THE OTHER END OF THE LEASH

Two more interesting books: A favorite of mine, In the Kingdom of Gorillas has been revised and updated since it first came out a few  years ago. It was written, truth in lending here, by two good friends of mine. I pretty much kiss the hems of their pants, because they are the people who did as much as anyone (actually more in my opinion) to save Mountain Gorillas from extinction. Amy spent years living with gorilla families, and with her husband and co-author Bill Weber, spent years convincing the governments of several countries that a well-managed gorilla tourist program would be economically more valuable than cutting down the remaining forest and growing crops. They are brave, intrepid people who are a big part of the reason that I and my friends got to spend a rapturous 45 minutes sitting amongst an extended family of gorillas in Rwanda a few years ago. In the Kingdom of Gorillas is a fascinating account of their attempts to learn about gorillas, their life with gorillas, and their relationships with other researchers and agencies. (And yes, they knew Diane Fossey well. Some of their stories about her are in this book. Others, well, are better left unpublished.) If you want to read about Amy and Bill’s close encounters with these amazing animals, and marvel at the hard work and stamina it took to save the species, pick up the book.

The second book was sitting on a table by my desk until I got comments from my last blog about wishing dogs could communicate with us more than they do. Many people wrote in (when asked what they would like to know about canine cognition) saying they’d like to know more about how their dog could communicate with them more specifically and more effectively. Sometimes I yearn for the same thing, but one comment also reflected my worries about that ability: do we really want to hear what they have to say?  Would our dogs relentlessly sign CHICKEN CHICKEN CHICKEN I WANT MORE CHICKEN if we taught them how?

But here’s the book: Dogs Can Sign, Too by Sean Senechal. Here’s what it says on the back: “Imagine being able to ask your poodle, “Who’s at the door?” and having her respond “It’s Katy.” Or asking your golden retriever, “Do you want a treat?” and him responding, “No, water.” Myself, I’ve never met a GR who would pass up a treat for water, but hey, maybe it’d been in the desert and was seriously dehyrdrated… Anyone read the book yet? Taught your dog to sign? If so, let us know. I’ll pick it up soon and let you know what I think. Or, I’ll have Willie write it up.

Here’s the sunrise early this morning, a still, foggy breathless patch of time and space:

When clients, eyes shining, would tell me how smart their dog was, I’d often respond: “I’m so sorry.” Of course, I said it with a big smile and we all laughed about it, but the truth is, smart isn’t always what we want. Most of us want dogs who are “smart” in that they learn what we want them to learn at lightening speed, but we don’t want them to use their cognitive powers against us. Some dogs do just that; I swear I can see smoke coming out of their ears as they try to figure out how to train us to do their bidding. I remember one dog, a brilliant Standard Poodle, who appeared to spend much of her day trying to figure out how to “beat the system.” Others, the more biddable ones who came hard wired to want to work as a team (far more rare than the former!), not only rapidly learn learn the cues we teach them, they are delighted to perform them just to be part of the social group.

Clearly, “smart” means different things to different people, and in dogs as in people, there are different kinds of intelligence. This was emphasized in a new study by Bradley Philip Smith and his colleague Carla Litchfield in Animal Behavior (Vol. 80, No. 1, 155-162) comparing the problem-solving ability of domestic dogs to that of dingoes.  Dingoes derived from domestic dogs, but have been independent for so long they are believed to represent a wild-type canid more than a companion animal.

The study asked dingoes and dogs to solve a simple problem known as the “detour task.” In this case, a bowl of food was visible behind a transparent barrier. In order to get the food, the animals had to move right or left, detouring around the barrier to get the food. The dingoes figured it out in an average of about 20 seconds, while the dogs, bless them, were more likely to paw, whine, bark and look at their humans to “fix it.” I find this especially interesting, because I have had to teach all my working dogs the cue “Go around.” On a farm you often find you and your dog on opposite sides of a fence, and when they are young they seem to need help understanding that sometimes to go forward you have to go sideways first (to get through the gate). They learn it rapidly, although some learn it A LOT faster than others. Wolves, by the way, are adept at figuring this out for themselves, performing more like dingoes than dogs.  Even if they have been raised by people, they don’t look to us to help them solve problems like dogs do.

However, dogs are better at problem-solving that includes a social relationship. You’ve no doubt heard about the studies in which dogs are better than wolves or chimps at following an arm pointing toward something, usually hidden food. (I should note that Pam Reid, at the BFF conference, stated she has the same skepticism I do about the reports that young puppies automatically follow a point. In our experience, young dogs just sniff your hand if you extend your arm and point toward something. However, they seem predisposed to learn to follow a point, which is important and significant.) It makes such sense that domestic dogs would be better at social communication with humans than wild-type canids, while dingoes and wolves are better at problem solving on their own. As has been argued (including on this blog on 2/2/2009) dogs are excellent tool users… it’s just that we are the tools being used!

A question for you: I’m starting to work on my talk, an Introduction to the APDT Canine Cognition Symposium in Atlanta, and of course am doing a lot of thinking about well, thinking. Here’s my question:  If you could ask scientists to do research on canine cognition and your dog’s mind, what would you ask them to try to figure out? What do you wonder about? Do you wonder if your dog’s memory is like yours? If she understands death? If he can count? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: Chaos reigns. We’re having several of the old Birdseye Maple floors refinished, and so the house is torn asunder for several days. It makes everyday routines into adventures–you’ve all been there I’m sure. But the weather broke though for a few days, and it actually felt cool (ooooh, cool!) yesterday. Sheep, dogs and humans are all extremely grateful.

And speaking of grateful, I am grateful for your kind responses to my last blogs. I will indeed continue to interweave information about training and behavior with with my own experiences with my dogs. I’ll admit that sometimes it is a struggle–we are hard wired to pay more attention to the negative than the positive and it takes a goodly number of thoughtful and kind replies to counteract the that say:  “I’m going to stop reading your blog because you just pass dogs around as if they were old shoes.”

Here’s my old shoe now, the wonderful Mr. Will, taken a minute ago, dozing by my feet as I write.

This is a tough one to write. As regular readers know, I primarily got Hope as a playmate for Willie, my turned-around crazy dog who took three years of intense work to deal with his pathological fear-based aggression to other dogs, his episodes of all-out rage, his extreme sound sensitivity, his dysfunctional gut, etc etc etc. And inside all that was one of the sweetest dogs I’d ever met, and that is the dog you’d meet if you came to the farm today–a sweet, people-loving healthy dog who loves his dog buddies and goes all happy-faced and loose bodied when he sees an unfamiliar dog approaching him. I’d never take him to a dog park, and he becomes a nervous wreck if a large dog he’s never met comes into the house, but with a little easy management he is a wonderful dog, and I love him now like life itself.

My dear Lassie-girl, the one who died in January, was Willie’s best friend, and they played together up to a few days before she died. Soon after she did, I started looking for another dog, primarily a play mate for Willie. I surfed on rescue sites for months, any breed would do, never quite finding what looked like the right dog, and then heard about a litter of BC’s from a great breeding with a super track record. That’s where Hope came from, and he indeed is a super dog. He is the smartest Border Collie I’ve ever had, and I don’t need to explain to any of you what that means. He is so fun to train it’s addictive. I could happily quit all my jobs, including this blog, and spend the next few years training Hope. He’d be doing rocket science by the time he turned five. I’ve rarely had this much fun training a dog, and especially now that we’re over the worst of the early puppy stages (including having to pee every eight minutes), he is a joy.

He’s also competitive, and that has become the basis of his relationship with Willie. As Hope matures, Willie has stopped greeting him when we come downstairs in the morning. They have stopped playing tug games, I suspect because they were never games to Hope. He’d work his way up the toy until he was an inch from Willie’s mouth and do all he could to get the toy and run away with it. Unlike other dogs, he seemed serious about it from the first time he played. Not so some other dogs: I have a video of Lassie playing tug with Willie when he was a puppy, and she continually gave it back to him if she pulled it out of his mouth. But at nine weeks of age Hope  wanted the toy, period. Willie and Hope don’t play much wrestle play anymore either. They do on occasion, but it’s much less frequent and doesn’t last very long. Some of this could be related to Hope’s age, he is getting older after all, but he’s only 5 months old, not exactly in his dotage.

Hope is not the only problem. Willie, who wasn’t able to play with dogs outside of the house until he was almost one and a half, turns out to be no fun to play with outside if you are a young puppy. As the strongest eyed BC I’ve ever had, Willie loves to herd other dogs, running around to the front of their forward motion and stopping them by diving in and either nipping or just plowing into them. I hadn’t seen too that much of this until I got the pup, because usually  Willie has played with older dogs who are as fast as he is. Wilie plays “let’s race!” and the dogs run shoulder to shoulder, sometimes I swear slowing down and then speeding up on purpose to keep the game going. However, he has tried herding other dogs before. Once he tried herding one of his BFF’s, Mishka the Dobbie bitch, who, with the power and confidence of a canine Serena Williams, told him in no uncertain terms never to do that again. He got all flat-eared and grinny-faced after she disciplined him and he got the message. He’s never done it to one of his other friends, a year-old BC, who is as fast as he is and who loves to play “Let’s be race horses!” along with Willie. But Hope is just a puppy, and can’t possibly keep up with Willie, so sometimes they play well outside, Hope running after Willie or Willie running circles around Hope, and sometimes, more and more often it seems, I have to call off Willie because it starts to look more like harassment than play.

Willie also seems to have a V on his forehead for Victim. When Hope was younger, Willie never corrected him for the usual things that rude, young puppies get disciplined for by older dogs. Instead, Willie would  hang his head and look oppressed, or look as though nothing had happened while I was thinking “Willie! Stand up for yourself!”

And so, here I am, in the process of deciding whether Hope is the right dog for Willie. He is a great dog, but I am not looking for “a dog.” I’m looking for a friend for Willie, and although you can treat and manage a multitude of behavioral problems, you can’t force a friendship if it’s not there inherently. {Added later today: I don’t need them to be best friends, but Hope’s competitiveness and adult male behavior as a young pup might be a red flag that could be some serious problems between him and Willie down the road.}  My loyalties have to first be to Willie, and I have to do what I think is best for him. Nothing would make me happier if I decide that Hope is the right match. Hope is smart and fun and probably will be brilliant on sheep and damn it, has gotten drop-dead gorgeous as he’s grown up. He is not perfect: he is a resource guarder (he is already 50% better, yes I think there’s a genetic basis but I totally disagree with some who say it can’t be treated), he’s a tad pushy (barks for attention, jumps up and slams against you) but no pup is perfect and all of his ‘issues’ are things I not only know how to treat or manage, I enjoy doing it. The problem is that this isn’t a training issue; I wish it was because then I could better deal with it. The fact is, no one can make two dogs into friends if they don’t want to be, any more than you can force two people to love living together. {Again, they don’t need to be best friends, but I’ve seen dogs living in constant states of vigilance and anxiety and that’s not a life that is good for anyone.}

Cross your paws for us. I haven’t decided what is best yet, but thought I should let you know where things stand. This issue does bring up an interesting question related to all of us: that of friendship between dogs. I’d love to hear from you about the dogs in your life who have either become best friends, or not… and why. I think the issue of relationships between dogs is often not addressed at the right level: we talk about resource guarding or appropriate play, but what about true friendship? Camille Ward’s research on play found that as dogs mature they seek out the same play partners more and more, and she suggested we need to think more about whether our dogs need BFFs of their own species. Your thoughts?

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: Sad news from last night. We lost another lamb to a new worm in the area that is resistant to worming medicine. It was our best lamb, a ram lamb I kept as a potential breeder. He looked fine two days ago, and then I found him dead last night. I talked to my vet and he said that 3 other farms in the area have been losing lambs right and left; one farm lost 20 lambs before they could blink. I’ll be trying a new medicine tomorrow after the sheep are kept off food for 12 hours (we’ve learned that worming meds work best on an empty stomach), so tomorrow before I fly out Jim and I will be cowboying sheep in the barn at dark-thirty in the morning. (And thanks friend Kathy for helping with the dead lamb. Never a fun way to spend an evening.)

Happier  news: here’s Hope playing with a new friend, a four month old BC mix pup who came over and played non-stop for almost an hour and a half. Hope played beautifully with him… he always does with other dogs it seems. The younger pup was always on top by the way, and look at that tail!

A quick post today, trying to catch up before I leave for Toronto on Friday.  Sunday at the BFF conference was great, I’ll write a post soon about Pam Reid’s talks on cognition, her talk about stress, and Emily Levine’s talk on compulsive disorders in dogs.  All of them were great, very valuable. I thought this conference had the highest level of talks I’ve seen, and many others seemed to agree.

Although it’s hard to pack up and go before you have your paws on the ground, I’m very much looking forward to meeting folks in Toronto, and to traveling to Seattle to speak in mid-September. It is hard to turn around this fast when you’ve been traveling, leaving the farm and the dogs, sheep and Sushi, I won’t pretend it’s not, but I do meet such interesting people and always learn so much.

I get all the benefits later in September when I give the same talk I gave at BFF on “The Power of Pets” in Madison WI on September 23rd, a fund raiser for the Dane County Humane Society. I get to meet lots of great people in my own backyard (no airports!) and talk about a topic I love: the biology and psychology of why we love our dogs soooooo much. Please come up and say hi if you are a blog reader (and thanks for all of you who did in Pennsylvania, I LOVED meeting you and seeing real faces behind the people out there in cyberspace.) You can get tickets from DCHS for just the evening talk or, you can also come to the reception beforehand. The numbers are limited so we’ll all have enough time to talk. If you come to the  reception, PLEASE bring a photo of your pet, nothing would make me happier than to coo over your dog or cat!

Here’s a photo from BFF of all the speakers and the organizers, Dana and Carolyn. I am using the one in which we are all cracking up, because that’s pretty much what we looked like when we went to dinner together every night. I suppose this is where I should thank Suzanne Hetts and Nancy Williams for introducing me to a Peachtini. Always glad to add one more fruit serving to my nutrition for the day. (Not to mention adding about 3 pounds. My only complaint about the conference is that if you add Pia Silvani, Suzanne Hetts, Nancy Williams and Pam Reid up together, you would still barely manage a Size 2. I said I was representing the cows of Wisconsin.)

From left to right, back row: Dana Crevling, conference organizer queen who lost her soulmate dog the same day that Pia lost hers. Together they decided to do something to honor them. Next is Carolyn Barney who was a invaluable help in the  organization, Nancy Williams, Pia Silvani, Trish King, yours truly, and Vinnie Castalano. In the front is Suzanne Hetts, Pam Reid and Emily Levine. Not pictured are the legions of wonderful people from St. Hubert’s Animal Welfare Center in NJ, who did tons of work. It looks like we raised lots of money for St. Hubert’s and that felt great to all of us.

I promised the people who keep an aging hippie social worker like me in business that I’d mention that the summer 1/2 price DVD sale is on. Okay, I did that. Good Trisha.

Sweet day today. Jim’s and my 10th anniversary. Making, as I write, a cherry/blueberry/strawberry/rhubarb pie for Jim. I will eat some myself to keep him company and prove that I love him. Greater love hath no woman.

I had planned to write a post yesterday about the correlation (if any) between testosterone and aggression, but got overwhelmed with speech preparations. I’ve got 6 separate talks to give in the next 2 weeks. Oh my. Giving a Keynote address to the Int’l Society of Human Ethologists on Monday, then off on Thursday the Best Friends Forever in Pennsylvania (giving 3 talks there, soooo looking forward to seeing my friends and colleagues and learning lots and lots from other speakers) home on the next Monday then off to Toronto after that to talk about Dog-Dog Aggression & the Biology of Play. So bear with me, I might be tad less productive than usual, but I’ll do my best to keep up. So many things I’d like to discuss with you all . . .

Time to take out the pie and go up the hill and feed the rams before we get the straw out of our hair and go to town to celebrate, but here’s Mr. Hope, all 5 months of him, eyeing the sheep. Notice how his tail is starting to go down (from up over his back). That’s a good sign, means he’s starting to think about herding rather than chasing. He won’t get a chance to do either until he’s much older, but it’s fun to watch the progression.

Here’s my pie for Jim, and here’s what I always sing when I make one, straight out of the movie Waitress, one of my all time favorite movies:

Baby don’t you cry

Gonna make a pie

Gonna make a pie with a heart in the middle . . .

Lucky for you, you are not able to hear me sing it.

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.

A dog’s love of a good chase is both a blessing and a curse. It makes playing with them extra fun; what a joy it is to play fetch and chase with some dogs! And it’s got a dark side too–chasers love to chase cats, cars, joggers and bicyclists, and that doesn’t tend to work out so well for all involved.

In an earlier post I talked about teaching my new pup Hope not to chase Sushi the cat, and several readers asked how I am doing that. Here’s a summary of both a generic plan and how it looks in detail in one home, with one dog, and one cat. Obviously, the details vary tremendously, but the basic plan is relatively universal.

1. MANAGE AND PREVENT: What could be more fun than chasing something if a dog is so inclined? Dogs are, after all, cursorial predators (meaning they run things down for a living), and that tendency is still very strong in many of them, 12,000 + years later. (And admittedly, not so much in others.) There is little more reinforcing than a great chase to some dogs, so once you know it’s an issue, job #1 is to prevent it from happening unless you can use the situation as a training session. That means leashes, gates, etc.. whatever you need to do to keep your dog from getting reinforced by a super fun chase game.

At the farm: Once I knew Hope loved to chase Sushi (happened once outside and once inside), I used leashes, gates and management to prevent it from happening again. If Hope was outside loose, then Sushi was inside.  If Hope was inside, Sushi was in her kitty suite if I couldn’t be on “cat duty.”

2. MASTER at least one incompatible behavior. While you are managing the situation, work on teaching at least one (more is better) behavior that inherently prevents chasing and gives you a chance to give your dog a whoppingly wonderful reinforcement. You could use “Watch” (turn away and look at me), sit down, lie down, turn away and chase you, go get a toy, etc etc. Your choice should be based on finding something that replaces chasing (or even focusing on the chasee) and is something that is easy and fun for your dog to do and for you to reinforce. Don’t choose “Sit” if it’s hard for your large breed dog to sit down, or “Lie Down” if your dog is nervous outside and he likes to chase cars. Fighting fire with fire is often a good idea, so if you have a dedicated chaser, you could teach him to look at you when you say “Watch” and then let him chase you as a reinforcement.

When I say “master,” I mean to teach the behavior (again, more than one is better, gives you more flexibility) so that your dog will do it even when she is distracted. Start, as you would with all cues, with no distractions, and then work your way up to mild distractions, and then strong ones.

At the farm: We were already working on turning to me when I said his name, and sitting on cue, so I used both of those. When we started this, I had only had him for 1 week, so I didn’t want to get too elaborate. I probably said his name + reinforcement 25 times a day, and asked him to sit about the same number of times. For reinforcement he got great treats (kibble for easy responses, cooked pieces of  steak for ones when he was distracted), cooing and belly rubs (he appears to adore them) and chasing me when I ran. Well, I can’t run much, which is truly cramping my style. I hobble along like Chester dragging his bad leg while calling after Mr. Dylan (any one else remember Gunsmoke?!) But I speed up as best I can, and have  friends and Jim use running as much as they can, because herding dogs like Will seem to love little more than a good run after a friend.

3. ASK FOR A BEHAVIOR in the presence of the chasee. Use the behavior(s) you’ve been working on and give your dog a chance to be right or to be wrong. Only do this when you have some control. Don’t start with the dog and cat loose outside, or a loose dog who can see cars passing by right in front of him. Do what you need to do to create a ‘win’ and avoid a ‘loss’… if you need to use a leash, then start there. Perhaps you ask your dog to look at you when he sees the cat behind a gate (no leash necessary there) or when you let them both into the same room together (leash might help here!). If your dog chases cars, be thoughtful about how difficult it will be for your dog to respond to your cue, the one you’ve been working on so hard in other contexts.  Perhaps you start just on your front porch, not walking any closer to the street, and jackpot your dog for any positive response before going any further.

If your dog doesn’t respond to your cue, show them some great food and lure them away from the object of interest. At first I’d give the food (assuming that’s what your using at that point) even if you had to put the food beside their nose and use it to lure them toward you, but after a while you might want to use “negative punishment” and show them the food (right to their nose), lure them away from the car or cat, and then say “Oh Dear. Too bad… you would  have gotten this if you’d been good, but you missed your chance. I’m so sorry.” (It’s really fun here to eat the food yourself .. not sure it affects the dog, but boy it feels great! Unless the only food you have is Liver/Fish Chunky Yunkies or something, Yuck.) If this happens several times in a row (no response), then you need to go back to Step #2, or set up the situation so that the chasee is farther away.

When your dog does respond to your cue, Whooooo Hooo! Jackpot (10 treats in a row, one at a time, while you wax eloquently about how brilliant she is, or run like crazy, laughing and clapping, throwing yourself down on the ground and letting happy dog lick your face.. etc etc…). Give reinforcements based on the difficulty of the exercise. Once you’ve gotten several good responses in a row, start asking for a bit more from your dog (cat closer for example).

Continue this at least 3 times a day if you can, more is better. Don’t exhaust your dog (or cat!) by asking for a Watch, for example, over and over and over again in a row. Ask for one or two good responses, then move on to something else.

At the farm: I began letting Hope and Sushi together in the house and asking for him to either look at me or sit on cue as soon as he saw the cat. (Once Sushi learned she wasn’t going to get chased she stopped running away, which made things a lot easier.) This went very well, partly because I’d worked on it so hard, and partly because Hope is a relatively responsive little pup.  Once I was at 95-99% inside, I started letting my guard down outside and not worrying so much if they were both outside together (after about a week). Then, every time he saw the cat I’d say “Hope” or “Sit” and give him my best and most wonderous reinforcement.

4. USE MILD Positive Punishment when necessary if it’s relevant and suitable. This would only be applicable in some situations, not in others. Try body blocking between a dog and a cat for example (see my farm example below). Perhaps if you had a car chaser you could get between the dog (on leash of course) and the car, and back him up in space a few paces (I love “space corrections” — you’re not mad,  not raising your voice, just ‘taking the space’ back away from your dog.) I am always very cautious about positive punishment, but as I said in an earlier post, I do not think it inhumane in the least if it is done thoughtfully and carefully. After all, as defined, it is adding something (the ‘positive’ part) to decrease a behavior (which is what makes it ‘punishment’ as defined by Skinner et al). The trick is knowing your dog, what you can ‘add’ to decrease a behavior, and doing it with the right timing.

At the farm: A few times Hope ignored my cue, and was about to start another chase. Because chasing Sushi is SO reinforcing, I just couldn’t let him get away with doing it. (In many other contexts I would just let it go and go back to reinforcements… but you just can’t do that when the problem behavior is inherently as reinforcing as anything you can provide.)

Before he could start chasing, I got between them,  facing Hope, and backed him up in space a few feet. While I was backing into him (to back him up), I spoke very softly, but with a low voice, disappointed voice saying something like: “What are you doing Mr. Hope? We don’t bother cats in this house.” Okay, full disclosure, sometimes I used other words, and sometimes they weren’t quite so sweet, but I always try to use a quiet, disappointed, but still benevolent voice.

However, two times I was behind Hope, he was about to chase Sushi and I had no way of getting between them. I said his name and got nothing, and I knew darn well the chase was about to start, so I tossed my bait bag (handily in hand) such that it landed right in front of Hope. I said “no” right before it landed, and glory of glories, the timing worked out perfectly. Hope is a relatively soft dog, and it had a big effect on him. Ever since then he’s responded to my requests to look at me or sit down around the cat, but I don’t think it all would fit together if we hadn’t worked on a solid foundation of what TO DO (versus what NOT TO DO). (In other words, just saying “no” rarely works unless you teach the dog what you DO want him to do first.)

5. BE PATIENT AND HAVE STAMINA. Everything else is the easy part, this is the hard part! What can I say? This is going to take time. How much depends on your dog, you and how much he has chased something he shouldn’t in the past. If he’s been doing this for years it’s going to take a lot more time and stamina than if you can get it turned around early on. Do keep one thing in mind: Research shows that it takes 21 to 28 days of consistent practice to turn around an old habit and learn a new behavior. It turns out that most people are really good at trying something new (exercise for example) for 10 to 14 days. Do the math. Whoops. So think about your behavior around this issue, and remember that you’ll need the most support and help around day 11 to 28!

Hope is doing well, but it’s only been two weeks. I’d estimate we need at least 6 months of work, but overall things should continue to improve, with the predictable set back occurring every once in a while. Right now he still goes over to Sushi, tries to interact, and I have to ask him to sit or look at me. He’ll do that right away, but Sushi is still irritated by his very existence, and Hope still thinks it is fun to get close enough for her to swat at him. Cross your paws for poor Sushi: we finally got stalking out of the picture and now she has a dog who wants to play with her. Maybe she’ll read the blog about all the cats who like to play with dogs?

If you have a chaser that you’ve worked with, I know readers would appreciate any other ideas and tips you have for them.  I’d love to hear too how you are handling it.

Meanwhile, back on the farm: True confessions: between my smashed knee, Jim’s exhausting brace, a puppy who has to urinate ridiculously often (checking on ‘puppy vaginitis,’ will have chinese med appt soon) and now Will having oral surgery as I write… things have been a tad challenging at the farm. Will broke his root canal tooth last weekend, so he is having it extracted. (More on that soon, including some serious grousing, but I have to go check on him now.)

The best thing that has happened all week (besides a delightful visit from my nephew and his wife) is that the toys we ordered came in. We’ve been testing toys for months, and have put the winners on the website. (Along with the coolest tiny Kong keychain you can imagine. We are all stupidly entranced by it. Check it out.) We did have a bit of a surprise: we ordered a tough, stuffed sheep that we pictured as being, oh I don’t know, toy chihuahua size, and it came more corgi size. We have an entire flock in the back room. Luckily, Hope and Will think it’s too cool for words . . .

Hey, why not? Okay, I know, really I do. It costs a fortune to get there, no way around it. But hey, I’m going to do a two-day seminar outside of Auckland on November 27th and 28th, of this year, and what better excuse to take the trip of a lifetime? Besides, the air fare rates just went way down . . .

I’ve been to New Zealand before, and hands down, it is one of the most beautiful place in the world. Ah, it’s true, I haven’t been everywhere, but I’ve been in some drop-dead gorgeous places, including the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, the Denali Range in Alaska, and the fjords of Norway. All of these places are awe-inspiring, but New Zealand still has my heart as the place I just had to go back to with Jim. I seriously considered moving there when I visited, so impressed was I by the people, the scenery, and okay, the food. When I was there the first time (a gazillion year ago? or maybe just 20 +?), I vowed I would come back. And now I get to, thanks to the good people at Learning About Dogs.

The seminar I’m going to do includes discussion, demonstrations, slides and videos on “Advanced Canine Behavior,” “Dog-Dog Aggression,” and “Play.”  You can learn more about it on my host’s site, Learning About Dogs. Granted, you could come to a similar seminar in the U.S., if that’s where you live, but don’t you need an excuse to treat yourself to a special trip? You could travel to Auckland, have your plane fare be a business expense, and then take a well-deserved vacation. (That’s my plan.) Besides, I’m winding down on seminars, wanting to spend more time at home and less time traveling, and I don’t know how many more I”m going to do. Here’s a site just to get you thinking about New Zealand itself.

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: Baby birds everywhere. The barn is full of newly fledged barn swallows, the fat, matronly Robin babies are sprawling out of the nest on the porch light, the hapless Phoebee continues to try to raise her young in a nest inside my garage–which means she’s closed in or out anytime I’m gone and have shut the door. The wren is nesting again in the vent that leads to the bathroom fan, which hasn’t worked in years because I don’t have the heart to take away the wren’s favorite nest site. The first year the wrens nested I’d turn on the fan switch and hear “cheep cheep cheep” as the air blew across the nestlings, so we stopped using the fan. Now the fan doesn’t work at all, but the wrens raise 2 to 3 sets of young from it every summer, and it means the house has baby birds growing and twittering on three sides. Surrounded by bird life, I love it.

There are flowers everywhere, including iris, daisies, and the ubiquitous mid-western transplant, the peony.

Here’s the center of one, looking far more elegant than any peony deserves.

And here’s Mr. Hope, whose 2nd ear just popped up like a piece of toast. He’s covered in grass and baby burrs, a dog of the country.

I love tail wags: they are such an interesting expression of internal affect and indicator of a dog’s emotional state. And I know the professional trainers who read this blog know how often they can be mis-interpreted by the general public. “But he was wagging his tail…!!!!” is a phrase heard painfully often, by people who have been bitten, or whose dog just snapped, nipped or bit.

Ah, but a tail wag is like a smile: often an indicator of happiness, but not always. For example, we all know what a “phoney” smile looks like. The lips part and the corners of the mouth rise but the eyes never change. I’m remembering one person who smiled at me in a way that caused me to think I was in danger.  There was nothing friendly about this guy’s face, because his eyes were cold and hard, and the muscles around his eyes, the orbicularis oculi muscles, were not contracted. Makes me shiver just to think about ti. In contrast, in a ‘real’ smile, (called a Duchenne smile) the muscles contract and the eyes look squinty and partially closed.

There’s an equivalent of a “phoney” smile in a dog’s tail wag. The more the wag spreads to the body, the happier I assume the dog to be. I call it a “Full  Body Wag,” in which the tail, the hindquarters and sometimes even the chest of the dog swings back and forth. In this case, the body is relaxed, the tail is sweeping back and forth, and if the eyes are squinting too.. well, then I’m as happy as the dog is.

However, if a dog stands still, stiff bodied and immobile except for a tail wagging slowly back and forth, red flags start waving in front of my face and tell me to stop what I’m doing. Tail wags that only involve the tail are often the canine equivalent of smiles that only engage the mouth: They are NOT honest indicators of a happy dog, and are often a sign of potential danger.

But here’s one for you: What about “Circle Wag?” I made that term up, so don’t go looking for it anywhere. But in the best tradition of ethology, “Circle Wag” is descriptive, because the tail literally goes around in a circle. Here’s my belief about it’s ‘meaning’ (and that’s all it is, a belief). Circle wags appear to be done by dogs who are extremely happy. I see it on dogs who just adore adore adore a particular person, and I’ve seen on Luke and Will when we finished up a great session of herding and we both were equally proud of ourselves. I can not remember ever seeing it on a dog who appeared to be anxious or potentially aggressive, either defensive or offensively. Many dogs never circle wag, and I have no idea how many dogs actually do it. Ten percent? Twenty?

What about you? Does your dog circle wag? And if so, in what context? I’ll spend some time this week researching the issue (is it described in wolves, in other ethograms, for ex?). I do know that Fox and Bekoff (1975) wrote “The only tail wagging behavior that seems to reliably predict friendliness is a relaxed tail waving in a circular motion.” I would love to hear your own thoughts and observations about what I call “circle wag”.

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: The pup’s name is Hope. I love it. It’s short, it’s fun to say, it’s a traditional Border Collie name (for both males and females, but more boys than girls) and it allows me to say “He’s named Hope because for a gazillion reasons I hope to hell everything goes smoothly from here.”

Here’s the good news: Will circled wagged when he came down the stairs for the first two days after Hope came home. (Thus the topic above.) They appeared to adore each other, they even slept together. I was happier than I can convey, I simply don’t have the words to express how good it all felt. Picture all of us glowing with happiness.

Here’s the bad news; On day three, Hope got his second vaccination, and in 30 minutes he was growling and lunging at Will over a stupid stick on the grass, leaping onto him and growling like a grizzly at other times. He then proceeded to play with me, but frenetically, not in a happy-puppy-kind-of-way. No circles wags were seen. Will became afraid of him, and tongue-flicked when he looked at him. Behavioral changes, especially related to aggression, have been reported after rabies vaccinations, but less often after the regular Distemper-Parvo series. However, the change in the pup was dramatic to say the least: from super sweet grovely-squinty boy to a very different dog, and the only event that one could link it to was the vaccination. I expect I do not have to spell out to you how it all felt to me. I’ve leave it that stress often inhibits one’s appetite, and I did need to lose a few pounds.

Long, long story, short short version: Will avoided the pup all weekend, the pup is now on Chinese meds designed to ameliorate reactions to vaccines, and I’ve been researching vaccine reactions (more on that later). In a day’s time, Hope calmed and became normal with me, but the relationship between Will and the pup was completely changed. Will asked to go upstairs when the pup was downstairs. Hope was no longer submissive and sweet to Will, not aggressive but somewhat aloof. On Tuesday night Hope went to a friend’s so I could concentrate on Jim and his surgery, and came back last Saturday after being a totally lovely puppy with her two dogs (more on that later too).

Sunday morning Will and I came down the stairs and Will completely ignored Hope in his crate. He was clearly nervous around him all day, but there were a few times they each attempted to initiate play. This morning we came downstairs and Will went up to the crate and sniffed Hope’s nose, and later initiated play for a second outside. Their play styles are very different now, but there are indications that Will is starting to relax around him. It goes up and down, mostly they ignore each other. Hope is a lovely, lovely pup, I adore him…. he’s responsive and fun and a total joy to work with. He’s played with other dogs and puppies very appropriately. He’s a bit softer (shyer) than the first pup, but gets over his fears very fast.  I have high hopes that as the weeks go on that Will and Hope will become buddies again . . . Crossing all paws.

I promised a post on “how much training/attention” should we be giving our dogs, and it’ll come, I promise. However, I’m a tad under the weather today, and since I wrote this part up yesterday I’ll post it now, and pick up the training topic soon. Fact is, things are pretty crazy here right now. Besides speeches (thanks SAVMA for having me!), finishing grading 150 7-page exams, new lectures, and the usual daily work load, I agreed to be a grant reviewer for NIH (Nat’l Institute of Health). They are due this Friday, then I fly to DC for panel reviews (and an appearance on Diane’s Rehm’s radio show… I just love her, so that’s a great perk.) If I’d known how much work these reviews would be, well… not so sure I’d have said yes. But it’s interesting, very interesting. But more on the training schedule issue soon, because I think it’s something that’s important to many of us.

Meanwhile, back on the farm: Shearing went off without a hitch Saturday morning; what a treat to see the sheep’s bodies without their coats of wool or hair. Turns out they weren’t as chubby as I thought, and given that they are due as early as two weeks from now, they’ll be getting more food for breakfast and dinner. High time, I’m sure they’d say. They are on extremely nutritious hay, glorious stuff rich with lots of alfalfa leaves, but the more the better from their perspective I’m sure. The day of shearing was cloudy, windy and damp, so I kept them inside the barn. Today it’s breezy but sunny and toasty (50’s!), and I’d bet that they are thrilled to be outside, in the sun and gnawing on tiny new shoots of grass. (New shoots! Bulbs poking green leaves above ground! Be still my heart; I’m almost afraid to believe that spring is really coming… of course, there will be lots more cold days, probably lots more snow, but still, the progression is inevitable and oh so welcome.)

I couldn’t resist experimenting with an old farmer’s trick passed on through a comment on the blog (thanks!) about anointing the sheep with Mennen’s After Shave before turning them loose after shearing as way of decreasing aggression. Given that last year Truffles and Dorothy looked like they were auditioning for a segment on “When Animals Attack” (see photos March 16^th, 2009) , I thought I’d try it. I didn’t have any Mennen’s, but hey, I did have Evelyn & Crabtree Body Mist (Nantucket Briar, ummm, just love the smell), and I figured that any strong scent would do. So immediately after they were shorn I backed them into a corner and sprayed them all. At first they scattered from left to right, but after a few sprays they stood still and let me spray them all over their heads and necks. Did they like it? I swear I think they did. Sheep are very quick to run away from anything they don’t like, and either they were going into tonic immobility (which is highly doubtful), or they honestly liked the smell. And, amazingly, I saw almost no aggression between them. There was a brief moment of head-on-head pushing, but that was it.

The shearer wasn’t surprised; he is convinced that it’s not a visual difference that causes the problem, but that the sheep smell different after they are shorn. Once you take off their wool, which is full of lanolin and a unique slurry of individual scents, they smell very different than they did before. (Sort of like cats when they come back from the vet clinic?) Our experiment certainly supported that hypothesis. (And oh wow did the barn smell good.). Thanks for the tip!

Here’s Redford in “ready to shear” position. Sheep in this position look relaxed, but this probably IS case of tonic immobility… their cortisol readings are elevated when they are in this position, but they do get quiet and passive, which makes shearing much more pleasant for everyone. (The legs belong to Jerry Ace, who is the best shearer I’ve ever had; he is calm and gentle, even when the sheep are not, and there wasn’t one nick or scratch on my sheep. So lucky to have him.)

The next photo is of Dorothy, my oldest ewe, with her beautiful fleece almost off. The brown wool in the middle is the top of her fleece (which gets bleached by the sun), the darker wool on the sides is the inside, skin-side, of her fleece. She and Barbie have gorgeous wool, which will go to hand spinners for cleaning, spinning and knitting.

And here’s most of the flock after shearer was completed. That’s Brittany Spears looking at you (the white one with dark legs), who is indeed a bit of a pudge. She’s the one who crawls into the feeder to get more food–a woman after my own heart.