Are Dogs Pack Animals?

Wolves in their natural environment, so not captive ones, function as a pack. They hunt cooperatively and raise their offspring together. There is group cohesion because there is common interest, and the breeding pair sets the direction not so much because they fought their way to top position, but because they are older and more experienced - the pack consists of parents with several generations of offspring.
The wolf pack is not as static as once believed. Internationally recognized wolf expert L. David Mech states that every wolf, once an adult, has the freedom to disperse, mate and form a new pack, and many do. Furthermore, a wolf who doesn’t benefit the group runs the risk of being ousted or killed.
However, that revised information is not common knowledge. The belief that wolves are hardwired status challengers, and that it is the physically strongest one that prevails and keeps the others in check,  and that the same is true for dogs since wolves are dogs’ ancestors, is so widespread that even non-dog-owning folks believe it.
It is also what Cesar Millan accepts as true. In “A Member of the Family” he writes that canids in the wild arrange themselves in smoothly functioning packs, and if a dog misbehaves or aggresses, it is because the pack leader has weak energy the subordinate recognizes and takes advantage of. Handily, he has a number of dominance displays up his sleeve the weak human ought to apply to demote the canine ladder climber a few rungs, but warns not to repeat it at home.
In any case, just because Millan says something and masses believe it, doesn’t mean that it is so. A three-year study of feral and stray dogs in Italy revealed social behaviors that are not at all wolfish – or packish.
The normal adult group size was 3-6, but there was a high mortality rate and new dogs were frequently recruited to keep the number stable. In other words, only the number of adult dogs was stable, the make-up dynamic; by the end of the 3 years only one dog of the original group remained.
When the optimal size was reached, outsiders were aggressively driven away, but there was no aggression within the group, and there was no animosity observed against other dogs on the garbage dump feeding sites. Only the home resting area was defended, not the roaming range, or food.
The dogs in the group had preferred associates and sometimes roamed with a buddy, but each one also spent time alone. There was no obvious pack leader.
There also wasn’t a breeding pair. All females mated and preferred familiar males to the strongest ones. Since the stud, unlike daddy-wolf, neither protects nor feeds the brood, strength is irrelevant.
Mom-dogs whelped away from the group, and stayed away for 4-5 months. The group did not help raise the pups, but stayed in loose contact with the female.
After the pups were weaned, they followed their mom to the feeding sites - neither she, nor any of the group’s adults, regurgitated food.
Only about 25% of the pups stayed with group.
The observations of this study align with others made around the world. Feral and stray dogs universally:
Do not form hierarchical packs, but loosely and transitory groups, and/or roam with a buddy, and/or alone.
Females breed often and with every male they choose, and are on their own raising the brood.
Unlike wolves, dogs don’t hunt cooperatively, but scavenge independently. Some avoid humans and adjust feeding to times when people aren’t in the vicinity, for example at dawn and dusk. Such was the case with our feral born Will, who was first spotted by humane society volunteers outside of Calgary. She and her 4 littermates were a guesstimated 10 weeks old, they traveled with mom-dog but no other ones, and all of them were so apprehensive that they couldn’t be trapped, not even with smelly wet cat food, but had to be tracked and cornered in their home-base hideout. And it's hideout, not dugout. The feral dog study found that the dogs did not dig dens, but moms-to-be used already existing cavities to whelp.

Strays are often less elusive. I observed non-owned dogs Greece and Southern Spain who solicited food from tourists, even though they were repeatedly shooed away by locals. They never jumped and stole food, and there are accounts aplenty of bolder strays that do, but the ones I observed didn’t. I also didn’t see any aggression, not against people or each other. They just hung out where tourists were, where they experienced morsels being tossed their way.
In Chalkidiki, a mom-dog and her litter followed me to dinner for a week, and in Andalusia a large blond dog arrived at the hotel pool each day when I had my lunch. Once I understood his pattern, I bought lunch for the both of us, and sometimes the hotel manager’s purebred Old English sheepdog would join in – both dogs intact males, no aggression.
So, an unchanging linear hierarchical pack, and the dominance that comes with it, is about as unnatural as it gets regarding dogs that are not directly manipulated by people. That is not how self-governing dogs arrange themselves.
The relevant and important question is if that changes when we eliminate autonomy and make dogs our dependents. When we include a dog in our social setup, don’t we function like a pack? Isn’t the owned dog a pack animal then, if not by nature, by adaptation?
Well yes, although I dislike the word pack in that context. Humans who live together, share space and  purpose, are called a family, circle of friends, sports team, focus group, school class, organization, but never pack. And owned dogs live with people, not the other way around, so my dog is a family member. But that is just semantics and rather trivial. What we have to understand, and that is crucial, is that the moment we acquire a dog, he has no option but to assimilate and become a functioning part of our intimate social group. At that point, the dog needs someone who teaches him how to: how he fits in, like members of any group need someone who outlines the direction. That instills safety in the newcomer, and group.
In the dog/human composition, it is the person who is the leader by virtue of species.
The ambition to lead humans is a choice. Many people are perfectly content to dabble away and let others make the important, and sometimes tough, decisions. In our relationship with dogs, there is no choice. The dog has lost independence and became a dependent, relying entirely on his people to provide for his needs. Like you would need a roadmap how to function successfully in a foreign land or culture, the dog needs directions how to access resources, how to gain social acceptance, how to feel secure - safe, and how to deal with stimuli that are part of his environment.
It is a no-brainer that that level of dependency makes the dog the one family member who is exactly NOT dominant and in charge. You are, and your dog knows it.

Forget and forgo the idiotic and damaging dominance rituals Millan and alike prescribe. Forced submission and physical power displays emotionally paralyzes the timid by nature dog, and provokes aggression in the confident one. We instill distress, and foster competition in a species programmed to orient to humans and be solicitous.
Dogs are not pack animals, or perhaps even innately social ones, but they are hardwired to be able to form close and permanent social relationships, which is what we're banging on when we invite a pooch to share our life’s journey. Studies showed that dogs look at humans for information; wolves don’t. Dogs are food, but also social opportunists. They are perhaps the only, other than human, animal who can feel more comfortable living with another species than their own.
Far from being naturally dominant, the dog is a natural follower. Remember that puppies follow their mother to where the food is? Following who facilitates basic needs is hardwired in dogs; they pay attention to whoever is important.
Attention is an offered behavior and has nothing to do with rank, but facilitation. Once we earned that attention, all we have to do is teach behaviors that please us the pooch can use to get what pleases him. In other words, the dog learns to access what motivates him through cooperation, and once these behaviors are habitual, no further leading is necessary - unless the situation changes, at which point the dog who has authentic group identity, feels bonded and trusts, will seek information from his human and follow his lead.

A pack, any social group, shares space and has common purpose. One does not become a pack leader by entering someone else’s home, pinning the dog or forcing him with a 20-cent rope to trot behind. Millan’s “pack” is nothing more than an arrangement of individual dogs coerced to avoid a certain set of behaviors when he is in the vicinity. That’s all. His is a relationship based on dominance and forced submission, and indeed requires what he preaches: to be on top of it all the time, to always be calm-assertive.
How tedious and impractical a relationship with an animal who is by nature not hierarchical, but programmed to form a cooperative close social bond and live in harmony within group.

Email From a Morphed Alpha Human

I want to share with you an email that landed in my inbox, one of many similar ones, by the way. Here it is: 
“I own wolf dogs and if you are not the alpha, they take over. A stern voice or glance makes my dogs go to the ground. I would never hit them, however. I will snarl, stare and let them know I am the dominant of the pack. I have also neutered and spayed them because my husband and I are the only breeding pair in this pack. We have also started showing them that our son has a higher place than them in the pack. My male tries to be the dominant one, but has never successfully won. Nor will we let him. I am alpha, he is a pack dog and nothing else.”

Here is my response:
The author believes that she has a functional pack because the way she and her husband relate with the wolf dogs follows Nature's Rules. Like many, she's been misguided.
In nature, the social climbing male could and would leave and form his own pack.
In nature, the existing alpha would always have to be on guard, and it appears that the author of this email also is.
In nature, no wolf is forced to submit to the next generation offspring, her son. Rank comes with seniority.
It appears, that her male wolf dog understands how nature works and hasn't authentically submitted. The sentence: “My male tries to be dominant but has never successfully won” implies that he continues to challenge, and that means that his humans have not convinced him that he is nothing but a pack dog.
To "never successfully won" I answer: So Far!
This sentence worries me. I see a real risk that if the owners have their backs turned, the male might try to take the weakest link out first - the child. And that risk is there regardless if the owners are actually accurate and the dog is dominant, or erroneous and he is anxious, frustrated and angry because of the way he is treated.

Resource Aggression

As part of his Canada Tour, the famous TV dog trainer Cesar Millan is coming to our province in December. In my next few posts, as a welcoming gesture, I will give you my take on key premises he is basing his methods on.
Planned are: The Migration Myth and how much exercise a dog really needs; Whether or not Dogs Are Pack Animals, and if I have enough time Mother Nature’s Rules and the twisted thinking that because a tree hurts us when we hit it means that we must inflict pain when our pooch does something we disagree with.
I’ll begin with Resource Aggression. A behavioral issue more than a premise, it is today’s topic nevertheless because of a couple of video clips that made the social media rounds a few weeks ago, because it is a common problem, and because many people, including some trainers and rescue folks, still address it confrontationally.

Dogs, as a species, are deferent to humans. I said that before, and am not the only one saying it. We have the big brains to decide dogs’ fate, the bank accounts to provide what they need and want, and the dexterity to impose our will onto them with the help of collars and leashes. For some 14.000 years dogs experienced us as direct or indirect food suppliers, and owned dogs are entirely at our mercy, depend on us for everything: food, water, safety, shelter, mental and physical stimulation. How much more dominant do you need to be?
If dogs are so deferent, you might argue, then why do some fiercely aggress against the very people who provide resources? Isn’t that dominance? Isn’t that proof that the dog feels in charge and needs to be demoted a few notches? No, not necessarily.
Resource aggression, in fact, is always rooted in fear – the fear of losing something. Although partly hardwired: resource possessiveness is nature’s survival and normal for all species, a dog who defensively guards food, stuff, space or himself often either experienced loss at the hands of humans (or dogs), or resource deprivation, or both.

If a dog is given access to something he considers valuable, or that is an existential necessity like food, and moments later challenged for the very same thing, he becomes distressed and defensive. The tension, the growling and snapping, are the expressions of it. Rather than a dominant disposition, intragroup aggression is human-induced.
The foundation can be laid by the breeder, so before the owners have access to their pup. Such was the case with one of my recent clients, new owners of a giant breed puppy they acquired from someone who removed, as a rule, the litters’ food after 5 minutes without concern if each pup was satiated. Circumstances warranted that my clients’ pup stayed with that breeder until she was 16 weeks old, which means that during her entire critical developmental period she experienced food scarcity. It beats me what the breeder aimed to accomplish. Teach the puppies to eat speedily? Like gorging is a good thing, especially for a deep-chested giant dog. Did he want to get the pups used to people taking food away? Acclimate them when they’re young so it wouldn’t be a problem later on? That is my hunch, but what a misguided idea.
True, repeated exposure and experiences can habituate a dog to stimuli or events, but regarding resources it doesn’t work that way. Think about it: Would you get used to someone stealing the tomatoes from your garden just because it happens every day? And realistically, tomatoes aren’t that important. Food, to a dog, is. Food is what money is to you: Survival. If someone would repeatedly pilfer your cash, you’d be more than a little annoyed. You’d be distressed, suspicious and defensive, and likely go to great lengths to stop it.
How do you think my clients’ now 24-week-old pup feels when people approach her food dish? Yeah! She is suspicious and defensive, but because she is in a new environment, young and not that confident yet, her signals are still subtle and mild. Considering though that she could reach an adult weight of 150 pounds, and that there are young children in the family, future and overt aggression over resources are a real risk. Luckily my clients recognized that and hired not one, but two positive experts to help them with all aspects of ownership, and I am confident they’ll be fine.

Food floats animals’ boat, and a dog can be protective not just over his meal, but also accidently dropped people food, garbage, the dish even when it’s empty, and the area where feeding takes place.
In addition, pretty much anything can be perceived as defend-worthy: a bone, toy or stick, a person, and space: the dog’s bed or yours, his crate, the couch, the car, the property and the home’s entrance points.
A dog who guards his food rarely only guards food, and conversely: just because a dog doesn’t guard food doesn’t automatically mean he won’t defend other things.
There is one important facet of aggression in association with resources that is often overlooked: The dog feeling unsafe. In other words, it might not be just the loss of a resource the dog is worried about, but his own hide.
My guess is that’s what happened between the dog Holly and Cesar Millan. Watch this video clip, brilliantly captioned by dog trainer Carol Byrnes http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=4655581307021 and you can see what I mean. Perhaps the initial issue was food related, but the first attack happened when Millan “tssted” and reached for her, and the second, the bite, when the pressure continued despite her appeasement signals. When Holly had no option to flee, she fought. Notice that the whole time she neither oriented to where the food was, nor did she try to dodge for it. The food wasn’t the issue any more; the man and his hand were.

Does force and confrontation work sometimes? Yes, it does. Every method works with some dogs, but with many it doesn’t. And when it doesn’t, a nasty bite like the one we see on the clip is a possible result. Bites like that in an average home typically means a one-way ticket to the veterinarian.
Holly, though, didn’t get euthanized, at least not yet. You can see in this clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=yXE-fwI0SWU what happened next.
Holly doesn’t attack, and that is success, right? Not so fast. Notice that the context changed; Millan, this time, doesn’t rely on his calm-assertive energy that provoked the bite, but on his ever-ready rope he placed right behind Holly’s ears to give him absolute physical control. He corrected her a few times, and had she acted out, in his words he would have pulled her up. How far up I leave to your imagination, but my guess is front paws off the ground, which of course asphyxiates the dog.
We also don’t know what happened between the bite and rehab clips. Was she shocked, or muzzled and pinned, until she capitulated?
Plus, the Dog Whisperer used step-up stairs. He claims to bring the dog in a less dominant position while she eats, but methinks that it coincidentally, but conveniently, also provided a barrier between him and Holly at one point.
On a side note, watch Millan’s own dog, the pit bull Junior. At the beginning of the clip he does something wrong. What eludes me – all I can see is a dog who excitedly greets his human, but Millan disapproved and Junior responded with exaggerated submission. What does the world’s best dog trainer do? He says “No” and walks away. No what? No submit?
Natural deference and fear are two different things; a deferent dog still seeks social affiliation, a fearful one avoids it. Lets see what Junior does next: He picks up a ball. When my dogs find a ball, they bring it to me and solicit play. Millan’s dog lies a distance away and first gums it a bit, and then moves even farther away. He avoided his pack leader; wished no social interaction; is, in my opinion, fearful.
Back to Holly! Based on the second clip, would you say that she is cured of resource aggression? Well, she might behave with someone she has learned can overpower her, but my educated guess is that she might not be equally non-aggressive with every person, for example a child. A dog “cured” by force doesn’t trust, and a dog who doesn’t trust isn’t trustworthy. It is as simple as that.

Dogs are safe in every context only when they authentically feel resource security: have learned that people aren’t competitors and confronters, but resource providers, protectors and cooperators. Once a dog is convinced that his stuff is safe, and that he is safe, he won’t feel defensive any longer and the aggressive expressions disappear.
Here are some tips how to achieve that:
~ If food is the issue, vary the places where you feed, so that your dog doesn’t become possessive of a certain space.
~ Remove the empty food dish and food. If your dog is teased by its presence all day long, food, when it finally manifests in the dish, is a big deal. It is like having the world’s best chocolate cake in a locked class container in front of you. When you find the key, you are all psyched out and would snarl at anyone who comes near it, especially if there is not enough to share.
~ On that note, share your food. Good people food is better than most kibble, and food sharing is bonding. Don’t worry about your dog thinking he’s alpha. The giver has the power, not the receiver, so you actually score leadership points when your dog realizes what wonderful assets are under your control.
~ Although free feeding is not a viable option for everyone, a dog who experiences surplus is less likely to guard. One of my friends has food everywhere all day long, and never had a resource issue with her own dogs or her fosters, even the ones that came to her with food aggression issues.
~ Have several identical food bowls. Offer a lower value food and walk away with the higher value food, call the dog and hand it over. Repeat. You can have several bowls with different food, or you can increase the amount of the same food, so that each time your dog leaves his dish voluntarily to follow you, he gets tastier, or more, food.
~ Put most of your dog’s ration in the dish, release him to it, and walk away. While he eats, approach, toss a high value treat, and retreat. Gauge the distance carefully, because ideally you want to toss before the dog becomes defensive, but what you do is not contingent on his behavior. In other words, even if you misjudge and your dog growls, still toss and walk away. Don’t punish tension or a growl by removing the food. Even if you are temporarily successful, there is real danger that you create a time bomb without the tick: a dog who still feels defensive and might explode, but won’t signal it any longer. Think away from reinforcing the growl with this toss and retreat exercise, because what you are after is to change your dog’s emotional response. His mind. What a person near his bounty means: From it potentially disappearing to more materializing.
In a considerable short period of time your dog will anticipate your coming closer with excitement, not suspicion, and then you can get closer and closer, and eventually add the extra loot by putting your hand in his bowl, and then take some out and put it back in, and so on.
Although you want to practice this, also let your dog eat in peace. Being bothered while consuming food, even when bothered with a cookie, is irritating. Try it. Give your partner and kids permission to nicely interrupt each meal you enjoy. I mean, my morning coffee is sacred. I don’t speak English before I haven’t had my coffee, and the last thing I want is someone solicitously offering me candy.

Adding instead of removing is the core concept regarding other resources as well, including when dogs aggress against other dogs. If you have three dogs have three toy boxes and ten balls in the yard.
When a new dog moves in, life has to become better for the other ones, meaning more resources, including attention and interaction with their humans.
Food is a dog’s right, and they shouldn’t have to jump through figurative hoops to receive it. Regarding other resources: toys, space, your food, teach your dog to “leave” and “give”. There is a lot wrong with forcing a dog, but nothing wrong with controlling access to what’s important to him. I wrote about “leave” http://voice4dogs.blogspot.ca/2011/04/leave-it.html before, and give can be a fun game when you trade in and up. Check out Chiraq Patel’s fabulous Drop-It clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndTiVOCNY4M 

One last thing: Once a dog trusts, you can count on it that he is safe, but keep in mind that life is never static. What an animal deems important enough to defend is dynamic and can change with age, health or situation.
Take for instance the dog who never guarded food, but is on medication and always hungry. You might suddenly see aggression against other dogs pop up, rarely against his humans.
Think of a dog who is sore and more defensive being touched because it hurts.
My friend’s dog never guards food or water because he lives in a land of plenty, yet once snarled a dog away from a water dish because he was particularly thirsty after having played Frisbee on a warm sunny afternoon.
Smart owners know that dogs are living organisms and not programmable robots, and they proactively take measures to decrease the chance of conflict when life becomes more difficult. I always err on the side of caution, and so did my clients who segregated their two male littermate brothers while their biological mother was in heat. The boys are castrated, so an unplanned mating wasn’t the issue, but they had an injury inflicting fight history with each other, and made progress to a degree that surprised me. To prevent any regression, the owners temporarily backtracked when the situation in the home changed.

We saw in the first Holly/Millan clip what can happen when a dog is under pressure. It beats me why anyone would choose a method that puts him, and his loved ones, at risk. In all fairness, it is not just Millan who applies these methods, but he happens to be the one who influences laypeople the most these days; people who do what they see on TV even though there is a disclaimer that tells them not to.
When you choose a non-confrontational way to deal with a dog’s defensive behaviors, you CAN do it at home. That said, whenever aggression is involved, hiring professional help expedites progress. Some dogs have such a deep-seated fear of loss, based on ongoing deprivation, that they can be quite dangerous and harder to convince that their needs will be predictably fulfilled from here on in. The problem is compounded when the dog is also defensive of himself; feels unsafe in the vicinity of humans, when touched, and reacts to hands that reach for him. With such dogs, one can’t work beyond their comfort level. Neither reason nor compulsion can make one feel safe; it has to be experienced, and even gently caressing hands initially can be too much for a dog who is that jaded. An experienced and positive dog expert will be able to accurately determine where to begin and how to proceed, so that trust can be established again, and the dog eventually becomes trustworthy.

Solutions to Barking and Lunging on the Leash

Without a boring introduction and further ado, cause this is a longer post, I’ll share with you how I address barking and lunging on the leash; behaviors so many dog owners are struggling with.
Here are the Dos and Don’ts.

DON’T allow yourself being pulled toward whoever your dog wants to get closer to. Even if he just wants to say Hi, seeks friendly interaction but is impatient, letting him pull you reinforces pulling and lacking impulse control.
DON’T let your dog off the leash when he is tense, even if you believe that he behaves better off than on. We have leash laws everywhere in North America, and letting every dog loose is not an option. DO relationship and leash work, so that he trusts you, and it, in a problematic situation.
DON’T move closer to whatever/whoever when your dog is on the leash and tense, even if he doesn't pull.
Check in front of a mirror what it looks like when you contract your muscles in your face and body. On your dog, you might see a fold between his forehead, still ears, no blinking, the mouth clamped shut, shallow breathing. The whole dog is still, perhaps only the tail tip quivering a bit, or the tongue tip rapidly, snake-like flicking in and out.
In my last post I said that sometimes an anxious dog becomes more relaxed when he has the opportunity to sniff the other, but the underlying emotional issues: insecurity, fear, nervousness, are not addressed, and the trust in you and leash not strengthened, and as a result the dog will continue being unsure and tense whenever he spots his triggers, typically dogs and/or people. Furthermore, depending on the other dog’s reaction, or a person’s for that matter who can act erratically when presented with a tense dog sniffing his legs, hands or crotch, things can escalate quickly. Allowing a tense dog within teeth range to anybody is never a good idea.
DON’T wait too long when you have an appropriate on-leash greeting before you move on. Keep it short and sweet, and then be on your way with a happy “let’s go” command.
DON’T collar correct, zap or punish your dog. It will do nothing to change his mind about the stimulus he feels queasy about. To the contrary: being jerked back arouses him more, and he might lunge again with increased power.
If the reason for out-of-control actions is frustration because he can’t get to a potential playmate fast enough, corrections can turn a dog who initially sought friendly social interaction into an aggressive one. Force and pain cause distress where there was none before, and remember from the last post, possibly - probably also to the leash.
Regardless of motivation, overreaction to environmental stimuli means the dog is already disengaged from you, and discomfort coming from you will lead to more mental avoidance. Your goal is the opposite: you want your dog to connect and take his cues from you. Not the leash, not the collar, but you.
It is a realistically achievable goal, which brings us to the Dos section.

DO give your dog the information he needs when he is in conflict. If you don’t, he will react like a dog who is frightened or excited. Dogs have to act on how they feel. They have no choice. Most humans do too, despite our rational brain capable of overriding emotions.
Information comes in form of words and gestures, commands, and they have to be taught and practiced before they become, from the dog’s point of view, useful. In other words, the dog must understand them as information.
Some commands dogs can learn by your capturing and naming behaviors. For example, “Let’s go” is our cue for moving in the same direction together, and I say it each time we do exactly that. It is a command that feels good to my dogs, one that is rehearsed often, and one I can also use to guide them away from a stimulus. “This way” serves the same purpose, but I use it when I change directions, and “over” when I curve out to increase distance to a stimulus.
"Walk away”, is a command I only use in conjunction with a subject or object I want my dog not just to ignore, "leave", but to walk away from. When something is on your dog’s radar, but before he loses his mind, turn 180 degrees and bring him with you simply because he is on the leash. Walk away without jerking or luring, and generously reinforce as soon as he mentally disconnects from the stimulus, and reconnects with you. Catch that moment and play a game, toss treats out, playfully jog. I especially love chase games because moving and catching up is intrinsically reinforcing for most dogs, more than tug. Plus, you are using yourself as the reward, which means you have an always handy reinforcement if you forget treats and a toy. When you invite your dog to chase you, be upbeat and animated. I use a  staccato-like "quick-quick-quick" to egg mine on whenever I want them to close the distance to me, so when I want them to follow or heed the come command.
When the interesting, or scary, stimulus is stationary, so not approaching closer provoking an outburst, waiting the dog out until he shifts his focus on his own is an option I like, cause whenever a dog finds a behavior, whenever not prompted, it is internalized; the dog owns the behavior. After he shifts his focus, continue with the same "walk away" routine.
In time, you can get closer and closer to the trigger and tell your dog to: “walk away”. Rehearsed enough, it should become your dog’s conflict copout, which is much better than barking and lunging.
“Leave” has to be trained, but when it is solid and generalized, it can jog a dog’s memory to shift his focus away from a stimulus - leaving it alone and reconnecting with his person. The way I teach it also includes a follow-up word that tells him what to do next. "Walk-away" is one, but also "say hello" when he can greet, or "get" when I permit access to an object or allow chasing a squirrel.
It is critical that a dog learns the meaning of words a person can then use as information. Not teaching that is one of my biggest peeves with Cesar Millan. He doesn’t give dogs information prior to their making a mistake, only corrects when they walk into the trap he set up.
There are two commands people often use in an attempt to settle their reactive pooch: “sit” and “watch me”.  Typically neither is very successful, because when a dog is asked into a sit outside, the trigger often approaches closer, and the situation becomes more difficult for the dog. Hence, complying with the sit command is punitive, and not only will he be reluctant to obey in the future, but because the word predicts pressure, it also raises arousal. “Sit”  becomes a poisoned cue and backfires.
“Watch me” only works if the dog trusts his human without reserve, and it takes a lot of trust to be able to look away from something that is frightening and might come closer.
Imagine you walking with someone in a dark alley and a shady character is appearing, and perhaps looking at you, making you his visual target. Could you sit still and ignore him on demand? Look away?  Comply with the person you’re walking with? Would handing you a five-dollar bill every 30 seconds make a difference?
Perhaps you could trust your partner or parent explicitly because they proved again and again that they have your back and are able to keep you safe, but you probably wouldn’t trust an acquaintance or even a friend that absolutely. So, don’t expect that level of trust from a dog you adopted a couple of weeks ago.
The pleaser or treat-bribed dog might hold it together, but like the punished one, will feel pressure, is internally aroused, and still feels the same about whatever he is worried about.

DO pay attention when the dog’s mood is changing, to subtle signals. When you take action before he is in an emotional outburst, you have the best chance to successfully guide him into an alternate behavior.
Common scenario: a person walks the dog and a human friend joins in. The people yak away and don’t pay attention to the dog and what happens around them. Meanwhile, he is bored and focused on the environment, and spots something that first alerts, and then excites or concerns him. His mouth closes, ears pop forward, eyes become rounder, tail stops wagging or wags frenziedly, and breathing might increase. He yawns or flicks his tongue, lags or pulls – and perhaps even looks at his person for information what “that” is and what he should do about it, but the owner misses it all and keeps moving in the direction of the stimulus that might move head-on toward the dog at the same time. Eventually, the pooch loses it and barks, and suddenly gets his person’s attention.
The oncoming person/dog combination typically reacts as well at that point and likely retreats, creating more distance. Barking worked: his human paid attention and the trigger backed away - the situation changed, and because barking was reinforced, it might be the dog's first and preferred course of action in the future. Barking and lunging on the leash becomes an operant conditioned, learned behavior trait.
Eye contact, the dog reorienting to you, is your clue that he might need something. Eye contact is the primary and natural way for a dog to connect and communicate directly that he needs help. Pay attention to that and provide information and guidance.
Don’t expect your dog to only connect when it matters to you. When I walk with friends, it is an unspoken rule that I might interrupt in mid-sentence if my dog needs me. If I don’t take charge then, and the scary thing comes closer and closer, and she’s got no viable copout, she’ll act in dog-typical ways: lunge, bark, growl, snap.
If your dog erupts because you miss the subtler hints, are on a narrow trail and can’t avoid a conflict, or a dog or person suddenly pops around the corner or stealthily creeps up behind you and startles you both, get through the situation the best you can. Increase the distance the safest way you can, but don’t give it any other attention. Walk with conviction and confidence, but without anger and anxiety, and bring your dog with you without jerking on the leash.
If you are thinking with me, you might argue that increasing the distance reinforces the barking and lunging, and depending on the dog’s motivation, you are correct. But you really have no other choice at that moment. You have to do something, and it is better to guide your dog to walk away than to wait until the environment, which you can’t control, takes action. When you act on your dog’s behalf, you become trustworthy. Doing nothing and letting the environment decide makes you a useless bystander from the dog’s point of view.

DO pay attention to your two friends: Distance and Alternate Behavior.
Regardless if your dog’s motivation is to make the opponent disappear because he is afraid, or seeks social stimulation and is frustrated because he can’t get to it quickly enough, distance and fun interactions with you are the two key components that will authentically change his behavior.
You need distance because when a dog is too close to the stimulus he is unable, not unwilling, but unable, to respond to you.
After an outburst most people go home. A dog’s acting out leaves people feeling discouraged, frustrated, or even defeated, and understandably they want to retreat to their safe cave. But if the goal is to change the dog’s emotional response to the trigger in the future, what they should be doing is to turn the troublesome event into a positive learning experience by interacting with him in the proximity of the trigger, but at his comfort level.
The threshold distance is when the trigger is on the dog’s radar, but when he is still able to voluntarily shift his focus away from it and back to you, and the emphasis is on voluntarily, so no prompting or luring. That distance is different for each dog and situation, so pay attention to subtle signals. When he reconnects, stay engaged: have fun, do tricks, toss treats or a ball, work the area in a positive way. Yes, it might be counterintuitive to interact playfully with a dog who acted “aggressively” and embarrassed you just moments prior, but remember that it is not his choice. He is not being bad on purpose, his actions not a calculated move to tick you off. Rather, he acts on how he feels, on emotions, and your job is to remain rational and make the area a safe one – a safe one again, and interacting in familiar and rewarding ways together does that. Always aim to end the outing on a high note, and then you go home.
That said, if the dog absolutely can’t chill out, but reacts to more and more triggers from farther and farther away, he is too charged up and too overwhelmed, perhaps even just by virtue of being outside, and then do abort your walk and go home. If that happens often, you might have to give the dog a complete break for a couple of weeks, and then very incrementally introduce stimuli back into his life.

When you interact with your dog in a way that is rewarding for him, you are the big deal, not the environment. The anxious dog will have a viable copout that involves you – and you might be surprised how many dogs are agreeable when an alternative is opened. I met many forward lunging dogs that were almost relieved when controlled retreat, walking away and doing something else, was made an option.
And of course spending quality time with you also works for the bored pooch who lunges and barks because he wants to play with, or herd and control, other dogs.
There are two German words occasionally bounced around in behavioral and dog training circles: One is Umwelt, the other Merkwelt. Translated, the first one is “Surrounding World”, the second “Remembering World”. Umwelt includes all stimuli in the environment the organism lives in and encounters; Merkwelt are the things that get stuck in the brain’s memory center – and yes, dogs have that. You can imagine what happens when everything the dog encounters on a walk is Merkwelt for him; stuff that, from his point of view, matters and is relevant. Not only will he be perpetually overstimulated, but he’ll also be unable to focus on, and be responsive, to you.
Engaging your dog with you forms the contrast between what should be irrelevant: environmental stimuli at large, and what should be important: you, things you do together, guidance you provide in conflict situations – the safety and pleasure you facilitate.
You can’t avoid that the Umwelt is on the dog’s radar. Of course he registers the world around him. A dog should be allowed to look at dogs, people, cyclists, horses, cows, cats, squirrels… and be allowed to sniff, play and greet when appropriate, but you should always be more important than anything else. And if a trigger is already a big deal in the dog’s mind, don’t make it an even bigger deal by either punishing the dog, or treating him when he looks at it. You want to reinforce when your dog willingly looks away from it, and it is up to you to orchestrate many situations that set him up for success. Remember distance? Practice where you have enough space to increase it when you have to.
With a dog who has unlearned to connect with his human once outside - they are typically the ones who were neglected or punished on walks at one point - initially accept and reinforce the shifting away from the trigger, but the end goal always is authentic mental and emotional connection with you, signaled with prolonged eye contact.

DO make sure your dog is comfortable when you are out and about together.
Make sure that he is not hungry or thirsty, and free of pain and discomfort, which includes the equipment you are using. A head halter, such as a Gentle Leader, feels very uncomfortable to many dogs. It adds pressure around the dog’s sensitive nose, often leads to sudden neck twists when he lunges, and that, like a startling neck pain coming from a choke or prong collar correction, or an electric shock, causes or contributes to stress.
I like to use a 6-foot leather leash and a front buckle body harness. My favorites are the Freedom Harness at www.wiggleswagswhiskers and the Sense-Ation harness at www.softouchconcepts.com. Likely you won’t find either in your neighborhood pet store, so check for a local distributor on the manufacturers’ websites, but also compare prices. Sometimes even with extra shipping costs, shopping from someone farther away can save you money.
The body harness allows your dog unrestricted head movements and to communicate freely, it is perceived as comfortable by almost every dog, and you still have good physical control.

DO stay calm.
I despise the term calm-assertive because, although synonyms include confident and self-assured, it also implies forcefulness, pushiness and aggression, and none of those attributes exuded from the person the dog depends on will help him out of emotional conflict.
What happens at the loop end of the leash is very important. When a dog is charged up, the person must remain centered. The dog’s lunging and barking means that he is literally out of his mind at that moment. If you become agitated as well, you’re adding fuel to the fire.
If an insecure dog’s companion conveys with muscle tension, jerky hand movements, rapid patting, increased breathing, and fast-spoken words that there is reason to worry, the dog’s fear intensifies. Dogs don’t have the brain-ability to talk themselves into being rational. They need us to direct them.
Instead of jerking your dog back, or hands-on pushing his butt into a sit, or patting him on the head, or worst of all pinning him to the ground, anchor him: keep a loose leash as much as you can, and confidently, calmly, increase the distance. Use your information words you rehearsed.
Hands-on-body often arouses a dog more, so only physically handle him if you have a certain touch that brings about relaxation. It could be scratching his ear, or for our Will it is drawing a diamond shape with my finger between her shoulder blades. It became a conditioned feel-good touch because I do it each morning when we snuggle in bed.
If you are anxious, sing a song. Your dog will hear your normal sounding voice, and that, unless you regimentally bark orders, should be a conditioned feel-good cue. Plus, singing loosens your facial muscles and regulates breathing. Tell yourself mentally that what other people think doesn’t matter;  your dog's welfare does.
Rehearse your copout steps: the shortening of the leash by bringing your hand closer, the leave command, the “let’s go” or  “walk away” distance increasing maneuvers, the whatever fun interaction that follows. Rehearse when there are no triggers, so that you don’t have to think about everything at once when one appears.
Calm role modeling will take conscious effort, but is key to success. A calm and confident dog can be a great helper, but be careful with that. The anxious, pumped, or excited dog usually influences the grounded one more than the other way around.

DO teach impulse control. Duration position stays, “leave”, and delaying the reward after a behavior teach the dog patience.

We began with Don’ts and here is one more for the finish:
DON’T be lured into quick-fix, look-good on TV and YouTube solutions. The dog you see after he is rehabbed in 5 minutes or less might not bark anymore because he is intimidated and zapped into silence, but the unwanted expressions are only suppressed. There are others. If you watch closely you typically see stress panting, cowering, whale eye, a tail tucked under the belly, lot's of blinking, or a dog frozen shut. Those dogs are subdued, not calm. You see no fluidity, no offered eye contact, no active communication, no social interaction seeking and inquisitive behaviors. So don’t be fooled: Just because the dog doesn’t bark and lunge anymore doesn’t mean he isn’t distressed anymore.
For that matter, I caution against adopting a dog from a rescue organization or humane society that applies methods that suppress expressions. You have no idea about a dog’s true disposition and behavior if the part of his communication that signals how he feels is quelled. He might show wonderfully at the shelter or foster home, where and with whom the punishments happened, and when under surveillance, but explode in anxiety and stress outbursts in the new, less skilled one.

Why Dogs Bark and Lunge on the Leash

If I’d dig up all my clients’ files from the last 15 years, I bet half my dog book collection that on-leash aggression was the single most problem behavior owners hired me to help them with. On-leash aggression, or rather reactivity, is very common.
The typical explanation most laypeople, and some trainers, offer for the kind of barking and lunging that makes everyone’s head turn, frightens the targeted individual, and embarrasses the owner, is that the dog is protective, dominant, thinks he is in charge. It seems plausible: after all, the dog is moving forward, toward the target, and he is loud and threatening. However, “This is my space/mom/kid” - fill in the blanks – “get lost” is typically not the motivation that drives leash reactivity, and more enlightened dog pros know this.
If not dominance, what are the reasons for a dog flipping out? Well, there are several, rooted in following underlying emotions: fear, distress, excitement, frustration.

Failure to socialize, meaning that the pup didn't have enough exposure to a variety of environmental stimuli during the critical developmental stages, is generally blamed when a dog is fearful. Like the dominance angle, it makes a lot of sense to people and indeed, puppies raised in a bubble or in isolation can become neophobic: will fear and react to anything new. That is compounded when the odd novel encounter was unpleasant, and if the pup felt alone - didn't have a safe refuge zone and the loyalty of his owner.
But it is not just the unfamiliar that can cause dogs to overreact. Things known, but associated with discomfort, can provoke an undesired response as well.
Dogs make a blink assessment, based on their life experience, when presented with a stimulus.
Is it familiar?
Depending on the dog, if it is unfamiliar it is automatically perceived as a threat.
If it is familiar, does it announce: Pleasure? Or Discomfort? It is safe? Or not?
Whenever a dog anticipates discomfort, the stimulus is perceived as a threat; a threat to his safety, and that always causes distress. The barking, lunging and growling are the expressions, the symptoms of it.
Familiar stimuli are cues that predict a consequence, and dogs react to cues.

One might expect that dogs perceive other dogs generally as familiar. Shouldn’t a pooch identify another as a conspecific being? Innately “know” a dog as a dog?
Not necessarily: We have a vast variety of breeds that differ in structure and behavior, and if the pup only experienced his own, he might not recognize others as familiar, but as threats.
The other aspect to consider is that dogs to each other are providers: initially food, then entertainment, but also resource competitors. Dog-dog relationships can be complex, with each unfamiliar one a potential rival, and a familiar one a known rival, unless experienced otherwise. In my professional world, lunging and barking directed at dogs is more common than toward humans.

When a fearful dog barks and lunges, his motivation is to increase the distance, to drive the perceived threat away. Yet, many owners report that their pooch relaxes once he gets close enough to get a good sniff in. Why the obvious contradiction of wanting distance, but behaving better when it decreases? There is an explanation: Information reduces anxiety because it makes the unknown more familiar and predictable, and dogs’ preferred way to gather intelligence is through the nose. When there is no information forthcoming from the owner - information that, from the dog’s point of view, provides a copout, he has no choice but to get it from the other dog, and so he’ll attempt to get closer even though emotionally he wants him to disappear.

It is not always fear, though, why a dog acts out. Frustration plays a big role, and there are several reasons why a dog can be frustrated. One, again, has to do with information seeking.
Greeting rituals exist to find out more about a stranger while preventing and defusing potential conflict meetings. That is true with humans and dogs. When we shake hands, smile, bow or curtsy, and introduce ourselves, perhaps hand over a business card, the other understands that we don’t wish confrontation. Socially normal dogs first communicate from a distance: might raise or lower their bodies, lean back or forward, open their mouths or close it, lay back their ears, orient to the opponent directly or avert their eyes, and hold or wag their tails a certain way. Depending on the back-and-forth signals, at one point they might agree to sniff each other, typically in the head and/or anogenital region, to gather detailed information. Out-of-control barking, of course, isn’t part of normal greetings, but neither is being restricted from it. When the rather dense dude at the loop end of the leash prevents his pooch from behaving normally, perhaps even from communicating properly when he manipulates him with a head halter, frustration and its expressions result.
Fear is added to frustration if the dog is choke, prong, or worst of all, shock collar punished when he reacts; when he experiences pain for being curious, for wanting to communicate, for attempting to greet in a, for his species, appropriate way. In short, if a dog’s normal social behaviors and emotions are stifled with force, the stimulus, a dog or person, becomes a cue that triggers a stress response. Even if the consequence only happens sometimes, the dog will respond accordingly all the time.
Not only that, any detail that is part of an unpleasant event can become a cue, for example: the leash, the collar, the person who dished out the punishment, and the area where it happened.
When the leash in itself is an issue, the dog is already tense before the trigger even appears. Frenetic pulling and sniffing, and completely disconnecting from his person once outside, are common signs that the dog is distressed by virtue of being on the leash and/or outdoors.

Anything in a dog’s life that has a big impact leaves a big impression and provokes a big reaction in the future. If it is other dogs that were relevant events in the pooch’s history, he'll react whenever he sees/hears/smells another dog. Big deal suggests pressure and discomfort, but that is not always the case.
Dogs who repeatedly experience other dogs as primary facilitators of physical and mental entertainment, the ones who go to daycare or are chauffeured to the dog park and let loose once a day come to mind, have a certain expectation when they encounter a dog - any dog: fun and romping begins. If it doesn’t manifest because of the leash, or not quickly enough because the person who holds it is a slow-footed creature, the pooch, you guessed it, becomes frustrated, and the outburst can look very similar to the fearful dog’s, especially to a layperson.
And by the way, that kind of frustration, when something that’s expected doesn’t happen, is not reserved to people and dogs. During a “leave” exercise, a 12-week-old beagle pup soulfully bayed at me because he couldn’t access the treat I had tossed.

There is one more aspect that falls in the frustration compartment, and it is not fear or information seeking, and also not exactly play-motivated.
Some dogs, typically ones belonging to the herding group, have a heightened sensitivity to motion combined with an innate urge to control anything that moves. Steve White calls them: “Born with a badge on their chest”. These dogs have a strong natural drive to bring order back into the perceived chaos of animated dogs – or children, and become mighty agitated when the leash prevents them from doing their self-appointed job, but also often behave improperly when off the leash, at least from others’ point of view. Even though at times jokingly referred to as “fun police”,  some dogs and most humans have little tolerance for a pooch who stalks and chases; is locked, loaded and controlling. The bossy dog also doesn’t have much fun: He is easily overstimulated when presented with ongoing commotion in a busy dog park or daycare center, and overwhelmed with the task to organize and tone everyone down a few notches. A trained herding dog knows what to do and has the guidance of his handler - and is successful. A dog who has the drive but no training, the instinct but no clue, let loose on uncooperative other dogs and trailed by a yelling, irate owner, is not successful - and distressed as a result, and reactive on, but also off the leash.
On a little side note, the serious always-on-the-job dog can also be short-fused when another butts in while they work. In that context, the ball fetching Border collie who snaps at a space-encroaching retriever is not resource guarding, but annoyed by the interruption. I recently had an Australian cattle dog client where that was clearly the case. Believed to be dominant and aggressive, she was simply so focused on her human and what he had in his hand, and if he might throw it, that anybody who'd pop in her face got a sharp and clear: "Buzz Off!" Unfortunately, in an dog park or off-leash trail, it is exactly that kind of focus that gets other dogs' attention and provokes them to "check out what that dog is so interested in".

Frustrating situations make dogs irritable and pumped, and when confronted regularly with the triggers, the cues, they become sensitized: have a heightened sensitivity to predictors, motion and sound, probably also scent, and act more and more out of control from greater and greater distances. The collar and leash, because of the restraint and discomfort they represents, amplify the problem.
The question one must ask when a dog barks and lunges is what he expects to happen next. Play? A job? Emotional discomfort? Physical pain? That expectation is based on the dog’s experience, and is what dictates future behavior. Expectation dictates behavior.
I bet what you all want to know next is what to do about it. I will tell you – in the next post, but I’ll give you a hint right now: neither clipping the leash off, nor allowing yourself being pulled closer to the trigger, is it. Oh, and commanding the dog in a sit position and coercing him to watch you isn’t it either.

My Answers to Brad Pattison's Interview with PetLife Magazine

Okay, I said I wasn’t going to post anything in August, but a recent PetLife Magazine interview with dog trainer Brad Pattison urged me to put my fingers to the laptop and share what was going through my mind as I read it.
In case you don’t know, Brad Pattison is the actor of a TV show called “At the End of my Leash”, and  someone who also trains and certifies others. So, he is one of media darlings who influences many: mostly layowners, but also people who wanna be trainers and sign up for his 6-week course.
Unless you find reading what Brad says a waste of your time, which could be a strong possibility, here is the interview.
http://petslifemagazine.ca/petslife-interview-with-dog-trainer-brad-pattison/

And here is how I would have answered, had PetLife interviewed me.
Q = question and My A = My Answer – in case you’re wondering.
Here is goes.

Q: Did you grow up with animals?
My A: No, at least not with dogs. But I always wanted one, always felt a certain kinship with dogs. In lieu of it, I pretended to be a dog when I played “house”, and made books my friends.

Q: What inspired you to become a dog trainer?
My A: Yes, my love for dogs, but more so because when finally was able to have one, I made a total mess of it. I did some research into breeds and breeders, but certainly not enough and we ended up with the wrong breed from the wrong breeder. When problems became obvious, we sought help and got exactly the kind of advice Brad Pattison gives, and implementing it made matters worse, things escalated and eventually we had our first dog Cedric euthanized. I never wanted that to ever happen again, so I began to learn about dogs; learned lots from a variety of people, and many dogs, before I let myself loose to work with other people’s pooches. But I also wasn’t broke and needed to make money, so there was no pressure to rush things.

Q: Did you have a teacher or a mentor you learned from or apprenticed with?
My A: My first volunteer job that had to do with dogs was with the Calgary Humane Society, and they offered many learning opportunities I took full advantage of. After that I attended numerous seminars and workshops, attended classes with my own dogs, did field research, read books, watched DVDs, it’s all posted on my website. By the way, to a lesser extent I still learn from others. Learning never stops.

Q: Are there other trainers out there that you admire?
My A: Yes! But not Cesar Millan. The big names for me include Suzanne Clothier, Patricia McConnell, Steve White, but there are many others, including local people I admire for their superb handling skills, or expertise in dog sports, or how they breed. I agree with Pattison that not one single person is the best. I don’t think, though, that Cesar Millan could teach him something, but I think that Victoria Stillwell could, rather than the other way around.

Q: Were there any books that you read that helped you along the way?
My A: I read too many books to list, including body language books and books that are about behavior, but not specifically dogs. You can find some on my webpage http://www.voice4dogs.com/dog-books.html, but it hasn’t been updated for some time, so there are many I read since. The latest ones are BAT by Grisha Stewart, and Insight of a Dog by Alexandra Horowitz, and Never in Anger by Jean L. Briggs is the next one on my shelf to read. That one is not about dogs, but about an anthropologist who had an insight scoop of the daily life and behavioral patterns of the Utku Eskimos in the Arctic, and their way of treating their children and how they handle deviations from desired behaviors.
So yes, learning never stops.
By the way, I also read Cesar Millan’s three books and watched four complete seasons of Dog Whisperer, so that I know what I am talking about. Except excerpts, I never read Pattison’s stuff, but I seen some of his At the End of My Leash episodes.

Q: How did you become a behaviorist, and do you consider yourself a dog behaviorist?
My A: Like Brad Pattison, I don’t have a degree in any of the behavioral sciences, so I omit the ‘ist, even though legally I could get away with it as long as I don’t call myself a “Certified Applied Animal Behaviorist”, but I respect people that do have a degree.
I like to call myself a Dog Behavior Expert, and if someone, like a veterinarian, refers to me as a behaviorist, I ask them not to.

Q: Have you taken any classes or courses on animal behavior?
My A: See my webpage http://www.voice4dogs.com/behavior-expert.html

Q: What classes did you take with your own dogs on your road to becoming a dog trainer?
My A:  I took: puppy, obedience, Rally O’, Freestyle, herding. Unlike Pattison, I never got kicked out of class, but I left on my own account because I was unwilling to hit my dog under the chin with a flat hand for wanting to come to me.

Q: What led you to creating your own training certification?
My A: I don’t have that. Right now, in an unregulated industry, each school and organization can come up with its own certification program, so it doesn’t really mean much – or at least is no guaranty that the trainer is top notch and able to help you.

Q: How would you describe your training method?
My A: It’s an easy question to answer, and has nothing to do with titles, as he claims.
I just talked about my methods in my last posts: positive reinforcement/negative punishment, emphasis on relationship, management to decrease fear/anxiety and set the dog up for success, conditioning and counterconditioning, distance threshold, functional rewards, managing. No clicker. No force. It is really humane and recommended by the American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior.
Who are the pet industry professionals that recommend his methods?
If he allows dogs to be dogs, why does he correct many of their natural behaviors?

The next question is N/A because I don’t have a course where I certify others.

Q: Do you have any credentials and certifications?
My A: I’ll answer that question the same way Pattison does, minus the CTE certification. I would never attend his course, nor would I let someone he certified even look at my dog, let alone hand over the leash.

Q: Do you have a preferred breed to work with?
My A: I work with any breed and mixed breed, any age, and love it, but admit that I have an affinity for herding dogs.

Q: Why do you have such a preference to the Martingale collar?
My A: Well, I don’t. Not that it is an awful tool, and yes, it can be the safest one to use for canine Houdinis, but my favorites are the Freedom Harness at www.wiggleswagswhiskers.com and the Sense-Ation Harness at www.softouchconcepts.com.
In any case, the Martingale collar is NOT meant to lift a dog’s front paws off the ground to make him sit, like you see him do in the first video clip.

Q: What about the other training methods you did disagree with?
My A: Of course dogs understand the “language” of rewards – all animals do. And they also understand human words – or let’s say they can learn the meaning of a word if people teach it. Has Pattison ever met a dog in his longtime professional career who goes ape when he hears the word: walky, leash, carride, ball. Ball is a big one for many dogs. People have to spell it, and spell it backwards, and the dog still understands. What about come, sit, down. Mommy. Daddy. Dogs can detect relevant words in a sentence of several irrelevant ones.
Dogs understand words when we teach them, but also when we use them consistently. He should try that sometime.

Q: Have you heard of Chicken Camp? What are your thoughts on this?
My A: Yes, of course, but I am not surprised that Pattison never heard of it. It is great for learning technical skills. Although I have never attended one, it is absolutely applicable in the dog industry. Behavioral laws are universal to all species. The fact that Pattison never heard of chicken camp indicates to me that he isn’t really that interested in behavior, but rather in control and mindless obedience.

Q: Would you be willing to attend a chicken camp?
My A: Sure.

Q: Have you ever trained an animal other than a dog?
My A: A little bit – our neighbor’s cat. And what a surprise (sarcastic): positive reinforcement worked with him too.

Q: Was that anything like training dogs?
My A: The kitty had a shorter attention span.

Q: Tell us about your experiences doing canine rescue operations with your CTEs.
My A: Although I volunteered for humane societies and helped rescue consistently throughout my career, I never did anything that got such media attention.

Q: How did the TV shows come about?
My A: I don’t have a TV show, but I am on CBC Radio One about every second month to answer call-in questions. CBC called me for an opinion on something dog related in the province I live in, and it evolved from there.
I know for sure though that I would be myself if I had a TV show, not someone my friends wouldn’t want to watch. Perhaps that’s why I don’t have a TV show – what you see is what you get, and that’s obviously not good enough to reel in big ratings, which is the only thing media really cares about – not credentials, not certification, not the welfare of dogs.

Q: Tell us about your time with the show. Was it a positive experience?
My A: I have a lot of fun with CBC Radio One. I get to help owners, and with the methods I recommend, it makes life better for the dogs, too.

Q: What are some of the more memorable families?
My A: I don’t have a show, but clients, and many are memorable. Some started as clients and became friends – they are memorable.
My happiest moment is when I see a dog labeled dominant and punished for misdeeds in the past improve, because he was anxious and fearful all along, and his people followed my advice and created an environment that allows him to function better.
Lately, I worked with a wonderful Border collie, an agility competitor, and that is memorable because it gave me a deeper insight into a sport I don’t know too much about.
Complex issues are memorable because they propel me to learn more.
And timid of strangers dogs who choose to be near me – gravitate to me voluntarily, without a leash or a jerk or force, are memorable. A dog wanting to work with me is so much more rewarding than one seeking distance. Another thing I suggest Pattison try sometime.

Q: Has there ever been any follow-up with the families from the show?
My A: Via my clients’ exclusive online forum, the humans I worked with can be in touch with me as often as they like or need, and for the lifetime of the dog. Many take advantage of that.

Q: How do you feel about having such vocal critics?
My A: Since I am not so much in the public eye, I don’t have to deal with critics to the degree Pattison does. The fact that I don’t cause a dog to yelp in front of the camera, and that I actually understand behavior, might have something to do with it as well. That said, of course not everyone agrees with the way I do things, and I am fine with that. Water off a duck's back.

Q: You have said that you would welcome an open conversation with your critics to answer questions and help them understand your methods. Your critics say that you have never given them the opportunity for such a situation and don’t respond to their online requests. What are your thoughts?
My A: Well, this is another one that doesn’t really apply to me because I do answer online requests. I am always, always open to discuss things online, on the phone, or in person. Always! With clients, that is. In fact, I welcome questions and arguments, because it allows me to explain things a bit better, perhaps in a different way. Someone asking a question tells me that they haven’t quite understood yet what I am after, and the onus is on me to clarify the whys and hows.
I also enjoy a healthy discussion with fellow professionals, and can agree to disagree on some things. But I have no time for someone who tries to convince me that dogs can’t be trained without force, compulsion, corrections, or the threat of it, which is intimidation.

Q: The next four questions relate to four video clips you can watch, and then read his explanations and points of view.
My A: Here are mine.
First clip: Regardless what euphemism Pattison chooses to use, what I saw was a dog hit across the nose. For what? From my viewpoint, when he was on his way back to his owner, so for wanting to return to his owner. My hunch is that Pattison lost his cool, patience, and therefore hit the dog. Telling the owner that she annoys him indicates that as well. I never said that to a client. If that were to slip out of my mouth, it’d be a sign that I need to work on self-control. How can he expect impulse control from a dog if he doesn't have it.
By the way, I also don’t believe that a dog must obey every idiot who can hold leash. The dog should pay attention to the owners and that’s it. Owner attention is paramount, but for it to be reliable it must be voluntary. I teach my clients how to get their dog to want to stay connected with them, not because he is jerked back or “nicked”. I work on attention first, and then built in distractions incrementally. That’s is setting owner and dog up for success, and success builds on success.
Second clip: Is much of the same, and yes, the deaf dog is giving fearful signals when he avoids the bicycles. Fear is in my opinion also the reason why he keeps Pattison in check; afraid to make a mistake he’d be corrected for. Alas, he made one anyway by forging ahead, and promptly got yanked back.
Third clip: Is just silly – sad silly. Pattison is running so close by the trees, or changing the direction abruptly, that the dog has no choice but move to the other side of it. Gotta give the dog a chance man. I’d like to try that with him. Put him on a leash, run closely past obstacles not giving him any information what I am about to do, and see what he does to avoid running into them.
Fourth clip: Hm, I never had to put a neighborhood block under lockdown to work with a dog – and I never met a human who is fast enough to catch up with a dog whose intention is to evade or bite.
Oh, and one more thing. Moving away from something is flight, not moving toward it. I actually saw that same mistake in one of the Cesar Millan's episodes when a German shepherd who wanted nothing more but to get away from him was described as an attack dog.
Oh, and another thing. Of course a deaf dog doesn’t hear the sound of a clicker, but one can most certainly train a deaf dog with positive reinforcement. A couple of my friends did: their deaf from birth dog competes in agility and even goes for off leash walks. It’s all about voluntary attention my friend.

Q: Some of your critics claim that you’ve been sued or criminally charged due to your training methods. Have you?
My A: I never have. And I don’t muzzle my clients. They don’t have to sign a contract that they won’t publicly talk about our sessions. Does he?

Q: One of the claims you have made was that clicker training or treat training kills dogs. How did you come to this opinion?
My A: The same claim was made recently in a blog post that circulated on FB. Of course it is not so. I am sure anybody could come up with an anecdotal story of a dog who was NOT clicker and treat trained and was hit by a car. And as far as obesity goes, use part of the dog’s daily ration and have her earn it. Duh. Or reduce the amount of treats from the daily ration. It’s really not that difficult to comprehend.

Q: How do you feel about dogs being cuddled, coming up on couches, or sleeping on the owner’s bed?
My A: It totally can be a daily thing. In my house it is a daily thing. I love having my dogs near me. I feed them, I walk them, I open the door to let them in or out, I facilitate their basic needs. Guess what?  They are already dependent. They are dependent by virtue of being owned by a species who has bank accounts, opposable thumbs, and a more or less well developed cognitive brain.

Q: Do you believe that treats are bad for dogs?
My A: No, but I agree that a dog who has learned how to sit doesn’t need a treat for every sit, but that’s not what positive trainers do. I explained using treats, or rather applying positive reinforcement, in my last three posts.

Q: Why are multiple toys bad for dogs?
My A: They aren’t. Multiple toys, novel toys, food toys, all in an accessible designated place, offer mental stimulation, prevent boredom and anxiety, and is exactly what prevents a dog from chewing up inappropriate things.

Q: Do you think home cooking is best for dogs?
My A: I agree with Pattison. Feeding right is an individual thing and home cooking one of the ways.

Q: The next question, and another one further down, challenges Pattison to define terms commonly used in dog training and behavior circles, for example: operant conditioning, counter-conditioning, LAT, Premack Principle, primary and secondary reinforcer, aversives, calming signals and more.
My A: Defining these terms goes beyond the scope of this post, but I have addressed some in previous posts, and continue to explain others in following ones.
It might not be ignorant to talk over layowners and clients’ heads, but it can be arrogant – I agree with him on that. The thing is though, that when I claim expertise, I have to know what these terms mean, and how to use them as tools in a toolbox full of methods to change and influence behavior. I don’t have to lord them over my clients, but I have to know them, and explain the one or the other, as applicable, in a way they can understand. I think Albert Einstein said that if you can’t explain something in simple terms, you haven’t understood the concept - or something like that.
And by the way, the theories don’t come from dog-dog relationships and interactions, but the rules also apply to dogs.

Q: A lot of critics say your methods go against modern science and peer-reviewed scientific research. What are your thoughts on that?
My A: My methods don’t, but his do, which he admits. I agree that real life doesn’t happen in a Skinner box, but again, knowing how behavior works gives one the tools to influence it. To me, the rank-reduction talk is a sure-tell sign that the person has no clue how behavior works, and to boot, knows little about dogs as a species.

Q: In your new puppy book you advocate pinching a puppy’s ear until he yelps as a training strategy. Why do you believe using this method is preferable to alternative methods that do not cause pain and are scientifically validated?
My A: I would never advocate that regardless if I see it used in the service dog industry. It is archaic, and was used (likely still is) as a way to train field dogs to hold a dumbbell. The ear pinch caused the pup to scream, he opened his mouth, the dumbbell was shoved in and at the same time the pinching stopped, so holding the dumbbell became a good thing for the dog. In operant conditioning it’s called negative reinforcement. There is nothing good about it. Sadly Pattison doesn’t learn from experts who don’t use pain to train. Perhaps he could go to chicken camp.

Q: The next question is about “nicking” the dog’s nose, and I already addressed that – and him confusing flight with fight/chase.
The question after that asks about pinning a dog, and he answers it with benefits of rank reduction. My answer: There are no benefits, but plenty of side effects, including biting hands.

Q: What is your view on BSL?
My A: I am against BSL, but agree that there are dogs that shouldn’t be in a pet home, and those dogs can be found in any breed. So, am against BSL, but not entirely a supporter of No-Kill.

Q: The next question deals with a statement by the Ontario SPCA what to look for in a dog trainer, and follows it with his methods not fitting the bill.
My A: All SPCAs, rescue groups, and veterinarians should follow such a statement, and many do. Nowadays, there shouldn’t be any professional who recommends someone who intentionally inflicts pain as a consequence of a behavior, or to elicit one. Should isn’t reality though. There are a number of local vets who send their clients to see the shock collar trainer, and some rescue folks who work with punitive trainers, or punitive trainers who rescue.
On the other hand, our provincial SPCA is committed to modern, stress-free techniques, and of course some veterinarians and rescue groups are as well.

Q: The next question challenges Pattison to a training competition, and he said he’d be up for it but questions who decides the rules and if treats are used.
My A: Who cares? If the clicker trainer is more successful that’d be proof, wouldn’t it? That said, I, personally, would not participate and for sure not downtown Vancouver. A competition like that could put a lot of pressure on the dog, and fear of punishment can be a powerful motivator, so Pattison, to the untrained eye, might actually look better in that moment. A shutdown dog also can look well behaved to an untrained eye. A competition would have to unfold over a period of time and a number of things must be evaluated to determine who is more successful in the long run, for example if the dog is self-directed in his good behavior, or if he behaves for all family members and not just for the effective punisher.

Q: Do you think your methods use positive punishment?
My A: Mine don’t, but his do, even though he doesn’t think so. But then he also didn’t define operant conditioning, did he?

Q: A reader explains that her dog can’t be on a collar – any collar, because of a past injury, and asks what to do in that case.
My A: We’ll work on a body harness. That simple. I often work with a body harness like the Sense-Ation or Freedom Harness anyway. I am neither clicker nor collar dependent.

Q: The next two questions deal with certification and government regulation, and I already answered that earlier. Some uniformed regulation in a now unregulated industry would be great. I’d like to see that.

Q: This one deals with an excerpt of his book Synergy, in which he describes the up to one-hour pinning exercise and the expressions a dog can display.
My A: Advice like that creates aggression, anxiety, avoidance and a number of behavioral problems that weren’t there before. In my opinion, it is abuse. I feel sad for every dog whose owners deliberately, and repeatedly, cause him shriek, thrash, bite, urinate and defecate. Imagine doing that to a person? To a child?
When a dog defecates and urinates, whines, avoids, tries to get away, it is fear. Damn well it is fear, which answers the next question.
And no, fear body language is not different in every dog. Can he tell when a person is fearful? When one screams and cries, avoids and voids, retreats and runs, hyperventilates, breaks out in sweat. Are those fear – panic really, expressions universal to all people? Of course. Why would it be any different with dogs? Stating that is ludicrous, especially coming from someone who claims to have studied dogs for, how long?

Enough of it. People that criticize punitive trainers are often accused of being envious of their fame and money. I can’t speak for others, but that is so not why I am critical. I have nothing against him personally, but the methods he uses, in my opinion, hurt dogs, harm and destroy the relationship with their humans, create side-effects including aggression, and yes, are inhumane. I feel sorry for every dog who is unlucky enough to fall into his hands, or one of his CTEs.

If You Punish Your Dog, Make it Negative

My chosen method how I train and relate with dogs is positive reinforcement/negative punishment combination (plus plenty of other things that are in a positive trainer’s toolbox). Trainers worth their money know exactly what I mean, but laypeople often don’t. Folks that follow my writings regularly  might even be a bit puzzled that I put the word “punishment” in my mouth.
Behaviorally speaking, punishment isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It means that a behavior decreases in frequency and intensity, eventually ceases. And negative means that something is removed. Applied, we remove something the dog wants to make a behavior we don’t want disappear.
World-renowned veterinarian, behaviorist and puppy guru Ian Dunbar illustrates negative punishment wonderfully: Whenever he plays with a pup, and the babe is too rough with his teeth, Dunbar steps out of the exercise pen. By removing himself, he also removes what the puppy seeks – social interaction. The removing part is the “negative” aspect, and the goal that the pup won’t bite down that hard the next time, the “punishment” one. Since the pup is still learning, he will get another chance momentarily, and if he blows it the person steps out again, and so on.
Ian Dunbar uses the same approach to stop his dogs from making a ruckus in the house. When their roughhousing becomes annoying, he yells “outside” – threatening them with being figuratively kicked in the yard, and because his dogs rather stay inside with him, they tone it down.
Negative punishment is effective if indeed, in the future, the undesired behavior decreases, and is replaced with a better one: the pup becoming softer and more self-controlled in play, the rowdy dogs toning it down a bit inside the house.
Although in real life negative punishment works, one must use it wisely. Let’s say your dog is hogging the place next to you on the couch and growls when his canine cohabitant wants in on the loving. Intuition dictates that the grump should lose his favorite spot as a consequence for behaving undesirably, but in that scenario there is a drawback: If punished, the already competitively feeling pooch will dislike his furry companion even more and will increasingly become more suspicious. And not just regarding the couch or bed, but in other situations as well, and from a greater distance. Although the growling might stop, the anxiety and/or aggression is still there, and if you confirm to the offending dog that the other’s appearance is indeed bad news, true animosity can form. Punishment, negative and positive = inflicting pain, although intuitive, would be counterproductive.

Equally counterintuitive to not punishing a growling dog is, for many owners, the advice to ignore a bad behavior. And there are situation where ignoring is also counterproductive, despite the operant conditioning law that states that behaviors ignored become extinct.
The problem is that life with a dog doesn’t happen in the controlled conditions of a laboratory. In real life, just because you ignore a behavior doesn’t mean that it is ignored. Something or someone in the environment might reinforce it, plus there are natural drives that are intrinsically reinforcing.
Let me explain that. When I teach “leave-it”, I have the dog leashed so that he can’t access the treat I tossed out. There is only one way he can get it, or an even better reward: he has to completely disengage from the loot on the floor and connect with me. I don’t help, don’t give the dog any clues. He has to come up with the solution, and I can wait until he does exactly because I control the situation, and therefore can ignore any pulling, barking or staring at the treat – any and all behaviors I don’t want when I say “leave-it”. Don’t worry: it is not as mean an exercise as it sounds - it takes most dogs only about 20 seconds to figure it out.
It is a different story when a dog barks out the window at a passerby. That I can’t ignore, because the person’s natural moving along is reinforcing if the dog wishes distance. In addition, barking itself feels good to some dogs, beagles and Shelties come to mind; it is in their genes, intrinsically reinforcing. The result of me ignoring the barking in that situation is that the barking will worsen.
In that case, and any other one when the dog’s undesired behavior is reinforced by something that is beyond my control, my choice of action is to interrupt the behavior I don’t want and direct the pooch into one I do want.
The interrupter is verbal, for the obvious reason that a dog focused on something else but me will not see my hand signal.  “Oops” is the word many trainers use. My dogs understand “ah”,  “knock it” and “oh yoohoo”.  Whatever word it is, it should never be a warning sound that announces your wrath, but information for the dog that he’s strutting the wrong trail, and that he should pay attention. Once he does, I guide him into a behavior I like better, and he likes a whole lot too. That the new, better behavior feels good is important, because then it will become the one the dog will choose in the future.
That’s the plan anyway, and typically it works - other than that the very clever pooch, when bored, might deliberately use the undesired behavior to elicit an “oops” and the followed treat or game. Our Aussie Davie mastered that. On an off leash walk, whenever she felt snubbed, she’d find some deer poop to sniff, eyeballing me from the corner of her eye, checking if I see her and interrupt her behavior, so that she could obey and reap the reward of fetching the ball or finding tossed treats.
Thinking dogs amuse me, and so I never minded, but it can be a problem if such brilliance involves another animal. One of my clients has a sweet-natured collie/retriever cross who “mauls” the cat to get his owner’s attention. Never aggressively, he holds her with his paws and gums with his mouth, and although the kitty doesn’t struggle or vocalize in distress, my client feels that she is not always a willing participant, and so she stops the pooch with a “no”, and he promptly releases, gets a treat, just to catch the cat again to elicit another. In that case, I would not wait till he has the cat in his mouth, but condition a new response when he sees her.

Repetition creates a new habit, and the stimulus that once triggered a bad behavior can become the cue for the new one. Anything is possible. The sight of a deer became Davie’s cue to play a chase game with me, and not the deer.
Especially during the learning stages, and depending on the dog’s degree of motivation, you want to redirect into a prolonged activity. With a dog who’s fixated on the Sunday dinner ham, an “oops” followed by a piece of kibble when he stops ogling it, won’t cut it. If the redirected interaction is too brief, the dog will be left in a mental “now what?” vacuum, and return to the last behavior, or stimulus, he found important.
The prolonged alternate activity can be anything the dog likes, and is not limited to food, but can include food. Should include food. Don’t be afraid to use food. It is handy, and most dogs are motivated by something they can devour or gnaw on. There is nothing worse that a work-driven dog not motivated by food in a pet home. He will forever pester you to be on task together: to play Frisbee, or train, or locate birds, and you can’t even redirect him into quietly emptying a Kong or finding “hidden” kibble or cookies.

So, if you catch your dog doing something you dislike, instead of: “no” ignore, punish or even click and treat when he stops his behavior, try: don’t do this, but do that instead.
Ensure that the dog receives a lot of social attention when he redirects and behaves desirably.
Interrupting and redirecting is also your best shot with a dog that is compulsive. I don’t mean to trivialize a complex issue; of course stereotypies have many facets that need to be considered and addressed, but studies with people locked in a behavior showed promising success when they are redirected into a different activity. Not just any activity – it had to be one they liked.

Disciplining someone for wrongdoings is deeply ingrained in our culture. It is intuitive and emotional, and regarding dogs there are two contributing factors: we expect that they are grateful for the care we provide, and we have an innate fear of teeth and worry that the pooch might harm us if we slack off. Not surprising then that people find it easy to follow the “rewarding the good behaviors” part of training, but have difficulty not disciplining him for his misdeeds. But withholding access to something the dog wants until he pleases you, and removing something the dog cherishes as a consequence of unwanted behaviors, should be your dog’s worst punishment. Humans don’t have to correct. Really.
Neither negative punishment nor interrupting a behavior is oppressive, but constructive. It effectively influences behavior and has a great impact on the dog without the risk of instilling or increasing fear, anxiety or avoidance. It fosters social cooperative bonding, learning, and voluntary attention and obedience. Don’t correct, but redirect. It is absolutely possible to have a well-mannered dog who has never been corrected.

I'll be focusing on other dog stuff in August, so the next post won’t be published till September. It'll deal with a problem so many owners are struggling with: barking and lunging on the leash.