THE OTHER END OF THE LEASH

Well, I keep putting off writing about the emotion of disgust (and soon jealousy and guilt), but it’s Thanksgiving tomorrow and it just didn’t feel right to be writing about such a negative emotion. Emotions are catching; maybe writing about disgust disgusts me enough to put me off? Sounds amusingly logical, but I think it’s more that I’d rather take this time to reflect and savor some gratitude. Disgust sounds like a good topic after I eat too much this weekend.

Gratitude is a good topic for today, yes? (Question: Is it an emotion?) Gratitude is good for us, and often what is good for us is good for our dogs and other companion animals. I don’t say that in a vague, gosh-gee-whiz kind of way. There is some good research showing that taking time to be grateful, whether it’s writing a letter to someone you’ve never thanked or writing down three things you are grateful for each day, makes for a happier person. Feeling grateful decreases negative stress, and negative stress isn’t good for your health, so take 3 things to be grateful for and call me in the morning. No wait, send them in on the blog. What a wonderful weekend it will be for me and other readers to spend time each day reading what others are grateful for.

Here are some things I am grateful for:

Life. Someone near and dear to me was run over by a car two weeks ago.  She is alive and will recover, but it will be a long haul. Jim’s sister and one of his brothers both died this summer, within two and a half months of each other. I’m mentioning this not for sympathy, but to remind us all that this life we have is tenuous stuff; I am grateful for every moment that I am well enough to whine and complain about minor problems. But for tomorrow and this weekend, no complaining.  I’m going to bask in blessings.

Love. It’s everywhere, and the more you generate the more you get back. I am grateful every day for the blanket of love from Jim, Willie, and now Tootsie, that warms me like a fireplace on a snowy day.  And I am buoyed by the love I still feel for Luke, Lassie,  Tulip and Pippy Tay (and Ayla and Misty and Drift and Bo Peep and Fudge and so many other animals I’ve loved so much.) I know everyone is not so lucky in love, I wasn’t either for much of my life. Here are wishes to all of you that you can savor the love that comes your way, and send out more than  you thought you held inside. This is also a love letter to all of you who have said such wonderful things to me about the effect my work has had on your life. I’ll never be able to say how much it means to me, but I can say Thank You, and mean it from my heart and soul.

Laughter. Okay, I suspect I’m starting to sound trite and maudlin here, but really… what would life be if we couldn’t laugh? And how many animals can? We don’t even know if dogs laugh, much less have a sense of humor. I’m so thankful that we humans do, surely it’s one of the best parts of being human.

The three things I’ve written above break all tenets of good writing, being general and lacking in detail and specificity. So here are a few more things I’m grateful for:

The scent from the top of Willie’s head. I can’t describe it, but it’s fresh and clean and I soak it up like oxygen every night.

The way it feels when my oldest ewe Dorothy nibbles grain from the palm of my hand.

The whipped-butter color of sunlight spotlighting the trees on the back hills.

Jim’s eyebrows. No one has better ones. Who knew eyebrows could be so attractive?

MEANWHILE, back on the farm:

Willie is grateful that he can be off leash now and is allowed to play with toys a little bit every day.

Tootsie is grateful that she gets to sleep on laps and lick food out of Kongs. She is on my lap right now (Willie is beside us.)

Sushi is grateful for sunbeams to nap in and fish for dinner. (And is meowing from the kitchen for me to get up and feed her some for the love of god.)

Dorothy is grateful for leafy, alfalfa hay and nibbles of corn and oats.

Here is a quote I was just sent by a colleague. It deserves to be passed along: “I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.” G. K. Chesterton

And You? What is your happiness doubled by wonder?

Here are two of the wonderful creatures in my life. We are all so lucky to have each other.

I did a fund raiser for my  local shelter last night, the Dane County Humane Society. They are about to open a state of the art facility for cats, designed to treat cats with ring worm (a fungus, not a worm) so that they don’t have to be put down (as they often are at shelters, even some ‘no-kill’ ones.) They have developed a nationally recognized treatment program, and a new facility just for cats is part of the program. They call it the FIT Center (Feline Infectious Treatment? I’m making that up.) and it will be opening up next week. Yeah DCHS!

I am bushed today, but am so gratified to be able to help. Over 200 people attended, we raised lots of money thanks to a generous community and I auctioned off Willie’s slightly used Polly the Pig stuffed toy and discovered it’s really really fun to be an auctioneer. I think I might quit my day job.

I’m especially happy to be able to help cats in shelters. Every shelter I work with seems to be inundated with cats for the last few years, and are much more successful placing dogs than they are cats. I wish I wasn’t allergic, I’d have a passle of cats. I just adore them. (And horses, and goats, and rabbits and ducks and CHICKENS. Oooooh, I loooove chickens!)

My Sushi came from the shelter, the only cat who didn’t give me hives when I held her up to my face. I am allergic to her, as I’ve written before, but not life-threateningly so, so we cope as best we can. By the way, for those of you who remember my challenges with Willie and Sushi (Willie considers Sushi to be a small version of livestock with extremely soft hooves), that is going well too. Willie was, predictably, much less interested in Sushi when Hope was here (one of the many reasons why I want another dog) but things are very manageable. He does obsess when she is sitting outside the window, but as soon as I let her in he gets a toy and plays with it. I do have to remind him on occasion—the tendency to stalk and herd her is still there and will never be gone, but it’s manageable now and none of us seem to feel particularly frustrated.

Here’s Sushi now, sitting on the hay in the top of the barn. I love how the light reflects from her tapetum, the membrane that allows cats to see so well in the dark.

And here’s Willie just minutes before. We were walking up the hill and were surprised to find Brittany and friends walking down. Look at how Willie’s ears are back. I believe that he is surprised and a tad unsure. I suspect that Brittan was equally surprised. A second later Willie turned his head and looked at me, asking for direction. When he did Brittany took off the other way, and I sent Will to round them up. I didn’t need them in the barn, but it’s lovely to let a dog work more on his own sometimes; we’ve been doing so much precision work it’s good to just let him work freely for awhile.

Now we’re off to take a long walk. Jim and I and friends are doing the Milford Trek in New Zealand after the November seminar, and boy do I need to get in better shape. I am NOT ready to walk 13 miles with a pack on yet! Anyone out there done it? Any words of wisdom (beyond being prepared for it to rain for 5 days straight?)?

A reader asked for an update about Will and Sushi, so I thought it was time to fill you in on how it is going. I’m happy to report that things are going extremely well. (Whew!) The entire story would be a chapter in a book (and probably will be!), but here’s the summary:

Problem: Willie stalking Sushi the cat. As I said in earlier posts, this is very different from “chasing the cat.” Cat chasing can be a serious problem, don’t get me wrong, especially if it is predatory and not initially motivated by play, but “strong-eyed” herding dogs who automatically go into a stalking posture around a cat are a real challenge. Using positive reinforcement for, say, looking at the cat and then turning to look at me for a treat or a toy wasn’t working.

The primary problem is that once a strong-eyed dog makes visual contact with an animal it sees as something to be herded, it is extremely hard for the dog not to begin stalking. I’ve read so many books that describe Border collies as “mesmerizing their prey” with their intense stare, but in truth it’s the exact opposite. It’s the dog that goes into a trance.

Super “strong-eyed” dogs are not favored by the top handlers, because they literally become “stuck” once they make contact with the sheep. They just stop moving altogether and stand like statues while you whistle yourself silly trying to get them to move. I’ve worked on that with Willie, having been encouraged by Alisdair McRae  to keep Willie moving and simply not let him stop or lie down for months and months during his early training. (I used to call Alisdair the “Tiger Woods of Herding” but it no longer seems like the compliment it is meant to be!) Willie still can get stuck sometimes, but it doesn’t happen very often at the farm and I’m grateful for the advice that Alisdair gave me early on.

But that strong-eyed predisposition made working with him and Sushi especially difficult. All the techniques you would use (and I did use to cure  him of bark/lunging at other dogs) don’t work in this situation. Teaching him to look at the cat on cue made things worse, and teaching him to get a toy as soon as he saw the cat didn’t work either. Once he saw the cat, he was lost in stalking-land. I tried telling him to lie down every time he saw the cat, but that just kept him in herding mode. (You can read more about what I’ve worked on in Willie & Sushi Part II, 12/9/2009).

We made big strides when I switched to asking for a Sit rather than a Lie Down (not a posture a herding dog takes when working, unless they are a tad confused). Once he had sat down, I reinforced him with play. That helped a great deal. But the next break through was serendipitous: I sent Sushi to a boarding kennel for a few days when a cat-allergic house guest came to visit. Sushi was gone for 3 days, and when she returned I made a decision to use (cover your ears here if you believe in 100% positive reinforcement and consider even mildest of punishments a sin) positive punishment when he focused on Sushi. Three times I threw something soft in between him and Sushi when he lowered his head toward her (twice it was my bait bag full of treats!), then we ran in the living room and played with his toys. Ever since he has been great. I think the combination of the work we’ve done before, the break from having Sushi in the house and starting over anew by stopping the behavior before it could start again was the key.

Granted, it  doesn’t hurt have a puppy to play with to keep his attention off the cat, but the problem was handled before the puppy came. Willie still focuses on Sushi if he sees her in the window, but as soon as she comes in he turns away from her and grabs a toy. GOOD BOY!!!

None of this would have worked if I hadn’t had a good foundation laid beforehand, but it sure feels good right now. Of course, it’s also summer and Sushi is outside a lot, so the big test will come next winter, but right now the Willie/Sushi problem is history. Of course, now I’m working on teaching Hope not to chase the cat (more on that later, but it’s going really, really well…).

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: Will and Hope are playing beautifully in the house together, lots of tooth fencing and wrestle play. Every once in awhile Will seems to get a tad irritated and end the play session with a snap and an offensive pucker, but it’s rare and probably appropriate, given that shark-tooth Hope isn’t always mindful of the arsenal he is carrying around in his mouth. I also am quick to let Will go upstairs to take a break if he tells me he is ready, and I suspect that makes a big difference. Who doesn’t need a break from a puppy every once in awhile?

Their play outside is still driven by Willie’s nerdy and rude herding behavior. He just can’t figure out why Hope doesn’t want to play “You be the sheep and I’ll smash into you every time you move forward!” Sort of like the big brother who wants to tie his little brother up to a tree so he can play pirate and his little brother plays the captured victim. But Hope is figuring out he can play as long as he has somewhere to hide, like the edges of the wading pool:

The next photo is Will and Hope in a ‘road training’ session. Hope is learning to automatically lie down every time I walk toward the road. He is not allowed to go within 30 yards of the road, and he is learning to lie down if I move over that invisible barrier myself. This does NOT mean that he wouldn’t go to the road if I was behind him (on the house side rather than the road side) and someone appeared on the road that he’d like to meet. That is a completely different concept, and one we’ll work on once this stage has progressed. This is his 3rd session, and he will now lie down to a visual signal and stay until I come back parallel to him. Once I do, he gets enthusiastic praise, belly rubs (he LOVES them) and sometimes a piece of the cheapest steak I can find in the market. I also think it helps greatly that Will knows the drill and he has big brother beside him doing the right thing. (It’s very controversial whether dogs can truly ‘imitate’ others, but I do believe that at minimum it helps in the sense that Will is not moving around causing a distraction, and I do wonder often if Will’s behavior doesn’t also directly influence Hope’s… Food for thought.)

A recent comment from blog readers brought up a fascinating issue. I’ll just introduce it here, and then continue delving into it as time goes on. Here’s the question: Is it possible that dogs who appear to be super submissive are, uh…, not? I think the answer is yes. I say ‘yes’ because I think there’s a difference between a dog being “submissive,” in the sense of not needing to be high up in the social hierarchy, and dogs who perform “submissive displays” enthusiastically.

I had a female BC once, Bess, who was a classic high status bitch. She never fought, but she did take her toy over to a visiting female once, put it down on the ground between the two of them, and then trounce the visitor for starting to sniff it. (Those of you who have attended my seminars know that this is when I learned why “bitch” is a dirty word. I remember watching, relatively new to dogs at the time, and blurting out “YOU BITCH!” as it happened.) Most visiting dogs took one look at “Queen Bess” I called her, with her high posture and regal bearing and tiara of confidence, made some canine equivalent of a curtsy, and that was that.

But one day a visiting Husky female strode up to Bess like she owned the world, and Bess immediately threw herself on the ground in a classic “passive submission” display (I know they’re lying down, but it still doesn’t seem very ‘passive’ to me when they throw themselves on the ground!). I don’t think I’ve ever seen a display so extreme: Bess flattened herself, plastered her forelegs together and her ears to her skull, and grinned like an idiot. Soon she got up and began “active submission,” licking and groveling with such vigor that we all started laughing. It was the most “submissive” of submissions, but it was so extreme it seemed as assertive as it did submissive.

I once had a university student who did something similar to me, and that’s when I coined the phrase “aggressively obsequious.” He came up after lecture, head bobbing, pushing himself into my face while grinning like a fool, and asked, between excessive words of praise, if I’d repeat my lectures in full for him after class over tea. Well, no, I wouldn’t. But here he was, asking something ridiculous of me (from, I suspect, a sense of entitlement), but using a vigorous display of submission to take the edge off.

Ever sense then I’ve noticed dogs whose “submissive’ behaviors are down right rude… lick-lick-lick in your face-face-face non stop-stop-stop. I’d love to hear more from you about this. Do you know what I mean? Those submissive dogs who are doing all the ‘right’ things, except so excessively that it no longer seems submissive at all. Have you ever had a dog like that?

Meanwhile, back at the farm: The days here are alternating between blue sky-sun-bright colors and grey-rainy-windy. It’s been almost every other day of that lately. The sun feels so sweet, and the mud so thick . . . It’s too wet now to plant the last of the daffodils I bought, here’s hoping it’ll dry off enough to get them in. It’s more of a pain to plant bulbs than you might imagine (if you live on a farm that is mostly red clay and the chipmunks and squirrels try to dig them up faster than you plant them), but the pay off in spring is worth it. It turns out that critters don’t like daffodils, so I plant my favorite flowers, tulips, surrounded by daffs and a few other species that aren’t so tasty.

Lassie and Will are doing well. The focus at the farm right now is on nutrition for the market lambs (we go to market next week, always a sobering day for me) and for the breeding ewes. Redford the studly ram returns next week, I can’t wait to see him again, I’ve missed him. Rams have an entirely different personality than ewes and I especially like Redford’s. He grew up in pens with other young rams, and I fear he’ll miss his buddy at my friends, but for a few weeks I suspect the ewes will keep him busy.

Here’s a lamb gobbling up the grass on the front lawn. It’s the best grass on the farm.

There’s no fence around this grass, but Willie is so reliable that I am 100% comfortable letting the sheep out on the front lawn (the one by the road) as Will and I watch over them. Will loved doing this last year; mostly it consists of flank one way or the other, then lie down and wait. Then flank, lie down and wait. Rinse and repeat. I think he liked it because it involved no pressure–little close contact with the sheep, little pressure. But now he seems bored by it. He truly, be still my heart, seems to be coming into his own as a working dog. He loves driving, loves holding the sheep off feeders for me, staring them down face to face, and seems to love being right on the edge of contact with them. This is a great thing, watching him take charge with confidence and finesse… it’s such a joy to watch him mature.

Don’t get me wrong. Will is still Will. He is still hyper reactive to sound (turn the page of your book? Will leaps up..), herds Sushi relentlessly ( this is not a minor issue!), would never be safe to take to a dog park, etc etc etc…. He is definitely still my ‘problem’ dog; and yet, oh oh, look at that face!

xx

Hard to imagine we’re on our way to Africa tomorrow. Even though it’s my fourth trip, going to Africa still seems like something I could only dream about, never really do. Of course, the only dreaming at this point is of things I might have forgotten, and worries about leaving the dogs and the sheep. It will be such a relief to finally be on the plane and let it all go. I think of trips like this as white water kayaking (not that I’ve ever done it!)… You prepare carefully and meticulously, then launch into the rapids and go with the flow.

The most fun of the preparation has been reading up on the behavior of the animals we’ll probably see. For example, I’ve been reading about the comparative social systems of Golden Jackals and Black-Backed Jackals (coyote-like canids, common in both Kenya and Botswana). Both form strong pair bonds (I remember a great sighting we had one trip of a pair of Black-Backs doing “tandem scent marking” in which they traveled in single file, and each marking the same spot about every 50 feet.) and both are reproductively more successful if their older litters stay around as “helpers at the nest,” helping to protect and feed the next litter. But it’s more common in Goldens, even though Black Backs seems to profit most if they have helpers.

The researchers note (see Estes amazing book, The Behavior Guide to African Mammals) that Black Backs are much more aggressive to each other as they mature and tend to disperse earlier and more often. It’s unclear why, but it is clear that lions and humans are their main predators, and they need numbers to help protect the young and to protect food sources from hyenas, lions and even vultures.

Although nothing is ever for sure in Africa, we probably will see quite a few jackals, and if we are lucky, some of the harder to spot canids, like Bat Eared foxes (who are terminally adorable). Whether we see African Wild Dogs in Botswana has become quite the question: The Okavango Delta where we will be staying has been inundated with atypical flooding, and the radio-collared pack that normally dens close to where we are staying has moved and is denning elsewhere. People on the ground in Botswana are being wonderful about doing all they can to facilitate our seeing the dogs, but the fact is, the only guarantee in Africa is that there are no guarantees. I sent out an email yesterday to folks explaining the situation, and so far I’ve have gotten lovely responses from a number of folks who completely understand that wild animals are just that, and that we are but visitors into their world. Whatever happens, happens.

The only thing I am sure of on this entire trip is that it will be an amazing adventure.  I’d be stunned if we didn’t get great looks at lions (although their numbers are decreasing due to the use of poison by farmers around the parks), hyenas, and probably cheetahs. Leopards are extremely common, but their success is partially due to their skill at hiding out during the day and it is not common to see them at all. However, on my first trip we actually saw a leopard leap out of tall grasses and kill an antelope, then drag it to a tree. (That was on the way to breakfast, right outside of the lodge we were staying at. Oh my.) I can pretty well assure everyone that won’t happen again, but that something equally amazing probably will!

By the way, I MIGHT be able to get on-line and post from Africa on occasion, and I would love to be able to keep up with your comments, so keep them coming. But no promises, internet connections are tenuous at best when on safari, and you just never know. However, I have written 5 posts to appear when I’m gone, and I hope you enjoy them. Many of them have photos from previous trips to Africa, so in some ways I’ll be keeping you updated. . .

Meanwhile, back at the farm: The flowers are especially beautiful right now, in part due to an atypically cool and wet summer. It is heaven for heat-haters like me and Willie, and for crops like alfalfa and flowers like roses and bergamot. The berries just never stop, and I just can’t stop myself from making a mixed berry pie every week. Here’s berries in the bowl, with Tapioca and sugar, waiting to be dished into the pie shell. (And oh yeah, it’s long gone by now!) No more pies for awhile, but the food on safari is absurd… the tent camps (do not think pup tent, think hardwood floors, bathrooms and gorgeous linens!) put out feasts three times a day. I expect to come back looking like a strawberry (red from sun burn and round).

And here are the ones who make it incredibly  hard to leave. Truth is, tears will flow as we drive away. I have my own version of separation anxiety when I leave the farm and the dogs. Once I’m on the plane I’m okay, but the first fifteen minutes is just awful. It gets bad again after about a week… no matter how wonderful it is I will start yearning for Will and Lassie. I’ll miss Sushi too, but to be honest, it’s not the same as missing my dogs. I feel guilty saying that, but I suspect Sushi would say the same thing; she’ll miss us, but nothing like Lassie and Will.

Do not think the dog’s postures in the photo below suggest that they know I’m leaving and are sad. There’s no question Lassie knows I’m leaving soon on a trip, but in this case they were just bored to tears with me trying to get a picture! But foolish as it is, I can’t stop myself from telling them (as if they read the blog!):

Be safe my friends, I’ll miss you more than I can say.

Here’s an authentic question for you all, and I would love to hear your answers. The question in the title is based on a phenomenon that seems to be consistent across many years and in many contexts. The ‘word’ in the publishing industry is that, compared to dog lovers, cat lovers buy very few cat related books. I remember when Dogwise (Direct Books) started out they sold both cat and dog books, until they dropped the cat-related items because they didn’t sell well and weren’t worth the trouble. Elizabeth Marshall Thomas’s smash best seller The Hidden Life of Dogs was followed by a book, Tribe of the Tiger, that didn’t sell particularly well.  I get 100 (1,000?) requests to do dog behavior-related seminars for every one cat behavior seminar I’m asked to do (I LOVE doing cat behavior seminars by the way).

But why is that? Cat lovers adore their cats, no question about it. No doubt one explanation is that cat owners have fewer expectations of have a “well-trained” cat, whereas dog owners are always buying training and behavior modification books. That might be the primary explanation, and it fits the fact that the cat books that first pop up on Amazon are usually stories about cats (and look at the recent best selling book, Dewey, about a cat and a small library in Iowa). But on my former radio show, I was swamped with questions about cat behavior. Today on Larry Meiller’s on WPR show we got lots of questions of people who were desperate to get help for the cat’s behavioral problem.

People do need to train their cats, and to solve the behavioral problems they have with them… but they still don’t buy cat behavior books that often. I was thinking about this issue last week when Denise, Andrea and I discussed selling a book we really like,  Starting from Scratch. We did put it up for sale on the site, and we’ll see how it does. But I don’t bring this up as a marketing promotion, it’s a sincere question about why it is almost universal that dog lovers can’t get enough books about dog behavior, while cat lovers may read a lot (and with a cat in their lap!), but not about cats… You’d think cat lovers would buy cat books, because, well, why not? Any thoughts?

Meanwhile, back at the farm, it’s a swamp outside, hot and muggy. My least favorite weather in the world. I’m moving the sheep to a small pasture every day now, and luckily they need to be moved early in the morning and late in the evening. That gives us all a break because we can avoid the hot times of the day, but even then both Willie and I are relieved to get back inside in the air conditioning. The AC hasn’t been on all year until last Friday, but what a luxury it is to have it. I’ve so much gardening to do though… I’m so far behind after being gone and so busy for a few weeks. Oh well, a weed is just a plant in a place you don’t want it, so I get to say, hey?

The bird life continues at at break neck pace… all the songbirds trying to fit in as many nesting attempts as they can before the light changes and the leaves fall. This weekend I was sorry to watch a male Cardinal feeding a round, pushy Brown-Headed Cowbird baby begging successfully from him at the feeder. Cowbirds are nest parasites, who lay their eggs in the nests of song birds. Their young are large and precocious, and are able to trigger a feeding response from a parent of a different species by using “sign stimuli” that elicit feeding from birds like Cardinals and Vireos. A bit like us getting all warm and gooey over a cartoon character that looks infantile with big eyes, a big forehead and disproportionately large hands and feet. Cowbirds are native, so I guess I shouldn’t be too concerned, but I can’t help but feel sorry for the Cardinal, whose own young may well have starved to death given the aggressive nature of the cowbirds begging (and the fact that their large size can result in the ‘real’ nestlings being pushed out of the nest and dying on the ground.)

Life is tough out there, no doubt about it. But not so rough in the house, where Sushi sleeps on the couch as I write. Here are my favorite photos of Sushi, no doubt she’s pondering the heavy issues I’ve raised . . .

I’m working on a column for Bark right now about the ontogeny of fear in dogs. The editors, Claudia and Cameron (the editors of Bark), adopted two sisters from a rescue organization down south. The girls are litter mates who might be BC/terrier X beagle crosses. Both came under socialized and shy, but one (Kit) has rapidly come out of her shell, while the other (Holly) is still profoundly fearful of any kind of novel event. Leaving the house is a trauma for her, as is the appearance of any object that she’s not expecting. (Claudia’s purse fell off a chair and Holly refused to go anywhere near it, even though it blocked her access to her favorite area of the house. Meanwhile, Kit jumped over it and continued on her way.)

Claudia’s question to me, and the motivation for the column, is “What are the forces that have made these 2 siblings, who shared the same early environment, so profoundly different?” It’s a great question… and I’ve been doing some research I thought you’d be interested in. A longer story will appear in a later issue of Bark, but here’s a small piece of it:  Evidence is increasing that in utero experiences have profound effects on an individual’s personality. Just look at these findings from human development:

1. Babies born of starving mothers are born with livers and pancreases that are less able to process fat and sugar, and as adults they are predisposed to diabetes.

2. A moderate amount of stress during pregnancy leads to a child who is more adept at tasks requiring reasoning and coordination.

3. However, extreme stress or trauma does the opposite, and can create a child with fewer receptors in their brain for the stress hormone cortisol. Once born, even as an adult, the child’s brain is unable to sense large amounts of cortisol until it’s too late. Suddenly swamped with cortisol, the individual responds to even mild changes in the environment with fear and anxiety.

Although the studies I mentioned are all on primates, there is a great deal of evidence supporting the same effect in a large range of mammalian species. Here’s where the recipe for differences in personality in dogs comes in, even in litter mates. First off, all litter mates come with a different genetic blueprint. Just as you and your siblings aren’t clones of each other, neither are puppies, even when they are born at the same time. Each set of genes is going to react differently to the environment, including the one that surrounds a pup as it develops in utero.  By the time pups are born, they have had two very different sets of experiences. They started out with different genetics that effects how they respond to their early environment, and they each have had a different experience inside the womb. We may think it’s all the same in there, but developmental biologists will tell you that each fetus has very different experience than it’s womb mates. (I do apologize for the pun . . .  but I just can’t bring myself to delete it.) Some puppies get more nutrition than others, some get better immune system protection, etc.

By the time a pup, kitten or child is born, they have both nature and nurture to separate them.

I knew some of this years ago when I was breeding, and will never forget when Pippy Tay was about 2 1/2 months pregnant. She had ripped a hefty patch of skin from her side in a classic “tent injury” that clearly needed a lot of stitches. (I just about fainted when I saw may dog looking like she’d been skinned. I called the clinic and said: “This is Trisha, the dog owner. This is NOT Dr. Patricia McConnell and I am FREAKED OUT!”)

After settling down,  I talked to the vet for quite a while about her pregnancy, and what effect any drugs we’d use would have on her, and how stressful the procedure would be. I’d just finished reading about learning deficits in rhesus macaques whose mothers had heard loud noises randomly produced during their pregnancy, and was worried about the effect of treatment of her developing puppies. We elected to give her just a local anesthetic, I stroked and coo-ed to her during the entire procedure, and thank heavens, she seemed relatively calm during the entire procedure.  After wearing a T-shirt for weeks to protect the wound, she healed with no complications. I relaxed and the pups turned out beautifully.

I do think, though, that’s it is a good thing I’ll never be pregnant now that I have this knowledge. I can just hear it: “Careful! Be nice! Mustn’t stress mummy! You know what the research says!” (Oh, wait, but the studies do say that moderate stress is a good thing! Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.)

I’d love to hear if others have had experience with litters whose mothers went through serious traumas. Of course, we’ll probably never know what happened to Kit and Holly’s mom while she was pregnant, but it is tempting to speculate that it wasn’t all good.

Meanwhile, back at the farm: Somewhere I have a print photo of Pippy with the T-shirt, if I find it I’ll attach it to this post. But for now, here’s Sushi, looking ever so stressed on the couch on a cool morning …..  Not a lot of stress there!

xx

Work on the podcast is progressing. I’m waiting to hear the first version of the pilot that we recorded last week, and am on pins and needles about it. How will it sound? Are my answers (to some of your GREAT questions!) helpful? Interesting? How about the format? By the way, we decided to go with another voice, that of my new partner in crime, Buzz Kemper. He’s the co-owner of Audio for the Arts, and sole owner of a great voice, lots of recording and podcast experience and a terrific sense of humor. He’s not a behavior or training expert, but that’s part of why I think he’ll be a great presence on the show… keeping me honest and adding a fresh voice to the mix. (And yes, to loyal Calling All Pets listeners, I do miss Larry, and I will continue to miss him, but he’s full to the brim with Wisconsin Public Radio work and so we’ll have to be content with my occasional visits to his daily show.)

Predictably, during our first recordings, everything didn’t go smoothly. We did a great interview with Temple Grandin, but the stars were against us and it didn’t record. You can imagine how that felt–picture all of us shocked and miserable. Let me emphasize here that Buzz and Audio for the Arts are true professionals, and this just doesn’t happen to them. But then, it did, cuz that’s how life is. Sort of like getting Tony Bennett to sing for you and then not capturing it on tape. But hey, stuff happens, and we got her back and she graciously did it again for us (apologies to the audience in Guelph waiting for her to get back into the seminar!).

We’re going to finish taping the second pilot tomorrow, which includes an interview with Karen Pryor that we’ve already done (and was so interesting it ended up being 30 minutes… for the 30 minute podcast. Oh well, aren’t pilots often longer than the regular show? And hey, if it’s a podcast, can’t it be as long as we’d like? However…  I promise we won’t be quite so cavalier when we get down to business.)

Speaking of business, that’s where you might come in: Studio time costs money, and so does producing and putting out a podcast. We carefully considered your responses to our query about the form of the podcast, and decided to go with looking for a sponsor rather than having it be something that people have to pay to download. So, I’ll be spending some of my June and July looking for a sponsor. I have a few ideas (more are very welcome), but right now I have a request of you listeners who at some point were supportive of the idea of a podcast.

Official favor request (she said, feeling a bit sheepish): What if some of you wrote comments designed to help us convince a potential company or funding source to sponsor the podcast? I know next to nothing about rounding up a sponsor for a show (although I expect I’ll know a lot more soon, hopefully not “How NOT to do it”) but it does seem like hearing from potential listeners might be a good idea. Yes? If you are so inclined, write something as if you were writing directly to the potential sponsor in the comment section of this post. I’d keep it relatively short and sweet, but beyond that, your guess is as good as mine about what to say.

Meanwhile, back at the farm: The Robins are up and away, but the Chipping Sparrows are still flying into the nest with food in their mouths, so Sushi is still trapped inside and not happy about it. Last night she flew out the door when I wasn’t paying enough attention, darn. So I set out to get her back and I wish you could watch a video of the 20 minutes I spent doing so. 19 minutes and 59 seconds were spent pretending not to care where she was– otherwise I wouldn’t have had a chance. Luckily, she’s very affiliative, even more so when she’s outside, and I knew that she’d eventually come over and do a body rub if I stayed still for awhile and ignored her. So I walked AWAY from her, sat down and weeded a bit, then got up and walked parallel to her, never going toward her, never even looking at her, until she finally couldn’t resist and walked over to me. I sat on my hands until the last second and then apologized as I picked her up and carried her inside. I doubt she cared much about the apology, but some extra yummy food seemed to help.

The Lilac below (no longer blooming as of yesterday) is the bush where the Chipping Sparrows perch before flying to their nest one the side of the house. And hey, if you’d rather not write anything about the podcast, want to come help me water the grass seeding by the barn? (See how it’s all brown? It got re-graded to keep water from running into the barn when it rains.) It’s a huge area and is taking no small amount of time to keep moist. Go little grass seeds, go!

I took Will to a friend’s to work him on different sheep in a new environment. I’m getting to the point where he and I don’t have too much more we can do at home. My small flock is so tame that Will has to be within a few feet of them to move them, unless I split out a few and force them away from the main flock. Then they are flightier (and more challenging), and I’ll do that more and more, but don’t like to stress the ewes and lambs too much when the lambs are young. Either way, it’s still the same sheep in the same place, and Will needs to learn how to work lots of different types of sheep in different places. (So do I!) We are used to working in first gear, when most sheep work in done in 4th.

I wish I could show you a video of how he did. We were at a gorgeous farm where Will has never worked, and three things happened that made me so happy I could have carried him home myself, all thirty miles.

1) I sent him on a long outrun, two to three times as far as he’s ever gone (perhaps 250 yards? I’m guessing). He did a perfect outrun, and I don’t have the words for what it feels like to watch your dog get smaller and smaller as he runs away from you, curving out at just the right time to go around the flock and not disturb them until he gets to the back. As I think about it, I should  NOT qualify it as a “perfect” outrun, because no one was holding the sheep in place, and they were moving long before he got there and were close to the edge of the field. So, was his ‘lift’ perfect? (That’s when the dog gets around to ‘twelve o’clock’ and first makes contact with the sheep.) I can’t say, because the sheep were moving long before he got there (not because he was too close), he got them stopped once he got around them, he turned on balance and brought them straight to me. We’ve never worked on such a huge field and it makes my heart full to work in a place that open and free.

2) He’s got his flanking whistles down. Down pat. What’a boy, I’m so pleased. Here’s a synopsis of the process:

a) We work on his flank whistles for 2+ weeks, looks like he has them nailed.

b) Week three everything falls apart, I realize that once I thought he “had” them I tested him by asking him to change directions a lot. I begin to suspect he thought that both whistles meant “change direction.”

c) For 2 sessions, I go back to the first steps, having him run around and around, clockwise or counter clockwise as I repeat his whistle over and over, using the movement of the sheep and visual signals to keep Willie moving. I tested him a few times in a different context, and it seemed he wasn’t making any progress on which whistle meant what.

d) The next time we worked I send him on an outrun and he runs around to twelve o’clock and keeps going. And going and going. He runs an entire 360 degrees around the sheep, ignoring my signals to stop. It takes me a second outrun to realize he had interpreted Step C not as whistle training, but as training to run in mindless circles around the sheep.

e) After realizing this, I sat down and laugh out loud in the wet grass and asked Willie for a kiss. Willie obliged, then peed on a bush, then looked for sheep poop to eat.

f) I stop using his flank whistles for a few days (used verbal), then gradually added them in on occasion, no longer having ‘flank whistle training sessions,’ just using them when I know he wants to go that way anyway. Gradually I start asking for them when he’d prefer the other direction, and with very few corrections (a verbal no), Willie starts getting them right.

g) I take him to Peg’s (where Redford is) and he gets his flank whistles about 19/20 times.

h) Willie not only took his flank whistles every single time at our last outing, he listen beautifully, even at 200 yards. Bless him.

3) Willie came to me as a puppy pathologically afraid of other dogs but was great in the field with a guard Pyrenees (more on Willie and other dogs in other posts, and probably and eventually a book.) We’ve worked on it for three years, and he’s been improving leaps and bounds. My friend’s sheep were guarded by a working Great Pyrenees, described as a “big galoof” who loves all dogs, but still, I was thrilled that Will and he had two perfectly reasonable greeting encounters. At one point Will would have run away in terror, at another he would’ve attacked. This time Will briefly greeted him before going to work the sheep, and then left my side the instant I said “that’ll do” after working sheep and ran to sniff the other dog some more. I won’t say there wasn’t a bit of tension there, but nothing serious and easy to manage. Just being able to have Will around unfamiliar dogs is a joy, especially a big, guarding male.  More to come on that score, as I said, but back to herding for a moment:

Mind you, Wilie and I couldn’t score well in a trial now if our life depended on it. He behaves completely differently if anyone, anyone at all is watching (I know, I know, is it me, or is it Willie?) and he is easily intimidated by sheep. He’ll lose contact with them, take the pressure off when he shouldn’t, get rattled if there’s any stress and if he is confused, but lordy he’s trying incredibly hard and I love him to pieces. And me? Oh dear. I have no ability at the moment to work fast moving sheep… I simply can’t make decisions fast enough to get flighty sheep to stay on a perfect straight line on a drive, but then, I’m trying hard, too. Willie seems to forgive me for it, or at least, he can’t talk and tell me what he thinks…

Lassie terrifies Trisha: Yesterday morning I woke up mildly surprised. In five minutes I was in terror. It was 6:15, and Lassie always, always ALWAYS wakes me up between 5 am (sigh) and 5:45 because she has to go outside to pee. In general, I haven’t set an alarm since we stopped taping Calling All Pets over a year ago (when I had to get up at 4:30 on Wednesdays). But now, it’s 6:15 and Lassie is sound asleep. No worries, I pad over to her doggy bed and gently touch her shoulder. “Lassie,” I say quietly, because she often startles when awoken because her hearing is so bad. Nothing. Lassie is soft and warm, but immobile.  “Lassie” I say, and press with my hand a little harder, shaking her shoulder back and forth. Nothing, and no sign of her chest rising and falling either. This time I push forcefully into her, saying LASSIE now with real fear in my voice. I’m so loud and clearly scared that Jim peeks over the bed, worried himself. Nothing. Not a twitch.

It’s amazing the thoughts that run through your head when you’re in crisis. I remember, very clearly, thinking that “she must have died recently, because she’s still warm and there’s no rigor mortis” and “how sweet that she died in her sleep and presumably didn’t suffer.” These were cognitive thoughts, generated by my cortex, when my amygdala and hippocampus was screaming OH MY GOD LASSIE IS DEAD. I remember the thoughts and the emotions of terror and panic as being parallel, but completely separate from one another.

The panicked part of me shook Lassie one more time, this time shaking her hard and yelling her name with pure terror in my voice, and as I did she slowly raised her head and licked my face. I burst into tears and sobbed like a child, kissing her muzzle and saying her name over and over again. This morning she woke us up around 5:30, and at first I thought, “Oh Lassie, just a few more minutes!” and then…. was overwhelmed with gratitude that she’s there to wake us up at all.

Meanwhile, back at the farm, during the sweetest spring weekend you can imagine. Here is a picture of the yard that Jim took yesterday:

In this next picture, I love the different postures of Will and Sushi: Will is chewing on his Sunday bone, Sushi is practicing her “lion on the hunt” look.

And here’s why Sushi is now stuck inside for the next few days: This baby robin flew/fell out of the nest on top of the porch light this morning, along with two others. There are also Chipping Sparrows in the bush by the living room window, wrens nesting in the exhaust vent from the bathroom (which no longer works, although for years when you turned on the bathroom fan you’d  hear cheep cheep cheep cheep… now it doesen’t work at all and I’ve just given it away to the wrens), a PeeWee nesting on top of a down spout by the porch and barn swallows nesting in the garage. [added note 6/10: an alert reader suggested it was not a PeeWee and she was absolutely correct! I watched carefully the next day and saw the typical tail flick of the Phoebee and heard their typical song. A PeeWee is nesting close by because I hear it often, but not on the house.} That’s four nests attached to the house…. and all with babies about to fledge. Sorry, Sushi!

Earlier I wrote that you “can’t reinforce fear” and used a dog who is afraid of thunder as an example.  For so long we have been told that we’ll just make our dogs worse if we try to comfort them when they run to us in fear when the skies rumble and the rain falls. In this context, it really is doubtful that comforting your dog is going to make him worse. As I said previously, fear is designed to be aversive, and dogs who are terrified of thunder aren’t going to get worse because you stroked their belly.

Indeed, there is research that some interpret to mean that our petting has little effect at all: As I mentioned in a 2008 Bark column (and an alert reader posted), Dreschel & Granger (Applied Animal Beh Science, 2005) found that cortisol levels, a measure of stress, did not decrease when owners pet their dogs during storms. (The most important factor in decreasing cortisol was the presence of other dogs.) However, note that a study by Odendaa & Meintjes (2003, Veterinary Journal) found that cortisol in dogs doesn’t decrease when we are petting them at other times, (although it does in us when we pet them!). However, it is important to remember that cortisol is not the be-all and end-all of indicators of emotion. The authors found that other indicators of internal affect, such as feel-good hormones like oxytocin and prolactin, increased when the dogs were petted, which suggests that stroking did indeed have a positive effect. And hey, if a dog’s behavior changes such that he is no longer pacing and panting while I rub his belly, I’m going to rub his belly!

Here’s an example of fearful behavior from last night at the farm. It’s not about thunder, but it is still instructive: late last night my farmer neighbor was in the field across the street from me in a tractor the size of Connecticut. As soon as Willie heard something and looked out the window, he absolutely lost it. He ran frantically in circles, barking hysterically with his ears pinned, his eyes twice their normal size and a look of sheer terror on his face. When I first heard him bark I honestly thought something terrible had happened, he sounded so horrifically upset. As soon as I saw what it was I said “Will! It’s okay!” and went to him. I used my voice in a soothing way (soft, quiet, looooooooooong notes), sat beside him and asked him to stay still. I rubbed the area between his eyes and the side of his head with long strokes. His barking decreased, although one BOOOOF would still burst out of his mouth every 5-10 seconds at first. In about a minute he stopped barking altogether and stayed still without me helping him. Eventually he put his head down and buried it between my body and my arm. It looked like he was hiding it, and I remember feeling all gooey when I saw that and said “Awww, honey, it’s okay!” but I suspect he was looking as much for the soothing feeling of being cradled as simply hiding his head.

This example brings up an issue that I didn’t address in my first post about reinforcing fear. I should have, but thanks to several thoughtful commentators, I will here. (You can read their comments on the May 4th, 2009 post). They raised the point that surely it IS possible to increase the frequency of a problematic behavior in some contexts, even if fear is one of the motivators. I agree completely that the issue is a bit more complicated that I might have suggested in my first post–ironically I had started to go into it in more depth and then ended up deleting several paragraphs because the post was getting too long and the topic was getting to complicated. But I shouldn’t have, because the topic really does deserve more nuance than I suggested.

The bottom line is you could indeed cause problems by inadvertently reinforcing behavior in certain contexts. There are two things that are important to remember here: one is that fear is an emotion, and “reinforcement” refers to something that increases a behavior. You can’t, technically, reinforce an emotion, but you can increase the frequency of a particular behavior. In the case of thunder phobic dogs I don’t think there is ever a problem, because you are trying to decrease the emotion, which would indirectly decrease the problem behavior. Besides, if you sit beside your dog and stroke him while it thunders, and he stops pacing in circles but sits beside you, then if you are reinforcing anything it is him sitting beside you and not pacing.

Secondly, motivation is key here.  If a dog is barking at visitor from fear, then having the visitor toss treats or toys does NOT reinforce the barking! It decreases it, because the emotion of fear subsides and it is the emotion of fear that drives the behavior. Once the dog associates visitors with treats, her behavior changes to body wags and happy dances. (Visitor = chicken! I love chicken! I love visitors!) This is standard Classical Conditioning, and I can tell you from 22 years of experience that it works incredibly well with lots and lots of dogs. However, if the dog is barking at people not because she is afraid, but because of another reason, it IS possible that you could increase the frequency of the behavior. That’s why it is so important to be able to read dogs and do a good evaluation of a problem behavior. I met a dog once who loved to get right into your face, all body waggy and grinny and relaxed, and then explode in a bark lunge about four inches from your face. I truly believed she just adored it when you startled (I rose at least a foot from my chair), and that is behavior that was clearly being reinforced!

I also think that how you respond to a dog’s fear is critical. First of all, we know that emotions can be contagious, so it is important to not be fearful yourself. Jennifer, in the comments, mentioned the importance of role modeling cool and collected sometimes, and I couldn’t agree more. If I had run to Willie and tried to pet him with an anxious voice and upset affect, it well might have made him more fearful.

Oh, my, I could go on and on, but life continues and I need to get to other things…. But here’s a link to the study on Storm Defender Capes that has just been published (thanks to an alert reader, Chris, for the link!). It looks as though capes in general do indeed have a positive effect, and that there might be something to the Storm Defender cape itself. I haven’t seen the whole study yet, but check it out, even the abstract is interesting. It in Applied Animal Behavior Science.

Meanwhile, back at the farm, it’s been cool and gorgeous and busy. This time of year in the country is never-endingly full of chores. (Did I mention the 150 exams to grade?) The lambs (who, with one exception, are doing beautifully) are thriving but need worming, the grass is growing and so are the thistles which have to be killed one by one, the ram needs to be split out before he breeds Snickers and Truffles, the gardens are full of weeds, the LP tank is leaking, the water tank up the hill needs to be scrubbed out…. and I need to sit in the swing at least a few minutes every day. Can you see it calling to me?

Here’s Sushi this morning. You gotta love the flexibility of cats. I love that Sushi maintained her x-rated yoga pose even while she moved on to licking her legs.