and social learning; modes of communication; human-canine interaction; learning and discrimination; temperament; and problem solving, among others.

Click here for a list of publications by Dr. Monique Udell, Dr. Clive Wynne and others.

Duke Canine Cognition Center (Duke University, Durham, North Carolina)

The Duke Canine Cognition Center (DCCC) is dedicated to the study of dog psychology.  Our goal is to understand the flexibility and limitations of dog cognition.  In doing so, we gain a window into the mind of animals as well as the evolution of our own species.  We can also apply our knowledge of dog cognition to improving programs in which dogs are bred and trained to help humans (i.e. service dogs for the disabled, etc.). We study dog cognition by inviting dog owners living in the vicinity of Duke University (Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill) to volunteer their pet dog(s) to play fun problem solving games where they can win treats (food or toys).

Click here for publications by Dr. Brian Hare and others.

Clever Dog Lab (University of Vienna, Austria)

Domestic dogs, since their divergence from wolves about 15,000 years ago, have become an integral part of the human communities. They are not only reared but also selected and bred to cooperate and communicate with humans, to predict their behaviour and to learn from them. For those outstanding collaborative capacities in dogs, that distinguish them from other animals, there may be three possible sources:

·      Firstly, they may have inherited a tendency for cooperative and synchronous behaviour from theirwolf-like ancestors… .This ability might have enabled them to easily adapt to their new, human social groups.

·      Secondly, during the course ofdomestication, dogs seem to have developed novel capabilities… which enable them to engage in cooperative and communicative situations with humans … .

·      Thirdly, in their individual life, dogs typically gain experiences and are trained to act cooperatively and in adaptation to human behaviour.

Research at the Clever Dog Lab aims at studying the problem-solvingand learning abilities of dogs, their perception of the environment and their relationships to humans.

Maybe you recall the study about “inequity aversion” in dogs. Scholars at the Clever Dog Lab collaborated with others at the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution & Cognition Research (Altenberg, Austria) on that study. You can read it here.

The Family Dog Project was established in 1994 as the first research group dedicated to investigate the evolutionary and ethological foundations of dog-human relationship.

The project was initiated by Professor Emeritus Vilmos Csányi together with Antal Dóka, Ádám Miklósi, and József Topál at the Department of Ethology at the Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary.

We hypothesised that dogs have evolved to survive in the anthropogenic environment, and our investigations aim at revealing the contribution of humans and dogs to this long-standing partnership. Thus we are not interested solely in the mental abilities of dogs but in all aspects of human and dog behaviour that have strengthened this bond, and may even expand it further. Surprisingly, in our experience this research does not only reveal important insights on dogs but also on us, people. …

Topics of major interest:

• Acoustic communication
• Artificial companions
• Attachment and social relationships
• Personality
• Social cognition
• Physical cognition
• Social learning
• Visual communication
• Wolf-dog comparisons

This is a terrific  site! Click on any of the links above for research articles in pdf format.

That’s it for this week! Enjoy!

Whew!

I finished my KPA writing assignment on cueing, in which I suggested solutions to Polly’s perplexing problem with her peripatetic parrot, just in time to meet my self-imposed Weekly Wag publishing deadline.

Be forewarned, it’s geek week at the Wag.

Last week I pointed you to a study by Monique Udell and her colleagues at the University of Florida in which they argued that dogs’ abilities to understand human communication is learned rather than a capacity that dogs are born with due to thousands of years of living along side humans during which dogs were domesticated. By the way, did you know that dogs, or proto-dogs, were the very first animal that humans domesticated? Is that cool or what?

Anyway, among those who take the latter viewpoint is Brain Hare of Duke University Canine Cognition Lab, as many of you probably know. What I’ve been wondering is what Brain and his colleagues think about Monique’s et al’s. research. I love intellectual back and forth among experts in their fields, especially this one ’cause it’s all about dogs! So much can be learned when scholars challenge each others assumptions, methods and interpretations of data.

Well, guess what? I found an article by Brian Hare, et al., that specifically addresses some research that Monique and her colleagues conducted. It’s entitled: “The domestication hypothesis for dog’s skills with human communication: a response to Udell et al (2008) and Wynne et al. (2008).”

Even if the statistics are weed-thick for some, they were for me, there’s still a lot to be gained from Brian’s et al’s. analysis of Udell’s and Wynne’s research methods and findings. Udell and Wynne were kind enough to give Brain and his colleagues their raw data which Brain, et al., re-analyzed. Interestingly, though, perhaps not surprisingly, they arrived at different conclusions from Udell and Wynne,

In the article Brain and his colleagues conclude, among other things, that:

Therefore, even if learning plays a role in the development of these skills, this does not mean that the domestication hypothesis is totally incorrect, or that richer cognitive explanations of dogs’ skills are not warranted.

There’s amazing research going on all over the world on canine learning and cognition, canine/human communication, teasing out the effects of thousands of years of domestication, and more.

I’m gathering a list of the research institutes and links to some of their published research. I’ll share that with you next week.

In the meantime, gotta get back to putting three cues under stimulus control. Lucky for me, Sadie is an eager, tail-wagging happy, forgiving learner.

Welcome to the Boulder Dog Weekly Wag

I’m in a quandary and the Weekly Wag is my solution.

You see I jumped from the frying pan of Chicken Camp with Bob Bailey last month into the fire of the Karen Pryor Academy (KPA) which began last week-end and continues through September. Fortunately, I’m not a chicken, so my leap from pan to fire was not fatal, on the contrary, it’s been exhilarating!

If you’ve heard that KPA is an intense, all-consuming learning experience, you’ve heard right! Sadie and I are having a blast learning together. We are totally devoted to our studies—-which brings me to my predicament. I simply cannot maintain a blog and be in school at the same time, unless I give up having some semblance of a life which includes providing Sadie with her daily ration of fun and walks; exercise for myself so I can stay fit enough to keep up with Sadie; and sleep. I’m one of those unfortunate souls that needs her z’s.

Since I am not an easy, breezy blogger—every post typically takes hours and more hours—writing original posts several times a week is not an option for the next several months. Still, I want to stay in touch with you. But how?

Since I enjoy spending some of my down time wandering around cyberspace bumping into cool stuff about dogs, I’ll point you to some of my favorite finds in the Boulder Dog Weekly Wag. That’s my workaround. I can stay in touch without creating original content. Hopefully, I’ll offer up links that you, well most of you, haven’t already seen. Please let me know how I’m doing on that front.

Okay, let’s get on with the first installment of the Boulder Dog Weekly Way.

Electric fences for boundary training? Nooooooooo!

I probably would have missed Leonard Cecil‘s announcement on FaceBook about a new article he posted on his website, +R/-P Dog Resource WebPage, about how to boundary train your dog without using those awful electric fences, except that the topic and the author, Steve Benjamin just happened to have come up in our Karen Pryor workshop. Nan Arthur, our instructor, responded to some questions about electric fences by, among other things, referring us to Steve’s work. Go here and here for two terrific articles on boundary training your dog using positive reinforcement.

Do dogs have a theory of mind?

Some say “yes,” others say “not so much.” Some of you might remember Monique Udell’s presentation of her research at last year’s APDT conference in Atlanta. She’s clearly in the “not so much” camp. Her research was recently published in Learning and Behavior under the title: “Can your dog read your mind? Understanding the causes of canine perspective taking.” You can read the abstract here (and purchase the entire journal article). Science Daily published a synopsis of Monique’s research on June 9, 2011 titled: Canine Connection: Study Explores How Dogs Think and Learn About Human Behavior.

Fun Video

You’ve seen those time-lapse videos of flowers growing and blossoming in which weeks of mother nature’s work is compressed into seconds. Well check out this German Shepherd growing big and then small again.

It’s that time of year again!

Let’s get the preliminaries out of the way before I tell you about the four blogs I’m nominating and how you can too, if you choose.

What are the Petties?

The Petties are sponsored by Dog Time. These are the only blogging awards that exclusively recognize excellence in pet blogging. Go here to read about the Petties and to nominate your favorite blogs.

When are the Petties awarded?

The Pettie Awards are handed out during a gala event at annual Blog Paws Conference. This year the conference is in, near actually, Washington, D.C., September 25-27, 2011. (You don’t have to be present at the conference to win!)

If you’re a pet blogger and you’ve never been to a Blog Paws conference, well, you gotta go. I attended both conferences last year. You can read my posts about my experiences here, here, here, and here.

I’m so disappointed that I won’t be able to attend this year’s conference. I haven’t yet perfected the art being in two places at once, and the other place I have to be is at the third, in a series of four, on-site Karen Pryor Academy training week-end workshops here in Boulder with Nan Arthur.

Four Blogs I’m Nominating for Best Dog Blog

I don’t have to tell you there are a gazillion fabulous pet blogs orbiting in cyberspace. Nearly everyone of them deserves a nomination. But, as is so often the case, time and space, and especially time now that I’m enrolled in KPA, are very limited. Our first on-site workshop is tomorrow and Monday and Sadie and I have some serious behavior polishing to do.

By the way, you can nominate as many pet blogs as you like. After nominations close, the blogs with the most nominations will then become the “official” nominees and then you’ll be able to vote for the blog of your choice.

For each blog you want to nominate you’ll need to go the the Dog Time Petties Nomination Page.

Once you’re on the page, for each blog you will need the:

1. Blog name
2. Blog url
3. Nominee’s email.

Just click on the blog names below and you’ll be taken to the blog and it’s url.

Drum roll please!

• Dog Lover’s Digest. Kevin Meyers is smart, funny and on-point. He writes about all things dog and human. He’s especially delightful when looking at humans from a dog’s point of view. I love reading his posts. Kevin’s email address is: kevin@dogloversdigest.com. (I’ve listed Kevin’s email with his permission.)

• Fearful Dogs Blog. Debbie Jacob’s blog is the best bar none about fearful dogs. Debbie’s posts are insightful, empathic, funny and educational. If you have fearful dog, Debbie will speak right to your heart. As for an email, there is none listed that I could find on her blog or website. But, she does have a contact page. Go here, send her a message telling her you want to nominate her blog and you need her email. Tell her I sent you.

• Something Wagging Comes This Way Pamela might be new to the doggie blogging world, but she’s made a big plash! She and her Golden, Honey, are the heroines of this blog in which Pamela chronicles life and lessons learned from loving a dog. And, I might add, Pamela is an excellent writer! You’ll need her email address if you choose to nominate Something Wagging, so click here and leave a comment letting Pamela know why you need her address. You can also tell Pamela I sent you.

• Will My Dog Hate Me Edie Jarolims’s blog is pitch-perfect! Not only is Edie a terrific writer, she takes on tough issues in the dog world with integrity and forthrightness. And, she’s funny. And, she has a dog named Frankie whose over-the-top sweet mug graces the header of Edie’s blog. One of my favorite series is “Pet Adoption Videos that Don’t Make Me Want to Kill Myself.” Here’s an email address you can use if you nominate this blog. It’s on her professional writers website info@ediejarolim.com.

I hope you are having a great summer, that is if you’re not wilting in the heat that is roasting and steaming the east. Which reminds me, I need to change my header image. There is no snow in Boulder in June. But that little chore is going to have to wait.

Sadie and I have homework to do!

From the cover of "Dog Sense" by John Bradshaw

I just returned from Chicken Camp in Sweden. Bob Bailey‘s admonition to us novice chicken trainers—Remember. You are bigger, you are stronger, you are smarter than the chicken!—is still careening through my cranium. (For those of you who have never heard of Chicken Camp, you might be wondering why anyone would have to be so reminded. For those of you who have heard about, or who have attended, Chicken Camp, well, you know that when you are in the thick of it Bob isn’t stating the obvious.)

Still foggy from jet lag, I was listening to NPR today while fumbling with an unyielding package that contained a book I had ordered. I felt like I was anxiously opening a birthday present because I couldn’t remember what I had bought pre-Chicken Camp. What surprise waited inside?

Finally I liberated the book from its hermetically sealed wrapper when I heard Terry Gross’s mellifluous voice saying, “From WHYY in Philadelphia, this is Fresh Air.” Her guest for today was John Bradshaw, the author of the book I was holding in my hands, Dog Sense: How the new science of dog behavior can make you a better friend to your pet!

You’re right. I should read a book before I talk about it. So I won’t suggest you run out and buy a copy of Dog Sense, although, I might, after I read it.

But, I will tell you that I think Terry’s interview with John is well worth a listen. Right out of the gate he blasts alpha dog-ma, and all that nonsense about how if you allow your dog to step through the door ahead of you you’re opening the door to being your dog’s pawn. John also said to avoid punishment and use positive reinforcement to teach dogs how to behave. He further has a lot to say about the unrealistic expectations with which we burden our dogs today, and how we can help our dogs to adjust better to how we live now.

You probably won’t agree with every point John makes. I didn’t. But, that’s okay. That just makes things interesting. In the big picture he strikes big blow to dumbinance, ah dominance, and other stupid stuff about dogs we hear on TV. Talk about a breath of fresh air!

To listen to Terry’s interview with John go here, then click on “Listen to the Full Show”.

Why did the chicken cross the road?

“Why did the chicken cross the road?”

Ralph Waldo Emerson: It didn’t cross the road; it transcended it.

Ernest Hemingway: To die. In the rain.

Jack Nickolson: ‘Cause it #$@&! wanted to! That’s the *&#@*! reason!

Mark Twain: The news of it’s crossing has been greatly exaggerated.

Want to read more clever clucking? Go here.

Here’s another question: Why is Deborah crossing the pond?

To go to Chicken Camp! With Bob Bailey! In Borlange, Sweden!

Chickens have been on my mind ever since Sadie’s and my first trainer, Nana Will, regaled me with stories about learning the mechanics of operant conditioning from Bob Bailey and Marian Breland Bailey in Arkansas back in the day. Nana studied with them for hundreds of hours and eventually brought Bob and Marian to Boulder to teach a class for local dog trainers. That was long before Sadie’s day.

My excellent expotition to chicken-land (aka The House of Learning) begins Friday evening, May 6, and, to add a bit of excitement, I’m not sure when I’ll be returning.

You see I signed up for three 5-day consecutive workshops in May. Unfortunately, I learned last week that the third workshop was cancelled. The problem is, I can’t change my return flights until I travel the first leg of the trip from Denver to Stockholm. Only after I arrive in Stockholm can I reschedule my return flights. Thank you Orbitz!

I hope I’ll be returning home on May 22, but maybe not. Worse things have happened than being forced to spend a few days knocking around lovely Sweden chasing down gravlax with swigs of brännvin (schnapps).

I’m not planning on blogging while I’m hanging with the hens. Each of the two workshops is 5-days long and 8 hours per day. That’s 40 hours each!

The bad news? I’m anticipating exhaustion and brain fry. The good news? Sweden is one of the heaviest coffee-drinking countries in the world. I’ll be doing my part to help Sweden maintain her reputation for world-class coffee consumption. Feel the buzzzzz.

See you all later!

In the meantime, check out these chickens!

Steve Brown

I’ve been conferring with Steve ever since Sadie was a puppy and suffered from regular bouts of diarrhea and vomiting during the first year of her life. He helped Sadie and me get on track with a diet that’s been working fabulously for her. I wrote about our excursion through the wild and wooly world of doggie diets in a previous post, “What’s a Dog to Eat?”

This time I called Steve with a let’s-get-real conundrum put to me by my friend, Kathy. She said “I know feeding my dogs a fresh food diet would be best. But, I have four dogs! I don’t have the time, money, or inclination to prepare meals for them. I don’t even make meals for myself. I eat take-out and feed Casey and the gang premium kibble. Still, I grill the occasional salmon steak for my dinner, and I’d like to do a little something more for my guys, but what?”

When I called Steve with Kathy’s question I had no idea that he had recently released a new e-book in which he addresses this very issue. I was expecting our conversation to result in few tips I could pass on to Kathy, but a book? What a nice surprise.

Full disclosure: Steve suggested I download See Spot Live Longer the ABC Way: Overcoming the limitations of dry dog food with just two small changes at no cost. I did and here’s what I think. It’s a great resource for people who feed kibble, even top-of-the-line kibble.

Steve’s underlying assumption is that in a perfect world we would feed our dogs an ancestral diet comprised of whole, fresh foods. Some of us do exactly that or something close to it. Many of us, though, 90% according to Steve, are like my friend Kathy who feeds her dogs kibble.

How can Kathy kick it up a notch, to borrow a phrase?

Steve suggests overcoming the limitations of dry dog food by making two small changes:

1. Make one day a week “ABC day.”
2. Use dry foods wisely.

ABC Day

You’re probably wondering what on earth is an ABC Day? It ‘s the one day a week that you feed your dog whole foods in place of their regular kibble. The ABC menu consists of sardines, fresh meat, eggs, and left over vegetables like broccoli stalks, bruised outside leaves of romaine lettuce, watermelon rinds, and other goodies.

What does ABC stand for?

(A) ADD high-quality protein

(B) BALANCE fats

(C) COMPLETE nutrition with nutrients available only in fresh foods.

In addition to quality protein and other fresh foods, Steve is all about feeding your dog healthy fats from whole foods like sardines and eggs, whenever possible, and making sure the variety of fats fed are balanced. In my experience, Steve’s careful attention to fats is missing from most discussions about dog food, homemade or processed.

Best of all, Steve provides easy-to-follow, simple recipes combining protein, fats, and veggies. He suggests portion sizes for dogs of specific weights, and advises you on how to vary the proportions of protein and fats depending on the type of kibble you normally feed. How cool is that?

It’s important to note, that the ABC recipes are intended to be fed only once a week in combination with a regular processed food diet.

If you want to feed your dog a whole food diet more often than once a week then I suggest you look at Steve’s second most recent book, Unlocking the Canine Ancestral Diet. It’s one of three books highly recommended by Mary Straus in “Read All About It: The best books on feeding your dog a homemade diet,” published in the March 2011 issue of the Whole Dog Journal (Volume 14, Number 3).

Use Dry Foods Wisely

I love this tip! Steve is not merely suggesting that you buy expensive, premium kibble and be done with it. In fact, he’s not even a fan of the highest priced brands. He’s all about storing and using recently manufactured kibble properly so you avoid rancid fats, vitamin and mineral loss, and contamination that can occur with poorly used dry foods.

For example, Steve suggests buying a recently produced, basic kibble—no fish, fish meal, fish oils, or other special ingredients like probiotics and glucosamine all of which go bad a short time after manufacturing. It’s healthier for your dog, and probably less expensive in the long run, if you add them separately yourself. And, as for the fish oil? Try feeding your dog a can of whole sardines packed in water once or twice a week, which, if you go the ABC route, your dog will get on his fresh, whole food day.

Steve also suggests buying kibble in small quantities and using it up quickly to preserve freshness and nutritional value. He wants your dog to get the most nutrition for your money. That’s what he means by “using dry foods wisely.”

A Few Other Things I Like about this Book

See Spot Live Longer the ABC Way is short, easy to read, and beautifully illustrated. Steve has distilled complicated nutrition science, some of which he wrote about in great depth in Unlocking the Canine Ancestral Diet, into easy-to-digest, tantalizing tidbits of common sense.

You can download See Spot Live Longer the ABC Way right now for $4.95 by clicking here.

Unlocking the Canine Ancestral Diet is also available at Steve’s website, See Spot Live Longer.

Bon appetit!

(UPDATE: 4/26/11

From Change.org: “The petition has been updated to include a call for the removal of “Dog Bucks,” the app that supports the original Dog Wars game. While Dog Wars can no longer be found in the Android Market, Google continues to condone the illegal and cruel dog fighting culture by keeping the app running and Dog Bucks available for purchase. Google has not yet released a statement regarding the removal of Dog Wars.”)

_______________

I hesitated after reading an email from change.org requesting me, along with other bloggers, to amplify the pressure on Google to block a dog fighting app for Android smartphones called “Dog Wars: Raise your dog to beat the best” (by Kage Games, LLC) in which the user trains, waters, feeds, and fight dogs. Change.org says:

This app makes a game out of dog fighting — celebrating cruelty against animals and contributing to the attttude that there’s nothing wrong with using animals in bloodsports. This type of media fuels animal abuse and breed specific legislation, which costs innocent dogs their lives. …

Disgusting? Totally. Vile? Certainly. Despicable? Absolutely. Inciting? Quite possibly.

Then, why my initial equivocation?

My thoughts immediately jumped to what I thought for sure were a slew of smartphone apps depicting the rape and murder of women. (I mean, why not? That stuff is everywhere else in cyber space.)

I felt uneasy about petitioning against dog fighting and not violence against women. I tend not to think in terms of either/or, but rather both/and. If dog fighting and rape are promulgated on smartphone apps, then shouldn’t we lobby Google to block both of them?

While I was certain about the dog fighting app, I wasn’t sure about violence against women apps. I thought I should look around. What did I find? Thousands of Android “adult” apps—typical, sexist, woman objectifying junk. But, unless I missed something, and I well might have since my patience for this excursion into the seamy underbelly of the wide world of smartphone apps quickly wore thin, atrocities committed against women didn’t jump out.

“It is just a video game,” the creator of the Dog Wars app retorts, attacking people who express their offense. Gee. Where have I heard that before?

Pornography was one of the topics we studied when I taught Women Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder. “It’s just a fantasy,” the purveyors and consumers of pornography insisted.

What did the research on pornography say? Some studies concluded that viewing violent pornography, in particular, if not inciting college-age men to similar acts, tended to inure them to the impact of those acts on real-life victims. Other research found that after consuming pornography, subjects, again college-age males, were more likely to think that real women should look and behave like the women did in pornography.

It seems to me, that Dog Wars could have a similar, if not worse, effect, because the user is an active participant in the app. For example, Dog Wars instructs the user to “train to dogfight” and “juice your dog.” Controllers are encouraged to inject the virtual dogs with steroids and to set up a dog fighting business to win virtual money. Change.org notes that, “One dedicated player created a video of tips, such as using the guns in the game for protection in police raids. The video also includes photos of dogs tagged with known fighting lines and puppies for sale.” (Italics mine)

I agree with change.org:

Dog fighting is a felony across all 50 states. “Dog Wars” promotes violence and creates a virtual community for a very real crime. Like many sites, Android Market’s policies don’t specifically address animal cruelty, but do state: “Android Market should not be used for unlawful purposes or for promotion of dangerous and illegal activities.”

Android, owned by Google, shouldn’t be allowing this type of app in its market. Tell Android/Google to block “Dog Wars” and stop condoning animal cruelty.

7 things you can do towards removing the Dog Wars app from Google’s Android Market:

1. Sign the change.org petition: Tell Android to Block Dog Fighting App.
2. Share the petition with your followers and friends and Twitter and Facebook.
3. Report the game, Dog Wars, to Android Market on their “Report Inappropriate Apps” page.
4. Grab the widget for the petition and post it on your blog.
5. Write a blog post encouraging others to take action.
6. Join the Facebook protest at Against Game ‘Dog Wars’ https://www.facebook.com/nodogwars
7. Send an email to Google’s Android Central and to press@google.com telling them to remove the Dog Wars app from Android Market. Here’s a sample letter from change.org:

Dear Google,

I am writing to ask you to remove “Dog Wars” and block Kage Games, LLC from the Android Market.

In this app, users can feed, water, train and fight virtual dogs. While its creators say “it is just a video game,” they also provide tips to their users such as “steroids will help you get stronger but just like real life you still gotta train for max effect.”

By allowing this app, Google/Android is condoning animal cruelty and creating a community for a very real crime. Dog fighting is a felony across all 50 states.

Dog Wars is listed as “A game that will never be in the iPhone app store.” Not because of a preference for your platform, but because the creators don’t believe Apple would allow such a violent, offensive game. Since your policy states: “Android Market should not be used for unlawful purposes or for promotion of dangerous and illegal activities,” this app should not be allowed on your site either.

I urge you to take a stand against felony animal cruelty and remove this app that glorifies dog fighting from the Android Market.

Thank you.

[Your name]

Happy Girl Sadee

Here comes Saaaadeeee!

This awesome bundle of fun wants to know if you’ll be her new forever family. But, wait! Before you race out the the door to snatch her up at the Humane Society of Boulder Valley (I mean, really. Who can resist that mug?) let me tell you a little bit about her.

You see, Ms. Sadie is not your ordinary dog. She’s an extra special pup with a sense of humor who needs an equally extra special someone to take care of her, and help her transition through rockin’ rollin’ adolescence to well-manner, joyful adulthood. Don’t worry. HSBV dog trainers and behaviorists will help you!

Check out Sadie Girl staring in her own movie!

Ms. Sadee, the 2-year old English Springer Spaniel/Pit Bull Terrier mix, was doing just dandy with her two doggie siblings and guardian when they all lived together in a nice large space. But, things changed. Her guardian moved into a smaller space that, well, cramped Sadee’s style.

Tension grew between Sadee and the other two dogs in the house. Things got a little testy among the dogs and Sadee punctured one of the other dogs when he attempted to take her ball. True. That was a rude move on the part of the thief, but still. Biting? Sadee can learn to do better than that. And she is! Sadee’s working with a STAR trainer while here at HSBV.

Are you Sadee’s extra special someone? Let’s see. Do you have a great sense of humor? An abundance of energy to win her over! Are you willing to patiently guide her through adolescence?

Ms. Sadee is fun and playful and nothing but joy! She likes her toys so much that she will guard them from other dogs. While she enjoys interacting with dogs casually, she may do best as the only dog in the home.

Of course, Sadee is spayed and up-to-date on all her shots.

Join HSBV at Puttin’ on the Leash: Under the Sea

BTW, if you attend the HSBV big fundraiser, Puttin’ On the Leash this Saturday, April 23, you’ll see Ms. Sadee! She’ll be featured as one of HSBV’s models during the festivities.

In the meantime, if Sadee has captured your heart and imagination please call  HSBV at 303-442-4030 during their regular shelter hours to speak to an animal welfare associate.

Click here for a map and directions

Then, she started her blog, Mary’s Dogs Blog, to chronicle the trials and triumphs of fostering Aaron who came to be known as Aaron Foster. Here’s Mary introducing Aaron:

“Aaron came to us from Darlington, South Carolina, where he was slated for euthanization. He was an extremely shy dog when he arrived in late July, 2010. …Our handsome Autumn-colored Aaron is a charming, intelligent, well-mannered dog with luminous eyes and a deep passion for life. Please enjoy his journey through the many blog posts I wrote beginning with his arrival in late July. In these short stories you’ll discover moments of laughter and tears, self reflection and self doubt. I learned a tremendous amount about patience and commitment, perserverence…. and mostly, love.”

Awesome Aaron

I fell in love with Mary’s blog and featured it last August in a #Follow-Friday Fab Four post. Mary wrote straight-from-the-heart, honest, unsentimental posts about her failed foster exceedingly successful adoptee, Aaron. You can read all of Mary’s installments of Aarons’ Journey here. Head’s up: You’re in for a treat.

I must be a slow study, because I didn’t ‘get it’ until recently that Mary runs a very active rescue—Mary’s Dogs! She says:

I am committed to rescuing and re-homing dogs and puppies from high-kill shelters, primarily in the Southern US. I also wish to serve as a resource to communities in Southern New Hampshire and pet owners nationwide by providing education and information on responsible pet ownership, including the importance of spay/neuter, positive behavior training, and good nutrition.

Mary Doane

Mary maintains a dynamic Facebook page, Mary’s Dogs (Please “like” it!), where you can learn about the fabulous dog’s currently being fostered while they are in search of their forever families. Check out these two heart-throbs, Buzz and Woody.

And then there’s Dolby, now “Stash” loving his new home. Look at that sweet mug.

You can help Mary’s Dogs find forever families by “liking” Mary’s Dogs on Facebook and “sharing” posts about the dogs up for adoption.

Mary also provides private and small group dog training classes and educational programs for kids in schools and libraries.

Okay, let’s recap. Mary saves the lives of dogs on death row by first finding them foster homes and then forever homes; she rehabilitated, fell in love with, and then adopted Aaron Foster; she wrote exquisitely about her and Aaron’s journey. And, she’s a humane educator.

But, wait, there’s more!

Bark Out Loud Weekly: dog. friendly. conversation. (BOL) Along with Hilary Lane of Fang Shui Canines, Mary founded Bark Out Loud Weekly, which features a podcast with a special guest followed by a live chat with that guest.

BOL’s mission? “Our mission is to improve and enrich the lives of all dogs through the use of education and interaction with pet owners and dog experts. Our goal is to empower pet owners with the knowledge to make positive changes, either for the benefit of their own pets or for the good of other animals.”

How cool is that?

You can listen to the Podcasts with knowledgeable and inspiring guests who cover any and all topics related to dogs, from advocacy to rescue to health care and all things in between by clicking here. Podcasts are posted on Thursdays.

Then, the following Monday evening you can participate in live, stimulating chats with the expert guest featured in podcast. All you have to do is login to the Dog Den. (I love that!) The format is Q&A. Just listen in or bring your questions. Click here to join the Monday Evening Chat.

Dog Den Doors Open at 9:00 PM (EST)
Featured Guest Arrives at 9:15 PM (EST)

Last week’s guest was one of my favorite dog experts, Irith Bloom of The Sophisticated Dog. Which reminds, me…

Is this the first you’ve heard of BOL? Worried you missed some great interviews and chats? Well don’t. All of the previous podcasts and transcripts are available for your listening and readying pleasure. Just peruse the right sidebar of The Dog Den: Podcast and Chat Room.

In addition to Mary and Hilary, other BOL contributors include Kim Clune (also one of the founders of Blog the Change for Animals), Kim Thomas, and Bill Boublitz.

Don’t forget to “like” Bark Out Loud Weekly on Facebook!

Thunder phobia is probably one of the most intractable problems with which dogs and their people contend. Storms and thunder propel some dogs into seemingly unbearable distress and wildly destructive behavior. Their people often feel helpless and frustrated. All too often such dogs are repeatedly adopted and surrendered to a shelter until they are adopted no more.

Welcome to the sixth and last post in our series: Difficult, Aggressive Dogs Need Strong Training. (Really?)

In this installment, John Visconti concludes his story about rehabilitating and training Pepper, the dog he adopted from a local shelter who suffers from, among many other things, severe thunder phobia.

Before turning you over to John, I want to take a moment to thank him again—Thank you, John!–for so generously sharing his and Pepper’s story. I hope their success is an inspiration, and demonstrates, by example, that aggressive, difficult dogs are not a special class dogs that need so-called “strong handling”. Rather, they are special dogs that require the kind of patient, smart, compassionate, and creative science-based rehabilitation and training that John is so ably providing for Pepper.

Part 6. SCRUNCHIES AND LAVENDER CANDLES

John & Pepper on a clear day

The thing I am proudest of is how we worked together on Pepper’s thunder phobia.

I had never seen a thunder phobic dog. It’s a pitiful sight. A few years ago, she’d start to pace before the storm arrived. The pacing would escalate to panting and racing from room to room. Eventually, that would escalate to clawing at the carpet and chewing at the baseboards and front door. Trying to corral her was impossible as she simply ran around the house the entire time.

I tried all the standards–thunder wrap, DAP, Rescue Remedy, Alprazolam, Zyklene–with no success. I tried to counter-condition her, all to no avail.

Once the storm started (and it started for her long before it started for me because she triggers to changes that aren’t apparent to me) her brain was already in full phobic gear so no behavioral approach worked. She was in a drooling frenzy. This was clearly not the time to click and reward.

As an aside, I didn’t even bother to try the approach that is often offered, that is, playing a CD of thunder sounds and systematically desensitizing the dog by slowly raising the volume while rewarding with food. Clearly, for a thunder phobic dog, there are many more triggers than sound.

Once, when putting the wrap on her, I realized, if I only did so during a storm, it would simply become part of the awful experience, or worse, a trigger. I began to put the wrap on her during good weather. I’d take her for a walk with it on. Essentially, I wanted the wrap to have a positive association.

Riding Out the Storm Together

With this as my “ah hah” moment, I decided to set up a system for us to ride out the storms rather than to try to change her responses to them.

My tools were: a hair scrunchie; a lavender scented candle; white noise machine; CD of soft music (all written and recorded by me, of course); food.

The recipe? I placed the scrunchie up high on her left leg where it meets her body. We went into my office. The candle was then lit, music started, white noise machine turned on. She was cued to go to her bed. While there, I massaged her and gave her treats.

We repeated this process a number of times. Much as I was tempted to try it during thunderstorms, I didn’t want to ruin the association. So we always practiced this routine during nice weather.

When we went live, when the thunderstorm began for her, I placed the scrunchie on her leg and into the office we went. We did the entire routine. She was still afraid, was not interested in food but she wasn’t doing any of the old behaviors. We rode the storm out.

I have since been able to simply call her to my office during storms. We use the white noise machine and the music. And she is even able to take food now.

My proudest moment occurred a few weeks ago. Late night/early morning thunderstorms were in the forecast. I went to bed that night with this on my mind. Pepper woke me up by tapping on my shoulder with her paw as if to say, “Hey, thunder! Air Raid Routine. Let’s go.” In the past, she would have awoken me by slamming into doors and running up and down the stairs.

I got out of bed, and she went directly to the office, ahead of me. And we rode out the storm.

I have no idea if she’ll find comfort, in my absence, during a storm and nor do I plan to find out.

My good buddy and mentor, Mira Leibstein, dog trainer extraordinaire, said of Pepper “She’s going to be your teaching dog.” And Mira was right. As much as I’ve taught Pepper, she has taught me much more. I am forever in her debt.

——————————————–

Previous posts in this series:

Part 1: Difficult, Aggressive Dogs Need “Strong” Training. Really? (John’s story: John Meets Pepper)

Part 2: Difficult, Aggressive Dogs Need “Strong” Training. Really? (John’s story: I’m Safe. You Can Look at  Me)

Part 3: Difficult, Aggressive Dogs Need “Strong” Training. Really? (John’s story: Positive Does NOT Mean Permissive)

Part 4: Difficult, Aggressive Dogs Need “Strong” Training. Really? (John’s story: Resource Guarding? Biting? Dog-dog Aggression? No Sweat.)

Part 5: Difficult, Aggressive Dogs Need “Strong” Training. Really? (John’s story: Lunging and Barking at People? Not for Long!)

UPDATE (4/11/11):

Try this at home. Google “dog people aggression.”

I did and here’s what I found. Outside of two notable exceptions, Google’s top eleven picks didn’t offer much that was helpful. Most sites referred to so-called “dominance aggression.” One site delineated a tedious taxonomy of differently motivated types of dog aggression. Several sites recommended shock collars and other aversives to “correct” the dog when she or he behaved aggressively. Great. One site shilled for the Dog Whisperer. Upon clicking on another I was warned “do not enter–site might contain malware.”

So much for that excellent “expotition.”

Welcome back John!

In the fifth post in our six-part series: Difficult, Aggressive Dogs Need Strong Training. (Really?), John Visconti recounts his success and ongoing efforts to help Pepper change her emotional reaction to strangers, and build skills so that she has options other barking, lunging, and air snapping when she encounters people she doesn’t know.

Hopefully, the next time someone searches for sound information about how to help their people-aggressive dog, John’s and Pepper’s story will land near the top of Google’s offerings. I’m concerned that people typically don’t look beyond the first page of url’s that Google coughs up. And, if unsuspecting dog owners find what I did, they might conclude that aversively punishing their barking and lunging dog is the way to go. Noooooooo!

(NOTE: I know many of you reading this have posted great articles about how to use classical conditioning and positive reinforcement to help aggressive dogs that didn’t show up in Google’s top 10 for my search. Just a friendly reminder for you (and me): Search engine optimization.)

Part 5: LUNGING AND BARKING AT PEOPLE? NOT FOR LONG!

John & Pepper

Within a few weeks of Pepper being home with me I began to invite visitors to my home. (I didn’t want to rush the process). They were instructed to call me when they were a block away.

At that point, I would leash Pepper and move to the front lawn with her. I knew very early on that people entering “her” space was a major trigger for reactive outbursts, so when they arrived, our visitors were instructed to completely ignore Pepper and me. They were NOT to look at her while she lunged, snarled, barked, growled, and to enter the house. This was not an easy thing for my friends to do with a dog behaving like a Godzilla on a bad day.

While she was reacting, I was dropping treats on the ground. Eventually, this progressed to my offering her treats from my open hand, then between my fingers, then with open hand and an “off” and “take it” cue. I was always raising the criteria. My thought process was that I wanted to keep her reactivity as much in check as possible by forcing her to focus on the food in my hand which in turn, took her focus away from what was setting her off. While doing so, I remained unconcerned about how she was behaving.

Once my guests were inside, again, they were instructed to ignore us. Pepper and I would sit at the far end of the living room and each time a guest appeared in the room, she would receive a food reward. This was the desensitization part of the process.

This fairly quickly morphed into her receiving positive reinforcement for looking at someone. When she did, she was “clicked” and rewarded. This was the counter conditioning part of the process.

Today, Pepper is still reactive to people coming to the front door. We are working on this. Boy are we working on this.

Once inside my home, or if she has met the person before, she’s great. But the initial approach at the front door is still a problem. Might always be. But we’re going to continue to work on this for her good and mine.

Pepper’s Reactivity to Strangers

Pepper & her erstwhile nemisis in the red jacket

Another pressing behavioral issue that needed to be resolved was Pepper’s reactivity to strangers, particularly on walks. I was always able to stay one step ahead of her, and buffer the space between her and the stranger by getting in between them, even if the stranger was on other side of the street. But this was no way to live. Management of the problem (changing sides of the street, etc) needed to give way to a new response.

Fortunately, as if sent from dog heaven, an elderly gentleman arrived on the scene during one of our morning walks. He spotted us, and made a direct line, right across the street to us. To no avail, I explained, from a distance, that he needed to stop his approach. He simply kept coming forward while Pepper went ballistic. At some point, better sense kicked in and the gentleman stopped his approach.

Nearly every morning, we’d see him and the entire episode would repeat itself like a bad version of Groundhog Day.

Finally, he heeded my advice and stood in place. I handed him treats and explained that he should drop them about a few feet from his feet. As Pepper approached, he reached out to give her the treats and she performed a rather impressive air bite. While well out of his distance, she had made her point.

He then learned how to approach and toss treats from a distance. Pepper learned, through much repetition: “Oh goodie, strangers, I get treats.” We worked slowly, in small increments.After a few more meetings, both man and dog embraced the routine.

Long story short, in my article on LI Dog Directory you’ll see a picture of Pepper and her nemesis standing together. He’s holding her leash and petting her chest. She was happy as could be.

The footnote to the story is that the day after the picture was taken, the gentleman was bitten by a strange dog on a walk with his owner because he approached, hand extended to greet the dog.

Evidently, Pepper had learned the greeting routine better than her friend.

Today, Pepper is fine with greetings. At times, she’s a bit wary and perhaps will always be. There are no magical fixes. But I no longer have any concerns about her interactions with strangers and I always give her plenty of room to retreat if she’s not comfortable. She, as well as every other dog, deserves that.

My proudest moment with Pepper was yet to come–helping her ride out thunderstorms.

Part 6 of John’s and Pepper’s story will be posted on Wednesday, April 13, 2011.

See you then!

——————————————

Previous posts in this series:

Part 1: Difficult, Aggressive Dogs Need “Strong” Training. Really? (John’s story: John Meets Pepper)

Part 2: Difficult, Aggressive Dogs Need “Strong” Training. Really? (John’s story: I’m Safe. You Can Look at  Me)

Part 3: Difficult, Aggressive Dogs Need “Strong” Training. Really? (John’s story: Positive Does NOT Mean Permissive)

Part 4: Difficult, Aggressive Dogs Need “Strong” Training. Really? (John’s story: Resource Guarding? Biting? Dog-dog Aggression? No Sweat.)

Subsequent post in this series:

Part 6: Difficult, Aggressive Dogs Need “Strong” Training. Really? (John’s story: Scrunchies and Lavender Candles for Thunder Phobia? Yep?)

Yukon, Tina, Skye

Tina and her two gorgeous pooches,Yukon the Rottweiler, Skye the Cane Corso, from upstate New York won the Ian Dunbar DVD’s giveaway included in the post: “Rover, sit. Sit. SIT. SitSitSit!!!” (The Giveaway)

Tina will  be receiving:

-Training Dogs with Dunbar: Fun training for you and your dog

-Training the Companion Dog: Adapted from the ‘Dogs with Dunbar’ television program

-Every Picture Tells a Story: An educational Aid for Children to explore the language of dogs

Congratulations Tina!

Resource guarding, biting, and on-leash reactivity to other dogs

Welcome to the fourth post in our six-part series: Difficult, Aggressive Dogs Need Strong Training. (Really?)

John Visconti continues his story about rehabilitating and training Pepper, a dog with all of the above afflictions, and more.

All too often the offenses of resource guarding, biting, and dog-dog aggression are viewed through the lens of “dominance.” This perspective typically leads dog handlers to take an adversarial stance toward the dog they are ostensibly trying to help. A contest of wills, masquerading as rehabilitation and training, ensues. Just take a spin through cyberspace and you’ll find videos of a celebrity dog handler trying to “shock” a dog out of her food guarding, and claiming to cure another dog’s reactivity to dogs by “strangling” him until he collapses. (If you’re interested in the videos, click here and here.)

Unfortunately, this sort of aggressive dog handling (I refuse to call it either rehabilitation or training.) that relies on aversive punishments is practiced by many handlers. Most of us can find them in our very own communities.

Thankfully, there is another way. In fact, within the domain of positive dog rehabilitation and training, there are many ways to treat resource guarding, biting when touched, and dog-dog aggression.

Join John as he uses smarts, compassion, and science-based methods to help Pepper feel more comfortable in her own skin, and learn skills for navigating her world.

Part 4: RESOURCE GUARDING? BITING THE HAND THAT TOUCHES YOU? ON-LEASH REACTIVITY TO DOGS? NO SWEAT.

Pepper: Relaxed and joyful

Surprisingly, especially since Pepper had bitten me at the shelter over a pigs ear, and given the fact that I’ve always assumed guarding to be a fixed action pattern, her guarding issues vanished within a week or so.

She wasn’t a food bowl or location guarder. She was an object guarder. So we worked on trades of low value items for higher value ones. Once confident, I began to ask other people to do so as well.

Today, she’ll gladly give up even the most treasured objects to anyone.

Body Touch Sensitivity

For Pepper body touch reactivity was so severe that I couldn’t touch her hindquarters and neither could her veterinarians. The shelter veterinarian as well as my veterinarian both insisted that she wear a muzzle for examinations. In fact, her initial shelter examination report states “Dog would not allow examination of hind quarters.”

Desensitizing Pepper to touch was the plan. I would touch, reward. Touch closer to the charged area, reward again. I made sure not to proceed in a direct line to the trigger zone but instead, I’d move an inch closer, reward, then two inches back, reward, then two inches forward, reward.

This was the “cha cha” method of desensitizing. She was too smart not to know what I was up to if I approached the “danger” zone in a direct line pattern. On the rare occasions where she swung her head toward my hand, I reflexively responded with a stern “Cut the crap.”

Muzzle wearing at the vet’s is now officially a thing of the past. During a visit to the veterinarian a year later, he drew blood twice, and did a full body exam including emptying anal glands.

My veterinarian marveled at how much she had changed and as a result has referred training customers to me. Imagine that. Pepper is so well behaved that she gets me referrals.

On-leash Reactivity to Other Dogs

Pepper’s on-leash reactivity toward other dogs was solved with basic, foundational skills. As I mentioned earlier, her reactivity was very strong. Soon after I adopted her, she responded so violently to seeing another dog that was approximately 150 feet away, or more, that the force of her lunge into my leg completely tore the cartilage in my knee, which required surgery.

Before we took to the streets we worked on a “watch” cue. I wanted to have a management tool in place. From “watch” she learned “heads up.” (A great example of her doing this is on my website under “Pepper a Success story” Video #6).

“Head’s up” is nothing more than a moving “watch” cue. While she performed her watch cue perfectly, the problem was, it left us stuck in one spot. So if we encountered another dog while on a walk, as the other owner was saying, “Oh, it’s ok, my dog loves other dogs!” we were a sitting target as they approached. So, “heads up” became our way of high tailing it out of Dodge.

For the last part of the process, we spent many weekends in a local PETCO parking lot. At first, we systematically desensitized from the far end of the parking lot. Simply, the second a dog appeared, she received a food reward.

After a few weeks of this, we moved to an operant mode. If she saw a dog, I immediately cued “watch” and then rewarded. Today, the sight of another dog is a cue for an auto-watch. I no longer need to ask her to watch me.

We have a scorecard on the refrigerator. I keep track of how many dogs we’ve passed on walks without showing reactivity. We are currently at 37 occurrences!

While at the shelter, one of Pepper’s fosters commented “You had better be careful about having people over to your home. Pepper barks wildly and charges. She’s telling you, ‘I don’t want this person in our home and you had better listen to me.’”

Clearly, this was not a plan I was willing to follow.

Part 5 of John’s and Pepper’s story will be posted on Monday, April 11, 2011.

See you then!

——————————————

Previous posts in this series:

Part 1: Difficult, Aggressive Dogs Need “Strong” Training. Really? (John’s story: John Meets Pepper)

Part 2: Difficult, Aggressive Dogs Need “Strong” Training. Really? (John’s story: I’m Safe. You Can Look at  Me)

Part 3: Difficult, Aggressive Dogs Need “Strong” Training. Really? (John’s story: Positive Does NOT Mean Permissive)

Subsequent posts in this series:

Part 5: Difficult, Aggressive Dogs Need “Strong” Training. Really? (John’s story: People-aggressive dog? Positive Dog Training to the Rescue.)

Part 6: Difficult, Aggressive Dogs Need “Strong” Training. Really? (John’s story: Scrunchies and Lavender Candles for Thunder Phobia? Yep?)

"Sit!"

Welcome to the third post in our six-part series: Difficult, Aggressive Dogs Need Strong Training. Really?

John Visconti continues his story about rehabilitating and training Pepper, the dog-aggressive, stranger-aggressive, resource guarding, and thunder phobic pooch he adopted from a local shelter.

One of the many reasons I’m delighted and privileged to share John’s and Pepper’s journey with you is that their success challenges a prevailing belief in the dog world that there’s a special class of aggressive, reactive dogs, of which Pepper is surely one, that require “strong handling,” or the use of aversives, in order to be rehabilitated.

A corollary to this misguided notion is that positive trainers are just “treat dispensers” or “cookie pushers.” They don’t train dogs, they bribe them with food. They’re easy. Soft. Permissive. Fido is in charge, not the trainer. If positive methods are effective at all, they work only with compliant, easy dogs, not “red-zone dogs.”

No doubt there are some trainers who do not effectively apply the principles of learning theory and positive reinforcement.They don’t get solid, reliable behaviors without ongoing clicks and treats.

John is not one of those trainers.

Part 3. POSITIVE DOES NOT MEAN PERMISSIVE

John & Pepper

The most force I used with Pepper was to occasionally block her. Period. No chokers, prongs, shocks. No aversives.

While my training methods and beliefs are all based in positive reinforcement techniques, that doesn’t mean I’m easy. In fact, I was more demanding of her than any “correction” based trainer I know.

My goal was to show her that her old coping mechanisms didn’t translate well into her new home. AND to also coach her to establish new behaviors to replace the old.

My biggest problem with aversive training methods is that too often, the methods are focused on stopping a behavior rather than replacing it with a desired one. Leaving it up to Pepper to decide on a new behavior was not my idea of leadership.

I also recognized this was going to be hard work for her. I don’t work for free. Nor does anyone else. We get paychecks at the end of the week. I’d like to see a show of hands from those who would answer the question, “How many of you work for you boss because you want to please him rather than a paycheck?”

The most potent rewards I used were provided by things Pepper wanted in her environment. A romp in the backyard chasing after scents left behind by demon squirrels, is much more rewarding that a piece of freeze dried liver. Pepper also has a love for sticking her head down into a sewer to sniff out whatever vermin has been there within the past decade.

In all cases, anything that I learned was a reward for her became accessible to her only after she performed a cued behavior. “Watch” and then I’d allow her to run around in the backyard. “Head’s up” as we approached a sewer, followed by “wait.” Then we’d run to the sewer. ”

Once I got her home, for subsequent months, I had a zero tolerance policy, meaning, if she didn’t perform a learned behavior on cue exactly, she didn’t receive any reinforcement and she had to repeat the behavior. And when I say “exactly” I do mean exactly. If I wanted her to “sit-stay” at the garage door before coming into the car with me and she inched forward before I cued her to come, she was placed a bit further away and cued to sit-stay again. There would be plenty of time to loosen the reigns later on.

She learned, very early on, that I was in charge of all the resources she needed to live and to also have fun in her life. I am not sure why some trainers believe in causing physical discomfort with their dogs or why they see some dogs in one light and others in another. Fact is, we are in control of EVERYTHING that the dog needs to live. If that isn’t enough to establish leadership, what is?

Pepper’s first 36 hours in my home were spent leashed to me. This included two nights of sleep.

For the first two weeks, she ate all meals out of my hand (To this day, each meal starts with one spoonful by hand.) and only after responding to a basic cue like “sit”.  Actually, “sit” was the only cue she knew when I brought her home.

She was restricted to certain areas of the house. She didn’t get full run of the house for a few weeks.

Much of my training of other cues had to be delayed because my initial months with her were spent desensitizing and counter-conditioning.

Separation Anxiety

At this point, we started working on her moderate separation anxiety issues.

While shelter life was anything but great, there’s always company and noise in a shelter. Not so when I would leave her alone in my home. Like anything else we did, this was an incremental process.

I didn’t allow her to establish any associations to triggers like keys or my putting on my jacket. I made sure to jumble up all of my usual routines. I would, toss a few treats, or give her a Kong, and calmly, silently, leave the house for 30 seconds open my car door, get inside, shut it, start the engine pull out of the drive way, then pull back in, shut the engine off and come back in.

All the while, I could hear her barking. She’d anxiously be jumping at the gate in her room when I entered the house. She’d get a very calm “hello” from me and a “sit” cue. When she complied, I’d open the gate and let her join me.

We practiced for longer and longer durations, and she became calmer with each passing day. Then one day, I came home and she didn’t run to the gate to meet me. Instead, she was on her bed. Upon seeing me, Pepper did the l-o-n-g-e-s-t stretch I’ve ever seen, and calmly strolled to the gate. Separation anxiety under control.

I am careful to this day with her about my coming and going as I’ve noticed she can still be predisposed to showing anxiety when I leave.

As an aside, I think dog owners are very often too quick to assume a behavior has been learned simply because they see a behavioral change, or a new behavior being performed on cue. Learning doesn’t take place until we see many repetitions of the cued behavior. In fact, I never assume behavioral changes are permanent. Maintenance is always part of training.

At the same time, we began working on her resource guarding.

Part 4 of John’s and Pepper’s story will be posted on Friday, April 8, 2011.

See you then!

——————————————

Previous posts in this series:

Part 1: Difficult, Aggressive Dogs Need “Strong” Training. Really? (John’s story: John Meets Pepper)

Part 2: Difficult, Aggressive Dogs Need “Strong” Training. Really? (John’s story: I’m Safe. You Can Look at  Me)

Subsequent posts in this series:

Part 4: Difficult, Aggressive Dogs Need “Strong” Training. Really? (John’s story: Resource Guarding? Biting? Dog-dog Agression? No Sweat.)

Part 5: Difficult, Aggressive Dogs Need “Strong” Training. Really? (John’s story: People-aggressive dog? Positive Dog Training to the Rescue.)

Part 6: Difficult, Aggressive Dogs Need “Strong” Training. Really? (John’s story: Scrunchies and Lavender Candles for Thunder Phobia? Yep?)

Zeus with his thunderbolt

Imagine this.

You volunteer at a shelter where you meet a dog that has, well, issues. You’re told she “blows up” over nothing. She bites you over a prized pig’s ear. She’s highly reactive to other dogs and strange humans she encounters on walks. She freaks out during lightening and thunder storms as if Zeus had hurled his thunderbolt directly at her. And, that’s the short list.

Shelter staff tell you she’s going downhill and will likely end up dead rather than adopted.

Still, you take a liking to this nervous dog with a short fuse. And, of all the problems that possess her, the one that captures your attention is that she’s reluctant to look at you.

Welcome to the second installment of John Visconti‘s story about Pepper and his determination to find a way to connect with her as the first step in their long, intrepid journey together.

How many other less wise trainers would have labeled Pepper as dominant and seen her as challenging their leadership? How many would have construed their interactions with Pepper as a contest of wills? What would have become of Pepper if that had been her fate? Thankfully, we’ll never know.

(Learn more about John and Pepper in the first post in this series here.)

Part 2: I’M SAFE, YOU CAN LOOK AT ME

Pepper: Before & after John came into her life

One thing that struck me about Pepper was her disinterest in making eye contact. I knew that she was not by nature, a shy dog, so I knew that wasn’t the reason. I don’t spend a lot of time trying to figure out reasons for why dogs behave the way they do because ultimately it doesn’t serve much of a purpose. Instead, I focus on behavior, without attaching meaning or values to it. What I did know is that I was not comfortable with her lack of eye contact.

While still at the shelter, I began to work with Pepper on making eye contact. To do so, I used a clicker. I am not by definition a “clicker trainer” but I knew I needed a unique marker.

Fortunately, since training was relatively new to me, I wasn’t bogged down by any baggage and prejudice that many experienced trainers typically associate with techniques they don’t use. If using Harpo Marx’s horn would have worked as a marker, I’d have been more than happy to utilize it. Other than using aversive techniques, I’d pretty much consider using anything as a tool if it proved effective without harming the dog.

I strongly believe in cases like Pepper’s, where the dog has almost become deaf to all means of contact, something new needs to be used. Also, she was, and still is, a dog that fixates easily. So I wanted a new, unique sound that would catch her attention. We know that foreign objects, strange contexts, and odd noises, capture a dog’s attention. If they didn’t, the species would probably be extinct.

In Pepper’s case, using the clicker made even more sense given the fact that a countless number of people had interacted with her. I assumed she had heard every possible sound, word, or yell. So, the clicker was my chosen tool.

Off to the back of the shelter property we would go because I knew the clicker was not an approved device at this shelter. As I mentioned in the previous post, trainers at the shelter relied on using aversives.

I first charged up the clicker by simply clicking and rewarding. Typical stuff. Once the click took on meaning, I would sit next to her without looking at her and wait. If she made even the slightest head motion toward me, I’d click and reinforce with a food reward. Animal Crackers were her fav.

At the same time, I clicker trained her to jump over branches that I held in my hand on a “jump” cue. I wanted to break up the association she had with the clicker so that it didn’t only come out when she was being asked to do something that caused her discomfort, namely, making eye contact.

After a number of visits, I was getting some eye contact so I decided to work with a “watch” cue. I lured her to look at a spot at the base of my neck rather than directly in my eyes. We slowly, incrementally worked our way up to eye contact.

It was around this time that I decided to adopt her.

Part 3 of John’s and Pepper’s story will be posted on Wednesday, April 6, 2011.

See you then!

———————————————-

Previous post in this series:

Part 1: Difficult, Aggressive Dogs Need “Strong” Training. Really? (John’s story: John Meets Pepper)

Subsequent post in the series:

Part 3: Difficult, Aggressive Dogs Need “Strong” Training. Really? (John’s story: Positive Does NOT Mean Permissive)

Part 4: Difficult, Aggressive Dogs Need “Strong” Training. Really? (John’s story: Resource Guarding? Biting? Dog-dog Agression? No Sweat.)

Part 5: Difficult, Aggressive Dogs Need “Strong” Training. Really? (John’s story: People-aggressive dog? Positive Dog Training to the Rescue.)

Part 6: Difficult, Aggressive Dogs Need “Strong” Training. Really? (John’s story: Scrunchies and Lavender Candles for Thunder Phobia? Yep?)

400 choke, prong & shock collars

Over 400 choke, prong, and shock collars have piled up as almost as many people have taken up the Human Society of Boulder Valley’s (HSBV) No-Choke Challenge. “Turn in your choke, prong, or shock collar for a free SENSE-ation or Weiss Walkie harness!”

As Lisa Pedersen, CEO of HSBV, aptly said:

At the end of the day, the cornerstone of our mission is healthy relationships between pets and people.  So as we provide people solutions and resources (the harnesses), we attempt to do two things: resolve the behavior issue (pulling on leash) AND positively impact the relationship between the person and their pet. This is why we love the no-pull harness over other tools – it achieves both goals.

Seems likes a feel-good story. Right? Not so fast.

A couple of weeks ago the local newspaper decided to stir the kibble cup by publishing an article saying that the HSBV’s No-Choke Challenge is upsetting others in the community who use shock, choke and prong collars to rehabilitate and train dogs. Apparently some felt personally affronted.

The usual controversies flew frisbee fast in the comments section of the newspaper. If you are so inclined you can read them here.

One of the arguments often used in favor of using aversive methods is that some dogs, sometimes referred to as “red-zone dogs,” just need a stronger hand. Usually this means using punishment (shocking, choking) for undesired behavior along with a little negative reinforcement. For example, if the trainer is shocking or “stimulating” the dog, the trainer stops the electric current when the dog performs the desired behavior, sitting down, for example. In this way the dog is reinforced for sitting by the discomfort or pain of the shock being removed.

Often this position is framed as “do or die”: The only way to save the dog’s life by transforming him from aggressive to a good candidate for adoption is by using aversive methods. Some dogs need really tough training.

Frankly, I don’t buy it. I don’t believe there is a special class of difficult dogs (you’re about to meet a very difficult dog in a moment) who only can be rehabilitated and trained with aversives.

I thought it would be more interesting to share a real-life example of a very difficult, agressive dog who has been rehabilitated and trained using positive methods rather than launch into a theoretical argument to back up my point of view. You’ve heard it all before.

Since I don’t have personal experience with such a dog, I sought out someone who does. Leah Roberts of Dog Willing suggested I contact John Visconti and ask him about his dog, Pepper.

Meet John and Pepper. The first of six installments of his and Pepper’s story follows. But, before I turn my blog over to John, allow me to introduce him. John is a dog trainer and owner of Long Island Dog and Puppy Training. He has extensive shelter experience and writes for several publications including a regular column called “Of Dogs and Men” for The APDT Chronicle of the Dog.

Thank you John for writing this amazing story for Boulder Dog. I’m honored to publish it. And, Leah! Thank you for suggesting I contact John.

Part 1. JOHN MEETS PEPPER

John and Pepper

She was abandoned by her original owners approximately 15 miles from her home. After living an undetermined amount of time on the street as a stray, she was seized by the police in Sept of 2007 and brought to a municipal shelter. The only ID she carried was a rabies tag on her tattered collar. Through the tag ID number, the shelter identified her owners and made repeated unsuccessful attempts to contact them.

After a few weeks at the shelter, she was adopted by an elderly man in West Islip. One week later she was returned, essentially abandoned again, due to being heart worm positive and because of “behavioral issues”.

Because the shelter was a municipal shelter, with limited funds, she was not long for this world, She would have been euthanized as the shelter lacked the funds to treat her heart worm problem. With 48 hours to live, she was rescued by another shelter.

Unfortunately, as happens with many dogs in many shelters, in the new shelter she was not given the consistent, structured daily attention and training that dogs need to flourish. Training methods, when used, were aversive and “correction” based.

She was walked with a choke collar even though one of the good things about her was her leash walking skills. The shelter claimed they used chokers because they were the most secure method for walking the dogs that is pure nonsense. Allowing untrained volunteers to use chokers on dogs simply isn’t a good idea.

As a volunteer at the shelter, I got to know her.

(From John’s post at Rescue Reporter: “Her Name is Pepper…”)

I took an immediate liking to Pepper. The shelter’s trainer, a positive punishment/correction based trainer, warned me that she had “a screw loose.” I’m not quite sure what that meant, but I was pretty certain that it wasn’t an endorsement.

He also told me that she had a reputation for blowing up without signaling. In fact, she did show signs, as all dogs do. The shelter employees, including the trainer, simply weren’t dog savvy enough to recognize them.

I knew she had several behavioral issues, so I would run my own little “tests” on her while I was at the shelter. For example, if she was in full-blown reaction to a UPS truck (and I do mean FULL blown reaction) I could still cue her to “sit” and eventually get compliance. This told me that while pretty deeply imprinted, her reactivity wasn’t so deeply hard wired that I couldn’t get through to her.

The one thing that struck me the most about Pepper was her disinclination for making eye contact. I don’t spend a lot of time trying to figure out reasons for why dogs behave the way they do because ultimately it doesn’t serve much of a purpose. Instead, I focus on behavior, with the “why’s” loosely framing the behavior. What I did know was that I was not comfortable with her reluctance to make eye contact.

In addition to her unwillingness to make eye contact, her list of problem behaviors included:

Separation anxiety. I would discover this in due time.

Resource guarding. She bit me at the shelter when I accidentally happened upon her while she was sitting atop a pig’s ear. She had good bite inhibition as she only marked me and air snapped another time.

Body-touch sensitivity. The shelter vets insisted she be muzzled. My vet insisted the same. If someone attempted to pet her on her “no fly zone” there was a risk of a bite.

High on-leash reactivity to other dogs. Pepper tore the cartilage in my knee, completely, front to back, while lunging, on leash, at another dog that was easily 150 feet away.

Reactivity to people coming to my home. I used to have to leash her up and take her outside my home when people came to visit.

Extremely high reactivity to deliverymen, mailmen, and delivery trucks. In fact, while working on this one, she bit me. Great bite inhibition. We’re still working on this.

Reactivity to strangers on walks. Consistently, lunged at and air nipped at strangers on our walks.

Severe thunder phobia. As in clawing through carpet and tearing up baseboards at the onset of storm.

Finally, Pepper was a nervous dog, and generally shelter damaged due to, among other reasons, the shelter training protocol that basically leaned on archaic, aversive, training methods. Pepper also suffered from a lack of mental stimulation.

I often heard shelter employees say, “That dog NEEDS to get out of here!” Those words are shelter-speak for “She’s in a downward spiral that is going to lead to her becoming unadoptable and worse.”

——————————————-

Subsequent posts in this series:

Part 2: Difficult, Aggressive Dogs Need “Strong” Training. Really? (John’s story: I’m Safe. You Can Look at  Me.)

Part 3: Difficult, Aggressive Dogs Need “Strong” Training. Really? (John’s story: Positive Does NOT Mean Permissive)

Part 4: Difficult, Aggressive Dogs Need “Strong” Training. Really?  (John’s story: Resource Guarding? Biting? Dog-dog Agression? No Sweat.)

Part 5: Difficult, Aggressive Dogs Need “Strong” Training. Really? (John’s story: People-aggressive dog? Positive Training to the Rescue?)

Part 6: Difficult, Aggressive Dogs Need “Strong” Training. Really? (John’s story: Scrunchies and Lavender Candles for Thunder Phobia? Yep?)

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]]> https://boulderdog.net/2011/04/01/difficult-aggressive-dogs-need-strong-training-really/feed/ 27 https://boulderdog.net/2011/03/30/rover-sit-sit-sit-sitsitsit-the-giveaway/ https://boulderdog.net/2011/03/30/rover-sit-sit-sit-sitsitsit-the-giveaway/#comments Wed, 30 Mar 2011 13:37:34 +0000 http://www.boulderdog.net/?p=6012 In this post, the third in a series about Dr. Ian Dunbar’s new seminar, Science-Based Dog Training (with Feeling), we’ll begin our foray into some of the issues that are giving positive trainers something to bark about. (See the end of this post for links to previous posts in this series.)

Today’s topic: Repeating cues.

“Do not repeat a cue. I repeat. Do not repeat a cue.” That was the dog training catechism I was taught.

When someone else would ask puppy Sadie to sit over and over, barely taking a breath between iterations, as did the receptionist at the puppy daycare I took her to once a week for a few hours, I’d silently blow my Kong. Not that I reprimanded the nice woman. I didn’t. But, I did calmly ask her to please say the cue once only and give Sadie a chance to respond.

So, imagine how my ears perked up when Dr. Dunbar said repeating cues is not a problem. Well, actually, he said more than that, and I would be misleading you if I were to leave it at no hay problema.

Dr. Dunbar talked about repeating cues in context of the 3 Stages of Lure-Reward Training.

Briefly, in Stage 1 we teach our dog verbal cues for behaviors and actions so that we may instruct the dog what to do. Dr. Dunbar refers to this as teaching our dogs ESL.

At Stage 2 we focus on motivating our dogs to really want to do what we ask them to do by, among other things, incorporating life rewards such as playing with their doggy pal.

In Stage 3 we insist that our dogs comply with our verbal cues. You know, sit means sit, as in put your butt, and only your butt, on the ground immediately.

I think it’s important to say at this juncture that Dr. Dunbar isn’t of the mind that Rover must comply immediately to every cue ever uttered without exception. In fact, he employs a DogCon system that communicates to Rover the level of urgency and performance pizazz being requested ranging from: “It would be nice if you would sit, or whatever,” to “‘Sit’ now as if your life depended on it!” I won’t go into it here, but you can read about DogCon at Dog Star Daily by searching “DogCon.”

Okay, so what do we do if Rover doesn’t sit when cued, and we want to teach him to comply without question? This is where repeating cues comes into play, when, and only when, the conditions of Stages 1 & 2 have been met. Rover knows beyond a shadow of a doubt what sit means and is 90% reliable in performing the behavior on cue, and he is highly motivated to sit under most circumstances…..except, well, today, say, at puppy class where he’s found a empty treat jar to investigate.

Enter repeating the cue. Here’s how it might go:

• Seated in your chair, quietly say, “Rover, sit.”
• Rover, who is about 4 feet away, continues sniffing the jar.
• Stand up and say, “Rover. Sit. Sit.” Then give the hand signal for sit.
• Rover doesn’t sit. He doesn’t even hear you. He’s absorbed in pushing the jar, that he just knocked over, around the floor.
• Take 1 step towards Rover, and say “Rover. Sit. Sit!,” Give the hand signal for sit once. Then, twice.
• Rover looks at you as if to say, “You want something?”
• Don’t take another step. Stand where you are. Say, “R-o-v-e-r. S-i-t!” Followed by your hand signal.
• Rover sits!
• “Thank you.”
• Then say, “Rover, come,” and back up a few steps so Rover moves toward you.
• “Sit.”
• Rover sits in front of you.
• “Good dog. Go play.”

Let’s see. The first sit took 6 verbal cues, 4 hand signals, standing up, and taking 1 step towards Rover before he complied. Finally, he sat after one verbal cue. That’s the point. Requiring compliance after one verbal cue before releasing Rover to play.

Repeat the exercise after Rover has been playing for short time. With each successive trial he should be ‘sitting’ while farther and farther away from you, and after fewer and fewer verbal and hand cues, until he is responding to one verbal cue at a distance.

Dr. Dunbar calls this procedure Repetitive reinstruction until compliance (RRC). The aim? “I want an owner who can give a casual verbal cue from a distance and the dog sits. Then, ‘go play’. The person gives no intention signals. She or he is just sitting casually still and tells the dog to sit.”

I decided to take RRC for a test drive with Sadie’s BFF, Romeo. He meets the necessary criteria. He knows very well the verbal cue, sit, and he’s typically well motivated to comply.

Mr. R. was eviscerating a purple gorilla about 4 feet from me in our living room.

• “Romeo, sit,” I said nonchalantly.
• Romeo lifted his head to look at me with the ape dangling limply from his mouth.
• “R-o-m-e-o. SIT.” I said with quiet insistence.
• Romeo didn’t budge.
• I stood up. “Sit.” I gave the hand signal for sit.
• Romeo sat!
• “Romeo. Here. Sit“
• Mr. R. dropped the toy and sat down in front of me. I told him, “Go play.”

A minute or so later I again cued Romeo to sit. He was about 8 feet from me this time and exuberantly shaking the now gutted purple gorilla. He sat instantly.

“Learning theorists say this (RRC) won’t work or shouldn’t work,” Dr. Dunbar said. “All I know is that when we do this routine we will end up with a dog who will sit at a distance on a single cue no matter what the dog is doing.”

I’m not sure why RRC seems to work either. One thing, though, as I understand it, RRC is not the same as repeating a single cue in rapid succession so that sit morphs into sitsitsitsit. There’s a brief pause (a second, maybe) between cues, both verbal and physical,

To be honest, even though I subscribe to the one cue doctrine, I occasionally do repeat cues either because I think I need to, as in Sadie, wait….wait, even though she hasn’t budged, or because she doesn’t comply as fast I would like. If the behavior I’m cuing seems to be falling apart I get out the clicker and shape it up.

Most dog guardians (That’s what we’re called in Boulder. Really. Dog owners are referred to as guardians in municipal law. This affectation does not, however, translate into Boulder being particularly dog friendly. It’s not. Don’t get me started.) in my experience aren’t into the finer points of dog training. They do what comes naturally and that includes repeating cues. Yes, I know. Sometimes to distraction. But, I think that’s in part what Dr. Dunbar is trying to address with RCC. He seems to have found a path of least resistance. People apparently can repeat cues and ultimately get compliance when saying the cue once.

What do you think? How does this work?

THE GIVEAWAY!

At the close of the Denver seminar there were a few remaining DVD’s on the sales table in the back of the room. Dr. Dunbar didn’t want to lug them home and asked me to give them away. How cool is that?

The DVD’s:

You’ll receive a set of 3 DVD’s:

1. Training Dogs with Dunbar: Fun training for you and your dog
2. Training the Companion Dog: Adapted from the ‘Dogs with Dunbar’ television program
3. Every Picture Tells a Story: An educational Aid for Children to explore the language of dogs

How do I enter to win the DVD’s?

Leave a comment to this post by 11:59 pm MDT April 4, 2011 and you will be entered into the giveaway.

A winner will be selected by a random number generator.

I will notify the winner by email and ask for their address. The winner will have 24 hours to reply. If they do not reply within 24 hours, I will notify the second person on the list created by the random number generator, and so on.

Due to shipping logistics, only residents of the Unites States and Canada will be entered in the giveaway.

PREVIOUS POSTS IN THIS SERIES:

Dr. Dunbar’s Lure-Reward Training Revival

Dog Training Seminar in a Kong

Denial. Denial. Denial. People who don’t see abuse and torture when they are looking right at it are in denial. Denial is a very dangerous state of mind, it allows for all sorts of atrocities to go unchecked.

I thought about this when I read the always-on-top-of-current-dog-news Mary Haight’s new post: “Cesar, Abuse Is Not a Training Tool.” She includes a video to back up her argument. It’s a must read.

UPDATE (3/26/11): The video Mary Haight linked to has been taken down. However, you can find an extensive list of both articles and videos at Leah Roberts’ excellent site, Dog Willing.

Mary asks: “How can so many people, including professionals, watch him abuse, and yes, torture dogs, and think it’s okay?” This is a really important question that we need to deconstruct.

I took a crack at it the Bonfire of the Insanities: Dumbinance Strikes Again, a post that I wrote 16 months ago. It’s all about denial. You can read below.

It’s deja vu all over again. That’s what occurs to me lately when I reflect on the abusive treatment of dogs in the name of training.

In my previous life I founded Denver Safehouse for Battered Women and taught classes on violence against women at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Rapists don’t think they rape. They’re just have sex with a woman who really wants it anyway. Men who beat their wives aren’t committing felony assault, they’re just showing her who’s boss.

The perpetrators were not the only ones in denial. Our entire culture colluded with them.

Rape was just another name for sex, it wasn’t assault. Some scholars argued that rape was impossible. Not so many years ago in Colorado it was legal for a man to rape his wife because within marriage the law assumed that marriage was just another way of saying sex-on-demand.

Beating up one’s wife was an acceptable way for a man to manage his unruly woman. Police turned a blind eye to women beaten within a inch of their lives. I know this to be true because I was on the front lines at the beginning of the so-called battered women’s movement. Every place we turned to for help—police, social services, mental health—turned us away or gave the woman bad advice, namely, some version of “It’s for your own good.”

With both rape and battering people assumed “she was asking for it” and that it was “good for her.” As for the the man, well, he was just asserting his rightful superior role. And the few who said, well maybe he hit her a little too hard, quickly qualified their statement with “It wasn’t that bad. It didn’t really hurt. I mean he didn’t break any bones.” Sound familiar?

I know from that experience that changing the perceptions of a culture entrenched in denial is like trying to right a monster vessel adrift at sea. It’s slow going, but it can be done. And, it’s still a work-in-progress.

I am not equating rape and battering with kicking a dog. Actually, I just said that because I don’t want to offend people who might take offense at that analogy. In my heart of hearts, though, I see the abuse and torture of dogs in the name of training or behavior modification as criminal acts against sentient beings, and frankly I think those who commit those acts should be treated as criminals by the law.

We can be begin our rehabilitation by asking ourselves, those of us who see nothing wrong with kicking dogs for their own good: What would you lose if you saw CM kicking a dog as abuse, as the deliberate infliction of pain? What would change for you? How do you feel about that?

Bonfires of the Insanities: Duminance Strikes Again (Redux)

Dominance theory, or dumbinance theory as I prefer to call it, reared its howling head again, this time as a prescription for child rearing—“Becoming the Alpha Dog in Your Own Home.” (As of today, the most popular article in the NYT.) Meet Cesar Millan, the new no-nonsense nanny. Here. In the New York Times. Again. (In case you missed the last exercise in fawning over Millan by the national paper of record, go here.)

To mark this dubious occasion I decided to get out ye ol’ bellows and stir up some embers of thought ignited by thisbonfire of the insanities.

Insanity? You betcha. It’s downright crazy to look at one thing and see another, or not to see anything at all. Take dog poop. Poop is poop. Not chocolate puddin’. If you think poop is puddin’, you are in denial.  And, I don’t mean you’re cruising in a river in Egypt.

My aim here is to clear the smoke from our eyes so we can see what’s what, and stop convincing ourselves that that stuff we’re eatin’ is puddin’ and not poop. It’s poop!

Let’s begin with this quote from the Times article exhorting you to be the alpha dog in your own home, Cesar-style. It’s attributed to Allison Pearson, author of the novel “I Don’t Know How She Does It” about the pressures of contemporary motherhood. She said, “Unlike modern parents…dog trainers don’t think discipline equals being mean.”

Ah. Come again? Cesar Millan doesn’t dish out mean “discipline”? Is there more than one Cesar Millan? Did I miss something? I don’t think so. I’ll make a bold statement here. I am not crazy. Cesar ain’t dishing out puddin’.

Just to be fair, if Pearson was referring to the likes of Ian Dunbar or Karen Pryor or Pat Miller or Trish King, to name just a handful of excellent dog trainers who don’t think discipline equals being mean, I’m with her. They rely on thescience of behavior and research that shows, time and again, that putting your energy into positively reinforcing your dog for doing the behaviors that you like rather going on a search and destroy mission for the behaviors that you don’t like, not only gives you a well-mannered dog, or child for that matter, but a relationship based on trust, not fear.

But, given that the Times article was about Cesar Millan, presumably, that’s who Pearson was talking about. (Or, the author of the article, by leaving the reader to make her own inference, makes it appear Pearson was referring to Millan. Allison, who were you talking about?)

Am I saying that Cesar’s style of discipline is mean? In a word, yes. In fact, it’s beyond mean. It’s sometimes cruel and abusive. When Cesar forces a fearful dog-aggressive dog to confront his fear by bringing the dog face-to-face with another dog and then strangles the dog with a choke collar for struggling to get away, or for aggressing, that’smean. When Cesar drags a Saint Bernard who is fearful of stairs up a flight of stairs by the neck to get him over his fear of stairs, that’s mean. When he wraps a shock collar on a dog’s neck and shocks it to make it stop chasing the cat as the owner looks on, visibly shaken, that’s mean.

Do I think Millan thinks he’s being mean? No, I don’t. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t.

I think Cesar Millan is in denial about what he’s doing to dogs in the name of “discipline”. And, his placid demeanor enhances the delusion. Think about it. If he yelled in anger as he kicked, slapped, pushed, and choked dogs, we’d be appalled. We’d call the SPCA. We’d boycott National Geographic Channel and it’s advertisers.

Let me be clear. Millan does deserve credit for not flying into a rage when he disciplines a dog. For that he is a decent role model. Indeed, the first rule of dog training is Do not rage at your dog. If you are frustrated, or angry just stop interacting with your dog until you calm down. (Take note. This is good advice to follow with your child or your spouse or your friends.)

But unfortunately Millan’s self-styled calm-assertive veneer polishes the illusion that his discipline does good, not harm. Choking a dog into submission while remaining bucolic makes it appear as if the medicine is going down like, well, puddin’. Presumably if Millan is placid and not acting out of anger then he’s not hurting the dog either.

So when his disciples repeat and repeat, as if in a trance, Cesar says anything that works is okay as along as you don’t harm the dog, they’re in denial too. And when the National Geographic Channel and the New York Times further aids and abets this lunacy, we are entering the realm of collective consensual denial of harm.

But, hey, so what?

Here’s what. Denial scrambles reality. Denial allows us to do harm without recognizing our actions as harmful. Denial invites us to rationalize harm away.

Take blame the victim, for example, as in “he’s a red zone dog.” Cesar’s methods are all that will work. (Not true).

Or, minimization as in it’s not so bad. That’s a good one. I wonder if Bella, the American Bull Dog, would agree that it wasn’t so bad when Millan activated the electric collar he put on her to teach her not to guard her food. (For an excellent deconstruction of this episode of the Dog Whisperer go here.)

Denial also provides us with cover for not doing the right thing, for not taking a stand against harm.

We have a choice. We can clear the smoke from our eyes, point out poop when we see it and haul it away. Or, we can keep on chowin’ down the puddin’ around the bonfire of the insanities. What are you going to do?

In this post, the second in a series, I want to share two things with you. One, what I heard as the essence of Dr. Dunbar’s message during his seminar, Science-Based Dog Training (with Feeling). And, two, ten tasty treats to savor.

In subsequent posts I’ll write about topics that are stirring spirited conversation among reward-based trainers.

I was hoping to have posted about the seminar last week. You know, strike while the iron of my memory of the workshop is still hot.

But alas, all hell is breaking loose in Boulder these days over dog-related issues.

Yet again, there’s a push to, well, push dogs off of hiking trails. Every few years or so the pro-dog community girds its loins for battle and rallies its forces to keep the Boulder’s powers-that-be from severely restricting dogs on urban open space and corralling them onto few and fewer, heavily trafficked trails.

I won’t bother you with the particulars of this struggle. Let it suffice to say that I spent the better part of last week carefully crafting my 2-minute speech to Boulder City Council for a hearing devoted entirely to this issue, and that was the culminating event of 18 months of fierce fighting that pitted anti-dog conservationists against recreational users of urban open space, of which I am one of many. It’s been nasty and emotionally draining. Fortunately the meeting didn’t last long–by Boulder standards, anyway. It started at 6:00 PM and concluded just a little before 1:00 AM Wednesday morning. If you’re interested, this guest editorial in the local newspaper says it all.

The point is I took a detour from writing about Science-Based Dog Training (with Feeling), and now I’m getting back on track.

For an overview of the seminar you can read Dr. Dunbar’s posts on Dog Star Daily here and here. You can also watch his vlogs about the ideas in the seminar here, here, and here. Basically, each of the three days of the seminar covers a topic: Puppyhood, Learning Theory Redux, and Lure-Reward Training.

Seminar in a Kong

If I had to distill Science-Based Dog Training (with Feeling) into concentrated bits of premium kibble easily stuffed into a Kong this is what I would say:

Given that:

1. People are impatient and want results fast.
2. People quit if they don’t get the immediate results.
3. People naturally tend to look for “what’s wrong” and punish that, rather than notice “what’s going well” and reward that.
4. Most of the millions of dogs surrendered to shelters and rescues are adolescents with “behavior problems,” many condemned to death.

Then:

• We need to teach people to train their dogs in a way that’s “easy, efficient, enjoyable, expedient, and efficacious,” meaning “without negative side-effects,” thereby increasing the likelihood that dogs happily will live out their lives with their first and forever families. This includes teaching people ways to “punish,” since as noted above they’re going to do it anyway, that are non-aversive and effective. (More on this in a future post.)

Thus:

• Science-Based Dog Training (with Feeling) — from puppyhood through adolescence and beyond.

Give people what they want so dogs get what they need.  That’s the seminar in a Kong.

Ten Tasty Treats

As I mentioned in my previous post about the seminar, I took notes the entire time Dr. Dunbar lectured. Still, I’m sure I missed a lot. He talks fast when he’s on a roll. And, he rocks and rolls most of the time!

Each night after that day’s session was over, I reviewed my notes and highlighted thoughts that captured my attention. Sometimes they were things I already knew, but appreciated being reminded of. Others were novel, to me, anyway.

Here they are. Ten tasty treats selected more or less at random:

1. If you move a dog through an environment too quickly, that’s too much stimulation. Over stimulation can cause the dog to become reactive. Stop at least every 25 yards and let the dog get used to her surroundings.
2. We take good behavior for granted and pay attention to what we don’t like. That’s why dogs (and people) go bad.
3. With handling and gentling we can help our puppies grow into adults that have so much buffering around them they can handle obnoxious people in their eventual environments.
4. Biting. Chewing. Separation anxiety. House soiling. These are the big 4. They are predictable and preventable.
5. The day you stop socializing your dog he starts getting worse. We (Ian and Kelly) just started re-socailizing  our 12-14 yr old dog around other dogs using classical conditioning. We don’t want him to develop the geriatric grumpies.
6. Lack of neonatal handling is the most inhumane thing you can do to a dog. They are far more likely to grow up being fearful of people.
7. Think about it. What are 10 things a dog can’t do while she’s chewing on a stuffed Kong?
8. Cue the dog to sit before everything. Then, sit becomes a secondary reinforcer.
9. Protect your dog with preventative classical conditioning. For example, anytime there is a thunder storm, even if the puppy or dog apparently is not afraid of thunder, follow the thunder with a yummy treat.
10. Reward training is accurate and very powerful. The classical conditioning fallout is that your dog loves you.

Next post: “Luring is the fastest and easiest way to get behaviors?”

Oops. The next post is: “Repeating cues until the dog offers the behavior, ‘sit’, for example, is an effective way to teach the dog to ultimately respond to the cue when it is said only once.”

Happy Birthday Petfinder!

It’s a party! If you want to join the festivities to help animals get adopted, click on the badge on the left for all sorts of fun suggestions using social media, like donating your Facebook status and photo to an adoptable Petfinder pet.

Simply replace your photo with one from the Adopt-the-Internet All-Stars gallery and post one of these messages:

• More than 320,000 pets are waiting for homes on Petfinder.com. Help Petfinder Adopt the Internet today and find forever homes for as many as possible!
• I adopted my pet from Petfinder and now I want to help get this pet adopted! If you want to help pets in need of forever homes, please repost this!

That’s what I did. Today on Facebook I’m the lovely “Lucy Lu” for today. Look at that mug. Isn’t she a sweetie?

Here’s Lucy’s story and who to contact if she’s captured your heart:

Lovely Lucy Lu

You won’t find a more loving dog than Lucy. All she wants to do is please you. She is happy playing and hanging out with you and then she loves to curl up on her bed and go to sleep. Lucy loves children and gets along with other dogs. She doesn’t mind cats if they don’t mind her. To meet Lucy, contact Mary at barracudamom@earthlink.net

This is a BLOG HOP! Join the fun!

Greetings dog fans!

The last few weeks have zoomed by at Border Collie breakneck speed, brimming with stuff that separated me from my laptop and (sigh) blogging.

Dr. Ian Dunbar’s newly minted seminar, Science-Based Dog Training (with Feeling), which I had the good fortune of attending in Denver on March 4, 5, 6, happily reunited me with my computer. I furiously took notes every moment of the entire workshop.

Full Disclosure: I accepted an invitation to attend the workshop free-of-charge. I am under no obligation whatsoever to blog about it, although I want to and will. I did tweet during the sessions, also of my own accord. If you’re interested, you can find my tweets by searching #dunbardenver on Twitter.

Dr. Dunbar’s current revival of Lure/Reward Training is creating a bit of a stir among some in the dog-training world, so I was excited and very curious to hear what he had to say. (Click here for a schedule of Dr. Dunbars 2011 seminars.)

Here’s my list of the top 5 issues (in no particular order) that seems to be generating the most discussion among trainers, and that caught my attention as well. (Please, feel free to chime in here.):

1. Repeating cues until the dog offers the behavior, ‘sit’, for example, is an effective way to teach the dog to ultimately respond to the cue when it is said only once.
2. Punishment, in the operant conditioning sense of the word, is necessary to train reliable behaviors.
3. Feedback to the dog should be binary and emotional.
4. Reinforcement should be analogue, differential, and emotional.
5. Luring is the fastest and easiest way to get behaviors.

In my other life I’m a communication consultant. My area of practice is dialogue. Dialogue, as I’m using the term, has a specific meaning. It’s not synonymous with our ordinary way of conversing which often devolves into arguments in which we don’t listen very well to each other. You know, wrangling over religion and politics with Uncle Leo at Thanksgiving dinner.

At its heart, dialogue is about listening to understand where someone else is coming from. This doesn’t mean we have to agree with them, only that we do our best to get inside the other person’s point of view, to grok them, if you will. One of the coolest things about being in dialogue is that when I’m putting my energy into understanding someone else, I’m not focusing on rounding up counter-arguments. I am, however, noting questions of genuine curiosity that seem to naturally arise as I tend to the other person. Exploring those questions with my dialogue partner often leads to greater clarity and new insights. I love that!

“That’s nice, but what’s all this dialogue stuff have to do with Science-Based Dog Training (with Feeling)?” Good question. I’m glad you asked.

I’ll use the principles of dialogue as a framework for forthcoming posts. First, I’ll write about my overall understanding of Dr. Dunbar’s Science-Based Dog Training (with Feeling). What concerns is he addressing? What are his goals?

Then, I’ll delve into each of the five issues above, probably one per post. First, I’ll present Dr. Dunbar’s perspective, as best as I understand it, followed by my reflections and the questions that arose for me. Dr. Dunbar and I had a terrific talk about lure-reward training and related issues on the second day of the workshop during the lunch break. I’ll share what I learned.

Next up: What is Science-Based Dog Training (with Feeling)?

What a lovely surprise.

Thank you, Pamela! I’m truly honored to receive this recognition from you and especially pleased to be among the blogging stars in your constellation of winners. Many of them are among my all-time favorite blogs. Cruise on over to Something Wagging to see Pamela’s stellar choices.

Let me say a few words about Pamela and Something Wagging before doing my part as a Stylish Blogger Award recipient.

Something Wagging celebrates it’s one year anniversary next month! What a year it’s been. Pamela calls herself an amateur. She’s not. She’s cultivated a pitch perfect blogging voice and her content is top-notch as well. One of my favorite recent posts, “What Does Your Dog Call You?”, addresses who we are in relationship with our dogs. Pamela also recently initiated Dog Blog Tech, a place for “non-techie” bloggers to share suggestions and ask for help.

Thank you, Pamela!

Okay. Here we go with the fulfilling the responsibilities that accompany this award:

• Thank the blogger who gave the award. (Done!)
• Share 7 things about yourself/your pets. (Coming up.)
• Pass the award onto 15 other bloggers. (This will be fun! See the list below.)

7 Things:

1. Sadie LOVES the splashing into big bodies in water to chase after her ball. I DO NOT enjoy immersing myself in large bodies of water, or small ones, for that matter.

2. I love cuddling with dogs. Sadie, like many dogs, does not. This predicament leaves me in a state of perpetual unrequited cuddle lust.

3. Sadie and I greatly enjoy hiking in the foothills west of Boulder with her BFF, Romeo.

4. The only time Sadie allows me to sleep with her is if I lay down on the couch when she’s curled up in the far corner. If I don’t touch her, she stays. If I inadvertently bump her with my leg or foot, she’s gone. This is one dog who has a firm grasp on her personal space.

5. Sadie reminded me not to solidify in my mind the concept of her being a “fearful dog.” Last night at Treibball I protested to the instructor, “Sadie won’t do that, she’ll feel to boxed in.” WRONG! She did it! Happily. The “it” being ‘backing up’ (something she’s always been reluctant to do) between the wall of the barn and a horse-jump poll laying on the ground parallel to wall and about about 18 inches from it. Awesome.

6. Sadie told me loud and clear last night during Treibball that I need to bring higher value food rewards next week. Beef jerky has become a yawner.

7. Sadie just stretched off the couch (She does a downward dog with her hind end on the edge of the couch.) and is giving me the stop-wasting-time-on-the-computer look. Okay. We’re off to fetch Mr. Romeo for a romp in the woods.

15 of my favorite blogs–in no particular order and with one word I freely-associated with each blog.

1. Go-Pet Friendly–informative

2. 3 Woofs and a Woo–clever

3. Dog Jaunt–thorough

4. Fearfuldog’s Blog–insightful

5. Hound Girl–sweet

6. The Dogsmith–instructive

7. Dog Tipper–versatile

8. Pet Health Care Gazette–enlightening

10. This One Wild Life–activist

11. Paws to Ruffflect–funny

12. Rewarding Behaviors Dog Training–smart

13. Fido and Wino–humanitarian

14. Cleo’s Day aka Grouchy Puppy–potpourri

15. Dancing Dog Blog–cutting-edge

Enjoy!!!

Still, I want to let you know about The Pedigree Foundation’s grant program because there is still time for shelters and rescues to apply for funds for the 2011 funding cycle.

The Pedigree Foundation offers two categories of one-time grants:

1. Innovation Grants fund innovative programs/projects that increase adoptions. These grants are typically for $10,000 to $25,000. The deadline for submitting a proposal for an Innovation Grant is July 30, 2011.
2. The other grants are for Operations. These grants assist in funding basic operation costs such as facility/structure, medical, transportation, spay/neuter, etc to help make dogs more adoptable. The amounts of these grants vary in size, but are smaller than Innovation Grants. The deadline for these grants is September 30, 2011.

For more information and Guidelines for applying for these grants click HERE.

If you’re interested in learning more about the Pedigree Foundation, you can visit their website by clicking on the black and gold badge above. You’ll find a lot of information about adoption, the foundation’s annual report, past grant recipients, and this sweet PSA with Betty White.

Let’s join together

BTW, Felissa Hadas of Two Little Cavaliers got this ball rolling! Read about it: “eBay Petition Has Gone Viral!” Thank you Felissa!

Here’s what you can do:

Dear Deborah,

“Puppy mills” are large-scale commercial operations where dozens of dogs are kept in small cages for their entire lives, forced to give birth to litter after litter until they’re no longer fertile, at which point they’re usually killed. Puppy mills are unsafe, inhumane, and produce thousands of puppies with serious health problems every year.

Now, puppy mills have found a national vendor: eBay.

A few years ago, eBay had plans to sell animals via online auction. Responsible breeders would never sell dogs via online auction, so this would have resulted in the site becoming a haven for puppy mills. eBay users and anti-cruelty activists spearheaded — and won — the fight to prevent eBay from selling live animals.

But now all that’s changed.

Despite eBay’s claims that it “do[es] not condone unethical treatment of animals,” eBay now allows puppy mills to sell dogs in its classified section.

This practice enables flagrant cruelty to dogs, and it has to stop. Tell eBay to shut down its sales of cruelly treated puppies and all live animals.

Puppy mill dogs spend their entire lives in small wire cages, without companionship, and often without vet care, exercise or shelter from the elements. As far as puppy mill owners are concerned, the dogs have one purpose: to supply the pet trade.

The USDA recently admitted that they’ve failed to effectively monitor commercial breeders and puppy mills. When it comes to sites like eBay Classifieds, it’s even worse: Breeders who sell directly to customers online aren’t subject to any USDA regulations.

The best chance we have to shut down puppy mills is to hold vendors accountable.

Click here to tell eBay to shut down all live animal sales immediately:

http://www.change.org/petitions/ebay-classifieds-stop-selling-live-animals?alert_id=JhDDcGIQNR_zHKPkkRBXq&me=aa

Thanks for taking action,

Judith and the Change.org Team

Ira is a dog magnet

Sadie swoons and spins her tail at helicopter speed at the mere sound of his voice. Romeo, Sadie’s BFF, seeks Ira out and settles down leaning hard against Ira’s leg.

Then there’s another of Sadie’s friends, Moses, the Miniature Poodle. When Moses visits us Ira has learned to gather all he’ll need for the next two hours before settling down in his favorite chair–The New York Review of Books, the remote for the stereo, a flute of good tequila. As soon as Ira’s butt hits the chair, Moses leaps into Ira’s lap taking possession of this prime doggie real estate.

But, alas, even Ira’s poodle magnetism isn’t enough to keep Sadie in bed with us. Just as we’re settling in for the night, Sadie jumps between us raising our hopes. All wiggles and kisses, she spins a nest for herself, and curls into a ball. Ira and I share a hopeful glance. Maybe this night will be different from all other nights. Maybe she’ll stay. But no, Sadie prefers her personal space. She insists on snuggling in her very own amply-cushioned couch in the adjoining room. Maybe you recall, I wrote about my unrequited cuddle lust in “My Dog Is Just Not that Into Me.”

So it was with both a little envy and a lot of joy that I read “Warm Nights, Cold Noses” in today’s New York Times. It’s a fun read and puts to bed any notions that people are kicking their animals out of the sack in response to research out of UC Davis that warned of the dangers of zoonoses (pronounced zoh-AN-ee-sees). Personally, I prefer pronouncing it zoo-noses. Anyway, here’s one of my favorite excerpts from the Times story:

Sometimes, however, sweet dreams are not an option, as Tracy Rudd, an illustrator in Manhattan, has discovered. One man she dated years ago picked up her growling, nipping Chihuahua and tossed her out of the bedroom, later to find his clothes soaked in urine. When Ms. Rudd, 47, met her current husband, she said she knew he was the one because when he put his arm around her in bed during the night, causing her dog to growl and nip at him, he didn’t seem to mind.

“He just said he respected her for defending her space,” Ms. Rudd said.

As a result, the dog respected him and a lasting marriage was born.

You can read the entire article here. And, be sure to read to the end. Really, you won’t want to miss Kathy Ruttenberg’s story. Hint: her favorite bed partner is not a dog, or a cat, or a rabbit. It’s another kind of zoo-nose altogether.

Remember the massive Menu pet food recall in 2007?

Soon after that fiasco, Pet Food: A Dog’s Breakfast, a Yap Films‘ documentary that exposes the mal-practices of the pet food industry, aired on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) on January 24, 2008, and again on September 7, 2009.

Finally, over three years later, our very own CNBC announced it was going to air the documentary last Thursday, February 10, 2011 and again tonight, Sunday, February 13, 2011.

NOT!!! CNBC changed it’s fickle corporate mind.

Read the informative email and telephone exchanges between CNBC and Susan Thixton in this February 9, 2011 post at The DogSmith Blog. It begins:

First CNBC announces they will air the pet food documentary A Dog’s Breakfast.  Then they remove it from the schedule with no set date to reschedule.  Did CNBC remove the documentary from the schedule because of pressure of Big Pet Food?

Nonetheless, you can still watch Pet Food: A Dog’s Breakfast! Click HERE to see the video. The re-production value leaves a little to be desired, but it’s still quite watchable.

And, then visit our blog pal Jim McBean at Doggy Bytes. He wrote an in-depth post about the documentary last July 12. In case you missed it, as I did, read it here.

Does 'Droopy' have the best smile ever, or what?

UPDATE: Droopy was adopted on Sunday, February 13, 2011! We hope he’s loving his new home.

Have you ever met a Dogue de Bordeaux?

I hadn’t until Droopy came along. This handsome guy with the big smile is a Dogue de Bordeaux/Mix, also know as a French Mastiff. True to his breed, Droopy is friendly, playful, and even tempered.

Why anyone would abandon this exceptional dog to wander two of the busiest roads in Boulder (HWY 36 and Foothills Parkway) is beyond my capacity to understand. But, lucky for Droopy and his to-be forever family, a kind soul brought him to the Humane Society of Boulder Valley (HSBV).

Droopy is about three years old, a perfect age. He’s past adolescence and settling into becoming a lovely young adult. And, of course, he’s neutered.

He’s been a rock star at the HSBV, successfully meeting both dogs and cats, and greeting everyone with a big tail wag. And, loves treats!

Does Droopy’s gorgeous mug make your heart go pitter-pat?

If you think Droopy might be the one for you, please call  HSBV at 303-442-4030 during their regular shelter hours to speak to an animal welfare associate. Click here for a map and directions

This sweetheart of a teddy bear would love to meet you!

When she feels safe, she oozes delight. She launches her body into midair and twirls it around just because the snow tickles her toes and the sun the shinning. Her tail whirls like a helicopter at the mere sound of Ira’s voice.

Learning Treibball with Sadie is sheer joy! Check out this video montage created by Mary Manka who also owns the barn in which our class is held.

Sadie and I are  having a blast learning individual cues that will be chained together later.

I’m reminded of the Suzanne Clothier workshop, Working with Fearful Dogs, that I attended last fall. She emphasized working within the dog’s safe zone. Although Suzanne’s focus was addressing fearfulness and reactivity, I’ve carried the question as to whether or not Sadie feels safe, and make adjustments accordingly, into every situation, including Treibball.

So, what makes Treibball safe for Sadie? Several things.

When Sadie and I first met Dianna Stearns, the instructor, at the Treibball Winter Games a few weeks ago, Dianna was very sensitive to Sadie’s shyness. At my request, Dianna didn’t approach Sadie. Dianna let Sadie approach her and immediately offered Sadie a treat keeping her hand close to her own body. Sadie took it. Sadie started bouncing back and forth between Dianna and me, kinda like she (Sadie) was working out her own version of treat/retreat. Pretty soon she was just following Dianna around.

Dianna made it clear that Treibball is taught exclusively using positive reinforcement, true to the spirit of sport as developed by Jan Nijboer, a Dutch man living in Germany.  No punishment. No pain. Mistakes are ignored. Getting it right gets rewarded. No fear. Just fun.

And, Sadie and I are in this just for fun! I don’t have visions of one day competing in Treibball. Maybe we will, maybe we won’t. That’s entirely up to Sadie. I think by my not having an agenda I’m not pressuring Sadie, even unconsciously, to perform.

Another big plus is that Hilary Lane of Fang Shui Canines, and the co-founder of the American Treibball Assocation, is there. I’ve come to know Hilary over the last year and her presence is wonderfully welcoming. She also knows Sadie is shy and gives her lots of autonomy and freedom to approach or not.

I can hardly wait! Next Sunday will be our fourth class of an eight-week course. After the first class I was flying higher than a far flung frisbee. I went to last Sunday’s class feeling edgy and out-or-sorts. As you can see from the video, that funk evaporated!

Learn more about Treibball here and watch more of Mary’s Treibball videos here.