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
August 13, 2010
One of the things I do in my “spare time” is to write short articles about Pet Law for Examiner.com. From time to time I submit Legal Briefs for which I mine the Internet for reports of animal abuse and cruelty cases and present a short synopsis of some of them. While doing this recently I ran across two articles that stuck me as particularly noteworthy.
Marinated Cat
The first one was just bizarre. Gary Korkuc of Cheektowaga, New York (near Buffalo) had adopted a cat from a local shelter. Sunday night, Buffalo police pulled him over for running a stop sign, and heard a cat meowing from the trunk of his car. When they opened the trunk they found 4-year-old Navarro in a cage, his fur covered with oil, crushed red peppers, and chili peppers.
Korkuc told police at the time that he did it because the black-and-white tuxedo cat was ill-tempered, and he was going to eat him. He also reportedly told them his neutered male cat was pregnant. The officer took custody of the cat and charged Korkuc with cruelty.
In a news interview with a reporter, Korkuc insisted he was “not crazy” claiming the cat had “miscarried” and was sitting in his own blood, that he wasn’t planning to eat him, but was instead returning him to the shelter, upset that his cat had gotten pregnant after being spayed, and miscarried.
Navarro has been adopted to a new home, and renamed Oliver.
Baseball Bat
There’s no element of humor in the baseball bat case. In this horrific incident, a 20-year-old Fairborn woman and her 44-year-old boyfriend/fiancé beat the family dog with a baseball bat and then ran him over with their car, supposedly because he had been aggressive toward family members. Chastity Elliott and Robert Proffitt are due in court August 16th to face charges of animal cruelty.
One report says the Australian Shepherd mix bit Chastity’s 2-year-old brother in the nose six weeks earlier, and quotes her as saying Smokey chewed her brother’s nose “all to pieces.”
Smokey is in the custody of the Greene County Animal Shelter. Officials say he’s making progress, but his future is still uncertain.
So why am I writing about this? Prior to launching Peaceable Paws in 1996, I worked at the Marin Humane Society in Novato, California for 20 years. For 15 of those years I was a humane officer, and part of my job was investigating and assisting with the prosecution of animal cruelty cases. Paul, my husband of 23 years, is also an animal protection professional, presently executive director of the humane society here in Washington County, Maryland.
 
One of the things I always said while working at the shelter was that it was never boring. Even after 20 years, you couldn’t begin to predict what each day might bring. I never investigated a marinated-cat case, but we did convict a man who killed a litter of puppies by smashing them in the head. I’ve continued at least peripheral involvement in animal investigations through Paul, and sometimes more than peripheral, such as when his shelter impounded 75 neglected and mostly-unsocialized horses in December of 2006. We took care of 32 of them ourselves on our farm and a farm across the street from us, (the rest went to rescue groups) and two of them remained as permanent members of the Miller family. (Remind me to tell you more about that case one of these days.)
 
When I see cases such as the two described above, I long to put that uniform and badge back on and go kick some animal-abuser butt. I can only imagine what Smokey must have been thinking, and feeling, as he was being smashed to pieces by the humans who were supposed to be caring for him. How can people be so brutally cruel? I often think there are different subspecies of Homo Sapiens, and that humans like Elliott and Proffitt must have evolved on a far distant branch of the tree from the people I associate with.
Korkuc, hopefully, does have some psychological problems – the scanty information from news reports certainly seems to indicate as much – and hopefully will receive treatment. Hopefully he won’t acquire any more animal companions, at least not until he’s able to properly care for one. While we still have to protect animals from people whose minds are functioning well, at least they don’t seem as purely evil as those who would brutally beat their dog.
It’s pretty common knowledge now that there’s a link between people who are deliberately cruel to animals and the increased likelihood that they might also be cruel to humans. Fortunately, over the last 35 years I’ve seen a steady increase in the willingness of our judicial system to take animal cruelty cases seriously. Perhaps one day cases like Smokey’s will be a rarity. Perhaps someday all people will realize that abuse has no place in our relationships with the sentient beings who share our world, be they human or not-human. Perhaps when that day comes, all our animal companions will enjoy the benefits of positive training in a cruelty-free, force-free world.
Until then, they are depending on all of us, dog trainers and others, to protect them, and to keep moving our world toward a more humane society.
People sometimes ask Paul and I how we can do this work, and bear to see animals suffering. I can only answer, “How can we not?”
Keep Smokey in your thoughts and prayers…
Warm Woofs and Happy Training,
Pat
August 8, 2010
Yesterday was the closing day of yet another Peaceable Paws Academy – this one our Level 2 Instructors Course. We tend to not get as much interest in this one as our Level 2 Behavior Modification (BMod is sexier), but it’s an excellent opportunity for trainers to hone their teaching skills – teaching humans is a very different skill set from training dogs. The students take turns teaching our Peaceable Paws Basic Good Manners exercises to each other, and as we do in our Level 1 Academy, students are working with shelter dogs.
This week’s group consisted of:
Bob Ryder, from Normal, Illinois, with 8-year-old Dixie, an owner-surrendered Lab/Chow:
Heather Smith (also a PPaws Apprentice) from Fayetteville, Pennsylvania, with Sierra, a 10-month-old Border Collie/Aussie (according to the shelter, but I’m convinced she’s a Kelpie, or Kelpie mix. Tell me what you think!):
And Alicia Williams, from Blacklick, Ohio, with 6-year-old Rocky, a Shepherd/Lab mix from the same home as Dixie (more about that later):
We also had two shelter employees, Heather and Kelly, attending the class, so our Academy students can get input from “real” humans as well as their co-students, and Shirley and me.
Heather worked with Princess, a 4-month-old awesomely-smart Puggle-something mix (already adopted!):
And Kelly worked with her own recently adopted and very adorable puppy, Pippy, one of a litter of three maybe-Pit mixes – Kelly calls her a Bulldog mix, but actually I think maybe Pit-Boston Terrier mix.
Each day we start the morning with a discussion about teaching-related topics, principles of behavior and learning, and/or review the previous night’s take-home quiz. When the shelter dogs arrive everyone gets to go for a hike to work out some of the shelter kennel stress. Then we convene in the training center for the day’s lessons. Each instructor teaches his/her exercises, then we break while everyone fills out their evaluation sheet for that teacher. Then the next instructor teaches. We video the sessions as well, so we can critique as a group later.
After lunch we do one-on-one coaching sessions, which are also evaluated and critiqued, and then end the day with more group discussion on a variety of topics including marketing a training business, developing a class curriculum (each student has to write up their own to present and hand in on Day 6), and ethical dilemmas. It’s intense, especially if you’re not accstomed to being evaluated and critiqued, but students tell me they learn a lot!
 Heather coaching Alicia, working on "'possum"  Bob coaching Heather on Sierra's much-needed polite greeting behavior On Day 6, Saturday, we start with the 2-hour written final exam. Although the quizzes are take-home, open book, the final is not. As students finish up the exam their dogs arrive for the last time from the shelter, and they get to take them for one more hike before the afternoon practical final. Good-byes are always teary as students load their dogs into the van to return to the shelter after the practical. The Humane Society of Washington County is a full-service, open-admission shelter, so while they have an admirably high adoption rate, adoption dogs are rarely but sometimes sadly euthanized. Occasionally a student even adopts her academy dog during the week, but not this time.
Side-note: This set of good-byes was particularly hard. Two of our academy dogs, Rocky and Dixie, were older, and owner-surrendered from the same home. Dixie in particular was having a hard time with the stress of the shelter environment, and tended to be quite vocal about it – a behavior likely to be a turn-off for prospective adopters walking past her kennel. We suggested the shelter keep her kenneled with her “brother,” Rocky, which helped a lot with the vocalization, and we are hoping they will doing a story on the pair to tried to get them adopted together as a “two-fur.” At PPaws the two were wonderful – we often let them roam the training center while we had our discussion sessions, and you barely knew they wee there. They would be a perfect adoption for someone looking for a ready-made pair of family dogs. (Spread the word!).
 Dixie (left) and Rocky (right) need a together-forever home for two wonderful ready-made adult dogs
For the Instructors Course, I assign each student three behaviors from the no-longer-produced but delightful My Dog Can Do That game. I give them their assignments on Friday so they can prepare, and they have to pick two of the three to teach to the class on Saturday. Among the assignments this session were:
Stand Tall
Sit Pretty
Pick Up Your Room (put toys in a basket)
And
Take a Bow
Heather Smith, now Heather Smith PMCT (Pat Miller Certified Trainer) came away from this academy with high-scoring honors. She has earned her PMCT by virtue of completing the Level 1 Academy (Basic Dog Behavior and Training) and both Level 2 Academies. We just started offering this title last year, and Heather is the 29th PPaws student to attain it. Congratulations Heather!!!
 Tradional PPaws group-class photo, high-scoring Heather on the far right  Oh - I forgot the part about Bob falling off the bench... After all our students had departed and Shirley and I finished tidying the training center, I decompressed with a ride around the farm on Mikey. Paul recently mowed a new trail with the tractor, and it was wonderfully relaxing to explore new territory with Monarchs, Mourning Cloaks and Tiger Swallowtails sipping nectar from wildflowers all around us, brilliant yellow goldfinches picking seeds from the thistles, and red tail hawks soaring overhead.
 Seeing the world from between Mikey's ears Warm Woofs and Happy Training,
Pat
PS – No entries in the contest from last week’s blog yet… anyone working on it?
July 22, 2010
Summer is certainly our very busy time here at Peaceable Paws, and the endless weeks of 90-plus degree heat seem to be making our academies and workshops more tiring than usual. So here it is Thursday already, the AC in my office is not working again (and it’s going to be over 90 again), and I’m waaaay behind on getting this blog done. I intended to get to it last Sunday, immediately after our Level 1 Academy, but Sunday was the Humane Society of Washington County’s “Bone to be Wild” motorcycle ride, and I was just too hot and tired when it was done to think about writing. So here we are… better late than never!
Academy week was terrific – hard work, and very satisfying. We had great humans and great dogs – always an excellent combination. The week is about half hands-on training – we work with dogs from the shelter – and half lecture and discussion.
Day One we talk in the morning, then go to the shelter for a tour, and to select dogs. My wonderful husband Paul does the tour. I usually arrive at the same time as the students, but a storm was threatening, so I phoned to tell him I was delayed bringing horses in, and they went ahead without me.
Good thing! As Estie (one of our paid staff) and I were bringing horses in, Sturgis the pig decided to go walkabout. He usually sticks pretty close to the barn, but when the horses were all in their stalls, he was nowhere to be found. Estee and I spent a frantic 45 minutes calling, banging the garbage can lid (which usually brings him running because it means food) and searching for him. I finally found him halfway down the ½-mile long driveway. Just as I pulled up behind him in my car, I saw him nose the horse’s electric fence, give a piggy squeal and dash toward the road. Damn!
I headed after him in the car and he finally turned off into the edge of the woods. Phew! Now – how to get him back? I didn’t have his leash and harness with me, and didn’t want to leave him to go back to the barn for it. I had been toying with the idea of teaching him to walk up a ramp into the car, but hadn’t put that into his training repertoire yet, so that was out. When we got him last October I could pick him up, but I was pretty sure he’d grown too large for that. I gave it a try anyway, and ended up sprawled on the ground, hanging on for dear life, with no chance of lifting him.
Finally I engaged my trainer brain and used a little gentle negative reinforcement, swinging a leash behind him, annoying him just enough to herd him back to the barn and safely into his stall. Then I raced to the shelter, arriving just as Paul was finishing up the tour.
The seven Interns had 10 dogs to choose from. They get to spend a little time with the dogs, then each write their 1st, 2nd and 3rd choices on a slip of paper, and I get to decide who gets whom.
This Academy, we had:
Gina Burger, working with Sparrow, an intense but very responsive Collie Shepherd mix.
Diane Curran with Brandon, a somewhat solemn Akita mix that I adore
Jana Frank with Bongo, a happy Husky mix with a great sense of humor
Joan Morse, CPDT-KA (high scoring graduate!) with Nook, an adorable, thoughtful Dachshund/Jack Russell mix
Tracey Peter, a shelter employee, started with Abby, a very attentive Border Collie/Chow, but Abby got sick on Day Two and Tracey switched to Guinness, a much more challenging Hound mix. Guinness finally agreed to lie down on Thursday.
Gayle Rojas, worked with Teddy, a remarkably wonderful Boxer. Academy assistant Steve Buckman is still trying to figure out how he could add Teddy to his pack of two Boston Terriers.
And last but certainly not least, Susan Duffy did an excellent job with Willow, a 4-month-old Lab mix pup who was almost as mouthy as Maggie, our recent foster Westie.
Tuesday through Friday we had a discussion session each morning until our dogs arrived from the shelter, and then everyone got a 45-minute hike around the farm to reduce stress and burn up shelter-kennel energy.
Then a group class, where we teach our 6-week Basic Good Manners curriculum in 5 days. There are additional discussion sessions each day where we sort out the mysteries of canine body language, operant and classical conditioning, schedules of reinforcement, laws of shaping, rules of stimulus control, business basics, ethical dilemmas, and more. We also do two additional training sessions with dogs each day, during which I work one-on-one with the Interns and their dogs. Students are invited to observe any of our evening that are going on during the week, and they get three take-home open-book quizzes.
Finally, Saturday morning arrives – time for the written final (not open book) and the practical exam, where each student demonstrates to the group what s/he has accomplished with her/his dog during the week. Finally, after tearful good-byes to the dogs, I meet individually with each Intern to talk about their academy experience, and how we can help them attain their goals for the future. Congratulations, Interns! Two Level 2 academies to go and you can add PMCT (Pat Miller Certified Trainer) after your name!
Left to right: Gina and Willow, me, Joan and Nook, Jana and Bongo, Susan and Willow, Tracey and Guinness, Gayle and Teddy, Diane and Brandon
I’m always a little sad to see everyone leave, but I know I will see many of them again – at future Peaceable Paws academies and workshops, and at seminars and conferences – Clicker Expo, APDT, and more. I am also always hugely impressed by how much humans and dogs can learn in just 6 days. I see students leave with a much better understanding of the scientific principles of behavior and learning, and with much greater confidence in their skills as trainers. The dogs go back to the shelter with a solid repertoire of basic good manners behaviors, and in some cases a new-found grasp of the value of having a relationship with humans. They also get a certificate for a free 7-week Peaceable Paws good manners class, and their new humans get a copy of the PPaws class training book so they know what their dogs have learned.
Now – onto the next events: a Shaping Workshop this weekend (one of my favorite things to do!) followed by an Instructor Academy the week of August 2nd.
Questions for the day: Will it ever cool off? Will it ever rain?
Oh, by the way, as of Tuesday, all the Academy dogs except Teddy had already gone to their new homes. That’s a record!
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!
June 11, 2010
You just never know what surprise is waiting around the corner.
I was wrapping up a private consult at about 5:30pm yesterday when one of our 6pm class students arrived and informed Shirley that there was a dog in a carrier halfway up our driveway. Since our drive is about a half-mile long, there’s no chance this dog crate bounced out of the back of a passing pick-up truck; someone must have left her there deliberately.
 Maggie Faith, too-cute-for-words.. abandoned in our driveway PPaws apprentice Jenn Rutter and I hopped in my van and drove down to investigate. We found the world’s most adorable 12-week-old Westie pup in the world’s flimsiest soft crate, set off the side of the driveway in the grass, in the shade. Along with the pup, the owners left a dog bed, toys, food, a plastic food/water bowl, and a six-page letter explaining in great detail how much they love Maggie Faith and how much it hurts them to give her up, but because of her “serious behavior problems” they simply couldn’t keep her.
Of course I scooped Maggie up and took her back to the training center, where I sat down to read the whole letter. As I slogged through it I wondered what horrible behavior problems could possible be hiding in this wonderful, friendly, outgoing, adorable pup.
The first clue was when she expressed her admiration for the Monks of New Skete. “Ah,” I thought. Punishment.” She mentioned a 3-year-old child, and I went to “punishment for puppy nipping.” When she castigated the breeder she got the pup from for keeping puppies in crates, I thought “housetraining.” And sure enough, she’s convinced this pup is aggressive and can’t be housetrained.
 Chewing on a cow hoof I gave her - not a *drop* of resource guarding tension when I messed with her and took it away from her (and gave it right back) Her comment: “Maggie is aggressive. She doesn’t recognize me as the dominant figure despite my following the training guide (Monk’s) to a T. (Why do I guess she probably watches Cesar, too?) Then she says, “We always stepped in and corrected her, initially with the ‘NO BITE” command. Within days we realized how serious it was and had to grab her muzzle and say the words.”
Then she says “It’s gotten progressively harder to handle.” Why am I not surprised?
The final irony is that she said, “I think that someone who can handle these issues needs to have her or else she will end up in a shelter and I can’t handle that thought.”
Of course, anyone who knows me knows that I work closely with shelters and my husband is the director of the Humane Society of Washington County here in Hagerstown. So the first thing we did was call to have an officer come pick her up and transport her to the shelter, where she is now, safe, warm and well-fed.
Of course, I can’t just let go. There’s a good chance Maggie does have some inappropriate behaviors after 5-6 weeks of muzzle grabbing, and from the owner’s description is sounds like she’s also a good candidate for reverse crate training, once we rule out a urinary tract infection. So I e-mailed Debbie McClain, shelter manager, and suggested that Maggie would be an excellent candidate for the shelter’s not-yet-officially-launched “Gold Paw Behavior Foster Care Program.”
Debbie responded: “I just went to meet this little girl….What a Doll Baby!!! She’s definitely a mouther, but like you say, that is easily corrected. (She loves a belly rub!) At the end of her stray period, staff can do an assessment and have her ready to move her into the GOLD Paw Program.”
So, in short order, Maggie will be ready to go to a Gold Paw foster home.
 Maggie Faith says, "Yay, I get to be a Gold Paw puppy!" And, of course, I’ll keep you posted here on her BMod progress.
Have a great weekend! Or as my good friend Lisa Waggoner of Cold Nose College says, suggesting that you have control over your own happiness, “Make it a great weekend.” (I love that, Lisa – thanks!)
Warm Woofs and Happy Training,
Pat
PS – If anyone happens to have any information who might have dropped Maggie off in our driveway, please feel free to let me know.
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
April 27, 2010
I’m back home from an excellent seminar experience in Brookfield, Wisconsin, with 60+ (sold out!) attendees for a day-long discussion of dog body language and behavior. A well-educated, very positive and responsive group, who actively participated, asked great questions, and bought lots of Pat Miller books and videos – thank you!!! A huge thanks to AWARE for hosting me, and especially to Holly Lewis for making all the arrangements and playing very gracious tour guide on Sunday (more about that in a moment). I even got to see some of my Facebook friends: Crystal and Renea introduced themselves – it was a pleasure to meet you all!
 An excellent seminar audience! AWARE, by the way, which stands for “Alliance of Wisconsin Animal Rehoming Efforts” is a coalition of some 60 animal welfare organizations that work together to improve the lives of companion animals through “Adoption, Wellness, Advocacy, Rescue and Education.” It’s an excellent concept – and one of the things they do is host educational seminars and subsidize the cost so AWARE members can attend at a very affordable fee. You rock, AWARE!!! www.awarewisconsin.com
As I may have mentioned before, I spent some of my best childhood years in the Milwaukee area – specifically Ozaukee County, just north of Milwaukee. Since this was a one day seminar, I seized the opportunity to spend Sunday touring a couple of shelters (tours arranged by Holly) and visiting my old haunts. The refrain, “we may never pass this way again” has been running through my brain ever since we scheduled this seminar, and I didn’t want to miss this chance. It’s been some 35 years since I was last in the area, so I hoped some of those old haunts would still be there!
The day dawned grey and drizzly – an appropriate ambience for my planned tour down misty nostalgia lane. Our first stop was the Wisconsin Humane Society in Milwaukee, a quick skip from my hotel in Brookfield.
 The Wisconsin Humane Society The first shelter I ever visited was the Wisconsin Humane Society – at that time a small, run-down building that was in danger of sliding into the creek it sat next to. The current, very new, exquisite 44,000 square foot state-of-the-art shelter is a far cry from that shelter, and a tribute to the hard work of Milwaukee-area animal lovers. Cindy, our volunteer tour guide, did a superb job of escorting us through the facility and giving us detailed information about the organizations multitude of programs. They do wildlife rehab, education programs (Holly teaches positive reinforcement dog training classes there), offer a full service vet clinic for low income households as well as spay and neuter services, have a well-stocked pet-supply store with all the right (positive) equipment and healthy foods (Fromm Foods – founded in Ozaukee County!), and, of course, companion animal adoptions. I was disappointed when Cindy informed me that photos were not allowed in the facility – in all my travels I’ve only had that happen once before, in a tiny shelter in Australia. I got some outside shots, but had to pocket my camera indoors, so I can’t show you the gorgeous facility – you’ll have to take my word for it, or find their website online. I did get to meet the 8-month old red Cattledog I’d seen online on Petfinder; would have loved to have taken him home, but we are full up with our five – and there are plenty of Maryland dogs we could adopt if we really needed another. I do sometimes think is would be fun to be able to say we have a Miller six-pack…
Our next stop was, ironically, the Washington County Humane Society – ironic because we live in Washington County here in Maryland, and my husband Paul is Executive Director of the Humane Society of Washington County.
 Washington County... Wisconsin! This is a much smaller shelter than the one in Milwaukee, and our host was Marnie, the Executive Director. Through AWARE, Holly works with this shelter also (she lives ten minutes away from it) and she and Marnie are good friends. I loved the warm, homeyness at this shelter; while it wasn’t glamorous, the animals are clearly well loved and well cared for. Front and center on Marnie’s desk we found a sweet senior tabby cat who arrived two weeks ago as a stray, emaciated, with only four teeth in her mouth. She has claimed Marnie’s office as her own, and is well on her way to recovery.
 Grandma Cat still has a few lives left! This shelter has the animal control contract for the county, unlike Milwaukee, where it’s a separate, government-run program. Marnie referred to her shelter as “low-kill” and we commiserated over the damage the so-called “No-Kill” movement has done to animal protection in the last 20 years. I suggested she call her shelter “High Adoption” or High Success” rather than letting that unfortunate movement frame the public’s perception of the good work she does.
While we were touring, a state trooper arrived with a lovely young Pembroke Corgi – he had done a traffic stop and the little dog was in the man’s truck. The man had removed the dog’s collar and was on his way home – two hours away – where he told the trooper he planned to call the owners. Two hours? Why not call while you’re still in town? Was he perhaps stealing her…? With several ID tags and a microchip tag, it should have been a simple matter to track down the owner before he was miles away. A lovely little dog, albeit a little stressed – when Marnie opened a holding cage for her she perked up, her eyes brightened and she happily hopped in. Marnie and Holly have promised to fill me in on the rest of the story as soon as the owners have been contacted.
 Saved by the trooper - waiting for the rest of the story... At the end of the tour, Holly collected a sweet but frightened Beagle that she had offered to foster and work with, and we went our separate ways.
 Holly with her foster Beagle I was alone now with my memories and my GPS, to revisit my past. My eyes filled with tears that spilled down my cheeks as I neared my childhood and thought of parents, now gone, siblings, now flung far and wide, and all the days of our lives that had happened here. I drove first through Cedarburg, where I worked at my very first paying job, as a receptionist at a veterinary hospital – Drs Moats, Bailey and Moats.
 Cedarburg wall mural I couldn’t find it. In fact, nothing looked familiar except Firemen’s Park, where we exhibited our 4-H projects every year at the County Fair – members of the Lindenwood 4-H Club.
 My 4-H Club is obviously still in existence - yay!  Entering Mequon - my heart pitter-patters I drove on. My destination was Burgundy Ridge Farms on Highland Rd. in Mequon, where I had worked as a hunter/jumper rider and instructor 40 years prior. I hadn’t been able to find it on the Internet. I prayed it was still there. And yes, I found it! It is now called Vintage View Farm – it was sold to a new owner four years ago.
 Burgundy Ridge... now Vintage View Farm - but still there! The barn was previously owned and built, 40 years ago, by Joe and Kathy Patton, and managed by Mike and Sandy Henneghan. My big claim to fame in the horse world is that I taught Beezie Patton (now Beezie Madden) to post to the trot and jump over crossrails. Beezie is now a member of our United States Equestrian Team, and the top Grand Prix rider in the country, based in Cazenovia, New York. She always had immense talent – I had very little to do with her success, but it’s nice to be a footnote in her story. The well-maintained stables seemed much the same, but smaller. (In fact, almost everything seemed smaller, including my past homes as I found them, one by one.)
 Looks much the same - but somehow smaller... When I worked there we bedded the horses in cocoa bean hulls and it smelled like chocolate. Now it smelled like horses – also a wonderful scent! A group of young girls was finishing their lessons and turning the school horses out to pasture.
 I used to teach girls just like these here I hung out for a while, soaking up the long lost atmosphere of a high-class hunter/jumper barn, and then headed for stop #2 – my old high school: Homestead High School, Class of ’69. I’ve missed all my high school reunions, so I thought I should at least drive by. My teen years were devoted to horses and 4-H, so I wasn’t surprised that I didn’t feel much emotion as I drove into the parking lot. In fact, if you’d dropped me down there without telling me where I was, I wouldn’t have had a clue.
 My Alma Mater Duty done, I continued on. A quick drive through Mequon/Thiensville – still sister small towns – remembering riding our horses down Main Street during 4th of July parades, with red-white-and-blue ribbons braided into their manes. A few spots looked familiar, but not a lot – much has changed over the years here, as well. On to 11542 Riverland Rd.; my first home where my horse lived in my own backyard. We had 2.5 acres there, which meant we could have 2.5 horses. We eventually leased a 20-acre pasture across the road so we could have more, and then moved to a larger property at 3121 Pioneer Rd. I wasn’t surprised to see that the 20-acre pasture we had leased on Riverland is now a crowded development. I was saddened to see that our meager 2.5 acres has been divided in half, and that there’s now a house built on the lot where my Saddlebred mare, Mattsen’s Lady Peavine, foaled my first baby horse, Bourbon Rex Havoc, and where Lady kicked me in the stomach when I first tried to inspect her newborn colt. In fact, none of the open fields around that old home remain – it’s all built up.
 11542 Riverland Rd.  My old home (on the left) now crowded by the house on the right, built on our old horse pasture On my way to our Pioneer Rd. property I stumbled across the Fromm Company sign. Decades ago the Fromm family started off growing ginseng, then turned their hundreds of farm acres into a fur farm – raising foxes for the fur trade. In fact, when I lived there you could still see breeding pairs of foxes in pens on the Fromm properties, and if you sent a no-longer-wanted horse to slaughter you didn’t send it to the glue factory, you “foxed” it – the Fromms bought horses to feed to their foxes. They were also one of the early producers of rabies vaccine. My family purchased a horse from the Fromms – Buckwheat – a Quarter horse cross that my younger brother Bill competed with in 4-H in Western Pleasure, quite successfully. Buckwheat had a to-die-for easy canter that made him a sought-after mount for Egg-and-Spoon and Musical Chairs competitions.
 Unexpected memories even here...  Now producing a high-quality dog food - *not* from horsemeat! My sister Meg had warned me that the current owner of the Pioneer Rd. property had sold off some pieces, and sure enough, where there once was one home there are now four, and the grand old barn has been torn down, but at least it still looks like country there.
 My favorite Wisconsin home still looks like country My mission was done. I had found my old homes, visited barely remembered places, and it was time to head back to my hotel. I had to be up at 4:30 the next morning to catch my 7am flight. One last stop for dinner at Panera Bread (there certainly was no Panera Bread there when I was a child) and I closed the chapter on this old book. The last leg of any of my seminar travels is always my favorite – from Baltimore to Hagerstown on a little two-engine Cape Air propeller plane.
 Front-seat view of the clouds This time I got to sit in the co-pilot seat, with an excellent view of the clouds, and our descent into Hagerstown.
 Until next time, little Cape Air plane! It felt like a return from Back to the Future. I was glad to be returning to the present, to Paul and our four-legged family, happy that I had taken advantage of the opportunity to visit the past. I was, however, left with the compelling question: Why *does* everything from our childhood seem smaller than we remember, when we go back to visit?
Thanks for joining me on this trip!
Warm Woofs and Happy Training,
Pat
April 22, 2010
Every Tuesday morning 9:30am finds me doing assessments of prospective adoption dogs at the Humane Society of Washington County (www.hswcmd.org) in Hagerstown, Maryland, where my husband Paul is the Executive Director. I am committed to this volunteer time because I firmly believe that shelters have a responsibility to make every effort possible to place the most appropriate canine companions in the best homes available for them. Assessments give us information that can help make the best placements.
The history of shelter behavior assessments goes back only about 15 years, and is fraught with controversy. Sue Sternberg, who founded Rondout Valley Kennels, a non-profit private shelter in upstate New York, took the lead in the mid 1990’s by introducing what she calls “Temperament Testing.” As she toured the country giving training seminars for shelter staff she received a lot of criticism for her willingness to state that some of the dogs she was given to work with were not good adoption candidates and should be euthanized. Over the years, she continued to be on the receiving end of criticism from those who disagreed with her – some of it quite nasty. She bravely and firmly held her ground, and over time, temperament testing, or as I prefer to call it, “behavior assessment,” has become a pretty standard practice in the animal sheltering field. Certainly not all shelters do it, but the good ones do.
I hold Sue Sternberg in high regard. I don’t always agree with her, but I have huge respect for the work she’s done in this area. Others who have made significant contributions to the assessment discussion are Emily Weiss, Kelley Bollen, and Amy Marder.
No one claims that the behavior assessment process is an exact science, nor do we think it gives anywhere near a complete picture of who a dog is. Rather, it is a moment in time – a snapshot of what a particular dog did on this date and time in this place. Hence my preference for the term “behavior assessment” over “temperament test” – behavior is transitory and malleable, assessment means evaluation, while temperament implies more permanence, and test evokes pass/fail, and implies that once you’ve passed you’ve passed for good. While the assessment process cannot tell us everything a dog will do in the future, it can show us what a dog will do today, which gives us at least some idea of some of the behaviors in the dog’s repertoire.
We use a modified version of the assessment process that Kelly Bollen developed when she was at the Massachusetts SPCA. She conducted a two-year study there in order to test the validity of some of her assumptions about assessments. One of her key findings was that dogs she identified as “borderline,” meaning they had some behaviors that made them questionable adoption candidates, fared reasonably well in their adoption homes. Their return rate was slightly higher than the general adoption return rate, but the follow-up research found no incidents of extreme behavior as a result of the borderline adoptions – nobody got mauled. Our modifications were minor, just a little custom tailoring to adapt it to our shelter’s policies and procedures.
For several weeks now, all of the dogs I’ve helped assess have been suitable adoption candidates, without question. That’s not always the case, but it’s lovely when it happens. This past Tuesday, however, was another story.
We start assessments at 9:30, and usually complete the procedure with three or four dogs before we have to stop at noon. We assess in a multi-purpose room, and adoption interviews begin at noon so we have to clear out by then.
First on our list was a lovely Sheltie mix, maybe 1-2 years old. Happy, bouncy, confident, cheerful: she sat on cue and offered a paw, and was easily lured to do other behaviors. She passed with flying colors. She was one of who prompted me to say, “If I didn’t already have five dogs at home…” She was also one of those who leaves you scratching your head wondering where her people were, and why they didn’t come for her. She should find a home with little trouble.
The next dog was more troubling. Another stray, 4-5 year old Lab mix, maybe Lab/Pointer, who was very stressed and showed little interest in hanging with humans. There was nothing overtly impossible about him, but his lack of affiliative behavior makes him a poor candidate to be someone’s companion. We couldn’t get him to offer any behaviors for treats – he was too stressed to work for food. The strong scent of cow manure emanating from the dried dirt on his ear suggested perhaps a country dog who hadn’t ever had a close relationship with his people. His fear-response to certain quick hand and arm movements also suggested that whatever relationship he did have wasn’t always a nice one. We had to lure him with chicken to be able to put the slip-lead over his head, and even then he was very cautious and suspicious of our intentions. He passed his assessment too, as there was nothing overtly dangerous about him, but his adoption prospects are poor. He needs a very experienced owner who is willing to take the time to help him learn to trust people, and he may never be the normal, outgoing dog that most people are looking for.
Our final assessment was a deep dark chocolate-colored very high-energy 9-week-old Lab mix pup with a low tolerance for frustration. He had affiliative behavior in spades – in fact a little too much – probably a good candidate for separation issues if not handled properly. He reminded me of a dampened down version of Brooklyn, the pup I blogged about a few weeks ago, that Katie Ervin fostered, then adopted. This little guy didn’t show the fierce snarling and snapping that Brooklyn did when restrained, but his intensity and demanding behaviors spelled potential trouble. He persistently jumped up, trying to get in laps, and offered the endearing behavior of pulling himself up into your lap by pressing his head against your arm. In fact it surprised me when he showed no resource guarding behavior with the food bowl. My expectations were met, however when he growled fiercely at the fake hand that tried to take away his pig ear.
Dang.
Once upon a time, that behavior would have earned him an immediate “no adopt.” Resource guarding display is such a dramatic behavior that it’s an easy “rule-out” when you’re making difficult decisions. However, some time ago our shelter revised their assessment guidelines and came up with a clearly spelled-out description of what guarding behaviors allowed for adoption and what didn’t. Because the pup didn’t actually grab the hand, he fell into the “adoptable to a very experienced home with no children” category. Saved, by the skin of his teeth. In fact, if he’s still around, he may be a guest her for the week of May 10th, which is our upcoming Level 2 Behavior Modification Academy. His prospects are better because of his young age, but he still needs a very committed, experienced owner – someone like Katie – to help him work through his inappropriate behaviors.
It’s hard sometimes – seeing how humans have damaged their dogs, and seeing dogs who have potential for recovery if just the right home could be found. There just aren’t enough “right homes” out there. Most truly experienced homes aren’t eager to take on an adult dog like the Lab we assessed who will be a major project. We all want reasonably easy dogs!
Here’s a follow-up on our Level 1 Academy dogs… last I heard, O’Malley, Lance and Curly had been adopted; Blizzard and Bean had applications; and Sweet Pea, Charlie and Taz were still available.
I’m off to Wisconsin tomorrow for a seminar, and to visit my teen years stomping grounds. If you’re coming to the seminar, be sure to come up and say hi!
And, of course, it’s still spring here at Peaceable Paws…
Warm Woofs and Happy Training!
Pat
April 18, 2010
Yesterday afternoon saw the conclusion of yet another Peaceable Paws Level 1 Dog Trainer Academy. These are always exhausting yet fulfilling weeks for our students as well as for Peaceable Paws staff, and always end with lots of tears as the humans say good-bye to their canine co-students.
Here’s the graduation photo:
A hearty congratulations to all our successful Interns, and a loud shout out to High Scoring Graduate Kelly Spring, from Washington DC, whose very creative business name is “Spring Training (for Positively Good Dogs)” at www.SpringTrainingForDogs.com . Kelly worked with Lance, a wonderful Siberian Husky who was so stressed about all the recent changes to his world that he didn’t really start working well for her until Friday. Kelly’s attitude throughout was upbeat and positive. They rocked their practical final:
And another well-deserved shout out to Intern Christy Crone of Williamsport, MD, an Animal Care Technician at the Humane Society of Washington County, for earning the highest score on the practical final with her Academy dog Taz, a slightly undersocialized and very sweet Shepherd/Hound mix:
Our other wonderful canine and humane students this week were:
Leah Jordan, of Philadelphia, PA and the exceptionally laid-back St. Bernard, Charlie. Charlie was a star at “Leave-it” and had a great time playing with Blizzard (see the next Academy team):
Check out this video of Charlie and Blizzard romping in our indoor arena:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zipRxNnFi4k
Here’s Blizzard, a Great Pyrenees mix, also very laid back except when she’s playing with Charlie, with her Academy human, Laurie Scible of Shady Side, MD:
Sue Romano, of Fairfield, PA – a long-time Peaceable Paws client, with her high-energy Academy Lab mix, 4-month-old O’Malley. This pup started the Academy as a very out-of-control, mouthy youngster with a very low tolerance for frustration. Sue worked wonders with him this week – he was a star on his practical final, and now has great prospects for succeeding in his soon-to-be new home:
Sarah Matisak, from (somewhere in) West Virginia (Animal Care Supervisor at the Humane Society of Washington County) also did admirably during the week with this lovely little Pit Bull Terrier. Sweet Pea is aptly-named. She started the week a little serious and shut-down, but blossomed in Sarah’s capable hands:
Petra Manis of Tarrytown, PA, owner of “Sweet Trick! Positive Dog Training” (www.sweettrick.com ) had a great week with little Bean, who overcame all the stereotypes about tiny dogs and learned to down on verbal cue (at least some of the time), walk politely on leash, do a lovely recall, and more. He even sniffed noses with my Scorgidoodle, Bonnie, who outweighs him at least three times, without doing the little dog defensive-aggression response. Petra was aching to adopt Bean, but she rents and her landlord doesn’t allow dogs.
And last but not least, is Vicky Hellerick of Plumsteadville, PA, and the adorable Cockapoo, Curly. Curly was first in the class to reliably offer a verbal down, and had extracurricular fun with Vicky, “creeking,” and jumping over jumps in the outdoor arena. Vicky also wanted to adopt, but she still lives at home and her parents said “no.” Dang!
These Academy dogs are now available for adoption! You can read more about them at the website for the Humane Society of Washington County:
www.hswcmd.org
I also owe a huge thanks to our Academy Assistant, Shannon McAuliffe, PMCT (Pat Miller Certified Trainer) from Phenix, MD, for all her help this week – transporting dogs, taking photos, coaching students, helping Shirley with cleaning and all the other Academy odds ‘n ends:
And of course a huge thanks to Shirley Greenlief, PMCT, CPDT-KA, our full-time Office Manager and PPaws trainer, who holds it all together for me so I don’t lose my sanity.
A personal footnote: When I left the Marin Humane Society in Novato, California in 1997 after 20 years there to launch Peaceable Paws in Monterey, California, I was concerned that I would have a smaller impact on the lives of animals and the people who love them. As Director of Operations and a sworn California Humane Officer of this acclaimed animal protection organization I had the honor and privilege of attending and speaking at national humane conferences, assisting other agencies throughout the state with disaster assistance and cruelty investigations, and editing and publishing for 13 years a quarterly magazine for animal control and humane officers called the C.H.A.I.N. Letter – publication of the Collective Humane Action and Information Network, a group that my husband Paul and I started, along with several other animal protection professionals. How could I ever have that kind of reach, I wondered, as a simple dog trainer?
Thanks in large part to the dedicated dog training and behavior professionals who have come through the many Academies, workshops and seminars offered by Peaceable Paws here and around the world, It’s gratifying to know I continue to reach dogs, and the people who love them, far beyond my own backyard.
Speaking of beyond my own backyard, next weekend I’ll be in Wisconsin (Milwaukee area) to give a seminar on Saturday, 4/24 – just a few miles from my childhood stomping grounds. I’m taking Sunday to do nostalgia tours.
And also speaking of backyards, here’s Lucy, Bonnie and Dubhy, hanging out under our favorite backyard tree in full spring bloom:
Warm woofs and happy training!
Pat
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