There are respected, successful, talented, effective trainers at nearly every point along the spectrum of “hardness.” (Personally, I think the very best trainers tend to have superb balance of the various principles along the majority of the spectrum, and can shift themselves as the animal and situation demands, but that is a topic for another day.)
Those nearer the “hard” end tend to espouse messages around strong leadership and boundaries, and not letting your animal become pushy, spoiled, wild—they tend to be big on clarity and firm authority.
Those nearer the “soft” end tend to espouse messages around listening to your animal, helping him find calmness and relaxation, making sure his needs are met and he is comfortable, soft, relaxed—they tend to be big on empowering, motivating, encouraging.
In general, I think owners who are near the soft end of the spectrum would improve the most by spending the majority of their time listening to trainers who are nearer to the hard end, and owners near the hard end would improve the most by primarily listening to trainers nearer the soft end. Not that anyone should feel compelled to go “too far” outside what seems ethical and right to them–quite the opposite, it is important to work with trainers whose techniques make sense and feel good and correct to you, but generally listening to trainers a bit in the direction opposite your leaning will maximize growth and learning and help you to become a more balanced trainer with greater breadth and depth.
What is interesting is that the opposite tends to happen—soft owners are drawn to soft trainers whose messages sound and feel familiar and comfortable to them, and so they reinforce or exacerbate their inherent imbalance; and hard owners seek out hard trainers who tend to reinforce or exacerbate their innate proclivities.
This is also true with politics, metaphysics, media, life: it is important to seek out those whose central ethics and ideals overlap with yours, but if you constantly surround yourself only with like-minded experts who affirm and reinforce your inclinations, growth is slower and less certain than if you also seek out, and genuinely consider, those whose views will push you to question your tendencies and consider alternative perspectives.
There are many articles on the internet about neutering: pros, cons, optimal age, etc.… And there have been many interesting studies worth perusing, and considerable research about the physiological factors including joint issues and cancer. (I am not including links because this is an ongoing area of research and new studies appear regularly) I do not think there is a single correct, or incorrect, answer, but here are a few of my thoughts that may be helpful to anyone contemplating this question:
First, let me separate, absolutely, the question of neutering from breeding: I am going to assume that most of my readers are able to keep their dogs under their control and avoid unintended reproduction. If you are not able to keep your male dog from getting to females, or from wandering, or from fighting, you probably should not have a dog… And if you want to let your male play with intact bitches and not have to be extremely vigilant, you should neuter your dog.
The single biggest point I would make is that while this decision often feels huge and overwhelming, it ought not be: there are several important factors to consider, but the total differences between neutering at various ages, or not at all, are fairly minor. We have had many neutered dogs and many intact dogs, and their ability to work and do pretty much everything is similar. This decision is unlikely to make or break anything, and is quite low risk, so relax and quit worrying that you are going to make a “wrong” decision and catastrophically damage your dog! Research, discuss with your vet, make the best decision you can, and feel good about it…
That said, here are a few key points to consider:
In most cases, I advocate waiting until an individual is mature. Usually this means around two years old, but some individuals it might be a bit younger or older. The various roles hormones play in controlling, and stopping, growth, are important enough that, in general, I prefer to leave testicles until I am sure that vertical growth has stopped and maximal muscle development has occurred. I believe this ensures the greatest likelihood that the dog will be healthy later in life, and I also believe male hormones help them be more confident during puppyhood. I rarely neuter a dog before two or three years old, unless there is a compelling medical or behavioral reason to do so.
Many male dogs will develop prostatic hyperplasia later in life, and surgery on senior dogs is generally less advisable, so if I believe an individual dog is nearing the end of his physical prime, I often consider neutering before they are “too” old.
Neutering will not make your dog fat, but it may decrease his basal metabolism, so you absolutely do need to keep a close eye out for weight gain and adjust caloric intake as needed.
Neutering will not make your dog lazy, but it may decrease his energy levels slightly, so you absolutely do need to make sure he is still getting plenty of exercise.
Neutering will not make your dog magically stay home, but it may decrease his tendency to wander, but that should not be relied upon, and your dog should be securely contained when not under your immediate control.
Neutering will not make your dog magically unaggressive, but it may diminish certain types of aggression, but that should not be relied upon, and you should socialize, train, and manage your dog so he is not fighting with others.
Neutering may diminish marking, roaming, aggression, mounting, and other masculine behaviors to some degree, but generally will not once they are ingrained, so if you are seeing these behaviors more than seems normal in a young male dog, you may want to consider neutering before they are established habits. It does tend to be easier for neutered dogs to focus on their handler and be less distracted by odors and other stimuli.
Neutering likely will somewhat alter a dog’s coat and appearance. In general coats will become a bit softer and longer, and in general muscle mass and tone will become slightly less.
Early neutering (before physical maturity) will generally increase height and decrease muscularity and seems to often diminish breadth of skull.
While neutering is not a magic bullet for any behavior, I do feel compelled to articulate that if you and your dog are having problems around any of the above behaviors, neutering generally is worth considering–it may make enough of a difference that you and your dog can have a much happier life, so absolutely do discuss neutering with your vet–it is possibly a better alternative than other options.
So, think about all the variables, look at the most recent studies, talk to your vet, and make the best decision you can and then get back to focusing on the fun stuff with your puppy!
Over the past few years, a bit of a disconnect has developed between many veterinarians and their clients, and I wanted to share a slightly different perspective on the problem and suggest that it might be somewhat ameliorated by vets rethinking some of how they operate:
Many articles and memes have been written about how challenging the veterinary field has become: the depressing suicide rates; the crazy student debt; the unkind, entitled, and unappreciative clients; the long hours that are never enough; the unfair expectations… All of that is true and valid, and I will continue to support the veterinary profession and encourage pet owners to be as kind and understanding as possible! Let me say that again—be kind to your veterinarian, they are working very, very hard to help you and your animals, and they deserve courtesy, thanks, respect, and gratitude!
That said, let me share with you another perspective. Long ago I worked in several vet offices, most of my childhood I wanted to be a vet, many of my friends are vets, and I have owned many animals for over 40 years, so I have a lot of experience with vets.
I used to love going to the vet: I had multiple vets, and I felt like each and every one of them was a friend, an ally, a vital and cherished member of the team working to keep my animals healthy! We were comrades, and we would discuss current research and best plans for how to make the best decisions for my animals. They treated me as the world’s foremost authority on my animals, and they listened carefully and conspired with me to do what was best for my animals. They trusted me, and I them. I would bring in some research study on a new protocol, and they would take it and research it and call me a few days later to discuss. If I needed a relatively benign medicine, I could almost always call and get some without having to bring my animal in for a stressful visit. In most cases they welcomed me to assist, to restrain, to comfort, and if they thought my participation was likely to be counterproductive, we discussed options. If I wanted to spend all day lying on the hard floor comforting my animal, they encouraged it, smiled, and stepped over me. Even though bills were sometimes high, I rarely doubted that they were doing what they absolutely believed was best for my cherished animal and for me, and I always came home feeling thankful and deeply grateful.
Over the past twenty years, long before Covid, vet offices have become much less collegial. Many vets seem to feel that all owners are uninformed idiots who know hardly anything about animals, and while I recognize that some significant portion of clients are dopey, I think assuming all are is deeply problematic. Many vets want to talk money before anything else, want to immediately take animals into the back, want to perform unnecessary procedures that seem far more about profit than animal welfare. They often try to upsell unnecessary, and sometimes strongly contraindicated, products or procedures. Many seem uninterested in the emotional or psychological needs of an individual animal. Often it feels like if you go to the vet you will be swept up into their process and have little control over what happens. Many vets seem to believe they know best even about topics upon which they have very little education or experience, or that they love and care more than the animal’s owner. A surprising number of new vets seem quite brainwashed by the Animal Rights agenda and are more than a little misinformed, anti-breeder, and anti-animal welfare in support of imaginary rights.
I dread having to go into a veterinary office where they have not known me for years—I feel like I am walking into a fight before I even get to the door. And nearly every experienced animal owner I know feels the same and fears the day their good-old-vet retires and they are forced to try to find a younger vet who seems interested in working with owners…
There are lots of reasons, some valid and some not, why this shift has occurred. But in my opinion, this disconnect between vets and animal owners is at the root of a great deal of the unhappiness that is causing vets and techs to feel unvalued and take their own lives, and while I think some remediation may derive from encouraging pet owners to be kind and understanding, I think a significant portion of the resolution must come from the veterinary profession making some fundamental changes that will rebuild the sense of connection, trust, and alignment between animal owners and veterinarians.
There are many trite inspirational sayings and anecdotes about embracing challenge and struggle in life, for it is in these moments that growth occurs. (One of my favorites is the story of how a reporter asked Muhammed Ali how many sit-ups he performed, and he answered that he had no idea, because he did not start counting until they started to really hurt, for those were the only ones that mattered…) Often, these platitudes sound great in theory, but in the moments when they really matter they seem hollow.
One of the great lessons in animal training is, perhaps, that it is precisely the imperfections that ARE the point:
Veillan and I were struggling a bit—he did not understand what I was asking and was getting frustrated, and I was trying to figure out how to communicate more clearly, and we worked through it, and my instinct was to feel proud and happy that we had overcome the bad spot and could now move on to the good, and it suddenly struck me that the moment we had just completed WAS the good. The stuff before and after was pleasant enough, but it was in the little struggle that I grew, that Veillan grew, that our trust, confidence, bond, language, understanding, and affection grew. That moment was the great gift of animal training, the great gift of life. I got out of bed seeking that moment, not seeking to avoid or even overcome it. Recognizing challenging moments in this way perhaps helps us to genuinely release frustration and impatience—these are not failures or negatives—and relax and enjoy the preciousness of the moments that matter most.
This may all sound rather obvious and remedial to many, but for me it was a bit of an epiphany—I have always been good at embracing the suck in the sense that I was good at coming to terms that it was a necessary step towards where I wanted to be; but I am not sure I have previously recognized that perhaps the suck is not a step; but rather the goal…
For most of the last twenty-five years, if you had asked me to define my training style, I probably would have identified myself as a “joy trainer.” My central defining characteristic as a trainer has been to find and develop joy in playing the game; to determine ways to ensure that doing whatever behavior I wanted was the most fun option imaginable, and that the animal was demonstrably, actively engaged and enthused about the process and the outcome. Over the course of training thousands of dogs, cats, antelope, raccoon, skunk, lemur, crows, chickens, lions, tigers, bears, snakes, and nearly everything else to fairly high levels for hundreds of films, commercials, ads, and TV shows, this technique has served me very well, not only in terms of achieving superb results, but also in terms of having extremely happy animals that LOVE to train and that continue working over long lifespans, and also feeling very good about myself and the lives of my animals.
In that vein, I have often written
about the importance, early in training any animal, of determining precisely
what that individual finds genuinely rewarding, and understanding the patterns
and specifics of reinforcement—when should you use which treats, when play
which games, when use which types of praise or petting. What motivations and drives
that animal possesses and how best to utilize them.
But over the past few years, Veillan,
an energetic Lusitano x Arab colt, has helped me to realize that my thinking
about joy, drive, and reinforcement was too narrow. When I started training
Veillan, I found myself struggling a bit to figure out how to incorporate play
and joy into his training. Sure, he had periods of exuberant play, but they
tended to be brief and difficult for me to instigate, and trying to play with
him while also being safe and not allowing him to rehearse behaviors that would
be dangerous and undesirable later in life was challenging.
(It is worth pointing out that my horse experience has been comparatively limited: I rode camp horses as a kid, and briefly participated in an equestrian program in eighth grade, but really had not ridden much. Over the years when we needed to work horses, I always demurred to Lauren who is a lifelong equestrienne. Of course, I started out reading many books, watching, hundreds of DVDs, attending countless clinics, seminars, and lectures, and the vast majority of the principles of training are sufficiently parallel to all other animals that in relatively short order I felt reasonably competent—I knew how and when to release pressure to reinforce a desired behavior, I understood about waiting for relaxation, I was getting pretty good results, my horses were calm and happy and working pretty well, but I had not really figured out how to bring “joy training” to my horses, and none of the horse training experts I consulted seemed particularly focused on joy or exuberance in their horses.)
One day I found myself thinking about something well-known by everyone, and absurdly obvious—that horses are paradigmatically prey animals, and that most of the animals I have trained are predators. In predators, excitation is a powerful positive. Chasing, fighting, killing, eating—good! In prey animals, excitation is generally less positive—being chased, fighting, being killed, being eaten—bad! A central goal for any prey animal is to avoid unnecessarily expending calories or risking injury, so exuberant play is problematic. If you watch young predators, they spend huge amounts of time joyfully playing and rehearsing excitation. If you watch young prey animals, they do play and evince joy, but FAR less. In contemplating this, I realized that I was overlaying onto my animals my assumption that “joy” represented the highest ideal. Perhaps, I suddenly realized, different individuals perceived different emotional states as having more or less value than I assumed…
Most of the horses I have known crave above nearly everything else what I will—imprecisely—call “tranquility.” Tranquility is a complex notion. It includes relaxation, calmness, contentedness, safety, harmony, peace, clarity, certainty, confidence, comfort, balance, and connectedness to friends, self, and environment,. A horse is happiest when all these things come together, although different horses may weight the individual components differently, and to a large degree spends its entire life trying to return to tranquility, to remove whatever factors are interfering with that return. Certainly, play and fun can be used, to great effect, in horse training, but they must be used in service of helping the animal achieve its emotional holy grail.
I started thinking about different dogs who had worked primarily in different drives, and realizing that not only were their drives different, their ideal energy states were different. Loki was happiest in a very relaxed state, Slate finds relaxation almost unpleasant and wants to be vibrating, Flint enjoyed an almost violent tension. Even though they each had play drive and retrieve drive, the emotional tone of their play was very different. As I contemplated each of the animals I have trained, I found myself more and more recognizing that each of them had an ideal energy state, and that training them worked best when I could match my energy, intentions, and actions to that tone, and mindfully help them achieve that state.
One of the central tasks for any animal trainer is to find ways to help each animal recognize that performing the desired behavior is the path to maximizing whatever energetic and emotional state brings that individual the most bliss.
Your
veterinarian is a crucial part of the team keeping your pet healthy, and they
have extensive knowledge and expertise that should be heard and incorporated
diligently if you want to do what is best for your animal. However, many people
seem to imagine that vet school or a few years of practice has rendered veterinarians
as experts on all things animal, and so people often accept advice given to
them by a veterinarian without thinking or questioning.
Vet
school covers a lot of information in 4 years, so many topics, particularly
those that are peripheral to medicine, are covered very quickly and
superficially. For the most part, vet school focuses on ailments that impact
animals: pathogens and injuries, diagnostic tools, pathology, pharmacology, etc.
and less on animals per se.
Your
veterinarian MAY have expertise in other fields—may be a fabulous expert in all
sorts of additional animal fields! But if so, that knowledge came from somewhere
other than vet school…
Even
within their field of expertise, if you ask ten vets the same question, in most
instances you will get ten different answers. Sometimes the answers will be
incompatible. Bodies are complicated, medicine is inexact, there are very few
questions in medicine to which there this a single correct answer, particularly
those that involve balancing objectives or applying judgment…
Topics about which veterinarians are often imagined to be experts but seldom are:
Behavior
Training
Breeds
Nutrition
Weight
Saddle Fit
Ethics
Reason and Logic
Animal Sports
Thermodynamics
Equipment
When to euthanize
Optimal age to spay/neuter
Optimal age to start riding your horse
Meaning of life
Topics upon which your veterinarian likely did receive a reasonable degree of education depend a bit on where they went to school and what they focused upon, although if they are not an expert in a particular field the education may have been limited, and unless they make a real effort to stay current their information may not be current, but in general:
Bacteriology
Immunology
SA Critical Care
Cardiology
Integrated Problem Solving
SA Primary Care
Imaging
Intro. to Animal Care
SA Medicine
Oncology
LA Medicine
SA Surgery
Pathology
LA Surgery
Toxicology
SA Medicine
LA Emergency Care
Clinical Nutrition
SA Surgery
Microscopic Anatomy
Theriogenology
SA Emergency Care
Diagnostic Services
Special Animal Medicine
Neuroscience
Parasitology
Anesthesiology
General Medicine
Diagnostic Pathology
Veterinary Ethics
Epidemiology
Physiology
Virology
Pharmacology
Practice Management
Pathology
Gross Anatomy
Mycology
VM & Public Health
Some
may hear this as being a refutation of expertise—as suggesting that vets do not
know anything, and you should listen to your cousin or some stranger on the
internet. ABSOLUTELY NOT! I am close friends with many veterinarians, and almost
without exception they are intelligent, informed, educated, rational people who
know a GREAT deal about their field of expertise, and I am incredibly grateful
to have their help in keeping my animals healthy!
You are the captain of the team caring for your animal, and you need to make the ultimate decisions, and in order to do so effectively, you need to gather the right input from various sources, weigh it appropriately, and then integrate that information into the best possible decision. There are few better sources of information about the health of your animal than a good veterinarian; just be mindful that the questions you are asking them are the right ones and that you are listening to their answers carefully, critically, and in balanced concert with other expert advice…
A friend asked recently what was the best technique I have found for coping with the grief of losing a beloved pet, and in the instant of loss I had no great advice other that to reassure her that, in time, the pain and grief subside a bit and all the joy and love remain and fill our hearts.
But, from a slightly longer view, I do have one general
suggestion…
In some ways, losing a pet has more visceral impact than losing a person—while we may love people dearly, our relationships with most people take place to a large extent inside our heads—they are based in part on ideas, dialog, and shared interests. On long conversations that we can recall later whenever we need to hear their voice. Our relationship with a pet is less cerebral but more corporeal. We spend far more hours in proximity to our pets than to most people, more hours cuddling and playing and petting. They are a nearly constant physical presence the absence of which is keenly felt. We have all reached for the food-bowl of a departed pet and found ourselves sobbing…
For me, there is one vital technique to “getting through” the loss of a pet: spend their lives building positive memories with them. The more trips you take, games you play, and adventures you have, the more your heart will be buffered against the grief of losing them. I think back over the lives of my pets, and there is so much joy that my sadness is well-balanced. I feel deep solace in knowing how rich and full their lives were. Regret is one of the most pernicious negative emotions, so banish it while you have the chance!! Leave no stone unturned, make time to stop by the lake, take them herding, teach them that fun new skill, get them ice cream, find out what makes your pet’s life wonderful and do it!
Years from now you will think, “What I would not give for
one more day so that we could…” Whatever that wish is going to be, today is
that one more day, so make it great!
I have written many times about how and why education is critical to the life of an animal. How it builds confidence, develops intelligence, strengthens bonds, etc.. How learning begets more learning, and understanding begets comfort, relaxation, and joy. I go on and on about this from the animals’ perspective because it is one of my deepest passions and areas of expertise.
Recently, however, I have had a series of experiences that made me want to share one distinct reason for teaching your pets a wide variety of skills that may not seem essential in the moment: things change.
Several people I have known have recently undergone huge life events that changed most of the details of their existence. They got old, injured, evicted, fired, whatever, and suddenly they had to pivot and build a new life, and their less-skilled pets became a huge impediment. If your pet is adaptable, flexible, and able to survive in a wide variety of circumstances, they will thrive, and be happy, no matter where you may end up. Even if you end up dead, or having to rehome your pet, the likelihood of an educated pet finding a good home and having a great life is far greater than if your pet is stressed, noisy, destructive, contentious, aggressive, has very specific needs, etc. Do not get me wrong—there are some pets that will never be “easy” no matter how much effort you put in, and I am not saying that owners of difficult pets are in any way “less” than owners of easy pets! I am merely saying that the more you can do to actualize any animal’s potential to be a good citizen and a delight, the more you will have increased that animal’s ability to find success and happiness in this dynamic world…
I hear often from people whose pets “hate” baths, or having their nails done, or some other activity, and when I ask them to show me or tell me more, it is immediately obvious that the animal is not objecting to the activity per se, but to being restrained. So I wanted to discuss restraint…
Please take a few minutes to genuinely consider restraint from the animal’s perspective: for millennia restraint has meant injury or death. An animal’s ability to fight or flee is one of its most basic instincts, and restraint means the loss of these defense mechanisms. Most animals naturally fear this loss of control, often to the point of near hysteria, and they do not understand what is coming next. You may know that no harm is going to come to them, but they do not—they do not know if you are about to kill them or maim them, and they are literally afraid for their lives. Imagine someone dangling you off the roof of the Empire State Building… So if you are restraining your animal, and telling them to hold still, or that it is going to be okay, and they are resisting, they are not being bad, they are being remarkably good in that they are not biting you when really it would be well within their behavioral rights to do so!
Once you authentically understand what an animal is feeling
when being restrained, it becomes fairly easy to empathize and address their
fear. Restraint needs to be worked on without any secondary component—no bath,
no nails, no shots, nothing else. And no frustration, impatience, or anger on
your part. It needs to be trained and conditioned. Restraint is all about trust—and the more you
work on building your animal’s ability to handle restraint, the more you will
build trust; however, the reverse is also true—you want to avoid having to
force the issue of restraint if at all possible, as doing so fundamentally
violates his trust in you and sets the process back.
There are many exercises you can perform to work on restraint, but they are all somewhat similar. Essentially, you start gradually and build up, and you stop and release the restraint only when they are relaxed and accepting. Your goal is to start with essentially no restraint but in a position that mimics restraint, and then gradually begin restraining them and letting go before they fight against you. Timing is everything in this pursuit—go a moment too far and a struggle begins which you cannot really win. Patience is key—you do not need to get there in one session, or in twenty. If they are doing well, stop, do not try to go one step further, take your time!
I generally avoid using commands when working on restraint—sit,
down, stand, and especially stay. I do
not want to create a scenario in which their nervousness makes it impossible to
succeed. I may use a command to get them
into position, but then I release them before I begin restraining so that they
are not conflicted and stressed while trying to do what I asked.
Once they can remain relaxed during easy restraint, you can
start making it more demanding, and you can begin to push a tiny bit too far—the
new goal becomes letting them bump into the fact that they are restrained,
react just a bit, and then relax again. You want them to learn how to soothe
themselves when they feel restraint. The key here is always the timing of the
release—you want them to learn that relaxing is the path to release, so you
always release when they find that relaxation.
It is important not to push too far—if an animal shuts down and gives up, it may seem to solve the problem in the short term, but the anxiety has just been tamped down where it will cause physical, emotional, and behavioral issues, and will in all likelihood resurface explosively at a later date. Perhaps even more importantly, you will have decreased your animal’s trust in you instead of building it. Expect to spend on average 10-20 hours working on this, over the course of a month or two, and you will have an animal that can completely relax when being restrained, and then you can begin very gently adding other elements like nail trimming or bathing or whatever, always being mindful not to panic or injure.
Always be mindful that it is a very big deal for an animal to relinquish control of its body, and go slowly with maximal empathy, and you will do great…
Note: this post is about teaching an animal to be comfortable with restraint, which is a worthwhile lesson. It is not intended to imply that restraint is always the best solution. In many circumstances, you are better off training your animal to hold still without needing restraint–to place its foot where you want for nail trimming, or rest its chin statically while you perform many grooming or veterinary procedures. By doing this you can also teach your animal to move when not comfortable, so that he become an active and willing participant, but that is an entirely different process which is also worthwhile and I will discuss in a subsequent post…
One of the great gifts animals give us is helping us learn to be vulnerable, and to love without reservation or fear of loss.
I was chatting with a friend who had not had a pet in many years, and he explained to me that he had owned a dog, it had died, and he had been devastated and decided he would never again set himself up for that sort of pain.
For me, the lesson is just the opposite: each animal I have loved has grown my capacity to love with abandon—to know that there is an end coming and that the loss will be profound, but to leap in anyway, to savor every moment, pour everything I have into every second I get to share with another, and to build memories that will endure. I do not know what comes after, but in life our connections are transient, fragile, effervescent; but they make us complete. They fill up our hearts and make it all worthwhile.
