Common Mistakes that can Delay Training Success

The idea behind positive reinforcement is to cause dogs to repeat actions humans desire, and in time have a repertoire of behaviors that make them good companions and canine citizens. It is a realistically achievable goal. In theory, positive reinforcement is as effective as positive punishment, which in operant conditioning is the delivery of something unpleasant to stop an unwanted action from recurring. More importantly, positive reinforcement strengthens the relationship between dog and owner, dog and his social group, and generally dog and the environment, while positive punishment comes with a high probability of ruining it. I argue that one cannot have true companionship with a dog if one chooses to train with force and pain. In addition, punitive training suffocates the dog’s welfare and potentially leads to side effects like aggression, anxiety and avoidance. It is well documented, and I talked about that in the past.
In laboratory settings and scientific studies, positive reinforcement leads to reliable and self-directed  behavior quickly, but dog owners aren’t scientists or savvy trainers. Dog owners come with diverse levels of experience, skill and know-how, and some are completely new to dogs and reward-based training. Even though neither is very complicated, they make mistakes, like anybody new to anything would. The good news is that with positive reinforcement mistakes won’t have long-lasting or irreparable negative consequences, but it can delay progress and cause enough frustration in the impatient person to give up on the concept altogether.
Here are the most common errors I see people, including some trainers, make.

Your intended reward is the dog’s punishment.
Not only can a pooch feel “Meh” about a reward, but it can be perceived as an aversive, and when that happens you get the exact opposite of what you’re aiming for: when your reward is the dog’s punishment, the behavior you meant to happen again actually decreases. A perfect example is taps on the head or hearty pats along the ribcage. Most dogs don’t like it and shy away.
If your dog avoids or refuses a reward, it isn’t a reward in his mind and won’t reinforce the behavior you are after. Don’t offer it again if he doesn’t want it. And that can include food. Don’t shove a treat into your dog’s mouth if he wants distance to a worrisome trigger, or play ball, or read peemail.
Not long ago I had a cattle dog client who perfectly demonstrated that: he brought the ball right back into the owner’s hand, who promptly gave him a pat on the head, with the result that the dog first snapped at the hand, and then refused to bring the ball all the way in the next time. The dog was labeled aggressive and erratic, when in fact he just acted that way as a result of being “punished” for bringing the ball back. When we “rewarded” him with throwing the ball again without delay, he stopped snapping and eagerly retrieved the toy all the way in.
The reverse also happens in many households: your punishment is the dog’s reward. The best example for that is the inadvertent reinforcement when the jumping dog is pushed off. That is attention, and from the dog’s point of view perhaps even an invitation for a wrestling game, and exactly what he wanted. Jumping is reinforced and therefore will happen again.
So, the take-away message is that a reward is what the dog wants, or it won’t reinforce the behavior you are after. Be creative. You don’t always have to be elaborate, although sometimes your pizzazz can greatly impress your dog, but know what he wants and use it to your advantage.
Right now, on walks, Will wants me to get rid of the pesky deer flies that bury themselves in her coat. I comply and pluck them off, but each time before I do I say “halt”, which in our world means don’t move and wait till I get to you. Her halting on command is powerfully reinforced with me killing the insects, plus we have many naturally occurring opportunities to practice, and because of both I can use the command in situations when it matters to me that Will stops in her tracks.


Your timing is off.
It means that your dog doesn’t form an association between behavior and reward. Especially for fleeting moments, a reward marker, for example a clicker, helps because it bridges action and reinforcement and clarifies to the dog exactly which behavior made the reward happen.
Along that train of thought, holding a grudge, although understandably human, is counterproductive.
If you are still upset about the dug-up flowerbed and gruff when your dog comes straight away when you called him out of the planters, you punish a perfect recall and he might not be so keen to return to you in the future.
It is the last action that counts, and if it is one you like, reinforce it. There is a hitch though: when a bad and a good behavior are lumped together, so when two actions occur very close in time with the first being undesired, but the second reinforced, there is a risk that the dog connects both and will always perform them in sequence. The best example is a dog who lovingly celebrates your homecoming with jumping, but a flash-moment later is sitting – either self-corrected or obeyed your command. Of course you want to reinforce the sit, but not the jump/sit combination. I deal with that by keeping the dog mentally engaged for a few seconds while she is in a sit, followed by asking her to do something else desirable, which I then reinforce. In other words, I give the sit some attention, but then invite the dog into a short, fun, interaction I like and that is rewarding, and/or rewarded. After that I inform the pooch with the “all-done” word and hand signal that I’m about to disengage and that she’s on her own for entertainment for a while.

Your reinforcement schedule is off.
Without getting too technical, reinforcements have to happen in rapid succession, right away, when the dog learns something new.
When the dog gets it, connects the dots between cue and a certain action – a good rule of thumb is the dog complying instantly and correctly 9 out of 10 times when prompted, but also deliberately offering the behavior to elicit a reward - you have two options: If it is the end goal behavior, continue to reinforce randomly, without a fixed pattern. That cements the behavior. An end behavior would be reliably coming when called. It doesn’t get any better than a dog returning to you enthusiastically. You should always acknowledge him for being so accommodating, but you don’t have to toss a handful of treats his way each time.
If it is an approximation, so just a step toward your goal, stop reinforcing altogether and raise the bar by a small increment. For example, if you shape a lie down on a mat, glancing at the mat, or having one paw on it, is not the final behavior, but you must reinforce each step constantly until the dog gets it, and once he does, so once you have the 9 out of 10 times reliability or he seeks out the mat when he is bored and proudly puts one paw on it, stop reinforcing that step and raise the criteria to bring you closer to your end goal, and then you reinforce that constantly until he gets it, and raise the bar again, and so on.

You are not orchestrating enough opportunities for your dog to earn a reward.
In other words, you are not practicing enough. If you can’t find reward-worthy behaviors often, lower your criteria and/or change the situation for the dog so that he can succeed.
The more you do it, the more the action you are training becomes a habit, and then your dog has one more good one up his sleeve. Habit means that the behavior learned with the help of operant conditioning becomes classical conditioned. Steve White, one of my favorite dog gurus, says: “ Anytime you use operant conditioning, Pavlov is sitting on your shoulder. And that is one dude you really want on your team.”

Not managing the dog wisely before a behavior is solid, thus setting him up for failure.
Don’t put your dog’s favorite bed near the picture window when barking at passersby is a problem. Their moving along is reinforcing for your dog and maintains barking at the window. If he has opportunity to do that all day long,  the little bit of “quiet” practice you do when you are home won’t have much of an effect.

Communicating unclearly.
For example using the same command for two behaviors, or not enforcing a command.
In that category also falls making unreasonable requests and raising the bar too quickly – in other words, being impatient and asking for more than the dog can do, but also chaining behaviors together before each one is solidly learned separately. If you work on a position stay, reinforce when the dog is still in position. If you call him out of position and reward him when he comes to you, you are practicing come, not the position stay. I will write more about command clarity sometime in the future, but for now remember that dogs are brilliant, but not mind readers. Say what you mean and reinforce when your dog does what you say. If you can’t enforce what you say, don’t say it.

Taking good behaviors for granted. Dogs offer behaviors we like all the time: don’t ignore, but capture and reinforce them. Don’t ignore the dog calmly chewing a bone on his blanket, and give attention when he steals your leather Italian pump.

If you made mistakes, don’t beat yourself up. The beauty of force and punitive free training is that you can’t really mess things up too badly. Positive reinforcement can be adjusted without creating unwanted and unexpected fallout. But if you can avoid making those common errors in the future, you’ll accelerate your training success and reach your goal faster.
When I see clients, positive reinforcement is a big part of the consultation, and the humans receive all the information they need to do it effectively. Just about everyone I meet gets it. It makes sense to them and is aligned with how they feel: most people don’t want to hurt their dog.  Yet, at times and typically after a prolonged pause, I hear the question: “Yes - but how do I correct my dog when he misbehaves?” Indeed, how do we punish? Or should we?
That, I will sort out for you in the next post. Look for it the end of July.

Positive Reinforcement: The Fasted Route to a Well-Behaved Dog

I am glad that I know a thing or two about dogs for two reasons: I get to work with my favorite species almost daily, and that constant overflow of, often contradictory, information how to successfully live with dogs doesn’t confuse me.
Dog owners must be puzzled these days. Thanks to TV and social media everyone is a dog expert and has an opinion not shy to share with anybody who wants to hear it – or not. As a result, there are many misconceptions circulating, and one is that positive reinforcement doesn’t work, or only with mild dogs.
Positive reinforcement is one of the four quadrants of operant conditioning, and it states that reinforcement creates behavior. In operant conditioning positive is not a judgment label, but simply means that a consequence is added after an action. Law means that it is not an opinion, but a scientifically studied, proven and documented fact. Positive reinforcement is my preferred method to train and treat dogs. Let me explain why.

An organism’s actions are driven by motivation: simplified, to access something that feels good or avoid something that feels bad. The dog is no exception. Newsflash! Dogs function like every other animal, including humans. They want and seek pleasure. It’s a fact, but one that clashes with humans’ infantile belief that a dog’s nature is to love unconditionally regardless how we treat him. Wishful thinking. Relationships between humans are conditional, and dogs behave in the same normal mammalian fashion.
Owners that refuse to facilitate pleasure have to inflict pain to get obedience. It is either-or, and in both cases it has to impress the dog or it won’t work. A lame “good dog” is just as ineffective in increasing a wanted behavior as a limp choke collar correction is in curbing an unwanted one. There is an analogy floating around for a long time that illustrates that brilliantly: The speeding ticket one.

People who exceed the posted speed limit are fined, but we all know that that punishment doesn’t deter folks to drive faster than permitted in the future. They might slow down for the moment, perhaps even for a little while, but the good behavior doesn’t last. Fines only teach people to be vigilantly on the lookout for cops to avoid getting caught again.
If fines don’t work, what might be a more effective solution? Well, we could manufacture cars that won’t drive faster than 100 clicks an hour - the dog equivalent is lifelong micromanaging. That is indeed the method some trainers choose: They advise to snap on a control tool, for example a shock collar, as soon as the dog is released out of his crate, and to take it off as the last thing before he’s put back in. I am not making this up.
How appealing is a preset slow car to you? A dog always controlled unless contained? Personally, I don’t want either, and thankfully, there is another way.
Let’s hypothesize what would happen if, instead of fining speeders, drivers who obey traffic laws received a reward. If cops were to randomly hand over 50-dollar bills, would lead foot ease up on the gas pedal? It depends if he needed the money and why he was driving too fast. A millionaire, or someone who is late for an important job interview, likely wouldn't, but I bet that overall rewarding good drivers instead of punishing bad ones would be more successful. In addition, that approach has two really great side effects: people would seek out law enforcement and not avoid it - that underlying queasy feeling when we see a cop car would disappear, and doing the speed limit would become a self-directed behavior, independent of surveillance. We’d try hard to comply not to miss out on the loot that might be lurking around the corner.

When we punish a dog, we are like the traffic cop. The dog might behave when we’re in the vicinity, for the moment, and only if the punishment we inflict overrides his drive to act. On the other hand, if we reinforce behaviors we like, we build a whole repertoire our dog will offer again, and again…
Are dogs really able to self-direct, to reliably act in ways that we desire but might be against their impulse? I say yes, but believe it is only achievable with positive reinforcement, and it must be applied correctly. There are two key aspects to remember: reinforcement happens after the behavior, and a reward is what matters to your dog - not what you think should be good enough.
The first one is straightforward. Don’t wave your cookie in the air and say come, but call your dog and when he comes the party begins. If the behavior doesn’t happen, neither will the reward. Self-explanatory, I hope, is that during the learning stages the dog must be managed wisely to prevent that he has opportunities to act in ways we don’t want but are externally, or intrinsically, reinforced. In other words, the dog should not be able to misbehave, because if it feels good to him, he’ll misbehave again.
The second point isn’t complicated either if you keep in mind that a reward is only a reinforcement if the behavior you are after happens again. Think back to the 50 bucks for doing the speed limit. That amount of money means nothing to a CEO who is regularly showered with huge perks, so it wouldn’t do much to keep him in line on the road. But it means a lot to someone like me who straddles the middle class, and even more to someone on a low income.
Similarly, the reward you offer your dog must mean something to him, or it will not reinforce the good behavior. When I see an obedient pooch patted on the head combined with verbal “good boy”, I wonder if his person schleps to the office each day for glass marbles and a bear hug from the boss. Even if they love their job and verbal approval, it is generally not enough. The big motivator is hard cash.
For a dog, the big motivator can be food, but isn’t always food. I could hardly impress Will with a milkbone shoved in her mouth when a hare pops out of the bushes in front of her. When she chooses to stay connected with me and ignore the bunny, she is working hard – and I hand out a bonus check. I reinforce with a chase game that might include me, or a special ball, or I might engage her in a seeking game and throw a handful of extra yummy treats for her to nose out.
You have to find your dog’s currency before you can put him on a payroll, and I’ll give you a tip: daily kibble isn’t it for most dogs. Don’t use kibble on the first day of the group obedience class, when distractions are high and your pooch has to work hard. Use chicken or garlic roast beef. People food. Good people food, not hot dogs.

Even though food is practical, think outside the box and be creative. The smarter the dog, the more creative the owner has to be. Be attuned. Attuned is the magic “a” word, not assertive. Understand what your dog wants at the moment, and whatever that is, is the reinforcement that will cause your dog to repeat the behavior that you are teaching. Examples of functional rewards are: riding in the car, a game of fetch or catch-me-if-you-can, distance to a stimulus the dog is fearful of, or the opposite: permission to greet and play.
An interesting walk is high on the wanna-do list for many dogs. Studies with rats showed that when given the choice to navigate through two mazes, with only one resulting in a food reward at the end, they alternated between both. Curiosity and avoiding boredom are powerful motivators for actions, and permission to explore a powerful reward for your dog after he’s paid attention to you, or walked nicely on the leash.
When you join your dog in investigative fun, perhaps even point out where you think interesting scents are, you are creating a deep bond. In the wintertime, we follow animal tracks we spot in the snow, and in the summer we pick berries together on hikes. When you do stuff like that, your dog will want to be with you, and is less and less inclined to seek stimulation away from you, and all training becomes much easier.

Whatever floats my dogs’ boat is what they’ll get when I want to reinforce a behavior I particularly love and want to see again. That makes me mighty powerful in their eyes. My dogs become addicted to me. The skeptics’ warning that reward-based training leads to a dog that behaves for rewards, not the owner, doesn’t hold true if you use positive reinforcement to establish that bond between you.
Yes, ultimately your involvement should matter most to your dog, but you only get that if he experiences that being with you feels better than anything else, and providing material things is a crucial part of it, especially with a new dog and before you meshed together. The dog first has to understand that you own all kinds of amazing assets, then you can put them under your control and make access contingent on behavior. If you orchestrate many opportunities for him to earn feel-good moments, he will try hard to please you. Please you to be released to what pleases him, and hopefully that includes you somehow as well. Trust me, that IS the fasted route to reliable obedience, a well-behaved dog, and a relationship with your canine friend envied by others.
Oh – one more thing: Because every dog wants something, obviously positive reinforcement does work with every dog.

NILIF

NILIF is an acronym for: Nothing in Life is Free. Notice that the emphasis is on nothing, which means that in its purest form the dog must work for everything: food, treats, toys, affection, freedom to sniff and play, to be let in or out, and so on. It is a widespread concept you likely have heard about one time or another - and regardless to which side of the training philosophy spectrum you belong. That a dog can’t possibly be well behaved if he has resource autonomy is the rare occasion where traditional trainers and positive reinforcement ones seem to be on the same page. NILIF is, actually, rather popular with the positive crowd, because it is perceived as a non-confrontational way to show yer dog who is boss.
Well, I don’t like it - for several reasons.
For starters, I object to the notion that we can’t have a harmonious and cooperative relationship with our companion canine unless we make a show of our absolute control over everything he wants and needs several times a day, and for life. On an ideological level, NILIF is not any different than the alpha pack dominance crap, except it is kinder – more humane. Instead of dishing out an unpleasant consequence to curb an unwanted behavior, it withholds something pleasant until a prompted action is obeyed.  And only a prompted behavior counts. Offered ones, even if desired, don’t, because responding when the dog makes the first move would put him in charge, and that is a no-no with pack leaders and some NILIFers. The latter, if they aim for companionship, typically don’t deprive the pooch of attention, but still ensure that he can’t ask for theirs, while they can demand his whenever they like. I have a problem with that.
Snubbing someone who attempts to talk to us is socially rude, including if it’s just the dog. It leaves the other confused and frustrated, and decreases his confidence in his social group members, and his own ability to communicate successfully. In addition and regarding our dogs, it rarely can be followed consistently. Think about it: if the human is supposed to call all the shots and ignore the dog’s requests, he should also not respond to “gotta go pee” barks or whines. Yet, I never met an owner who does that. Of course the person heeds to the dog’s “open the door” signals, because he doesn’t want a puddle on the rug. What does the dog learn? That politely soliciting for social contact is ignored, while barking gets him what he wants.
The micromanaging aspect of NILIF; the demanding that the dog must perform as told before he gains access to things he needs, including getting permission to live out intrinsic behaviors, causes stress - as it would in every being, and even more so in one who is innately self-governing. Albeit social, dogs in nature, even when they belong to a loose group, don’t have an overbearing alpha. They can walk and rest when they want, sniff and mark without restrictions, seek food and eat what they find. Many of our owned dogs are already anxious. That, not dominance, is the underlying cause of many problem behaviors. Adding more pressure is counterproductive.
And it’s not only the dog who is feeling the stress. NILIF can be difficult for owners as well. Recent clients of mine, guardians of two toy terriers, illustrated that perfectly. Their previous trainer advised the Nothing in Life is Free protocol to modify one of the dog’s fear reactivity toward strangers. Because nothing means exactly that, she recommended that the dogs’ social interactions with each other be structured as well, and permission for play and snuggle time only be granted after they performed obedience commands or tricks. My clients couldn’t stand the thought of segregating the very bonded pair all day while they are at work, and therefore didn’t follow through with that part, but also questioned other suggestions the trainer forwarded.
Above all, for me NILIF presents a moral conflict. When a person makes a conscious and deliberate decision to bring a dog into his life, it is his obligation to provide what the pooch needs to have good welfare. To turn this around, a dog, because of his absolute dependency once owned, has the right, albeit sadly not a legal one in most jurisdictions, to certain things for free: food, water, shelter and safety, a certain amount of physical and mental stimulation, and social inclusion, which includes being acknowledged when he communicates that he needs something. It is that foundation, provision and protection, that makes you important to your dog and sets the relationship in which he is willing to take his cues from you.
NILIF, in it’s worst form, is deprivation and abuse and falls in the same category as withholding food and social togetherness to get better performances. There was an agility trainer and competitor a few years ago in Alberta, where I used to live, who purchased littermate Australian shepherds he kept in separate crates and only released when they trained. Both dogs eventually faltered under pressure and did not perform to the owner’s expectations, and subsequently were surrendered to the local humane society in a complete socially inept state; just like some show dogs are who never learn or experience anything else but to stand pretty for the judge.

The thing is that the majority of dogs, including ones with behavioral problems, don’t need to be treated the NILIF way. Dogs inherently know that you belong to that fabulous, big-brained species who owns all the assets. They know that we have the anatomical tools to open the food can and car door, and yet many must jump through figurative hoops to receive 2 for 1 on-sale kibble, and some can't even enjoy that in peace because their person, so insecure about his status, removes the food a couple of times while they eat. Granted, taking a dog’s food away is not part of the NILIF practice, but I frequently meet owners who do it anyway.
I also periodically meet people who respectfully leave the room while the dog eats in fear of being attacked, and others who surrender the food even though boisterous Brutus impatiently bowls into them. That’s not it either. I am not suggesting to reinforce aggression or unruliness. No doubt, polite manners is what we want and no, don’t toss the treat when the pooch behaves badly, but understand that pushiness is not necessarily indicative of dominance. Perhaps the dog has never learned how to communicate appropriately with humans, or maybe he was ignored for prior subtle attempts to get attention. So, teach him to ask politely.
I am also not suggesting letting the dog run loose, giving him complete autonomy. That is not possible in our society, but we don’t have to warily ensure that we’re always the ones who begin an interaction. A dog can solicit, but should understand and heed your “later” signal, and accept when the interaction is over and not pester you further. That, too, can be taught.

Truth is that successful dog ownership is more fluid and dynamic than NILIF. The balance to aim for is giving the dog enough freedom and choice to prevent anxiety, and controlling the right resources at the right time to cement that humans indeed are the ones with opposable thumbs and bank accounts. It is nonsensical to make a NILIF, or alpha, point when something isn’t important to the dog at the moment, so pay attention in what context the pooch is misbehaving. If he impatiently tries to snatch the ball in your hand, making him perform 15 tricks for his kibble is silly, but waiting for a sit before you throw the ball is not. Would my clients’ little reactive terrier stopped barking at visitors just because her humans suddenly controlled social closeness with her buddy? I don’t think so.
I don't feel as strongly about NILIF as I do about pinning and shock collars, but I think it is categorically a bad idea. That said, I also concede that the rare pooch, the very confident and at the same time very unruly, determined and persistently obnoxious one, needs to learn that he lives with people and not the other way around, and in that case the Nothing in Life is Free concept is indeed a non-confrontational, acceptable and effective way to teach that lesson.
For every other dog though, understanding what is important to him at the moment, and making access to whatever that is contingent on behavior, is more effective.
Granted, it might take a little more effort to know your dog’s motivators than applying a blanket NILIF rule, but trust me, it’s worth it.

Puppies, Breeders, and Why I Stopped Writing Columns

Regarding dogs, two things I will never support: shock collars and commercial breeding operations.
The latter is the reason why, after three years or so of bi-weekly anchoring the Plymouth Review’s pet page, I quit yesterday. A reader alerted me to the fact that one of the advertisers, found on the same page as my columns, is a puppy-mill-type facility. The reader personally visited the Pretty Penny Kennel, but also forwarded me this visual – and don’t click on it if you can picture what a place run by someone whose primary, likely only, focus is to make many pretty pennies on the back of dogs, looks like.
Typically, I don’t publish disturbing footage of animal abuse. To the contrary, I blocked Facebook contacts in the past because they forwarded stuff that haunted, and rendered me useless, for the rest of the day, but in this context, I felt I needed to.
Just to be clear, Pretty Penny Kennels has been checked out by government officials and, to the best of my knowledge, the local SPCA, and was deemed to meet legal requirements, and that makes it legally impossible for the Review to deny advertising opportunities.
Well, Pretty Penny Kennel doesn’t meet my moral requirements, and it angers and saddens me to think that inadvertently, indirectly, I might have contributed to the dogs’ suffering. If just one person believed it to be a good place to shop since my articles were featured next to their ads – a reasonable enough possibility – then that, in my opinion sub-human, breeder and broker benefitted from me. What a disgusting irony. Well, not anymore. I quit.
Of course, anyone whose primary income is breeding and brokering dogs with no regard for their wellbeing would be out of business if people stopped getting their pups from them. Such commercial breeders are rather easy to spot.
The first clue is that they don’t investigate buyers. Obviously, they are not frank about their carelessness. Who in their right mind would even approach someone who advertises: “Sell my puppies to anyone who opens their wallet. No references or qualifications needed, because I don’t give a rat’s tail about the pup’s future living conditions, or your intent and capabilities. I just want your cash, and all the future problems I created with my greed and negligence are going to be your problems”.
They don’t advertise like that, but that is exactly what they do.
Commercial breeders often have a variety of breeds, many flavor-of-the-day ones, and always a steady  supply – and do advertise that: All colors - All sizes, is a hint.
The puppies are sold too young. The younger, the cuter, but there is another reason: Female dogs that are a commodity are bred as often as nature allows, and get the cheapest crap to eat that keeps them alive. Worn out and malnourished, mom-dog is not able to nurse her brood as long as she should, and puppies not taken care of by their dams are an inconvenience for unconscionable breeders.
The dogs and puppies live in filth, in tiny cages and kennels, often outside in every temperature, or stacked away in a barn. Some breeders and brokers conceal that and meet the buyer at a mall parking lot or on the side of the road, but others boldly broadcast it, and people get a pup anyway because they pity the pooch.
Commercial breeders don’t provide a contract, or if it is a lousy one guaranteeing neither temperament nor health.
Don’t think for a second that commercial breeders can’t be found in the show circuit. Particularly toy dogs, even if born to registered and titled parents, can come from large-scale operations that borderline mills. You might get a contract then, but everything else is the same – the living conditions, the lack of care, and the indifference placing the pup with the right owners.

Fortunately, reputable breeders are equally easy to spot. For starters, they are approachable at any point of the dog’s life, provide support and are willing, in fact insist, to take the pooch back, or help with rehoming, if the owner is unable to provide care any longer.
Reputable breeders have fewer dogs, and don’t always have puppies readily available. The interested person, provided he qualifies, is put on a waiting list. To qualify, he has to fill out a questionnaire, meet certain criteria and give references.
Reputable breeders provide opportunities to visit with mom-dog and sire if he is on the premises, and of course the puppies; will have the litter in the house, and gently handle and socialize; will vet-check and inoculate the puppies, and will not release them until they are 8-10 weeks old; will not force the female to mate by holding and muzzling her, and will not breed her more than once a year – at the most. The best breeders have the pups started on crate, house and leash training.

It is really not that difficult to separate the good from the bad, and one might expect that intelligent humans would choose the good ones. But there is a problem. Humans – some anyway, have empathy, and that makes puppy acquiring less of a brainy and more of an emotional endeavor. That includes rescue organizations, by the way. Millers and brokers who go under or are unable to sell their surplus  typically find some charitable group who picks up those dogs, painstakingly rehabilitates and then adopts them out. What else can they do? Turn their backs? Nobody who loves animals could do that. But the flipside is that the good news stories and photos of pauper dogs landing in paradise; the “all’s well that ends well” perception, is what sticks in Jane Public’s mind. I wonder what were to happen if, instead of happy endings, the public would be plastered with headlines like: “Joe Puppyseller (photo attached so that everyone can see what he looks like) of 195 Barklane Road, Wooftown USA/ Canada, busted. 45 dogs and 150 puppies destroyed. Although some were salvageable, we decided to kill them all, because we refuse to bail someone out who caused years of suffering to countless living and feeling beings.”
Yes, in theory every person should decide to shop only at reputable places. In reality, many will continue to save that one pup from its unscrupulous person. It is human nature, yet it perpetuates the problem because leaving the skinny pooch who lives in her own crap behind, thus denying the commercial breeder financial means, is the only way to stop such practices.
We surely can’t rely on our lawmakers to create change. Other countries have laws. In Sweden, for example and according to an article published in Bark Magazine Sept/Oct. 2009, a breeder is obligated to pay for all medical expenses for the first three years of a dog’s life. That would put an end to large-scale operations. To be fair, sometimes there are attempts in North America. For instance, Pennsylvania proposed regulations that would require anybody to leash walk each dog in their care for 20 minutes per day. That, too, would prevent millers and brokers from legally carrying on with their dirty trade. I don’t know what came of it though. My hunch is nothing, because in the land of the free and vocal focus groups, common-sense proposals rarely make it into law.
And we also can’t rely on printed media and for-profit online sites to promote animal welfare. They back up whoever has money, and provide the opportunities for commercial breeders to advertise their wares. So for now and likely some time to come, I fear that mega puppy-producing businesses will continue thrive, unabated and with impunity.

At least I did my part yesterday. I quit writing for the Plymouth Review. I, of course, won’t stop writing posts on this here, ad-free on purpose, blog site. Perhaps a few of my column readers I invited will join us. In the next few posts I’ll discuss NILIF, positive reinforcement, and barking and lunging on the leash. Stay tuned.
We did our part again when we chose an awesome, incredible, local breeder for our next puppy. Yeah, that’s right. It is a well-known secret around here that we are waiting for an Aussie baby, hopefully to be born in the fall. Not having a deadline isn’t such a bad thing when one has a pup. And right now it frees up diddling time I can spend in the backyard yelling names out loud to get a feel what rolls nicely off the tongue. The mom’s name is Denim, and our frontrunner, provided we’ll get a blue merle, is Indie – for Indigo, Denim’s Blue Wonder. But we are open for suggestions.

Pet Food - Conclusion

Last post I discussed sources of protein and carbohydrates in your dog’s food; ingredients you typically find in the top five on the list. Stipulated by law, food manufacturers have to list ingredients in order of quantity: the first one is what is most in your food, the second one second most, and so on. Keep in mind, though, that protein is measured by weight, and that can fudge your perception. Let’s say chicken is the first ingredient, but because it is fresh, it is inclusive of water, which of course has weight, and the food might not be as protein-rich as one that has dehydrated meat meal listed as the, for example, third ingredient. I personally don’t put too much value on that, but what I don’t want to see are byproducts or grain fragments in the top ingredients - ideally not at all.
Often not in first five, because lower in quantity, are oils, fruits and veggies. Lower in quantity doesn’t mean that the quality is less important.

I am not going to bore you with saturated/unsaturated and omega fatty acids technicalities, but let me say that dogs, like us, need all of it - and in the correct ratio. Saturated fats are of animal origin, and although they have a bad reputation, they are good suppliers of energy, needed for every steroid hormone formation, including stress hormones, and have some anti-viral and anti-fungal properties – and yes, they are good for humans, too. Don’t shy away from good animal fats in moderation; don’t replace them with hydrogenated, artificial oils. There is one drawback: fatty tissue is a preferred storage area for toxins, so if you have access to organic meats, you’re a step ahead. Frankly, if I couldn’t access free-range, grass-fed and ethically raised meat, I would be a vegetarian.
Fish oils, high in beneficial omega 3 and in almost every brand of food, can also be heavy metal contaminated. Supplements for humans are tested for that, but I am not so sure regarding our pets’ food.
Unsaturated fats are the plant-sourced ones, and in kibble typically sunflower and/or canola oil. I don’t like either, but am more concerned about the latter.
Canola it is cheap and plentiful, and thus a preferred raw material for manufacturers of all processed foods – for humans and dogs. Naturally, the food industry and their clever PR and Ad people don’t promote it as convenient for them, but healthful for you. Hailed as omega-balanced and nutrient-rich, and a Canadian success story to boot, it is anything but good for you, at least according to fat expert and author of “Fats that Heal – Fats that Kill”, Udo Erasmus, Ph.D.
Canola, he points out, is rapeseed and toxic, and hence was traditionally used as an industrial lubricant. Genetic modification made it consumable, but Erasmus argues that it still has adverse effects, all outlined in his book. As far as I know, the FDA prohibits canola oil in infant formula, and yet puppies and dogs, especially when fed kibble exclusively, ingest it daily and for life. Even if toxicity is minimal, there is a cumulative effect – and not just for dogs, but for people as well because it is found in so many different products.
The other trouble with canola is that it turns rancid easily. In fact, China only recently partially lifted an import ban because of fungal disease issues. To prevent that, the oil is often highly processed, and everything highly processed is nutritionally useless or harmful. But even when cold pressed and unrefined there is a problem: canola is high in goitrogens, which can interfere with thyroid hormone synthesis.
At least, canola is listed on your ingredients label. Grease waste sprayed on kibble to increase palatability usually isn’t. Wrap a handful in paper towel and leave it on the counter over night. Is the paper covered with large fatty splotches? When you hang your schnoz in it, how does it smell?
When I cook my dogs’ food, the flavor comes from the ingredients and I don’t have to fancy it up so they will eat it. The yummy stuff is in the food, not on top, including oils. My favorite ones, you rarely find in commercial food cause they are costly, are extra virgin olive and extra virgin coconut oil. It is time well spent to research both; you will be amazed by the health benefits.
So, lots to think about regarding fats. Thankfully veggies and fruits are straightforward. I haven’t found a food yet that contains the known toxic ones, onions and grapes, and anything else is generally good. The only thing I like to point out is that beet pulp isn’t from valuable red beets, but another useless waste product from the human food industry: the residue of sugar production. In kibble, it increases drastically in volume when mixed with water or digestive juices. You can test that too by putting a handful of kibble in water, and watching it transform into a super-expanded foamy glop. I can’t imagine how that would be a good thing in your dog’s stomach.

I hope I gave you some guidelines what to check for in your dog’s dry food, and the same rules apply for wet food. Higher in moisture, you are paying a lot for water, so choose nutrient-rich broth instead. A high quality canned food’s ingredients list looks like that: meat broth, meat, some organ meat, a few veggies, and grains or potatoes. On the low end you have the same stink-stuff that are in cheap kibble: meat byproducts, water, soy flour, poultry by-products, color, salt and a premixed mineral supplement likely made in China. On that note, most supplements that are added to commercial food, even the high-end brands, are the premixed kind likely made in China.
How important it is to add micronutrients to make a food balanced is not an easy question to answer. The more processed the food, the more important. The more nutrient depleted the raw material, the more important. Staying with the theme of wholeness, I add culinary herbs rather than isolated vitamins and minerals, some parsley, some kelp, and squish my green tea bag into the doggy dish every day. Because so many things in our environment kill and deplete beneficial intestinal bacteria, the pooches also get a probiotic supplement, or at least a tablespoon of natural yoghurt each day. Is it enough? For mine it seems to be.  They are, and have been, vibrant and healthy till old age, especially considering hereditary issues some came with.

Dogs are omnivorous food opportunists, and there is quite a bit of liberty feeding right. My magic words for the wash’n’wear pooch are: whole and fresh - and variety. Even some kibble manufacturers now offer rotation diets. If you are dealing with health problems, my advice is to talk to a holistic veterinarian who can help you explore all options, including home-cooked or raw. Many veterinary clinics and good pet stores also carry supplement mixes you can add to the food you make, and nutrition experts like Cat Lane and Monica Segal, their links were provided in the first post in this series, can customize your dog’s diet to his/her specific needs, including supplements and/or medicinal herbs.

If the ingredients in your dog’s food, or the stink going in and coming out, make you gag, buy a different and better one with your hard-earned dollars. It is never too late to reap the benefits: improved coat quality, increased energy, and yes, also behavioral changes.
Food is a biological right, and the moment we acquire a furry dependent, it is our duty to supply something the dog likes, and keeps his body and mind well nourished. Eating should be stress free – not only for mental health, but also because stress affects digestion, and that can contribute to an array of physical problems, including allergies.
You are not what you put in your mouth, but what you absorb.

Pet Food Ingredients: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

When you walk down the pet food aisle at the supermarket you see bags of kibble that show a smiling dog, with a beautiful coat and sparkling teeth, surrounded by images of whole grains, colorful vegetables and meat that looks like what you'd find in the butcher section, and you believe that what is in the bag is made from exactly those ingredients, and that your pooch will be as vigorous as the one depicted. Think again.
Most dog food manufacturers are subsidiaries of the human food industry; companies that have a lot of unfit for consumption waste they sell anyway, to pet owners, and they spend a lot of money to do so.
Your dollars pay for: laboratory research, manufacturing, warehousing, transport to wholesaler and retailer and their overhead and mark-up, advertisements including paying veterinarians for endorsements, and veterinary mark-up for prescription food. How much money you think is spent on ingredients - the only thing that matters to your dog and therefore should matter to you.
Fancy packaging cleverly deflects from what is inside, and manipulates people to believe their eyes and ignore what it says on the ingredients list. Well, I hate to Pan it to you: you have to read it, because whatever we put in our mouths either nourishes or harms us, and it is the same with our animal dependents. More importantly than reading, you must comprehend it, and that is not always easy, but there are two key words: whole and fresh.
When I cook for my dogs I can’t pop a whole cow or lamb in the pot, so I combine muscle meat, a little fat and some organs to match whole as best as possible. On your kibble label, that is meat. Meat is clean flesh from slaughtered animals minus bone. Meat is a good ingredient.
Meat meal is meat with the moisture removed. Not necessarily bad, but it could be imported from who knows where, and preserved with who knows what. Check for that. Every bag of food has a 1-800 number. Call and ask.
Meat by-products are parts other than meat, exclusive of hair, horns, and hooves. That is not so good, and if you find it on the label, it should at least be at the bottom.
A whole chicken, turkey or duck does fit in my pot, and that is what I use. Although it includes frame, back and neck, it also includes lean breast meat. It is whole and good. Whenever it says poultry on your label instead of chicken, turkey or duck, it can, and often does, predominantly consist of backs and frames, and that is bad.
Egg is an excellent protein source, but good only when it is whole. It will say so on the label. Egg product can be any or all parts of the egg.
Downright ugly are MBM - meat and bone meal, and poultry by-products. That can be anything, including road kill and euthanized pets, downers, cut off cancerous tissue, heads and feet, out of date supermarket and restaurant waste. I checked many food bags last year when Will decided that she'd like some kibble with her home-prepared food, and never saw MBM – perhaps crap is coming out of style, or perhaps it is found only in the really cheap stuff I had zero interest to investigate.
Meat is important for your dog’s wellbeing and should be the first ingredient. Meat meal, because the moisture is removed and therefore it is lighter by weight, can be one of the first three, or even five, typically mingled in with grains, potatoes, and/or legumes.
As I touched on in the last blog, I believe that grains are a natural part of a dog’s diet. Dogs have enzymes to digest grains, and they need glucose to produce body-own vitamin C in the liver. Carbs are the primary suppliers of energy for moderately active and sprint dogs, compared to endurance dogs who draw energy from fat. So, unless you are a follower of one certain TV personality and tie your pooch to the treadmill for several hours a day, he probably falls in the former category.
When I cook for my dogs, I alternate between rice, oats, barley and quinoa, and I mostly use whole grains or flakes. In your kibble, the same ingredients are the good ones.
Fragments, such as rice bran or brewers rice can be mill sweepings and are cheap fillers, and bad.
Rice flour, like all flours, is over-processed, and if you see anything that ends with “ose” you are dealing with refined sugars, which are, together with flours, considered to be major contributors to many human ailments.
What about corn? Even people who are okay with grains are often against corn, and some manufacturers take advantage of that trend and advertise “corn free” to infer superior quality food they, of course, charge more for. In my opinion, human-grade ground corn isn’t particularly bad, but it ranks high on the allergen list, and inhibits serotonin uptake. Serotonin is another neurochemical, like dopamine, that can affect behavior: it relaxes and promotes friendly socialness. In studies, low levels increased aggression in all species tested. Because nutritionally corn doesn’t supply anything other grains don’t have, I see no purpose for it in pet food and I don’t use it, but I also don’t think it is the evil ingredient some purport it to be.
Corn gluten meal, on the other hand, is ugly. It is mill residue from cornstarch and syrup production, has no biological value and, like other glutens, is a protein filler. Let me explain: The crude protein value you see on the label is a measurement of nitrogen, not a measurement of quality. If the manufacturer uses little, or inferior animal sourced protein - the poultry or meat by-products, cheap gluten is added to bolster the value on the label. Soy does the same thing, and is an ingredient I wouldn't want to have in my pooch's kibble.
Since the grain free trend, potato has become a popular dog food ingredient. It is marketed as being better than grains, but I fail to see the reasons why. Yes, they are nutrient rich, but also starchy and, if you come from the raw, ancestral diet angle, as unnatural. In addition, some dogs are allergic to members of the nightshade family, which potatoes belong to. That said, I don’t consider whole potatoes a bad ingredient, isolated potato starch is, but do wonder what condition the ones used for dog food are in. I love taters and buy a lot, and hubby Mike was born and raised in Prince Edward Island – for my US readers, it is like Idaho except in Canada, and I am aware how heavily chemically treated they can be for human consumption, and how carefully they have to be stored to prevent greening and spoilage. Processed into kibble, is there quality control?
There is more in kibble than meat and potatoes. Fat, for example, and I will talk about that the next post. Stay tuned - you might be surprised that I question a commonly used, and hailed as healthy, oil.

Pet Food Musings - Part One

After many years of easily accessible information, it sometimes surprises me that pet food is still such a hot topic on social media sites and online groups. Then again, perhaps it is exactly the abundance of material that confuses and keeps discussions going.
Feeding the dog used to be a mindless task: the pooch either got table scraps or one of only a few choices of kibble. Bygone are those good old days; now we have raw, cooked, freeze-dried and a vast variety of dried and canned food, and feeding right has become complicated. Is it really that difficult? It can be, when dogs have specific needs, but I won’t be talking about that. There are fabulous experts better equipped than me who address nutrition on a deep level: Monica Segal and Cat Lane come to mind, but also your holistically inclined veterinarian might be able to help if you have a special needs dog.
I’ll keep things shallow, not insubstantial but generalized, meaning that I will discuss in this blog, and the next two, dog food particulars that affect many, most, or all dogs in the same way.

I grew up in a time and place where food was prepared daily from fresh ingredients purchased at the local market. Rarely could you find food cans in our cupboards, we didn’t have a freezer, and if you ever been to Europe you know how small their refrigerators are. Eating right was normal for my parents, and generations before them, and is a lifestyle choice for me still today. We do have a freezer, but it is mostly filled with veggies and fruits and ethically raised organic meats, not with processed garbage. I concede that making those choices is easy for me because I never acquired a taste for junk food, but also because I always, from a very young age, was keenly interested in nutrition and have an understanding what crap-consumption does to people.
My interest in pet food came a little later in life, and was triggered by a holistic therapy course I attended in Frankfurt/Germany. Although it dealt with nutrition for humans, it had a thought-provoking aspect that prompted me to research pet food thoroughly for quite some time afterwards.
The instructors, a middle-aged couple, were raw foodists and vegans, which means they neither cooked nor consumed anything of animal origin. Instead, their diet consisted of tree-ripened fruits they had flown in directly from a wholesaler somewhere in the tropics twice a week, organic veggies, a variety of nuts and seeds, and sprouted grains. And did it ever work for them. I rarely met someone, before or after, who radiated such vibrancy. In their tow was an 8-year-old Hovawart – Hovawart is a German, retriever-size guard dog breed – who, and this is the astounding part, ate the same foods. Once a day he was offered a platter of assorted fruits from which he picked what he wanted, and to that his people added a handful of pre-chewed nuts and an egg. The raw egg was the only difference between what humans and pooch thrived on. Yes, thrived. The dog was as glowingly healthy as his people.
That humans do well on plenty of fresh produce is common knowledge. But dogs? A diet such as this can hardly be described as species correct. Or can it? Dogs’ species-correct diet, specifically raw vs. cooked and grain vs. grain free, is subject of many heated debates. Let’s have a closer look.

Many scientists agree that dog domestication began because of food. Increasingly more waste, the byproduct of early human settlements, attracted and kept them voluntarily in human proximity. I wrote about feral dogs being garbage dump scavengers before.
Human waste was what “dog” evolved on. Initially they foraged and many still do, but at one point some were deliberately fed scraps; meals that humans prepared for themselves but didn't entirely consume, or purposely shared when a canine was useful in one way or another and they wanted to secure his loyalty and wellbeing. Let’s keep in mind that until about 60 or 70 years ago almost every part of a slaughtered animal was used for human consumption. When I grew up we had lung, tripe and heart stew, fried brain, smoked tongue, and liver. There is still steak and kidney pie, ox-tail soup, and a Slavic dish made of pickled pig feet, snout and tail. Bones made stock, and cleaned intestines sausage casings, including blood sausage. Historically there was not much raw leftovers for dogs to have. Humans cooked since there are dogs, and humans that cook have cooked waste. Logically, the biological correct diet for dogs is cooked. Raw is wolves’ ancestral diet.
Before you raw food aficionados jump me, let me clarify that have nothing against raw, but I have a lot against trickery. Regrettably, the commercial raw food industry, like the kibble one, follow the same profit driven principle: take unsellable to humans, inferior and isolated, foodstuffs and market it for pets. In a society – ours – in which people desire lean and de-boned choice cuts of meat, and where soups and stocks are concocted in a laboratory, there are ample surplus animal parts: carcasses, fatty poultry backs and necks, offal and bones with bits of meat on it. And wouldn’t you know, conveniently exactly that becomes the dog’s ancestral, thus appropriate, diet? I don’t think so. I opine that both kibble, promoted as scientifically researched and balanced, and raw, promoted as evolutionary correct, have no merit and can be harmful.
A natural diet for dogs is to eat what we eat. It is diverse, and changes with seasons and regions, and there great latitude in feeding a dog right. A natural diet consists of a variety of protein, fat and carbohydrates and yes, can include grains. The delicate undertaking is figuring out what works best in what ratio for the individual dog.
I know, I said I wouldn’t talk about biochemical individuality, and I won’t other than that one man’s food is another man’s poison – Roman healer Lucretius figured that out 2000 years ago, and I like to add “dog” to that. Poison not only on a physical, but also behavioral level. Take protein for example.
Many of my clients’ dogs are on a popular high in protein kibble or raw food. Obviously, most of my clients’ have trouble with their pooches, otherwise they wouldn’t have hired me. The connection? Some studies suggest that lowering protein can take the edge off behavioral problems. It might have something to do with the neurotransmitter dopamine, correlated with protein, that is involved in recognizing detail changes, fires up at the sight of familiar things that are important - both positive and negative, and is responsible for seeking and anticipatory behavior. Dogs as a species are already detail specific, but some are especially reactive to any change and overreact when startled; some are hypersensitive to sensory stimuli and trigger with every sound and motion, and some are intensely zoned in on the environment at the expense of staying connected to the handler. Whenever I meet a dog  where any or all of the above is an issue, I recommend a food that is not higher than 30% protein.
Remember the Hovawart? He consumed very little protein, and against common sense thrived. I am convinced that the only reason why he did was because the ingredients were top-notch. I am not saying that you have to import organic fruits to keep your pooch in shape – although the thought to move somewhere where they grow is pleasant enough to explore more sometime in the future, but you should pay attention to ingredients. Ingredients are key. How to sort the good from the bad will be the focus of the next two posts. Look for it in mid, and the end of May.