THE OTHER END OF THE LEASH

A recent comment from blog readers brought up a fascinating issue. I’ll just introduce it here, and then continue delving into it as time goes on. Here’s the question: Is it possible that dogs who appear to be super submissive are, uh…, not? I think the answer is yes. I say ‘yes’ because I think there’s a difference between a dog being “submissive,” in the sense of not needing to be high up in the social hierarchy, and dogs who perform “submissive displays” enthusiastically.

I had a female BC once, Bess, who was a classic high status bitch. She never fought, but she did take her toy over to a visiting female once, put it down on the ground between the two of them, and then trounce the visitor for starting to sniff it. (Those of you who have attended my seminars know that this is when I learned why “bitch” is a dirty word. I remember watching, relatively new to dogs at the time, and blurting out “YOU BITCH!” as it happened.) Most visiting dogs took one look at “Queen Bess” I called her, with her high posture and regal bearing and tiara of confidence, made some canine equivalent of a curtsy, and that was that.

But one day a visiting Husky female strode up to Bess like she owned the world, and Bess immediately threw herself on the ground in a classic “passive submission” display (I know they’re lying down, but it still doesn’t seem very ‘passive’ to me when they throw themselves on the ground!). I don’t think I’ve ever seen a display so extreme: Bess flattened herself, plastered her forelegs together and her ears to her skull, and grinned like an idiot. Soon she got up and began “active submission,” licking and groveling with such vigor that we all started laughing. It was the most “submissive” of submissions, but it was so extreme it seemed as assertive as it did submissive.

I once had a university student who did something similar to me, and that’s when I coined the phrase “aggressively obsequious.” He came up after lecture, head bobbing, pushing himself into my face while grinning like a fool, and asked, between excessive words of praise, if I’d repeat my lectures in full for him after class over tea. Well, no, I wouldn’t. But here he was, asking something ridiculous of me (from, I suspect, a sense of entitlement), but using a vigorous display of submission to take the edge off.

Ever sense then I’ve noticed dogs whose “submissive’ behaviors are down right rude… lick-lick-lick in your face-face-face non stop-stop-stop. I’d love to hear more from you about this. Do you know what I mean? Those submissive dogs who are doing all the ‘right’ things, except so excessively that it no longer seems submissive at all. Have you ever had a dog like that?

Meanwhile, back at the farm: The days here are alternating between blue sky-sun-bright colors and grey-rainy-windy. It’s been almost every other day of that lately. The sun feels so sweet, and the mud so thick . . . It’s too wet now to plant the last of the daffodils I bought, here’s hoping it’ll dry off enough to get them in. It’s more of a pain to plant bulbs than you might imagine (if you live on a farm that is mostly red clay and the chipmunks and squirrels try to dig them up faster than you plant them), but the pay off in spring is worth it. It turns out that critters don’t like daffodils, so I plant my favorite flowers, tulips, surrounded by daffs and a few other species that aren’t so tasty.

Lassie and Will are doing well. The focus at the farm right now is on nutrition for the market lambs (we go to market next week, always a sobering day for me) and for the breeding ewes. Redford the studly ram returns next week, I can’t wait to see him again, I’ve missed him. Rams have an entirely different personality than ewes and I especially like Redford’s. He grew up in pens with other young rams, and I fear he’ll miss his buddy at my friends, but for a few weeks I suspect the ewes will keep him busy.

Here’s a lamb gobbling up the grass on the front lawn. It’s the best grass on the farm.

There’s no fence around this grass, but Willie is so reliable that I am 100% comfortable letting the sheep out on the front lawn (the one by the road) as Will and I watch over them. Will loved doing this last year; mostly it consists of flank one way or the other, then lie down and wait. Then flank, lie down and wait. Rinse and repeat. I think he liked it because it involved no pressure–little close contact with the sheep, little pressure. But now he seems bored by it. He truly, be still my heart, seems to be coming into his own as a working dog. He loves driving, loves holding the sheep off feeders for me, staring them down face to face, and seems to love being right on the edge of contact with them. This is a great thing, watching him take charge with confidence and finesse… it’s such a joy to watch him mature.

Don’t get me wrong. Will is still Will. He is still hyper reactive to sound (turn the page of your book? Will leaps up..), herds Sushi relentlessly ( this is not a minor issue!), would never be safe to take to a dog park, etc etc etc…. He is definitely still my ‘problem’ dog; and yet, oh oh, look at that face!

xx

What a great conversation we’ve had about these behaviors in dogs. I originally posted on this topic on October 10th, and the comments in response have been fascinating. For those of you who’d rather not read through them, I’ll summarize them here, and add some information I’ve found elsewhere.

First of all, I did look at some of the wolf literature (still waiting to hear from folks who work with wolves), and I did find that Zimen, an internationally respected wolf ethologist, discusses 2 of these behaviors in his wolf sociogram in Wolves of the World. I’ll add his comments in the relevant section.

MUZZLES PUNCHES/POKES: As best I could, I categorized your responses about the context of muzzle punches into 4 categories: Excited/Playful, Attention Getting, Warnings with potential Aggressive Intent and Affectionate. Here’s how the responses sorted out (as of this writing, there were 81 responses, note some responses contained multiple examples):

Excited/Playful 14

Attention Getting 30

Warnings: 13

Affectionate: 0

The consensus is strong, and I couldn’t agree more, that context and other postural signals mean everything here. Several of you, wisely, distinguished between ‘muzzle punches’ and ‘muzzle pokes,’ the former being much more forceful than the latter. I appreciate that distinction–I am going to start calling much of what I used to call a ‘punch’ a ‘poke’ (is there a song here?). I also agree completely that, as someone quoted me (thank you!) “It depends,” as being the answer to all behavioral questions.

A muzzle punch given to the face from a dog who had been giving you a hard, cold stare directly into your eyes is something altogether different from a dog who pokes you in the back of the leg to, presumably, get your attention. I would be extremely concerned about a dog who gave me a hard, direct stare and then ‘muzzle punched’ me.

It seems to me there are at least three messages here: Pokes: 1) YO! YOU! Pay attention to ME! or 2) YO! YOU! Wanna chase me? Wanna play? Wanna react in some way for heaven’s sake?” and (Punch) 3) I’m warning you… back off. I also think there is a possibly 4th component here related to herding dogs. Willie changed from biting at my ankles as a puppy when I ran to the phone into muzzle punching the back of my leg when I ran to the phone to racing 2 inches behind me while I turned my head and said “Willlllllll……….” to keep him from punch/poking the back of my leg as I run to the phone. I’ve seen this kind of reactivity and mouthiness in a lot of herding dogs. Yesterday Will played with a 6 month old BC puppy who has just started trying to grab at anything that moves, in this case a walking stick. Will does the same thing: pick up a hose, and Will wants to grab it. Pick up a lamb, and Will wants to grab it. In the case of the pup, it was very clear that it was extremely  hard for him not to react to the moving stick…..GOTTA STOP THAT THING FROM MOVING!!!

I was interested that Zimen described these muzzle poke/punches (exactly as done to Tulip in the video from the first post) as a wolf “quickly pushing its nose into the other’s fur…”. He categorizes it as a neutral social contact, neither offensive or defensive, and speculates that it relates to “olfactory control.” I’m not sure what he means by that, and I’m not convinced that when dogs do it it has anything to do with scent. Although.. I’ve taught Will to sniff on cue (not exactly rocket science, hey?) and I’ve found that he will often push his nose into something I’m holding him to smell. But then, I’ve taught him “Touch” too, and my guess is that he’s confounding the two a bit….

AIR SNAPS

Excited/Playful 14

Attention Getting 1

Warnings: 11

Affectionate: 1

Interesting difference with “Muzzle Punches,” hey? Several of you have seen your dogs do it in what sounds like appropriate play, but only one of you described it in an Attention Getting context. Regarding “Aggressive warning” versus “Playful”, surely this is yet another example of context and other signals being critical to interpretation. Thinking back (always dangerous), it does seem to me that I’ve mostly seen them in a context I’d either describe as a warning (in response to “Lie Down” for example, with direct stare to my face) or in play. Again, it seems that an air snap from a playful dog with a loose body, partially open mouth, squinty eyes would mean something very different than a dog who turned and snapped at your hand while you were trying to groom. That may be one important distinction: is there any obvious target of the snap, or is the dog just snapping in the air?

TOOTH CLACKING

Excited/Playful 10

Attention Getting 3

Warnings: 3

Affectionate:0

Clearly, fewer of you have seen this behavior, and I have to say I’ve probably seen it least of the 3 myself. I have seen a few client’s dogs who stared right at my face and tooth clacked, usually in response to a cue I had given them (similar to the lie down cue above.). In that case I perceived it as a warning. Like many of you, I’ve seen dogs do it when they were aroused, usually during play. One of you mentioned, and I thought this was very interesting, that her dogs did it after their arousal levels increased during play, and the play stopped (arousal inhibition?) for a while after the clacking.

Zimen, by the way, calls this “Snap Clatter,” I lovely description I wish I’d thought of myself. He describes it in the packs he’s watched as an “Aggressive Behavior involving inhibited biting,” and as a “noisy beat made by the teeth when jaws hit together.” It is very different from the much more rapid jaw movement of an extremely excited dog, which most people call Tooth Chattering. By the way, there are 3 other actions that were introduced by your comments: Smiling, Nibbling and the Jaw Chattering associated with “Flehman,” when male mammals test urine for the presence of the molecules associated with oestrous cycles. I think smiling deserves its own post (as requested) and to the commentor whose dog nibbles on her like an ear of corn, Yes! It’s social grooming and is motivated by affiliative and friendly behavior. No fleas on you!

Here are two photos, taken by a vet student friend and colleague (and owner of the lovely Dobbie, Miska) illustrating another posutre described by Zimen: He simply calls it “Imposing  Behavior” in which one wolf stands next to another, body lifted as if by balloons, head up and tail up.  Miska is the ONLY dog that Will has ever met who is faster than he is, and she is one of the only females he has played with very much (mostly due to who he’s met, I can’t say yet if he has a gender preference). In my mind, Will is absolutely gobsmacked by Miska. He can’t get enough of playing with her, tries to stop her forward motion whenever he can (a few weeks ago he ran in front of her and lunged toward her, she responded with a half a second worth of bitch fury (she was most appropriate). After that, Willie was even more enamored of her (it seemed) but ran outruns around her rather than body blocks, air snaps or muzzle punches to stop her moving forward. He appears to be fascinated by her, but is very nervous–tongue flick-ey, snake headed, Willie’s evil twin-y in the house. (ie, he’s terrified of not being able to control her in the house, which seems vitally important to him.)

Pretty gorgeous, isn’t she! I love Will’s face in this one and the image of 6 month old Max trying to keep up and play with the big kids…. Thanks to Lesanna for the photos! Me thinks Willie’s in love.

A friend and colleague (Toni Ziegler, an internationally known primatologist) sent me an article in a journal I usually never see, Hormones and Behavior, and I was sure you’d be as interested in it as I am. The authors, M. Nagasawa et. al., found a correlation between the level of an owner’s oxytocin and how much their dog tended to gaze directly at them.

First off, you probably know that oxytocin is the “feel good” hormone that is associated with lactation and social bonding. Someone called it the “wine and candle light” hormone, because it seems to play an important role in social relationships and feelings of trust and affection. (People are more trusting of strangers if oxytocin is sprayed into their nose–leading me to speculate in For the Love of a Dog that we should all be armed with a spray bottle of the stuff). Oxytocin correlates with friendly social behavior in rats, monkey, sheep, you name it, and even has been found to calm “depressive tendencies” and anxiety in people.

The authors of the study first surveyed 55 people to evaluate the level of relationship with their dogs. (They asked: “How much are you satisfied with your dog?” and “How much do you feel you can communicate with your dog?” Of course, if I’d been asking, my questions might include “How often to you rub your dog’s belly?” and “How important is your dog in your overall happiness?” and “How many months would you say you spend more on your dog than yourself?” and “Don’t you think you should consider buying yourself a new pair of pants before you buy another dog toy?” But then, it wasn’t my study….)

Each owner/dog pair then came to the researchers, and was video taped in a room with the owner sitting in a chair. At first the owner was alone in the room for 20 minutes, then the dog was allowed in for 30 minutes. Once inside, the dog was allowed to move around the room freely, but was asked to sit on cue every 3 minutes. The owners could talk to their dogs and pet them, but not give the dogs treats. Before and after, the owner’s heart rate and blood pressure was taken, and they were asked to provide a urine sample both before and after as well.

Here are some of the results: The 55 owners sorted into 2 groups: 12 of them reported high levels of satisfaction with their dogs and ALSO had the longest duration of times that their dog’s looked (“gazed”) at them during the experiment. Those people, whose dogs looked at them the most, also had significantly higher levels of oxytocin after the experiment than the people who reported lower levels of satisfaction and whose dogs looked at them for shorter periods of time. Additionally, there was a significant correlation between the frequency of “exchange bouts” (looking, talking) initiated by a dog’s gaze and the level of oxytocin in the owner’s body. In other words, the more the dog looked at the owner, the higher the level of oxytocin IF the owner was one of the one who reported a high level of satisfaction in their dog. There was no correlation between duration of gaze and oxytocin levels in the (larger) group who reported less satisfaction and whose dogs looked at them for shorter periods of time.

What does all this mean? Well, if you put your science hat on, you know to be careful of correlations. It seems reasonable and (common sensible) to argue that IF you are strongly bonded to your dog, then you have a surge of oxytocin when he or she looks at you and you look back. (I think my oxytocin is rising right now, just thinking about Lassie’s face!). However, I’ve always wondered if some individuals inherently have lower levels of oxytocin and that makes them less affiliative with others, a bit more stand off-ish. Dogs too? Could that explain why some dogs are puddles around people and others more aloof? Levels of oxytocin do correlate in mice, for example, with less or more affiliative behavior, so it seems reasonable that it could occur in people too.

That could create another hypothesis for the results. Do people with inherently higher levels of oxytocin tend to be more bonded to their dogs? However, a good study should account for this, and indeed, there were no significant differences between oxytocin levels before the experiment between the 2 groups of people. So it looks as though it was the interaction itself, during the 30 minutes that the dog and owner were together, that increased oxytocin levels. Although none of us can accurately guage our oxytocin levels without measurements, I swear there’s a feeling I get that correlates with an oxytocin surge. It’s the way you feel when you look at a puppy, or a kitten, or a two year old child… and get what I can only describe as “goo-ey” and “warm” and just overwhelmed with loving feelings. Know what I mean? Do you thank that is part of what makes a dog a “forever” dog or a “heart dog?”

Whether we can feel  it or not, oxytocin has got to be good for us. Remember when I said that oxytocin decreases anxiety? It seems to have a positive effect on many systems: it is produced in the hypothalamus and decreases activity of what’s called the “hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis” (use that when you want to be cool, you could also just call it the stress response though!) In other words, more oxytocin, less adrenalin, less anxiety, less immune suppression, etc. We’ve always known our dogs are good for us (mostly… unless, uh, they’re not), but here’s a biological explanation for it beyond the fact that they make us feel good.

Speaking of oxytocin (with apologies for indulging myself), here’s a photograph I found last night, buried in files on my computer. I wasn’t going to use it, but it makes me all goo-ey and oxytocin-y to look at it, so I thought it was relevant. It’s of me and my Tulip long ago, several years before she passed away. Here’s hoping you have a dog right now that raises your oxytocin too.

And here’s another feel good picture, fall leaves that fell this weekend after a hard, hard freeze.

xxx

4 pm: Well, the plan was to do some research on muzzle punches (and pokes, and jabs), tooth clacking and air snaps, and then write another post about them . . . but then, the sun came out after days and days of cold, windy rain. Right now it’s gorgeous and breezy and 4 o’clock and if I don’t go out now and work sheep and walk the dogs it’ll be dark before I know it. I just can’t stop myself, it’ll be cold and dark most of the day soon enough.

4:50 pm: I just got back from outside, Will and I had a ball. My ewe flock was a riot to work; one of them was on a tear (Truffles). For reasons unknown to me, she ran around bashing into other ewes as if out of a National Geographic Special on fighting mountain goats in rutting season. That sent the entire flock tearing around the pasture like deer, and Willie and I had a ball trying to keep up with them. (Is this about the ewes going into heat? The ram comes back home on November 3rd, and this time of year the ewes are definitely cycling. I can hardly wait for Redford to return, because I love watching the ewes interact with a new ram (they practically simper). Could Truffles be feeling a bit, uh, tropical and thus combative re who’s who in the ovine hierarchy?

I suspect this question will never be answered, but here’s a question you can a help me with. We’ve been tweaking the website, adding tabs to each product description to clarify things (see Family Friendly Dog Training for example) but we’re also going to change the home page. I’d be truly grateful if any of you could take a minute to look at the home page as it is now and tell us what you like, what you think would be more helpful. Right now, there are things I like about the page, and things I don’t, but I’m not saying til you do!

Just for fun, here are a few photos that I took this morning, trying to get a photo of Will and the Wubba Toy. Not easy to toss a toy in one hand and photograph it and Willie in the other! (Did I mention how fun it is to have the testing of dog toys as part of one’s job?!)

With apologies for the change in topics, I just have to respond to a comment on my last post, and to the hundreds of comments I’ve heard over the last 20 + years, about the guilt associated with putting a dog down. It is always wrenching, heart-breaking to euthanize a beloved dog, but taking a dog’s life away for a behavioral problem can be especially hard. I can’t take away the pain, no matter what the reason for the death, but here are a few things that I have found that have helped me and some of my clients.

First, for anyone who has had to euthanize a dog, I hope it helps to know that devoted owners are often wracked with guilt, no matter why the dog died. For example, I euthanized Cool Hand Luke after a long battle with kidney failure. By the time he died (he was close to death when we helped him along), I had worked extensively with five veterinarians, including specialists at the UW Vet School. He received the best that money can buy of western medicine, homeopathic medicine and chinese medicine. I cooked him a special diet every day and monitored every thing that went into his mouth. I’d go on, but you get the idea: I moved  heaven and earth for Luke, and still. . . I was wracked with guilt for a good year after his death.

Surely I had missed something? Surely there was just one more thing I could have done? One of my vets told me that Luke had an inflammation somewhere, but she couldn’t say where or what it was. I obsessed over trying to find it, and felt a crush of failure when nothing we did turned around his failing kidneys. I was consumed by the idea that IF I JUST WORK HARD ENOUGH, I could “fix” things and save Luke.

After he died, devastated by his untimely death (he was 12,  his daughter is now 15 3/4), I couldn’t get it out of my mind that somehow I should have done a better job of trying to save him.  In the cold light of day, this was, frankly, absurd. Luke had 5 of some of the best vets in the country and if they couldn’t save him, how in heaven’s name was I supposed to?

But as he always had, Luke left me with a gift. It took awhile, but I slowly began to notice how EVERYONE I talked to who loved their dog, like we all love ours, was guilty about something related to the dog’s death. It didn’t matter how or why they died: hundreds of owners, from prof’l trainers and behaviorists to the dog loving public, found something to feel guilty about. “I should have seen the symptoms sooner,” or “How could I have not known that the lock on the door was faulty and allowed my dog to run out the door?” or “Surely I could somehow have prevented the bite if I just hadn’t……”

Here’s what Luke taught me, along with the wise comments of a psychologist friend: It is easier to believe that we are always responsible (“if only I had done/not done this one thing….”) than it is to accept this painful truth: We are not in control of the world. Stuff happens. Bad stuff. As brilliant and responsible and hard working and control-freaky that we are, sometimes, bad stuff just happens. Good people die when they shouldn’t. Gorgeous dogs brimming with health, except for that tumor or those crappy kidneys, die long before their time. Dogs who are otherwise healthy but are a severe health risk to others end up being put down. It’s not fair, it’s not right, and it hurts like hell. But please please, if you’ve moved heaven and earth to save a dog and haven’t been able to… just remember:  Stuff happens. We can’t control everything. (Difficult words to dog trainers I know. . . Aren’t we all control freaks to some extent?) You didn’t fail. You tried as hard as you could. It’s okay.

To all of us: Try folding up that guilt and pain like a pile of dirty, ripped clothing, and throwing it away. Remember: Much of what we love about dogs is that they live in the present and accept what happens. That’s our job, to accept what happens sometimes, even though it’s the hardest job of all.

Secondly, there’s one more thing I want to remind everyone who has lost a beloved dog, no matter what the reason or whether there was guilt attached or not: Neurobiologist Jaak Panskepp tells us that “social distress,” or what we’d call grieving, is registered in a primitive part of the brain that is also associated with the perception of pain. I learned about this while I was writing For the Love of a Dog, and it blew me away when I discovered it. Ah Ha, I thought; no wonder we talk about the “pain of loss” and “healing” after grieving. And don’t we respond to another’s loss as if they’d been physically hurt? We take people flowers and food when they are grieving just as we do after they have a major operation.  I remember feeling physical pain when Luke died, when Tulip died, when Pippy Tay died, just as I did when my mother died. I told someone it felt like I’d had abdominal surgery. Turns out that’s exactly what my brain thought too.

And so, remember that when you lose a dog, or if you are still grieving for one you lost in the past, your body thinks you’ve been injured. It needs you to take care of yourself. It needs rest and comfort and flowers and sweet soup and gentle kisses and hugs.

As I write this, I think of my Lassie girl. Her 16th birthday party is planned for a few months from now. She’s doing amazingly well, but good grief, she’s old. Really old. It hurts to think of the future… I think tonight I’d better make some chicken soup and put it in the freezer.

Meanwhile, back at the farm: Lassie played tug with Willie this morning, oblivious as she is to calendars or human concerns about the future or the past. Willie got lots of sheep work this weekend, is a bit gimpy on his left shoulder but lordy we had fun. It’s fall in full force here: leaves turning cranberry, frost on the grass in the morning, lots of wild apples falling from the trees. Here are 2 photos from this morning, while feeding apples to some of the sheep.

Here’s Barbie impatiently waiting for me to drop apples into the feeder:

This isn’t the greatest photo in the world, but I wanted to show Martha chomping on an apple. Sheep LOVE apples, and right now Martha, Barbie and the lambs are all eating grass (from the front yard, best grass on the farm, courtesy of Will who can reliably keep them herded away from the road), a corn/oat mix, high quality alfalfa hay and lots of apples. Yum.

xx

I am not sure if the title is more reminiscent of canid communication or some strange, alien kind of cookies, but let’s go with the former. I’m writing this post because I’d love your interpretation of 3 canid behaviors that we’ve been discussing in the comments on one of my posts. I had mentioned a “muzzle punch” somewhere, and in response one commenter inquired if an air snap or muzzle punch was more predictive of a potential bite. Here, in part, is my response and a video with a great example of a muzzle punch from one dog to another: ["Muzzle punching" being a quick forward motion of the muzzle, jaws completely shut, making contact with another individual, "Air snaps" are when a dog moves exactly as if biting, but bites the air instead of an individual or object. Some people just call these 'snaps', meaning the mouth opened and shut but there was no object between the jaws. "Tooth clacking" is when the mouth is opened and shut rapidly several times in a row, and there's a very clear noise of teeth snapping together.]

Here’s from my comment:
“I’m not sure anyone knows the answers about comparative levels of intensity [of the 3 behaviors] and whether they are universal or not (some dogs seem to only muzzle punch, some only tooth clack or air snap.) I do know that “muzzle punching” can be done at varying levels of intensity. Will does it on occasion on the back of my leg when I have run into another area and (I suspect) am not doing what he wants me to do. I take it as a slightly rude, but not aggressive “Yo! You!” It most often happens when I’ve been moving fast, and I suspect in his case it also relates to his strong-eyed herding tendencies.

I don’t say that as an excuse; when Will does it I’ll turn and say his name in a quiet but shocked voice and go back to working on teaching what I do want (Will go slow when Trisha goes fast). His “punches” are more like taps–they can be felt but are not in the slightest bit painful. In 20 + years I have seen one or two dogs punch their owners so hard that they caused discomfort or pain, but that seems very rare to me as I look back on it. Usually they are much more benign. I would love to know what others think of them, how they are interpreted. . .

I’ve always taken air snaps and tooth clacking (mouth opened and shut rapidly, very clear noise of teeth snapping) as more of a threat than a muzzle punch. But I’ll have to think long and hard about why I say that. I”m going to write some of my friends who work with wolves and ask what they observe. Tooth clacks usually seem to be given as a dog is directly facing a person, often looking right into their eyes, and they have always felt to me like “Hear that? Those are teeth! Big, white, sharp, bit-ey teeth! And I know how to use ‘em!” This is not the same as a dog who is doing “tooth chattering,” which is a much faster action, sounds more like the dog is shivering, and usually seen in dogs who are highly aroused and barely able to contain themselves (could be aroused in any way). I don’t see “tooth chattering” as a social signal, while I think “tooth clacking” is. Air snaps also occur more as threats to me than muzzle punches. There’s just something about a dog purposefully (I would argue) keeping his or her mouth shut that I find meaningful. I would LOVE your thoughts on this, and I’ll do some more research on it next week.  The video is at the end of this post (of Kalladin, an adolescent collie and Tulip, my Pyr, at the farm in the “play pen.

Meanwhile, back at the farm: Not much time at the farm now, leaving in a few hours to speak at the Border Collie National Specialty. Lassie threw up 5 times this morning, oh dear oh dear. I know.. dogs throw up a lot, but you know, she’s 15+ with compromised kidneys.  I talked to my vet, gave her pepcid, extra water for dehydration. She seems fine now, wanted breakfast (gave her a tiny amount as a test, all went well), so I’ll wait and see, but damn I just hate this….. she’s probably totally fine. I’ll keep you posted.

Here’s the video (watch closely, it happens FAST! I use it in seminar to train trainers to be good observers!):


Greetings from Oregon. I just finished up with two talks at UC-Davis and a day long seminar in Corvallis, Oregon, sponsored jointly by OSU and Wonder Dogs. The participants and hosts could not have been more delightful, and I thank everyone for making the trip enjoyable and more than worthwhile.

All three events had a large number of veterinary students attending, and it was such a joy to see them there. So many bright, energetic people… truly is inspiring, and especially good to see so many of them interested in behavior.

One of my talks at UC-Davis, specifically for vet students and veterinarians, was on Canine Aggression. I appreciated the opportunity to speak about such an important topic, and thought I’d convey a summary of one of the points I made, which was what can vets do in their clinics if they don’t have the time or interest in becoming a behaviorist or trainer and treating “aggression” problems directly? (I use the term “aggression” broadly, in the sense that the general public does.)

Here’s some thoughts, not just for vets, but also for anyone to ask themselves about the “behavioral wellness” of their dog. (Behavioral wellness is a term coined by CAABs Suzanne Hetts and Daniel Estep) and it is such a good one I’ve incorporated it into my vocabulary.) Here is what I wish vets would do in their clinics, understanding how limited there time is:

1) Ask questions related to behavior, but make them specific! “Any behavioral problems?” is just as likely to get a “no” from someone whose dog has bitten them as from someone whose dog is an angel. Here are some examples of questions I wish vets or vet techs could ask:

~ “How is house training going?” or better yet, “Are you giving your puppy a treat every time he goes potty outside?”

~ “How is your dog doing with normal handling? Any growls or tooth displays when you clean her paws or examine her mouth?”

~ “Is your pup getting out and about without being overwhelmed by places.. (like a crowded farmer’s market) that are too scary?”

~ “Can you leave your dog alone during the day without any problems? Need any help there?”

~ “Is your dog comfortable with strangers coming into the house? Does he get along well with other dogs, either the others at home or dogs he meets on the street?”

Etc… There is an excellent list of questions on Hetts and Esteps’ website, check it out and mention it to your veterinarian if you get a chance. The biggest challenge here is to be specific: one person might say a dog is just “fine” with visitors, even though he’s hiding under the table and growling. The more specific the question, the better, as in “Any growls, for any reason?”

2) Alert owners to problems that you see in the clinic. A vet friend recently told me about a 4 month old pit cross who stood in the corner, stiff and whale-eyed when she entered, and then bark/charged at a vet tech who came into the room during the exam. The owners thought it was normal behavior, and had no clue that it was a sign of potential serious trouble.

3) Have posters and charts up to help people learn to read their dogs. Dream Dog Productions has a great set of posters that should be in vet clinics along with signs of gum disease. Many owners simply don’t know the signs of fear in a dog, unless the dog is cowering like a cartoon character, and the more we can get the word out, the better.

4) Educate owners about treatment when you can. Most behavioral problems are NOT “dominance” problems, and suggesting those methods can cause more harm than good in many cases. (More on that in subsequent posts!)

5) Have resources easily available. Have books, booklets in the clinic to help with behavioral problems (we have a Beh’l Rx form for vets to use to mark the resources they think would help a client); know who to refer to in the area if you see potential behavioral problems and know what training centers and classes use positive methods that are based on solid science rather than opinion; make contact with Veterinary Behaviorists, CAABs and progressive trainers who have a sterling reputation.

I’d love to hear your thoughts: Any vets, vet techs like to chime in and add what trainers and behaviorists could do to help vet clinics prevent behavioral problems?

Meanwhile, not on the farm (but missing it a lot): Even though I’m not there, here is a photo from last week, when friends, Jim and I went in search of apples. It was a great success, and before I left for the west coast I got two huge batches of apple sauce in the freezer. I’ll turn them into apple/wild plum butter when I get back. We also found a wild grape vine (these are truly wild, a native wild plant in Wisconsin) that was groaning with fruit. I couldn’t pass it up, and ended up with about a 1/2 gallon of grape juice in the freezer. Not sure what I’ll do with, might add it to the carrot bread muffins waiting to be made from the mounds of carrots I have in the frig!

Here’s a bushel basket brimming with apples, and a wonderful old tool for harvesting the apples directly off the tree (cider can’t be made from apples that land on the ground, at least not safely).