THE OTHER END OF THE LEASH

Eeeps, where’d the day go? I was going to write about the emotion of disgust, but it’ll have to wait til tomorrow. But before the day is over I wanted to remind you that the Early Registration for the Jan 7-8 seminar I’m doing with Kathy Sdao is over tonight at midnight. I’m doing a new day-long seminar on Canine Communication: communication of all kinds between dogs, from dogs to people, and from people to dogs. Lots of it is interactive: you’ll be working like a dog searching for scents (sort of!), interpreting visual signals, and translating dog vocalizations.  I’ll be adding in all the new research that relates to communication, so if you want to up your understanding of all things dog, you definitely want to come. It’s in Orlando, Florida too… not a bad place to be in January, and easy to fly to as well if it’s too far to drive.

Kathy Sdao is presenting on Sunday, and I put her in the same category as Ken Ramirez–great speaker, great trainer and an inspiration. If you missed Ken, then don’t miss Kathy, I never, never leave her talks without being energized and inspired.

I’m also doing a second half-day seminar on using your dog in Animal Assisted Therapy and Activities in Naples, Florida on January 12th in Naples, Florida. (More on that on our website soon.) Katie and I just finished taping a great sequence of evaluating 4 dogs, including Willie and Tootsie, as potential therapy dogs. (Our purpose was to illustrate an evaluation procedure, not actually put either of my dogs in a program right away. But, I can tell you: one would have passed, one would not have. You’ll have to guess which til later!) I’m excited about this seminar too, it’s a great opportunity to help people who want to help others through their dogs.

So here’s the plan: Go to Orlando, come to the seminar there, treat yourself to a few days in Disney World (that’s where I’ll be!), and then drive over to Naples and catch the seminar on using dogs for AAT and AAA. It’s a win/win for everyone. Hope to see you there.

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: I’ve gotta go and feed Sushi, dogs and sheep. They are all waiting. The dogs patiently, the cat impatiently, and the sheep, well, they are beginning to bang on the sides of the barn. More tomorrow! But here’s a photo, not from today, and not from the farm, but it’s one of my favorites that I took in New Zealand, so what the heck!

Here’s TOOTSIE!

Also known as:

Little Bit, Mini Me and my favorite, Mop of the Woods.

There’s a new kid on the block, or at the farm I should say. Meet Tootsie, a 7 year old King Charles Cavalier who was rescued by Lucky Star Cavalier Rescue from an Amish Puppy Mill, after the owners had used her up. Her mouth and ears were horribly infected; she had twenty teeth extracted.  She also was fat as a tick, so you couldn’t say she was starving. She weighed 22 lbs (now she weighs 15 and is still a bit overweight).

And what, you might ask, is a Cavalier doing at Redstart Farm? Doesn’t every farm need a Cavalier? (What, you think we farmers don’t have laps?)  Seriously, there is logic to all this. Here’s a brief version of the back story:  If you have been following the blog for awhile, you know that after Lassie died I had my heart set on getting back up to 3 dogs–Willie, a little lap dog from a shelter or rescue, and another Border Collie. I had wanted the lap dog first, but then a litter of BCs came along that looked too good to pass up, so last summer we raised Hope, a Border Collie pup with great herding lines.

It’s a long story, as you know if you followed the bouncing ball last year, but it turned out that Hope and Willie brought out the worst in each other, and I decided it was in both of their best interests to place Hope in another home. It was a brutally hard decision for me to make, and I was roundly criticized by some for it, but I did what I believed to be right for both of the dogs, took some deep breaths, and went back to looking for the next dog. If you know Willie’s history (extremely uncomfortable, and at one time aggressive, to unfamiliar dogs) you know that picking the right dog for him was a challenge, and not as easy as it would have been with any other dog I’ve ever had. But early in the year, a dear friend and I found a little fluff-ball-oxytocin pump from a rescue who sounded perfect, and was about to come out to the farm when Willie was badly injured.

And so, the next dog was put on hold for many, long months while we worked through Willie’s injury in February, his surgery in May and his first 5 months of PT. Once Willie was able to have a bit of off-leash time I began looking again. One of the places I looked was at Cavalier rescue, because Willie has had some great experiences with them. One of my sitters has two females who come to the farm often, and Willie gets along beautifully with them. In addition, one of his best friends when he was younger was Brody, a sweet little male Cav, who used to love to wrestle play with Willie on the living room floor.

After consultations with two wonderful women in rescue, Nancy and Leslie, and two super rescue groups, Lucky Star Cavalier Rescue and Greater Chicago Cavalier Rescue, we all agreed that Tootsie might be a great match. She is a small female (least likely to make Willie nervous), quiet (good again), deferential to Willie (good again) and great around cats (and yet again). After a trial period Tootsie became a  permanent member of Redstart Farm and I can’t tell you how happy it makes me. She is great for us–she does need a lot of training, but she’s going to be a good, good little dog, and will fit in well. It also feels good to finally be able to bring a needy little dog to the farm. I’ll talk in a later post about how this adoption relates to my concerns about the problems that occur when breeding dogs for our sake rather than for theirs, but for now, it’s all about integrating Tootsie into the farm.

As you can imagine, Willie’s feelings about all this are paramount to me. I am happy to say that so far things are going well, given how little time has passed. She and Willie are not buddies, and I don’t know that they ever will be. But that’s okay; he can’t have a playmate now because he is still on a great many restrictions, so I couldn’t bring in a dog he wanted to play with. At first he was a bit uncomfortable about her in the house, but less so than he normally would be with a new dog in the house. Willie does well with unfamiliar dogs in the great outdoors (a huge change from his behavior 2-3 years ago) but he is nervous with new dogs inside the house. As expected, he was not 100% comfortable with her in the house at first, although he was still pretty darned polite. Mostly he made what I call “snake face,” hard flat eyes, flattened ears and a sour look that made it clear he wasn’t thrilled with the addition. But he was appropriate, and in very few days he appears to have accepted her presence. He still seems happy and relaxed and seems to think of her as part of the ‘new normal’ of life.

Of course, I’ve worked hard hard hard on counter conditioning him around her getting food and petting, and now he’ll even let her eat out of the same plate when they get snacks after our dinner. Resource guarding was one of my primary concerns with Willie, and that is going extremely well so far. She pushes in between us for petting and he puts up with that too, although he clearly doesn’t like it. Who could blame him? She’s the one who needs work here; she is super pushy and will be learning some manners soon. (Thus the name, Mini Me.)  A good sign I think: he is starting to sneak in sniffs when he can, as if pretending he just happened to find his nose in the area of her belly and groin. “Oh my, did my nose end up under your tail? I have no idea how that happened.”

She, on the other hand, pretends he isn’t there. She is an especially small Cav (her legs are ridiculously short) and he must look like a giant to her. I suspect they will become more and more comfortable together, and who knows, maybe they will learn to be buddies. It’s very very early …;

I’ll write updates about how things are going when I can. Weeks one and two have been all about:

1) House Training: She is a mill dog after all–but Leslie at Lucky Star made a GREAT start. I took her out every 10 min for the first 2 weeks. Seriously. She is still in shock that she gets a treat every times she pees. She’s doing great, but I am still on it all the time.

2) Teaching her to respond when I say Tootsie. That was her name when she was in foster care, but she had no idea what it meant when I said it. Around day 15 she literally had a Helen Keller moment when (I think) she realized that the noises I made meant something. I would give a lot to have had a video of her face when she made the connection.

3) Leash Manners: Not charging away at 20 mph when on a leash. I never trust her off leash now, so we worked hard on teaching her to stay close to me when the leash is on. It’s taken a lot more treats, but she’s making fantastic progress.

4) Barking: I was warned she barked in the morning at 5:30 until she was let out of her crate. Oh my, not good for me and Willie and our super sensitive ears. We’ve worked very  hard on this too (began by setting the alarm for 5 am, then slowly later etc etc.) She does NOT bark in her crate in the morning (the goal is no crate at all, but the house training issue with a mill dog takes priority) YEAH! But she does bark at other times when she wants out, sounding something like a huge, operatic mouse. We’re working on it and she’s making progress on that too.

Best of all? She is super friendly and is much less shy than most mill dogs. She loves people, men and women both. She has some health challenges; a minor heart murmur and subluxated knee (also minor), and of course there’s her heart to worry about given that she’s a Cav. I don’t know how long her life with us will last, she is already seven years old, but she’s found a home at Redstart Farm, and in my heart forever.

Here she is:

And on one of her first walks in the country, my goodness this exercise stuff can tire a girl out!

Happy dog, happy baby, happy Easter and spring weekend, everyone:

Thanks to all who have commented so far in answer to the questions “Are you a 100 % positive trainer?” and “Would you sign a pledge to only use positive reinforcement and never use punishment?” I appreciate the thoughtful discussion that the questions have generated. I’ll jump in now, with the caveat that this topic deserves an all day seminar (at least) and I can’t begin to say all I’d like to in one post. I’ll start however, by summarizing some of my thoughts on the issue.

Let me start by saying that I consider myself to be an overwhelmingly “positive” trainer.  I would imagine that those who have seen me work would agree that I am a kind and gentle trainer, and primarily use positive reinforcement when working with dogs. That said, I’d never sign a pledge saying I’ll only “use positive reinforcement” in all my dealings with dogs. I wouldn’t consider it for a moment. Here’s why:

1. As most of us are well aware, the word “punishment” itself refers to two completely different concepts, depending on whether you are talking to the public or to professionals in animal training or psychology. I virtually never use the word when talking to the general public or a client, unless I define it first in operant conditioning terms. That’s because the public and generic dog owner usually defines “punishment” as something inherently aversive, and often as something involving pain or fear. But in operant terms, punishment simply means anything that decreases the frequency of a behavior, and that should be well understood by any professional group involved in dog training. If someone in the dog training field asked me to sign a pledge that I’d never use “punishment,” I’d assume they were aware of its precise meaning, and decline, being unable to say “I’d never do anything to decrease the frequency of a behavior.”

2. I love “Negative Punishment.” What? Trisha loves “negative” and “punishment?” Oh my, say it isn’t so. But remember: in learning theory terms, “negative” means to take something away and “punishment” means to decrease the frequency of a behavior. Period, that’s all. Nothing about aversive, or even “good” or “bad” for that matter.

Here’s an example: Say I’ve been working with a young dog for six months on sitting when asked. We’ve proofed the behavior in a million contexts, and Fido has gotten 10 gazillion pieces of chicken and 5 gazillion other times he’s got to run and play with another dog when he did as asked. Now we’re at home, there’s little going on, but Fido didn’t sit when I gave the cue. I’m as sure as one can be without speaking ‘dog” that there’s nothing physically bothering him, he just seems more interested in ignoring me and going somewhere else to sniff. I’ll take a piece of said chicken, let him sniff it and then withdraw it, saying, melodramatically, “Too bad…. ” and possibly, depending on the state of the chicken and my stomach, “Mmmm, this sure is good! Too bad you don’t get any.”

That’s “negative punishment:” I took something away (food) to decrease a behavior (ignoring my cue). I didn’t learn this technique until I’d been in the business for quite awhile, but I use it, in the right context, and have found it to be really and truly effective. (Leslie Nelson, for her great Reliable Recalls, uses a similar technique in which one dog ends up watching other dogs get treats when he didn’t come when called.) In the example above, once I’d withdrawn the food, I ask for a sit again, and then I’d back up so that my feet don’t get squished by the dog’s hindquarters hitting the ground. That’s how effective it is. I only use this once a dog has received positive reinforcement literally over and over and over again, and when I feel confident that he understands the exercise and is capable of performing it (not feeling poorly that day, not overwhelmed by a new environment, for example). But let’s be clear: it’s punishment, if you are going to use the term correctly.

3. What’s Positive for the Trainer may not be Positive for the Dog: As the opposite of “Punishment,” “Reinforcement,”is something that increases a behavior, period. If it’s “positive” (I’ll use +R here for Positive Reinforcement) then you have added something to the system, if it’s negative (-R), you’ve taken something away. In either case, you are looking for a behavior to increase. So how would you evaluate these  scenarios:

Scenario One is, regrettably, astoundingly common: A shy dog is greeted by a person, whether it’s a vet tech or a neighbor, with shrieks of joy and looming hugs and/or kisses to the nose. The person is being “positive” in their eyes, but the dog is being punished for its very existence, terrified as it is by the rude and overwhelming approach by the stranger. A perfect of example of +P to the dog  and +R to the human.

In Scenario Two, a trainer is waiting for a dog to raise it’s paw so that she can use +R and give it a treat, on her way to shaping a “high five.” The dog, having no clue what the trainer wants, tries sitting, circling, and lying down. The trainer stays still and quiet, an atypical posture for her, and turns her head away very slightly. She has just used +P to communicate to the dog, adding in an unnatural posture and an obvious turn of the head (obvious to the dog anyway) to decrease the frequency of the dog’s response in that context.

4. Positive Punishment (in which something is added to decrease the frequency of a behavior) isn’t always aversive. For example, after watching herding dogs influence the behavior of sheep without touching them, I took a page from their lesson plan and began using what I called “Body Blocks.”  For example, while teaching Stay, I’ll give a dog infinite quantities of treats for staying still when asked, but also move forward to block her movement if she starts to get up. “Taking the space” I’ve called it, and I’ve found it to be incredibly useful in helping dogs understand what you want. (This is similar to the Psych study one commenter noted, in which students were “trained” to perform a new behavior by either 1) only being told “Yes” when they did right, 2) only being told “No” when they did wrong or, 3) being told both “Yes” and “No.” The students who were told both what was right and what was wrong learned fastest.)

I realize that some people consider Body Blocks to be highly aversive to dogs, and don’t use them. One commenter noted that she never used Body Blocks, feeling that they were too aversive to use on her dogs. Two things come to mind here: one is that I’ve done Body Blocks on one or two dogs now (or maybe 5,000), and can tell you that they respond in a myriad of ways. Some field-bred Labradors seem to think it’s the best game in town, and try their best to beat you, eyes shining, until they figure out soon enough that something even better happens if they just stay still for a moment. They behave as though, if they could, they’d say “That was fun! Got any more cool games up your sleeve?” However, super soft dogs, let’s imagine a melty little Shetland Sheepdog, need a quiet little forward lean to be influenced, and if someone moved too fast and too abruptly they could indeed scare them. This is a perfect example of how important it is for a trainer to be able to ‘read’ a dog,  no matter what method they are using I would argue, and adjust their behavior based on the personality of the dog him or herself.

5. However, this does raise the question, the elephant in the room really, of using “aversives.” Are “Aversives” always bad? Ah, here’s where the rubber hits the road, isn’t it? We can all debate about what is +P and -P and +R and -R to our heart’s content, but isn’t the issue really “Is it ever acceptable to purposefully respond to a dog’s behavior with something that they perceive as aversive?” My own answer is another reason why I’d never sign a pledge to never use punishment, even as defined by the public. Life is just too complicated to be summed up in simple categories of black and white.

Do I think that we have a responsibility to be kind and gentle to our dogs? Yes.

Do I think that Positive Reinforcement is overwhelmingly the most effective method of training? Yes.

Do I use it 99.99% of the time? Yes.

Have I ever done something to a dog that I knew he would think was aversive to get him to stop doing something? Yes. Would I again? Yes.

Here’s an example:

When Willie first started working sheep, he had a bad habit of dashing into the flock and scattering them as if he was playing pool. Alisdair McRae, a brilliant trainer and teacher, explained that I simply had to prevent it from happening during the early stages of training, because there was nothing I could do that was more reinforcing to Willie. Not only did he get to watch the sheep bolt away (look what I can do!) and then chase them (wow is this fun!), he got to disperse the tension inside of his own body (and boy do I feel better!). So I set up practice after practice in which I was between him and the sheep, and just my presence was enough for him to stay back where he should when working. But once I had to move back away from the flock to begin short outruns, he began doing it again. We went back to working in closer, but every time I backed away far enough he’d eventually dash in, scatter the sheep and turn around, body relaxed, eyes shining, mouth open, having gotten the best reinforcement he could possibly get.

I began walking him away in response: you bolt in, session over. This helped a great deal, but not enough. Eventually, after several months of work, Willie charged in, for what I believed to be the simple joy of it. I responded a gruff voice (“Cut it out!”) and a fast and direct march toward him. I stopped a long way away but looked directly at him and said again, in no uncertain terms “You cut that out!” Willie, an extremely biddable dog, backed up and looked absolutely shocked . . . and didn’t do it again. He now has the most gorgeous outrun you can imagine, and he works right on balance 99.99% of the time.  Every once in a while, when he’s very tense, he’ll begin to dash in and I’ll say his name low and quiet, and he’ll curve back out again. Do I feel badly about raising my voice in that context years ago? No, not at all. Does that mean I use aversives often in training? Not at all. I quite literally never use them in any trick or “obedience” training, and primarily use +P and “Premack principle” methods to solve behavioral problems. (For example, Willie learned to lie down while working sheep because lying down on cue became the window to getting to work more.)

I’ll talk more next week about what’s critical to do or not do IF one is going to use punishment, but right now it’s time to go let Willie out to pee. No doubt relieving his bladder will be +R for him!

MEANWHLE, back on the farm: We’re pretty much at storm central here, being pummeled by ice and sleet at the same time that the politics of the area are swirling around in a social and legislative blizzard of epic proportions. (I’m right outside of Madison WI, and teach at the University, which is pretty much the eye of the storm here. FYI, for those of you out of the country, there is a huge political debate going on here, involving almost 70,000 protesters at our state capitol over the weekend. Enough said about that, except that everyone I’ve talked to agrees that the energy of the entire area is palpable, and not so much in a good way. I wonder if the dogs can sense it?)

Poor Willie injured his left foreleg again on Friday, darn. He’s been on leash restriction since then and he’s improving nicely, but not enough to let him off leash yet. If it’s not better in a day or so I’ll take him in to my sports medicine specialist vet. So Willie is bored and Sushi is disgusted–last week the warmer weather had her happily outside for hours at a time, now she’s sitting at the window slashing her tail. After I slide my way to the barn and feed the sheep we’ll do a bunch of trick training tonight a perfect time to exercise their brains instead of their bodies!

Here are some lovely clouds from a few mornings ago:

Recently there have been some debates and discussions about whether it is possible to be a “100% positive” trainer. This has become an issue because some seminar hosts have policies that they will not hire anyone for a seminar unless they only use positive reinforcement and “never use punishment or aversives.” Some people are being asked to sign pledges that they will never use punishment as a trainer.

I’m curious what you think. Are you a “100% positive trainer?” Do you ever use “punishment?”  Do you use what some people call “aversives”? Ever? If so, what kind and when? I’ll weigh in on this debate next week, (as you can guess I have a few opinions about the matter) but I’d love to hear what YOU think.

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: The snow is melting! It’s been well over freezing during the day all week, and as a result 1) we can actually see bare ground in some places, 2) the snow that’s left re-freezes every night so walking most places involves either teetering on a mouse-size mountain range of ice peaks and valleys, sinking into ankle deep mud, or having your boot fall through a foot of snow with a thin cover of ice on it. Let’s just say the footing is highly variable. There’s enough open ground that it’s muddy paw time here now, and I am reminded of how valuable it is to cue your dog when you are about to lift his feet. I’ve been saying “Ready” before I pick up each of Willie’s paws (I also do them in the same order) and he now lifts up 3 of his 4 paws for me when I say the word. It’s always the same one that he doesn’t pick up himself, and I suspect that it is because it is harder for him to do so. We are always working on some problems he has in his left shoulder and right hip, so I go especially slowly picking up his right hind paw, and wipe it off as fast as I can. Willie’s behavior is a great reminder to us all to be observant and thoughtful about our dog’s responses.

Besides the discovery of lots of dog poop (a universal sign of spring in snow country), I discovered something far more interesting today. I found a dead hawk below the pines lining the driveway, clearly one who had died recently. I believe it is an immature Red Tail, (Buteo jamaicensis) the most common hawk in the area.  There’s a pair that nests less than 100 yards from the farm house every year, and I wonder if it was one of their young from last year. Egg laying begins in late winter, in March or April, but I often have seen courtship begin in late February. I don’t know why the hawk died, it has no superficial injuries. The best guess (and it is only a guess) is that it starved to death. As I explained to my UW students recently, deep snow favors small rodents who can move through tunnels under the snow while staying out of sight of predators, and disfavors aerial predators like Red Tails. I wonder if the snow is melting just a few days or weeks too late for this one. I’m sorry that it died, but grateful to have a chance to appreciate its beautiful feathers.

Like many of you (great comments!) I’ve been playing this week with what words Willie defines the same as I. As suspected, most of the words I have used to communicate with him are verbs (to him), and that appears to be his “default” understanding. He HAS learned however, names for living things, me, Jim, Sushi, my other dogs when they were alive, etc. But all his toys are either “toy” or “ball,” and as I think about it that’s exactly how we used those words for several years. Go “up the hill” and “go to the barn” are effective and impressive cues, but I’d bet a lot of money that he has no idea what I mean by “barn” or “hill.” This weekend we’re going to work on labeling an object (his scorpion, Scorch, a favorite toy that is miraculously in great shape after 2 years) by holding it, throwing it, handing it to him and repeating its name. We’ll even try the “Model-Rival” method that Irene Pepperberg used to teach nouns to Alex, (except Willie won’t have to say the word to get it, but Jim or I will!).

Some of the questions that readers have brought up are extremely interesting, for example: how much does breed predisposition matter? What about the first weeks and months of training–how much does our behavior shape how our dogs perceive our words? Why do some dogs have no trouble distinguishing from a large number of objects, and others get frustrated and confused when we try to teach them to do so?

Speaking of words, I thought it might be fun to welcome the weekend by sharing some of the words that get sent in as “comments” by people trying to promote their website or blog. Those of us with blogs are used to getting comments generated by people who have no interest in the actual topic, who often don’t speak English well, and are sending comments to hundreds or thousands of blogs in order to get Google and other search engines to move their blog/website higher on the page (big companies pay people huge sums of money to manage the sites so that their businesses come up first or second on Google). These “generic” comments result in some amusing responses. I don’t post them, needless to say, but some of them make me laugh out loud and I thought it’d be fun to share. I know lots of readers have their own blogs… I’ve love to read some of your favorites. Here are mine:

Here’s a classic, ones like this come in often:

the articles on this post is definitely a single of the most efficient substance that i?ve really are available throughout. I truly like your article, I will are available once more to confirm for new posts.

Another:

Heyy, Sweet send! Love dgo woman athletic. I am going to definatley be coming back again quickly!=)

But here’s my absolute favorite of all time (so far, can you beat it?):

Advantageously, the post is really the sweetest on that notable topic. I concur with your conclusions and also will certainly thirstily look forward to your upcoming updates. Saying thanks definitely will not just be enough, for the fantasti c clarity in your writing. I can at once grab your rss feed to stay abreast of any updates.  Genuine work and also much success in your business dealings!

I thirstily look forward to hearing from you with your examples, and promise to at once grab your rss feed. Just don’t let it get around.

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: Willie and girlfriend Lily had a great run yesterday. Willie was warmed up and ready to play afterward, Lily slept all afternoon. Lily has on booties to protect her toenails, which have been taking a beating in the snow and ice. It definitely slowed her down, enough that rather than just racing (his favorite) Willie picked up a tree branch and played “catch me if you can.”

Fun as it is, and as scenic as snow can be, I am always starved for color this time of year, so here’s a photo from New Zealand of a magically whimsical and enchanting garden, called The Giant’s House in Akaroa, South Island. The artist, Jose Martin, has created a mosaic wonderland. I could have stayed all afternoon…

Move over Rico. Have you heard about the new article out in Beh’l Processes about a BC named Chaser who has not only learned names for 1022 objects, but has shown that she distinguishes between verbs and nouns? There’s more to this study, but let me start with the noun/verb issue. This is an especially interesting issue: one of the criticisms about the research on the dog, Rico, was that there was no proof he understood a label given to an object as a noun versus a verb. In other words, if you say “Go get your ball,” does your dog understand that “ball” refers to an object, or that the entire string of sounds means “go get something and bring it back”.

This is not a idle question. You may recall a post  I wrote about Willie’s difficulties discriminating between objects, “What Do Words Mean to Dogs?”, in which I described Willie’s inability to attach words to different objects. I concluded that he understood the words I used as verbs, and had little or no comprehension of them as labels of objects.

The authors of this study, John Pilley and Alliston Reid, not only taught Chaser to label over a thousand objects, they taught her actions as well as nouns (“nose” meaning touch with your nose, “paw” meaning touch with your paw, etc.) and combined them to test if she distinguished between actions and objects (“paw lamb,” “nose lips”). She had no problem with that test, scoring 100% in what she was asked to do.

In a third study, they trained Chaser to label certain objects as belonging to different categories. For example, after teaching her the names of 26 disc-like objects, each of which had a unique name, they subsequently taught her that all 26 objects could also be labeled in a category called “frisbees,” whereas all round objects could also be labeled in as “balls.” She had no problem with this task either, and it’s a particularly interesting one for me. Here’s why: a category (or common noun versus a proper one), like “ball” or “frisbee” is an abstract concept. Although there might be a “ball” in your home, the category of ballness–anything that is perfectly round, no matter what it is made of, what it smells like or how big or small it is–can not be picked up, handled, sniffed or licked. It is a concept, an intellectual abstraction that only exists in one’s mind. (Other examples of abstract categories are “big versus small,” different versus same.”)

The ability to form a “mental abstraction” is one definition of “thinking,” and “thinking” or using abstract concepts within the mind to inform future behavior is something that science has been hesitant to ascribe to non-human animals. First the data that some animals could understand abstractions came in from other apes, like chimps, then parrots, like Alex, and from marine mammals, and many scientists and philosophers have no problem agreeing that certain mammals and birds are able to form abstractions . . . but  dogs? As we know, dogs are not the most brilliant of problem solvers (a fact for which we should all be grateful; just ask the owner of a parrot.), but I find it fascinating, and important, that we are 1) including dogs in more and more studies and 2) doing the work to find out what really does go on “Inside of a Dog.”

So here’s the question to all of us: How do our dogs distinguish our spoken words, cues and commands? How many as verbs? How many as nouns? I am sure that Willie now categorizes “Jim, Trisha, Sushi and Sheep” as nouns, but I’m not sure about anything else. Indeed, it took some careful training to change “Where’s Jim” from ‘run to the window and get excited’ –even when Jim is standing beside you — to looking immediately at Jim no matter where he is. I suspect he (Willie, not Jim) may now understand that “toy” is any  object that he is allowed to play with, and “Where’s Your…” is a verb that means to go look for a toy. Most of his other cues are all verbs (Sit, Down, Wait, Get Back, Give me Kiss, Come Bye, Look Back, etc etc….). But now I’m motivated to find out more. This week I’m going to experiment, should be fun. What about your dog? Have you thought about whether your cues are nouns versus verbs?

MEANWHILE, back at the farm: The ewes with lambs are integrated into the flock and the lambs seem to be doing well. Poor little white boy was shivering Saturday morning when it was only 2 degrees F, and we tried to put his dog coat back on but he’s grown out of it. But the sun warmed him up and he’s getting grain now in the creep feeder, and he looks like he is doing okay. Hans Solo and white boy’s sister are fat as ticks, not sure why the little guy doesn’t gain as well, but we’re working on it.

Willie and I got to work a friend’s sheep this Sunday, working on cross driving at a distance, and had a great time. We just got back from working on it in my little pasture; not the same, but still worthwhile. Lordy we love working sheep!

Time to go feed the critters, it’s been dark now for quite a while and we’re all getting hungry. I’m keeping Willie slim to avoid unnecessary stress on any of his joints… wish someone would restrict my caloric intake. No, I take that back. Never mind. I did not say that.

Here’s another photo from our farm sitters, with Willie and the lovely Harper. Willie and Harper got along famously… size matters deeply to Willie, and he and Harper got along great. They didn’t play much, but tended to hang out together, just being dogs, probably pondering why we care whether a noise is a sound or a verb, as long as they get some food out of it  . . .

Here’s a video I’m going to show in New Zealand of Willie, Hope and friend Mico, from this summer. I’m not going to say much about it, because I am curious what words you would use to describe what you are seeing. Watch it a couple of times, and then if you are so inspired, describe the behavior of the two younger dogs. (Willie is the adult BC, Hope is the medium sized young BC, and the other black and white guy, the smallest dog, is what looks like a BC/Bully breed cross, but his genetics are unknown.) I’m especially curious how you describe a few of the things that Hope does….. Can’t wait to hear your comments!

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: Wheeeee… just a few more days before we go! Lots more to do, but we’ll make it. Can’t wait til the “drive away from the farm with Willie in the window” part is over. Argh, three weeks! Soooooo long to leave him.

While I’m gone I’ll try to post a blog once a week or so. I’ve pre-posted three of them, to come out once a week, and hope to add another each week from down under. I’ll have my cameras with me, so hope to send you photos of NZ. Our first full day there begins with a long walk on a black sand beach with our gracious host and a passle o’ dogs. Oh boy! Then the seminars Saturday and Sunday, which I’m truly looking forward to now that I have them all done and ready to go, and then it’s play play play. Oh my. Stayed tuned, hope to send you some great photos!

I’m at the Best Friends Forever Conference in Pennsylvania, taking a quick break from the talks. I have to say that this is one of the best seminars I’ve attended: the quality of the talks is outstanding. Suzanne Hetts gave one today that was fantastic: absolutely the best organized and most informative talk on what dominance is and isn’t that I’ve heard. I couldn’t begin to summarize it all, but here is some especially useful information from it, based on common mythologies that people have about dominance.

Common Underlying Assumptions about Dominance, from Suzanne Hetts:

I. Most (all?) interactions between dogs are competitive (going out the door first, who gets the toy, etc.). Is this true? No, it’s not. The fact is, many interactions between dogs are not competitive. A great example is the tug game. Some people argue that you have to ‘win’ or the dog won’t respect you, yet many dogs love to play tug for the sake of playing tug and will give you back the toy if you drop it. Suzanne showed a video of one of her dog repeatedly giving the toy back to her husband, Dan, clearly in hopes that he would continue the game. That’s exactly how Hope plays with me BUT not how he plays with Willie. I don’t think Hope is “playing” tug with Willie, I think he simply wants the toy for himself. He grabs it closer and closer to Willie’s mouth, and if he gets it he takes it away. However, Willie and Lassie played tug for long periods of time, both holding only the very end of the toy, giving it back to one another if necessary.  Conclusion: some interactions may be competitive, but lots and lots of them aren’t.

II. Dominance is about Control and “Obedience.” The confusion between ‘dominance’ and ‘obedience’ is pervasive, but they are NOT the same thing. “Dominance” is about who wins a competitive interaction over something that both individuals want, not about responding to a cue or “command.” Calling your dog to come has absolutely nothing to do with ‘social dominance,’ whether the dog comes or not! Confusing those concepts has caused a lot of problems in the dog training world, not to mention to lots of dogs.

III. All dogs are social climbers and are always ready to challenge others (humans or dogs) for social rank. Not true again. First, many people argue reasonably that we know little about “dominance” between 2 species. As used in science, it is between animals of the same species. Second, Suzanne argued, that if anything, most domestic dogs are predisposed to take a subordinate role to humans. We could talk about this aspect for hours (and pages), but she made several excellent points in relation to it. If this hangs you up, ask anyone if they would take a real bone away from a wolf. And as importantly, it is simply not true that all animals of a social group “want” to be high ranking. There are many costs to being in a high social rank, and many benefits to being a subordinate.

IV. Some dogs are just “dominant.” Whoa, careful here again. Dominance is a descriptor of a relationship, not a personality or an individual. If you have 2 individuals and a piece of food between them that they both want, one individual would be described as “dominant” if he or she gets the food 20 out of 20 trials. That’s all the concept meant as it was and IS used in science. What’s often not considered by the general public and advocates of “getting dominance” over your dog, is that it is context dependent. Indiv A might get the bone every time, but Indiv B might get the sleeping place. Motivation and context is everything, and behavior in one context does NOT necessarily predict behavior in another.

I could go on, but better get back to the conference. Most importantly, Suzanne did an excellent job of advocating for people in the dog world to be able to talk about the concept knowledgeably, to avoid polarized conversations that only divide and confuse, to use terms with precision and knowledge, and to avoid repeating assumptions. She advocating for people on both ends of the extremes on this issue to take a deep breath (my words) and educate themselves about what science tells us about social relationships. Here here.

Before I go, here’s a photo I took the day before I left, of Hope’s new friend, Lily, a young Dogo Argentino (sp?), who tends to lie down every time she meets puppies and young children. Clearly she is trying to exert her dominance here!  Lily and Hope couldn’t play, because she had just had minor surgery, but I suspect rollicksome play is in their future.

We’re still all about toys at the office, given the boxes and boxes of them that arrived last week. And there’s nothing like having a new puppy in the house to get you back to thinking about toys!

A great happy surprise has been that the toy we were afraid would live on our shelves forever, Sherman the (Big) Sheep, has been a big hit. It’s sold more than any of the other toys, and we are still smiling about it. (And so is Will, he adores it.)  There are a few left, but we don’t expect them to hang around for long. Just fyi, the loser of the new toy choices is the hapless Scorpion, undoubtedly an image most people don’t want to see, and to make matters worse, it’s covered in “nature’s warning colors–red and black–just to make it more off putting. Poor little scorpions, I suspect they’ll be hanging around for awhile. All our dogs are fine with that, the Scorps are one of their all time favorite toys and we’ll be forced to take them home if they never sell. Picture Border Collies, Goldens, Beagles and Heeler mixes crossing their paws.

But I thought I’d mostly write today about two toys that we discovered during our research that are, well, weird. I don’t know any other way to describe them. Weird toy number one is the Doggie Lover Doll, manufactured in Brazil for dogs to have something to hump.  Seriously. Here’s what the manufacturers said in their release: “Human beings have their hands to masturbate themselves, now the domestic animals…. can alleviate themselves with a toy designed specifically for them.” Yup, you read it right, the doggy equivalent of a plastic doll. Oh my. (And no, we won’t be adding it to our collection of toys available on our website! I tried to find the website for it, but I got a “website down” message. Should I not be surprised? Was this all a big joke?)

Weird toy number two is . . ., wait for it:  Mr. Poops! Yes, indeedy, even you can buy a toy that looks exactly like dog feces. Imagine the fun you’ll have picking it up and tossing it around your living room floor. It’s made by the same people that make some of our favorite toys, My Dog Toy, but geeez, guys, who thought that up?

I remember one speech I gave at a fund raising dinner at which the hotel staff had decided it would be soooo funny to provide the chocolate desert in the form of dog poop. Apparently they all laughed like loons, but imagine a room of very quiet people when the desert plates came out. No one ate the desert, they had to throw it all away and the laugh turned out to be on them. You just gotta love our species sometimes. (Does anyone remember this and where it happened? Surely it could  have only happened in one place!)

Anyone else know of more toys to go into the “what were they thinking” category?

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: Will had oral surgery on Tuesday and Hope went to a friends for a few days so that Will could come home and recuperate.  (And yup, that was the tooth that I had a root canal done on, after which I was told that the tooth would forever be brittle and he could never chew on anything harder than a rotten tomato. Okay, I exaggerate, but if I had been told an hour before what was told an hour afterward, I would have elected to have the tooth extracted then. Before the root canal the dental specialist told me that it would give Will a “fully functional” tooth. That means a tooth that can chew on something harder than a sock  to me . . . But I won’t elaborate here lest I sound churlish; see an earlier post for a discussion and great comments about teeth, chewing, bones and dental procedures.) After thinking long and hard about the issues, I had decided to allow Will to chew on some objects, while avoiding hard ones like the long bones of cows, extra hard chew bones, etc. I just don’t think a dog can be a dog if he is not allowed to chew on anything. So I figured the broken tooth was inevitable, but the timing was unfortunate, to say the least. But I still will allow Will to chew on soft bones and some toys harder than dish rags. Everything in moderation.

For now my challenge will be preventing Hope and Will from playing tug games until next Tuesday (so that Will’s gum can heal). It is their absolute favorite game, so life will be interesting to say the least. Thank heavens for crates! Hope just came back and charmed me with his sweet, enthusiastic greeting and adorable ears. I’m sooooo curious to see how Willie responds to his return. Thrilled to see him? Or not?  I’ll let you know next week.

At the farm the birds and flowers continue to be a delight. It’s green and lush and about as pretty as it can get here. The barn is full of swooping barn swallow youngsters, the wrens are busy on their second nests of the season, and the Cedar Waxwings are gobbling up the berries from the Service Berry tree. They are such elegant birds! Here’s a photo of one that a friend just sent me from his summer home in upper Michigan.