THE OTHER END OF THE LEASH

Seen this? The announcer tells us that the dog is “faking death.” I’m just not even going to pursue how and why someone came up with that as an explanation for this dog’s behavior, BUT… What IS going on?  I have two hypotheses, but I’m staying mum until I get your ideas.  I’ll add mine to the comments sometime this weekend.

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: It’s high summer here, hot and humid but the flowers are bursting all around, the bees are laden with pollen, the ruby red tomatoes are swelling and the fresh corn has arrived. Yummm, have you ever eaten corn from the cob minutes after it’s been picked? I mean, ripping off the husks while standing in the field and sinking your teeth into the kernels? SOOO sweet! Why anyone would cook it is beyond me!

Willie is doing well. We have a new set of exercises to do, and go in on Monday for images to ensure that his bone is healing properly. I had to skip his exercises for a few days because of some unexpected family events, and he clearly missed them. It’s hard to imagine how much fun it could be to lift your paw up fifteen times in a row, but when there’s not much else on the docket and you get treats for it, it’s REALLY fun! Everything is relative, right? We’ve been working on learning to heel on the right and “Shift” from left to right on a verbal cue. He thinks this is a great game, and it works well for his shoulder (no turning, no weaving, no stopping and starting). What’s working best for me is singing on our short walks  (thanks commenters!). You just don’t want to be any where near us when I start belting out “Like a Bridge Over Troubled Waters….” Not pretty.

However, this IS pretty, from my perennial garden: [Boy do I love Lilies!]

Here’s Hailey, who was one of the demo dogs in Pittsburgh a few  weeks ago. Crystal is fostering Hailey, and had only had her for about a month before the seminar, and we were both concerned that her general arousal levels might make the seminar too much of a challenge for her. As it turned out, she did very, very well. She was definitely reactive when she saw other dogs, but it did not appear that she was fearful or intent on aggression. Hailey was the classic bark/lunger who became so excited when she saw another dog that she lost control. She could work herself up into increasing levels of excitement until her behavior became difficult to manage.

Managing arousal did seem to be the name of the game here. Hailey was extremely friendly to me, mildly stressed about being on the stage but handled it well, and was happy to take treats from me and Crystal. Teaching her to look back on cue (“Watch” or LAT) is a great idea for Hailey, but I thought she was also a great candidate for a method that reinforced her for making her own decision. This felt especially important for Hailey, because self control is something she needed to work on (like lots of terriers and bully breeds especially, I find. Agree?)

Unlike Ceilidh, the demo dog before her, Hailey didn’t “lock on” in anyway when she saw another dog, she just became more and more excited and difficult to manage. As I always like to do, we started with giving her treats up on the stage to relax her and teach her that there were great things up there. Then we had a mellow dog enter the room, as far away as possible. Because Hailey’s behavior was variable, we were able to immediately click and treat when her head turned slightly toward us and away from the dog. At first I clicked on a turn of no more than a half an inch, but very quickly the head turns got bigger and bigger until she’d whip her head around to us like a champ. Because we were well under her threshold, she learned extremely fast that “look at other dog, look at Trisha/Crystal” gets a treat. Note that there was no cue… we waited for Hailey to initiate the behavior herself, and because she was under threshold AND had variable behavior (unlike Ceidlih) we were able to make tremendous progress. Following the steps of BAT, we didn’t just click and treat a head turn, we backed up considerably after the click and before the treat.

One could argue that backing away from the other dog wasn’t positive reinforcement for her, because Crystal knew what she REALLY wanted was to play with the other dog. But I couldn’t see it working out to let her get closer and closer, and having only had a month’s experience with her it just wasn’t wise to let her off leash to run to the other dog and on leash she’d just go back to being overly excited. So we waited for a head turn, clicked, backed up and made a fuss over her, giving her great treats. Gradually we allowed the other dog to get closer and closer, so much so that Crystal said she’d never been able to be so close to another dog on leash before without going crazy. Yeah!!! We were all thrilled at how well she did, and Hailey looked just as pleased with herself.

I suggested that they continue working on BAT and also work on focusing her attention on cue, along with lots of exercises that will help her learn to manage arousal levels (stay, wait at door, leave it, etc.). The best news came in an email not long ago from Crystal, in which she related that Hailey had been playing with another foster who himself had a rude, pushy play style and Hailey clearly became uncomfortable. Hailey eyes began to change and she stiffened and began to focus on the other dog as a target, not a playmate. Crystal said her name (which she’d been working on) and Hailey immediately broke off and came to her. Then she was released to play again, but this time when the other dog got rude Hailey excused herself and went over the Crystal all on her own. (Jackpot!!!) Soon they were playing well together and Hailey had learned that some dogs just, well, play better than others. Yeah Hailey! (but I add, Yeah Crystal for being so observant and for working so hard on foundation exercises.) By the way, Hailey is a foster, and here’s information about her if you are interested in a dog who was an absolute delight to train at the seminar.

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: HOT HOT HOT. It’s miserable outside. 95 or 96 or 97 and high humidity. Argh, I’m a disaster in hot weather, so Willie isn’t getting much in the way of walks outside right now. His exercise is all just his PT inside right now, with short walks outside. (Granted they can’t ever be longer than 15 min now, but in this heat they are more like 10!). I’m grumpy about the weather (65 degrees is about right for me and I don’t mind minus 20 anywhere near as much as I mind 90). However, as much as I’m whinging (a Scottish word for complaining, love it) about the weather, I have AC and can at least sleep well at night. I feel so sorry for people and dogs who have no option. We’ve been worried about the sheep, and so Jim set up a huge fan in the barn that is helping them considerably. Good news with the flock is that Spot seems to have recovered from mastitis. She was first diagnosed with pneumonia, but didn’t get better after treatment. During the next vet visit it became obvious what the problem was, so after a course of injections she seems much, much better. Thank heavens, I thought I was about to lose another ewe.

So last week I was worried about Sushi (diagnosed with kidney failure) and Spot and (always) Willie’s shoulder, and this week Spot is recovered, Sushi’s kidneys look GREAT after taking out an infected tooth and Willie is doing okay. He has healed up from the surgery on his bicepital tendon, now it’s all about his 2 damaged ligaments. We were reminded how crucial it is that he do as little as possible for another 2 months unless it is PT. (The surgeon wanted him to do NOTHING for 4 months and THEN start PT, but she agreed after talking to the therapist that it was okay to slowly, carefully do specific exercises.) So we are continually reminding ourselves to go slow, and are aware that he’ll have to wear the Hobbles for awhile once he is allowed off leash. Once that happens, there is NO way I am going to be able to restrict the use of his shoulder!

Here’s Willie doing one of his exercises, balancing on his forelegs on a slowly moving exercise ball. We both think this one is fun.

Jim will keep up the exercises while I’m in Denver, hope to see some of you there.

Come up and say hi if you make it Denver and read the blog or FB!

I did a seminar last week in Pittsburgh for the Westmoreland County Obedience Training Club, and worked with 3 dogs who had “dog-dog reactivity” problems. In choosing those dogs I had a problem myself: I had to choose from over 12 people who offered their dogs for demo’s. Right now I’m working on choosing dogs for a similar seminar in DENVER next weekend and have the same problem: too many dogs, too little time.

And so I thought it might be useful to use one of Pittsburgh’s dogs as a case study in the blog, and her owner, Jan, graciously agreed. I should say here that I don’t have the depth of information I would if they were my clients, but here are the basics:

Ceilidh (pronounced Cay-lee) is a 6.5 year old female Border Collie who fixates on other dogs with what I call the “locked and loaded” look of a stalking predator. She does not bark or vocalize in any way, just does her “silent runner” routine when she sees dogs she doesn’t know. She does NOT do this to unfamiliar BCs, only to other breeds. This is not her version of playing or herding, if they get too close she will lunge toward them aggressively.

Ceilidh can be pushy and demanding around the other dogs at home, (we agreed she’s the type of dog who reminds us why the term “bitch” is a dirty word), but is soft and sugar-sweet to people. Without knowing her better, I’d describe her as both frightened of other dogs and desperately desiring to control them. I call dogs like this “alphawannabees.”  To add to the story, Jan told me at the seminar, Ceilidh has suffered from seizures all her life. Jan told me after we worked on stage that she was aware they’ve let Ceilidh “get away” with a lot because of her seizures. Jan has very realistic goals for Ceilidh; she’d just like to be able to walk her down the street or go to the vet clinic without it being a stress test for her.

I had chosen Ceilidh as the dog I would use to illustrate using an “on-cue” positive reinforcement for dogs who are dog-dog reactive. In my dog-dog reactive seminars I summarize and illustrate the four most commonly used methods that I believe are effective and humane: 1) Teaching “Watch” or “Look at Me,” 2) Teaching “Where’s the Dog?” or “Look at That” (Leslie McDevitt), 3) BAT or Behavior Adjustment Training (Griesha Stewart) and “Abandonment Training” (Trish King). Ironically, although #1 and #2 seem to be opposites, functionally they tend to get the same behavioral response: see dog, look at owner, get treat. However, in my experience, which one you choose  depends a lot on the dog. I often suggest using them both, as I did with Willie, but you have to decide which one to use first.

So, which methods to use with Ceilidh? First off, I wasn’t inclined to teach her “Where’s the Dog” or LAT, because in typical Border collie fashion, once she’d locked onto a dog she had a hard time looking away. I like to use “Where’s the Dog” with dogs who are truly afraid of just the sight of other dogs, and who either initially bark and lunge, or avoid looking altogether. Ceilidh did not need any encouragement to look at other dogs, (she says, making a profound understatement) and once locked on was stuck in typical BC fashion, barely able turn her own head away. For the same reason I wouldn’t start with BAT, in which you bring the dog to the beginning of threshold and then wait for them to offer some behavior that is a sign of relaxation — a head turn? looking down, opening their mouth?  It’s a great method and we used it with the next dog to great advantage, but we could have waited for an hour for Ceidilh to turn her head away to no avail, so we didn’t want to start with that.

We worked on “Look” (at her person, I often use the word “Watch”), which she’d already been taught but wouldn’t do if she saw another dog. First we reinforced Look with great treats with no dogs around and she did very well. Then a mellow greyhound entered the room, & Ceilidh predictably locked on and froze. When I asked for a Look she didn’t twitch an ear. I put the treat to her nose and OH! that got her attention and I lured her head around, then gave her the treat. We worked for about 10 minutes on this on stage with variable success. She did begin turning her head when I said Look! after looking at another dog, and showed some good improvement, but neither was it one of those AMAZING!!! moments in which a dog turns around on stage within a few minutes (that was the next dog who I’ll talk about in the next case study!). I liked enough of what I saw to advise this:

1) Ceidilh needs lots and lots more “foundation” training on Look before using it successfully around unfamiliar dogs. I suggested that Jan spend a solid month working on Look during distractions of increasing intensity. Eeeps, that seems like a lot, but C had been fixating on dogs for years, and combined with a somewhat, uh, ‘set-in-her-ways’ nature and her  BC propensity to stare, this is just not a ‘quick fix’ dog. She needs to master this signal in other contexts first before we use it on dogs. Once she does use it with dogs, start with the dogs a long way away (farther than we could manage at the seminar).

2) “Look” should also include backing away from the other dog, something I realized I began doing unconsciously when working with dogs like Ceilidh. So not only does she get a food reinforcement for looking away from the other dog, she gets to increase the distance between them, which is one of the things she wants. It’s easy, say Look or Watch and as she turns her head toward you just back up a step and then release the treat when she’s moved toward you a step or two.

3) The goal here is NOT having to say watch to her every time she sees another dog, it’s working toward an AutoWatch, in which she sees another dog and turns toward Jan of her own initiative. When that happens, JACKPOT! 15 treats in a row.

4) Once she has another behavior in her repertoire  beside a fixated stare, I’d love to give her the chance to offer a different behavior, mark it with a clicker, run AWAY from the other dog about 10-15 feet and then give her a treat (she’s not very toy motivated, otherwise I might suggest a toy). This is basically the first steps of BAT, and once you get further with her it should be a very useful addition to the tool box.

5) Gradually she should be allowed closer and closer, always working her just sub-threshold, trying to keep her able to offer another behavior that you could reinforce by moving away. If she goes over threshold and begins to fixate, I’d try a Look immediately and reinforce even a head turn toward you. If she gets stuck, I’d do an EMERGENCY U-TURN (described in Feisty Fido, as are AutoWatch and Where’s the Dog?) and get her out of it. Then try asking for the appropriate behavior when you are further away.

6) One important addition to her treatment plan relates to her home environment. It turns out there are neighbor dogs who drive her batty, and if she goes out in the backyard and they are out they bark like crazy at her and she, not surprisingly,  becomes reactive back. Hard as it is, it’s going to be almost impossible to turn her behavior around on walks or at dog shows if this doesn’t get handled, granted that’s not easy to do. But management and prevention are going to be the name of the game here.

My guess is that it’s going to take some serious work for a good six months before she gets herself turned around, and I doubt I’d ever take her to a dog park, but I think that she can be much, much more comfortable around other dogs and much, much more fun to take out and about.

She’s such a lovely dog in so many ways, the kind the goes all gooey and smushy when you meet her, and I wish her and her mom all the luck in the world. I’d sure she’d love some encouragement from those of you who, like me, have had reactive dogs who showed huge improvement after using some of these methods.

MEANWHILE,  back on the farm: Willie is starting month 3 of re-hab, yeah! His shoulder has had some ups and downs,  but they are to be expected and he’s doing well this week. I have to admit we haven’t managed 3 sessions a day this week though, I’ve been gone too much. But we can do lots of good work this week until I have to leave for Denver. I took  him to a friend’s, first time since his injury February that he’s been off the farm, and we took our maximum, on-the-flat-only-no-trotting-or-turning walk. What a treat to do even that!

Our big news this week at the farm is that the Barn Swallows nesting over a light fixture in the garage finally fledged. That means we can finally shut the garage door again, Sushi can finally go outside again and I can stop cleaning up bird poop on the floor of the garage. But it was well worth it: I lucked out and went outside about sixty seconds after the first one made its initial flight, and I got to watch for 30 minutes while all five of them they learned to fly. It was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. First they flapped frantically as they flew about thirty feet in and out of the garage, looking barely able to keep from falling. It was impossible not to watch and feel the drama of it. They flew in and out back and forth, chirping and squawking crazily, and slowly, ever so slowly, began flying further out, higher and lower, learning how to bank sideways, how to float up and dive down. The stopped their distress calls and changed their voice, and I swear by the time I quit watching they were saying LOOK WHAT I CAN DO!!!!, while they soared and twisted and dove down like fighter jets in a movie.

Here they are a few days ago with their fat little baby beaks and their feathers not yet all grown out:

And here’s one resting after her first flight. It’s not a great photo, but I couldn’t resist! She’s looking oh-so-grown up now! Any pilot will tell you the tricky part is landing, and she clearly would agree. Her first landing wasn’t pretty, but within 20 minutes she could take off and land like a pro.

Perhaps “Super Normal Sign Stimuli” is not a phrase that you often use? Ah, but it should be! It summarizes a common behavior that is relevant in both human and canine behavior. SNSS refers, first, to stimuli that elicit an inherent response in individuals of a species. Red flowers, for example, attract hummingbirds, no matter what the bird’s experience. Hummers are naturally and inherently attracted to the color red, as Orioles are attracted to the color orange. The other part of SNSS, “super normal” refers to the size or intensity of a stimulus. A good example of this is from the ethologist Tinbergen, who learned that nesting female sandpipers will sit and try to incubate anything that is egg-shaped with the appropriate size and spotted patterns that look like real eggs (even if they are made out of wood). the “super normal” part comes in when he made extra large ‘fake’ eggs, and found that the females left their own eggs to die while attempting, fruitlessly, to sit on the huge mega-eggs.

My favorite example of this is the Australian Jewel Beetle, whose males began attempting to copulate with beer bottles,  because the bottles were bumpy and orange-brown. It turns out that the top of the female beetles is also orange-brown and bumpy, but the females were small and the beer bottles were HUGE and the males were absolutely helpless in their presence. (I call this the Dolly Parton effect, if you get my drift.) The males ignored the real females so frequently that the population, (according to a nature special) began to decline. I’m told that the beer company actually changed the bottles so that the males went back to the females. (Any Aussies want to chime in here?)

And what does this have to do with dogs? Ah, watch this! This may not be an example of a truly “super normal” sign stimulus, but it’s a great example of how certain features are perceived by dogs as meaning something they are not:

The fact is that our dogs are responding to Sign Stimuli and SNSS all the time. A common example of SNSS is a pair of sunglasses. If you work with fearful or aggressive dogs, you learn fast to take off your sunglasses when approaching the dog. Big black flat circles? Ooooh, a perfect SNSS of a round eye with a fully dilated pupil–a sign of a dog in high arousal and one who is potentially about to be aggressive.There’s a great example of this on the Reading Dogs video: an Eskie who barks wild-eyed at a man with sunglasses on, makes friends with him with the glasses off, and goes back to defensive, panicked barking when the glasses go back on.

My Luke ran into SNSS squared one day when we were doing live radio and a workman stopped at the glass window to watch. Luke was lying quietly under my feet, at least until he burst up, barking in a way I’d never heard (did I mention we were live on radio?). I was completely confused until I realized that the man was wearing knee protectors: HUGE round black circles at eye level.

This phenomenon is both a blessing and a curse. We respond to SS and SNSS when we come home and our dogs have squinty, happy eyes and an upcurved line on their lips. There it is, the happy face of two round circles with a crescent line underneath. Turns out we smile in response to that just weeks after birth. And there it is on our dog’s faces! We can do the same thing when we adopt a loose body and wag our butts back and forth (yup, I do that). Dogs love it.

The curse comes in, however, when dogs respond to things like statues not by barking but by being frightened, or to sunglasses or stiff-bodied stuffed dogs (a great way to work with dogs who are nervous around other dogs by the way!)

So here’s a question for you all: let’s develop a list of SNSS and SS that relates to our relationship with dogs. I look forward to hearing your examples!

MEANWHILE, back on the farm. The raspberries finally ripening, a new hatch of vicious mosquitoes, blooming Chickory and Wild Parsnip by the roadsides. Sushi is disgusted with me because I won’t let her out–first the barn swallow fledglings in the barn needed protection for a few days (they fall out of the nest sometimes before they can fly).  They got up and running, and now the pair nesting in the garage has 5 babies close to fledgling. There are so many other birds fledging now; Chipping Sparrows, Phoebes, etc, so poor Sushi girl is house bound. I wonder if she and Willie, who is crated so much of the time now, are having conversations? I hope they’re not plotting anything . . .

Here’s the challenge: Besides 3 sessions a day of physical therapy, Willie is now supposed to walk for 10 minutes three times a day. On the flat, on leash. No trotting, no spinning, just slow, controlled walking. Sounds simple, but then, life being what it is, it isn’t. There’s very little flat on my little hilly farm in southern Wisconsin. We basically have 2 paths to take, about 60 strides each. Otherwise, all the rest of my 13 acres is off limits. I could take the heavy ramp he uses to get into the house (to avoid the 3 stairs) and load him into the car and take him into town where it’s flatter, but it’s a big hassle to get the heavy ramp set up to get him in, put the ramp back in the car, take it out to load him back up, etc.  It’ll be worth it when he can walk for longer periods, but not yet.

In addition, he can’t be on a standard heel at all times because 1) he turns his head toward me when he’s in heel and that puts too much pressure on his left shoulder and 2) we’d die of boredom. I can’t use any toys (that’d be a disaster, he’d spin and leap and pretty much set himself back in a microsecond). I can’t stop and start abruptly to make it interesting because that would hype him up too much too. I need to walk continuously with him, not stopping to sniff much, keeping him from breaking into a trot but moving forward in a healthy walk.

Here’s what I’ve done so far: I’ve started walking with him on my left side in his usual heel position for a few strides, and this morning began to teach him to switch to my right side. This shouldn’t take long. After his surgery I taught him the cue “Switch” when I needed him on my right side as we left the house so he’d be sure to go down the ramp rather than the stairs. So he has a beginning concept that Switch means move from the left to the right. Okay, good. That’s something. Next?

Argh! As I said in the title, I am brain dead here. His PT has been going well, but it takes no small amount of energy to get it done right three times a day. Is that my excuse for not being able to think of anything else interested to do with him while we’re walking? Maybe it’s the heat? (It’s supposed to be 95 degrees outside today. My sympathy for people who have to work outside. I saw someone working on a black roof top yesterday in the mid-day sun and I don’t know how he did it. I’d have been dead in twenty minutes.)

Any budding behaviorists out there with some good ideas? Obviously, we’ll cope without anything else, but it’s  been since mid-Feb when Willie was first re-injured that he’s been on severe exercise restrictions and both he and I need some fresh input. With a few minor exceptions, there’s been no herding, no play, no off-leash walks or fun for five months, and we have two and a half months of on-leash-only restrictions to go. We would both be circle-wag happy with any good ideas. There are lots more tricks I can teach Willie (although some of his PT now is like tricks, like balancing on a big rubber ball, we both think that’s fun!), but the ones I can think of don’t involve continuous walking or would stimulate him into trotting or lunging forward, both big no no’s. if you have any idea, I’d love to hear ‘em! Hopefully any ideas that come in will help others in the same situation….

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: As I mentioned, we’ll be up to 95 degrees Farenheit today and humid as a sauna. Too hot for me and Willie to be outside much, today I’m glad we can only be out for 10 minutes. I feel for my sheep, especially Barbie, an older ewe who has respiratory trouble anyway.  I’m going set up the big fan in the barn in hopes that will help her. The lambs all seem great, the orphans are still a bit skinny but otherwise they are doing well.

Right in time for July 4th the black raspberries are ripening. They are about a week late this year, but they’re coming on strong. I sense a pie coming on. Also in season, the fireflies are out, bioluminescent beetles that glow like multiple, tiny Cinderellas in the dusk of evening as they fly above the grass. Each species has its own ‘code’ of flashes, the males broadcasting their wares to receptive females during this, their mating season. I grew up in the southwest of the US where there are no fireflies, and still think of them as one of the most magically events of all of nature.

Here are some photos, the first from a trip we took last week to Boulder, Colorado for the best wedding ever: I like the contrast between the craggy Rocky Mountains and the soft hills around my farm in southern Wisconsin: