THE OTHER END OF THE LEASH

We’ve been talking about markers and secondary reinforcers, and there have been some great comments about using clickers in some contexts and not in others. Like many readers, I use clickers for some training, and not for others. Your comments got me thinking about why I use them sometimes, why I don’t use them others, and the physics of why clicks can be such a powerful marker (and/or reinforcement).

First, I don’t use clickers for all training. This is partly because I am a classic “absent minded professor” and there are just too many times in the world in which I forget everything but my head. I also admit that I am always happiest when it is just me and a dog–no clicker, no leash and as soon as practical, no food as reinforcement.

However, I’ve always used clickers for trick training. As I thought about what’s different between training tricks and other behaviors, I realized that tricks are often asking a dog to do something she doesn’t normally do, and so the precision of a clicker when you are shaping a new behavior is invaluable. To me (and this is very much just as matter of individual preference) that kind of precision isn’t necessary when training a dog to perform a behavior on cue that she normally does anyway. Teaching Sit and Lie Down is so darn easy that the precision of a clicker isn’t as important as it is when teaching something that requires shaping.

THE BENEFITS OF CLICKS There is no question that clicks have many advantages over words as markers. For one thing, they are short, usually only 100-200 milliseconds or so, while even a one syllable word is going to be at least twice as long. That’s part of why clicks are more precise. In addition, clicks are what are called “broad band” sounds, meaning that the sound contains energy in a broad range of frequencies, from high to low. That’s an advantage when ‘talking’ to mammals. We have what’s called a “tonotopic’ acoustic receptor system, meaning that each cell in the brain that receives sound is programmed to respond to a narrow range of frequencies. Some cells are stimulated most readily at 500 Hz, others at 1,000 Hz. That means that “broad band” sounds like clicks, which have energy in a large range of frequencies, light up lots of cells at the same time, like a busy switchboard, while “narrow band” sounds like words have energy in a smaller range of frequencies.

In addition, clicks are what are called “instant onset/offset,” so that the energy in the sound begins at full force, rather than gradually increasing in amplitude. That creates what looks like a “wall of sound” that stimulates cells that look for ‘edges.’ Make sense? [I remember there is some research that supports clicks being more effective training markers, but I don't have time to look it up. I'll bet it's on Karen Pryor's website....]

Here’s a not-so-great image from my dissertation that illustrates a “picture” of short, broad band sounds… look at the vertical bands in the top left.Clicks are very much like those tall vertical bands, whereas speech is far messier and less precise.

That said, I still don’t use the clicker all the time, and for the last few years have used “yes” as a verbal marker. But that’s a sloppy word, very hard to say with precision (“yesssssssss”). You need a nice, clipped stop consonant at the end.  I messed around the last few days with just making a tongue click, but for some reason my brain and mouth don’t want to do that. I’ve thought about “Yep!” but I’m concerned about it sound like “Hope.” Hummmm, still pondering. Would love to hear what you all use besides “yes” and tongue clicks! (Which are a great idea, but my brain just wants to use speech, sloppy as it is).

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: We had a lovely, relaxing Sunday morning at a good friend’s, Hope playing with an 8 month old BC, Willie and I getting to work sheep in a big, open field.  We’ve worked so little this summer I didn’t know what to expect, but Will did great, listening beautifully and slowing his pace nicely when asked. Boy is four years old different than two or three! Notice that the sheep are moving at just the right speed… not too fast to get panicked, not too slowly to end up turning and challenging the dog.

Here’s Hope and his buddy Hap. Hope looks oh-so-serious  here (and doesn’t he look grown up for a 5 month old dog?), but the two of them played beautifully, lots of loose body, open mouth puppy play. Was fun to watch.

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We’ve been talking about secondary reinforcers and markers, and the good question has come up about the difference between them. On the one hand, we know that a click or a “yes” can be used to communicate to a dog that a specific behavior is what is about to be reinforced. Clicking or saying “yes” at exactly the right moment is incredibly powerful in that it is a precise way of communicating to an animal exactly what it was doing that will elicit the reinforcement (clicks are more precise than words, by the way).

However, you could also call a click or “yes” a 2ndary reinforcer, since to be effective it is paired with a primary reinforcer like food, and the animal learns to associate the click/marker with the treat, right? So which is it? Ah, you gotta love the English language: sometimes it helps us understand things, sometimes it makes things more confusing.

Let me answer that question from a different perspective. Ethology, the study of animal behavior in its natural environment, spends a lot of time studying communication. One of the traditional ways at looking at communication is to distinguish between the Message and the Meaning. The Message can be thought of as what the sender is trying to convey, whether intentionally or not. The Meaning, on the other hand, is the information the receiver gets from the signal. As every human who has ever been in a relationship knows, those aren’t always the same thing. So in this case, the Message  of a click or other marker is clear: “THAT, what you JUST did, is what will get you a treat!” [I first inadvertently wrote "meaning," thanks to an alert reader for noticing the mistake! Jeez]

At the other side of the signal, we  don’t know what the receiver makes of it–do they have any idea that we are intentionally ‘marking’ a behavior?  Are they consciously aware that the click/yes leads to a treat if they do that exact, specific thing again? (They don’t have to be to perform brilliantly, as a matter of fact we’ve all seen animals perform perfectly and then have it all fall apart, often when they start thinking about what they are doing!) Are they simultaneously or uniquely becoming classically conditioned to the sound of a marker (I think they are being CC’d, no matter what else is going on)… It seems reasonable that our dogs, if we could talk to them, would define the Message of a marker as both a marker AND as a 2ndary reinforcer. Perhaps what is most important from our perspective is how we define it, because that is what drives how we use it.Does this make sense? I have to admit sometimes I worry less about labels and more about actual behavior, but still, it’s a fun intellectual inquiry.

Question for you: I’m curious: How many of you use markers, of any kind, at all? Did you consciously decide to use a marker and follow it up with praise (sometimes, as a 2ndary)…? If you use a marker in the strict sense of the word, what do you use? Click from a clicker? A word?

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: Over 6 inches in the last 24 hours. No kidding. Another 1 to 3 today. Eeeeeps. Last night there were many small tornadoes reported in the area, one not far at all from the farm. I take these babies very seriously, the infamous Barneveld tornado (9 people killed, the town 90% destroyed) freight-trained just one valley away from my farm, less than a 1/2 mile away, and I will never forget the impact of the first view I had of a close neighbor’s farm, metal roofing blown over a 1/2 mile into tree trunks, 5 buildings destroyed, the ground littered with siding and bricks and fertilizer and corn and thousands of things in tiny pieces too small to identify.

I was in town with friends during the worst of it, and we were all happy to return home to find the structures still standing, the dogs, cats, sheep, etc. fine. Sorry, no pictures yet, it was raining, again, so hard this morning when I left that I didn’t want to take the camera outside.

But here’s Hopey-boy (don’t you love knicknames?), a  helpless victim of Sherman the Sheep, who somehow developed a wound in his neck and is attempting to blame it all on an innocent little puppy. Tall two-leg female is not upset, however. Sherman has been played with, tugged upon, bitten, and thrown around every day for a long time, and has shown an impressive amount of stamina. Besides, we just got in Polly the Pig (seriously) to sell on the website, and Tall Two-Leg is forced to take her home for the dogs to try out. Poor dogs.

I wish the world could have seen Ken’s seminar on Sunday in Worcester MA, it was fantastic. For those of you who don’t know his name, he is the Training Director and Senior Trainer at the Shedd Acquarim, has trained exotic animals for over 30 years, and could train just about anyone to do anything. I left inspired and crazed to train something, anything, and had to stop myself from trying to teach the flight attendant to scratch her head on cue.

When I got home, close to midnight, I sat down with Hope and taught him to flip his hips sideways while lying down to “Settle” before I even walked upstairs. Took five minutes. Scary easy, and extra fun because of being inspired by Ken.

However, in order to get home Sunday night, I had to miss the last hour of Ken’s videos. I heard they were great… anyone care to tell us what I missed?

Here’s what I didn’t miss: some excellent points about what are often called “Secondary Reinforcers.” [Note to training geeks: there are some details about terminology that Ken went into that I found fascinating, but it would take a couple of posts to explain them, and you're better off going to see Ken in person if you are interested in terminology.] But here is a summary of points that I think are  relevant to all of us:

First, many of you know that “Primary Reinforcers” are things that are inherently reinforcing (that automatically cause an animal to increase the frequency of a behavior). Strictly speaking, they are things that an animal needs to survive: food, water, etc. When you give your dog a treat for sitting on cue, you are using a primary reinforcer.

Secondary reinforcers are things that are learned by an animal to be associated with Primary Reinforcers, and thus eventually elicit a similar response through classical conditioning. For example, if you repeat “Good Dog” and follow up it with a treat enough times, eventually your dog will work to hear you say it. But here’s what I learned from Ken:

It is critical to continue to link a secondary with a primary  part of the time, no matter how long you’ve been using it. In his experience with his animals (who have to perform perfectly in shows and when being treated medically), even if the animal inherently enjoys the secondary reinforcement, it has to be maintained with a primary if you want a totally reliable behavior. That’s true even if the animal loves the secondary reinforcement. For example, at the Shedd, Beluga Whales love having their tongues rubbed, it clearly feels good to them and they seek it out. However, Ken considers it still a secondary reinforcement, and is very careful not to over use it.

He advises that you condition ALL secondary behaviors as if they were a behavior. In other words, rub tongue, give treat. Rub dog’s belly, give treat. Even if your dog likes it inherently, initially reinforce it with food if your dog likes food. That makes it much more powerful in the long run.

Once your dog is clearly thrilled with what you are doing, then begin to use it as reinforcement by asking for a simple behavior, then use your 2ndary R, and follow with the primary R. After that, for a long time, use the 2ndary by itself only twice in a session, and never in a row. Gradually increase the use of the 2ndary, but be very careful not to overuse it. (By the way, he is NOT talking about a click for those of you who are clicker trainers. He considers that a marker, not a reinforcer.) Clearly there is a lot to talk about here, but this is enough for now to get us all thinking about the issue.

MEANWHILE, back on the farm, I had a chance to think especially  hard about all this the day after the seminar. I loaded up the dogs, the plastic bags, the treats, the water, the camera and the leashes and drove over to a wonderful place to walk the dogs. Hope has been there off leash 5 times before, but I am very careful because in the beginning it is close to a road. In the past he’s gotten lots and lots of food treats for coming when called, and for checking in with me on his own.

When we arrived I looked for my bait bag and discovered I’d left it on the counter in the house. Whoops, no food. No primary reinforcer for a young pup who was going to be off leash for 45 minutes. I pondered keeping him on leash the entire time (I always start with him on leash) and thus him getting less exercise, but decided to forge ahead because 1) the path has a natural boundary of high grasses 2) Hope tends to follow Will, who always stays on the path 3) Hope has had 5 lessons there and had done very well and 4) I DID have a primary reinforcer: water. It was hot, and I knew the dogs would be thirsty after not very long. So I decided to risk it, but here’s what I did:

1. Unlike our other trips, during which I called him back to me often for training purposes, I decided to call him back only when absolutely necessary. I knew he wouldn’t always be thirsty, and wanted to have the water retain its power. I ended up calling him to come five times in 45 minutes. Every time he came he got water, but I didn’t let him drink his fill. The last time he drank one quick lap and moved away, so I immediately leashed him up. We were close to the end anyway, and at a place I have always put him back on leash, because it gets close to the road.

2. I used Willie to move Hope around in space, calling Willie (by name “Willie Willie!). This helped a lot and meant I only had to call Hope 5 times total. I also used clapping to get the dogs to come. Clapping is not trained as a recall, but is used to motivate the dogs to speed up, sometimes when they are playing with each other, sometimes when running to me. I could use it without polluting my “Hope, That’ll Do!” cue.

3. I managed to keep my hands to myself and never pet Hope when he came back, because he behaves as though he hates it when he is active. He only likes petting when he is sleepy and tired. Petting would have been punishment. Most relevant to Ken’s talk, I didn’t fool myself that “Good Dog” or any other 2ndary R was going to be effective, at least not for long. And I didn’t want to take away its power, so I said “Good Dog” only twice before he started to drink, and kept my mouth shut the rest of the time. Please send chocolate, this is not easy for me.

4. I was ready at any second to bail and put him on leash if I saw the slightest sign that he was going to get himself into trouble. Most of the walk was a long, long away from the road, and there were plenty of scents and sounds to keep him occupied. If he had put his head up and started air sniffing, or completely ignored any signals from me, I would have leashed him up in a microsecond.

Here he is, coming when called, Goooooooooooood Boy!

And here I am Saturday night in Masssachusetts, after a lovely dinner with our host Dana Crevling from Dogs of Course!, another trainer Carolyn whose last name I have rudely forgotten, Ken Ramirez and Karen Pryor (how great that she was there too for the entire weekend!). We ate at a restaurant with a giant crab balloon on its roof. Seriously. And I only had one Corona for dinner,  honest.

Have you seen the latest issue of The APDT Chronicle? It has a fantastic article by Suzanne Hetts and Daniel Estep (both CAAB & Ph.D) titled Safety and Ethics in Working with Dog-to-Dog Aggression. Anyone who treats dog-dog aggression, or who has a dog who might have that problem would do well to read it. (And to stay tuned, Chronicle will have more articles on dog-dog aggression in several issues to follow–Pia Silvani and I are writing one together for an upcoming issue.)

One of the important points they make is that dog-dog aggression is often not taken as seriously as aggression toward humans, and yet, it can have horrific effects on both species. No one knows better than they: their Dalmation and Irish Setter were brutally attacked by a loose dog last year, and were only saved thanks to the efforts of 4 people–Dan, Suzanne and 2 brave and altruistic passers-by. Suzanne’s hand was broken and was in a cast for 5 weeks. Dan, Suzanne and the dogs were seriously traumatized . . . how could they not have been?

And yet, we all know of people who are willing to work with dog-dog aggression cases, but not cases in which humans are the targets (at least not directly.) However, aggression toward any species can result in serious injury, even death, and needs to be taken seriously before someone takes on the task of trying to help with it. The article in The Chronicle does a great job of listing what is needed to be able to ethically and responsibly work with dog-dog aggression cases. If you can’t get a hold of a copy of the magazine (July/August 2010), they summarize it on their website, Animal Behavior Associates.

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: I’m in the usual flurry of trip prep, leaving tomorrow at dark thirty to do a seminar for Dogs of Course outside of Boston. I speak on The Biology of Emotions on  Saturday, and Ken Ramirez talks on Sunday on Solving Training Problems, Non-Food Reinforcers among other things. I’m staying on to hear Ken’s talk; I always learn a lot when I listen to him speak. The seminar is booked solid and I don’t think they can take any more registrations (waiting list?), but come up and say hi if you are a blog reader. It always warms my cockles, wherever the heck my cockles are, to meet a blog reader in person.

Speaking of cockles, or words vaguely related (sorry, can you tell I’m getting a little slap happy?), here’s a visitor to the farm. There are lots of turkeys in the area, they’ve flourished here once they were re-introduced, but they usually don’t come knocking on the front door. This one was all by himself beside the garage as I drove up. As I struggled to quietly get out my camera and get the window down. he strolled across the driveway and meandered up the hill behind the house, but in the pictures he is just a few feet from the garage. The pictures aren’t great quality, but I can’t resist giving him (her?) some press.

Lots of dogs go through a “what’s in it for me?” stage (and this stage lasts longer in some dogs than others, right?). Mr. Hope is dancing around it right now, especially when I ask him to come into the house. Several of you asked about ways to handle it; not surprising, since most dogs aren’t like the Lassie on television and don’t automatically do what we want just because we love them.

Here are some of the things I’m doing right now to get Hope to come back into the house from the yard. Of course, “But I don’t wannnaaaaaa” is going to occur in different contexts, but many of the principles here apply to all situations, they just need modifying to fit the problem.

COMING IN MEANS GOING OUT Hope loves loves loves to be outside. He’d happily stay outside all day long if he could. So, sometimes, his reinforcement for coming inside is . . . wait for it . . . going outside. It’s the perfect example of the Premack Principle:  using a high probability behavior to reinforce a low probability one. I can count on him always going outside (high probability) because he loves it there, so I can use that to reinforce him for coming inside (right now it’s a low probability that he’d do it on his own). That means that sometimes when he comes in when asked, I say Good Boy! and dash outside again for a few more minutes.

JEALOUSY IS YOUR FRIEND This only works if there is some other living thing in your house that loves food or toys. But if you do, it’s powerful stuff. When Hope started pausing 20 feet away when I called him to come into the house, I began calling Willie and giving him a treat when he came. Will always comes when called, and I can give him a treat for coming and entering the house whenever I need to. As soon as Hope saw Willie getting a treat,  he instantly came running, only to discover that treats are only available on a limited basis. “Oh, too bad” I say, with sincere sympathy. “You missed the treats this time!” Right now he isn’t getting a treat for coming to the door ‘late,’ but if he then enters the house I’ll give him a treat once he’s inside.

UP THE ANTE I always have a mix of food treats available, from pieces of kibble to real meat. Right now he gets a jack pot of real meat if he comes, first time, when I call him to the door to the house.

MIX IT UP I’m very conscious with Hope of the importance of varying not just the reinforcement schedule, but what Hope gets as a reinforcement. You want to mix it up with any dog, but for some reason it feels more important with Hope than with others I’ve had. He’s pretty independent (okay, for a BC), and I want to condition him early on that if he does what I ask he’ll feel good (versus the more narrow “he’ll get food”). Although I use high value food most of the time for coming into the house, I also use play, effusive praise in which I get down on the ground and laugh like a loon while letting him leap all over me and lick me like a popsicle and again, getting to go back outside.

IF HE WON’T MOVE, YOU SHOULD If all else fails, don’t stand where you are and continue to call (and pollute your cue!) The few times that Hope simply plants his feet and won’t move toward me, or turns and goes farther outside to dig or look for sheep poop to eat (a favorite), I stop saying anything, ensure that I have a great food treat in hand, and go to him. Moving quietly, never scolding, I’ll show him what I’m holding and lure him toward me and back to the house. I’ll shape this, giving him a treat for just a few steps if he was overwhelmed with a distraction (New stinky sheep poop! Fox poop even better! Do you get the pattern here? … there is a reason the word for dog in Navajo translates: “eater of horse poop.”). If the distraction was only so-so, I’ll expect him to come further before I give him the treat.

Are we done yet? Oh my no, he’s just beginning adolescence after all. I expect we’ll work on these things for at least a year. However, he is already much improved; I haven’t had to walk to him more than once or twice in the last 4 days.  Now he comes voluntarily when we move from outside to inside about 75% of the time, even when I don’t call him to come, we just run into the house together. That’s an increase from — I’m guessing here — about 20% of the time, so that’s great progress.

What about you? Tell us your stories of your free spirit, and what you’ve done to work through it. I can’t wait to read what you send, and will be sure to have Hope read them too.

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: We had 2 days of hateful weather on our short vacation, but thankfully the weather cleared and we were able to enjoy Perrot State Park in western Wisconsin for a few days. Jim got to take off his hateful Iron Man brace for part of the day and I even hiked up a steep bluff for a little bit, although it was a far cry from what we intended. But we got time off and a sweet visit with my niece and her new husband. Ummmm, so good to visit with such wonderful people. And we’re related! Go figure.

We returned home to a dying lamb, spent Friday night trying to save it, but to no avail. Turns out, even though we have wormed the sheep on a careful schedule and have alternated wormers, that worms all over the world are developing resistance to worming medicines, and that’s what is happening here.  The little white ewe lamb, the one I bottle raised, took a dive when we were away and was too far gone to save by the time we got back. The next day we started a new worming protocol, aware that no matter what we do it might not be enough. Seems so strange to lose an animal to worms — that just doesn’t happen in dogs (yet) but I understand it’s becoming a problem in horses as well. Gotta give those parasites credit, but I hate losing a lamb to something that it seems like I should be able to prevent. There are 2 lambs I have my eye on, one looks especially thin, but all the others are thriving, and clearly are inherently resistant to worms. I’ll pay special attention to which ewes have resistant lambs when I breed next year.

On a lighter note, here’s the small prairie at the foot of the bluffs at Perrot State Park (on the Mississippi flyway). It’s a beautiful park and a lovely little restored prairie. Hard to imagine that there were 10,000’s of thousands of acres of this across the midwest.

And here’s a happy scene to any farmer: a winter’s worth of hay being delivered to the barn. Thank you Gary, Gus, Gordy and Brad for doing all the work while Jim and I felt guilty (but cooler) in the house!

I’m on vacation now, wrote this earlier in the week, but here are some of the pictures I promised while I was gone:

Bee Balm in full bloom in front of the barn. Very 4th of July-ish.

Heavy hydrangea blossoms weighted down by the rain (yes, it’s back, just in time for my vacation, of course!)

Will and Hope playing on the front lawn (love Will’s relaxed open mouth expression):

Those of you who know me or who read the blog a lot know how much I love good food. Ummmmmm. Love it. Since I’m on vacation this week, I thought it appropriate to go off topic a little and share one of my favorite recipes that includes fresh, local food (and enough sugar and oil to balance out any health benefits, oh well). I make it for company and for friends who need a lift. Sometimes I make it and put it in the freezer, because it freezes well, but I never just make it for me and Jim, because then we eat it all up in a few hours and look around, stuffed and embarrassed, wondering how our tummies got so full. Here it is:

Best Carrot Bread Ever

3 c. flour (I use unbleached)        3 eggs, beaten
2 c white sugar                               1 c canola oil
2 – 3 TB cinnamon                        1 1/2 c grated carrots
1/2 tsp ginger                                 1 c. applesauce (I use apple butter that I make from wild apples, but reg is good too)
1/2 tsp nutmeg                              2 TB vanilla
1/2 tsp  cloves
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

The original recipe calls for nuts, but I say nuts to them. The apple butter I make from wild apples with lots of cinnamon and nutmeg in it, so be extra liberal with the spices if you like it spicy if you use regular applesauce.

Mix all dry together, mix all wet together. Add dry to wet, put in greased, floured pan, bake one hour or toothpick comes out dry, at 325.

Makes 2 loaves (rises a lot in the oven, don’t fill pan up more than 2/3 full)

And here’s some summer scenes from the farm–so classsic mid-midwestern summer!

One of my favorite native flowers, Liatris spicata or Blazing Star:

While we’re on the subject of books (and ooooh, I love the suggestions from so many of you about books you have loved. Oh boy, can’t wait to check them out. . .), have you seen Sophia Yin’s Low Stress Handling, Restraint & Beh Modification of Dogs and Cats? This is not a cheap book, as a matter of fact, it’s problematically expensive ($117 on Amazon), but it’s a great book to encourage your library or shelter or  vet clinic to get. It has the best, clearest photographs I’ve ever seen of how to, and how not to do just about everything you need to do around a cat or dog: enter a kennel, pick up a cat, restrain a dog, etc. If you are feeling flush, it’d be a great donation to your local humane society. Would that all shelter volunteers had a chance to look at it.

Pages 46 and 47 have the best illustrations of I’ve seen of what greeting an unfamiliar person would look like to a shy dog. Best is the photo that shows that up close, a dog might only see the bottom portions of your legs and not be frightened UNTIL you lean forward and your  huge and scary face descends upon them like doom. (The person in the book’s illustrations has on a scary Halloween mask. What a perfect way to get the point across!)

You don’t need to be a vet tech or shelter worker to profit from looking at this book though (although every one in a clinic or shelter should have access to this book). I page through it sometimes when I’m eating my lunch, always comparing the “Correct” versus “Incorrect” photographs within the book. There are hundreds of color photos in the book and they are remarkably clear and easy to follow. There’s also a great section on behavior modification, with photos illustrating, for example, the difference between de-sensitizing and sensitizing (a woman looks at a spider in a glass cage with cautious interest, versus a woman being restrained while someone thrusts a spider in her face). The use of putting people in the positions into which we put dogs is brilliantly done. Here here Sophia!

I’d be curious how many of you have seen it. I’m thinking of calling my local shelter and asking if they have a copy. Maybe you could do the same, and if they don’t, helping to find a way to get it for them. Many won’t be able to buy it themselves, but hey, we’re creative, right? Maybe do some fund raising among your dog lover friends? Get your vet clinic to buy two, one for them and one for the shelter? Any other ideas?

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: Hope showed no visible reactions to his last vaccination, good news for us. I’ll never know if it’s the chinese meds, the cooked greens or that he just wasn’t going to react anyway. It could also have been because  I separated out the Lepto vaccine, which is famous for physical reactions (allergic–swelling, breathing problems, rashes) but not necessarily for behavioral ones. But we seemed to have dodged that bullet anyway. He still needs another Lepto (a big problem in this area, or I’d skip it), his Rabies vaccine and neutering. I’ll be so glad when all that is over.

However, adolescence appears to be starting early. Mr. What’s in It For Me? just showed up, and is now learning that ignoring recalls means that Willie gets all the treats cuz he arrived on time and Mr. Teenager did not. (4 months seems a tad early for all this, but then, they just don’t read the books, do they?) Most of the time he just makes me laugh, although last night I used my sweetest voice to call him some names that shall not be repeated here. This too shall pass; I can’t imagine what this feels like if you’re not expecting it! He is doing beautifully on so many things though; he loves walking in town now and can’t throw out downs, sits or “get backs” fast enough when I ask for something. And Willie and Hope play so well together, with Will always seeming thrilled to see Hope if we’ve been gone anywhere. I remind myself of that when he begins to push my buttons.

The high pressure beautiful weather has held, resulting in puffy cloud skies and cool evenings. Gorgeous. High summer is coming back though, hot, humid and rainy weather is right around the corner. We’ll be on vacation next week, an honest to goodness-not-taking-the-laptop-not-checking-email vacation. We had planned one earlier, but spent it taking care of Jim’s surgery and my smashed knee. We’ll try to keep our body parts intact this time. We’re supposed to be hiking on the Mississippi River bluffs; Instead I’ll be strolling for a bit and then waving goodbye to the rest of the group as they hike up the hills, and going back to the room to read novels and do my leg exercises. Sounds darn good to me, no complaints. I’m going to take some more pictures this weekend to post next week, hope you enjoy them.

Speaking of pictures, I took this yesterday afternoon on the way to the farm from the office. Gotta love those Kleenex clouds and that corn well over “knee high by the fourth of July!”

A dear person sent me a book titled American Lambs, by T Yamamoto. It’s subtitled “Poems and Stories about Working Border Collies, Sheep, Family and Life on the Land.” The author explains that it is a mix of real life and fiction, but is all based on a real island off the North West coast in which sheep were allowed to graze the pastures and beaches until the rural land slowly, inexorably, evolved into a landscape of urban dwellers who, in the author’s words “didn’t realize that they were changing the exact things they loved about the land.”

But don’t think this is a sad book. It is a rich and moving celebration of our connection to animals and the land. I loved it, absolutely loved it, and I don’t think you need to have sheep or herding dogs to love it too. I read it in one night, and was sorry to turn the last page.

I also just finished The Art of Racing in the Rain. It’s a best seller, gotten rave reviews, but I was, uh, well, not equally impressed. Have any of you read it? It’s a novel primarily about a man and a dog, told through the voice of Enzo, a lab-terrier mix. I’ll be the first to agree that the story is gripping–a race car driver’s struggles to maintain custody of his child–but the use of the dog as the speaker comes across to me as just weird. I can see that it’s a handy literary device to describe the action from an “outsider’s” perspective, but there’s just nothing “dog-like” about what the dog says or thinks. Enzo’s dream is that he’ll come back as a person when he dies if he is a good dog now. Perhaps I’m taking this too seriously, but presenting dogs as little more than a stepping stone on the path to being human just doesn’t work for me. Can you spell  egocentric?

In the book, the dog Enzo seems to have no problem understanding the most complex of human interactions and intentions, and yet does nothing dog-like himself. You’ll  have to  look hard to find a reference, for example, to the sense of smell, which surely is the foundation of a dog’s perception of the world. Enzo is an interesting and endearing character, I just can’t find the dog in him.

I am clearly in the minority. Publisher’s Weekly and Entertainment Weekly loved it (every author’s dream), and its site on Amazon is full of raves. Is it just me? Am I getting churlish in my dotage? Did you read it, and if so, what did you think?

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: How could it be mid summer already? Where did June go? Time seems to speed up as we age (my mom said just wait: in your eighties it goes by so fast you get dizzy), but this is ridiculous. I think between my knee and Jim’s arm and a puppy who has to pee every 10 minutes (better now), we lost time-related consciousness for a month. But it’s glorious here now. The endless rains have paused, and it is Ireland-green and lush and now cool and sunny. Sweet.

We are surrounded now by food, growing and ripening all on its own. As a woman who grew up in the  Arizona desert, this still seems miraculous to me.  Luscious food that just appears by itself and waits for you to pick and eat it? Is it a trick? Is there a witch behind the berry bushes?

The existence of free, wild food is amazing enough, but now? Wait, isn’t it still May? I can’t believe that the black raspberries are already ready, and that the wild plums behind the house are ripening. Dozens of stems of wild mint has been picked and dried, and I’ve managed to get 6 quarts of strawberries and 6 bags of rhubarb into the freezer. It all seems too early and I want to tell the summer to slow down please.

This afternoon I take Hope in for his last vaccination. Cross your paws for me. I’m not willing to skip his last shot, parvovirus is a constant threat around here and it is fatal far too often. I’ve done what I can: Hope is on chinese meds and lots of cooked greens (and has been a very sweet boy lately, more on that later in the week.) Wish us luck, I am hoping to skip the 24 hours of frantic, growley dog that Hope turned into after his last vaccination.

Here’s some berries I photographed this morning, waiting for me and the birds to gobble them up. Tonight I’ll pick another quart or two. It’s so kind of them to ripen in stages!

Thanks for your comments with examples of what looks like imitation in dogs and cats. I was especially intrigued by the cat stories, having had a cat myself who did a perfect imitation of a herding Border Collie after watching me work Luke every day. Luke and I would drive the sheep up the hill to the pasture, and Ayla, my tiny, gray cat, would follow behind. She often sit on a log and watch as I worked Luke on gathering and driving. The sheep, although never abused, did not enjoy this exercise as much and Luke and I, and were always ready to bolt to the barn if given half the chance. When that happened, Luke would have to streak around them at lightening speed and stop them.

When we were done working I’d say “That’ll Do” to Luke and let the sheep run back down the hill. Once they discovered no one was going to stop them, they’d usually break into a full run and dash down the hill like deer. After a month or so of this, as Luke and I followed the flock back down to the barn, Ayla darted out of the adjoining woods in front of the careening sheep, lept up and smacked the lead sheep on the nose with her paw. The entire flock came to a screeching halt. Ayla sat down in front of them and looked directly at me. The thought bubble over her head, as I imagined it, said “I can do this too you know.”

For years afterward I had visions of taking Ayla to herding dog trials, and, Babe-like, amusing and amazing the spectators while AYLA THE HERDING FELINE marched the sheep around the course. Of course, that didn’t  happen, Ayla appeared to be content with her one demonstration of prowess, and I never took the time to try to turn her ability into a circus act. But this example fits with so many of yours of dogs and cats observing the behavior of another for some time, and then replicating it. The challenge, of course, is turning our anecdotes into an experiment that rules out other explanations.

There are two pieces of research that come to mind that did just that, the work of Milosi and others with the imitating Tervueren, and the research of Friederike Range in Vienna. Here’s a summary of each:

Miklosi (& Topal and Bryne) worked with a 4 year old Terv, Philip, who had been trained from an early age as an assistance dog for a disabled owner. Philip could open doors, pick up items on cue, switch off lights, etc. His trainers began to teach him a few cues that corresponded with the desired activity. For example, his cue for Turn Around was an owner turning around him or herself. The experimenters built on that, and taught Philip to replicate 9 actions that replicated the behavior of the human. First the dog was asked to sit and attend to the person to “Philip, listen.” Then the trainer performed an action, like putting an object into a box. The “imitate” cue was “Do it.” After 10 weekly training sessions, Philip correctly imitated the action of the person 72% of the time, a significantly  higher percentage than a result expected by chance alone. Skeptics will note, however, that this is not necessarily imitation, if the cue was the same as the expected action. The question is, did Philip begin to understand the concept of imitation, versus responding to a cue that happened to be the same as the desired outcome? That’s why Philip was then asked to replicate untrained actions, which he did correctly 63 out of 94 trials.

A second test, two years later, asked Philip to pick up a bottle from one of 6 boxes and place it in another, based upon the actions of his owner (which creates 30 possible sequences). Philip performed the exact same sequence as the one he observed 28 of 60 times, which is again significantly higher than expected by chance. (Remember there were 30 possible combinations.) In addition, many of his mistakes were still very close to the correct response. There’s lots more in the paper, “Reproducing human actions and action sequences: “Do as I do!” in a dog,” published in Animal Cognition Vol 9, 2006.

In the other study, Friederike Range trained a Border Collie to get food by pressing down on a wooden bar by using its paw (versus the easier and more natural way of doing it, by grabbing it with its mouth). Three groups of dogs were allowed to watch the dog pull down the bar in this way: One group watched the BC use its paw with nothing in his mouth, the second group watched the BC use its paw with ball in his mouth, and a third group was given access to the bar without watching the BC demonstrate. 83% of the dogs in the first group used their paws to pull down the treat, but in the other 2 groups only 21 % and 15% used their paws. The authors suggest that the first group of dogs consciously imitated the demonstrator with the assumption that the BC was using the most efficient way to get the food. The second and third groups used the most natural method, the second group presumably concluding that the BC would have used his mouth if he could have, but used his paw because his mouth had a ball in it. The test dogs had no such constraint, so they went ahead and used their mouths.  If this is true, it is not only evidence of imitation, but inferential and selective imitation. The full study is published in Current Biology, Vol 17, Issue 10, May 2007. Needless to say, it looks like our observations of dogs imitating the actions of others may have serious merit. I suspect that it is MUCH more common for dogs to imitate other dogs than to imitate people (I’ve never had luck with modeling a behavior, like lying down, with dogs, though some commented that they have). It just makes more sense for dogs to relate more to the actions of their own species, yes?

Thanks as well for the comment about Ken Ramirez’s work on imitation. He’ll be speaking the day after I do in Massachusetts, I can’t wait to hear him talk. He’s one of the best, and I learn something new and wonderful every time I see him.

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: Tornadoes a few miles away, torrential rains every night. Dramatic enough, but try leaving your partner’s Prius out one night in a downpour with all the windows all the way open. Makes for an impressive bolt out of bed at 2:30 in the morning, not to mention an hour of toweling, 2 hours of blow drying with a hair dryer and 4 hours of huge fans streaming air through its open doors. Whoops. Dodged a bullet I think.. car seems totally dry now. Whew.

I’m about to take off for the fund raiser in Milwaukee… truly looking forward to it. I was taking some more photos of play for the talk, and here’s my favorite of Will and the Scorpion. Dog bliss!