Am I Boring My Dog? (19 page)

Good training has nothing to do with blind obedience or turning your pooch into an automaton. Rather, its goal is to let your dog know what you expect from her so she can behave accordingly and vice versa. The better you understand each others’ signals, the less frustrated with each other you’ll be, and the deeper, and the more deeply rewarding, your relationship will be.

Just because your dog’s eating habits don’t disturb you, others won’t necessarily appreciate your pup jumping up on the table and grazing from their plates at dinner parties. (Of course, depending on your cooking skills, she may be appreciated
under
the table, performing the classic function of dispatching unsuccessful culinary efforts.)

I’ll talk more about the importance of mental exercise in Chapter 7, but ongoing training is a great way for both you and your dog to stay alert and connected, and for the two of you to spend quality time together.

Most people, even those who like dogs, don’t realize the reach of canine capabilities, so it’s easy to impress them with pretty much anything beyond the basics of “sit” and “stay” and “down.” Don’t think of skill demonstrations as parlor tricks but, rather, as payback for the endless displays of toddler abilities you’ve had to endure. If your dog turns out to be more impressive than your friends’ toddlers,
⁵⁰
all the better (as long as you refrain from gloating).

There was a time when trundling your dog off to a country-side kennel for a month or so to get him trained—a practice inspired, in part, by the Monks of New Skete and their tough love
How to Be Your Dog’s Best Friend
(1978)—was very popular. Although no longer as trendy, entrusting your pup to a professional who returns him to you with better manners hasn’t been eliminated from today’s bag of training tricks.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the rowdy canine stranger who’s come to live with you, or your family is hopelessly confusing your dog by giving him mixed signals, remote training may be tempting. In theory, it’s supposed to work like rehab, to get your dog to establish better habits away from bad influences and under professional guidance. But even aside from the considerable expense of most of these boarding programs, they have several limitations.

You might imagine your dog will come back from the country a changed canine, a perfect pup who will intuit your every wish. So what if your noisy Manhattan apartment doesn’t resemble the verdant fields where your dog learned to hustle when summoned? She’ll figure it out. As with all overblown expectations, a failure to meet them can lead to disappointment and frustration, perhaps even greater than what you experienced before your dog was trained. Poor you, poorer pup.

Unless you and your family are trained to replicate the signals used to convey information to your dog, including the cues and body language you need to avoid, any benefits of the program will erode over time. If the regimen doesn’t include extensive home follow up, it’s not worth the investment.

If you send a puppy away during the optimal window for socialization and training (between 8 and 12 weeks) and the process is bungled, you’ve blown a key education opportunity. Yes, your dog can learn—and unlearn later, but not as thoroughly or effectively as when he’s at the most impressionable age. It’s akin to the difference between absorbing a foreign language as a kid immersed in the culture and learning it from classes and tapes as an adult.
⁵¹

Because your dog is at a remote—if not undisclosed—location and you will likely be discouraged from visiting during the first week, minimum, you won’t have a clue about what’s going on. For all you know, your dog could be crated most of the day or forced to dance the tango in a traveling circus (and you won’t get any of the proceeds). It’s essential, even more so than with other programs, to check the credentials of the school and trainers and to scope out the premises, even if all come highly recommended.

Even the Monks of New Skete, who resurfaced on Animal Planet’s
Divine Dog
show, no longer emphasize physical correction in their training methods.

Ah, yes. If you don’t discipline your dog harshly as soon as he does something you disapprove of—say, attempting to jump on your bed—he will eventually take over. Everything. Before you know it, he’ll be turning your Barcalounger into a Barker-lounger, commandeering (or eating) the remote control, and forcing you to watch
Meercat Manor, Mr. Ed,
and other nonspeciesist shows.
⁵²

There’s truth to the popular notion that you have to establish yourself as the “alpha” to earn canine respect; as with kids, dogs need structure. But being a leader doesn’t require domination through physical force. Nor does positive training, the alternative route to being recognized as the household CEO, mean coddling.

Advocated by most mainstream dog trainers these days, guiding behavior through reward rather than punishment first came into the public eye in the 1950s, when it began being practiced on large marine animals. Unable to use bodily coercion to make whales and dolphins do their bidding, trainers employed food and the sounds associated with providing it (whistles, and in some cases, clickers) instead.

This system proved—and remains—consistently effective. Anheuser-Busch doesn’t have to worry about irate crowds at SeaWorld demanding their money back because Shamu and pals refuse to perform.

Why the delay in applying these methods to dog training, then? To distill a somewhat murky history, studies of captive wolf packs were interpreted to suggest that these positive techniques wouldn’t carry over to hierarchical canids. The degree to which dogs and wolves have parted ways is still a hot topic, but most ethologists (animal behaviorists) now agree that our domesticated pups don’t exhibit the behaviors on which harsh training methods were based.
⁵³

Theories aside, the more that professional dog trainers used the reward system, the more they discovered that it worked, that it worked long-term, and that it didn’t pose dangers to owners—as punishment-based training often does. Performing the much-publicized alpha role, for example, is a good way to provoke a dog into biting your face off.

Positive training is not a simple, one-size-fits-all approach. Its specifics vary, depending on the individual practitioner—and on the individual dog. Frankie, for example, won’t eat when he’s in an unfamiliar situation such as a training class—a reaction to stress he certainly didn’t get from emulating me—but responds enthusiastically to praise and chest scratches. So rewards for good behavior don’t have to involve food and/or an accompanying clicker sound.

Methods of discouraging undesired behaviors vary, too. They range from the redundant sounding “negative punishment”—which simply means withholding positive cues—to distracting your dog with a command when he’s doing something off-topic. The bottom line: although it’s based on sound scientific principles, effective positive training is also an art honed through a knowledge of dogs in general and yours in particular.

Only if you plan never to take your dog out of the house and introduce her to new people and situations. If you’ve got a puppy, it’s especially crucial that she work with a professional who can quickly assess her temperament—strengths as well as weaknesses—to help her get the most out of a training class.

Your temperament needs to be assessed by a professional, too. Even the most ambitious autodidact
⁵⁴
won’t succeed with books and tapes without getting somebody knowledgeable—and neutral—to evaluate the follow-through. You may think you’re being consistent, but while your mouth is praising “Good dog,” your body language may be bellowing “That’s the last liver treat you’ll see unless you shape up, bud.”

That said, getting a background in reward-based training techniques and watching them performed effectively will positively reinforce your decision to give your dog confidence and make him revel in your presence rather than playing on his insecurities and making him fear you. A prime place to get started is
www.dogstardaily.com
, which posts an array of excellent free demonstrations and downloads, including books and videos by the always entertaining Ian Dunbar, veterinarian, certified dog trainer, and site cocreator. The site’s blogs, written by such top behavioral experts as Nicolas Dodman and Patricia McConnell, are very informative, and the recommended products section can lead you to other star talent in the field (including Suzanne Clothier, Jean Donald-son, and Karen Pryor, among my favorites).

Dog trainers can hang out a shingle without any qualifications—and a lot of them do. Some ways to separate the mystery meat from the filet mignon include:

Membership in the Association of Pet Dog Trainers (APDT;
www.apdt.com
), devoted to continuing education and “dog friendly” techniques, is a good sign. A search by zip code will lead you to APDT members in your area who have been accredited by the Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers (CCPDT;
www.ccpdt.org
)—which means they’ve performed at least 300 hours of training within the last five years and have undergone a lengthy standardized exam in everything from equipment to ethology.

Listed next, uncertified members of APDT who have established themselves as dog trainers may or may not be highly qualified—you just have to pay an entry fee to join the organization—but, at minimum, membership indicates an awareness that training is a profession, not a hobby, and suggests at least a cursory interest in networking and knowing the state of the training art.

The fact that a trainer has bothered to create one is a good start. Other things to look for include the following.

 

I know, not everyone updates their websites regularly (guilty!) but if you’re referred to an address that says “We’re looking forward to getting this site up in early 2007” you’ve got to worry about the trainer’s seriousness and organizational skills.

 

One website of an APDT member I came across disses everything from “university veterinary behavioral programs” to “food-bribery trainers” and group classes. I wouldn’t want to put my dog in the hands of someone so insecure that he needs to disparage the methods of others instead of just explaining the virtues of his own approach. In my experience, such humans often exhibit fear-based aggression.

 

Be wary of anyone who guarantees results within a certain period of time—or guarantees results, full stop. All you can expect is that a trainer do her best, using tried and true methods, for your dog. These methods may not succeed as a result of factors completely unrelated to a trainer’s skill—breed temperament or illness, to name just a couple.

If you ask to observe a class and the trainer refuses to let you, that’s a red flag right away. But even when you’re allowed to sit in, you might not have a context for what you’re seeing. Laughter, excited squirming (on the part of the dogs), and tail wagging (ditto) are all good signs; raised tones, sharp commands, and long silences are not. Whatever your impressions, be sure to follow up at the end by asking class members what they think. Few will be shy about sharing.

Unless you know what you want, it’s impossible to determine whether a particular trainer can give it to you. For puppies, it’s pretty much everything—i.e., life preparation—but for older dogs you need to be a lot more specific than “I want her to behave.” A good trainer should be able to help you focus if you don’t have a sense of your options, and let you know if you’re being unrealistic about an objective—say, getting your dog to put a roller in his mouth and paint your house.

Assuming your gut is connected to your heart rather than to your machismo or machisma lobe. When I first got Frankie, I took him to S., a trainer highly recommended by two dog-loving friends. She was nice, smart, and clearly fond of dogs, but the first purchase S. required in preparation for the small dog class was a choke chain. The Frankie-size version was teeny, a wisp of a metal string, but it made me queasy.
⁵⁵
I ventured a few questions about the more positive techniques I’d heard about, but S. pooh-poohed them. And, after all, I was paying—and paying well—for her expertise. I figured I should defer to it.

In the end, waste of money notwithstanding, I was lucky. Frankie was too stressed out by the presence of the other small dogs—a snooty clique of Yorkies and Dachshunds—to learn much of anything, but neither did he learn to fear me.

And although I failed Chain Jerking 101,
⁵⁶
I discovered that my instincts about how to treat my new friend were sound.

For puppies, group classes are the key to learning how to play well with others and how to inhibit biting instincts. It’s more complicated for older dogs, some of whom will benefit from peer pressure more than others (as my experience with Frankie can attest). Only dogs without major aggression or fear issues are good candidates for the group experience—at least if they haven’t had some advance individual training.