Many of you have been following my blog discussion about my dog Charlotte and her behavior of barking and lunging at other dogs, a behavior I wanted to change. As promised, I am going to talk about some of the things I did when walking Charlotte in my neighborhood to help curb her reactivity towards other dogs. These are things I did in addition to handling exercises designed to keep Charlotte’s attention on me AND the behavior modification to help her feel differently about dogs. I spoke about management as an important variable in training because it helps to create an environment in which the dog has little or no opportunity to practice the behavior you want to change. By allowing Charlotte to practice the behavior of barking and lunging, she was only getting better at barking and lunging. Management in this case meant doing my best to avoid or minimize situations where Charlotte could practice barking and lunging. It’s a busy world out there and can sometimes feel like moving through a maze. All of this training can help make the experience feel more like a game vs. a mine field of potential triggers.
Now You See Him, Now You Don’t!
I had the pleasure of meeting Victoria Stilwell (positively.com) in person when I attended a seminar with her this past October. Victoria has a show on Animal Planet called “It’s Me or the Dog.” She also is a huge advocate for reward-based training and animal welfare.
I was able to attend the second day where the topic was “Understanding Aggression & Bite Prevention.” It was a powerful reminder of the importance of our work as dog trainers. Like the old saying, “violence begins where knowledge ends.”
What is aggression? Aggression is the need to increase distance from a perceived threat. It is achieved by using threat and action displays, ranging from a subtle lip lift to a deep bite. In most cases the intention is not to harm as it is to change the threat’s behavior by making it go away. The behavior is deeply rooted in a dog’s instinct- safety and survival.
Victoria shared her commitment to educating people about canine body language and reward-based methods of training dogs as THE way to minimize bite cases in the general public. Many times dogs are pushed to their limits and think biting is the only way to communicate their fear, discomfort, worry, or anxiety. Victoria said the movement pushing trainers and the public to use reward-based methods of training is no longer just a moral and ethical issue- it is a human health and safety issue and we must change how we interact with and teach dogs.
Sometimes dogs aggress as a result of people misunderstanding the dog’s communication or using methods of training that are harsh, or even painful. Victoria stressed that by putting the work in at the beginning allows for a lifetime of modified behavior. These words definitely made an impact on me. The reason for my service as a dog trainer is to address communication breakdowns between a client and his or her dog. A bite is often a result of an accumulation of communication breakdowns between the client and the dog.
This statement stayed with me. In the past, I’ve educated clients, shelter volunteers and staff, and the general public about using more humane and gentle methods of training because in my mind, that helped me sleep at night. I knew I was doing right by the dog. In the past couple of years I began to identify with the statement Mahatma Ghandi “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” I believe that if a person is more present, more conscious, and more patient with their interactions with a dog, that way of being would transfer into other areas of life. I saw this happen in my own life over the course of 10 years. Victoria’s statement of bite prevention being a human health and safety issue took my commitment to the humane treatment of dogs from a conceptual place to one of more substance. It now had a platform from which I could continue to educate about the importance of learning dog communication and using reward-based methods of training.
As a result of this great meeting I will soon be joining the Victoria Stilwell team as one of her VSPDT trainers!
dogcentrictraining 