Meeting Tad

Michael Baugh CPDT-KA, CDBC

I love a good story of redemption. That’s probably why I’m drawn to dogs we commonly call fearful or aggressive. They’re the barkers and growlers and lungers and biters. They walk a hard path and are often misunderstood. They are the hard cases with no guarantees for anyone involved. Few have walked a path more difficult than Tad, my newest client. A young woman named Tiffany found him along the side of a country road in Montgomery, Texas late last March. Tad was eaten away by mange and malnourishment, weak and wounded. The veterinarian at the clinic where Tiffany works wondered if Tad would survive the night. He did. As he grew stronger, though, his behavior grew worse. Tad started barking and growling at visitors to the clinic. Then he bit Tiffany’s father who had the double misfortune of falling and frightening Tad in the process. That would have been the end of the line for some dogs. But not Tad.

It turns out Tiffany is a storyteller, and a good one at that. She began blogging about her Abandoned Dog the day she found him. She posted pictures and videos of Tad, and before too long he had a worldwide following (nearly 5,000 fans on Facebook as of this writing). When Tad needed money for expensive veterinary care, hundreds of people responded. And when word came that he needed a trainer, more help rolled in. It only took a phone call for one of his followers to find me.

I liked Tad the minute I saw him. He’s smaller than he looks in pictures and video (about 55 lbs). He’s also loose and wiggly most of the time, a young dog coming into his prime. We met outside of The Fundamental Dog near The Woodlands. I like to meet dogs like Tad on neutral territory, outdoors if possible. The idea is to make it easy for the dog to make the best choice possible. If Tad didn’t like me, he had plenty of room to move away, an easier choice than barking or lunging. This wasn’t his place, so there was no pressure on him to make me go away if I looked like bad news. Fortunately, he trotted right up to me. He seemed pleasantly surprised when I pulled out my “secret weapon:” Cheeze Whiz (Tad’s favorite). It wasn’t a bribe. If you come to my house, and I want us to be friends, I’ll offer you a snack. It’s good manners. Of course, there’s good behavior science behind it too.

I won’t take too much time talking about the science of dog training. Most people already know I depend exclusively on well tested and verified behavior science in my practice. Very little (if anything) of what I teach is based on folk wisdom or popular consensus. That’s my bias. If there isn’t a body of data to support a training protocol, then I’m not teaching it. More importantly, I don’t use any methods that frighten or hurt a dog. Tad’s been frightened and hurt enough. What he needs now is to learn that people are safe, and that good things happen for him when new people show up on the scene. I got to be one of the first to teach him that. Tad liked me and my colleague Marie. It made my day.

This is about as geeky as I’ll get. Tad is learning that every time he sees a new person (or even an unfamiliar person he’s seen before) tasty bits of food soon follow. Some of these people may actually choose to hand Tad the food themselves. This is called Classical Conditioning. Person predicts Yummy food. In addition, we’re pairing up the sound of the door chime at the veterinary clinic with lovely snacks as well, because the chime is also associated with new people coming in. Chime predicts Yummy food. Right now chimes and people are associated with increased heart rate, shallow respiration, dilated pupils, elevated cortisol (most likely), and piloerection (hackles up) – in other words, fear. In order to change the association, we’ll need to be careful to protect Tad from repeated full-on exposure to the scary stuff (new people). He’s going to meet his new friends much the same way he met me, in a controlled and calm setting. The rest of the time he’ll be away from the hustle bustle. Tad never has to be afraid again.

Was Tad abused? The physical evidence clearly points to that. The behavioral evidence, interestingly enough, is less clear. Many dogs display behavior similar to Tad’s without any history of abuse. Lack of experience with a wide variety of human beings can lead to what we call “socialization deficit.” Dogs who behave in ways related to fear and aggression often didn’t have enough positive exposure to human beings early in life (5-16 weeks of age). That lack of experience is enough to create serious problems down the line. We trainers see it a lot in puppy mill dogs, and even in some dogs who come from so-called reputable breeders. This is precisely why well-designed classes for young puppies are so important. A lot of street dogs, like Tad, have a very mixed bag of early socialization. Regardless, remedial socialization in canine adolescence and early adulthood can help turn things around. That’s what I’m hoping for with Tad.

Tad’s not all that unlike a lot of the dogs I see day-in-day out. Maybe that’s what makes him special. Being a dog is quite enough, thank you. He doesn’t have titles or ribbons, and his coat is still pocked with mange. He’s just a dog from a country road in rural Texas. But His story of survival against great odds touched us nonetheless, thousands of us. Tad is one dog who stands for so many other dogs, too many who are left to suffer and die young. Perhaps that’s what gave so many of us pause, and made us reflect on the better measures of being human. People failed Tad, but it was also people who lifted him up, thousands of people. There’s a story of redemption being told here – not just his, but our own.

Sit Happens – No Problem

Michael Baugh CPDT-KA, CDBC

Good dog trainers know we don’t teach dogs to do anything they don’t already know how to do. That may sound like nonsense, but it’s true. Your dog already knows how to walk beside you, and come to you. He also knows how to stay put and lay down. He knows how to sit too. The trick of training your dog is to teach him to do those things a lot, in all kinds of situations, when you ask for the behavior.

So yes, it’s true, sit happens. It happens all the time. In fact, most of my students have already taught their dog to sit on a verbal cue by the time they meet me. But here’s the rub. The dog will sit when asked so long as we’re inside, and the person is facing the dog, and (by the way) nothing much else is going on at the time. The question we really want to ask isn’t does your dog know sit? It’s how strong is your dog’s sit, and in what context? There’s the rub indeed.

Sit can be used to remedy dozens of problems, including jumping on people (he sits instead), bolting outdoors (the dog is sitting not running), stealing things off counters (can’t do it if he’s sitting), and chasing your kids (impossible if you’ve asked him to sit instead). Achieving these goals is very doable, but we need to start with the basics. Never give your dog the final exam before you’ve taught him the material. That’s just not fair.

It’s not about the word. Start teaching sit by temporarily taking the word out of your vocabulary. Instead, every time you see your dog sit say “yes” and give him a delicious bit of healthy food. Once he sits, take a few steps backwards and see if he follows you and sits again. Say “yes” and treat him again. This is called capturing, like catching a bit of action on film (behaviors are actions). Do this over and over, so that your dog gets hooked on sitting. Every time he sits, after all, something great happens.

Name it. When your dog is thoroughly addicted to sitting for you, name the action. That’s right, when you are 95% sure he’s going to do it anyway you are going to cue your dog to “sit.” This seems backwards but it’s not. Verbal cues (they used to call them commands) are not directions to do something; they are permission to do something. Your dog is already begging to sit for you. Now the word is going to give him the green light. Say it once. Your dog can hear you, so repeating the word sit is not useful.

Take the show on the road. Now you can start using sit as an antidote to more troubling behavior, but take it slow. Ask for sits in gradually more difficult situations, but not so difficult that your dog fails. Remember the rule about not giving the final exam too early. The best way to teach your dog is to set him up to succeed, raising the bar of difficulty a little at a time. Since your dog is working at a game he can win, he will be excited and energetic about sitting. “Yes” and treat enthusiastically. This is going to give you the opportunity to teach quick sits in more distracting settings. Forcing sits by yanking a chain or pushing on hips is less exciting and slows the process (it can also hurt your dog).

Let your imagination guide you to further challenges. What else can you teach your dog to do that is the opposite of bad behavior? Look back and notice the things your dog is already doing well. Capture that behavior and use it to crowd out the stuff you want him to stop doing. Dogs who walk calmly on leash (good behavior) don’t lunge and pull (bad behavior). Dogs who eliminate outside (good) don’t do it inside (bad). Dogs who lay quietly on their beds with their Kong Toy (good) don’t beg at the table (bad). You get the picture. It’s all a matter of replacing the bad with the good. Add to that, it’s a great way to build a relationship with your dog. And isn’t that why you got a dog in the first place?

A Look at Inter-Dog Aggression

Michael Baugh CPDT-KA, CDBC

Let’s start with the good news first. Most dogs are not intent on killing each other. That’s not to say they don’t have conflicts. They do; and those conflicts can sometimes be scary, noisy and even hurtful. Still, in most cases dogs don’t settle the score with fatal consequences.

dogs8 — Play can sometimes look like aggression

In fact, dogs give each other plenty of signals when they are upset about something. They growl, snarl, lung and even snap wildly at the air. You’ll hear some trainers refer to that as “ritualized aggression.” Think: argument or the occasional sign language you see in Houston traffic. It’s unpleasant and communicative, but not dangerous in and of itself. There are more subtle nuances as well, the slight change ear posture, facial expression, breathing rate, or pupil dilation. When it comes to their own kind, most dogs are expert communicators. The reason is simple and serious. Real fighting is costly in terms of both risk and expended energy, so dogs have to be very good at resolving things without physical conflict.

If we step back a bit we can see most inter-dog aggression is about stopping some perceived threat and making the other dog go away. Increased distance often resolves the argument. This is most obvious in dogs who guard food and objects from other dogs. It’s also evident in dogs who lack experience interacting with other dogs. Animals, including the human animal, tend to reject things they don’t understand. Dogs who aren’t familiar with their own kind keep their distance. They might run away and hide as adolescents and young adults. Later as more mature adults, they might put on an aggressive display or worse to make the other dog go away. Either way, the message is clear. “Stay away from me.”

The real trouble arises when the dogs can’t properly communicate, and when one or both of them can’t retreat. They’re trapped. This is especially true in the case of dogs who are specifically aggressive towards other dogs while on leash. It is, perhaps, the most common form of inter-dog aggression.

Jean Donaldson (1996) first identified the on-leash cycle of aggression. It begins with well-meaning people who take their new dog or puppy on a walk for the first time. The dog, naturally curious, pulls toward other dogs he sees out in the wide world. He may even bark. The owner, frightened or angered by the pulling, yanks back on the leash yelling “heel” or “no bark.” Trying to stop the problem, the person might invest in a choke or prong “training collar” for his dog. Then, even if the dog begins to pull less, the owner keeps tension on the leash every time another dog is near just in case. As the weeks and months roll by, the dog learns that whenever he’s on leash and other dogs are around things get a little scary and maybe painful. He’s unable to investigate his own kind, and his owner is freaking out (or at the very least anxious). Before long the pulling and barking turns into lunging and growling, plus more yanking on the leash and yelling. Now dogs on walks are no longer a curiosity but a trigger that something bad is going to happen. We don’t know for sure what the dog is thinking, but we can imagine it might be “Get out of here dog, you’re making my owner freak out and he’s choking me.” Imagine how much worse this becomes if the other dogs in the neighborhood are trapped in this same cycle.

Prevention is always easier than a cure. Would that we could turn back time and stop the cycle before it starts. We’d teach our young dogs and puppies how to meet other dogs while on a leash. We would hold the leash without pulling it taught; we’d keep the line slack while two friendly dogs sniffed and circled each other. On our best days, we’d chat up the neighbors and admire each other’s dogs. Some days our dogs would play in an enclosed area off-leash. Each day we and our dogs would become more social.

Fixing the problem takes more effort. However, there is help. Qualified dog trainers and veterinary behaviorists can outline a plan that includes protecting your dog from having more aggressive displays. The plan will also involve reward-based training, teaching appropriate behavior while helping him feel better about his own kind. The prognosis is usually better with younger dogs, but there is always hope.

Dogs, I’ve discovered, are amazingly adaptable. At their core, they are social animals. Even the hardest cases can and do show some improvement. I guess that too is the good news.

(originally published in Houston PetTalk Magazine August 2011)