You have probably read the “Rainbow Bridge,” or one of its several variations.  Each of these is a lovely story about where your pets go after death—a beautiful place, full of all the things they love and absent any possible source of discomfort, where someday we will rejoin all of our past friends and romp in beautiful meadows where all animals love and help one another.

I do not want to be a curmudgeon, or diminish anyone’s delight in a parable; however, for me, such saccharine tales insult and trivialize reality—as though the wonder we share with our animals while they are alive is somehow not enough and we need to make up a better story; as though we need to turn our animals into vapid and immortal Disney characters in order to love them rather than simply loving them as they are.

Whatever happens to them when they die, I cannot know or alter, so I focus on what I can control—ensuring that their time in my reality is the best it can be.

One of the greatest lessons our pets can teach us is to live in the moment.  It is amazing how little my dogs seem to worry about the mortgage, or taxes, or growing old, or death.

Want your dog to have a perfect day at the beach? Take him.  Want him to bask in front of the fireplace with a perfect toy to chew on?  Make it happen.  Take him to the snow, go on a hike, teach him a new trick, rub his belly. You get at most a few thousand days with your dog, so make them great.  Your dog has simple wants, and it is amazing how many of them you can make come true with just a little effort, so make his life wonderful. Give him beautiful meadows in life, not in death.

I imagine some of my readers will protest, “the Rainbow Bridge makes me feel better, there is no harm…” and that is fine, you are obviously welcome to believe in whatever fairytales you find comforting, and I know many people have found solace in imagining their animals at the Rainbow Bridge.  I for one am going to delight in the real living animals that I find magical enough. And when they are gone, I will grieve, but ultimately I will remember the lifetime we shared, and that will be more than enough to fill me with joy.

We have been caring for a young Bengal tiger named Titan.  He was 8 weeks old and 15 pounds when he arrived, and around 22 pounds eight days later. He has around 500 pounds still to gain. He is on his way to a new and exciting life, and is here for some additional socialization.  We are quite fortunate to have some wonderful colleagues who sometimes send animals here which allows us to keep learning and experiencing new individuals, and benefits the animals by exposing them to new experiences with trainers who are good at showing them that the world is a wonderful place.  While with us, Titan will get to meet a wide variety of “other” animals and have different experiences.  One aspect of training animals for film is that a wide variety of animals either live here or have visited, so all of our animals are quite welcoming towards visiting creatures.  Last summer we had a baby camel in the kitchen and I opened the door to let the dogs say hello, and they walked right past her as though a camel in the kitchen was utterly expected…

I thought it might be interesting to share a few observations and images of his stay. Of course, this post will be mostly video since I am pretty sure most people would rather watch a tiger than read my observations!

Anytime you are raising an animal that will grow up to be easily capable of killing a human, the question of bite inhibition and boundaries becomes critical.  If you raise a dog or cat that mouths too hard, jumps up, or is a little headstrong, it is not the end of the world.  A lion, tiger, or grizzly that has those traits is very different.  Not only is it dangerous, but it ends up having a much less rich life than it could have because it cannot be safely handled.  At the same time, the process is slightly complicated because they are not domestic and are far less eager to please or willing to concede leadership. This makes for an interesting balance: you want to avoid conflict but at the same time you need situations to reinforce that you are the leader.  I find that some people are far too permissive, and the animal learns that they can do whatever they want, and other people are far too proscriptive and the animal is essentially being told “no” all the time.  I really try to set situations up where there are many obvious paths to success, so there are few rules, but then be absolutely clear about those rules. I also start right away by teaching a fun and positive game that is easy and gets a reward—usually put your feet on a mark.  I make this a super fun game, so anytime the animal wants to do something I do not want I can tell him to go to the mark and suddenly he has a clear path to success.

Titan is an absolute gentleman about his bottle.  He is good about keeping his feet on the ground, and if he does put a paw on you he is very gentle and keeps his claws retracted.  At this point he is consuming both milk in a bottle and meat in a bowl. If anyone is curious, the milk is a combination of goats’ milk, Esbilac, vitamins, amino acids, probiotics, etc. And the meat is primarily turkey for now, along with some liver and other organ meats.

It is winter so we did not get to play in the pond, which is too bad since tigers are one of the few cats that enjoy water, and I would really like to play with him in the water… We did play in the bathtub a few times. (Of course the raccoon likes to bob for mussels and carrots in that bathtub, and was not sure a tiger was the best partner for that activity!) We did get a little time outdoors when the weather was reasonably nice:

At first blush, Titan was NOT impressed with the idea of a canine buddy.  He had surprisingly strong prey drive for his age (even for a tiger!), so I decided to start by introducing him to a calm but large dog whom he could not possibly perceive as a snack.  First I played with Titan for a good while so he was not too rambunctious, then I fed him a meal so he was not too hungry or cranky, and then I brought Ansel into the room while Titan was in his crate, and let them sniff for a little while before I opened the crate door.  Titan came out, looked at Ansel, and hissed loudly.  He then lay on his back, but let out a loud staccato roar. Ansel was impressed and left the room… I will not bore you with all the details, but I worked on this for the next couple of days, and now Titan loves all the dogs, including Ansel, and spends several hours a day wrestling and playing with them:

Because it was drizzly outdoors, we spent most of our time indoors, playing, training, eating, napping, working on agility, generally suffering the misery of captivity.  We took Titan as one of the demo animals for a seminar on craniosacral osteopathy which is a great opportunity for socializing, and he played with lots of people and animals:

Titan is on his way now to a new home.  He is a wonderful tiger, and we will miss him greatly.

Today was one of those days when you try to stay inside.  We mulled cider, finished decorating for Christmas, and played fetch in the living room. When we had to go outside to do chores we bundled up with mittens and hats. This is the first truly cold week of the season at our facility, and it has me thinking, again, about how technology benefits animals.

The most obvious benefit is simple heat—whether a propane heater, a wood stove, a baseboard heater, radiant flooring, or even just a roaring fire, how grateful we all are to be inside and warm. We take the dogs out for exercise several times a day, and they absolutely enjoy it, but after an hour they are back at the front door imploring us to let them get back to their comforters and heaters!

Closely related to warmth is dryness.  Each of our animals has somewhere dry at all times, usually up to their knees in soft dry bedding—woodchips to straw, hog fuel to mattresses, pillows to down comforters.  Even the luckiest wild animals are lying on frozen ground that melts and soaks their fur, leaving them with little protection against the cold ground that sucks the energy out of them.

Water is perhaps the hardest thing to ensure during the winter.  Trough heaters and constantly running hoses, and we still end up carrying buckets of hot water several times each winter to keep warm water available. In the wild, outside of the fast moving rivers, there is just no water.  The deer are licking a few drops of moisture off rocks, hoping to get enough to stay alive till the next thaw. This is particularly hard for ruminants whose stomachs do not do well with cold water.

Keeping them from slipping is also a challenge.  On icy days we bring everyone inside—in the house or in stalls on rubber mats with bedding.  Every spring, the first time we hike up our creek, we find the bodies of wild animals that tried to get to water and slipped and fell down the steep embankment and lay pitiably for hours with shattered limbs before being eaten or dying.

I write this article cuddled in my warm bed with dogs and cats while sipping cocoa.  Looking over at Sequel, hogging the down comforter as always, I smile.  Long ago, on a cold night like tonight, his ancestor took the first tentative steps out of the lonely dark to join my ancestor by the fire, and we are both immeasurably thankful. Our animals are all asleep; warm, with blankets and water and full stomachs.  But I look out the window towards the woods and think about the many wild animals suffering.  Some of them will find their way into our home, our pastures, or our vehicles, and some will have the reserves to endure the long bitter winter, but many will simply die—unable to find enough food or water and eventually succumbing to the brutal cold.

I wonder if our animals dream of going to live in the wild, or if the wild animals dream of coming to live with us….

A vegan seeks to avoid all use of animals for food, clothing, or any other purpose.  But if you tell people that you are a vegan, they will often infer rather more.  Some will hear “touchy-feely-hippy-freak,” some will hear “human-hating-animal-lover,” and some will hear “animal-hating-Animal-Rights-zealot.”  For a word coined less than 70 years ago, “vegan” carries a great deal of emotional baggage.

Some of my best friends are vegan, as was I for many years. There are many compelling reasons to be vegan , including nutritional or religious beliefs and culinary preference. However, many vegans are motivated by the desire to do what is best for animals.  Let’s examine the reasoning behind such “ethical veganism”:

Animals have the right not to be eaten:

This is a direct quote from one of the most respected legal scholars in the field.  Seriously. Setting aside the matter of “rights” for a moment, let’s acknowledge inescapable reality: in nature, every animal dies and is eaten. All life depends upon death.  If you truly love and respect Nature, you cannot reject its most central process.  Not only is being eaten a virtual certainty for every animal, this vital biological mechanism provides food for every living animal: billions of animals make it through each day by eating the bodies of those who died the day before. Even when not ripped apart by a predator, animals are eventually consumed by small organisms that are then consumed by larger organisms.  This is the cycle of life: you may celebrate this truth or lament it, but you cannot change it. If you could enforce the notion that no animals be eaten, in a few swift weeks life on Earth would cease.

Animals have the right to a life without suffering:

So absurd is this argument that it is astonishing that anyone might accept the assertion, yet it is the bedrock quicksand of the animal rights movement in general and PETA in particular:

1. In the natural world, animals possess no rights, no protections, no guarantees.  Rights are a human construct, conferred by society or god: this abstraction has nothing to do with nature.
2. Even if we were to extend the general concept of rights to animals, one we could not grant would be “the right to life free from suffering.”  No animal in the wild is free from suffering, nor is any human. A life free from suffering is not a right, but a fantasy.
3. Life in nature is a struggle full of suffering – cold, heat, hunger, thirst, parasites, injury, illness, predation, conflict. Leave the confinement of your house and go live in the wild for a few months, then decide whether you prefer the “freedom” of the wild or the comforts of your home.
4. If we pretend that a life without suffering were a reasonable goal, there is only one way to imagine achieving it: capture all the animals in the wild and bring them into our world and devote ourselves to ensuring that their lives are as free from suffering as possible. The only animals, including humans, that come close to life free of suffering are the millions of pampered pets whose every need and desire are met by doting owners, with the help of groomers, veterinarians, chiropractors, nutritionists, and others.

Animals deserve to be free:

Very few animals are free: their movements are curtailed by other animals’ ranges, by geographic barriers, by predators. Freedom is a human illusion—we are all constrained. More important, anyone who has spent time around animals knows that, with few exceptions, animals do not want to travel: they want to establish a home range and stay there, safe and comfortable. If their range happens to be defined by fencing, and if within that range all their needs are met, animals do not yearn for some hypothetical freedom.

Animals deserve the longest possible life:

Life in nature is seldom long. Most wild animals die well before maturity, and few live long enough to see old age. If you believe that animals deserve the longest possible life, you cannot simultaneously believe that they should be in the wild: captive animals indisputably live considerably longer than wild animals.

Animals deserve a humane death:

Death in nature is rarely pleasant, never “humane.” Most animals in the wild die with little comfort. Whether they starve to death, are taken down by predators, succumb to illness, or meet one of numberless other fates, the end is often slow and agonizing. It may be comforting to imagine that predators kill with merciful speed, but anyone who has ever watched a cat play with a mouse, or seen footage of a killer whale flinging a seal into the air, a pack of wolves eviscerating a still standing ungulate, knows that natural deaths are often brutal. If you believe animals deserve a humane death, you cannot simultaneously believe they should be in the wild.

Humans are no better than animals and therefore should not eat them:

I am not sure this argument is valid—while we may not be better than animals, human consciousness is clearly different than that of most animals and might therefore obligate or entitle us to behave differently in certain situations.  However, even if we accept the idea that humans are no different than animals, it would follow from this that we are not constrained to behave differently from the rest of nature, in which case we would be no more obligated to veganism than any other animal.  Ethical vegans often suggest that meat-eating humans are misguidedly arrogant, that people who eat meat must believe they are superior to animals in order to ignore their suffering and consume them—that eating animals requires perceiving them as commodities.  And many meat eaters fall into this logical trap, defending their right to eat meat by quoting scripture about man’s dominion or making arguments about our moral or intellectual superiority.  However, these arguments are backwards.  It is arrogant to imagine that we are so qualitatively different from the rest of nature that we should eschew its underlying truths.  Do we really imagine ourselves so divine that we should remove ourselves from the very cycle of life? We eat, we are eaten. Our bodies are all commodities for animals yet to come.

Exploitation is wrong:

Even accepting this assertion, very few human:animal relationships are exploitive.  On the contrary, they are mutualistic: both species experience an increase in quality of life and survivorship. In fact, many human relationships with pets are amusingly close to pure exploitation of the human: the animal derives virtually all of the benefits.  Many humans take such good care of their animals that their charges’ life expectancies are two to three times greater than those in the wild; and their lives are not only more comfortable but pampered. Even many animals kept for food are exceptionally well cared for and live longer than an average wild lifespan. They are not exploited, they are well compensated .… (The vegan notion of exploitation is so broad that using the bones of a long dead animal is considered exploitation, keeping a sheep and providing her with a great home, protection from predators, food, veterinary care, fresh water, and anything else she wants, and in exchange taking her wool that would fall off anyway and will grow back is seen as exploitation.)

Animals “belong” in the wild:

Animals belong in the world.  As the world has changed, so have animals.  Whatever the wild was before mankind arrived, it exists no longer.  Do not condemn the animals of the world to die as we inexorably alter the planet. Allow them to evolve and to become a part of our new world: it is their only option, and is also full of luxuries and benefits: plentiful food, medicine, warmth, pillows…

Species we eat are “worse off” than species we do not:

Not so. Species that we use for food or other practical purposes fare far better than species providing no tangible value to mankind. While a few exceptional species – mostly scavengers like rats and roaches – have thrived alongside mankind, in general as our numbers have increased, the populations of other animals have declined, many of them to the point of extinction.  It is predicted that half of the mammal species on the planet today will be extinct in fifty years.  On the other hand, species that have tangible value to mankind have flourished: dogs, cats, horses, chickens, cows, pigs, etc.  Unquestionably some individuals of these species have bad lives, but the species have flourished, and many of the individuals have had great lives. (As an interesting side note, one could argue that species kept by humans are injured genetically: they lose certain abilities over time, such as chickens that can no longer fly. However, this argument essentially demonstrates that captive lives are easier than wild lives: in captivity, species become less fit because human caretakers free them from the environmental pressures that normally keep them from devolving, just as humans have become largely incapable of surviving in the wild, having adapted during generations of civilization’s comparative ease.

Individuals we keep to eat are worse off than those we do not:

Sometimes this is true, often not.  In aggregate, we cannot know. Consider my chicken Sasha as an example. Of course she would never have been born if we did not keep chickens, but even if she had, she would have likely been eaten in her first few weeks by a predator, or starved to death her first winter.  Had she survived long enough, she would have been cold, hungry, wet, and miserable, until she reached her maximal life expectancy in the wild a few years later and died, likely eaten while still alive by a weasel, hawk, or bobcat.  Because I eat eggs, or more accurately I feed most of them to my other animals, she has spent 10 years in a perfect yard, protected from all predators, with a warm room for winter, healthy food and vitamin supplements, with all the room she wants, dirt to scratch in, bugs to eat, other chickens for companionship, rocks to keep her nails trimmed, a disco ball making lights on the ground to chase, virtually no parasites, veterinary care if needed, shade and mist on hot days, etc.  Even if I had eaten her years ago, she would have had a longer life, and a life far more full of happiness and free of suffering, than she would possibly have had without a human caretaker.

Not eating meat will have a practical impact on the meat production industry:

I believe this is the most interesting and compelling argument – both in favor of veganism and against. The basic argument is: regardless of all the theoretical and philosophical rhetoric above, we have seen what happens when humans raise animals for food, and it is not pretty. We have seen over and over in many different industries that when there is profit involved, some people will sacrifice the welfare of their employees and their animals in order to maximize gain. Perhaps  humans will someday evolve their thinking so that greed motivates good behavior because people recognize that being happy is more valuable than being wealthy and that the path to happiness lies through good behavior rather than profit, but for now, we need practical solutions.

In the real world, we must devise ways to prevent greed from driving bad behaviors.  This is true in every animal venture where profit is involved: breeding, racing, ranching, pet stores, and the rest.  The behaviors driven by profit are generally inconsistent with the best interests of the animals, and we need to find ways to prevent greed from motivating abuse or neglect. Historically, two tools have been effective: legal mandates for minimal care and consumer demand for improved processes.

Legal mandates on minimal care similar to minimum wage, child labor laws, and nursing home standards, for example, are likely essential to prevent the worst cases of outright abuse, and such abuse and neglect laws already exist in most states, and of course, depend upon effective enforcement.

Possibly the most effective tool we have to influence how captive animals are cared for is how we consumers allocate our dollars.  Dolphin-safe tuna, conflict-free diamonds, organic foods: it is clear that if consumers demand and are willing to pay for a process improvement, suppliers will meet that demand.  Let us imagine that everyone became vegan tomorrow: millions of animals would be immediately “unemployed” – and soon killed or turned loose into the wild where they would suffer and die; and billions of animals would never be born in the future.  On the other hand, if instead of becoming vegan, everyone tomorrow demanded humane treatment for animals in captivity, and only purchased humanely raised meat, suddenly raising meat humanely would be profitable, and raising meat inhumanely would become competitively unprofitable.  Billions of animals would enjoy pleasant lives before eventually being eaten, the ideal life for any animal. Such decisions would yield a far more realistic outcome: many more people would pay extra for humanely raised products than would renounce meat altogether. And as the human population increases and we need more and more food, animal consumption is likely to increase, not decrease.

Eat meat, do not eat meat. It matters not to the animals of the world.  They do not care whether they are eaten by you or some other animal, although you are hopefully persuaded by the arguments above that eating meat is neither immoral nor necessarily harmful to animals.

But strict ethical veganism goes much further than not eating meat: its partisans argue that it is ethically essential to exclude all usage of animals for food, clothing, entertainment, companionship, or any other purpose.  This means no beloved pets, no captive breeding programs of endangered species, no wool sweaters. “Better dead than caged,” they say. “The world is our cage,” I say, “let us enjoy it together, happily coexisting on farms, in living rooms, or even in comfortable enclosures.”

Animals today face a threat far graver than being eaten.  Their historic habitats are being destroyed while misguided animal lovers work tirelessly to eradicate every viable alternative existence for animals in the 21^st century, relegating them to survive only in an imaginary realm where they are blissfully free, never die, have no interaction with humans, and are never eaten. Do not protect their illusory rights by sacrificing their comfort, their safety, their very survival.

Our Flint turned 16 a few weeks ago, and we cut together a quick video of some of the many great moments we shared with Flint which you might enjoy.  Flint is a fabulous dog, half Malinois, half border collie, and has been one of the great gifts of our lives.

Every conscientious animal lover wrestles with the question: what is the best, happiest, longest, richest life for an animal? Parents, zoos, Disney, rehabilitators, rescue groups, and animal rights organizations have relentlessly asserted that, “Animals belong in the wild; nature is beautiful, peaceful, and good; captivity is bad; if you love animals, leave them alone; animals are happier in the wild than in captivity; animals need freedom to be happy; if an animal ‘must’ be in captivity, the highest goal is to recreate a wild life as faithfully as possible.”

Animal lovers should set aside such propaganda and honestly examine this issue and decide for themselves what is truly best for each animal. While a “natural” existence is one possible life, in many cases humans can provide a better life for an animal in our world than it could enjoy in the wild: not merely an acceptable alternative, but a better life.  Recreating nature should not be our objective: nature is brutal and unforgiving, and most wild animals live harsh, brief lives fraught with danger, hardship, and pain. Long ago man came in from the wild, sacrificing some theoretical freedoms for safety and comfort in a civilized world. Almost immediately, animals began following us, and most animals if given a choice will elect to live with man rather than in the wild.

If a person cannot provide for an animal a life that equals or surpasses the life it would live in the wild, then he should not commit to possessing the animal. The only intrinsic difference between a wild animal and a pet is that the pet has a caring, competent person dedicated to tending to its every need.  Keeping most animals in an authentically “natural” way – even if such a thing were possible – would be neglectful, abusive, and unconscionable. We can and must do better than “the wild.”

Furthermore, because man has overrun the entire planet, “the wild” is essentially a thing of the past, a haunted memory.  There are grievously few authentically wild places left on the globe, and many species are near extinction for the simple reason that there is no wild place left for them to live.

We should carefully study natural existence as a starting point from which we create optimal lives for our pets. We must set aside human preferences and rigorously evaluate every decision from the animal’s perspective.  We may like cleanliness, but pig will rarely prefer a clean enclosure.  We may like bright colors and lights, but many animals do not.  We may like fluffy fabric beds, but furred animals may not care about texture and would prefer a material that is cooler and cannot harbor parasites. We may like the notion of an animal lounging comfortably in an huge meadow, but the animal might prefer to be in a small cave. What is ideal for one animal might be miserable for another. Forget about what you like, or what you think will look good to your friends, and focus on what is truly best for the individual.

Two primary arenas demand our attention in animal care: the physiological and the psychological.

Ensuring excellent physiological care is relatively straightforward: wild animals are inundated with fleas, ticks, intestinal worms, heartworms, flies, mosquitoes, and other parasites from which our pets should be kept free. Wild animals spend much of their life without enough food or water, or drinking brackish filthy water; our pets should have clean, fresh water at all times along with high quality balanced meals and vitamins, supplements, and treats to ensure maximal health. Wild animals are shot, poisoned, leg-trapped, and struck by vehicles. They are under constant stress and are held captive by geographic boundaries or other animals’ ranges. They are hunted and killed by animals of other species and regularly dominated or attacked by members of their own species in territorial or mating disputes; our pets should have ample space without threat of predation or injury and appropriate companionship. Wild animals are uncomfortably cold and wet or hot most of the time; our pets should be kept close to an ideal temperature at all times, and have access to dry clean bedding and shelter. Wild animals are unvaccinated against even the most common diseases and their injuries and illnesses go untreated and are often agonizing and eventually fatal; our pets should be given excellent preventive care, any injury treated immediately, any pain carefully managed, and as appropriate they should receive massage, chiropractic adjustments, homeopathy, acupuncture, etc. Our pets should receive well-planned exercise and regular grooming. Consequently they live an average of two to three times longer than their wild counterparts, and for much more of their lives they should be healthy, robust, and comfortable.

For some animals, particularly some fish, reptiles, and amphibians, meeting all of their physiological requirements may suffice to ensure an excellent life, but for many animals it is every bit as important to consider their psychological welfare. Our pets’ psychological needs are often subtle, and meeting them requires thought and careful observation. Recently I had the pleasure of visiting an excellent wolf facility with fabulous enclosures: acre upon acre of beautiful and natural space, regular natural food, wolves in pairs with virtually all of their requirements met.  They were free to lounge where they wanted, had virtually no demands made upon them, and had hardly any stress in their lives.  At first blush, it seemed excellent.  Yet I found myself feeling profoundly sad as I walked around and looked at the animals. They had not found a home in man’s world; they were captive wild animals, caught between two worlds, living in extremely nice cages. Our host carefully explained that these were not pets, but I found myself wondering, “Why not?”  Why not welcome them into our world and cherish them and give them the very best of both worlds? Their lives seemed empty: comfortable and safe, but with little purpose, little joy. (I was only there for a few minutes, and they may have great lives at other times; I am not commenting on their existence, only on my “feelings…”)

Driving home, I thought at length about why those animals’ lives did not seem rich to me, and I kept returning to the same notion: for millennia, canids have spent much of their time struggling: hunting, searching for water, digging a den, trying to cross a river, courting a mate. Their bodies, their minds, their endocrine systems, even their “spirits,” have evolved in the fire of struggle, and their health, fitness, and happiness are all linked to meeting and overcoming challenges.

When we take care of an animal, we remove danger and challenge in its life, but in doing so we risk removing most of the joy that comes from accomplishment.  This may sound a little anthropomorphic—that animals would share our sense of joy at having achieved goals. But if you carefully observe an animal for a protracted period, it seems clear that they relish accomplishment.  Solving a puzzle to get food, chewing through something large, dragging a log up a bank, catching a fly, digging a hole, winning a wrestling match – these are favorite activities of most canids. If you have ever watched a goat or a squirrel eating, you may have observed that they will often forgo easy food in preference for identical food that is more challenging to acquire.

Truly excellent animal care balances comfort and safety with challenges, obstacles, and activities that fulfill the animal’s nature, preclude boredom, promote exercise, and develop confidence. Be creative, and think about what would genuinely stimulate your animal.

Here are a few suggestions. Not all of them will fit your circumstances, but hopefully they will get you thinking about how to enrich your animal’s life:

First, some general concepts to remember:

• Safety: observe anything you give and make sure it is safe and does not overly stress your animal. Anticipate any way he could ingest, get stuck, fall, etc.
• Change: anything new and different is enriching.
• Response contingency: one of the best things your animal can learn is that he can influence the environment to cause a desired outcome. This decreases stress and increases learning in new situations as well as decreasing boredom!
• Stress: too much stress can be bad, but that does not mean all stress is. Fear and stress at reasonable levels are natural and healthy.
• Problem solving: many of these ideas are based on this notion.  Create a problem and a motivation to solve that problem, and you have enriched their day.
• Physical challenges: resist the temptation to make life as easy as possible. The point here is to make things challenging.
• Learning: grasping new concepts and new games, remembering tricks and outcomes, these actually develop new neural paths. This not only increases your animal’s knowledge, it increases his confidence and willingness to try new things and his capacity to experience the world.
• Habit forming: everything you do is teaching habits and reinforcing behaviors, so consider what you are training with any new activity.

And here are some specific suggestions:

• Training, Training, Training!!  You teaching new behaviors is the single greatest source of novelty!  Not just obedience, try freestyle or teach a few tricks.
• Play.  Remember, play is a great stress reliever, so spend time each day consciously playing with your animal. Wrestle, play chase, etc.  If appropriate and safe, also let them play with other animals of their own and other species.
• Varied feeding times, locations, and quantities.  Searching for and securing food is one of the primary activities of any wild canid. It is a good thing if your animal is hungry sometimes!
• Kong stuffed with treats. (Stick a Nylabone in the end to make it last longer)
• A fountain that sprays for five minute after animal presses a large button.
• Chicken broth giant ice cubes–these can be given to the animal, or hung so they drip all day.
• Buster cube or any object with food that comes out a hole.
• Large hard Plaque attacker. (observe for the first few days make sure no large pieces are being removed and eaten)
• New locations: rotate their enclosure, build separate play yards they can go into, take them to new places—beach, mall, mountains, car rides, etc.
• Hanging tire.
• Tug toy from a rope attached up high to a rubber spring or you play tug with them yourself.
• Knuckle bones.
• Wobble board or large ball on which you teach the animal to balance. (Great for proprioception)
• Treadmill or underwater treadmill.
• Loose crickets, mice, or rats. (assuming your stomach and ethics do not object)
• Feeder fish in pool. (assuming your stomach and ethics do not object)
• Container that has food inside.
• Different surfaces– bark, sand, rock, grass, astro-turf, metal, tile, plastic, etc.
• Button to press that plays a song.
• An endless pool.
• A wind chime hung high.
• Some little mirrors or a disco-ball hung high that will make lights move around as they blow in the wind.
• Tunnel.
• A sprinkler or other water-spraying device, especially if the water moves.
• Hang food where they cannot get to it, and give them a platform they can drag and climb on to get the food.  It is even ok if sometimes they cannot succeed. Failure and hunger are parts of a full life too.
• Sounds– sometimes play stereo or TV, sometimes sounds of nature or dog shows.  Make a loud noise, put food next to it, and let them spend the day working up the courage to get near it.
• Smells– sometimes spray a new cologne at the base of a tree or other object. Place in their pen a blanket from another animal.
• Set up an aromatherapy infuser.
• Water in which to play.
• Visual barriers.
• Boomer balls.
• An animal in an adjacent enclosure.
• A slide with treats at the top.
• A hole to dig in.
• Nylabones slathered in cream cheese.
• Do not feed in the morning and hide food around enclosure. (bury some and put some up high, etc.)
• New foods- broccoli, bananas, beef, even hot peppers or other things they may dislike.
• Big branches or old dead tree.
• Beam or plank on which to walk.
• Device that blows bubbles.
• Massage or T-touch.
• Big wooden box with various openings leading to food–some should have screw on lids, others sliding lids, others the food should be out of reach, etc.
• Buy or build toys with sliding doors that have to be moved to get to food. (Like tic tac toe)
• Build device that requires several steps to get food– pull one lever than go to other side of run and pull another and get treat.
• Vertical levels– build platforms at different heights and with ramps and steps, hammocks, etc.
• CHANGE– move stuff around, add stuff, take things out, etc.

Caring for any pet is a profound responsibility.  We must constantly, objectively, and without ego, defensiveness, or self-interest, examine the lives we provide for our animals.  We need to look at the whole picture and question whether the job we are doing is sufficient.  At the end of each day we need to evaluate that day from our animal’s perspective: Was it perfect?  Was it good enough?  Can I do better tomorrow? Did they get enough attention, ideal nutrition, optimal exercise? Were they lonely or bored?  Were their brains and hearts engaged?  Were they comfortable? Was their day better than it would have been in the wild?

Ask friends with differing experience and perspectives to visit your home and provide input on any areas in which your animals’ lives could be improved, and be open to their suggestions.

Some animals live in the wild. Nature and chance dictate the quality and duration of their lives.  Other animals live with us, filling our lives with wonder and joy, and it falls to us to ensure that those animals have lives that are not only safer, more comfortable and longer than they would be in the wild, but also richer and fuller.

Note: As published in “Wolfdogs” magazine.

Many, many years ago, my young Newfoundland Tillie and I were hiking down the Rio Grande near Santa Fe, several miles from the nearest road. It was one of those perfect days where the sun seems to warm every inch of your body while a gentle breeze keeps you cool, and the concerns of life seem far away indeed.  Tillie was trotting a few yards ahead of me, off-leash, when my reverie was shattered…

Have you ever heard the screech of tires coming toward you? The sound of failing metal brakes struggling to stop a freight train about to impact your car? The sound of millions of voices crying out in terror and suddenly silenced? A high power electrical transformer exploding? The clattering chain dragging your roller-coaster car towards the looming brink? Imagine them all combined into one piercing-deafening-heart-stopping-shriek-of-a-rattle. Even if you have never heard that sound, there is an ancestral memory woven deep in your genes that tells every fiber in your body and soul to contract. I froze and called Tillie to me, and she happily trotted over, apparently unconcerned by the deathly sound.  Inches from where she had been I saw the largest, angriest rattlesnake that has ever lived.  Normally I love snakes, and gently remind people that they are an integral part of nature that will not hurt us if we leave them alone, but standing there, feeling how close Tillie had been to death, I was less benevolent and rather more terrified. I could almost see the poison dripping from his fangs and eyes, as I returned his icy stare. Tillie and I retreated a few feet, and I held her closely as she licked me with an “I have no idea why you are suddenly hugging me, but okay…” look on her face…

After a few minutes I was calm and began trying to figure out a way around the giant serpent who filled the only available trail.  I tried various methods to encourage him to depart, all to no avail.  Finally, anxious to get to our favorite swimming spot, I hatched a plan. (Have you noticed that plans that are “hatched” almost always end badly…) I put Tillie in a down-stay and found a long, hefty stick with a sort of a “Y” on the end, and I cautiously but swiftly scooped the snake with the stick and flung him into the river.

Of course, what Tillie saw was me carefully selecting a lovely fetching stick, as I had done many times, and flinging THAT into the river. And so, before I could utter a word, she was up, into the river and swimming powerfully towards the western-diamondback-stick which was swimming towards me with astonishing rapidity.  For the second time in 5 minutes my heart leapt into my mouth and I tried to call her back but she either could not hear over the river or perhaps figured she would come just as soon as she had the stick in her mouth.  Fortunately, I still had the real stick in my hand, and in a moment of clarity decided to fling it between Tillie and the snake.  She grabbed the closer stick, turned, and came back to me…  Ever since then I have proofed stays and recalls rather more creatively and diligently!

Sometimes in training we seek not only to teach a new behavior, but also to modify an animal’s mental state.  Often this can be achieved simply by choosing to reward the animal only when it is in the desired state–reward when the dog is working calmly, or when the dog is happy and enthusiastic.  This is one significant difference between advanced dog training and novice dog training: beginners think in terms of teaching a behavior, advanced trainers think in terms of shaping attitudes. It is straightforward to train a dog to walk at your left side, the elegance lies in training a dog to do so with enthusiasm and joy.

I still remember how badly I messed this up with my first trained dog, many years ago-Tillie was an exuberant Newfoundland, and I was an easily embarrassed teenager.  On our first night in obedience class, Tillie seemed to me to be the least-well-behaved puppy there, barking and dragging me around, and I resolved not to look like a fool the next week. So before the next class I took her on a huge hike: we climbed mountains and swam rivers and ran in sand and chased balls, and by the time we went to class she was happily exhausted.  She calmly walked behind me at a glacial pace, and I felt that we had made great progress.  For the next 10 weeks, every Thursday I repeated this routine, and never again was Tillie hyper in obedience class…  A year later I decided it was time to try our hands at competition obedience, so I entered another class, and discovered that my bright, energetic, happy dog turned into a slug the moment I started doing obedience.  She lagged behind, and did everything slowly and without any enthusiasm.  It took me a while to realize that I had trained her to be that way… I had actually conditioned her psyche to enter into a particular state whenever certain cues were presented.

One particular situation where training mental state can be extremely beneficial is with a dog who gets too stimulated.  Whether it is when another dog approaches, or during play, or when the doorbell rings-if your dog reacts with excess energy, you face the challenge of not only modifying the behavior, but also modifying the underlying excitation.  One of the best techniques for this is training your dog to “cap” its own emotional response with an incompatible behavior before an undesired outcome.  This morning, one of my dogs did a lovely job of illustrating that principle, and I thought I would share it:

Sequel is a young border collie rescue.  He is very intelligent, but even more than most border collies, he has some behavioral quirks.  Primarily they all center on a tendency to become over-stimulated rather easily.  That tendency is present in his littermates, and is quite extreme, despite considerable work on reducing both the underlying causes and the specific manifestations.  He sleeps right next to me in bed, and while he is an excellent sleeper, he tends to wake with much exuberance when the alarm goes off, which leads to his jumping on my head and then escalating frantic and annoying behaviors until I get up and take him outside to play.  (I on the other hand wake grudgingly, and try desperately to hide under the covers.)

Knowing that one day while half asleep I might fling Sequel out the window, I decided that I should find a remedy. Given that I would be largely asleep, the solution needed to be fairly simple. So I put a large fabric crate in the room with the door permanently open and a comfy bed inside, and every morning when he jumped on my head I sent him into the crate and told him to wait there.  I then waited for him to settle back down, and once he was relaxed I got up and took him outside.

He easily and effectively learned this, and for 6 months we had this routine-he sleeps soundly until the first noise, then wakes, gets excited, gets sent to lie in his crate, we both snooze for 10 minutes, then we get up.

Today, the phone rang early, and Sequel stood up, looked at me, stretched, hopped off the bed, went into the crate, and lay down and immediately went back to sleep while I talked on the phone.

On first blush this seems trivial-big deal, the dog learned to go into a crate.  But look more closely. What is interesting about this is not that Sequel learned to go into a crate-he learned that perfectly within a day or two and did it reliably every morning.  It is not even that he learned to go into the crate without my telling him.  What changed this morning was that he stretched, did the behavior, and went back to sleep.  He never got excited! An autonomic response changed.  He would normally have had a surge of endorphins at that point, and would have sprinted into his crate and obediently waited.  What was different was not that he did what I wanted, he always did what I wanted, it was that his nervous system actually skipped the excitation phase of the process. The crate behavior was an operantly conditioned, trained, behavior, but through enough repetitions, Sequel became classically conditioned to have a different emotional response.

Every year Loki and I spent a week at the county Fair, doing demos and talking to people about dog training. I certainly enjoyed these days, but really we went because Loki loved it. Twelve hours a day of doing his favorite tricks and getting applause, getting loved and petted by thousands of people, eating steak burgers and ice cream, and generally being the center of attention was a perfect day for Loki, so of course we went… Every few hours Loki would go into his crate for a quick nap. He loved this also—for a border collie, Loki was quite lazy, and a good nap was among his favorite things. One day I was sitting there next to Loki’s crate when a woman came running up calling me a heartless bastard. I looked around to see what she meant, and after a moment realized she was talking about Loki, lying there on a soft bed in a crate trying to sleep but somewhat disturbed by her yelling… I reached down and opened the crate door. I thought it was a grand gesture that conveyed everything I was thinking. She got even angrier and told me that I had broken his spirit and he was too afraid to come out of the cage. So I called him out and he cheerily did a few tricks; I tossed the Frisbee for him a few times, gave him the last bite of my ice cream (hey, it was the Fair!), kissed him on the head, and sent him back into his crate to finish his nap…

A few weeks later I was working on a photo-shoot at a lovely park in Beverly Hills on a warm day with several puppies. The shot involved them playing with a boy in the shade, and they had a great time playing and tugging and occasionally licking baby food off the boy. The whole time there was a fan blowing on them, and any time one seemed tired we rotated it out and used another puppy. Between shots we went back and sat in the very comfortable 16’ x 8’ air-conditioned back of our truck. I put pairs of two puppies each into three extra-large crates together to let them play a little and relax. A woman came over and asked if she could look at the puppies, and I said sure. She came into the truck, looked at them and said, “Awwww, you poor babies…” So I looked to see what was wrong! They were rolling around on cushy beds, at 65F, with water and bowls of ice with toys and chewies. They were obviously ecstatic, as opposed to all the people who were standing outside in the heat. So I asked her what made them poor babies, and she said, “They are in a cage.”

My initial instinct is to dismiss such people as crazy—ignorant and irrational people who are so married to their preconceptions that they are unable to objectively evaluate what is immediately obvious to anyone who takes a minute to observe and think; people who ardently call themselves animal lovers, and undoubtedly love the idea of animals, but are ignorant of the needs and desires of actual animals. However, so many people seem to feel this way about crates that I genuinely try to understand their perspective. These people do not see what I see when they look at a dog in a crate. They cannot see past the bars—they do not see if the animal is happy, healthy, relaxed, or content. They do not imagine the other 90% of the animal’s existence, out of the crate, having a rich and full life. They do not see that the animal is able to have a wonderful adventure today and not be left home because of the crate. They do not see the safety afforded by the crate. They do not imagine that the dog wants to be lying down right now and that it prefers lying in the comfort and security of a familiar man-made den.

Crates are tools—neither good nor bad—they have no innate value. Their value derives solely from how they are used.

Of course, the people who think crates are inherently cruel are unlikely to be reading this blog; nonetheless, I thought I would review the primary situations in which a crate is a great tool and the primary situations in which a crate is deleterious:

When Crates are Ideal

Safety in vehicles: in a vehicle, a crate is the canine equivalent of a child safety seat. Sure, it may look like you have strapped the child into a torture device, and yes you have temporarily restricted their personal freedom, but it is essential in order to transport them safely. We all understand that good parents take their children places and use safety seats to protect them, similarly responsible pet owners know that they need to take their pets places in order to give them rich, full, fun lives, and that crates protect them while travelling. Crates keep them from being thrown during impact, from interfering with the driver, and from escaping into the street if there is an accident.

Safety at home: think about a crib. Understanding that an infant can quickly hurt itself by eating or touching the wrong thing, we all recognize cribs as a tool of responsible parenting, and would be shocked to learn of a parent who did NOT use a crib—who left her infant to wander the house while mom took a shower or napped or whatever. Nobody sees a crib as cruel when used appropriately—the child is going to nap or play in a small area much of the day naturally, and providing bars that keep the child safe is humane and advisable. Countless dogs die every year from eating toxins, chewing electric cords, getting out, etc. And many of these dogs had been left loose many times previously and one day they did something they had never done before and were seriously injured or killed. Other dogs are left outside and are stolen, poisoned, or escape.

Training: many undesirable habits can be challenging to break if you cannot always be present to enforce the rules, but if you can use a crate to prevent the dog from rehearsing the behavior except when you are present to train, you can fix most of these problems very quickly. Millions of dogs end up at the pound each year, and are eventually killed, because of simple behavioral issues, many of which could have been fixed in a few weeks of the owners had properly used a crate.

When Crates are Detrimental

Too long: the obvious failure of crates lies in using them for too many hours per day, too many consecutive hours, etc. Unfortunately, some people really only want a dog for a few hours each week, and they use crates to essentially “get rid” of the dog for all the other hours. The dog gets inadequate exercise, and ends up bored and lonely and there is little relationship because the dog is always in a crate. However, this is a delicate topic, because many people “feel” that a dog is in a crate too long without thinking about how many hours the dog would chose to lounge around in one spot if it had the choice. It is somewhat amazing how many hours each day an average dog is content to lie around if the other hours are rich and full. This balance is different for each individual, so assessing how much crate time is “too much” requires paying close attention to the dog and listening to what he wants.

Avoiding issues: sometime people use crates to avoid behavioral issues that could be resolved with a little effort, but instead of making the effort people just avoid dealing with them by crating their dog all the time and never letting the issues arise. In most situations, crates should be used to help improve the issues, not merely to avoid them.

One of the most significant problems facing responsible animal owners these days is the willingness of “animal lovers” to make value judgments based on assumptions. If you really care about animals, you must evaluate their well-being based on their condition and attitude, not their mode of transport. I wonder how many of the people feeling sorry for my healthy and happy dog delighting in doing tricks at the Fair have an obese and untrained dog at home, bored out of its mind sitting in the same 2500 square foot crate for twenty-three hours of every day of its life.