THE OTHER END OF THE LEASH

Here’s a political issue I’m happy to discuss on the blog: The classification and treatment of dogs in the American Military. Dog lovers may or may not support the use of dogs in the military, but I can’t imagine anyone not in support of working dogs being treated well after their service is over. We, in this country anyway, have all heard the horror stories of dogs in Viet Nam being abandoned or shot, and that just can’t happen anymore. Ever.

I know that things have improved, but pure and simply, not enough.  A big part of the problem is that dogs are now categorized as “equipment” rather than the living, sentient beings that they are. This makes it difficult not only to transport dogs back home after their service, but almost impossible to release money to fund veterinary care for their medical problems, many of which are a result of their work for the country.

Many of the working dogs are trained at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, which has a new veterinary hospital for the dogs in training. I have been told that there are several dogs there that have returned from war zones with PTSD-like symptoms, but it’s not clear to me how often the clinic treats dogs after they return, rather than vetting them for health problems before they are sent off to work.

Currently there is a bill in congress to re-classify military dogs as “members,” rather than as “equipment.” It’s called, appropriately enough, the Canine Members of the Armed Forces Act, S. 2134, and was introduced by Senator Richard Blumenthal from Connecticut. Yeah for him. Apparently the House of Representatives is “moving forward” on the bill, and it will be discussed by the Senate soon. The ASPCA advocacy center has a great website to help us contact our own Senators and advocate for the bill. I just did it myself, it only takes a minute.

If you are so motivated, here is my unsolicited advice about what to say: Be clear and concise, and be very cautious about adding comments relating to any other issue. “Kitchen sinking” never works. For example, if you are completely opposed to using dogs in the military, save that for another email and another time. That is a reasonable and defensible position, but bringing it up in this communication dilutes the issue. Keep your language compelling but logical, and avoid unprofessional language. The angrier and more emotional one sounds, the less you will be listened to, that’s just the way it is. The more you sound thoughtful and objective, the more impact you will have. If you know me, you know that I wear my emotions on my sleeve (and my face, and my shirt front and back collar), so when I say you are better off in this situation to be logical and professional (and thus “unemotional”  ARGH, I hate that word… she said emotionally), the more the impact. I’m just saying.

Given that Memorial Day is upcoming in the states, a day when we honor the service of our military, this is the time to get this bill passed. I hope you take advantage of the ASPCA’s easy form (just type in your zip code and the program automatically sends it to your Senators) and advocate for this important bill.

I’d love to hear: Who out there knows any working dogs in the military? Worked with any or seen them work while you were in service? Please share your experiences, it would be so valuable. And you might be interested in these books written about working dogs, including Sergeant Rex: The Unbreakable Bond Between a Marine and His Military Working Dog, The Dogs of War: The Courage, Love and Loyalty of Military Working Dogs and Soldier Dogs, The Untold Story of America’s Canine Heroes. I have some on order, anyone read any of them yet?

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: Picture me saying “Ahhhhhhhh.”  By the time you read this, I will be about to begin three weeks of re-charging my batteries. Yup, I’m taking off from work for an entire three weeks. (I can barely imagine, actually, so it all sounds a bit theoretical at the moment.) Be assured, I’ve not deserted you; I’ve written blogs for the upcoming Fridays that will appear on schedule (and will welcome a guest blog from friend and colleague Dr. Karen London). In addition, true confessions, I’m sure I won’t be able to keep from reading your insightful comments. But, overall, I’m out of the office, off the email grid, letting the answering machine take messages and just generally kicking back. Denise, Katie and Lisa will be in the office putting the finishing touches on our new website. It’ll be great to come back and get it launched.

Lots of people have asked me where I’m going. This is my chance to remind people that positive reinforcement is defined by the receiver. That’s why my answer to where am I going is: Nowhere. Or, more accurately: Home. Cuz that’s where I long to be, and that’s what I never get enough of. I have been such a lucky woman to travel around the world meeting dog lovers and professionals in so many countries. I have loved it. And now I just need a little time to let my batteries recharge and hang out with the dogs and the sheep.

Here’s where I plan to spend some serious time for the next three weeks. For years I’ve maintained it, weeded around it, and planted flowers to create a fetching background. Now it’s time to sit down and use it.

A million years ago, my first Border Collie Drift lept up and nipped a man’s nose at the Wisconsin State Fair. Even though the man was clearly not injured, with virtually not even a red spot on his nose, I was shook up and appalled. He was furious. “Your dog attacked me!”

Well, he did. Just because the man wasn’t injured didn’t mean he didn’t feel attacked. And it didn’t mean that I didn’t feel horrible. Drift and I were about to perform in front of huge crowd by doing a sheep herding demo, and found ourselves jammed into a crowd against the building wall. The gentlemen in question charged up to Drift, grabbed his face in his hands, and yes, you guessed it, bent down to kiss Drift on the nose. It was the same exact context in which newscaster Kyle Dyer was bitten by a Dogo a few months ago. In some ways, everything was different: Kyle was badly injured and it was recorded on video tape for all the world to see. And in one way, everything was the same: A stranger holds a dog’s head in his/her hands and looms over to kiss a dog on the nose. Just like David Letterman was bitten on camera years ago. Just like how many people are bitten every year?

I find myself thinking of this before the beginning of Dog Bite Prevention Week, which runs from May 20 to May 26. It’s an important topic and I’m in complete support of efforts to raise awareness and prevent dog bites. The figures bandied about are that there are almost 5 million dog bites every year in the US (but see Dogs Bite but Balloons and Slippers are More Dangerous…). Given that that figure appears to include events in which there was no injury whatsoever, the number is undoubtedly on the high side, but no matter how many there are, we all should be working to decrease them.

There is lots of good, standard information out there about preventing dog bites. The AVMA has a good website on bite prevention, as does the ASPCA and HSUS. There is lots of good advice on all these sites, especially related to keeping children from being bitten (the most common recipient of a dog bite appears to be a child from the ages of 5 to 9). However, much of it is general: pick a good puppy, train your dog, have a fenced yard, teach children to ask first, etc.

This is all good information, but we all know that no list is enough to prevent many of the bites that occur. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep up our efforts. Here’s my list, which builds on the standard advice and adds my own observations and experience, I’m counting on you to add to it:

1. Leashes Aren’t Muzzles. (Neither are muzzles for that matter.) In other words, keeping your dog on a leash won’t prevent him from biting someone. Sometimes leashes can precipitate bites if a dog is nervous and feels trapped. I’ve been overwhelmed by clients who believed that if their dog was attached by a leash, or even if they were close to their dog, that they could prevent a bite. We can prevent lots of bites from happening, but not always with leashes and proximity. When people miss signals of discomfort or tension in their dogs, they end up trying to stop a bite after it has begun. Stopping a dog in mid-air, within the micro-second required, to observe, evaluate and respond is far beyond the skill level of most people. People rarely say or think “I”m being bitten.” By the time you figure out what’s happened, it’s over.  Far better to understand both context and behavior to prevent a bite long before your dog even thinks about it. And my comment about muzzles? Dogs can still hurt people, even with a muzzle on. There are lots of ways to lower the risk, but there’s no magic out there. Based on all this, you can predict my next point:

2. Learn to Read Dogs, and Teach Others What You Know. Recall Michele Wan’s research that showed the dog owning public is not very good at reading signs of negative emotions in dogs (fear, anxiety, etc.). Thus, we all need to do what we can to help educate everyone around us. It’s not helpful for us to pull our hair and roll our eyes about how bad people are at reading dogs, and how often they behave in ways that simply beg a dog to bite them. That just makes us right, and being right gets us one thing and one thing only: Being Right. That’s not going to decrease the number of dog bites out there, so we need to use our knowledge to help others. If you’re a trainer, get yourself on television, give out handouts, refer people to materials and websites that will help them translate dog. There are tons of them. Needless to say I have my own at my website, (and FYI, I have a new DVD coming out this coming Monday titled “Lost in Translation,” a day-long seminar on how dogs use sight, sound and smell to communicate) and there are many other great books and DVDs available through Dogwise and Tawzer Videos.

3. Understand Context: This contains a vast range of issues, from what tends to scare dogs in general (strangers grabbing their heads and trying to kiss their noses, surely a problem we can all understand–want a strange man to grab your head and smash his face into your own?), what scares each dog as an individual, and how the context itself can add risk. My Border Collie Drift was trapped and overwhelmed, as was the Dogo that bit Ms. Dyer. I’ve had numerous clients whose dogs bit someone after a long, exhausting day. I can’t tell you how often I’ve heard about dogs who were “just wonderful” with all the children at the picnic all afternoon and evening long until … In hind sight the owner’s tell me “They should have known how tired their dog was…”. Yes, they should have, but we need to help spread the word that even good dogs can get grumpy too when they are exhausted. And when they are overwhelmed. Or scared. Or a tad tweaked about life at the moment.

4. Practice Interventions and Use Them When Necessary. This is where I went wrong all those years ago. If I was in that same situation now I would have never have allowed that man get that close to Drift. I would have moved between him and Drift before he could have grabbed Drift’s face and leaned down to kiss him. Body Blocks work really, really well on people, and can be used to avoid a great many risky situations.

Just a few days ago I was at a pet store that allows dogs and saw an owner use one perfectly. He had an adult Rottie, a lovely, happy-faced dog, who was approached by a squiggly, squirmy Golden Retriever puppy. The puppies’ owner let her dog dash toward the Rottie until they sniffed nose to nose. We were in tight quarters at the check out line. The Rottie had no where to back up into, and the enthusiastic puppy was about to jump onto his head. Wisely, the owner stepped quickly between the dogs, moved toward the puppy a step or two to move him away and then turned and smooched to his dog to follow him.

I turned to the pup’s owner, who had appeared surprised at what had happened and seemed a little bit put out. I thought perhaps I could use this as a teaching moment, and explained “I think the Rottie might have been a tad bit uncomfortable with your pup.” I hope she understood my point, but I can’t say, because the Rottie’s other owner turned to me and said, defensively, “He is a LOVELY dog, he is NOT aggressive.” Ah, and I thought he was a lovely dog myself, but I also noted that owner number one was wise enough to know that any trouble might react to a rude pup in that context, and quick as a wink did a body block. Huzzah! and Yeah! for him I say. Even lovely dogs have contexts in which they are uncomfortable, and more power to us when we know what they are.

5. The World’s Most Dangerous Words Are “I Think It’ll Be Okay.” I asked a salesman once if the hardware I was about to buy would stay attached to a wall if a 150 pound dog lunged against it with all his power. “I think so,” the guy said. This is when red flags should fly and noises generated by the security systems of nuclear power plants should start pounding into your ears. “Think it’s okay” is just not good enough when you are talking about a potential dog bite. I tell clients whose dogs are at risk of biting that we first, before talking about treatment, need to create the kind of risk management system included in submarines and power plants. If your not sure if your dog is 100% stable in a situation and you find yourself saying “I think it’ll be okay” without a careful and thoughtful risk analysis, I want you to hear AH OOOGA, AH OOOGA blasting in your ear. You want to hear “I KNOW it will be okay,” or given that life is never 100% predictable, “The probability of my dog hurting or scaring someone is less than .01 of one percent, and I’m willing to take that risk.” Whatever you decide, it should be very thoughtful, based on a lot of knowledge and be very, very conservative. Bites can be horrible for everyone, including the dog, and once they happen you’re in a entirely different context, and it’s not a good one.

And you? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. I expect they will be both thoughtful and thought provoking, as usual.

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: Spring sweet spring. Well, sort of. Summer, sweet summer? It’s in the low 80′s, sunny and warm and already I’m worrying a bit about when it will rain next. It’s been awhile.

But 8 of the 9 lambs are thriving, filling out with muscles and frolicking in the dappled shade of the woods. Spot’s twin ram lamb, who I’ve been supplementing with goat’s milk (mom’s udder is only giving milk from one side), was a voracious vacuum at first when given a bottle, but now he’s fussy and hesitant and only takes a few sips and then stops. This started after he was vaccinated and banded (and thus he lost trust in me), but the other bottle lamb, one of triplets, needed only a day to get over it. Spot’s boy, however, has remained hesitant and cautious.

His tiny twin sister, who I was most concerned about originally, continues to remind me that size doesn’t matter. She’s the pushy one. And although she refuses to take milk from a bottle (“Ugh, ugh!” she indicates by curling her lip and turning away), she’s filling out like a tick and has begun mounting the two ram lambs every time they start to drink out of the bottle. I’m speculating that with only one teat working, she’s dominating it and her brother is losing out. He doesn’t look bad, he’s just not gaining like the others, so I’ll keep working on getting him more milk. I tried a self feeder, which has been successful in the past, but I started late and because they all get milk from their momma’s they had little interest. I’ll keep you posted, we’re going to look at him more carefully this weekend for any physical or medical problems.

Willie and I just moved the entire flock up the hill to the orchard pasture so that my handy neighbor could bring in his bobcat and clear out the barn pen. May I be forgiven for saying that Willie’s work on the sheep was paw perfect? And where was the video camera when I needed?

As you can see, right now at the farm it’s all about lambs and flowers and working Willie and weeding weeding weeding.  And, oh yeah, rhubarb & strawberry pie. Did I mention weeding?

Here’s the only bloom on the new Tree Peony we planted last year. I almost didn’t include the photograph because the focus isn’t crisp, but decided to anyway because it is still lovely in a kind of smear-petroleum-jelly-on-the-lens-for-the-aging-actress kind of way.

And here’s the Iris in front of the please-paint-me-this-summer porch. You can see Willie boy in the background, watching the sheep in behind the electric fence in the front yard:

So much to learn, so little time! I recently did a guest appearance on Wisconsin Public Radio and didn’t do a very good job answering a question about a rabbit who pottied on the couch instead of its litter box. Thanks to an alert listener and member of the Wisconsin House Rabbit Society, I’ve learned a lot since. And I have to admit I find it fascinating. You all know I’m an animal behavior addict, whether it’s dogs or donkeys or doodle bugs, and I even had rabbits for a time, so I’m gratified to learn more about them.

I’m not proud of my own efforts at rabbit husbandry. It was a very, very long time ago, before I knew much at all about animals and animal behavior, and the rabbits lived outside in a cage in a building. Granted, it was warm and safe, but one of the most important things I now know about rabbits is that rabbits are like dogs in that they are highly social and inquisitive. Keeping a rabbit in a cage outside with little social interaction  is no life for a rabbit.  (Thank heavens we at least had 2 of them together, and they  got along well.) They need physical and mental exercise just like dogs, and they need relationships with others that are friendly and fun.

On the other hand, rabbits are nothing like dogs. And there’s where I messed up on my radio answer to the rabbit who wasn’t using its litter box. I had cat and dog behavior too much on my mind when I answered, and I didn’t say that rabbits, unlike dogs but exactly like my sheep, potty where they eat. Like dogs, they use urine and feces  to mark territory, but unlike dogs, they take this territory stuff inside the house very, very seriously. So seriously that the national House Rabbit Society (a marvelous resource by the way, as is the Wisconsin chapter) advises you to avoid even putting your hand in their cage. Their cage (with litter box within it) is their territory, and rabbits do better when what’s theirs is theirs and what’s yours is yours.

The House Rabbit Society advises never putting your hand in the rabbit’s cage for any reason if the rabbit is inside. Don’t reach in to pull him or her out (they are prey animals after all), and don’t pick them up and put them back. Herd them back, Border Collie like, so that they make the choice themselves to go inside.

There’s a lesson for all of us here, one I find myself learning over and over again: Every animal has its own ethology, its own umwelt or reality that it lives within, and it is critical for us to understand and respect that. The sheep taught me that the first year I had them, when I spent hours trying to close up and insulate the barn so that they wouldn’t suffer during the brutal Wisconsin winters. . .  and ended up giving them pneumonia because sheep need fresh air to be healthy. I sometimes find them on the coldest of mornings lying in comfortably outside on icy snow, instead of the warm, comfy straw I’ve put in the sheltered barn.

What about you? I’d love to read about what your experiences with any species has taught you. Horses and sheep taught me to think more like a prey animal, my cats have taught me about the need to pause before going outside so that one can look and smell for other cats or danger. What about you: Lessons from gerbils? Here’s what my pet rat taught me?

And oh yeah: One last thing: Rabbit fanciers call rabbit poop “pills.” If that’s not cute I don’t know what is. (I should note that rabbits also have two kinds of poop. Check it out here.)

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: It’s gorgeous and sunny but cool with puffy clouds and blue sky and blooming poppies by the front door. I can’t savor much of it now because it’s crunch time at the University, lots of exams to grade and lots of work too on our new website (coming to a computer near you this summer). Here’s some of what I’m soaking up:

It makes me so happy to say that Tootsie is doing great. Right now she’s sleeping in her crate beside my desk. The door is open, but she loves it there. The only places she likes as well are 1) being in bed with me, 2) being on the couch or 3) being by herself in the crate in the back of the car. She likes it so well in the car crate that I am actually having to train to leave it. I’m assuming this is baggage from her puppy mill days and that she feels most secure and comfortable in a small, confined space.

She’s progressed so well in so many ways: I’m especially taken with her flipping around mid-air when outside after I call her to come, ears flying like a furry dumbo, her open, happy mouth taking up half of her tiny little Cavalier head. As I mentioned in an earlier post, now that house training is behind us (wheee!), she can be outside off leash as long as I watch her like a hawk and keep her close to the house, she no longer barks to wake us up and produce her dinner, so it’s time to continue work on standard training. We’ve gotten started on sitting on cue, but I thought it would be fun to start her on clicker training at the same time.

I’ve worked on sit off and on, never with much diligence, but she is getting the hang of it. I started with lure training–using the smell of a great treat to ‘lure’ her body into a sitting position. Now that I’m going to start her with a clicker, I find myself thinking about the two different methods of training: luring and clicker training. Both have advantages and disadvantages, but I find that combining the two of them can be especially effective in some contexts.

Luring has the advantage of initial speed: In the case of sit, a la Ian Dunbar, you hold a tiny, tasty treat at the crown of a dog’s head and move it back toward their tail (not up, straight back.) As a dog’s nose follows the treat straight back toward their tail, their body finds it hard to stay standing, and so the hips automatically collapse and voila, your dog is sitting. Bingo, the treat gets popped into the mouth and your dog just got rewarded for sitting. Once you have the behavior established, you turn the motion of luring into a visual signal, and then bring in the verbal cue and start minimizing the hand motion.  (For a more detailed description, see The Puppy Primer.)

Luring also has a disadvantage: If you’re not careful to drop out the lure and the visual signal early on, the movement becomes the cue. You can end up with a dog who only sits when you move your hand, not when you say “Sit.”

Clicker training has the advantage of creating razor sharp precision, which helps you communicate clearly with your dog. It’s a great thing to teach a dog that their behavior can influence your own, and in a good way at that. I especially like that in most cases, the dog initiates the action, rather than you ‘helping’ him or her. However, strict operant conditioning suggests that you don’t do anything to initiate the behavior, you wait until the dog initiates him or herself, then click and treat to reinforce it. But truth be told, I’m not someone who is going to wait for a dog to sit when they feel like it, click opportunistically and then wait again for the next time. Not when I can lure a dog into a sit, get 15 reps into one sessions, and then take over with a clicker once I’ve got the behavior started. I tend to mix methods for actions that are easy to lure and for movements or behaviors that dogs do naturally. I should warn you: some trainers feels strongly that methods should never be combined, but I’m an equal opportunity employer, and so have no problems doing so as long as you know how to use them together without confusing your dog.

[10 minute break while Trisha goes to work with Tootsie]

First I used a lure/hand signal (with treat) to raise her chin and get her to sit down. My hand was just inches from her mouth and head. She responded well, and I repeated it 3 times.  Then I moved my hand 2 feet from her head, moved it with the same motion as while luring her (just farther away). She responded well until I moved my hand farther away. Now my hand was so far away from her head its motion probably  looked like a completely different signal. I stopped there because I wanted to  move on to clicker training.

I “loaded” the clicker with 25 click/treats (small dog kibble, which she adores… she adores bird seed shells for heaven’s sake, so finding a motivating treat is not a problem with Tootsie.).

Then I lured 3 times relatively close to her head (to create a success) and click/treated when she sat. I then proceeded to disappear the visual signal, added the word “Sit” and in 20 trials had her sitting just to the word “Sit.”

Ah, but here’s an important lesson: I noticed that while saying “Sit” I held both of my hands behind my back. Wondering if that might in itself be a visual signal, I moved the position of one of my arms. Sure enough, she looked at me as if completely confused. When I put both hands behind my back, she sat again when I said “Sit.” But the cue that she was responding to wasn’t the word, it was the position of my hands. Easily fixed, I just began moving my arms and hands into different positions, saying “Sit” and waiting up to 3 seconds for a response, and clicking immediately when she responded correctly. By the time we stopped she was sitting to the word sit no matter what I did with my hands.

And then… experienced trainers can predict the next stage…. I moved three feet backward into the kitchen. Now I was in a different room. Tootsie again looked completely befuddled. Easy to fix; just critical to remember that any action, any posture, any context, any location can be a relevant cue to a dog. In just a few trials she was sitting just to the word in the kitchen as well as the living room. We stopped so that Tootsie didn’t become a Tootsie roll sausage and I could finish this blog.  We’ll take it up again tonight and tomorrow, and start on some tricks this weekend. Ain’t training grand!!!

Question for you all: I know that some trainers are true purists, only using one method or the other. I’m a fan of mix and matching, as long as one understands the potential pit falls. You? [And fyi, I haven't forgotten about following up on the clicker study I wrote about earlier (clickers versus just food as reinforcement): I'm playing phone tag with the author, but I'll let you know as soon as I know more.]

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: Willie and I have 3 new sheep to work. I don’t like working him on my small ewe flock now, because they have young lambs and huge bags of milk that have got to be miserably uncomfortable when they flap/slap around whilst the poor ewe is being pushed by a dog. Willie and I try to work them slowly and carefully, but there are times it’s just not possible to keep them from speeding up. There’s another reason: Willie has lost a tremendous amount of confidence since his surgery and confinement, and my most aggressive ewe, Barbie, has gone after him and won several times now. I hate having a dog fight a ewe with a young lamb but I don’t want her winning over and over again and continuing to erode Willie’s confidence. So I have 3 new Katahdin ewes with no udders and no lambs. They are flighty and easy to move and will be great for Willie while he builds up his confidence. Jim, Willie and I just split the 3 newbies off and put them in the orchard pasture high behind the farm house. It took split second timing and quarter-horse short stopping by Willie, but we got it done. Everytime I see him slam his forequarters into the ground I wince: cross your paws for him that he’s not lame tonight, I can’t help but worry. I’ll do some stretching as soon as I’m done here and ice him if his shoulder feels hot.

Here are the new girls, as yet not named (though I’m leaning toward Chili for the red one in the middle). Okay, they aren’t bathing beauties, but they will have a good life here this summer and will be perfect for Willie and me to get our paws back into the game. Those of you who work sheep know that the one in the middle is going to be the challenge: see that lifted chin? Oh my!

Here’s a wider shot, showing you the only reason I could get a close shot of the sheep! Good boy Willie.