Canine Behavior Training

Q. What advice do you have for a customer looking to hire a provider like you?

A. How to determine whether a dog trainer or behaviorist can help you.

If your dog is displaying any type of a nervous aggression, barking, growling, snapping or lunging at people or other dogs. You must test the dog trainer or behaviorist you are considering hiring, to find out if they are any good at what they claim to be good at. Or they are just another ineffective dog trainer.

This simple test will determine if the trainer is very good, good or useless.

If the person you hire while they are working with your dog, cannot get your dog to stop the unwanted behavior. How can they possibly teach you to do it, if they can’t do it themselves.

The Dog Trainer/Behaviorist Test.

On the very first session, with the trainer working or handling your dog. You should be absolutely amazed that your dog is not displaying the unwanted behaviors. The trainer must be able to get your dog to pay attention to him or her, within the first five to fifteen minutes of that first session. If your dog “acts aggressive” with people, then people must be added into the equation. If the problem is with dogs, you must do the same.

The first session is a test of the trainers abilities, you do not attempt to socialize your dog with either the people or the dogs at this time. That will come later.

Analyzing the results of the trainer test

Very Good – Within those first fifteen minutes your dog is listening and only occasionally will the trainer have to refocus your dogs attention back onto them.
Good – The trainer may not accomplish getting your dog to totally listen to them in the first fifteen minutes. But they where able to get your dog to listen fifty percent of the time.
Useless – Your dog acts no better with them as the dog does with you.
There are plenty of good trainers out there that can help you. Unfortunately there are many more that are just no good. You must be diligent in your search.

And do not be impressed by any dog trainers or behaviorists credentials (certified dog trainer, PhD behaviorist, DVM behaviorist). If they have credentials and they pass the test, excellent. If they have credentials and fail the test, what good are they . Do not believe any seemingly logical excuse they make for not handling your dog, or getting your dog to listen to them. People that are no good at what they do, often have a lot of excuses or reasons why something didn’t work. The proof is in the pudding.

Do not be embarrassed to test them, you must find out if they are any good. And besides, it’s your money .

The Spirit Dog

“It should be a very simple matter for any dog professional that knows the canine mind, to get your dog to listen and behave with them. Before they start teaching you how to do it.”

Q. Do you have a favorite story from your work?

A. Pinky is a white pit bull mix about 85 lbs. She was a stray that wandered into T's life last year. For many months, Pinky and T's other dog did great together. Then T started working long hours and things deterioated. Here is what T has to say at the end of Behavior Training.

In a perfect world I would posses all the natural instincts and skills of Cesar Milan. For those of you who don't know who he is, he is like the "Godfather of Dog training". He can alter a dogs state of mind with just the touch of his fingers and resounding "Psst". And dog and humans alike take notice. Of course, I do not possess such powers, in fact, I am a dog whisperer in training and taking baby steps toward understanding and correcting my three dogs.

Especially, Pinky. She is a miunderstood breed by natures.She is a pix-mix and everyone I know had deemed her a lost cause due to the aggression she was displaying on my border collie. The fighting was very minimal at first but intensified within the last 6 months. So my emotional level was a code red. Nothing I did seem to stop the fighting and there was a lot of blood, all three of us got hurt. Saddie, my border collie got the worst of it, and after several trips to the vet and my attempts in first aid, we put her back together.

I even got to the point where I was convinced that there was no solution for Pinky but putting her down. If nothing else, to stop her suffering. But then I started to come to Seize the Leash and both Pinky and I have made tremendous progress. I was finally able to focus on the real issues, that Pinky was afraid and acting out in an aggressive way. Having that knowledge and understanding empowered me to become a better pack leader. I make it a conscious effort to display confidence, remain calm even when it seems there is an attack, make quick and just corrections and keep it moving. I no longer dwell on the situation that just happened, I collect myself and keep going.

My pack recently had a new addtion, a bouncing, jumping full of evergy 5 month old boxer-mix, and more often then not, I find myself cleaning up after her. She seems to have a particular liking to trees, potted plants and anything not made out of concrete, she'll find it and chew on it. Or in some cases, eat it. Just like as I am writing this short essay, I discovered that Irre knocked the trash can down and helped herself to turkey bones. My emotional level was frustration, but I remain assertive and send Pinky and Irre to the kennel.

When dealing with Saddie, who is always so nervous I have made a point to be as calm as I can around her to help her over this phase of her life. Having learned not to coddle her when she is scared, not to encourage her hyperactivity and only give her attention when she calmed down has made a big difference. There are still times, though, when she gets me to be frustrated because it takes her a while to get to her calm state.

Lastly, for anyone thinking of a getting a dog, think twice. Training a dog(s), is a 24/7 job, you're always learning and it is a lot of work, but the reward comes when I can walk my three dogs without having them pull me down the street. Even better is when I take them out on my tricycle, it is quite the show stopper, but it is also very rewarding when we are all in sync.

Q. What do you wish customers knew about you or your profession?

A. The dog's intelligence, sociable nature and adaptability make him an excellent companion and also make it easy to train and educate him to ensure he fits comfortably into the human world. Today the dog is more companion then working partner and various theories have emerged to explain his behavior - and mis-behavior - and how to make that behavior more amenable to us as humans.

Since the advent of the Internet, the availability of information about everything you could possibly know about anything has grown exponentially. Dog training is no different. You can now find the "secrets" of the Hollywood dog trainers, dog trainers in general and the ways of canine whichness on National Geographic and Animal Planet. Don't get me wrong, I've benefited tremendously from this availability of information despite decades of experience and college studying animal behavior, biology and genetics.

Before the information age, one had to either go to school and become a Veterinarian or an Animal Behaviorist. There was no university education in becoming a dog trainer or even just a dog behaviorist. You had to have the whole ball or nothing. Or, you could apprentice under an existing trainer. Canine behaviorists didn't actually exist before the last few years that didn't have one of the above two degrees. Trainers however, learned about behavior as it applies to dogs, and learned how to train a dog.

Before the 40's and the advent of learning theory and the Premack Principle, animal training was a hit or miss thing. Different "schools" of training existed generally based on what breed group of dog you were training or what function you were training a dog for. There were the herding dogs, guarding, hauling, hunting, pointing, retreiving and earth dogs. Each breed group had it's job and a basic set of guidelines for how to train a dog in it's group. But each individual did things their own way for the most part, mostly after apprenticing under a family member or neighbor.

Then came BF Skinner and his students, the Brelands, with operant conditioning, classical conditioning (Pavlov), the Premack Principle and various other pieces of psycho babble - how dogs and other animals (including humans), supposedly learn. At pretty much the same time, there were studies done on captive wolves and dominance theory emerged to explain lupine behavior and this was translated into canine behavior. Everyone "knows" that dogs are descended from wolves.

During the 1900's many prominent trainers, and their methodologies, emerged in the field of dog training. These include Conrad Most, William Koehler, Winifred Strickland, C.W. Meisterfeld and Barbara Woodhouse. They developed their own particular style of training techniques, and made lasting contributions to the field of organized dog training.

Then came Ian Dunbar and Karen Pryor who introduced positive reinforcement only training and pushed it into prominance in the 80's. Karen Pryor and several others were trainers for Sea World and learned the techniques that the Breland's had perfected. But the 80's also brought out the dominance theory and a battle began between proponents of the two methods.

Personally, my practice and theory is different then most of what you read, see on TV or hear from other trainers. I think it is a mistake to think that because dogs are descended from an ancestor of wolves, they behave like wolves. If you actually watched wolves in the wild, they cooperate, not dominate. Wolves understand who is good at what and test each other in play to find out where they fit in - not the pack as a whole - but in each activity that the pack is involved in.

Training dogs is fun for me and for the dog, as it should be. It is through play behavior, and the social rules that all dogs and wolves learn as pups, that a "pack" or "family" of canines is ruled. Further, it is fun to play with our dogs even if none of us learn anything. It will certainly make more sense to the dog than to be jerked around on a leash or sent to the corner for a timeout.

I've found through the years that all that's really necessary is a knowledge of and continual use of communication signals to and from the dog, the willingness of the owner to change how they view their dog and how they interact with it, and a rehabilitation period for the dog to discard the behaviors that were driving everyone (including the dog) crazy. Play is an important aspect of this process because it is how dogs learn to be dogs as puppies. The rehabilitation process is basically just informing the dog, in a language and format that he understands (what momma did when he was a pup), what is acceptable, where the boundaries lie, and what the rules for future behavior are.