August 30, 2010
Confession time… I’m waaaaaay behind in getting a blog done, and now I have a dilemma – there have been so many things happen that I’ve wanted to blog about, like the Humane Society of Washington County donation jar getting stolen from the table at Martinsburg Bike Night, and the subsequent exciting chase, capture of one suspect, and ultimate recovery of the jar with over $250 in it. (It was the father of the two juveniles who actually went out and found the jar!).
 Humane Society of Washington County booth at Martinsburg Bike Night Or my observations from the Humane Society vaccination clinic and flea-less market that drew a long line of dogs and their owners for rabies shots.
 Long line for rabies shots at the Humane Society vaccination clinic And then my good friend Don Hanson and his Greenacres Kennels in Bangor, Maine issued a Position Statement on “Dominance” and I realized I need to to do something similar… but that will have to wait a bit.
But of course, the Behavior Modification Academy wins, hands down, for training and behavior appeal and photo opportunities.
We offer several academies each year; usually three Level 1 Basic Training and Behavior, two or three Level 2 Behavior Modification, one Level 2 Instructor’s Course, and one Level 3 Advanced Behavior Study and Training (the first one of these is next month!). The groups are small – we accept a maximum of 8 in Level 1, 6 in Level 2, and 8 in Level 3. Occasionally we offer a Multi-Species Course. We had to cancel the Multi-Species this year and Sturgis the pig was most disappointed – he was hoping to be someone’s subject animal.
BTW – we have one opening for this November’s Level 1 Academy, and the 2011 schedule is up, so if you’re planning ahead, take a look and get your registration and deposit in!
Level 1 uses shelter dogs, but for the BMod Academy, students (we call them Interns) are encouraged to bring their own dogs to work with. Behavior modification doesn’t usually get done in one week, and if they bring their own dogs they can continue to work with them at home. For various reasons we ended up working with two shelter dogs and one Miller dog for this course, with only three Interns bringing dogs. Our players were:
Simone de Lima from Brazil, and Bonnie Miller.
 Simone and Bonnie. Love the T-shirt! Simone flew in from Brazil for the course, so couldn’t easily bring a dog with her. Bonnie, our Scorgidoodle, has been sensitive about having her nails trimmed since we adopted her at age 7 months, so I seized this opportunity to have someone work with her. I had done some counter conditioning work and she’s better than she was, but she could do better. (I could do better!)
Hugo Gasc from New York, and Jezebel:
 The beautiful Jezebel Jezebel is perhaps a Catahoula/Shepherd mix – very high energy, adolescent, surrendered by her owners to the shelter because they didn’t have enough time for her. She failed her assessment for resource guarding the week before the academy – she growled and snapped at the Assess-A-Hand – intense enough to make her ineligible for adoption. We were hoping to help her enough that she will be able to go up for adoption.
Petra Manis from New York, and Dakota:
 Sweet Dakota Some 7-8 years old, Dakota is a mature, sweet shelter dog (supposedly Pekingese/Shih-Tzu) who did some resource guarding during his assessment – not enough that he failed, but enough that the shelter thought it would be useful for us to work with him. Dakota growled at the Assess-A-Hand during his shelter assessment but did not snap. We all loved his underbite!
 They look like wax Halloween teeth! Marci Haw from Indiana, and Pippy Longstocking:
 Pippi the Rescue Rat Terrier - will be looking for her forever home Pippy is a rescue Rat Terrier that Marci brought with her. She expected to work on mild resource guarding, but found that Pippy has a high level of reactivity to the environment and sudden environmental change, so she worked on that instead.
Cindy Mauro, CPDT-KA from New Jersey, and her Pomeranian, Wiley.
 Wiley in a contemplative moment. Did you know Pomeranians used to pull sleds and herd reindeer? Wiley was a foster dog, and a difficult one at that. He came from an abusive home, with a broken front leg that had to be plated. When Cindy got him, any restraint at all sent Wiley into a ferocious frenzy. She didn’t even like him much – at first – but then ended up adopting him, and now calls him her heart dog. She wants to be able to trim his nails and he’s still very sensitive to touch and restraint, so she worked on that all week.
Our sixth student prefers not to be identified:
 Our mystery guest Students pair up each day with a different person so they have an observer and coach as they work with their dogs. By switching pairs each day they get to see the modification protocols as they are implemented for all the dogs throughout the week, so it broadens their experience here.
We also video the work sessions and review those during the discussion sessions, when the dogs are taking a break. Other discussion topics include the mechanics of doing behavior consults (my place or yours?), discussion of cases presented by the students, a review of learning theory, and mock client consultations.
By the end of the week, Wiley was enthusiastically offering his paw for holding and touching, tolerating pressure for several seconds, and accepting the presence of the clippers being opened and closed near his paw. Cindy used counter conditioning and desensitization to accomplish this, first touching his leg and feeding chicken, and very gradually moving down his leg to his paw. She deliberately started with his left front paw, since his right front leg was the injured one, and he’s even more sensitive, understandably, about that one.
 Don't touch me there!  Chicken? Did someone say chicken?  We love clippers - clippers make chicken happen! Marci worked hard on a Reactive Rover counter conditioning program with Pippy and had great success. From near-tears on Monday to a big grin on Saturday, Marci helped Pippy learn to cope with new stimuli and sudden environmental change. We found, happily, that while Pippy is quite aroused by new stimuli, she does habituate reasonably well, so by the end of the week she was handling the hotel well, and doing beautifully in her work sessions, with Marci carefully keeping her sub-threshold almost all the time.
 Bonnie in the background as neutral dog - Pippi loves chicken too! Petra and Dakota were starts with their efforts to counter condition the little dog’s moderate resource guarding. At first, Dakota was either too stressed or too distracted to even be interested in his cheese-stuffed cow hoof, and Petra was a little dubious that he even had a guarding problem. He did get more interested in his hoof as the week went on, and as Petra learned to stuff it with Vienna Sausage, chicken, meatballs, and freeze-dried liver. Over the week Petra did repeated pass-bys, then approaches, then actual interactions with Dakota’s guardable object, dropping chicken with each approach to convince him that someone approaching means good stuff! On graduation day, when Petra approached Dakota while he emptied his hoof he happily looked up at her and wagged his tail as she snatched the hoof away – and then dropped chicken for him.
 I could guard if I wanted to. Really. Hugo and Jezebel followed a plan similar to Dakota’s, but had to move with more caution. Jezebel gave some low-level warnings from time to time in the form of subtle freezes, so there was no question in Hugo’s mind that she would guard. He carefully stayed sub-threshold all week as he slowly increased the intensity of his approach, and on Saturday he, too, could successfully approach Jezebel, have her happily look up at him as he removed the hoof and then fed chicken. I will be re-assessing Jezebel tomorrow. Cross your fingers and whisper to the gods…
 Hugo doesn't need convincing Simone was working with a Dremel grinder with Bonnie rather than a clipper. Bonnie’s dense black nails are hard to cut and you can’t see the quick (a big part of the reason for her discomfort with clipping) so I had switched to a Dremel some time ago. Simone’s program for Bonnie was similar to Cindy’s with Wiley – slow counter conditioning to the touch and handling necessary for trimming, and gradual introduction to the trimming tool. I promised Simone I would continue with her excellent work. The next time she visits us from Brazil, Bonnie’s nails will be happily short.
 Simone taking notes on her most recent work session with the lovely Bonnie Perhaps the biggest lesson our Intern trainers learned this week was the importance of going slowly. As my friend and fellow trainer, Jolanta Benal says, “If you think you’re going too slow, slow down.” And the paradox to that is that when you go slowly, you actually make progress much more quickly – because you’re not going over threshold and sensitizing rather than desensitizing the dog to the stimulus in question.
 Pooh says, "If you think you're going too slow... slow down!" As for me, as much as I know – as I grok that counter conditioning and desensitization (CC&D) are powerful behavior modification tools that simply work when done well, it still thrills me to the bone every time I see dogs and their humans happily CC&D-ing their way to behavior success.
Great job, Interns – congratulations!
 L. to R. - Petra and Dakota, Hugo and Petra's Archie (Jezebel didn't want to do a group shot), Simone and Bonnie, me, Cindy and Wylie, Marci wihtout Pippi, and our mystery guest. Warm Woofs and Happy Training,
Pat
June 30, 2010
Okey Doke – I promised you a follow-up on the Westie pup left abandoned in our driveway, so here it is. Never let it be said I don’t keep my promises…
 Maggie Faith Maggie spent the week while we were on our biker vacation happily making friends at the Humane Society of Washington County. They assessed her at the end of her stray holding time, and found that she was friendly, outgoing, resilient (as in nothing rattles her) and very quick to use her mouth. They weren’t sure if she was using it aggressively or not, so were not willing to make her available for adoption immediately at the shelter. I also wanted to explore her alleged crate-soiling behavior, as reported by her previous owner, who said Maggie absolutely refused to eliminate on grass, and would only urinate and defecate in her crate.
 I can *walk* in grass just fine! We brought her home to PPaws, where I found her to be a perfectly normal Westie pup. She does, indeed, love to use her mouth, but she just wants to play tug. Correction, she really wants to play tug. Correction, she ferociously wants to play tug.
I’m convinced that the previous owner who dumped her here incorrectly identified Maggie’s intense play-growling (while tugging on pants legs) as aggression, and hence applied the inappropriate (inappropriate response even if it was aggression) remedy of grabbing and holding her muzzle closed. Since the previous owner had also received more bad advice (“Don’t ever play tug with your puppy”) and Maggie is dying to tug, the pup’s only outlet for this highly desirable behavior was to grab pants legs, and yes, human hands. Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!
As soon as we offered her appropriate tug toys her pants and hand grabbing greatly diminished. Even now, just one week later, if she occasionally goes for clothing or skin we just have to replace the inappropriate object with an appropriate tug toy and she’s a happy camper. Easy Peasey. (See my “Rules to Tug By,” below)
We also worked on teaching her to offer sits and take treats without grabbing flesh. Ouch!
 Sit for a treat...  Oops! If you grab, the treat disappears!  Yes! If you're polite you can have it! As for the housetraining issue – no worries. She has happily pooped and peed on grass since her first day here. She makes every effort not to soil her ex-pen, has never soiled her crate (we put her food, water and toys in her crate) and pees on the grass as soon as we take her outside. Go figure.
 Guess what? I can poop and pee in grass just fine too! In fact, she’s had a wonderful week hiking around the farm, helping with barn chores with the Miller pack (Scooter hates her) and Sturgis, and soaking up attention from Shirley and all the PPaws apprentices.
 Hiking on the farm with the big dogs  Waiting her turn to roll in deer poop  Helping with barn chores  Hangin' with Bonnie and Sturgis So – she doesn’t need the Gold Paw program – there’s nothing to fix. They should all be so easy! Westie Rescue is coming to pick her up on Saturday, and she will be off to her new life, hopefully in the hands of someone who has a better understanding of normal puppy behavior and can give her the lifelong loving home she deserves.
Have a great life, Maggie Faith!
Warm Woofs and Happy Training,
Pat
RULES TO TUG BY
By Pat Miller
I’m always surprised to hear there are still trainers who think “Tug” is a bad game to play with dogs. My dogs think it’s one of the best! Granted, there may be an occasional dog for whom I wouldn’t recommend it, but as a professional dog trainer and behavior consultant, I often suggest Tug as an appropriate and effective way to help a high-energy, under-exercised dog work off steam. Most of my peers in the positive training world agree.
We also agree that it’s a good idea to have rules by which to play the Tug game, to ensure that you’re reinforcing appropriate behaviors and not rewarding inappropriate ones:
- Keep the tug toy put away. Bring it out when you want to play tug. Your relationship with your dog works best when you control the good stuff.
- Use a toy long enough to keep dog teeth far away from your hands, and comfortable for you to hold when he pulls.
- Hold up the toy. If your dog lunges for it say “Oops” and quickly hide it behind your back. It’s your toy – he can only grab it when you give him permission.
- When he’ll remain sitting as you offer the toy, tell him to “Take it!” and encourage him to grab and pull. If he’s reluctant, be gentle until he learns the game. If he’s enthusiastic, go for it!
- Randomly throughout tug-play, ask him to “Give” and trade him the toy for a yummy treat. After he gives it to you, you can play again (see steps 2 and 3). You should “win” most of the time – that is, you end up with possession of the toy, not your dog.
- While you are playing, if his teeth creep up the toy beyond a marked or imaginary line, say “Oops! Too bad” in a cheerful voice, have him give you the toy, and put it away briefly. (You can get it out and play again after 15 seconds or so.)
- If your dog’s teeth touch your clothing or skin, say “Oops!, Too bad” and put the toy away for a minute.
- Children should not play tug with your dog unless and until you are confident they can play by the rules. If you do allow children to play tug with your dog, always directly supervise the game.
- Only tug side-to-side, not up-and-down (up-and-down can cause injury to the spine), and temper the vigor of your play appropriately to the size, age and personality of your dog. You can play Tug lots harder with a 120 adult Rottweiler than you can a Rottie puppy, or a four-pound Chihuahua.
- When you are done playing, put the toy away until next time. You control the good stuff!
Happy tugging!
May 30, 2010
A weekend of shaping fun with some of my best training friends in beautiful Asheville, North Carolina, topped off by dinners at wonderful locally-owned restaurants with numerous delicious veggie options – what more could a training junkie ask for?
 Dining out at "The Laughing Seed" (guess what *that* is!) in Asheville.  Asheville nightlife - Wolf hybrid meets Dachshunds Huge thanks go to Lisa Waggoner of Cold Nose College (Murphy, NC) for hosting this event, and to Gail Hubbard and Susan Wilson for making their facility, A Good Dog’s Life available for the weekend. We had 18 working teams and another dozen observers. In addition to Lisa, the group included longtime training friends Beth Brock, Jenny Schneider, Tracey Schowalter, Viviane Arzoumanian, and AnneMarie Easton.
 Long-time PPaws friends, l to r: Tracey Schowalter and Matsi, Beth Brock and Dice, AnneMarie Easton, Jenny Schneider and Little Bit, Viviane Arzoumanian and Pasha, me, and Shaping seminar host Lisa Waggoner with Gibson We started with some foundation discussion and then set right off with “Body Parts” shaping, where participants selected a specific body part and shaped movement of that part – a turn of the head, a lift of the paw, a flick of the ear or tongue… the possibilities are endless.
 Shaping a paw lift  Tracey discovers that shaping a head turn can be a Zen exercise with Matsi, a dog who hadn't yet learned to offer a lot of behavior! From there we moved to building behavior repertoire with free shaping, using the time-honored “101 Things to Do With a Box” and then “101 Things to Do With a Prop.” Props included a skateboard, doorbell, crate, cradle, book, a toy truck, and more. Following 101 Things, working teams selected a behavior goal to work toward using directed shaping. This often makes more sense to goal-oriented humans than the open-ended “101 Things” activity. We also started shaping “Go to Your Place.” A simple directed shaping exercise.
 Lisa waits for Gibson to make a clickable move. Her goal: have him go to the book, lie down, and put his paw on the page.
 Success!  It was a delight to see Viviane's Pasha wake up to the fun of shaping. By end of day Sunday she rang the bell! Homework assignment for the evening was to write up a shaping plan for a specific behavior the attendee wanted to teach her dog, with the emphasis on splitting (breaking the selected behavior into very tiny steps) rather than lumping (making the mistake of trying to shape for too large pieces of behavior). Review of the plans on Sunday morning helped attendees identify their lumping tendencies. Beth Brock won the grand prize of a Peaceable Paws baseball cap for splitting into the most steps – her plan numbered 54 total steps.
We returned to working sessions, starting with work on the plans the participants had written, with some teams making admirable progress toward their final behavior goals. We ended the day with a “Shaping Show-Off” – where dogs and humans demonstrated their success with their shaping plan behavior, and one other behavior they had worked on for the weekend.
 Shaping Molly to rock the cradle.  Beckie waits for a well-behaved (previously dog-reactive!) Josie to make a clickable move toward the doorbell.  Jenny shapes a somewhat hesitant (but catching on!) Little Bit to get on the stool. We applauded each others’ achievements, and dogs and humans were happily exhausted by the end of the day.
This is by far my most favorite workshop to give. Because shaping is “errorless learning,” it’s almost impossible for participants to make rapid progress as they grasp the delightful fun of shaping.
There is still room in the 2011 Peaceable Paws calendar if you’d like to host a Shaping Workshop in your town, or attend one here at PPaws in Fairplay, Maryland!
Warm Woofs and Happy Training,
Pat Miller
May 17, 2010
Okay, I’ll admit it, I have favorites. I teach several different trainer academies throughout the year, and my Level 2 BMod is always my favorite. I sometimes forget how much I like them until another one rolls around, but the group that just finished last week reminded me, in spades, how rewarding this work is.
I like the BMod academy for several reasons – one of which is I get to see return students. Successful completion of my Level 1 Academy is a pre-requisite for Level 2. There are some “equivalents” but most of the Level 2 trainers are Level 1 returnees. So that’s always fun. It’s a pretty good bet that the ones who come back enjoyed their first experience here, and are very committed to their ongoing education, so we get a lot of great attitudes and study/learning ethic at Level 2.
Then there’s just the fact the behavior modification is so darned interesting. I think I will go to my grave (in the far distant future, I hope!) still knowing that there is always more to learn about behavior. I am fascinated watching our BMod students work with their dogs, and listening to their oral presentations on Day 6, when they talk about what they did during the week, and what they’ve learned. Great R+ for me, as well as for the students!
Here is last week’s cast of characters, in alpha order by last name (no playing favorites):
- Keith Dorans, of The Paw Pad USA (www.thepawpadusa.com ), Cranford, NJ. Keith worked with Max, a Sheltie from the Humane Society of Washington County, MD (www.hswcmd.org) . The majority of BMod students bring their own dogs with “issues” to work on, but for some reason with this group, 4 out of 6 chose to work with shelter dogs.
Max “came” with aroused jumping up and hard nipping behaviors that the shelter worried would decrease his adoption potential. His jumping and nipping, it seems, were related to the stress of being at the shelter, and by Day 2 of the academy those were well-resolved. Keith found other things to work on, however – we discovered that he also had some significant anxiety-related behaviors, and was very reactive to moving vehicles. And horses.
- Dara Lambert of The Enlightened Dog (www.theenlighteneddog.com ), Summerduck, VA. Dara brought her own Border Collie mix, Sancho, to work on his dog reactivity, barrier aggression, and in-car aggression.
Sancho made good progress during the week, although at the age of 9 years we had no expectations that we could “fix” him in 6 days. Dara was pleased with her progress and the new information she obtained about working with reactive dogs in general, and Sancho in particular. Dara was the Academy Star as well, tying for high score on the oral final, and overall high score for the academy. Congratulations, Dara!
- Margaret Marsh, Charlottesville, VA. Margaret also brought her own dog, the lovely Ruby, a young black-and-tan Hound mix. Ruby was also dog reactive, and, we realized during the week, had some generalized anxiety issues.
Ruby tended to fluctuate in her behavior, depending on how many stressors she encountered in a given day. Margaret keeps Ruby at home a lot in Virginia, so hadn’t had the opportunity to recognize how generalized her anxiety might be. When a dog is stressed by a lot of different things, it can be hard to keep her below threshold. Ruby had some good days here, and some more difficult ones, but Margaret did a great job of learning how to read her dog and remove her from stressful situations before she went over threshold, and went home with lots of tools to work with. Ruby really didn’t like the horses!
- Sue Rissing, of Great Falls, Virginia. Sue worked with Beth, one of two undersocialized Border Collie sisters from the shelter. These 5-6 month-old pups were, fortunately, reasonably well-socialized to people, just not to environmental stimuli, so they had good potential for behavior modification.
Beth did spectacularly well during the academy as she learned to walk on a leash and get brave about all kinds of scary things, including banging chairs, hula hoops, getting in the van, the sound of the vacuum cleaner, microwave oven, nail grinder and more. She even took field trips to the nearby Outlet Mall! Best news of the week, one of our PPaws apprentices, Beth Joy, brought her fiancé Matt and their Min Pin, Roxie, to meet Beth (now renamed Annabelle) and they are adopting her this week. Yay!!!!!
- Heather Smith, of Fayetteville, PA. Heather worked with yet another shelter dog, Riley, a 10-month-old Beagle. While Riley makes good use of his Beagle nose-heritage, he is also one of the most human-affiliative Beagles I’ve ever known. When we assessed him at the shelter, we were concerned about his easily-triggered submissive urination, and dismayed by his moderate to significant display of resource guarding behavior over a high-value object (cheese-smeared pig ear).
Because a BMod Academy was coming up, we were able to send him to a foster home (thanks, Sarah James!) to await behavior modification. Riley was a star at academy – only a very occasional spot or puddle. He, too, visited the Outlet Mall and didn’t even pee when greeted effusively by a large, intimidating male human. Heather, who also tied for high score on her oral final presentation (congrats, Heather!), worked mainly on his guarding behavior, and we were able to see great progress. Although there was still, not surprisingly, some tension at the end of 6 days when I pushed him a little with the Assess-A-Hand, he was quite comfortable with Heather approaching and interacting with him as he chewed on his meatball-filled cow hoof. We even suggested to the shelter that he could go to an experienced home with older children, as long as the family was very clear about the importance of management when Riley had a high-value resource. Riley won the “too cute for words” award at this academy!
- Last in the alphabet is Alicia Williams. Unfortunately, Alicia had to leave us on Day 5 due to a family emergency, but during her 4.5 days here she made excellent progress with Beth’s sister, Border Collie Pippin. Pippin seemed a little less confident than Beth, so didn’t make quite as much progress, but also responded amazingly well to all the classical conditioning work Alicia did with her.
We didn’t want Pippin to miss out on her last day at the Academy, so Sue hiked and worked with her on Saturday as well as with Beth/Annabelle. In the right hands, these two girls have the potential to be fantastic companions!
Here’s the whole graduating class, minus a couple of dogs who declines the group shot:
So, with another academy come and gone, it’s time again to look to the days ahead. I am mega-excited about next weekend’s Shaping Workshop in Asheville, North Carolina, hosted by my friends at Cold Nose College (www.coldnosecollege.com ), Lisa and Brad Waggoner. PPaws was located in Chattanooga, Tennessee for several years, and many of my friends from that area are coming – I am sooooooo looking forward to seeing everyone there. Then it’s a Nose Games Seminar here at Peaceable Paws (still room to come have fun with us!), and (can’t wait!!!) 10 days off for a vacation/motorcycle ride to the bike rally in Laconia, New Hampshire. Yes, in my “other life” I really am a biker chick – compete with tattoo!
 Until next time…
Warm Woofs and Happy Training!
Pat
March 24, 2010
Well lookee here – I’m actually doing this! It’s exciting to have a place of my very own where I can share thoughts and events on the spur of the moment without worrying about pleasing an editor, thinking up topics a month in advance, or complying with word counts.
I’ve procrastinated on this because it feels like a relationship commitment and I don’t want to risk not fulfilling my end of the bargain. And because I had to figure out how this darn blog-thing works – I’m not the most computer-savvy dog trainer.
I expect my blogs to run the gamut from trivial and amusing to, hopefully, significant, informative and thought-provoking. I’d like to share a bit of daily life at Peaceable Paws as well as momentous events in the lives of animals around the world, and the people who care for and about them.
Like… I got a first kiss from Sturgis, our pot-bellied pig the other day! He was lying down while I was scratching him (which he loves – eyes closed in sheer bliss) and I was lying next to him on the barn floor, raised on one elbow. When I stopped scratching he stood up, leaned forward and planted his flat, wet, wonderful pig nose square on my cheek. I was enchanted!
So… welcome to my world – where, today, I’m delighted that it’s pouring rain because that means it’s too cold to snow. Hopefully spring is truly and finally here, with spring peepers singing in our pond last night, a fox in the bottom of Jorel’s meadow yesterday morning, geese walking in the geldings’ pasture, daffodils coming up in the flower beds, and the first groundhog of the season spotted in Rafiki’s pasture on Monday
|
