THE OTHER END OF THE LEASH

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.

My last post started a good discussion about the use of the term “counter conditioning,” (and its use in treating Separation Anxiety) and one of the comments in particular reminded me that the term is often used differently by different people. For years I’ve always specified “counter classical conditioning” when talking about treatment for SA, for example, when one links something that elicits a positive emotion (like food) with something that elicits a negative one (like fear). But I noticed I’ve started being lazy and using the term “counter conditioning” when I mean counter classical conditioning. I suspect that’s because I don’t tend to use the term “counter operant conditioning.” Rather, I talk about “training an incompatible behavior” which is basically the same thing.

So, to be clear, Classical Conditioning has nothing to do with training a particular behavior. It is a way of linking and emotion with a stimulus (bell = feel good like you do when you smell food, or “Her getting her keys makes me happy cuz when she does I’ll get LIVER!). Operant Conditioning is about reinforcing a behavior (“If I sit and stay I’ll get LIVER!).

Regretably, none of this fixes the messy methods in the study I talked about in the last post, in which dogs were given  (among other things) food when the owner was about to leave and food when they returned. That’s just about the opposite of anything I’d suggest–the whole idea is to make “leaving good” and “coming home boring.” But still, it’s important to know what we’re all talking about when we’re talking, hey?

MEANWHILE, back on the farm, there’s a lot of conditioning, both operant and classical going on. 18 inches of snow + 40 mile an hour winds + 10 degrees below zero Fahrenheit elicit a range of emotions, from awe to fear to the peace that comes when there’s just not a darn thing you can do but settle in, stop worrying about whether you’ll make it out (you won’t), and accept that you’re but a tiny little speck in the universe. But the sheep need feeding, and Willie and I shouldered our way to the barn (well, he “shouldered,”  I “kneed”). Until Jim shoveled a path for them to their hay feeders this morning, I fed them inside the barn because the drifts were so high they couldn’t get out.

Here’s Spot and Truffles looking over one of the drifts after the snow stopped (and yes, it really was that high).

And, with fears you are absolutely sick to death of “Willie and Flying Disc and Snow,” here’s another one. It gives you a good idea of the snow depth in an area in which there was no drifting.

We’re supposed to fly out tonight for Austin, so cross your paws. We have to fly through O’Hare, not the smoothest of airports in the best of times (understatement alert). It’s been closed for 2 days so it’s going to be crazy anyway, AND this is prime time for Green Bay Packer fans to fly from the Midwest to Texas. I’m sure we’ll make it for my first speech at Lake Austin Spa tomorrow night, but it’d be nice if we could manage some “spa-ness” beforehand. Meanwhile, I know many in the U.S. are struggling with ice (much, much worse than snow) and a lack of power. Stay warm and safe, I hope things improve soon.

I mentioned “The Model-Rival Method” earlier when talking about training dogs to associate words with objects, and I thought it’d be fun to illustrate what I was talking about. The video at the bottom of the post is an example of this method, famously used by Dr. Irene Pepperberg to train Alex the African Grey Parrot to label a large number of objects, materials, colors, etc. It was originated by the European scientist Todt, in contrast to the “Skinner Box” kind of training in which a parrot got a food treat from a mechanized box for vocalizing something similar to the sounds being played by loud speaker. Using that method, American behaviorists had concluded that parrots “can’t be taught language,” but Todt noted that it had little relationship to how our own children learn language. He criticized such a model as being a less than conclusive test of the cognitive abilities of parrots and suggested what he called the “Model-Rival” method. Dr. Pepperberg was intrigued by his argument, and set up training sessions using this method.

The training included 2 people and Alex, with one person being the ‘trainer’ and one being the ‘model’ as well as the ‘rival.’ I’ll describe a sample session as including Irene, Alex the parrot and a woman named Julie (I made that name up.) The term model is used to describe the technique because one person models what they want to parrot to do. In Alex’s case, the goal is to get him to say the word. For example, Irene would hold up an object and say  “Julie, what’s this?” and Julie would answer “Crayon.” Irene then handed the object to Julie, who got to handle and play with it (thus, the human trainee is also a rival of Alex’s, because they got to play with the object but Alex did not.)

Last year I tried using a standard operant conditioning paradigm with Willie to teach him to label objects, putting down 2 toys and clicking and treating if he went over and nosed the ‘correct’ one. Willie not only was NOT able to make the distinction between the sounds I was making and the 2 objects, he became so stressed (presumably) about  not knowing what he was supposed to do, he shut down. I quit after a few weeks because we were getting nowhere and Willie looked too miserable to continue. He seemed to want very much to get the game, but he couldn’t figure it out.

After reading about Chaser and his 1022 labels for objects (see my post on January 11th, 2011) I decided to try to teach Willie the names of objects in a more natural way. For about a week Jim and I used the word Scorch for his scorpion toy (a favorite, and still, amazingly, in perfect shape after how many years?). We’d toss it around, hold it up, saying Scorch as often as seemed possible. But after awhile I started thinking about the Model-Rival system, and have starting giving it a try. I’d love to tell you, after about 10 days of training, that Willie has it down pat, but he doesn’t, at least not once we added in a second name for a second toy. After about 5 days he would reliably go get the scorpion when we said Scorch 100% of the time, even if there were several other toys around , but once we added in a second toy his response fell apart. That’s not surprising, and that’s what we’re working on now, understanding that Scorch means scorpion, but Pony means the stuffed pony. You can see where we are in the video below (in which Willie boy is extremely distracted by a parked car outside and the camera especially).

By the way, out of curiosity I checked online and there is a published paper that compares the model-rival method and operant conditioning method for training domestic dogs that came out in 2003 in Applied Animal Behavior Science (by McKinley and Young). There are some pretty significant issues with the methods: they ask the dog to label any of 3 red objects as “socks” and any of the 3 yellow objects as “cross.” I’d then argue that the test is not about labeling an ‘object’ but a color (and red is not a color dogs see well). That’s a very different exercise than matching a word to an object, but granted their intent was to compare the efficacy of training methods, not so much what was being trained. Their conclusion was that the model-rival method was as effective as operant conditioning, and their conclusion is that this is a method that might be used more in dog training. The sample was small and I think there are some confounding factors, but still, very interesting stuff.

Note: You’ll notice that once I introduce Pony I say this is a “test” but then switch to saying this is “training.” I’m trying to use the same kind of method we’d use with a child, so once Willie doesn’t do what is expected (and doesn’t ‘pass the test’), I help him to do the right thing. And I’ll talk later about another issue, the potential that I, or anyone, could be inadvertently cuing their dog to the correct object…., but for now, my objective was to illustrate Willie’s progress and demonstrate the Model-Rival Method.

The seminar in Seattle was great fun, lots of good folks  and excellent questions from the audience. In the morning I talked about treatment for dog-dog reactivity, and I promised a summary of that on the blog. Here it is, with the obligatory caution that the morning itself wasn’t close to enough time to cover the topic in depth, so the summary here will be chapter titles (but hopefully helpful ones). Knowing that I couldn’t possibly talk about how to handle every type of case, here are some highlights:

REACTIVITY? What are we talking about here? When I use the term I am talking about what we usually think of as “over reactivity,” or “reactivity” that we see as inappropriate. After all, a loose body greeting is a “reaction” to another dog, right? In this case, I am talking about barking, lunging, snarling, snapping, stiffening etc… in other words, doing things we humans don’t like that makes us nervous that the behavior might be followed by aggression or trouble of some kind. It’s not a great term, but it’s better than “aggression,” since so much of behavior that we consider problematic is not aggressive at all.

MOTIVATION: I showed a video montage that illustrated that ‘reactivity’ can be the result of many internal states or desires: a dog who is barking and lunging could be : 1) afraid of the approaching dog and trying to get it to stop or go away, 2) frustrated because it can’t get to the other dog to play, 3) warning the other dog to stay away because whenever it gets close the barker gets a snap on the neck and it hurts, 4) begging the other dog to come closer so that it can get into a fight, which the barker heartily enjoys (rare, but it happens).

THRESHOLD: In all cases, in my humble opinion, one can’t work on cases like this until you understand a dog’s individual threshold of response. I want to know what is the lowest intensity of the trigger stimulus that elicits the lowest intensity of the “reactivity.” Some trainers let dogs go over threshold and bark/lunge for example until the behavior extinguishes, but that leads to what’s called the “rehearsal effect” (like repeating a bad habit) and I’m not personally a fan of it.

TREATMENT: My Ah Ha! moment was when I was working on this talk, and realized that all the methods I was going to discuss had, in a way, a similar result: the dog is reinforced for either increasing the distance between him and another dog, or for decreasing the potential of a direct, highly aroused  confrontation. Treatment modalities can be categorized into 4 groups:

1. Classical Counter Conditioning (Note: I talked about this in the seminar, but didn’t at first include it in this post. A comment to the first version reminded me that I should have put it in in the first place!)

2. Operant Conditioning, Positive Reinforcement, On Cue

3.  Operant Conditioning, Positive Reinforcement, No Cue, Dog Initiates Behavior

4. Operant Conditioning, Positive Punishment (yup, but not what you might think!)

[#2 and #3 have the benefit of creating a Classical conditioning effect: See dog, feel good!]

A1. Classical Counter Conditioning: Easiest by far for a novice owner, because it requires linking the appearance of another dog with food. Dog looks at other dog, food falls from the sky (or falls on the ground, or a toy is presented. I use this sometimes to get dogs started, especially if they are super reactive. The problem with it can be that you need to be sure the dog is linking feeling good with the another dog, not a dog paired with a person, or a person with a yellow jacket, etc. [Again, I talked about this in the seminar, but skipped it in the first version of the blog when Willie was reminded me that if we didn't get going it would get too dark to walk! I was inspired to add it back in by a comment from someone who found it extremely useful....]

2. Operant Conditioning, Positive Reinforcement, On Cue: In this category, a dog is taught that the stimulus of another dog approaching is a g0od thing, and it becomes a stimulus that causes the dog to feel relaxed rather than tense, and usually (at first) to turn away and look at its owner for a food treat or play session. This includes “AutoWatches” and “Where’s the Dog” as described in Feisty Fido or “Look at That” in Leslie McDermitt’s Control Unleashed. “Autowatches” (turn away from the dog and look at your owner) and “Where’s the Dog/Look at That” seem to be polar opposites, but in my experience, they lead to the same response, which is that the dog becomes comfortable with the approach of another dog, and instead of barking and lunging, tends to turn away from it and look toward its owner for reinforcement. This inherently avoids the direct face-to-face confrontation that is forced by 2 dogs approaching on a leash, and has the advantage of making nervous dogs classically conditioned, such that they associate other dogs with feelings of comfort. It also teaches rude dogs (who either are frustrated that they can’t get to another dog or would love to start a stare fight) to engage in an incompatible behavior and get reinforced for it.

3.  Operant Conditioning, Positive Reinforcement, No Cue, Dog Initiates Behavior: In this category, which includes what is called CAT and BAT, rather than the owner teaching the dog an incompatible behavior, the dog is exposed to the trigger stimulus and then is reinforced as soon as it performs a behavior voluntarily that is more acceptable. For example, if a dog is barking and lunging, it might be brought to a distance just close enough to elicit a reaction (I would advocate just looking at the other dog, NOT barking and lunging already). The owner/handler stops, and waits for the dog to offer a different behavior, like looking down, or turning its head to the side. As soon as that behavior is offered, either the other dog is taken away (CAT) or the subject dog is taken away (BAT). However in BAT, (Behavior Adjustment Training, Grisha Stewart), unlike in CAT (Constructional Aggression Treatment, Jesus Reosalez-Ruiz & Kelli Snider), the dog is first reinforced with a click for even looking at another dog and then is moved away and given a treat after the click has marked the “looking at”. In the next stage, the dog is exposed at the edge of threshold to another dog and the owner waits for the dog to turn his head away or sniff the ground, etc, marks that with a clicker, moves backward a good distance and treats the dog. In stage 3, the dog is again exposed sub-threshold, but the marker is a verbal ‘yes,’ the distance between dogs is again increased but no treat is given.

Both methods are derivations of John Fisher’s early work, and their greatest strength is that sometimes it is preferable to let the dog choose the behavior, and also to be less focused on the handler or the food/toy and more focused on the other dog. When CAT first started a few years ago, it appeared that the dog was often allowed to go past threshold into a full blown response. The owner/trainer would wait it out, with no one moving (thus no reinforcement from the other dog leaving) until the problem behavior extinguished. From what I have seen, it being a work in progress, its advocates have begun working harder to keep the dog at lower levels of arousal. I think that’s a plus, I never like to see a dog allowed to ‘practice’ a problematic behavior, and it’s tough to wait out some dogs, given that barking can be extremely self reinforcing.

What I like about BAT and the seminar on it last Saturday is that the dog is always kept just at below threshold, and is reinforced both with a secondary reinforcer (the marker) and 2 primary reinforcers at first (food and getting to increase the distance between dogs). The steps are clear and I think that is extremely helpful to owners. I would add though that ‘increasing the distance’ between dogs is not always positive reinforcement, and is most useful if the dog is barking and lunging (or just stiffening) because it is fearful of other dogs. It also requires a relatively sophisticated ability to read dogs, and to respond instantly to the desired behavior (and a decision about what that behavior should be–one thing, or anything that is not “the problem” behavior?).

4. Operant Conditioning, Positive Punishment: The only example of Positive Punishment that I ever use in these cases is Trish King’s “Abandonment Training.” In this scenario, a dog is both on a leash and a long line, with the owner holding the leash as usual and a trainer holding the long line as a safety net. As they approach another dog, if the subject dog barks and lunges, the owner throws the leash onto the dog’s back (tactile cue) and runs like heck the other way. Basically, the dog is ‘deserted’ by the owner, and if it is bothered by that, it stops the behavior very, very quickly. I’ve seen it work beautifully on some dogs, but as Trish advises, this is only for clingy dogs who care deeply about being with their owner. (Can you spell German Shepherd? Forgive me, but do the GSD folks out there agree that GSDs seem to care deeply about being with their humans, more so than many other dogs? I am NOT saying this is appropriate for every GSD, or not for other breeds, don’t get me in trouble by misquoting me!)

I’m a big advocate of having lots of tools in your tool box (thank you Terry Ryan for that phrase!), and personally I believe that being able to use all the methods described above, or some variation on them, is important for anyone who wants to do consults. For private owners, one needs to think about which method fits best with them and their dog. BAT and CAT require, I believe, a sophisticated ability to read a dog. AutoWatches and Where’s the Dog require an owner who likes to train, and can learn the timing required. All methods require setting up wins, in which the dog can be gradually exposed to an increasing level of intensity (dog far away, dog closer; dog standing still, dog moving forward, etc.) and an ability to respond at the right time.

I used AutoWatches and Where’s the Dog with Willie (I’ll post some video of that later this week, right now Willie is reminding me it’s past his dinner time!) and I think they are great for dogs who are easily aroused (Willie would launch just when smelling another dog’s urine. seriously), or tend to want to approach for whatever reason. CAT and BAT are good for people who can read dogs well and have dogs they are sure want the other dog to go away, not get any closer. Argh, I am simplifying way toooo much here, but it’s this is getting too long!

I ended the seminar talking about safety measures, including the Emergency U-Turn and the Emergency Sit/Stay (so that you can put your dog behind you, move forward and distract the other dog). The Sit/Stay requires some serious training, but is amazingly effective if one can put in the time, while the  U Turn is so easy that you have to encourage people to practice it. The idea is to get your dog conditioned to feeling good when you say “Oh Wow!” (other cues have been used by my clients, but they are not repeatable here) when you are surprised by a dog, to pivot and move in the other direction so fast that neither one of you even realizes you’ve done it until after it’s over. (There’s lots more on that in Feisty Fido, but Willie is starting to look at me cross-eyed.)

I’d love to hear: who out there has used what method on their own reactive dog? I’d love to start a discussion on this. I’ll post videos of Willie boy and other dogs soon….

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: I am back on the farm! Wheee, good to be home. It’s gorgeous here, and I get one evening of great weather before it gets cloudy and rainy, and boy am I enjoying it. Willie and I got to work sheep (practicing those straight lines, long way to go, but having fun) and we’re about to take a long walk.

Here’s poor Redford this afternoon, our Dorper ram, in his private pasture. We lost the ram lamb we kept in with him, and now the poor guy is by himself. Worse, the ewes are cycling, so they stand beside the gate and tease him. Right now he’s looking at Willie. Redford is one of the gentlest rams I’ve ever had, but I never go into a pen with a ram without a dog, and I never turn my back on one. There is a reason that the noun ‘ram’ was turned into a verb.

Here are some of his lambs, on the hill behind his pasture, back lit by the setting sun.

Here’s the latest on Hope and Willie: Both Willie and Hope continued to be “spooky” to all number of things. This occurred both on and off the farm, and to all sorts of sights and sounds. Willie began high-arousal barking and lunging to other dogs when on leash, and off leash he growled and tooth displayed at familiar dogs he’s been fine with for years. He backed away, ears flat and commissure retracted, to men he’s known and loved for years. Hope growled, barked and lunged at dogs, strange shapes and heaven only knows what else. Out of the blue, at least to us, one of the dogs would run charging toward the window that overlooks the driveway, making low, growly barks, hackles up, and set the other off to do the same.

It was simple, in a way. Both dogs were insecure in their current environment, and were setting each other off. It’s all fine to say that we humans need our dogs to look to us for direction and security, but no one talks ‘dog’ more clearly than another dog, and Willie and Hope were both increasing each other’s insecurities. The irony was painful, because their relationship was improving in many ways. They played “tooth fencing/wrestle play” beautifully in the house, and Willie was just, finally, beginning to stop being such a victim when Hope bullied him in the house. Hope still would growl, lunge and bite at Willie’s shoulders as they moved to the door, for example, and Willie often responded by tongue flicking and dropping  his head, but in other contexts Willie would discipline Hope for some perceived rudeness with an inhibited muzzle bite.

As I would with a client’s dog, I sat down and considered the options:

I. Do nothing and hope that the dogs would come out of it.  In Hope’s case, it is true that some dogs seem to come out of what I call Juvenile Onset Shyness by themselves, but lots of dogs don’t, and in my experience, it is crucial with most dogs to actively help them through this stage with environmental management and behavior modification. As a four year old, Willie’s background level of being an inherently anxious dog meant he would most likely regress to his previous behaviors of serious aggression to unfamiliar dogs, and further degrade into being at least fearful, if not problematic, around unfamiliar people.

Probability of success: Small to Zero.

II. Actively treat both dogs with environmental management and behavior modification. That would include:

1) Full health checks, although a medical cause of this behavior was highly unlikely, it is still always good to check.

2) Physical support from Chinese Medicine, Vet Acupuncture, possible inclusion of pheromones (DAP for example) and scents (lavender for example) and homeopathic medicines (Willie is already on Shen  Calmer, possibly add that to Hope’s diet as well?). Also included is diet, specifically the amount of grain and the protein source. In addition, Hope could not drink the well water from the farm without developing crystals in his urine, so he drank distilled water that we had to purchase. No chance of any improvement there.

3. Stimulus Management: Take dogs off the farm separately, so they don’t set each off and I could work with each of them by one on one. This is no problem when leaving the farm, but doesn’t solve their behavior at home.

4. Behavior modification: Use Operant and Classical Conditioning to condition the dogs to have a different emotional (classical) and behavioral (operant) reaction to the stimuli that are setting them off.  For Willie I would continue going back to what worked in the past around unfamiliar dogs: Start by saying “Watch” which he knows means to look at me, whenever another dog appeared. When he turned to face me, he got to play a rousing game of tug. That reinforced him for looking away from the other dog in many ways–he got to play a favorite game and the tug game allowed him to release pent up tension. The goal was to get him to “AutoWatch,” or look at me automatically when he saw another dog, and then he’d get a game of tug. That not only taught him a behavior incompatible with barking and lunging, it classically conditioned him to feel good when another dog approached. For unfamiliar men, I’d have them toss toys or balls for him (can’t train other dogs to do that or I’d use it with other dogs!), conditioning him to love it when men approach.

For Hope, who spooked mostly at strange shapes (but that included a woman carrying a small bag while walking a small dog), I have been teaching “What’s That?” The meaning of that cue is to look at something, turn and get a treat or a toy. (Treats seemed to work better with Hope than play, so I began using them more often–every dog is different.). This works well if you can anticipate what stimulus sets off the dog, but is harder if you don’t know what the dog is responding to.

5. Lots more training… of course, always more training! Willie was taught to bow on cue, and it’s a great way to help  him relax when he is nervous. (He does it himself often now, I suspect he uses it as way of relieving stress himself.) All dogs profit, as do their owners, by having lots of behaviors that they can perform that relax them, that are incompatible with the ‘problem’ behavior. Play bows are one of my favorites, because they not only relax the dog they often act to relax other dogs (people too.) The list of behaviors that are helpful to put on cue goes on, but you get the idea.

Probability of success? 70/30? 60/40? 50/50? Given the seriousness of Willie’s insecurities, it’s hard to say. Probably couldn’t make a good judgment about prognosis until about 4 to 6 months into treatment and Hope is older.

III. Re-home one of the dogs. Given that the insecurities of both dogs appear to be feeding off of each other, the last reasonable option is to re-home one of the dogs. I’ve re-homed 2 dogs in the past 25 years, always because I felt it was in the best interest of the dog. Every time it was brutally hard on me for a while, and every time the dog was better off for it. Here’s my criteria for doing so that I shared with clients for over 22 years: the new home has to be better than the home the dog is in now. Period. Pure and simple. (Of course, if one dog is putting others, either people or dogs, at risk, the criteria must be considered differently.) In each case, you have to carefully consider which dog would be better off in a new home; in some cases the answer is simple, in multi-dog households it can be more difficult. In the case of Willie and Hope, which dog to re-home would be  simple.  Willie is over 4 years old, I have moved heaven and earth to keep him alive and happy, I am bound to him as if he were a part of me, and my first commitment is to him. Hope is not even 6 months old, is a much sounder dog than Willie will ever be, and would be a much easier dog to place than Willie for a gazillion reasons.

Probability of success? 95 to 100 % if it was the perfect home, but where would one find that? How could you know what’s “perfect?” My heart goes out to those of you who commented that you have a dog you think is in the wrong place, but can’t imagine where the dog would go. It’s not always easy, I know. Because I have had Hope long enough now to know him well, in his case it would have to be a home in which he 1) lived in a settled group of dogs in which he could play with the young ones, learn boundaries from the elders and feel secure in a home with trustworthy people and dogs, 2) live in the house with people who are kind, clear, patient, humane and who would give him the kind of health care that, frankly, few dogs get and 3) once he is ready, work sheep on a daily basis with people who know what they are doing, who use humane versions of training and take learning how to do it well seriously.

I’ve been working on Option 2 diligently, wrapping my life around it, and then, like a karmic piece of toast, the perfect home for Hope popped into our lives. A  home with a settled pack of 6 dogs–a puppy his age to play with, elder males and females to provide boundaries and security. A kind, loving home, in which the dogs sleep on the couch, get home cooked food and cutting edge health care. A farm in the country with sheep and people who devote their lives to working dogs, going to clinics, herding dog trials, taking private herding lessons from the best in the country. The dogs get far more work on sheep than one of my dogs ever would, at least until I can afford to retire, which isn’t going to be for awhile.

That’s where Hope is now. He’s been there awhile, long enough to know he’s thriving there. Willie not only went back to his old self in 24 hours, he has never been happier. Recently we were out walking on leash at a public park, he saw another dog, did a loose body wag, turned and looked at me, mouth open and relaxed, and turned back to the other dog as if he’d love to say hi. He is back to loving everyone, unfamiliar men included. Never once did he look for Hope, or act in any visible way that he wondered where he was or wanted him back. (But of course, who knows what he was thinking? Did he wonder where Hope went? If he did, he certainly showed no signs of it.) He has been happy and playful and relaxed at home and everywhere else. He is no longer licking his paws, alarm barking at the slightest noise or tongue flicking.

By all accounts, Hope is happier than he’s ever been. He plays with a five-month old female pup much of the day, has been corrected for rudeness a few times by his elders and is now on his best behavior. He is behaving beautifully around all people and all dogs, has never yet had a house training “accident” in the house (he did relatively often at our house and I suspect now it was as much about anxiety  as anything else). He has “spooked” at one thing, one time, and nothing else. He fit in the day he moved in, and it sounds like he has never been happier. His new humans adore him, are eternally grateful for all of his training and socializing, and say he acts like he’s been there all of his life.

And so, the dogs are doing great. I don’t need to tell you who this has been hard on. I won’t belabor it, but what’s called “Separation Distress” in animals is the same thing we call grieving, and it’s recorded in a primitive part of your brain as if it were a serious, painful injury. (That’s why we talk about “healing” from the death of a loved one.) Willie and Hope have shown no signs of it; they appear to be happier than before. It’s the humans who are suffering. The first three days after Hope left were brutal, even though I knew it was better for both him and Willie. I gave up trying to do any work at all one day, just let myself give in to the sadness and the feeling of loss. It’s better now, but I look forward to the day when it still doesn’t feel quite so raw. One of my few regrets is knowing that, to a lesser extent, this news will be a bit hard on some of you who have followed Hope’s story with me throughout the summer. I wish I could wave a magic wand and make this change as easy for the humans as it has been for the dogs, but I can’t.

I knew it would be hard personally, and I knew it would be made even harder because of the public nature of this decision, and because some people will criticize me for it.  But here was my choice: send Hope to a better home with the highest of all probabilities that it would be better for him and Willie both, or keep Hope because I loved him too much to let him go, or because I didn’t want to lose professional credibility with the people who believe that if I was good enough I would have ‘fixed it,’ or that it is never acceptable to re-home a dog, no matter what the circumstances. I can be a real coward sometimes, but I couldn’t live with myself if I passed up the best solution for two wonderful dogs because I was afraid of what people would say. This is a good place, however, to thank all of you who have been supportive during this process; there have been a lot of you, and I am forever  grateful to you. Truly. Thank you.

As you can imagine, there was a lot of talking and soul searching before this decision was made. I talked to numerous other behaviorists and shelter/rescue experts–the list of people I consulted would drive a seminar host mad with envy. The consensus was clear: it ranged from “Of course that is the right thing to do” to “Why didn’t you do it sooner?” Most of our discussions ended up asking what we could do to help people understand that sometimes the kindest thing you can do for a dog is to get him out of one situation and help to find a place in which he will thrive.

A word of caution: Please don’t try to generalize this situation too much to  any other. It concerns me that someone might read about the solution I have chosen and decide then that they should do the same. Every situation is different. If the perfect home hadn’t arisen for Hope, I never would have made that choice. What I will say to those of you who are struggling with this, based on 22 + years of working with clients, is that IF you have a situation in your home that is truly untenable, don’t assume that there isn’t either 1) help from someone to improve the problem or 2) another good home out there somewhere for one of your dogs. I have had clients work with trainers and behaviorists and end up resolving problems that they initially thought were unsolvable. I have had other clients who choose to re-home dogs with a variety of serious behavioral problems, and in many cases, the problems either went away, or the new owners managed the issues without any disruption to their lives.

Bottom line? There will always be Hope… sometimes it just lives in unexpected places.

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: The sheep still need feeding, the water tanks filled. Willie has just brought the flock out of the main pasture, through the woods, for their afternoon snack. The ewes get a little bit of alfalfa hay, and the lambs luxuriate with their noses deep in a mixture of corn, oats and a protein balance pellet. The lambs stopped growing for awhile when it was so hot, but they are doing well now.

Here’s a photo showing how big some of them are now. Hard to tell a few of the biggest from their mommas.

Here’s Snickers and one of her lambs, looking through a window in the barn. Is dinner ready yet?

It is very quiet here, but Willie is very, very happy, and that is a good thing.

WRITTEN MID-JULY, POSTED WHILE I’M IN AFRICA:

I recently spent three evenings with Jim’s son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter Taylor, and so the issue of kids and dogs is near and dear to me right now. I also, in that serendipitous way of the world, just received a question about how to find help for a Boxer who growled at a grand child from the post Who Should Treat Behavioral Problems.

Young children and dogs can be the best of friends, or the worst of enemies. There’s just no way around it, to some dogs, kids can be unpredictable, rude, and/or frightening. And surely, to some kids, dogs can be unpredictable, rude and/or frightening. Given that, here’s some generic advice, sprinkled with specifics from Will’s encounters with Taylor.

1) Never live in the land of “I-think-it-will-be-okay.” If you are not 110% positive that an interaction between a child and a dog will be safe, don’t allow it to happen. Any time I hear “I think it will be okay,” red flags start to wave. What does “I think it’ll be okay” mean? That maybe, probably, it’ll be okay, but you’re not sure? I’ve had 21 years of hearing people say that they “thought” it would be okay, and then they were sitting in my office, crying about whether to euthanize or re-home their dog. Granted, two decades of hearing about bites, law suits and potential euthanasias makes a person especially cautious, but that’s still what I’d advise any parent or dog owner to be: extra cautious. When dogs bite, it happens like lightening, so don’t think (there’s that word again) that you can prevent something because you’re ‘right there.’ You can’t. If you’ve ever believed me on anything, believe me on this.

2) Always protect both the child and the dog. It is neither fair nor safe to sit back and let a child harass a dog (or vice versa) because the dog is “so good with kids.” Well, he may be now, but after a number of years of pulled tails and poked eyes, he may decide he’s had enough. (That was a VERY common presentation in my office: “He’s always been so good with kids, he’d let them do anything to him, and then, out of the blue, he bit the neighbor boy.”) If you don’t protect your dog from a child who has not yet learned to interact politely with a dog, you are forcing your dog to protect him or herself. Some dogs can’t take it the first time, but others put up with it until they are older and sick of it. Even if your dog never threatens a child, it’s not fair to the dog AND it is teaching the child to interact in ways that may get him bitten by another dog. Speaking of teaching. . .

3) Both children and dogs need to be taught, gently and kindly, how to interact. If your dog is too exuberant, you might yelp as if you were a litter mate when the play got too rough. I’ve used a sound like ARPPP! (think seal here), that bursts out of my mouth when a dog has been a bit too rough with something weaker. It usually gets a startle response from the dog, and sometimes (not always) the dog seems to get the idea that she must self-handicap better and inhibit herself. Children always need to learn how to interact kindly with real dogs, given that they tend to treat them like stuffed animals until they learn better and acquire more emotional control. Any trainer or behaviorist can tell you legions of stories about kids who ran up to dogs, grabbed their heads and kissed the dog on the nose, while the parents watch with big smiles on their face. Until the dog bit, then the smiles go away.

4) Management is a good solution in many cases. Lots of dogs either can’t tolerate the energy and arousal of young children, especially if they are not used to them. Some dogs can learn to be comfortable around children with positive experiences, and some dogs can’t.  Some dogs can be around kids in certain contexts, and not others (see about Willie and granddaughter below).  There is nothing wrong with keeping kids and dogs apart, as long as both are in comfortable places. Willie loves his crate, and spent a lot of time in it Sunday when the whole family was visiting. Not for a minute did I feel guilty–he could rest and not be expected to deal with arousal levels over his head, and I could relax and enjoy  my company rather than being vigilant every single second.

5) Use conditioning to ease the relationship. I’ll use Operant conditioning next time Taylor comes out, asking Willie “Where’s Taylor?” He loves this game, loves “Where’s Jim” and “Where’s Trisha?” and it’s a great way to relax him around a child. Of course, I’ll be standing right next to Taylor, and will have her throw him a toy when he gets close (but not too close.) I’ll use Classical conditioning too, having Taylor toss or feed him treats (he’s has already taken several from her hand, mommy instructing her to hold her hand out flat on top of mommy’s hand) or toss his toys. I can teach Willie to lie down every time Taylor starts to run, to play bow when he sees her… etc etc etc. The point here is that it is our job to teach our dogs how to interact, what we want from them, and to do all we can to influence their emotional state when around children.

Will doing all this make every dog trustable around kids? Not a chance. Every dog is different, and some dogs will never be comfortable around kids, period. For those dogs, either management or a new home might be the best alternative. I’d be curious how you have handled this issue, and what your experiences have been. It’s such a huge part of our culture: kids and dogs, and how they interact. (By the way, Colleen Pelar has a book coming out in fall on how people in the profession can help parents raise kids and dogs. I reviewed it and it is great! I’ll keep you posted.) (8/23: When I first posted this I attributed the book to Robin Bennet, who has collaborated with Colleen in the past. Robin, gently and graciously corrected my foolish  mistake.)

Meanwhile, back at the farm: here’s Lassie and Taylor (and her dad Shane) playing around the wading pool (of course, this wading pool is normally for the dogs!). Note Lassie’s open mouth and relaxed posture, a good sign that she is comfortable at the moment. However, even though Lassie has been absolutely bomb-proof with children for all of her life, we still monitored all her interactions with Taylor, who didn’t know (how could she?) that it’s not a good idea to take a dog’s muzzle in your hands and squeeze. Why Taylor wanted to do this no one knows, but her parents are fantastic about teaching her to be polite around dogs, and they watched her (as did I) literally every second she interacted with Lassie. This level of hands-on interaction was only allowed because I have 14 years of experience with Lassie as adoring young children, and because Taylor’s parents were as vigilant as I. Even though Lassie has been amazing around kids, she IS 15 1/2 years old, and it is not fair to expect her to put up with things she would have in the past, so we still watched all interactions carefully. Even at only two years of age, Taylor is learning how to interact with unfamiliar dogs… would that all parents be so wonderful as Taylor’s!

Here’s Taylor and mom Rachel at the zoo, doing what all kids do: hugging. And she’s hugging the perfect animal, a statue that can’t take offense or turn around and bite her!

Teaching children not to hug dogs is a true challenge, it is clearly part of our species’ natural repertoire (I talk about this at length in The Other End of the Leash), and something that is hard for children to inhibit. To us, hugs are a sign of affection, but to most dogs they are, at best, something to put up with. To nervous, reactive or status-seeking dogs, hugs are rude, offensive and threatening. The few times that Taylor started to hug Lassie we gently re-directed her to another behavior. However, I never would have allowed Taylor and Willie to be in a situation in which a hug might even have started… I simply don’t trust him around children this young yet. Willie is reactive, easily made nervous, unfamiliar with young children, and nippy when objects (not live ones) start moving around fast. It has taken him years to keep himself from nipping a mop or broom and I have to remind him still not to nip the tires of the wheelbarrow when it is moving. Granted, that’s not the same as living things, but again, being conservative is smart. Being anything else around kids and dogs is not. When Taylor was running around in the house, Willie spent lots of time in his crate (and got lots of treats brought to him for being so quiet and patient about it). Later, we went on a walk with all of us in which Taylor and Willie could get used to each other without directly interacting, and spent some time in the yard with the whole gang outside. Note that there are no photos of Willie and Taylor; taking pictures would have distracted me from being as vigilant I necessary. Maybe next time?

On a walk in a prarie, which was the third time that Willie had seen Taylor, I noticed that Willie ran up, with a completely relaxed body, to Taylor and her mom and licked faces. I praised and called him away immediately…. to insure that things ended on a good note. Overall, everything went beautifully, but possibly because I was hyper conservative, never allowed any interactions I wasn’t 110% comfortable with, and Taylor’s parents were amazingly observant and cautious. Things might have been fine without that level of vigilance, I am the first to admit I was being hyper conservative. . . but there was no cost to being so, and a big cost to everyone if things had not gone well.

And, if you’ll indulge me, just a note about Jim’s grand daughter? . . .  Can I say it now, or is it just too tacky and grand-parenty?  Oh well, I’ll say it anyway, awash in oxytocin as I am: IS TAYLOR CUTE OR WHAT?

“Puppy nerd” asked a great question in his or her comment: Given how visual dogs are, should one start an exercise with visual signals to help the dog get it right, and then switch to acoustic ones, or avoid visual signals altogether if you want your dog to pay attention to your voice?  Well, this could keep us all busy for the next few months. I know this is a loaded issue, with people strongly advocating one or the other (mostly the latter in my experience.)

There’s no ‘right’ answer, at least not in my opinion.  But then, I’m not a big advocate for there being one way to train. There are many roads, as they say, to the top of the mountain. I think what’s most important is to be aware of the advantages and disadvantages of starting with visual signals.  The first obvious advantage is that dogs learn them readily, and thus you can create ‘wins’ fast and start reinforcing dogs right away. That’s good for dogs, and it’s good for novice owners too, because people get reinforced when their dog does it right, and are more likely to keep training when it works relatively fast.

I also think it’s a good thing to help dogs understand what we want right off the bat; I don’t think it’s always “positive” to not give a dog any clues at all about what he’s supposed to do next.  The other reason I like visual signals early in training is that I love using them in daily life. I love being able to “call” my dog to come, lie down and stay while I’m on the phone, or motion one dog to do one thing and another to do something else.

The disadvantage of starting with visual signals is that if you want your dog to lie down to a verbal command, without relying on a verbal prompt,  you need to carefully and thoughtfully eliminate the motion during training.  This can be tricky, because non-professional dog trainers tend to be relatively unaware of the movement of their body, and end up often using a movement as a prompt. They think their dog is lying down to “lie down,” but he’s really watching to see if their head dips forward. Their dog never really learns the verbal signal, and is always waiting for the owner to give the salient signal. The salient signal to the owner is the phrase “lie down,” but the salient one to the dog is the  head nod. That leads to obvious confusion and frustration on both sides.

For whatever good it is, here’s what I do.  I’d be curious how others handle it; I look forward to your comments.

To train sit, for example. I use the tried and true ‘lure/reward’ method advocated by Ian Dunbar, but I combine it with a lot of operant principles.  I’ll lure the dog into a sit with a treat in my hand, but not give the verbal cue at all. Over the next few sessions I”ll modify the movement of my hand into less of a ‘lure over the  head toward the tail’ to a upward sweep of the hand.  Once I can predict the dog will respond to the motion with a sit 80% or so of the time (you know we all really make those numbers up, don’t you? I’m just estimating.) I’ll add in the verbal cue, being careful to say it BEFORE I move my hand.

After a few sessions of lots of saying “Sit” right before I make the visual signal, I’ll say “Sit” and not move. Now the dog is being asked to sit just to a sound, not a movement. I’ll wait 2 seconds or so. If the dogs sits within that time frame I’ll jackpot big time, with lots and lots of treats, and then try again.  If the dog doesn’t sit and just stares at me like I”m an idiot, I’ll turn away, wait a few more seconds and then try again. If I get no response just to the word for 3 tries, I’ll add back the visual and end on a ‘win.’

So, what do you do?