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Dog Fighting Busts and Due Process

Jan 152009
 

In February, Pat Patrick and Emily Dennis were arrested on charges of dog fighting. Ostensibly damning evidence was also seized—treadmills, antibiotics, etc. Their animals were rescued from their enclosures by the humane society and taken to be put in other small enclosures.

Numerous media stories talked about the glorious rescue of these dogs by the heroic humane society.

Over the next few months, virtually all of the dogs were killed by the humane society.

Nine months later, both defendants were acquitted because there was no compelling evidence that they had fought their dogs.

The day after Patrick and Dennis were acquitted, HSUS presented their 2008 Humane Law Enforcement Awards to the persons responsible for this raid.

I have no idea if these people were fighting their dogs or not. No idea if their dogs had good lives or not, and I am certainly not defending anything they may have done to harm the dogs.

What I do know is that the dogs were taken and killed before their owners even got to present their case in court. And no restitution was paid, no apology offered. Quite the contrary, awards were given out for those involved. And that simply terrifies me. That means the HSUS can raid anyone they want and seize their dogs. Their evidence could be something as specious as the fact that you spent thousands of dollars to purchase a treadmill to help exercise your beloved dogs.  Sure, you may be proven innocent in the end, but your dogs will have been traumatized, over-vaccinated, hacked into, or just plain killed…

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 January 15, 2009  Posted by at 9:23 am Tagged with: , , ,

How did the desire to save animals go so wrong?

Jan 112009
 

The AR movement started out with some excellent welfare/protection ideals: people saw that research animals were being treated horribly and resolved to change the world so that people would not abuse animals.  From that excellent beginning was born one of the most divisive and negative movements in the history of mankind, and interestingly that transformation occurred for precisely the same reasons it occurs for many religious/cult movements:

 

1.       They stopped listening or caring about truth.  They became persuaded that they knew the ONE TRUTH, and that everyone who disagreed with them should be attacked and silenced.

2.       Their leaders became more interested in their own power and the feeling of having followers than in anything to do with animals.

3.       They replaced reason with zealotry, and effectivly precluded all genuine discourse on animal welfare and all cooperation to make improvements by attacking everyone whose views are at all different from theirs. 

4.       They do not rigorously question their assumptions. For example, they assume that “natural” or “wild” is the only acceptable life for an animal.  This assumption has nothing to do with Rights or Welfare—it is simply a quasi-religious assumption from which most of their arguments derive, but they will not genuinely question it.

5.       Despite their love of “natural”, they have lost sight of nature and have become persuaded animals have a “right” not to die or be eaten or in any other way be part of nature.

6.       They became persuaded that their goal is so important that they can lie, terrorize, steal, mislead, and hurt other people or animals to achieve their goals.

7.       They recruit a huge number of members through deceit. In my experience most PETA and HSUS members believe that they are members of animal welfare organizations supporting humane treatement of captive animals.  I have talked to many members, and most of them are outraged when they come to understand what they have been supporting.  

 

I absolutely believe that 90% of the AR suporters and 90% of the animal owners and lovers actually agree: we would all like to see the same objectives met.  A huge majority of AR supporters do not believe that all pets, all meat consumption, and all animal research should be eliminated.  Most of them hold a reasonable middle-ground position that animals should be treated humanely and with reasoned consideration of their actual interests and that human interests should also be considered. However, the extreme AR zealots oppose any moderate rational solution because they believe it is morally untenable to have any animals in captivity. Period. And any middle ground would merely perpetuate that attrocity…   

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 January 11, 2009  Posted by at 3:18 am Tagged with: ,

Fencing Thoughts

Jan 102009
 

One of the most important tools utilized by most animal owners is fencing. Fencing keeps your animal where you want it and keeps other people and animals away. Depending on your needs, fencing can also provide a visual barrier or reduce sound transmission. Fencing is vital to protecting your animal, your neighbors, and yourself.

Fence construction is based on a spectrum:

100: Six sides, steel or concrete, heavy gauge, locked gate. Secondary fence to keep people back and walls that block most sight and sound.

75: 6 or 8 foot chainlink with tip in, buried 2 feet or with 3 foot skirt

50: 5 foot chainlink tight to ground but not buried, latched gate with spring

25: 3.5 foot picket fence, latched gate

1: One strand of reminder wire

The reason it is important to consider this spectrum is that any fence less than 100 is not escape-proof.  This means that you are “trusting” that your animal will not chose to escape at any particular moment. Which is not necessarily wrong, but it is important that you be aware of this so you can make reasonable choices.  Particularly important is to consider how things can change—what happens if a cat walks by, or fireworks go off, or it rains or snows.  Try to imagine every situation in which you might expect your fencing to contain your animal…

The fencing I build depends on several variables:

1.       The animal: Is he likely to be scared and try to escape, if he did escape does he have a good recall? How big and strong is the animal?

2.       The animal’s training and history: does he dig, chew, climb? Does he test fences? Has he been kept behind electric fencing? Does he respect fencing? When loose does he come to the front door or run off?

3.       The intended usage for the particular enclosure:  will animals be left in the enclosure unattended? For how long? Is it a small enclosure within my perimeter fencing, or will it be the only layer of containment?

4.       What is outside the fence:  If building a fence in town or next to a cattery, I would build more strongly than if building out in the middle of nowhere.  Look to see what might attract your animal, what might scare your animal, and what hazards there are to your animal if he did get loose.

5.       Surrounding hazards: it is always important to consider how your fence could fail.  Are there trees that could fall or drop limbs, could snow pile up and let your animal climb over, could someone open the gate?  Is the ground soft and easily dug or eroded? Also, consider location with regards to people who might taunt, harass, steal, or poison your dog.

6.       Distance from people: many people find barking dogs really annoying, and this can lead to very serious problems, so if I were building an enclosure that was near people I would consider soundproofing or sound deadening materials and/or white noise like a fountain.

I tend to overbuild fencing because it seems that no matter what I anticipate, six months later I end up watching a dog for a friend and need to put him in a yard and he is a dedicated escape artist. I also tend to keep animals inside anytime I am not home, but if I were going to leave them out I would want more reliable fencing. I also generally like having two fences—an outer yard fence that keeps people out and that keeps my animals in when I am there playing with them, and a smaller enclosure within that yard where I can put them when I need to rely on the fence to keep them contained.

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 January 10, 2009  Posted by at 9:12 pm Tagged with: , , , ,

Animal Rights: What Everyone Needs to Know

Jan 062009
 

Many people assume when they hear about animal issues that the pro-animal people are on one side and anti-animal people are on the other side. This is rarely the case—almost always the disagreement is between two groups each believing that they are protecting animals and improving their lives. Millions of votes are cast and millions of dollars donated each year by people who do not understand the differing views and who inadvertently support the very people they intend to oppose. Politicians courting the “animal vote” unwittingly support legislation that animal lovers are devoted to defeating.

Whatever beliefs you hold, if you care about animals, vote, donate money, or want to be informed, spend an hour doing some basic research on this topic so you are at least supporting the side with which you genuinely agree.

There are hundreds of subtly different views and organizations, but there are two core views that are not reconcilable:

  • Animal Welfare / Animal Owner: Animals can happily and productively share their lives with humans if certain conditions are met to ensure the welfare and safety of the animals and the public. Deriving utility from animals is acceptable so long as certain conditions are met, and in fact coexisting can and should be mutually beneficial.
  • Animal Rights: Animals should exist only in a pure and natural state free from captivity or any human intrusion. Captive animals should be released or destroyed: death is preferable to life involving humans. Animals should never be “utilized” by humans as pets, food, or research tools. If humans derive benefit it is exploitation and should be stopped, even if the activity benefits the animal.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the Humane Society of the U.S. (HSUS), and other Animal Rights (AR) organizations oppose any animal captivity. Their central objective is to eliminate animals in captivity and to pass laws that will outlaw captive animals or eradicate them through attrition. As clearly articulated in their own official reports, they kill virtually every animal that falls under their control.

These organizations are well-funded and do some good work which we all support: they fight genuine animal abuse, spotlight cruel industrial practices, increase awareness and motivate change concerning the humane treatment of all animals. They advertise and lobby ceaselessly to focus media attention on the good work that they accomplish, but none of these activities modifies their core mission: killing or freeing every captive animal—aquarium fish, beloved pets, cancer-research rats, dairy cows, zoo otters… They artfully create the illusion that they love pets and pet welfare in order to win millions of dollars in donations which they use to kill animals and lobby towards pet extinction.

Consider the following points:

  1. They believe that animals have the right to live in a fantasy world, free from suffering, death, or human involvement, and that any animal that cannot exist in that world would be better off dead.  Because that world does not exist, they effectively argue against every viable life for animals in the real world.  And this is no academic distinction: they actively kill animals or release them or ban them…
  2. They believe that lying is an acceptable tool. They proudly admit that they will lie or cheat if it will help them achieve their goal, so they do not candidly fight for what they believe, instead they collect billions of dollars in donations from will meaning pet lovers who believe that their money will be used to improve the lives of animals when in truth it will be spent to pass laws making animals lives worse.
  3. Their entire position derives from the idea that animals have “rights.”  This assertion is, on its face, absurd: in nature animals have no rights.  They are killed, they suffer, they are raped, eaten alive, tortured, etc.
  4. All animals are “captive” in their local habitat, their continent, their planet, their home range surrounded by physical boundaries or other animals’ ranges. The involvement of human consciousness does not make captivity wrong. People are capable of providing superior lives for animals—free from parasites and predators and with optimal nutrition and water, secure space, needed veterinary care, and enrichment. The life expectancy of human cared for animals averages two to three times longer than that of their wild counterparts, and for much more of their lives they are healthy, robust, and comfortable. AR advocates assert that “natural” is the only good. Most authentic animal lovers focus on providing the best possible lives for animals, and while nature provides the seminal model, “nature” is rarely the ideal. The only intrinsic difference between a wild animal and a well-kept animal is that the captive animal has a person tending to its every need. Animals have lives in captivity that are every bit as rich and full as in the wild, and in general they are longer, healthier, more comfortable, and by any practical criteria better.
  5. AR people have killed many animals, turned countless animals loose to starve, opened gates and enclosures so that cherished pets are run down on the streets, all in the zealous belief that no animal should ever be captive. Many of these released animals had enjoyed full and happy lives that were ended abruptly because those lives did not conform to the AR view of what they should be. Further, AR people have taken custody of animals, promising to re-home them, then destroyed and discarded them.
  6. The AR movement actively works AGAINST animal welfare improvements.  They believe that improving captivity merely encourages its continuation.
  7. AR people argue that only a wild “natural” life is acceptable; yet, how many AR people chose for themselves a wild life with limitless freedom and rights instead of a comfortable captive life with food and medicine and electricity?
  8. Finding a single instance of abuse or neglect, AR people assert that all people behave in the same way.
  9. AR people have a track record of passing seemingly reasonable laws, then revisiting them repeatedly to incrementally increase their impact until statutes and regulations effectively preclude animal ownership.
  10. AR organizations recruit celebrity advocates who believe they are working for animals. Many of these celebrities own pets themselves yet endorse organizations seeking to eradicate pets because they naïvely assume that they cannot be wrong in supporting the “ethical treatment of animals.”
  11. AR people believe emotional and practical terrorism are acceptable tools for advancing their goals: that their cause is so important and right that they are justified in lying or terrorizing to accomplish their objectives. Conscientious and responsible animal owners live in terror that AR people will show up and open their cages or poison their animals or otherwise create problems in order to generate negative media coverage. Some of the most horrific animal abuse ever filmed has allegedly been staged by AR zealots: they torture animals, film the action, and use that film to condemn the actions of others. They turn animals loose and then use the loose animals as evidence that animals cannot be responsibly contained.
  12. The existence of the AR movement has prevented animal lovers from working together to eradicate abuse and neglect.  We would all love to see processes put in place to combat situations where animals are suffering, and this would be easy to accomplish if we worked together, but because the AR movement exists and will utilize any laws or processes as tools to advance their cause, true animal lovers are forced to fight against them instead of working to improve the world for animals.

No discussion of the Animal Rights agenda would be complete without a quick examination of their flagship crusades:

  • Breed-specific Legislation: these laws target animals based on their breed. They are ineffective and immoral. Breeds are never responsible for any injury, only irresponsible owners. Create laws that prevent and punish people for failure to control their animals, or failure to care for their animals, and you solve the problem. Outlaw one more breed and you do nothing to reduce dog bites, you merely further the objective of eradicating pets one breed at a time.
  • Exotic animal bans: these laws target private individuals regardless of their competence or history and prevent them from owning and caring for certain animals. Such laws do nothing to ensure public health or safety: on the contrary, they hamstring the very law-abiding animal lovers who work to ensure public health and safety. Create laws that prevent and punish people for failure to control their animals, or failure to care for their animals, and you solve the problem. Regardless of the species, uniform and fair laws require any person to be able to keep their animal safely and properly.
  • Mandatory spay/neuter laws: these laws aim to eradicate pets, and do so at the expense of animal health. Individual owners should work with qualified veterinarians to decide which animals should have what surgery. Most experts believe that there is no pet overpopulation problem; however, even if there is, the superior way to control animal population is to educate people. But politicians should not be mandating health decisions relating to individual animals.
  • Vilification of all breeders: constantly extolling the ostensible virtues of shelter dogs and denigrating all breeders as heartless puppy-mills is a tactic aimed to eventually eliminate all breeding and therefore all pets. In truth shelters often perpetuate the very disposable pet attitude that creates a need for shelters while responsible breeders steadfastly work to improve their breed, ensure ideal lives for their puppies, and take back any dogs they bred that ever need homes.

Killing, eliminating, or banning well cared-for animals whose lives do not meet an arbitrary standard of being free from all human involvement is neither ethical nor humane. All true animal lovers must band together to prevent the eradication of all pets and ultimately all animals. Millions of dollars are donated to these groups by well-intentioned pet lovers who believe they are helping animals, and who are shocked and outraged when they learn the truth.

If you own a pet or believe that some people should be allowed to keep pets,do not support AR groups. Please be part of the solution: make an informed decision to support organizations whose ideals and actions comport with your own and will genuinely help to make the world a better place.

Refuse to support deceitful and organizations that will take your money in the name of animals and use that money to kill and lobby against animals. Refuse to vote for politicians who support such organizations.

Please do your own research about any organization you would support. Here are a few websites with useful information on the animal rights issue:

www.humanewatch.org www.consumerfreedom.com
www.petpac.net www.activistcash.com
www.rexano.org/Animal_Rights.htm www.petakillsanimals.com
www.dogpolitics.com www.naiaonline.org
www.animalscam.com www.carpoc.org/articles.html
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 January 6, 2009  Posted by at 9:15 am Tagged with: , ,

Captivity: Good or Bad for Animals?

Jan 062009
 

The central notion of the Animal Rights movement is that “animals deserve consideration of their interests”. Let us consider captivity as it relates to the interests of animals:

There are an wide range of natural lives and captive lives, and one can easily and misleadingly look at the best example of either and compare it to the worst example of the other and reach whatever conclusion one wants to reach. Too often people compare the very best and most idyllic moment in a wild life with the worst example of atrocious captivity, and reach a skewed conclusion. For the sake of this article I am going to try to compare an average wild life with an average captive life. Since the question is whether or not captivity can be in the best interests of animals, we need to look at a reasonably good example of captive life to decide whether or not it can be a good life and if we believe it can then we can turn our attention to determining what conditions need to be met.

The natural life of a wild animal is rarely the idyllic picture that Disney, your parents, and some animal rights advocates would like you to believe. Nature is harsh and unforgiving, and most wild animals live very difficult lives. They are almost always inundated with fleas, ticks, intestinal worms, heartworms, and other parasites. They are plagued by flies and mosquitoes. They spend much of their life without enough food or water, or drinking brackish filthy water. They are often hunted and killed by animals of other species. They are often dominated or attacked by members of their own species over territorial or mating disputes. They are uncomfortably cold and wet or hot most of the time. They are unvaccinated against even the most common diseases and their injuries and illnesses go untreated and are often agonizing and eventually fatal. They are shot, poisoned, leg-trapped, or struck by cars. They are under constant stress and are always held captive by geographic boundaries or other animals’ ranges. They are often bred every season regardles of their health, and many of their offspring die. A wild animal’s life expectancy is generally less than half what it would be in captivity and much of that time is full of fear, stress, and discomfort.

A reasonably well cared-for animal has a very different life: it has ample space without threat of predation. It has clean, fresh water at all times. It is fed high quality balanced meals regularly and given vitamins, supplements, and treats to ensure maximal health. It is kept close to an ideal temperature at all times, and has dry clean bedding. It rarely encounters any parasites. It is given excellent preventative care, and any injury it sustains is treated immediately and pain management is provided. It is exercised regularly and given lots of enrichment so it is not bored. If appropriate it is housed with other compatible animals so it has companionship without risk. It is weighed and bathed. If needed it may receive massage or chiropractic treatments. Many captive animals are never bred, but those that are often are bred at comparatively infrequent intervals and given superlative prenatal care and their offspring have a very high likelihood of surviving. A captive animal’s life expectancy is generally two to three times longer than that of their wild counterparts, and for much more of their lives they are healthy, robust, and comfortable.

The only intrinsic difference between a wild animal and a well-kept animal is that the captive animal has a person dedicated to tending to its every need. If a captive animal were cared for in a manner identical to “nature”, the owner would be arrested for neglect and abuse immediately.

Very few adult humans chose to live a “wild” life. While we value our freedom dearly, we also value health and comfort and convenience. (Humans who value freedom so highly that they forego comfort to live without walls are called “homeless”, and most of us do not consider their choice optimal)

Over the years we have had several animals who came to us at a young age from the wild due to injury or accident whom we have raised as citizens of both worlds. We live far out in the woods and let them come and go at will. Not only did they stay, but also they spent the vast majority of their time lying on the down comforter rather than being outside. The only way I could get them to go act wild is to go out and call them and play with them, and as soon as I went back inside so did they. This is a well known issue in rehabilitation—one must be careful not to let the animal acclimate too much to captivity or they will prefer a comfortable captive life to the wild and will become unreleasable.

Some people argue that captivity is bad and all animals deserve to be wild and captive animals should be freed or eradicated. The point of this post is to honestly and carefully consider that view: animals have lives in captivity that are every bit as rich and full as in the wild, and in general they are longer, healthier, more comfortable, and by any practical criteria better.

Animals do indeed deserve consideration of their interests, and it is unmistakably clear that, if we can look past our preconceptions and biases, captivity is often the very best life to achieve those interests.

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 January 6, 2009  Posted by at 1:15 am Tagged with: , , , , ,

Keeping your Pet Safe

Jan 042009
 

You have entered into a very exciting moral contract with a dog.  It will be a rewarding adventure full of joy and learning, and in all likelihood you will get far more than you give. But it is also a serious lifelong commitment to caring for another being. While that commitment has many components, one of the first questions you need to consider is safety: how will you at all times keep your pet safe while providing him with a rich and full life.

 

People imagine that animals are like Disney characters, but they are not–your pet does not know about our laws or technology or the consequences of his actions. He does not know that we think killing cats or sheep is wrong or that using teeth to communicate is unacceptable. He does not know that ethylene glycol is toxic, or chocolate or raisins or xylitol or… He does not know that if he eats a sock he will impact. He does not know that people intruding on his territory need to be tolerated most of the time. He cannot make good decisions on his own.  He will get into trouble in every way you can imagine and in many ways that you cannot.  He has instincts and fears that can override almost any training, and in the wrong situation he will bite someone. It is your job to keep him safe even when unexpected events occur, and even when his actions work against you.  Remember that other people will do things that make little sense—they will stick their hands into your car to pet your barking dog, they will let their kids run up and jump on your dog, they will trespass. They will steal your dog or poison him. They will set him free for his own good. Think of it like defensive driving—assume there are evil crazy people out there trying to get your dog to bite them. And assume that if he ever injures someone he will be blamed no matter how absurd their actions were.  I am not being cynical, and none of this may occur in your life, but you need to be prepared for any of these occurrences.

 

Any time you go anywhere, survey the area for potential hazards—wild animals, people, horses, cars, trains, broken glass, rattlesnakes, mushrooms, foxtails, fire, birds, yellow-jackets, whatever.  Then be unwaveringly vigilant for approaching distractions or hazards. Learn to keep one eye on your animal at all times and one ear out for hazards.  Expect the unexpected—assume that at any moment a loud noise could frighten your animal, or a rabbit could run across his path, or another dog could come running up to play or fight.  Imagine anything that could happen and have a plan!

 

Anytime he is unattended at home be sure his environment is safe.  Again, anticipate the unexpected.  Can he open a window and jump out, can he get to and eat anything, is there any chance of someone entering the house when you are not there. Does he have a collar on that could get caught on something? If you cannot make the environment safe at a particular moment, use a crate or a secure enclosure.  Look carefully at every fence, gate, door, window, etc. for any potential for egress. Never rely on other people to close gates or respect unlocked doors. Imagine anything that could happen and have a plan.

 

This may sound impossible—people are not perfect, and sooner or later you will miss something, and disaster will strike. And it may sound onerous.  But in truth it is possible and relatively painless—it simply requires that you practice processes and habits of vigilance, and it soon becomes second nature and unconscious—good parents do it regularly, as do pilots and surgeons and drivers and…

 

Even as years go by and you come to trust your dog deeply, never allow yourself to become complacent.  The most common words after a dog related tragedy are almost certainly, “He never did that before…” You always need to anticipate what could happen next which may never have happened before. Habitual vigilance takes very little effort, so cultivate the habit and keep your dog safe.

 

You may notice that I advise vigilance not avoidance.  This is a very important distinction because almost as often as people fail to keep their dogs safe they overprotect them into illness and boredom or simply make themselves and their pet miserable.   You cannot avoid all risk for your pet—his life should be fun and rich and rewarding, and almost everything you do will introduced an element of risk—going for a drive, playing with other animals, running in the woods, chewing on a stick, eating raw food, everything fun is also somewhat dangerous.  And you should not live in fear or avoid doing fun things with your animal.  You should simply be aware—always be mindful and make the choices consciously.  Decide, with full awareness, which rewards are worth the attendant risks, and never endanger your dog carelessly or take his safety for granted.

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 January 4, 2009  Posted by at 3:51 am Tagged with: , , ,

Dogs Who Bark in Cars

Jan 032009
 

 

jurtruck2If addressed early it is fairly straightforward to teach most young dogs to relax quietly in the car. However, I am frequently asked about fixing this problem in adult dogs that had spent years rehearsing the behavior, and it is then somewhat more challenging to resolve.  Offering suggestions on how to handle this behavior is complicated because there can be so many different reasons the dog is barking in the car and the ideal solution is so dependent on the motivation and the individual psyche involved that I am not sure a general solution is meaningful, but here are some general techniques I would recommend:

 

First of all, recognize that this is a behavior/training challenge and that you will need to focus on it for a while and make a genuine effort to fix the problem.  You cannot think about this problem only when it is happening and expect to solve it…

 

For each of the following steps, I would exercise the dog before the training session so you are not fighting excess energy.  And if your dog is getting out of control you have gone too far too fast…

 

 

  1. Figure out why the dog is barking—is it genuine aggression, insecurity, fear, a belief that you want it to bark, guarding behavior, etc. This will likely alter not only what you do, but the energy and spirit you apply—with an insecure dog you may be bolstering confidence, with another dog you may be correcting more, etc.
  2. Figure out precisely what behavior you DO want—no barking, a woof or two then silence, barking ok until you say quiet, etc.  Ideally figure out a behavior that is emotionally or physically incompatible with barking—holding something in his mouth, lying down, etc.
  3. Particularly important for many dogs is that you repeat a behavior that limits the emotional cascade—they start working themselves into a frenzy, and every time they get to a certain point you interrupt the pattern and create calmness so that eventually, regardless of what behavior they are doing, they learn to arrest their progression towards frenzy.  Often a quiet downstay works for this, but you need to be observant and start the down as soon as they get to a certain point, and make them hold the down until they have returned to a calm state—it is not productive if they simply lie down but remained frantic. Ultimately you care more about training them to maintain the correct mental state then you do about a particular behavior in this case.
  4. Train the desired behavior away from the car to a high level of compliance. For example, I would probably train a solid down and downstay and a quiet at home before I moved to working on the issue in the car.
  5. Train various behaviors in the car at home. Including the desired alternative to barking. I would include some static behaviors (eg, a ten minute downstay) and some active behaviors (eg. spin, wave, etc.)
  6. Train various behaviors in the car at home with you out of the car, you in the driver’s seat, you in the passenger seat, you in the back seat with the dog, etc.  Your dog should be able to get in any part of the car on command, stay there, and do what you ask wherever you are. Repeat with windows and doors open and closed.  Have the dog get out and do a few behaviors, then have him load back up and do the same behaviors.  He should learn that the car is another place where he has to be obedient and mindful…
  7. Have a friend come over and repeat the above with your friend nearby. Do this with several friends and have them come to the window and give a treat or toy or praise.  Have them give a command and reinforce it. Etc. 
  8. Go somewhere where the dog is likely to be slightly stimulated, but not overly so, and sit in the car and have a nice training session.  Do various behaviors with you in the car, including whatever behavior you are hoping will be the new alternative to barking. Then repeat the above so that your dog can do whatever is asked of him in the car regardless of where you are. 
  9. Have some friends come with you to somewhere slightly stimulating and have them come over out of the blue and say hello and give treats while you work with your dog.
  10. Buy your friends lunch.
  11. Gradually get closer to stimuli so that dog has to ignore more and more while doing what you ask.  Once he can handle any stimuli, start getting yourself further and further away while reinforcing the correct behavior or asking for other behaviors.  Go behind walls so your dog cannot see you and make sure they can stay quiet without you in sight but go back and praise or reward their correct behavior. Over time diminish the amount of help you provide.
  12. Once you are confident that your dog understands what you are asking, I think a water squirt bottle can be very effective for correcting inappropriate barking…
  13. Purchase a 2way radio with a built in baby monitor function so you can always know as soon as your dog barks and can either use the radio to interrupt him or can return to the car to correct him.
  14. Have the dog eat, sleep, or relax in the car at home.  In essence use the car as a crate for a while so it ceases to be novel.

 

Depending on the dog, and keeping safety in mind, I might also consider: 

  • Using a skilled friend as bait, opening the door just as the dog gets excited and letting them out.  (Be careful that this is not timed as a reward—bark and I let you out, but rather a sort of a shock—you think you are safe to act however you want cause you are in the car, but BOOM the door opens and you are out in the real world…)
  •  Leave them on a wait with all the doors open so they do not feel so bolstered.
  •  Have lots of people get in and out of the car giving them treats.
  •  Spend a day riding around on a bus with them.
  •  Have people get in the car and ignore them whenever they bark.
  •  Drive to a mall parking lot and take a nap in your car with your dog.  Calmly and quietly correct any noise—use your calmness to lure your dog into relaxing with you.
  •  Go to a relatively busy location and practice sending your dog to run and get into the car from a distance.  If there are lots of people around when they enter the car, it is unlikely that they will suddenly start barking, and so they will get used to the picture of being in the car with people around.

All of the above focus really on conveying to your dog a few simple ideas—the car is no different and you need to listen there, the car is a relaxed place and remains relaxed when others approach, people who do approach are friendly, you are responsible for staying in control of your emotions and behavior.  Perhaps the most important piece of advice on this topic is that it is a training issue like any other that you can work on and fix in a rational manner.  Too many people never really try to fix this behavior except in the moment when the dog is too worked up to learn anything, and then they ignore the problem until the next time.  Set aside some time to fix this problem, and you will see results…

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 January 3, 2009  Posted by at 10:01 pm Tagged with: , ,

Socializing Your Puppy

Jan 032009
 

Socializing

 

In the past few years, puppy socialization has become a hot topic among dog owners and breeders.  This is a very good thing because socialization can significantly improve the life of any dog. Numerous studies have been performed on various species, and the results are consistent—actively socialized animals have greater brain mass and dendritic branching, have far superior problem solving tendencies, are friendlier and more playful, and are more confident and less stressed in new situations.   

 

Unfortunately,  many people have recognized that socialization is important and so they are doing more of it, but have not spent much time contemplating or researching “how” to socialize and so they are actually decreasing their dogs’ confidence through hours and hours of negative or incorrect exposure to new stimuli.  If you are doing it well, you pretty much cannot do too much socializing, but if you are causing stress or fear it takes very little to overload your dog.

This post is going to address the general principle of how to socialize a puppy from around four weeks to fifteen years old.  While earlier socialization is also very important, different principles apply.

Your goal in socializing is to show your animal that the world is not a frightening place—that it is a fun place full of delight and joy and that new sights and sounds mean good things are coming. Socializing is not a discrete activity—it is a never-ending process.  Sure, some days you will set out to socialize and others you will not, but ever moment your animal is with you he is learning how to react to the world and it is up to you to always see the people and things that might be scary and take the time to introduce him to them in a manner such that he comes to relish novelty.

There are many, many different techniques for socializing, and you should utilize them all at different times.  In fact, how I work through each socializing opportunity is slightly different depending on the stimulus, the animal, my mood, his mood, etc. The real art lies in deciding which technique to use when, and while I can offer a few suggestions on that, the truth is that it requires a great deal of intuition and empathy on your part— sometimes he is going to need your gentle understanding, other times he is going to need your strong almost forceful leadership, and you need to feel and read what your animal needs at each moment and that can be challenging. But it is a skill that can be developed!  If you are not sure about it, consider having an experienced trainer or behaviorist or even an observant friend come watch and offer a second opinion.  Or video tape yourself working with him and go home and watch in slow motion and try to see what your animal’s body language was saying in the moment…

Before I outline some useful methods, here are some general principles to keep in mind: 

  • Enable your animal to control his own destiny.  There have been some very interesting studies on this, but the basic truth is that for most animals, confidence derives from knowing they have control, so if you take away their ability to modulate distance and intensity of the stimuli you induce fearfulness. You can also work on this at home before you head out to socialize by creating as many response contingent stimuli in his environment as possible.  The more he learns that he can push, pull, dig, advance, retreat, and change the stimuli, the more confident he will be. (One of the most interesting studies on this issue involved two groups of rats raised in identical environments. Each group had levers to pull and buttons to press. In Group A, the levers and buttons caused lights, sounds, food, water, etc. In group B, the levers did nothing–their water, food, lights and sound were controlled by the levers and buttons in Group A. So both groups had identical rewards and stimuli, but only Group A could cause the changes. At 60 days, they were tested in novel environments, and Group A was interested, curious, and un-stressed, whereas Group B was stressed and did not explore. Similar studies have been done on several species with corresponding results. These studies gave rise to the now popular dog training term “learned helplessness”.)
  • Somewhat contrary to the notion of letting your animal control his own destiny is that you do not want your animal to drag you away from something in fear or panic. They key to this is not to take him too close too fast so he never gets panicked.  Let him have the option of retreating a few feet, but do not let him drag you away either. Avoid any situation in which you would have to restrain him—he needs to see you as an ally and a leader, not an adversary.
  • Be secure and calm.  You are a leader and you should exude relaxed confidence. 
  • Do not reinforce fear.  If he is afraid, support him, but be very careful that you are not reinforcing his fearful state. Do not sit there and give him treats and attention for acting fearful. Decrease the stimulus until he is not fearful and reinforce the confident behavior you are trying to achieve.
  • Do reinforce relaxed confidence.  When socializing, you are conditioning a psychological state much more than a particular behavior.  That means you need to pay attention not only to what he is doing, but to how he is feeling.  When his eyes relax, his muscles unclench, his breathing deepens that is what you want to reward. 
  • Take along a confident dog for him to imitate
  • Do not correct or yell at him for anything during this process

As I said, there are many different techniques, but most of them derive from a few basic methodologies:

1.      Expose your dog to a novel stimulus at a distance just outside the range at which you believe he might be bothered by the stimulus, and play calm but animated games with him.  Whenever he gets closer to the stimulus, reward with food or play.  You also move away (this is where many people make a mistake).  You do not lure the animal one step closer to give them a reward—you let them take a step closer and then you give the reward away from the stimulus.  By doing this, you are accomplishing two things—you are releasing the pressure to reward their choice, and you are putting the onus on him to essentially move you towards the stimulus in order to get the reward. You do this for a little while, letting the animal take you closer and closer, and you stop before the animal has a problem.  You come back the next day and start a little closer than you started yesterday, and end a little closer than you ended yesterday.  You do this over and over and over with many different stimuli until your animal will essentially pull you towards any loud noise or strange looking object or person because he wants his treat or toy or praise.   

2.      Closely related to the first method is the treat/retreat game—have a person on the edge of his comfort zone, and have them toss him a treat.  When he steps forward to get the treat, have the person step back.  He learns that as he steps forward, he gets the reward, AND the social pressure of having a person too close is relieved

3.      Almost opposite the first—you just ignore the stimulus and walk right by. The key to this technique is that you want to walk one millimeter closer than the distance at which he would not notice.  You do not want to go so close that he fights you, you just want to get close enough that he is aware, and you want to be resolute enough that it never occurs to him to balk.  You briskly and confidently walk right by as though there were nothing there.

4.      A combination of the first two—you sit somewhere at the threshold distance and you just play with your animal and possibly with another animal until he forgets all about the stimulus.  You do not try to get any closer, you just saturate his brain with the stimulus at a safe distance.

5.      Train your animal incompatible behaviors when away from stimuli that you can practice at a threshold distance. I particularly like activities like spin and rollover that require his mental, visual, and emotional involvement.

6.      Actively train your dog to relax on cue and practice that in novel situations.

Once your dog is doing well, repeat the process in as many places as possible—vet’s office, mall, airport parking lot, elevator, vacuum, fan, blender, loud noises, flashing lights, school playground, be creative and teach him that every new experience is fun and safe!

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 January 3, 2009  Posted by at 9:43 pm Tagged with: , , , ,

Helping a dog who fears slick floors

Jan 032009
 

Some dogs have difficulties with linoleum ranging from a mild dislike to an outright phobia. There are many ways to improve these issues, ranging from dragging the dog briskly onto the surface through putting treats all over the floor.  Our process requires some time and patience, but in our experience it is most effective at correcting the underlying issue than most other techniques. 

 

Most dogs that are uncomfortable with linoleum lack confidence in their balance, footing, and proprioception. So we focus on building that confidence and on socializing the dog to slick surfaces:

 

1.       Work on his balance and proprioception on a variety of non-slippery surfaces.  Wobble boards, creek beds, exercise balls, irregular stairs, waves at the beach.  Anything you can find that will improve his physical abilities and his confidence.  Particularly do these things with other confident dogs so he can model his behavior on them.

2.       Teach him to run up and down slides at playgrounds.  Make this super fun. While there, play with him on the merry-go-round…

3.       Teach him to ride on wheeled carts—shopping cart, flat cart at Home Depot, skateboard, etc.  Get him used to the feeling of having the floor moving underneath.

4.       Get some linoleum tiles and put them singly in places he likes to be.  Comfortable places where he is confident.  Play with him in those areas and ignore the tiles, but subtly try to have him walk on them periodically.  Put one under his dinner dish.  Move them around periodically.  Let him play with other dogs in the area so they can run around ignoring the tiles.  Then start adding tiles at first unattached, then in lines and squares.  Make lines of tiles in hallways, in his favorite places, around his dinner dish, etc. All the while treat the tiles as unimportant. By the end of the year your house should be tiled and your dog cured…

5.       Place a tile on the floor and sit in a chair next to it and teach him a game of putting his feet on the tile.  Entirely positive, upbeat, fun, no pressure.  Whenever he goes towards the tile throw the treat behind him so that he is rewarded by getting a treat and by going away from the tile.  Work on this over time until he is happily putting both front feet on the tile.  Now start moving the tile—toss it away and have him run and put his feet on it and reward. Drag it around and have him chase it to put his feet on it.  Make this a blast.  Work on this all over so he is totally confident about the behavior and really likes doing it.  Now, take the tile and go somewhere with a slick floor and put the tile at the near edge and play the same game.  Next day, same thing, but have him go a little further onto the slick floor before getting to his tile. Don’t get stressed and keep it fun.

6.       Teach him to go to and get onto a dog bed.  Do this all over, and then take the dog bed to a slick floor and send him across a few feet of floor to the bed.  Increase the distance gradually.  This is similar to the above technique, but gives him a clear visible safety spot to go to as well as a clear behavior to focus on. 

7.       If your dog tugs well, eventually try to play tug with him on slick surfaces.  This likely will come after the other techniques. Make a game out of sliding him around so he learns it is not scary.  Swing him around, push on him, do bitework, chase a laser pointer, chase you, whatever will get him into drive and keep him there. Many dogs are much better at overcoming their fears when they are in drive, and after some experience having fun on slick surfaces he is likely to overcome the issue even when not in drive. Tugging and bitework are particularly good because you can slide him around and keep him in drive and keep him from accidentally falling. Do not protect him from slickness; rather, help him learn how to handle it happily.

 

 

Obviously there are many others, but you get the idea.  Help him become truly confident about his balance and his ability to control the situation and he will steadily improve…

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 January 3, 2009  Posted by at 9:19 pm Tagged with: , , , , ,

Tillie and the Doggie-Door…

Jan 012009
 

It was around 1992, when I knew much less than I do today, but thought I knew even more than I think I do now. I had a very high energy Newfie.  She was 140 pounds of pure-unadultrated-jack-russel-meets-border-collie-meets-chupukabra-on-speed energy.  One night I drove from Los Angeles to Santa Fe and arrived at around 2:30 in the morning.  Knowing that Tillie would not let me sleep after spending 14 hours in the truck, I took her to the nearby park for a quick game of fetch to take the edge off.  On about the third throw, she ran up to a house adjacent to the park, in through their giant open pet door, and disappeared.

I stood there for what seemed like an eternity whispering as loudly as I could “TILLIE, COME!!”  I wondered what lived there that needed the dog door that seemed to be about three feet across, and how it was going to feel about the Newfie that I am SURE jumped up on their bed, slobbered in their ears, pulled on their pillows, grabbed a snack, and then ran back out the doggie door where I hastily threw her into the truck and departed as quickly as I could.  I have always wanted to go back someday and ask them about the strange nightmare they had one night. So, if you are reading this blog, and lived next to a park in Santa Fe in the nineties and were visited one night by a friendly hyperactive bear, I am sorry…   

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 January 1, 2009  Posted by at 7:26 pm Tagged with: ,
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