Seek Your Tribe

May 232022
 

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.   

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 May 23, 2022  Posted by at 4:09 am Tagged with: , , , , ,

A Letter to Veterinarians

Aug 292021
 

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.

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 August 29, 2021  Posted by at 8:21 pm Tagged with: , , ,

But My Vet Said…

May 282020
 

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 TrainingBreeds
NutritionWeightSaddle Fit
EthicsReason and LogicAnimal Sports
ThermodynamicsEquipmentWhen to euthanize
Optimal age to spay/neuterOptimal age to start riding your horseMeaning 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:

BacteriologyImmunology 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 MycologyVM & 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…

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 May 28, 2020  Posted by at 7:24 pm Tagged with: , , , ,

Contextualizing Loss

Jun 142019
 

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!

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 June 14, 2019  Posted by at 6:09 pm Tagged with: , , ,

Education Protects Against the Vagaries of Life

May 112019
 

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…

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 May 11, 2019  Posted by at 8:03 pm Tagged with: , , ,

Love, loss, and vulnerability

Apr 232019
 

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.

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 April 23, 2019  Posted by at 6:10 pm Tagged with: , , , ,

Anthropomorphism

Feb 282019
 

Since Konrad Lorenz, or perhaps even earlier, anthropomorphism has been viewed as a cardinal sin of ethology. And in the past few decades, this attitude has become ever more prevalent among knowledgeable pet trainers and owners.

In many ways this is absolutely correct: we should never presumptively attribute human thoughts, emotions, and motives to animals.

However, it does not follow that it is wrong to attribute any thoughts, emotions, and motivations. In fact, every bit as fallacious as attributing certain emotions to animals is presumptively denying emotions to animals. (BTW, while it is seriously out of date, Darwin’s “The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals” remains well worth reading.)

It absolutely is beneficial and desirable to attempt to understand the emotions, motivations, and perspectives of any animal with whom you have a relationship. Personally, I would argue that this is one of the very best and highest gifts we receive from spending time with animals, so long as a few conditions are met:

  1. Do not assume or imagine that any other animal sees the world the same way you do. Your job is to constantly try to understand the animal’s perspective. Think about their evolution, their desires, their senses, their physical abilities, their experiences, and do your very best to imagine how the world looks and seems from that perspective.
  2. Maintain a consciousness of what you “know” versus what you “believe.”  Very rarely can you know much about an animal’s emotions or motivations—you are far likelier to know their behaviors and their behavioral trends. From these, you can carefully hypothesize or speculate as to their emotions, and can often formulate a fairly solid and predictive sense of how they “feel.”

While anthropomorphism is problematic, far more sinister is its close cousin: sentimentalism. There are few things more destructive to real understanding of animals than infantilizing them, treating them like human babies or Disney characters, imbuing them with human morality or lovey-dovey treacle. Overfeeding a pet because they really want treats and you really want them to love you is not kindness. Giving them autonomous legal status or imaginary rights is deluded and self-serving. Expecting them not to do certain things because they ought to innately “know better” is absurd. Animals are amazing, not as vessels for our fantasies, but on their own authentic merits. The deepest, most loving and real relationship you can have with an animal is one based on honesty and truth–based on genuinely seeing them as who and what they are, and building bridges between that and yourself.

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 February 28, 2019  Posted by at 4:22 am Tagged with: ,

A Note to Parents

Mar 112018
 

Several times recently parents have proudly told me—usually while their child was mauling an animal—that “any animal that survives” their child will be supremely tame. I find this assertion problematic on several levels, most significantly that it mischaracterizes in disturbing ways the process of building trust in an animal. It implies that flooding, through lack of awareness, leads to very tame animals; which, sometimes, can be true, but in most cases those were nice animals that would have been very tame anyway and have gotten through “despite” course handling, not because of it. And often animals handled this way do not become genuinely tame, confident, and trusting; but rather shut down, stressed,  and a bit helpless.

I have very little experience with human children, so I will not focus on that side of the equation except to suggest that as a parent I might want to work on my child not overwhelming animals or dragging on leashes or ignoring animal language and emotion—not only can it be quite dangerous for the children and detrimental for the animals, but also I would think one of the best things about having animals around a child would be the opportunity to work on sensitivity, empathy, and thoughtful awareness.

I do have considerable experience working with a huge range of animals, so I can meaningfully share that to me, building trust and rapport with an animal is almost always a supremely subtle process that requires considerable gentleness and incredible awareness. It is about teaching them that they are safe, that they can control their world, that they can play and communicate and set boundaries. There are moments to retreat, moments to reward, moments to soothe, moments to push forward… There are times to make eye contact, times to look away, times to act indifferent, times to be solicitous, times to leave them alone. There are times to model enthusiasm and raise your own energy, and times to create a calm and safe space for the animals. There is body language and tone of voice and precise observation.

I imagine some children are naturally more gifted than others, but virtually all children will need extensive help learning how to safely and effectively interact with animals. Please, do not justify or excuse your child’s heavy-handed behavior by pretending that it is beneficial, but rather talk to them about how to listen and observe and be gentle and kind…

 

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 March 11, 2018  Posted by at 4:36 am Tagged with: , , ,

The Day the Music Died

Mar 242016
 

athena1

The recent announcement that SeaWorld is ending their orca program and forging an alliance with HSUS sparked widely diverse emotional responses, from joy to despair, but most serious animal people were deeply hurt and furious.

I am not going to address the specific orca question: despite my tens of thousands of hours working with hundreds of species, I do not possess sufficient knowledge or experience with marine mammals to know whether or not orcas can thrive in captivity. This determination belongs in the hands of dedicated, knowledgeable, caring experts, and not abandoned to weekend activists, anti-animal fanatics, pre-occupied politicians, or casual animal lovers. And I am not privy to what happens at SeaWorld, so I cannot speak to the details of their care.

Nor am I going to attack those at SeaWorld for this decision.  We are all struggling to find best and most effective paths in the current world, and I do not have access to all the information they had.  I suspect it was a serious mistake for SeaWorld to become a publicly traded company, but even if they had not, no institution can long survive what SeaWorld has been facing, so they did what they believed was necessary to survive in the short term, even though doing so may well have sacrificed the future.

I want to discuss some of the broader realities and process failures that got us to this point:

It is profoundly saddening that SeaWorld has been unable to persuasively communicate the core truth that responsibly managed captivity is a great alternative in parallel with protection of wild animals. That animals can do better living with people than in the wild.  That they can be happier, healthier, and longer-lived.  That man has today claimed every inch of the planet and that the only future for most species inexorably includes human involvement. That most animals care not about the idea of freedom, but about survival, comfort, and happiness.

It is devastating that SeaWorld partnered with an organization that has shown repeatedly that it will not rest until every single animal living with man has been removed or eliminated.

It is flabbergasting that a filmmaker with no relevant knowledge, education, or experience, and a woefully lopsided, sentiment-based agenda, could produce false and misleading propaganda and raise up an army of well-meaning-but-utterly-misinformed do-gooders who—in the name of orcas—set about destroying the greatest ally orcas have ever known.

It is gravely disappointing how many excellent animal facilities have seen no choice but to die with a whimper, or hand over their soul to the devil and betray their colleagues and the truth.

It is crushing how close we are to a world in which all animals have been shoved out of our homes and lives and banished to an illusory “wild.”

It is depressing how little SeaWorld, and other animal professionals, have been able to educate the public that good animal training is not cruel, coercive, or exploitative.  That animals need, and love, to play the game, figure things out, and perform complicated behaviors.

It is unfathomable how many people embrace an agenda that they have not bothered to fully grasp, and do grievous harm to animals while passionately believing that they are helping.  How many people are certain they know best, even when they know nothing at all.

But the most frightening and saddening truth is this: science and reason surrendered to a mob of pitchfork-brandishing villagers.  Knowledge and thoughtful pursuit of truth abandoned the field to ignorance, hatred, and frenzy. However you may feel about SeaWorld, you should be very afraid of a world in which the mob can control such decisions.

Make no mistake: animals and those who love them are losing badly. Sea World’s capitulation was a grave defeat for Earth’s animals. But perhaps even worse, it was a devastating blow for mankind. Watch the responses to SeaWorld’s decision, and relentlessly you will hear people with inadequate knowledge repeat the tautological assumption—“Wild animals belong in the wild because they are wild and yearn for freedom.”  No matter how much logic and data are presented to them clearly demonstrating the fallacy of their position, they will simply repeat their impenetrable certainty.  Reason, knowledge, and discourse are little match for sentimentality, unabashed ignorance, certitude, and zealotry.

Some may not recognize the enormity of this event: SeaWorld, after all, is but one organization, and we are only talking about a few orcas. But we are not really talking about SeaWorld as a brick-and-mortar institution.  SeaWorld is an icon, a metaphor.  SeaWorld is a manifestation of the notion that enterprise, entertainment, education, and animal care can synergistically coexist. SeaWorld, until recently, generated a great deal of revenue and profit, but its managers directed a significant portion of those profits into the welfare of their animals, aiding wild animals, conducting groundbreaking research, educating the public, and generating interest and affection for marine mammals.  It is cruelly ironic that the only reason people care enough about orcas to be attacking SeaWorld is because SeaWorld brought the charismatic mammals to our focused attention, and made them into the icons we treasure so deeply.  SeaWorld was the principal global institution with the resources and commitment to stand toe-to-toe with the Animal Rights groups and say, “No! We will not capitulate to misguided sentimentality no matter how loudly you yell.”

SeaWorld was one of the last citadels protecting the ideal that animals and people can live together, and that both can be the better for it. I do not know if there is hope left, but if there is, it lies with every single person who loves animals banding together right now and saying with one voice what I wish SeaWorld had said: Enough. We will not be intimidated; we will not let you eliminate animals from our world.  We will not let you distort responsible care and love and stewardship and call them exploitation. We will not let your simplistic fanaticism crush truth. We are the true lovers of animals, the people who dedicate our lives to caring for them and learning about them. With immense devotion and immeasurable reflection and action, we have learned what is humane, what is ethical, what is best for the animals.  And while we will always welcome thoughtful, informed input into how we can do better, we shall ceaselessly strive to ensure that the animals we love always have homes in the wild and with us.

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 March 24, 2016  Posted by at 11:01 pm Tagged with: , , , , ,

What I look for in an animal home

Jul 132015
 

napping-Edit

I encountered an interesting question on FB—if you were creating a quiz to test the knowledge of potential puppy homes, what are some of the questions you would include?

There were many excellent answers offered: questions about breed history, training, nutrition, exercise, management, behavior…

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I would not quiz about knowledge. One does not need to start with a great deal of knowledge to be a great owner, and all the knowledge that is required can be easily acquired. Some of the most “knowledgeable” people are among the last to whom I would give a puppy. And it is often those who have a little knowledge who are least open to learning and growing.

If you are seeking to acquire an animal from me, I want to know if you are committed, dedicated, devoted. I want to know if you will reshape your life to accommodate an animal. I want to know if you will stay up all night to comfort a frightened puppy. I want to know if 15 years from now you will sleep on the floor every night to be with your old friend. I want to know what you will do if ten years from now you are offered a great job in a location where you cannot take your dog. I want to know if you will give your time and your heart to this animal. I want to know if you are genuinely open to listening, to learning, from others, from books, from your animal; and that you will remain open and critical to new ideas and opinions and will always strive to improve and grow. I want to know if you will laugh and cry and cuddle. I want to know if you will make a fool of yourself to make him happy; if you will see his innocence even when he is destroying your favorite possession, and his beauty even when he is vomiting on your carpet. I want to know that you will try to see the world from his perspective. I want to know that you are willing and able to make the hard decisions to do what is best for your animal, even when it is not easy or is not what feels best for you. I want to know what kind of leader you are, whether you relate through intimidation, coercion, supplication, or shared trust. I want to know how you will handle the hard days, the failures, the heartbreaks. I want to know that you have genuinely thought about these issues, not to give me the best answers, but to be certain in your own heart that you are ready and open to completely sharing your life with an animal, and to wherever that path may take you.

For me, these core attributes and aptitudes are what matter—if they are in place, knowledge will easily and surely come, if not all the knowledge in the world will not help….

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 July 13, 2015  Posted by at 10:42 pm Tagged with: , , , , , , ,
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