Viewing by month: January 2010

Jan 31 2010

Dogged Determination

Tosha Myers on her favorite bed. Dear Human,
I must admit that as a dog I find you humans a bit perplexing. You seem to praise us for certain characteristics one minute only to turn around and admonish us for the same characteristics the next.

Take for example the term “dogged determination.” You use it to compliment other humans who show firm resolve to accomplish something. Dogged is synonymous with firm, persevering, resolute, steadfast, indefatigable, and many other words that are meant as a positive reflection on those you speak them about. Yet sometime you forget that our determination is not linked to emotions or concepts like good or bad. Our determination just is.

The determination that leads many of my kind to become search and rescue dogs is no different than our determination to chew on your favorite slippers it’s just focused in a different direction.

You humans are great company and without you some of the greatest inventions in the world (like belly rubs) would not have been possible; but sometimes you forget who you’re talking to. To us chewing on your slippers isn’t good or bad it’s just something we do to relieve boredom, to relieve tension, or simply to occupy ourselves. Telling us “NO!” doesn’t really help us all that much. We know that you are currently irritated about something and if we quit chewing on your slippers for a few seconds you will probably quit yelling (we hope). But we don’t know what you would have us do instead.

As dogs we have certain needs that are really no different than those of humans. When humans are nervous or tense they fidget; we like to chew. When humans are bored they find an activity that occupies their minds; so do we. It’s just that our ideas of acceptable activities seem to be a bit at odds; but we are more than happy to change.

If you teach us that treat filled Kongs are a better alternative then we will gladly leave your slippers alone. If you show us that sitting quietly in front of you as opposed to jumping up on you is a much better way to get your attention, then consider our rumps on the ground. Above all just remember that our determination can be focused on whatever you like. The choice is yours.

Please remember that we choose to live with you not because we are in need of a dominant pack leader but because our partnership seems to do us both a lot of good.

Cheers,

Tosha, Gavin, Annie, Kevin, Jackie

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Jan 29 2010

Does the Milgram Experiment Explain Cesar Millan’s Influence?

Blue Eyed Wolf I’ve made several posts lately of my concerns about Cesar Millan and his show The Dog Whisperer. Every time I sit down to write a new post, I pledge to get down off of the Anti-Cesar soapbox and move on to other things. But it seems like every day I see or hear something that brings me back to this subject.

Yesterday morning I saw a link that Pat Miller posted on her Facebook page about a company that was advertising a prong collar called Secret Powers. A collar that hid the fact it was a prong collar so that, and I’m quoting here, “When you are going down the street with your well behaved Dog, no one knows your Secret Powers.”

My response to this was the same as many who commented, if you feel that it’s something that you need to hide, maybe you shouldn’t be using it!

Intuition, your inner voice, sneaking suspicion, spider sense, whatever you want to call it, not paying attention to it may lead to another noun, regret.

I’m sure that there are many of you, who like me, have done things in the past even though something inside you felt it wasn’t quite right. There can be many reasons for this; expediency, curiosity, conformity, and perhaps the most important one for the topic of this article, our willingness to follow the advice of an expert even if that advice runs contrary to our own conscience.

In a famous 1961 experiment, Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram devised a study to measure the willingness of participants to obey an authority figure who told them to do something that went against their conscience. Simply stated, The Milgram Experiment undertook to determine if one human would administer shocks of increasingly higher voltages to another human while being told by an expert that it was okay and even necessary to do so. A full description of the experiment and its’ results can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment. It is well worth reading.

This experiment has been reproduced and modified somewhat in the years since 1961 but virtually each trial produces the same results, around 60% - 65% of the participants actually pushed the button that was supposed to deliver the maximum 450-volt shock to the student!

This brings me to the point of this article: Why do some people follow the advice given by Cesar Milan on The Dog Whisperer even though they may have reservations about the methods he uses?

The marketing and PR machine that is in place to support Cesar Millan is nothing short of impressive. Consider the following:

Cesar’s show The Dog Whisperer runs on The National Geographic Channel, an organization long known to be animal friendly.
Cesar has appeared on talk shows like Oprah & The Tonight Show.
Cesar’s clients include many famous people.
During the President Obama “dog watch” Cesar could be found on just about every news channel on TV offering advice to the President.
Many of the catch phrases that Cesar uses like “Calm Assertive Pack Leader”, “Dominant Aggressive”, “Dogs Sense Energy”, and others, are finding their way into the common vernacular, often without true understanding of just what these terms mean.
Even though the methods he uses often seem to be overly punitive and sometimes even cruel to some, Cesar constantly assures his viewers that they are harmless to the dogs.
Cesar’s admonitions that if we don’t come to dominate our dog, our dog will come to dominate us.

It is very easy to see how people that are not exposed to any other training or behavioral information about dogs would come to trust Cesar, even though they may not feel right about some of his methods.

If you are a follower of Cesar Millan, I would ask you to please read the AVSAB Position Statement on the Use of Dominance Theory in Behavior Modification of Animals. Pay particular attention to pages three and four as they address many of the methods and myths propagated by Cesar and his show. I also encourage you to visit the website Beyond Cesar Millan, this website if full of information authored by qualified professionals as to the validity of the methods used by Cesar. You can also find a list of positive training resources on our training page.

I hope that by exposing you to this information you will be more willing to listen to your inner voice when it comes to using methods on your dogs that just don’t quite feel right to you.

For those of you that are already on the positive training bandwagon, share you knowledge with someone who just may not know about the wonderful world of training and friendship that lies beyond Cesar Millan.

As always we welcome any comments you may have. Agree or disagree, all we ask it that you keep it respectful.

Cheers

Kevin, Jackie, Gavin, Annie, Tosha

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Jan 27 2010

Coming Soon Woof Wednesdays With...

Dog Chewing Network Cable A little less than a year ago I started Dog Lovers Digest in the hope that I would be able to share some of what I’ve learned about dogs and our relationship with them, to a larger audience. The process of creating and updating this website has led me to find and connect with people that I probably would have never known otherwise. The web and social networking has really come of age for dog lovers; it is one of the best tools we have to help combat much of the misinformation that seems to be en vogue. Networking on sites like Twitter and Facebook, I have met trainers, behaviorists, psychologists, veterinarians, and dog people from all walks of life; people that have a passion about what they do and the expertise and eloquence to share it with others.

Borrowing from the “#WoofWednesday” tradition on Twitter, Dog Lovers Digest is starting a regular blog series called “Woof Wednesday With,” featuring interviews and articles from some of our favorite dog people that can be found tweeting away on Twitter. The series is going to start Wednesday February 9th and continue each Wednesday thereafter.

Our first two scheduled guests are:

Wednesday, February 10th 2010 – Debbie Jacobs of Fearful Dogs – Debbie, (@fearfuldogs on Twitter), is a trainer, columnist, author, and a great advocate for fearful dogs everywhere. Her website can be found at www.fearfuldogs.com and you can read her blog at http://fearfuldogs.wordpress.com.
Wednesday, February 17th 2010 – Leslie Fisher of Look What I Can Do Dog Training – Leslie, (@lookwhatlabs on Twitter)is the owner of Look What I Can Do Dog Training and is a Pat Miller Certified Trainer and an Authorized Mentor Trainer for the Animal Behavior College. Leslie’s website can be found at www.lookwhaticandodogtraining.com and you can read her blog at http://lookwhaticandodogtraining.typepad.com/my-blog/.

I hope that you will find the prospect of picking the brains of some of our favorite doggie tweeps, as interesting as I do. If you would like to suggest some questions or topics for our first two guests, please e-mail me at kevin@dogloversdigest.com or leave a comment here, suggestions (or volunteers) for future guests on Woof Wednesday are encouraged as well.

Cheers

Kevin, Jackie, Gavin, Annie, Tosha

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Jan 24 2010

Are Dog People Just Born or Do They Evolve Over Time?

I am a dog owner; but more than that, I am dog person. For those of you who don’t know me, here are my credentials.

My dogs live in the house.
My dogs sleep on my bed.
I don’t own a piece of clothing that hasn’t been dogified in some way.
I spend money on my dogs for food, healthcare, toys, training, exercise, and just for the hell of it.
I actively include my dogs in my life.
I have relationships with my dogs that are as meaningful to me as my relationships with people.
I actively educate myself about the best ways to care for and train my dogs.
I help others by teaching them how to train and interact with their dogs.

Even though these things are true about me now, it wasn’t always so. I’ve evolved over time from a dog owner into a dog person.

I was brought up in the old school of dog training. Corrections via the leash & choke chain, rolled up newspapers, and punishment for bad behavior were the tools that I was taught to use. I never really thought about it that much and because of sheer luck and good natured tolerant dogs, these tools seemed to produce the results that I wanted.

Luckily for me and my dogs, somebody saw me reprimanding my dog Sundown one day, took me aside and introduced me to positive reinforcement. That introduction was the catalyst that took me from being a dog owner, to a dog person. Before that change, I would say that I loved my dogs, but I was ignorant about the ways in which they learn. I was taught from a young age to train dogs with punitive measures, and even though I loved my dogs, I used the methods I was taught and didn’t think much about them. Now maybe that’s because I was raised in an abusive household in much the same manner or maybe not, but it raises a question that I was reminded of by a tweet on Twitter today. I’m paraphrasing the tweet here, but the basic premise was this. Can anyone who watches Cesar Milan’s show, The Dog Whisperer, who isn’t offended or outraged at the methods he uses, be thought of as compassionate or a dog lover?

For the record, I abhor the methods used by Cesar Milan. As his show evolves, it seems that the methods he uses become more and more punitive in an ever escalating war that Cesar seems to think dogs are waging against humans for dominance over the planet. But are the people that watch him and take his words and methods to heart uncaring, or merely uninformed?

My thought is that many of these people are simply uninformed. They see this man on TV, he’s on an “Animal Friendly” station like The National Geographic Channel, he is all over the talk shows giving the President advice on how to train his dog, and he trains the dogs of the biggest Hollywood stars, why not trust what he says?

If I want to take a positive outlook on life, then I need look at these people as dog owners that need to be helped along the way so they can become dog people. It happened for me and my dogs, it can happen for others.

I want Cesar Milan off the air as quick as possible. I’d love to see him replaced by any one of the good and knowledgeable people like Karen Pryor, Patricia McConnell, or Ian Dunbar just to name a few. But until that happens we have to deal with all the misinformation spread by Cesar and his show. I will speak out against Cesar and his methods in public and in private, but I will give his fans benefit of the doubt by giving them access to information that they just may not have known about. Maybe I can turn them into dog people too.

I know that there are many of you out there that may disagree with me on this, and as always your comments are welcome here. The only way we can learn from each other is by considering the other persons point of view.

Cheers

Kevin, Jackie, Gavin, Annie, Tosha

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Jan 22 2010

Who's Training Who?

Dog dropping a bone at owners feet. I’ve seen a lot of training tips being offered lately that deal with a simple concept, ignoring behaviors that we don’t our dogs to repeat. Whether we know it or not, we are constantly training our dogs. Decisions we make about what to ignore, or what to reinforce, shape the dogs we live with.

I was actually working on another article today when I saw an old battle of who’s training who breakout between my wife, Jackie, and my Aussie, Gavin. As usual in this particular battle, Gavin won.

Sometimes Jackie will prepare a treat for the dogs to keep them occupied while she is doing other things. She takes some bones and stuffs them with a dog biscuit and maybe a little bit of peanut butter and gives the bones to the dogs. This normally keeps Gavin, Annie, and Tosha occupied for quite some time, as they work at trying to get the treat inside. One day while working on his bone, Gavin decided that it was taking just too long to get the prize. He walked up to Jackie in the kitchen and dropped the hard bone loudly on the tile floor. My wife was busy doing other things, but Gavin was persistent and my wife was tired of hearing the bone hit the floor (and her feet) so she reached down and pushed the treat out for him. A behavior was born and the battle was joined.

If Jackie had initially ignored the behavior, Gavin would have eventually quit doing it because a behavior that is not reinforced will decrease in frequency until it ceases. She could have also used negative punishment (the removal from the dog of something that it finds positive) and taken the bone away from Gavin anytime he dropped it like that. Gavin would have learned over time that dropping the yummy bone ay mommy’s feet, makes it go away.

What Jackie has done is inadvertently put Gavin on the slot machine (variable ratios) schedule of reinforcement. The battles between them always end in Jackie’s paying out a jackpot. Sometimes it takes ten bone drops, sometimes it takes a hundred bone drops, but it always ends with Gavin being paid off. Gavin knows that with each pull of the slot machine lever, he is that much closer to hitting the jackpot.

Jackie could still use both methods mentioned earlier to end this behavior. In the first instance it might take days for the initial stand off to result in Gavin giving in. He would end up coming back from time to time to offer the bone drop again, and if Jackie were to give in just one of those times, the behavior would come back with a vengeance and even stronger than before. She could also just use the negative punishment method and take the bone away when he drops it, but she’s just too much of a softie for that; and besides, as she puts it, they wouldn’t want to deprive me of a good chuckle!

Cheers

Kevin, Jackie, Gavin, Annie, Tosha

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0 comments - Posted by Kevin Myers at 4:24 PM - Categories: Dogs | Humor | Treats | Training | Behavior

Jan 20 2010

No Magic Required

Usually when something sounds too good to be true, it is! Unfortunately making something sound too good to be true, is a great way to sell it. Imparting some “magical” or “mystical” property to a product or idea, causes the “what if” wiring that is a part of every human brain to activate. Even though a part of our brain recognizes that something is not right, there is another part of our brain that wonders; “What if it’s true?” One of the first commandments of sales is this: Fear of loss is greater than desire for gain. That’s why every car salesman you’ve ever dealt with has reminded you that if you don’t buy that car this second, it might not be there when you get back.

As I was tweeting today I came across this post from Cesar Millan:

“If you find yourself laughing at your dog’s bad behavior, stop! To a dog, the energy he senses equals affection and excitement. “

Cesar would have us believe that sensing and projecting energy are magical tools that we need to train and interact with our dogs. But as with most things, the simple truth is that patience, persistence, clear instruction, and hard work are how results are produced.

As I tweeted after Cesar’s post, dogs do not sense energy, they read body language. There is nothing magical or mystical about it. If dogs were able to sense energy, then teaching a blind or deaf dog would be a piece of cake for anyone that could produce the right energy; wouldn’t it?

It comes down to this. To train a dog you don’t need to project assertive energy, you need to present clear and instructive direction in a way your dog can understand; and the best way to do that is by proven scientific means. By using Positive Reinforcement and Classical Conditioning, the only thing magical will be the relationship you build with your dog.

Cheers

Kevin, Jackie, Gavin, Annie, Tosha

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Jan 16 2010

Are We Training Our Dog or Training for a Fight?

While watching the TV show The Dog Whisperer the other night, I decided to close my eyes and listen very carefully to the words and phrases being used on the show. Following is a partial list:

claim your space
confront him
don’t be a passive human
striking stance
primal behavior
master of the house
be dominant
chaos
be top dog
aggressive
aggression
attack
don’t be weak

If I didn’t know better, I'd think I was listening to the instructor of a self defense class. Why does training a dog have to sound like a life and death struggle straight out of the Coliseum?

One possible answer has nothing to do with training dogs and everything to do with selling ads on TV. Drama and confrontation sell. A catchphrase like “Calm Assertive Pack Leader” is great for branding a TV show, but the meaning behind it is truly misapplied when it comes to training and interacting with domestic dogs. If you think that living with a dog means a constant battle for household supremacy, why have a dog in the first place?

The truth of the matter is that training your dog doesn’t have to be constant battle of wills and can in fact be fun and exciting for both you and your dog. By using Positive Reinforcement and Classical Conditioning, we can train our dogs without having to resort to the tactics of the schoolyard bully.

Following are just a few of the many great resources out there that deal with the science of training, proving once again that science can be fun:

As always this list is not complete and I know that there are many other great sites out there with good information on positive training. If you know of a good resource that should be listed here, just leave us a comment and we will update this post.

As an addendum to this post I would like to add a link to the site BEYOND CESAR MILLAN. For those of you who think that Cesar's methods are effective or harmless, please visit this site. It has a ton of information from qualified professionals that have studied that actual science of animal behavior and learning.

Kevin, Jackie, Gavin, Annie, Tosha

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