Drayton Michaels / CTC 2007

With the touch of a button on a computer or a phone anyone can disseminate information or voice an opinion. This simple yet powerful act can transform the direction of politics, save cities and towns money and essentially save the lives of dogs. Now that’s pretty cool.

A few cases in point are recent victories in the area of Breed Specific Legislation in NJ (which at the state level declares breed specific laws unconstitutional) and Ohio, which if you know about BSL you know Ohio is one of the worst states.

On May 11th Garfield NJ attempted to enact a Dangerous Dog Ordinance due to recent incidents involving Pit Bull dogs. No humans were killed. A small child was bitten due to approaching a strange dog on leash. Though no one was hurt severely, the reason these incidents occurred was that the humans were not doing the right things. However the overblown hyperbolic press and the emotional outrage of the victims led the city council to “do something”.

 The three D’s of dog training are known as Distraction, Distance and Duration. They come into play in every context and all training exercises.

Distractions are part of life especially for dogs. Let’s face it a dog can be distracted by just about anything from the high value food reward to the wind blowing leaves. Distractions are part of dog training no matter what, so we might as well begin to work with them and take them into account.

 Always start with the lowest amount of distraction and build on it as your dog does better with the training.

For example, if you are working on down stays, get the dog rock solid in the house and the back yard before attempting the down stays at the barbecue at your neighbor’s house.

Distractions are often the reason for the dog breaking the stay, or tuning out or becoming frustrated.

As both of these topics draw heated and emotional opinions, feelings and an overall sense of tension, please refrain from flaming this post with responses that are not conducive to furthering the discussion in productive manner.

 My sole intention is to help dogs and help people better understand them, especially Pit Bull dogs. Please let’s stay on topic.

If we had Breed Specific Legislation eradicated tomorrow, and all the dogs that looked a certain way were no longer banned or discriminated against, we’d still have the issues of training and understanding them in a way that will help them all lead happy, healthy, safe and productive lives. Or at least have the dogs evaluated in a way that would be just and fair. This works well for the people that are fearful of the dogs as well. When done correctly this will save time, money, dogs, lower injuries to humans and dogs and reduce anguish among many shelter and rescue workers.

Leash Walking Q&A:

Walking in partnership with your dog. This is an excellent way to describe the paradigm of leash walking. Many times it is a question of doing the appropriate dance steps in concert with the dog. IE: Are you walking fast enough, are you not stopping for intense pulling, are you “working the dog” so the dog is attentive? Are you getting tangled up? As in many dog training context the dog walk is full of distractions, hence why it is many times a challenge. A partnership is intrinsically a more cooperative way to view leash walking as opposed to the militaristic view of old school leash walking.

On Feb 4th 2010 in Hoboken NJ there was a dog incident that left three people injured and two dogs dead. Of course the press and the police have not released ANY information as to why the dogs acted so aggressively. The evening news flashed its obligatory “pit bull mauls” graphic and slanted the story to make it sound like the dogs were the ones at fault. http://hudsonreporter.com/view/full_story/5800790/article--Police-update-Hoboken-pit-bull-attack-?instance=up_to_the_minute_hoboken

There are at least two accounts that the dog named Giant was subjected to an owner that was abusive and neglectful.

I am asking people to please contact the press and the authorities in NJ and request that the owner be investigated and the truth be told about the owner’s abusive history towards Giant.

One night as we were enjoying a game of Wii tennis and bowling, our dog Keyshia started barking. The dogs in our house are separated by a gate, so she was at the baby gate barking. I thought, “Well she is safe, and nothing bad will happen, so let her bark it out”. She continued for another 5 min, then as soon as she stopped for a good 5 seconds or so we heaped some praise on her and gave her a work to eat toy. Once that was dissected she was back to barking. We ignored her during both accounts. Again as last time as soon as she was quiet for 5 seconds, we refilled her Planet Dog Orbie and she went about her way working for the goodies.

We decided to play Wii golf and put up the visual barrier and all the barking stopped. Many times a simple antecedent intervention as Jean Donaldson calls it, will do the trick.

Here are some things to consider for dogs that may react to hectic video games.

As we embark on a new year I’d like to mention a few groups and organizations that have really made an impact on advocacy in 2009.

On December 1st 2007 I attended the American Bar Assoc. Animal Law Committee Regional Conference. The conference attempted to discuss dangerous dogs and what to do about reckless owners. After some 9 hours not a thing was concluded about actual dog behavior or ideas on how to educate dog owners and the general public! There were tons of stories and a whole lot of words; everyone agreed that owners should be responsible. There was an air of hopelessness about the whole affair, as if they had no way of explaining to people that are afraid of dogs that they are safe and they are not inherently dangerous. This can all be done based on factual evidence compiled each year by the CDC.

It’s often said many people either give the dog too much information, “stop no hey no agrh get off down…”, or perhaps do not do anything that has any real consequence or value to the dog, “That’s good old Buster he’s just a jumpy dog”. Either way the behaviors that the human is looking to decrease are getting rehearsed, thus becoming stronger.

Many times with clients I will explain that getting in front of the behavior is very important in having good timing. Being aware of the surrounding context and being ready is one of the major ways to keep dogs paying attention outside or even inside around hectic events such as door greetings.
 
Once you’ve established a good solid reward history and a humane consequence history what follows are some ideas to tighten up the training. Always factor duration and distance as well as level of distraction.
 

There is a corresponding video to this blog on Currenttv.com

http://current.com/items/90698388_vick-fair-shake-or-shake-down.htm