In Italy, their Coast Guard rescues about 3000 people every year. That’s a lot of work. Over 20 years ago they decided to get some help — from dogs.
After 3 years of training a successful candidate works with human rescuers to help reach people and, if necessary, retrieve them. It’s no surprise that while any dog over about 65 pounds can be accepted into the training, most of the dogs are Lab, Goldens, or Newfies.
Here’s a video from MSNBC with some footage of the training:
Earlier I wrote about being “over threshold” — an emotional state that is intense and overwhelming enough that learning is almost impossible. Dogs that display aggressive behavior on leash often enter this state, and a key part of modifying this behavior is not letting them get there. (Or at least not letting them get there too often.)
The key to systematic desensitization and counter-conditioning (CC&DS) is presenting the triggering stimulus (usually an approaching dog in this case) without letting things get out of hand. I usually tell clients to think of it as a sliding scale of one to ten: one is asleep, ten is biting something with intent to harm. When working CC&DS we want to be somewhere around the middle: the dog needs to be aware of the stimulus but not over threshold. (The threshold is not ten. Where it is, and where the right level to be working is, varies from dog to dog and situation to situation.)
A common complaint is that a dog goes over threshold so suddenly that it is impossible to predict. Their dog shows “random” or “sudden” aggression, and working CC&DS is not possible.
Aggressive behavior is rarely, if ever, random or spontaneous. In the case of on-leash aggression, we already know the trigger: other dogs encountered when on leash. The only real question is the specifics. On approach? On recede? From behind? Bigger dogs? Smaller dogs? White dogs? Black dogs? All dogs, all the time?
There is always a specific trigger or, more accurately, a specific set of triggers. There’s also always at least one visible sign before a dog “explodes” into an over threshold aggressive display.
Figuring out these signals requires a good working knowledge of canine body language. For example any of the following could be an indication that a dog is becoming anxious:
The indication is there. A big part of the trainer’s role in helping someone deal with a fearful or aggressive dog is teaching her to read her dog and take control of a situation before things get out of hand.
Photo Credit: geyergus
Two pet product recalls were announced last Friday. They both involve rather popular products, so I want to share them here.
Merrick has recalled some of their popular Beef Filet Squares. In this case “announce” means slipping a press release into the queue at the last possible minute on a Friday evening before a three day holiday weekend. This is the second recall for this product this year, but you wouldn’t know that from the latest press release.
I can’t describe how disappointing this is for me, Not the recall — these things happen — but how Merrick has handled this. I will not directly recommend a food to a client: that’s not my area of expertise. But Merrick was always on the list of foods I would tell a client to take a look at. It was always in the rotation for my three dogs too.
Note the past tense on both.
United Pet Group, who you may have never heard of, has recalled a variety of stuff, including some supplements for both dogs and cats. The products are sold under a wide variety of names and a in bunch of different place. They used the same last minute tactics as Merrick. Here is the FDA release with a complete listing of products affected.
Pet Connection has a posting about these recalls here, with well-deserved kudos for the blogger that broke the story.
I’m still on a combination catch-up and vacation. Chances are I will not be making any “real” posts here until next week.
I realize I promised a training post on Tuesday, but because of a few pressing issues, I need to take a few days off from the blog. I’ll be back next week.
Have a great Fourth, and remember: fireworks can be very frightening for your dog. Make sure you have him/her/them under supervision.
Photo Credit: Bob B. Brown
I have mentioned Dr. V and her Pawcurious blog a few times. Her blog bridges the gap between entertainment and education in a way that I am still aspiring too match.
So, I am proud to bring you a guest post from Dr. V herself:
The veterinary behaviorist consulted her appointment schedule and pointed to the 2 o’clock appointment. “Aggression consultation- needs evaluation for homeowners insurance.” As the veterinary student rotating through the behavior service, my job was to take notes and observe.
In walked the family- an elderly Golden retriever, two parents, and three small children. “So what’s going on?” the behaviorist asked, consulting her notes. “Brandy bit a child on the face?”
“Yes,” the mother replied. “One of my daughter’s friends was over, and didn’t see Brandy as she was sleeping in the hall. She tripped over her, woke the dog up, and I guess she startled her by falling on her head.” We looked at Brandy, resting quietly on the floor as the three kids crawled all over her. “She told her parents that it was her fault, and they weren’t upset, but since she required a stitch the hospital was required to report it to animal control.”
The two year old pulled on Brandy’s lips, stretching them into a smile. “She was in quarantine at animal control for two weeks,” the mother said sadly. “And my homeowners insurance is considering dropping us.” Brandy thumped her tail happily as the toddler shouted, “WE MISSED HER” into her ear.
After a long period of questioning and a thorough exam, we came to two conclusions: 1. Brandy had arthritis that was undertreated, and 2. She did not exhibit any signs of aggression. All these years later, I never forgot that case. The dog didn’t need behavioral therapy! She needed Rimadyl!
Veterinarians and trainers work hand-in-hand on a daily basis to try and understand why our pets do the things they do. With time and experience, both experts learn the signs that clue us in as to whether a pet has a problem rooted in behavior or in medicine. Here are some classic examples:
1. My dog suddenly regressed on his potty training.
Dogs with a long history of being thoroughly housebroken that suddenly start having accidents are most commonly dealing with a medical issue. Some common medical causes of inappropriate urination can be diabetes, Cushings disease, cystitis, bladder tumors, incontinence, renal disease, or orthopedic disease. In fact, the number one cause of death in dogs with Cushings (an adrenal disorder) is euthanasia from owners who can no longer deal with the urinating in the house (a side effect of overproducing urine.)
2. My cat is suddenly peeing outside the box.
This one is a little trickier, as litterbox aversion is a common and complicated behavioral issue that can be challenging to differentiate from marking without expert guidance. In either case, one also needs to rule out the common urologic problems in cats: cystitis, diabetes, renal disease, or blockage.
3. My dog just had a major aggressive episode.
We recently had a case in our clinic with a very sweet 3 year old terrier who, without warning, attacked the other dog in the house, then the owner when he tried to break them up. The concerned owner went directly to their experienced trainer, who decided that something didn’t make sense when he got the full history. After some detective work and a consult with a neurologist, they learned that the young dog had a brain tumor, and began radiation therapy.
The challenge with behavioral issues is that there is often not a good way to definitively diagnose that problem. In most cases, diagnosis is made by exclusion- by getting a thorough history, and then ruling out the underlying medical issues that can masquerade as a behavioral one.
Any time there is a sudden onset of an unusual behavior, an abrupt change in a long-standing habit, it raises a red flag for me. When these types of situations arise, it’s invaluable to have both a vet and a trainer you trust, who can work together and with you to find out what’s going on with your pet.
You can find Dr. V at Pawcurious, where she blogs about her life as a vet, mom, and pet owner. As a matter of fact, I have a guest post over there today about thunderphobia.
Somewhere in the top ten reasons that people contact me for training help is on-leash aggression. Often when they do contact me people are bewildered — their otherwise friendly dog simply goes crazy when they encounter another dog while out on a walk!
This is a very common problem. Why does it happen?
These are all variations on a theme – being on-leash becomes associated with fear and frustration. So what can be done to avoid or alleviate this problem?
Well, if you are not already experiencing this problem here are a few key steps:
How can you alleviate it? Well, you may need to seek some help from a trainer. There is no quick fix for this issue. Implementing the list of preventative steps above will go a long way toward making on-leash aggression easier to deal with, but it will not go away by itself.
Like most behavior problems, systematic counter-conditioning and desensitization are going to be a part of the solution. Gradually introducing other dogs at a distance, and then closing the distance while giving your dog very high value rewards (often food), and practicing defensive on-leash techniques, changes your dog’s opinion reduces the fear and frustration.
Classes like St. Hubert’s Dog Training School’s Feisty Fido class are geared toward practicing these techniques. These classes are fantastic since your dog gets the attention required to keep things safe, while also providing you with access to other dogs for the training.
I’ll be revisiting this issue a few more times over the next few weeks. Are you experiencing this problem? What have you tried to address it? Have you had success? Let me know in the comments.
I’ll be taking this week off and will be back next week with my customary Tuesday and Thursday posts.
Have a great Memorial Day!
Guilty or Afraid?
Edie Jarolim of the Will My Dog Hate Me blog and Am I Boring My Dog book asked me to address six of the more pervasive myths about dog training and dog behavior.
I had a lot of fun thinking about these myths, and we ended up with enough for two blog posts. The first 3 dog training myths are over on Will My Dog Hate Me.
Don’t introduce a puppy to other dogs and people too soon; he might get sick.
This is exactly the opposite of what you should do! Socialization during the first 3 months of life is critical for a puppy. Puppies are open to meeting new people and experiencing new environments during this period, and careful socialization pays huge dividends, while isolation can incur a tremendous cost in behavioral problems later in life.
Socialization is so critical that the American Veterinary Society of Animal has issued a position statement recommending puppy socialization become a part of every puppy’s life, stating that “Behavioral issues, not infectious diseases, are the number one cause of death for dogs under three years of age.”
You can always tell when your dog did something bad because he has a guilty look on his face when he sees you.
Alexandra Horowitz, professor, researcher, and author of the excellent Inside of a Dog
She invited some people and their dogs to run an experiment. The dogs were left alone in a room and told not to eat a treat. In some cases the dogs were then given the treat after their humans left, while others were not. When the people returned they were frequently told the opposite of what happened!
Dogs most often looked guilty when their people were disciplining them, whether they had eaten the treat or not.
It turns out that what we read as a “guilty look” is in fact an appeasing and fearful look. They’re not saying “I’m sorry.” They are saying “Please don’t hurt me.”
Makes you think, doesn’t it?
Old dogs can’t learn new tricks.
When we adopted Buddha he was somewhere between 4 and 6 years old. (It was hard to tell with his badly broken teeth.) He was not house-trained. He panicked the first time we put a leash on him. He literally did not understand “sit.” A year later he had already passed Canine Good Citizen, was a Delta pet partner, and became the best of my three dogs for demonstrations in classes. Oh yeah, he stopped peeing in the foyer too.
Learning never stops for dogs. (Not sure if we can say that about all people though.) When a fifteen year old dog’s food dish is moved across the room he learns where it is using the same process that he would learn how to sit for a treat.
What may be difficult for an older dog is learning new habits over old. When we talk about how strong a behavior is, trainers often refer to the “reinforcement history.” Fifteen years of jumping up on Aunt Edna and getting a pat on the head is a long reinforcement history, and changing the behavior is not going to be as easy as changing it would have been 14 and half years ago.
While working on the curriculum for my classes at the Maywood Veterinary Clinic as well as another location I can’t talk about yet, I’ve spent quite a bit if time lately thinking about what behaviors are essential for a pet dog.
This is only a list of essential behaviors, not a list that’s intended to be exhaustive. It’s more along the lines of “if you could only bring five behaviors with you to a desert island, what would they be?”
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; eye contact is the foundation for all dog training.
Impulse control, impulse control, impulse control. It doesn’t come installed: we have to add it.
Being able to prevent your dog from taking things isn’t just essential for keeping the peace, it may save your dog’s life.
But when it comes to saving your dog’s life, getting him to come when called is critical.
Walking nicely on leash isn’t just a convenience – it’s an important aspect of harmonious living. A dog that cannot be safely walked is often resented and often has a diminished quality-of-life.
What do you think?
Product Review: K9 Cuisine and Taste of the Wild
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Until recently Evo and Merrick were in our kibble rotation (with a few others). Proctor and Gamble recently purchased Natura, the manufacturer of Evo, which takes it off the table. Meanwhile, Merrick has so badly mishandled a spate of recalls that they can never be trusted again.
When I attended BlogPaws in April I met Anthony Holloway from K9 Cuisine. We had a great conversation over why he started his company and I had made a mental note to check it out. Mental notes don’t work very well for me. At least I have to lose paper notes. The mental ones just disappear.
Fast forward to early last month, when K9 Cuisine contacts me with an offer to order some complementary food to review. The timing was really good, given the aforementioned issues with two of my favorite foods. Around that same time I was talking with a friend of mine, a vet tech with a new puppy, about food and she mentioned Taste of the Wild and how she thought it was a great food but had a hard time finding it. The name sounded familiar, and I realized that Anthony had mentioned it when were at BlogPaws.
So I ordered some.
The way the offer worked was excellent – I went to the site and ordered just like any other customer, so I was able to see how the website works and how it is shipped to a “regular” client.
The site is superb. The navigation is smooth and it is very easy to find what you are looking for. The search also works very nicely. Food is displayed with a handy set of tabs where you can view ingredients, analysis, feeding instructions and comments from other customers. Everything you need to make an informed decision.
(click to see a larger version)
The shipping was fast. I had the food within a few days. I have since ordered two more bags and they showed up within three (it may have been two, but I’m not sure) days. Shipping is free for orders over $50! So I got 2 bags of kibble shipped to my house in three days for free.
As far as Taste of the Wild goes, well like I said, I have since ordered two more 30 pound bags. The ingredients (you can check them out here) are high quality and all three of my dogs are doing great after a full month on it.
So far the salmon, the bison, and the fowl, have all passed the Buddha taste test — which is not easy to do. Buddha is not a picky eater at all, but he does have an interesting way of telling us how much he likes a food. If it’s O.K. he eats lying down. But if he stands up to eat, it’s some good stuff. He’s been standing to eat since mid-July. Our compliments to the chef!