The Vanya Project

Teaching Vanya not to chase livestock or deer

2011-08-13T15:36:00.006-05:00

Vanya and livestock/wildlife chasing

On our small farm, we have chickens. On 3 sides, we’re surrounded by DNR wildlife areas where deer and hunters are abundant. On the 4^th side, our neighbor owns a pasture that usually has 40 or 50 heifers (young female cows) grazing.

Our older two dogs, a pitbull named Tiva and a husky mix named Juneau, never chased critters once they were adults. Soon after I adopted her, Juneau lost her desire to chase deer when she caught up to one and it kicked her in the forehead hard enough to nearly take her eye out. Tiva chases small rodents, but with deer, chickens, and cows, she was always content just to wallow in their poop.

But when we adopted impulsive, hyper-aroused young Vanya, it was soon clear that he liked to chase livestock. So we kept the chickens in their yard and eventually put up fencing around all 20 acres. But a determined dog can always get through, especially when the surveyor leaves a gate loose.  

I did a series of foundation exercises with Vanya, hoping to reduce his arousal around livestock. I started with our chickens and then moved to the neighbors’ heifers (from our side of the fence):

Foundation work

I started by doing the relaxation protocol far enough from the chickens so that Vanya could still stay relaxed.
Then I moved on to LAT (Look at That) with the chickens staying still (eating), starting far enough away so that Vanya could still stay relaxed around them; slowly decreasing the distance.
Then LAT with the chickens running around, starting far enough so that Vanya could stay relaxed near them. I did all this as well with the cows on the other side of the fence.
For our chickens, I then took Vanya inside the yard with them. I walked back and forth perpendicular to the chickens, me armed with a clicker and cheese whiz (his favorite treat), the chickens staying reasonably still eating their food. Vanya was on a line attached to my waist. I made sure to stay far enough from the chickens so that Vanya could glance at the chickens then back at me for his cheese. We weren't getting closer to the chickens in this exercise.
Then I walked closer to the chickens, with lots of clicks and cheese for Vanya staying calm and loose leash. If he ignored the chickens, good things happened. If he focused on them (alert, excited) we went backwards--a sort of penalty yards game.

He got a lot calmer with both the chickens and cows, and I thought: success! Wrong. A couple chickens made their way outside the yard, and he chased and caught them. He didn’t hurt them, only damaged their dignity by licking their bellies. He dropped them when my husband noticed and yelled.

Much more dangerously, he squeezed through the cattle fence and got in with the cows. Initially, they chased him and he responded in a sensible way: he ran away. But then he started barking, and they turned and scattered, and that was when he started chasing them (I wasn’t around to witness this). My husband ran after him and caught him, but only after he grabbed a heifer’s nose and swung from it. At that point, we put up another line of fencing and tried a lot more “look at that” games from a distance to get him to calm down around the heifers. He calmed down just fine, as long as they were standing still and he was on the other side of the fence. But eventually he somehow got through the double fencing, chased the heifers again, and got kicked hard enough to get a lung contusion and nearly die.

At this point, I decided I had two choices: keep him on a line for the rest of his life since LAT and the relaxation protocol weren’t enough to discourage him from cattle chasing. Or else I could try an e-collar. When a trainer I respect suggested the e-collar to me, I was initially horrified, imagining that the shock was like the kick of an electric fence. But I decided that leashed confinement, not low-level stims, would be the greater aversive for this dog, and since I try to follow a “least invasive, minimally aversive” training philosophy, I figured it was time to learn more about an e-collar.

Theory and Practice:

I started by reading Steven Lindsay's chapter on e-collars in Vol 3 of his Handbook of Applied Dog Behavior and Training (Chapter 9). Lindsay is a well respected primarily-positive trainer--I think he was an early promoter of the "Least Invasive, Minimally Aversive" philosophy.  From Lindsay, I learned that modern e-collar training is very different from old style shock collars, and I learned that he believes it can be significantly less painful than a gentle leader.

Early shock collar training worked on a positive punishment principle. The trainer would wait for the dog to do something he wasn’t supposed to do, and then he’d shock the dog (+) to stop the behavior and reduce its chance of happening again (P). The problem with this approach is that you might need to use a very high level of shock to be punishing enough for a very rewarding behavior like cattle chasing. Other problems: the dog might not have a clue what the shock means, so he goes running off into the next county, trying to get away from pain. Or the dog associates the source of the shock with whatever happens to be nearby. The largest problem for me is that this approach typically involves working above threshold, well out of the dog’s ability to respond operantly (in other words, to learn that his or her own behavior can control the world around him, or at least that shock).

Modern e-collar training works in a very different way. Instead of tossing the dog in a situation where he zooms above threshold and then zapping him into submission, you introduce the e-collar into a very low-distraction environment. You put the dog on a long-line and then you find the dog’s “working level” by tapping on the collar at the very lowest levels of electric stimulation, until the dog responds to the tap, usually with a twitch of her ear or a slight head tilt. (Of course, you first test these levels on your own neck or wrist, so you can feel what they feel like. It’s much, much lower than the shock you get when you walk across a dry carpet. It feels to me about like a light pin-prick. It’s noticeable and a bit annoying, but not painful.)

The dog then learns that she can turn off the taps (the stim) by coming toward you. You guide her with a slight pressure on the line, and the instant she takes a step toward you, you stop the light taps and mark the desired behavior (I use a mouth click) and then reward that behavior with a treat when she arrives at your side. As far as quadrants go, you can interpret this in several ways:

-R: you’re removing the stim (-) to increase the frequency (R) of coming toward you; or

-P: you’re removing the stim (-) to decrease the frequency (P) of blowing off your recall cue.

You repeat this dozens and dozens of times in a very undistracting environment. To see this in action, here’s a good youtube video from the trainer Mike Loesche:

http://www.youtube.com/user/MIKELOESCHE#p/u/2/7mXdPpKywzo  

The dog in Mike’s video appears to be showing some very slight stress with the stims, but those low levels of stress are acceptable to me if they allow my dog off-leash options. Mike starts with a level 8 (out of 127 levels on his dogtra collar) in the video, and I personally have a hard time feeling that on my wrist or neck. When he increases distractions in the video, he increases his stim to level 14, which I can feel on my wrist as a pinprick. (For comparison, my hyper-impulsive pittie Vanya's working level varies from 10 to 16, depending on the distractions.    These levels don’t elicit signs of pain, unlike the gentle leader or even a regular flat collar.

This should sound a bit like training a dog on the gentle leader, except for an important difference: the e-collar is much less aversive for my particular dog than a gentle leader tightening around his muzzle, and much easier for me to control the level of aversiveness. You have 127 different levels of stim on a good e-collar, and you can start and end the stim precisely, unlike a gentle leader. (I dislike the GL, not because it uses P- or R-, but because with Vanya it has a bad tendency to send him spiraling over his threshold, unlike the collar). .

Equipment: I use a dogtra 280 ncp with a half-mile range, vibration, and 127 levels of stim. It's about $200. Paying the money for a higher quality collar with at least 100 levels is essential if one is going to try e-collars. Dogtra is one of the reliable brands. I started with a cheaper brand (Sportdog) and it was a waste of money. It only had 8 levels, so I couldn’t find the lowest possible stim level that the dog can perceive without pain.   Plus it only had ¼ mile range—not enough—and it wasn’t reliable enough.

Introducing the e-collar around livestock: teaching the recall again

First I found Vanya’s working level with no distractions
Then I trained a new recall cue (here), using the methods in Mike’s video above.
Then I introduced very low levels of distractions for the recall, with Vanya on a long line and great treats as rewards for responding to the stim by coming toward me.
Then I did this well outside the chicken yard with the chickens calmly eating. Then we moved slightly closer to the chickens, and then a little closer.
Then I had the chickens running around, us well away.
Then we moved closer to running chickens
Then we moved inside the chicken yard
Then we moved to bike riding through the running chickens

My goal, through all of this, was to stay far enough under threshold so Vanya got thousands of reps, all at low stim. I built a foundation of conditioned responses, in other words.

Then we moved on to practicing the recall this outside the heifer pasture with the heifers far away, standing still. Then closer, with the heifers running around.

Teaching Vanya to ignore livestock and deer:

So now I had a very good recall, even with cows and chickens (and deer) nearby. But I also wanted Vanya to leave critters alone even when I wasn’t there to recall him. All of the above work had taught him a great deal of calmness in the presence of these critters, but I also decided to work with what’s called “the crittering protocol” (Lou Castle came up with this). This uses exposure to increasing levels of distraction to teach a dog to leave a particular critter alone, even if there’s no person nearby to give a recall or leave it cue. Here’s Castle’s full protocol: http://www.loucastle.com/critter.htm

I didn’t follow his exact protocol, but I did follow the general outline:

Always stay under threshold, where the dog can see the critter but not go above threshold
Start, for example, with a cow 100 yards away, standing still. Have your dog on a leash. Imagine you’re on a football field. The cow is standing at one 0 yard line. You’re standing on the other 0 yard line. You walk back and forth with your dog (leashed) at your zero yard line. If your dog calmly observes the cow, lovely. After a couple of calm strolls back and forth on your 0 yard line, you walk diagonally to your 10 yard line (so you are 10 yards closer to that cow). (Lou has the cow walking back and forth on her 10 yard line, but I didn’t introduce that until much later.)
The moment your dog gets close enough to begin to react slightly to that cow (ie, for Vanya, his tail goes up a little, and he begins to stare, which always precedes his chase), you begin tapping on the e-collar at the dog’s very low working level while walking backwards directly away from the critter. As soon as the dog stops staring at the critter and looks back toward you, you stop tapping and stop walking backward. You use that distance as the new line, and you begin your strolling on that line (so, say, you got to your 30 yard line before the dog stared at the critter. You begin to tap and also walk backwards, and you got 5 yards before the dog relaxed and looked away from the cow. You’re now at the 25 yard line, and you walk back and forth on that a few times before going up to the 35 yard line.)
Continue until the dog figures out that getting too interested in the cow means he goes backwards away from the cow (and gets an annoying tap on his collar), while staying calm means he gets to go closer. Continue until you and the dog are calmly standing next to the calm cow.

Then repeat from the beginning, 100 yards away, this time with the cow trotting back and forth on her own 0 yard line (a critter in motion is much more distracting than a calm critter). This protocol works by keeping the distraction levels very low, so there’s no need for high level shocks (no P+, in other words). When the dog stares, you begin stimming, and you remove that stim (-) in order to decrease the behavior (P) of staring.

With deer, I couldn’t find any willing deer to stand calmly on a line while I went through this protocol. So a few times Vanya did break and chase when a deer came bounding by right in front of us, and I did give him a higher level of stim to get him to recall. (When I do that, I always check those levels of stim on my own wrist. They aren’t pleasant, but they aren’t awful.)

This is really quite similar to the penalty yards approach for teaching a dog to walk on a loose leash and to greet politely.

Some questions people have asked me:

Q1: Does Vanya think the stim comes from me or some place else?

A1: I have no idea, and because the stims are so low, I don't think it matters. If the stims were big, nasty shocks, then I wouldn't want him to think they came from me, but rather from the object he's chasing. But since I use a low-stim protocol, it doesn't matter.

Q2: Is Vanya stressed by the e-collar?

A2: Not by the collar itself. He's happy to see it come out. Actually, he wears it each and every time he goes outside.

Q3: Well, so is he stressed by the stims?

A3: Sure, probably. But he's much less stressed by the stims than he is by being on a leash, being confined, or being in his gentle leader. When he gets a stim, he notices it, of course. But it doesn't make him look subdued the way a long line pull does, and it certainly doesn't make him yelp and shriek the way a gentle leader tightening does. Vanya is a very vocal, expressive dog. He sings, warbles, shrieks, screams, yelps, snorts, yodels. When he gets a stim, he runs to me for his treat. He might cock his head slightly or perhaps twitch an ear. But mostly he just comes for his treat.

More importantly, I firmly believe (and abundant research supports this idea) that stress is a good thing for animals (including people) when the animals learn a behavior that can end the stressor. Learned helplessness and other fallouts from stressors result not from the momentary aversive, but from the inability to make that aversive stop. When a dog, or a person, learns that a given behavior will end the stressor--and the world doesn't end!--resilience increases. (An interesting study along these lines is Seery et al's recent paper showing that happiness is highest in those people who have faced intermediate levels of adversity. Too little adversity in your youth, and the first little bump in your road throws you into depression. Too much adversity in your youth, and you learn to give up, not to be resilient. See Seery, M. D., Holman, E. A., & Silver, R. C. (2010). Whatever does not kill us: Cumulative lifetime adversity, vulnerability, and resilience. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 99, 1025-1041.)

Q4: Did I stop using the ecollar once I trained him?

A4: No. Where I live and work, there are tons of things I can't control: deer, bear, hunters, loose dogs. I want off leash control, so I put the collar on him when I let him outside into our fenced fields, and when I walk with him off our land (off leash, yes, but only in places where I'm fairly certain no off-leash dogs will show up).

Q5: Did I use these protocols to deal with Vanya's dog-reactivity?

A5: No. Vanya's dog reactivity has complex roots, and because he can quickly zoom over threshold near another dog, I don't use the e-collar around other dogs. With deer, if I have to give him P+ because he's chasing a deer, I don't much mind if he comes away with a fear of deer or a superstitious hatred of deer. But I don't want to ever get him in an over-threshold situation with another dog and end up superstitiously associating that other dog with something aversive. When he's playing with another dog, I do sometimes use LOW levels of stim to make sure he recalls to me for his time-outs. But this is under very controlled circumstances.

Q6: What else do I use the e-collar for?

A6: I don't teach obedience with it. I just want Vanya to recall whenever he feels it, so I keep it simple. I do use it for TENS work on my back to relax stiff muscles (seriously--at Vanya's working levels, the e-collar is great for my tight back muscles).

Q7: Would I recommend it to another person?

A7: Each person needs to figure out for her own dog what is least invasive and minimally aversive. I do recommend reading Steven Lindsay's chapter to people who are having trouble with their dogs and livestock chasing.

Q8: Can things go wrong with the ecollar?
A8: Yes. Since it's a powerful tool, the temptation is always to increase distractions too quickly and go over threshold. Bad, bad idea. I don't let other people use the ecollar on Vanya, because I'm afraid they'll zap him. High levels of shock can have bad fallout, just as high levels of any aversive can. But that doesn't mean low levels have fallout. The main danger is being impatient and setting your dog up to fail.

Q9: Do you consider using the e-collar to be an admission of failure?
A9: Nope, not at all. But the couple times that I have put Vanya in a position where he went over threshold (ie, a running deer) and I needed to zap him: yes, those were failures. Just as putting your dog in a position where he ever goes over threshold is undesirable. But life happens. Most dogs are resilient, and we can teach dogs to be more resilient by exposing them to small stresses and showing them that they can respond successfully. (When I say "over threshold", I don't mean a little stress, a little shrieking and yodeling and carrying on. Vanya can learn perfectly well when he's tossing a hissy fit. I mean that state when a dog is so over-aroused and overwhelmed that learning can't take place. Imagine your limbic leap when a rattlesnake rattles next to your foot. Your conscious brain isn't processing; you are simply reacting.)

Q10: Hasn't Vanya been made miserable by this horrible tool?
A10: No. He loves it, because to him, it means he gets to run. And running off leash is his joy. So I don't feel any guilt whatsoever for choosing to use it. I think it works on very similar principles to other training protocols common in the positive training community--work under threshold and develop the foundations that create a conditioned response to a stimulus. So then, when high level distractions show up, your dog has a conditioned response. You don't need a t-bone steak to distract your dog if you've done your clicker foundation training correctly, and you don't need a painful shock to train your dog if you've done your e-collar foundation training correctly.

Vanya plays! Twice!

2011-07-23T10:40:00.005-05:00

I had finally given up on Vanya being able to be calm enough to meet a new dog
politely (after getting kicked out of yet another class-- this one solely for
reactive pitties--because of his yodeling. Ok, his shrieking.)

But the kids at the cabin next to us in the woods brought along a little female
dog, a cross between a border collies and a papillon (I'm guessing, but those
ears sure are huge). Vanya fell in love with her. He broke his leash, which is
how he met her, and much to my surprise, after a few initial attempts to
french-kiss without first being introduced, he was quite polite. They just
played for a good hour, and he was deferential, polite when she told him to back
off, and utterly beside himself with joy. She was lots faster than he is, and
she ran rings around him (and he's a very fast, skinny little pittie).

This is the first new dog he has played with since he came to live with us (he
did play with our resident dogs, before they got too old). He's always been such
a reactive screamer, and even with multiple classes and private lessons, we
could never get him calm enough for a calm greeting. He was anything but calm
this time, but after he got loose and met her, he quickly became polite enough

for her to agree to play with him.

I've tried play sessions a number of times with other dogs (6 times, I think)
but I've always put a basket muzzle on him first, and I've only had male dogs to
do this with. The basket muzzle seems to make him much more frantic, so the play
sessions haven't worked out, and I've ended them quickly because he angers or
frightens the other dog. I've known that the muzzle makes his reactivity worse,
but I've been too worried he would bite to try without it, so I had pretty much
given up on any actual play for Vanya (we have been doing BAT when we can find a
partner, but not with the goal of actual greetings, just with the goal of calmer
behavior while on leash).

This time, I did put the muzzle on for a moment after he first got loose and I
caught him, but he got frantic and very rude with the muzzle on. The female dog
told him off, so I called him back, put him in a down-stay to cool off and calm
down. We weren't going to do anything more. But after a moment, the female dog
(Georgia is her name) decided she wanted to play with him again and ran up
soliciting with play bows. Vanya was being very responsive to recalls around
her, so on the urging of the kids, I went against my better judgement and let
him play without his muzzle on. An incredible improvement--and Vanya turns out
to know all sorts of proper dog-etiquette. Vanya was also being very good about
recalling to me for cooling off sessions (literal, because it was hot, and also
behavioral, to keep him from getting too intense). So all that recall practice
pays off.

This gives me hope that we can adopt another dog when Tiva eventually dies
(although at nearly 16, she's showing few signs of slowing down--she's the
indomitable pittie).

This morning on the way to our play date, I asked for a sit before I released him to play.

Much to my surprise, the kids had another tiny male dog in their cabin with them (a dog named Bently from nearby who had just wandered in and spent the night with them), and they let him out with Georgia. Vanya handled the male dog just fine and played with the two of them reasonably well, until all 3 were exhausted. When I put him on his leash to walk home, he threw a hissy fit. When I dropped the leash and had him heel, he did perfectly. He often does have a much easier time with obedience off leash than on leash.

Much of Vanya's reactivity is due to my behavior--namely, I never let him off leash to romp unmuzzled with new dogs. But that's because he's a pit bull and the shelter warned me that he was reactive with many dogs. And several highly regarded private trainers evaluated him and said he probably couldn't be trusted with new dogs. The trainer in my reactive pittie class disagreed and thought he would be fine unmuzzled with a female, non-reactive, high energy dog if they had plenty of space to run. Looks like she was right.

One odd fall-out from today's play session: Vanya has decided to interpret his recall command as a down/stay command. Yesterday, whenever I recalled him, I would then down/stay him for a calming time out. Today, he figured if he just dropped in place whenever I recalled him during the play session, that was good enough. I tried not to laugh, but when he dropped, he was perfectly fine with the little dogs crawling all over him, bopping at his ears and face. His tail was wagging (his low, fast, happy social wag, not his high, slow, alert wag) a mile a minute the whole time.

Ski-joring!

2010-12-17T16:40:00.002-06:00

Wonderful snow for ski-joring today. Vanya was a little reluctant at first--and nervous about being at the Ice Age Trail area, where he has encountered new dogs in the past. But he soon settled into running, and we had a lovely time. He got to meet a strange man, who seemed a tiny bit off to me (open pants zipper, blood on his jacket, a bit of a leer--hey, maybe the guy was just enthusiastic about skiing), so I wasn't upset when Vanya jumped up and landed a solid one to the crotch.

Then off we went, and Vanya fairly flew back to the car (I think he thought there was a dog there).

What fun! How I love to ski-jor. It's really exciting when I hook both Tiva and Vanya up! The video above is from last winter, when Vanya was just learning how to pull.

BAT for dogs who just want to get closer...

2010-11-23T20:47:00.001-06:00

Vanya, like many reactive dogs, often wants to get closer to the other dog. The problem is: when he greets, he often tips over into reactivity. He hasn't had much chance to greet new dogs since we adopted him 3 years ago, in part because we live in a remote place, in part because my fears of his reactivity, and in part because I haven't found good play partners. He plays far too roughly, except with his familiar dogs.

I didn't try BAT for a long time because it seemed as if it couldn't possibly work, since proximity rather than distance is Vanya's functional reward, and nearly all our practice dog partners are also reactive, so we need to keep distance.

But then I realized that I have 2 slightly different goals: 1) find an appropriate play partner for Vanya; and 2) help him learn to be calmer near dogs when he can't go up and interact with them. BAT, mixed with other techniques, is useful for helping him with 2), because it teaches him a learned response to the sight of other dogs: look at them, then relax and look away and wonderful things will happen.

Our functional reward for a calm behavior can be a variety of things. Often it's a playful run sideways for a sniff in the grass, a tossed treat, or a peanut-butter smear on a bone. (We zigzag, in other words, diagonally closer to the other dog, but we always have to stay outside that other dog's threshold distance as well). We also use a variety of other techniques:

From Sophia Yin and Sarah Kalnajs: we work on focus and obedience while in the presence of other dogs, starting first at a great distance, where Vanya can still offer his targeting, sits, jumps, heels, weaves, and other nifty tricks.

From Control Unleashed: we do a zillion LAT around other dogs--I say "Look at that" and point toward the trigger. He glances, I click the glance, he whips his head back to me for his cheese. We get a little closer.

Mat work: we practice the relaxation protocol around other dogs, far away. And we do LAT on the mat as well, and simple obedience exercises.

Parallel leashed walks: we've been working on parallel leashed walks with Cynthia and her two dogs. Some weeks it goes quite well, and we can walk with only the width of the street between us. Today Vanya needed more distance from Gustaf.

Pass-bys: with Jake, the large calm intact very mellow yellow lab who lives in an outdoor kennel by the bike trail. We walk back and forth, passing Jake, who stands and wags his tail and play bows a lot. Vanya sometimes whines a bit at Jake, but not much more. We'll approach Jake and say hi as long as Vanya is calm. Sometimes they sniff noses through the kennel fence, then Vanya turns to me for his cheese. Mostly, these days, Vanya just wants to walk by Jake.

Cynthia and I skipped last week, but I did practice pass-bys with Jake twice. This week, it was very cold and windy, and Vanya whined much of the time. His functional reward was hopping back in the warm car. An unleashed terrier appeared outside a house a few doors away, and Vanya didn't shriek or lunge, but he didn't want to follow me when I retreated. At times, he play bowed and bounced to get closer to Gustaf, which is a lovely sign, even though he's not allowed closer. As always, he was delighted when Cynthia put her dog away and came up to pet him.

Now that winter has begun, we need a warmer place to practice!

Vanya! The Movie!

2010-10-29T13:57:00.000-05:00

More BAT

2010-10-19T21:58:00.000-05:00

Vanya did well with his weekly BAT practice with Cynthia and Dottie. He was a bit overexcited when we arrived (because I nearly smashed headlong into a truck, trying to get there on time.) So he vocalized a bit more than I might like, but that's fine.

If I tried to keep him completely calm and below threshold, I'd never take him off the farm. He's a vocal dog: our swiss-mountain yodeling pit bull. He whines and shrieks and yips with joy when he sees his friends, and now when he sees Dottie, he play bows and whines and wags his tail very hard. Too bad that she's not the right dog for him to meet--he needs to meet a bombproof dog who can ignore his goofiness. But, by now, thanks to BAT and peanut butter and repetition, I think he's fallen in love with Dottie. I feel awfully cruel keeping him at a distance from her. But it's good for him to learn that he can't run up and say hi to every dog (or any dog, alas).

I wish I knew someone up here with a calm, playful, lab who likes to wrestle and roughhouse.

At least Tiva will play with him a little each day. They're actually playing very nicely (if briefly) together most days. He bows and bounces and whirls around, and she bows and wrestles in her ancient, slightly stiff, 15 year old ladylike way. He's usually very careful not to push her too hard or to whack her when he whirls his hips around.

I laughed when I read the description of the old bull terrier in INCREDIBLE JOURNEY. Sounds just like Tiva.

Last night, my uncle (who is terrified of most dogs) mentioned that Vanya had calmed down remarkably since last time he'd seen him.

BAT with Dottie and Cynthia

2010-10-05T21:25:00.001-05:00

We had our weekly practice with Cynthia, and this time she brought Dottie. Vanya did very well. He did lose it once and start shrieking and pulling when Dottie barked and he was too far from the car. But once we got back to the car, his safe space, he calmed down, had a little time in his crate, and then was ready to play the game again. A few times he whined and bounced, very eager to go say HI to Dottie. Even when he lost it, he didn't seem aggressive at all toward her--just very frustrated that he couldn't go run over and check her out.

He does seem to be getting the game: look at the other dog, look at me, then run off for a click and treat. Then do it over again, a bunch of times.

We also did mat work together--Cynthia and Dottie on their mat, and Vanya and me on our mat, about 30 paces away on the other side of the street. Vanya was able to do his relaxation protocol exercises, with me going back and forth in the usual fashion.

He was also able to stay calm while Dottie was playing tug and romping a bit, from about 40 ft away. As soon as she or Cynthia vocalized, he got more excited, however. And we did a bit of leash-walking together, with Cynthia and Dottie ahead of us, on the other side of the road, and Vanya was fine with that. At moments, I thought--this must be what it's like having a regular old dog and taking him for a walk. (Well, that lasted only for moments).

His reverse-directions are improving a lot, and he was able to leave the situation several times when getting too whiny, without freaking out and lunging.

Progress! Plus probably too much peanut butter--I need to watch the quantities so he doesn't get pancreatis.

On a less positive note, he has figured out how to dig under our very long fence. Right now, he's just getting into the woodlot or DNR land, but I need to dog-proof the fence better, so he doesn't get out when a dog and hunter are in the wildlife lands. While I was at work, he found a possum in the woodpile where the guys were chopping wood, and I gather he got extremely excited (and successful at the hunting-down possums part). By the time I got home, he was exhausted, as exhausted as I've ever seen him, seemingly from excitement, not from actual exercise.

Inspiring post by Sarah Owings

2010-10-02T20:58:00.002-05:00

On the functional rewards yahoo group (where people discuss BAT), Sarah Owings wrote this post:

"Today was my last session with Fitz, the bull terrier, (which I'm really sad
about because I love this dog:( ). After two months of solid foundational work,
for today's session I decided to try for some vast-distance parallel walking a
la Turid Rugaas with a little P- thrown in for any barking and lunging. Irith
was kind enough to come help with her dog Franklin.

Fitzy has no fear or any real aggression issues it turns out. He is just Mr.
PUMPED, is an adrenaline addict, and clearly wants to get to the other dog!!! At
one point when Franklin was politely sniffing and ignoring him, Fitz started
barking and it was like "HEY! HEY! HEY! Look at me! Look at me!" Fitz's greeting
and play style are just too over the top for on leash ... and besides I don't
encourage on leash greetings very often anyway--and definitely no play. The
metaphor I came up with today about "proper leash etiquette" was this:

On leash it's like going to a fancy dinner party. You don't get to throw food
and have pillow fights.

Off leash--if the dogs are compatible, listening to each other's cut of signals
and equally willing--then you can have more of a party time... And at some point
we may try and hook Fitzy up with a more compatible play partner. (He needs a
fellow line backer-body slamming-tackling type and Franklin is more of a chase
me--intellectual-chess-player type).

Fitz's owners have been working a lot with the on-off switch game, auto orient,
relax on a mat and doggie zen. In other words LOTS and LOTS of foundation stuff
before attempting even going near a dog.

He wasn't perfect today, but all that hard work has clearly paid off. Even when
he barked, it was short lived and he "turned off" quickly, and 90% of the time
defaulted to an auto-check in.

We started the session with a full street width plus about 50' distance. Calm
behavior meant Fitz got to move towards the other dog. Lunging meant a U-turn,
walk away from the dog and mom gets boring for a minute until Fitz calms himself
down. (Which he did within 5 seconds every time).

Very quickly, the lunging and barking reduced dramatically. And then as we
walked the two dogs up and down on opposite sides of the street, Fitz started
making very conscious good choices. Looking away, checking with mom, sniffing,
etc.

Things were going so well, we tried a new idea. With Fitz calmly sitting, we had
Franklin approach on an arc and with low intensity. Fitz could do this! Any good
signaling on Fitz's part like head turns brought Franklin a little closer. Any
tension or intensity and Franklin left.

Fitz threw many lovely signals at this point: head turns, sitting, even laying
down!! Irith brought Franklin to about 20' with this approach and the two dogs
even sent each other what looked like some "I'm interested but not too
interested" signals.

Then we reversed it and let Fitz follow after Franklin. Any intensity on his
part and it was an immediate U-turn and boring mommy again. Calm, he got to move
forward.

Long story short, the dogs were soon able to have a polite sniff--disengage and
were even then able to sit side by side for a minute and ignore each other while
both dogs got treats.

During a couple of the initial advance--retreats Fitz tried a couple times to
initiate play by jumping up on Franklin and once got a tiny bit
mouthy/snarky--which may have been play as well--but he got a U-turn for that...
Because we want to teach him that on-leash does not mean play time. But we also
saw some nice sniffing-arcing and soft body postures between the two dogs as
well.

In the end both dogs were laying down about 10' from each other calmly and then
parallel walked about 10-15" from each other back to the car.

My clients were super happy to know that their dog is not aggressive and that it
is possible for him to be civilized around other dogs. When they first hired me
a couple months ago, his explosive outbursts at almost any distance just made
them too scared to try him with another dog until now.

I was delighted because I was not expecting this much success in one day. Whoo
hoo.

Sorry this is long. I just wanted to share. It wasn't BAT but a good combination
of foundation work, self control, and Premack. I find Fitzy a really interesting
case because I had to bend the formula for reactivity quite a bit. And he taught
me a lot. But it worked!

:)

--Sarah

_________________
Sarah Owings
KPA Certified Training Partner
sowings@bridgesdogtraining.com
(818) 415-0436

Bridges Dog Training, Los Angeles
www.bridgesdogtraining.com

For the foundation behaviors, see:

Leslie McDevitt's On-off Switch Game
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIbVixSZ9Mw

And Doggie Zen a la Canis Clicker Training
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmFCuB7pL2I

--Sarah

Weekly BAT practice

2010-10-02T19:36:00.001-05:00

Cynthia and I have been meeting with our dogs for weekly BAT practice each Tuesday. I think it's incredibly helpful--much to my surprise, because distance doesn't seem to be his functional reward. Getting closer and greeting is what he wants, but not what he can have with Cynthia's dogs (who are also reactive). Yet BAT seems to be reducing his meltdowns and his threshold distance to other dogs. Now, after several practice sessions, if I do miscalculate and let him go over threshold a little bit, he's much more likely to tip over into his "oh boy, I see someone, please please please let's go say hi" stress whining (which is the same reaction he gives to new people, if I take too long to set him up to go say hi), rather than his "I'm freaking out, so let's scream and lunge." He had one momentary meltdown on Tuesday when an unleashed dog ran by, but that was really because of me, not him (I don't think he even saw the dog; I think he was reacting to my haste to get back to the crate, and to our training partner as well).

So that's progress.

Perhaps it's the motion that rewards him, perhaps it's the bones that I toss on his bed for him when we retreat after a successful advance, perhaps it's just the weekly practice. And perhaps distance really is rewarding. Whatever it is,
I'm happy with his progress (and pleased with my ability to stay calmer and read his signals better, so I can keep him under threshold more consistently).

Hunters are walking by our fences on the farm, something with their dogs. Frank mentioned that Vanya was running along the fence barking at them. Not good! So yesterday I asked Remy, one of our farm volunteers, to pretend to be a hunter with a dog, so I could offer Vanya lavish rewards for staying calm. Remy put on some blaze orange, carried a pretend-gun over his shoulder, and walked Miss PLushy on a leash up and down the fence line. Vanya was thoroughly fooled and got very excited--lots of peeing and marking and woo-wooing. I didn't do BAT; instead I played LAT with cheese as the reward. He got the idea quickly, although a couple times he did run up to the fence (but his recall worked and he came bounding back for his cheese).

Good dog! He's got the zoomies today, because I've been mostly sick in bed with the flu, and that's very boring for a dog. For a little while, he curled up in bed with me, snoring with his muzzle on my face and his paws flung over my shoulder. Then he decided a roaring attack on the slippers would be entertaining. He has a little fungus/staph infection under his arms, poor thing, so 2 baths in two days with the malaseb. It looks better already.

I loathe being sick. Especially when I have 6 talks to write for the Van Evera lectures at Northland College, taxes to do, classes to prepare for next week, blah blah blah.

Happy dog

2010-09-27T21:39:00.001-05:00

Vanya is a wonderful dog. I usually post about his rough days, so people get the impression that he's always a handful. But 99.9% of the time, he's the world's most perfect dog. On the farm, he bounds around, greeting people with endless joy, and working hard at his various jobs:
1. sniffing the apple orchard for voles
2. patrolling the prairie restoration for bunnies
3. sleeping under the oak tree
4. checking every person on the farm to see if they've had their daily allotment of kisses
5. greeting all strangers at the gate with wags and kisses, and then escorting them down the gravel drive.

When I come home from an endless day of boring faculty meetings and he hears me at the gate, my heart leaps when he wiggles into the car to kiss me and thunk me with his wagging tail. Then he hops out of the car and races me down the driveway, running along the fence line as fast as lightening. When Frank lets him into my office and he comes zooming around the corner, he sees me and his face lights up--he wags his tail so hard, he sometimes falls over. How can a girl help but be moved? If a guy loved me with such devotion, I'd be creeped out. But with Vanya, he makes me happy.

So: for those of you readers who think I'm some sort of a saint for putting up with this dog: he's worth every moment! He brings joy to our lives. He may scream at the sight of new dogs, but here are all the things that he's good at:
1. he's great at leaping
2. and bounding
3. he never shows any separation anxiety.
4. every person on earth seems to be his friend
5. if you need him to go away so you can get some work done, he's not offended. He just goes off and snoozes.
6. he's brilliant at being engaged with the world

Perhaps it's the most challenging dogs who are best at worming their way into our hearts. Or maybe it's just Vanya. He's a nut, but he's the best nut around

BAT practice

2010-09-21T20:01:00.001-05:00

Vanya was practicing BAT today with Cynthia and her dog Dottie (their blog is http://operationgustav.blogspot.com/ . Vanya was remarkably calm, not even whining (!), and able to get fairly close, glance at Dottie and back at me, then run merrily back to his bed for his peanut-butter smeared bone.

He didn't even get too excited when Dottie started playing tug with her owner Cynthia. When he noticed them playing, he did get excited, whining and wagging his tail and bouncing around in his version of play bows--so we doubled the distance and he calmed back down.

All was going remarkably well until behind us suddenly appeared a lady with 3 HUGE dogs, who began leaping and lunging and roaring on their leashes at Vanya. Oy! So much for staying under threshold. At first he started yelping, rather than lunging or barking, and I bundled him into the car where he threw a bit of a fit, trying to scramble over his crate for a better view. Luckily the woman got her dogs into her car, although it seemed to take her ages and ages.

He calmed down fairly well, but not completely of course, and we ended the session after a few more games that I hoped would help him settle down some more (sniffing the grass, greeting our plushy fake dog, trotting along the trails).

Unfortunately, he strained his front foot when he was trying to climb over his crate for a better view. Now he's limping, so he'll have a few days on leashed walks only--no chasing gophers in the grass, poor pup.

I think having weekly practice sessions with Cynthia and her dogs will help him a lot--especially if we find a place where I don't have to worry about so many dog walkers.

Vanya update

2010-09-02T16:42:00.000-05:00

Even though Vanya hasn't had any updates recently, he's doing just fine. I was off in NW Ontario for a month doing my field research, and Ontario has a pit bull ban, so Vanya didn't get to come along. Instead, he spent August hanging out on the Little Sugar River Farm with Frank and a bunch of WWOOFers (Worldwide Willing Organic Volunteers--people who come and work on the farm half time for a few weeks, in exchange for room and board). Vanya adored having all the attention. Plus the guests at the guesthouse give him tons of love. So he was a happy boy--no commands, no expectations, just a lot of college kids to jump on and kiss, and a lot of gophers to hunt in the gardens. Now, of course, he acts like he never heard of impulse control games, or anything else for that matter. He got into certain bad habits I thought he had long ago lost: the zoomies, mainly, where he runs around in circles, trying to get a person to play in the same over-excited way he tries to get other dogs to play.

He's so happy, I can't help but wonder: why exactly do I keep trying to do all this dog-socialization with him? We live so far from other dogs, when we're down on the farm, that it's always quite the drive to go find decoy dogs. In his normal life, he could go for a decade and never lay eyes on another dogs (this is how Tiva deals with her dog-reactivity. She just ignores it. We all ignore it. Back before she came to the farm, she lived a life of lunging and barking at dogs when she was being walked, leashed, on the city streets, and her former owners used a prongs to get her to be quiet. It worked, but she looked miserable. She perked right up when she came to the farm and stopped seeing other dogs on the street. Problem solved, more or less.)

Two main reasons to calm Vanya down:
1. So we can go camping and hiking in public together, without me worrying about him.
2. Potentially, so we can get another dog when Tiva dies. Or alternatively, so we can find dog playmates for Vanya, so he doesn't get completely starved of new dog interactions.

But some dogs are happier having human companionship, right? Vanya may be one of those: a dog who wants to be the only dog in a household. Or we may just decide we don't want to worry about the continual household management that goes with Vanya + another dog.

Such a good dog...

2010-07-12T09:59:00.002-05:00

Vanya has been a real champ lately. Last night, our kayaking group came over for a bonfire after a sunset paddle around the point, and Vanya reacted to them with his usual unbridled enthusiasm (minus the jumping up, mostly). When he realized that two guys were already down at the fire pit, he ran off down to greet them and he did launch himself into the first guy's lap for a cuddle. "Strangers? Who's a stranger?" Vanya asks. "I'm licking his chin, so how can he be a stranger?"

A few times throughout the evening, he hopped up onto the table for a treat (no, Vanya, you're not a lapdog. You're not even a table-top dog.) But mostly he lay on his bed chewing on his kong, with occasional jaunts around the fire to greet everyone all over again.

Otherwise, he's been entertaining himself by barking at the waves down at the water, chasing chipmunks, snoozing in the sun, scrambling over rock falls, and tracking down his treats. I had to go down to the Twin Cities for my friend's funeral, and he handled the 12 hours alone in the cabin calmly.

Good dog, Vanya! We haven't seen any other dogs for a while, which contributes to his calmness, of course. He misses the farm, the gophers, and playing with Tiva--but Tiva's getting a bit to old to play in the summer heat anyway.

Winter play

2010-07-09T12:13:00.002-05:00

Very sad

2010-06-29T21:31:00.000-05:00

Vanya is fine! But a good friend of mine died suddenly of cancer--well, of the surgery and its fallout. Three weeks ago he was fine. Over Memorial weekend, a minor problem peeing led to the discovery of renal carcinoma. And now he's dead, after surgeons at Mayo tried to save his life.

It blows me away that half of us get cancer--a rate that is nearly double the rate 40 years ago, when Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring. And yet we're not protesting in the streets. Superfund sites abound, and my friend lived near one, and handled industrial solvents that are linked to kidney cancer. How have we come to accept this as normal?

Vanya is subdued, probably because I'm so sad. He's a sensitive dog. He's had a busy week, down on the farm chasing bunnies, hunting in the prairie, bounding into pickup trucks (filled with dogs, but he ignored them for the chance to lick strangers). This evening, after a 6.5 hour drive, he had his weekly calming session with Lana and her reactive pittie Amber. Amber seems so very calm compared to Vanya. Eventually, we had both dogs in their crates, 10 feet or so from each other, and they both calmed down pretty well. Vanya ate vast quantities of cheese in the calming down process. I think this all is helping. Who knows.

The sun is setting, in spectacular fashion, over Lake Superior, and my friend will never see it again. I feel so very sorry for his wife and children and grandchildren. All of us on Roman's Point will mourn his death.

Over threshold, but trying hard....

2010-06-22T14:16:00.001-05:00

Last night was Vanya's first practice with Lana's young pittie, Amber. Vanya was very, very excited (but calmer than he might have been....). He really, really wanted to go meet Amber, and when he wasn't allowed to, he shrieked. A couple times, he even did his "trout-on-a-fishing-line" imitation, thrashing around at the end of his leash. I put on his gentle leader in hopes of getting a bit more control, but then I felt like I was jerking him around a bit too much. We tried various things--distance, using the car as a visual barrier--to help him calm down, and he did stop shrieking and pulling, but he kept up a low whine for most of the time. Ah well. He was able to do parallel leash walks with Amber (who remained a good ways away--perhaps 40 feet?), and he did calm down enough to do his obedience exercises about 40 feet away from her. We spent about an hour and a half working with the two dogs--first Amber with the plush dog, while Vanya waited in his crate, and then the two of them at opposite sites of a field, and then eventually a bit closer together. Not perfect (ahem), but progress.

I did try some of Nancy Williams "response prevention", approaching the trigger until Vanya went a little over threshold, then walking backwards with him until he calmed down, treating him, then approaching again. Well, that's the theory, anyway. Here is how the approach was described to me:

"Patient dog approaches trigger. At the point of reaction, the dog is turned away from the trigger towards the handler (hence the equipment) with the handler backing up until the dog stops reacting. Then the dog is fed. For the dogs whose focus is on visiting, the dog is simply allowed to reapproach, although a combination of treats and reapproach can work too."

This didn't quite work as planned, in part because Vanya doesn't just go a little over threshold, and then he doesn't calm completely down. I wasn't sure if his eventual calming was just a bit of flooding, or simple exhaustion, or real calming. Onwards and upwards.

BAT with distance as the reward seems backwards for Vanya because he so badly wants proximity to the other dog. For now, we'll work on a curving parallel walk, getting closer to the other dog as the reward for a bit of calming, moving away from the dog (and possibly moving behind a visual barrier) as the response to shrieking.

This sounds similar to the classic cat-desensitization exercise recommended on PBRC

"What you need:

One cat-aggressive pit bull
One very mellow cat
Lots of treats
A Gentle Leader head collar
A good strong, leather leash
A lot of patience!

I always do this in my living room with no other distractions. I'll put my kitty in a far corner. (My kitty will hold a down stay, but you can give your kitty a bowl of wet food to keep them in place if you want. This will also counter-condition the cat to aggressive dogs!) I'll then bring the dog down the hallway towards the kitty. You must stay calm! When they start to freak out, I'll just walk backwards down the hall without saying a word and without any leash corrections. I'm always facing the cat. I don't turn around at all.

When you walk backwards with a dog on a head collar, their face turns toward you. There's your opportunity to reward them. I don't give commands and I don't ever reprimand. This is desensitizing, not obedience! If you do this every day, a couple times a day, you'll be amazed at the results! (Just be careful the cat doesn't get too fat from eating all that wet food!)

When you get to the point where the dog is getting used to the pattern (if I aggress, we go the other way), what you will be looking for is unsolicited looks. You want the dog to turn and look at you before the leash gets tight. That's when you know you're making progress! The whole point to this is so the dog gets the pattern. When they see a cat, you want them to look at you to get the treat, not look at the cat.

Get closer only when the dog isn't reacting as intensely. Also, don't do this for more than a few minutes at a time at first. This is intense stuff for dogs! This also does not cover outside cats! If they see a running kitty outside, they're gonna go after it! Staying calm and having patience is key.

And finally, is this a surefire way to get your dog to love cats? No way. But, can you get your dog to the point of being in the same room with that particular cat and not freak out? Yes, if you're diligent about it."

Good boy, Vanya!

2010-06-19T19:04:00.005-05:00

Today, on our early morning walk (when I expect NOT to see unleashed dogs), we had 3 unleashed dogs and a cat come running up to us (in 2 separate incidents). And Vanya handled himself very well indeed--only one brief shrieking episode, and several reasonably polite, very short meet-and-greets (muzzled).
Good boy, Vanya!

Most of the shrieking being done on the walk was by me, imitating a fish-wife when I tried to get my neighbor David to come outside and collect his two ENORMOUS malamute mixes who were circling me and Vanya, barking at us at the top of their lungs. Vanya was remarkably collected, I must say (pulling on the leash, but not barking or shrieking back at them). Once the neighbor came and got his huge dogs, I slipped the muzzle on Vanya and we did a very brief, 2 second, meet-and-greet with each Malamute, which went well until David let the big dogs go and they started circling and barking once more. Well, life isn't perfect.

David then collected his dogs once again and as they went back to their house, Vanya was able to follow them politely (at perhaps 40 ft distance), loose leash, offering me glances when requested. If a dog isn't looking at him, he's now often able to be quite calm about it.

A hundred yards later, another neighbor let his little poodle Buddy out to play with Vanya. Buddy actually LIKES Vanya, at least when Vanya is leashed and muzzled. We practiced many two second meet-and-greets, and Buddy did his best to get Vanya to interact--play-bowing and dancing around. Vanya made an effort to act like a regular old dog (hard to do when that annoying Treat Lady keeps saying ENOUGH! and turning away with you every two seconds. Jeez, lady.) Then the curious cat then came bounding right up to us (well, 2 ft away), to see what was happening. Vanya just whined and at that point, I decided enough was enough and we headed home. He didn't shriek or scream when we left, although he sure wasn't ready to leave and go back to the boring life at home.

I should add that on weekends, I rarely walk Vanya around here because there are too many people and dogs (I'll drive instead to a quiet forest service dirt road nearby). I miscalculated and figured that, early on a cloudy, windy, drizzly Saturday, we could walk a half mile on the dirt road without encountering too much excitement. Wrong! But he handled it all like a champ.

Perhaps what's helping are: prozac, l-theanine, window film, and lots of clicker practice sessions working on two things: clicker-training his turning politely away from distractions
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dutv8EEfoE

and rewarding calmer responses on a mat near stuffed dogs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQDGp7llRs8

(this clip followed his shrieking by about 20 seconds:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RPx4RIiQcc )

And here he is, being forlorn when I "play" with the stuffed dog--but then he can calm down again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeX0c8L_uIQ

A few minutes later, he was quite calm with the stuffed dog 15 ft away.

Recalls when trained with and without R-

2010-06-15T13:51:00.001-05:00

Over on the yahoo list clickersolutions, a lively discussion about poisoned cues is underway. The only research supporting the hypothesis that R- will indeed poison a cue is a single-subject experiment that hasn't yet been published.

So I will do a little anecdotal study (we can hardly call this an experiment) to explore how Vanya responds to a new recall cue trained entirely without R-, versus a new recall cue trained with 20% trials backed up with R-

The R- will be pressure from a long line when he doesn't immediately respond. (For those who get confusing about operant conditioning terminology, when you remove something (negative: pressure on the line) to reinforce, or increase the frequency, of a desired behavior (running toward me), that's negative reinforcement.

Here's what we'll do: train two new cues (let's call them A and B). One I'll train with R-; one without. Start from the very beginning with each cue. Train each with increasing levels of distractions. I'll set up the training protocol on Vanya's blog, in case anyone is curious.

Then have a neutral handler (known as The Friend) come in for the experiments themselves. My friend won't know whether A or B was trained with R-. She will give the cues, under increasing levels of distractions, and she will record how promptly, how enthusiastically, and how reliably under distractions, Vanya responded to A versus B.

Then I'll train the same cues for another set of time, to see if the responses change with greater levels of proofing.

Nope, this isn't scientific, but it will help me learn what works better for my particular dog. I'll report on the results here, for those who might be curious.

Training plan, more details about methods, and logs for the new recall cues are posted here: http://sites.google.com/site/thevanyaproject/training-logs/recall-cues-a-and-b

Sunday

2010-06-13T11:16:00.001-05:00

The weekend is over, without incident! Yippie! Two GSDs bouncing around next door, and Vanya didn't shriek once. Amazing.

Poor shepherds. One was a barker, and the owners use a no-bark (shock) collar on him. Saturday morning, they left the two dogs in the tent while they went kayaking. I heard: whine, whine, YELP, silence. Whine, whine, YELP, silence.

2010-06-12T08:03:00.000-05:00

Nope, they're two males. Two huge, shaggy male German Shepherd Dogs, with no leashes (because they have their shock collars, so who needs leashes?), that bark a lot. But the owners seem like nice kids, and they agreed not to let the dogs run over to my fence and bark at Vanya. Here's to hoping for a rainy, foggy weekend!

Off leash dogs again

2010-06-10T19:25:00.000-05:00

The woods are suddenly swarming with off-leash dogs. On the path to Lost Creek, the spaniel Jake and his distracted, elderly owner Ralph came bounding up. I put Vanya's muzzle on, and let them have a brief greeting (not quite brief enough). Jake got to choose whether he wanted to come up and greet, or just stay away from Vanya, and he chose to come up, several times. Vanya was at first pretty wiggly, and then stiff and a little worried (he sat while Jake sniffed his rear), but he did relatively well, until Jake moved off, then he shrieked like a little madman. Jake came pouncing back to nip at Vanya (not fair! Vanya's muzzled!), but when I asked Ralph the owner to keep Jake from biting my muzzled dog, he did comply. (Later, another neighbor mentioned that Jake is also a rescue with issues, and does a bit of fear-biting with people, so this zipping around and nipping a retreating dog wasn't unusual.)

Lord knows if these greetings are helping Vanya or not. Since I can't control what unleashed dogs do, at least I can control my own reaction--Vanya's muzzle keeps me nice and calm and upbeat. I talk in a happy voice, give Vanya a ton of cheezwhiz, and don't have to worry about my Vanya hurting someone (nor do I have to worry about him redirecting onto my hand when I pull him away by his harness. He's never done this, but he has snapped at the leash before I got the muzzle). If we have to have unleashed dogs around here, I sure wish we could get a female or two. Update: my next to neighbors just emailed me that their relatives are coming up to the next cabin this weekend, with their two dogs. Eek! Let's hope they're females. Let's hope the relatives believe in leashes! Let's hope it keeps raining all weekend so it's not an issue!)

After the encounter with Jake in the woods, Vanya was very nervous on the trail--stopping a lot to sniff and look backwards. I tossed treats for him, tried to jolly him along, and finally realized that he might be worrying about this spaniel surprising him from behind. So we reversed directions in the woods, heading back in the direction taken by the spaniel. First I got Vanya set up in his canicross gear, so he could pull to his heart's content and get a ton of praise for pulling. This worked well--he cheered right up as he chugged along, even though we didn't see Jake the spaniel again.

In the evening, as we were walking back to the cabin from the little dirt road, I worried briefly about having used up the last treat in my pocket. But since I was just one cabin from my own cabin, I figured we'd be fine. Nope. Just then, David and his two ENORMOUS, very male, very loud elkhounds came trundling down the road, right in front of my place. Luckily, Dave had his dogs on leashes--a rare event.

Oy! Vanya went nuts, trying to pull toward them. So much for calmness. Rather than drag him off in the opposite direction and start him shrieking, I put on his muzzle, gave him his canicross pull command (hike!) and praised him like mad for pulling to his heart's content. Worked like a charm, until of course we got to our driveway and it was time to veer off-course, away from the man + two huge male dogs. Vanya screamed like the demons were coming--quite impressive. I finally just picked him up by the front of his harness and carried him down, just like a sled dog. He sounded just like a sled dog, to be honest.

Once we regrouped behind the car, I remember the tin of nuts in the car, so I grabbed them and took Vanya back up to the road, armed with nifty treats. Vanya was still warbling a bit, but he was able to play LAT with the retreating Dave and Two Dogs, and stay under threshold, more or less. Calm? Nah. But a zillion times calmer than a moment before. I didn't let him greet Dave and the Dogs, because I was worried that the dogs would attack him, and then he'd really be freaked out for the rest of his life.

We're still working on the emergency U-turn at close distances. It would be awfully useful in such situations. If the new dog is 100s of yards away when we first see it, Vanya can glance at the dog and do a U-turn without needing to be dragged off and screaming. But that's what I've done for 2.5 years--U-turned and left the scene when another dog showed up at a great distance--and it hasn't helped reduce his excitement at all. I'm hoping that a series of calm, extremely brief, meet-and-greets with other dogs will allow him to progress a little more.

Day 9 Update

2010-06-09T17:35:00.000-05:00

An update on the update for Vanya: it's only day 9 for his prozac, but something seems to be making a huge difference. (He also went back on L-theanine the same day, this time in the Anxitane formulation, so that might be part of
it. Plus I got the window film up, which is also playing a role in reducing triggers).

His OCD scanning and shrieking episodes are declining, and today he was able to have a very good meet-and-greet (muzzled and leashed) with the yippie mini-poodle, Buddy. When Buddy told him off (Buddy had found a bit of goose
poop, so Vanya came over to investigate), Vanya didn't snarf back. He did shriek when (unleashed) Buddy first came bounding up to us, but he calmed right down when I muzzled him and let him greet Buddy. Each time Buddy bounded away for a time-out, Vanya whined but didn't lunge or shriek. And when Micky, the world's bravest (or dumbest) cat came up to investigate, Vanya was very interested, but not barking or lunging, and able to take treats and watch me even as the cat came to within 5 feet (ok, dumbest cat).

For your average dog, all this may be no big deal, but for Vanya, it's huge.

Then, when we dropped in to visit his favorite neighbor, he was able to greet her and quickly settle on the couch with a kong--amazing for Vanya, who usually vibrates with excitement the whole time he's in her house. When numerous vans drove by us, he was able to sit and take treats instead of shrieking at them.

So it may be a day too soon for the Prozac to be at steady-state in his bloodstream (according to the one good study I could find), but whatever this is, I'll take it!

Thinking About Pit Bulls

2010-06-09T17:29:00.000-05:00

Last fall, on a clicker-training forum, we got into a lively, at times impassioned, discussion about pit bulls. Some forum members characterized them as "weapon dogs" whose vicious aggression is essentially determined by their genes--dogs trapped in their genetic histories. Some forum members seemed to believe that the dog aggression that was part of their history would inevitably bleed over into aggression against humans. Many forum members, however, defended pit bulls, with some advocates arguing that their dogs are no different than other dogs. Other pit bull lovers argued that their dogs are indeed fundamentally different than other dogs, and their dog aggression could never be bred out of them without destroying what was essential to their other good qualities: intensity, determination, human- friendliness, toughness, comic good humor. Finally, a group of pit bull lovers argued (or at least we hoped) that it might be possible, with selective breeding, to maintain what's wonderful about pits while also decreasing their dog aggression. Dogs don't stay fixed throughout their evolutionary history. But selective breeding has a troubled history--often, in getting what you wished for, you also get surprising and undesirable traits as well.

Aggression is extraordinarily complex in evolutionary terms, and it doesn't make much sense to speak of it as one trait. Conspecific aggression (fighting) is different than predation, and in turn both are different than aggression against humans, which in turn is different than prey-aggression (which really shouldn't even be called aggression); they don't appear to be part of one continuum.

Aggressive traits tend to be polygenic (controlled by more than one gene, just like hip dysplasia), and many the genes that affect various kinds of aggression are also likely to affect many other characteristics (when one gene controls several traits, it is called pleiotropy). Epigenetic influences in turn affect gene expression, and hormones affect it all. What this ends up meaning is that it wouldn't be difficult to breed for very low human aggression and high fight aggression in the same individual, and this historically is supposedly what happened with game-bred pits in the late 19th century. It probably wouldn't be impossible to breed for low human aggression, high gameness, and low fight aggression as well. But because these traits are polygenic and each of those genes are pleiotropic, it's also quite easy to start messing with dogs in deleterious ways (see-- golden retrievers: hip dysplasia; pointers: nervousness; etc)

Play behavior in many young predator species is an interesting combination of prey behavior ( practice for hunting) and ritualized fighting (conspecific aggression). Because of their breeding, many pitties seem to slip more quickly from play into aggressive or prey behavior than some other dog breeds, but for all dogs, play behavior has close links to both hunting and conspecific aggression. All dogs have the potential to get overaroused when playing and slide into fight behavior or prey behavior. Certain breeds, of course, are more likely to do this.

Many pit bull breeders argue that "gameness" in pits is not just about fighting--it's terrier tenacity, and it can be turned to fighting conspecifics, or it can be turned to farm work, or it can be turned to agility purposes. Today, on the fighting websites, I think it is indeed used as a euphemism for "fighting". But gameness is a real quality, and my impression is that it's closely linked in pre-1950s pits with the legendary pit gentleness toward children and strangers.This is just an impression (although many pit breeders argue that it's true, I don't know of any data that have been gathered to support the hypothesis. It could be tested, however)

AGGRESSION: what is 'normal'??

Group-living species such as canids evolve ritualistic displays of aggression that substitute for actual fights that might result in fatal injuries--and in most non-Molosser breeds, most of the time, conspecific aggression is a noisy threat display that rarely leads to severe wounds. Yet pits can be the exception. Their conspecific aggression is not all about ritualized displays; rips and tears and blood are ofteninvolved.

Alexandra Semyonova (2002) has argued that 'normal' dogs don't exhibit wounding aggression toward conspecifics, so if pits do this, by definition they aren't normal. There are several problems with this logic. First, it's circular. Semyonova start by arguing that only dogs who don't fight to kill are normal, and therefore normal dogs don't fight to kill. Bad logic, bad science. You can't exclude a breed that now makes up almost a quarter of domestic dogs in many areas in order to define what "normal" dogs do. This doesn't make any more sense than arguing that normal dogs don't have hip dysplasia, so if labs and goldens do, they aren't normal dogs.

Aside from the circular reasoning, the deeper evolutionary point is this: conspecific aggression that leads to fatal wounds is part of the evolutionary heritage of all dogs, just as prey aggression is. Genes, however, are very labile things, and it's possible to select against certain traits and bring about changes in just a few generations, even in wild species (see the silver fox studies). But genes are also very complicated things, and selecting against certain traits we like or don't like can often lead to sobering and unintended consequences (see English springer show gaits and aggression).

Semyonova (2002) argues that 'normal' dogs have evolved to display only ritualized threats, and that pits are 'abnormal' dogs because their threats sometimes turn into actual wounding fights (and therefore, she continues, all pitbulls and related breeds, including boxers, amstaffs, etc, must be eliminated, with all individuals containing any pit bull blood immediately euthanized). But ritualized threat displays can only be an effective strategy, in evolutionary terms, if a certain percentage of threat displays are backed up by actual, costly, violence. In the species that have been studied, such ritualistic displays continue to persist in a population only when they are "backed up" by a certain frequency of actual, violent, damaging aggression. To understand this, think about painted cattle-guards versus actual metal cattle-guards as a useful metaphor. In ranch country, ranchers know they can have a certain percentage of "fake" cattle guards that are just painted onto the road--ritualistic displays of cattle-guardedness. But a certain percentage of cattle guards need to be actual grates that hurt cows' feet when they test them, or else the painted cattle guards lose their effectiveness. Ritualistic displays--roaring, snarling, mock-fights--similarly lose their communicative power (over generations) when they never result in actual bloodshed.

This doesn't mean that all dogs will fight to kill; what it does mean is that violent aggression is not abnormal in dogs. It may be rare (thankfully), but it's normal. We can't single out a large group of dogs that do it and say they're abnormal for doing it, so that we can persist in our fond hope that dog's aren't really canids with big teeth and the potential for violence. We may not like that violent behavior in pits, but the only reason it could be selected for by breeders is because the genetic potential exists for it in the larger dog gene-pool. You can't breed a dog who can fly, but you can breed a dog who can fight, because fighting played an important role in their evolutionary histories.

Conspecific aggression that leads to fatalities is actually surprisingly common in many species, including wild canids (and it's also observed in feral dogs and village dogs.) In fact, it's quite common in the evolutionary history of many group-living organisms. We would like to hope that such aggression is rarely fatal, but it's actually quite often fatal.

Wild wolves do sometimes kill other wolves. Recent and very interesting research supports the (depressing) hypothesis that the altruistic behavior in social mammals seems able to evolve only when there's a high level of fatal conspecific aggression. This may seem contradictory, but when you think about it, it makes (depressing) sense. In small groups, wild canids and people will act for the benefit of the others in the group even when they don't share genetic material. This was long a theoretical puzzle for evolutionary biologists, but evidence (both theoretical modelling studies and empirical evidence) supports the argument that altruism evolves when high levels of fatal conspecific aggression exists between groups. Kind behavior, in other words, toward the same species seems to evolve because of (not in spite of) nasty violence toward the same species.

Pit bull histories

Dr Edmund Russell at the University of Virginia is working on a fascinating book that, in part, explores the co-evolution of pit bulls in England and people. His research suggests how very labile (in evolutionary terms) this breed has been.

The evolution of the pit bull-type dog included farm dogs (probably mastiff-type dogs) selected to bait bulls, which was important order to tenderize the meat for market (not just to protect the farmer from angry bulls). Farmers selected dogs with high prey drive, rather than high fight drive. Dogs that retained the instinct to prey on animals larger than themselves were the ones who were chosen to bait bulls. So pit bulls who fight other dogs in a particularly deadly way are likely to be showing prey behavior, rather than conspecific fight behavior.

People started placing bets on bull-baiting for all the reasons that people like to bet on such things. Queen Elizabeth was particularly fond of the spectacle.

Around 1800, bull baiting became so popular that bettors needed to standardize one way to settle bets. Two rules had been dominant: the dog who attacks for the longest period, and the dog who runs the most number of times at a bull, would win. Certain smaller, faster baiting dogs, however, were good a grabbing the bull's nose and hanging on. Gamblers called this trait "tenacity" and created a new standard rule for placing bets by throwing them into the ring, where the winner would be determined by the dog that "pinned" with a bite to the nose. Breeders quickly began selecting for the trait of grabbing only the bull's nose and lips, not the other parts of its body. Breeders would set a litter of pups near a bull, would watch to see which pups ran at the bulls head, and keep only those pups--very strong selection for tenacious dogs that gripped and held the nose, but didn't shake or rip or grab the flanks. The longer the dog immobilized the bull, the better. Dogs who ripped and tore weren't good; dogs who held on were favored.

Dog-fighting overtook bull-baiting in the early 19th century (partly because of urbanization--bull baiting was closely connected to an agrarian England and outlawed in 1835). New rules developed for betting, and these rules favored the dogs who disabled, rather than immobilized, their opponent. Grabbing and holding on (ie, tenacity) was no longer favored; instead, "ferocity", or repeating biting and tearing was. Breeders crossed the bulldogs with terriers to get this tearing, shaking, behavior (what a terrier does with a rat--that prey-shake, which wolves don't do with their larger prey).

What happened when pits came to America? Prof. Russell doesn't examine this in his work, but here are some preliminary thoughts, which are not yet backed up with good sources:

When the Irish immigration to the US intensified, many Irish families brought their pits with them, and fighting dogs were so valuable to an Irish family that the dogs lived inside with the family (something that was very rare indeed in Europe for a larger breed), and strong selection for gentleness with children might have begun at that point.

In the early 20th century, pit bulls were one of the most popular breeds in America--renowned for their prowess in dog-fighting, of course, but almost famous for their courage, sweetness with children, and stable temperament. The list of famous pit bull-type dogs can go on and on: President Teddy Roosevelt's pit bull, Helen Keller's dog, the pup in Little Rascals, Nipper the Victrola Dog, the dog on the military poster, the mascots for football teams.

One trainer wondered if all these famously stable pet pits suggested that lines of pit bulls being bred for calm pets had already diverged from fighting lines early in the 20th century. My sense is that this isn't the case: game-bred pits seemed to have been popular as pets, and it seems that they may not have often fought other dogs in normal conditions, only in actual fighting pits. It may have been too risky to an important family investment to have a good fighting dog that would pick fights with stranger dogs on the street. The old story about game pits was that they wouldn't start a fight, but they also wouldn't end one. Is this true? Who knows.

In the 1980s, pit bulls became popular with inner-city black adolescents, and their reputation spiraled downwards among the white middle class. Some of this was probably connected with racism and media bias: white people became freaked out over pits because they associated pits with a certain kind of African-American culture. The media's job was to sell papers and magazines, and scary pit stories sold. But it wasn't all racism. The pits themselves seem to have changed, as backyard and inner-city breeders began breeding for large heads, for much larger sizes (instead of the 40 to 45 pounds of the Irish pits, we now see 95 lb dogs). Some people began intentionally trying to breed pits for human aggression, and some human aggression probably slipped in as an unintended consequence of breeding for large heads and large body size, which meant crossing pits with guarding breeds.

Pit bulls and Human Aggression

Many websites argue old pit yardmen and fighters used to cull out any dog that showed any degree of human aggression, making pits especially human-friendly. Is this true? None of these studies are published or peer-reviewed, so it's hard to know. But it would be possible to find out, using archival data from the 18th and 19th centuries, and both archival sources and interviews from the 20th C.

Anti-pit bull advocates cite the CDC figures from the 1990s that appeared to show pits and rotties were overrepresented in the breeds responsible for fatal attacks, but those data were never peer-reviewed, and the CDC is the first to argue that they do not actually tell us anything about which breeds were indeed responsible for attacks. There are NO peer-reviewed published statistics on rates of human aggression by dogs of any particular breed or mix.

Similarly, pro-pit bull advocates like to cite Karen Delise's statistics showing that only about 20% of fatal attacks on people were by pits or pit-mixes, which is likely lower than the percentage of pits in the general pet population (suggesting that pits are LESS likely than other breeds to attack people). Again, as someone who has pit bulls I might like to believe that argument, but Delise has not published her work in a peer-reviewed journal, and I believe that until she does, we can't draw any conclusions from it.

I do think that pitties are impulsive, easily-aroused, high-intensity dogs with an enormous love for people. Typically, they don't have an ounce of human aggression toward adults.

But:

-If a pit is abused, it can often be quite resilient. But increasingly, pit bulls seem to show fear aggression.

-If a pit mix was badly bred by being crossed with guarding breeds, it can also show human aggression.

-If a pit bull gets over-excited and too pushy with children, I think hyper-arousal can sometimes tip over into prey-drive, if the dog lacks training in impulse-control.

The risk of pit bulls inflicting fatal wounds on children is vanishingly small, and if we're going to bring human aggression into the argument, we need to recognize that pits were indeed long bred for low rates of human aggression, just as they were long bred for high rates of conspecific aggression. I personally certainly hope the two aren't connected, (so that we could breed for continued human-sociability while breeding against fighting) but I'm not sure there's any published evidence that shows us one way or the other.

Can you breed a game pit bull to be dog friendly? Is gameness in pits--a quality we love--inevitably tied to scary dog aggression? Can a breeder do this without messing up the breed?

Since 2005, the dog genome has been mapped. That's a very big deal. Molecular biologists now know quite a bit about different alleles (forms of genes) at a particular locus correlated with the development of various forms of aggression; about the SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms--ie, the chunks of genes that vary most between individuals, where the really interesting stuff is happening); correlated with various types of aggression about various SNPs correlated with idiopathic aggression in those much-studied golden retrievers; about the genetic changes in silver fox genomes that correlated with a strong reduction in impulsive aggression.

Gene tests that tell you if your dog is going to be aggressive aren't available yet, but there's no real reason that they couldn't be relatively soon. Good breeders are taking advantage of canine genomics to reduce the rates of certain diseases in specific breeds, so why not to reduce the rates of certain kinds of aggression? Genes do not directly control aggressive behavior--they affect the behavioral regulators known as neurotransmitters, that in turn may influence the probability of certain kinds of aggressive behavior. Every year, more is becoming known about the various SNPs that contribute to increased risk of various kinds of aggression in canines. The silver fox research group does it for their silver foxes. If breeders wanted these test, they could be on the market in not very many years, for a reasonable price (look at bovine genomics, for example: it's a huge field, because there's a demand for it).

If I were a canine geneticist, the first place I'd look would be at the MAOA-L locus, which has been correlated with a strong increase in impulsive aggression and increased reactivity in all the species examined (including foxes, I think). MAOA is an enzyme that regulates the breakdown of the neurotransmitter 5-HT or serotonin, and one little mutation in MAOA leads to all sorts of changes in serotonin, which in turn leads to an increase in reactivity and impulsive aggression. (Specifically, the genetic mutation leads to an increase in circulating serotonin in early development, which then creates a cascade of epigenetic effects that lead to lowered serotonin levels and all sorts of havoc later in life. This is partly why nasty fight breeders give their dogs tons of steroids early in life--it works with the genetic templates to create radical changes in behavior).

In foxes, it's possible to selectively breed for changes in MAOA and serotonin uptake, which then modulate aggressive behavior. I believe it's not hard to map these MAOA variations in a DNA sample.

Serotonin gene systems are actually more complicated than first suspected, involving an extra two genes, and changes in those help regulate territorial aggression versus intermale aggression. Tiny changes in these 2 genes (replacing one base pair) actually change the THRESHOLD of the aggressive response--ie, which foxes are hot tempered and which are not. Again, I believe it would be possible to sequence these genetic variations in a DNA sample, giving you some sense of the dog's later aggression threshold.

What's really nifty is that this "hot-tempered" behavior does not actually correlate, genetically, with intensity of fighting--ie, gameness; they're controlled by different genetic mechanisms, which means that a good breeder might indeed be able to separate them out, especially with the help of good genetic tests.

When you breed foxes for lack of aggression, you get changes in neurotransmitter 5-HT metabolic pathways, one of which involves the inhibition of fear-induce defensive aggression. (Which is why giving prozac to fear-aggressive pups may not always a great idea, since it can remove the inhibitory factors keeping it from being expressed. Prozac-treated rats are less likely to fight each other, but more likely to bite people in fear). This finding suggests a possible explanation for why traditionally game-bred pit bulls had a low threshold for fighting and low impulse control but were so friendly to people--lots of inhibition, genetically, of fear-aggression.

But the fox studies also suggest that it's possible to breed for low aggression and high sociability with people.

The review article that goes over all this is "Canid genomics: mapping genes for behavior in the silver fox," Tyrone C Spady and Elaine Ostrander, 2007, Genomics 17: 259-263.

So if I were a breeder, I'd want those genomic studies of aggression, and I'd want to know what those SNPs of my potential breeding dogs looked like. The cow folks are already doing this; why not the dog breeders? And while some pit bull lovers don't want to see dog aggression bred out of pits, plenty of others disagree. In my opinion, the breed has been so badly abused by terrible backyard breeding in the past 2 decades that we're nowhere near some mythical past standard. Anyway, breeds are constantly changing. If we can use genetic tests to reduce terrible diseases in many dog breeds, why not use them to alter aggression thresholds, while keeping careful watch on possible fear-aggression changes.

Progress...

2010-06-08T12:02:00.000-05:00

Vanya has been sleeping a lot while on the prozac, and being a lot less bouncy, but I expect that he needs a bit of time to adjust to it.

Yesterday: a great walk, until the cat came running up, and then he went into prey-shrieking mode (which he doesn't do at deer, curiously enough). He was able to calm down quickly and practice the emergency turn-arounds with me. For those, our cue is: "this way!" called out in a happy voice, with lots of cheez-whiz for rewards. The idea is simple: let's blow this popsicle stand before Vanya tips over into a screaming frenzy. My goal is to work on his happy turns, even in the face of provocation, so I don't have to drag him off, which quickly leads to shrieks and howls. The cat certainly provided the provocation. Vanya was fine with her as long as she was lying down in her driveway, and he performed quite a few impressively calm LAT with her, and then practiced his calm "this ways" quite a few times. Then she got curious and came bounding up to us (oop!), which was more than Vanya could handle.

But he was quite calm with the deer at the end of the driveway--barking once, then telling me to hurry up with the LAT game. And he got two visits to the sea caves beneath the cabin for off-leash hunt time.

Remedial socialization Attempt # 2

2010-06-06T20:29:00.000-05:00

Today we met up with Lana and her calm, huge dog-loving dog, Andre, in hopes that Vanya could follow Jean Donaldon's remedial socialization protocol for unsocialized Tarzans that she describes in her manual Fight: A Practical Treatment for the Treatment of Dog-Dog Aggression (pp 27-41). The idea is that Vanya could get some remedial socialization by playing, while muzzled, with Lana's dog Andre, a dog who loves playing with pitties (Andre is housemates with Amber, a pit bull with a play style very similar to Vanya's body slams). Then Vanya could better work on his CC/DS protocols, keeping a loose leash as he played LAT with Andre in the distance.

Well, it didn't quite work out that way. At first, the two dogs were ok--not playing, but investigating--but Vanya, as always, came on too strong, and when Andre told him to buzz off a bit, Vanya failed to do so. They danced around for a while, and then Andre had enough of Vanya and nipped at him, and we ended the session because Andre was clearly feeling overwhelmed by Vanya.

When I pulled Vanya away from Andre, at that point, he started shrieking and trying to pull out of his harness, and I had to drag him out of sight. He took quite a while to calm down, even though he was crated in the car. When we then walked over to the picnic area where Lana and Andre were waiting and tried LAT from a distance, he was still far too wound up to do it. So then he went back to the crate in the car for another cool down, and then he was able to stay calm (more or less) and do LAT with Andre in the distance. We could actually get quite close without Vanya reacting, just so we went back to the visual barrier of the car for brief cool-downs. Targeting a lid was also quite helpful.

I also put Vanya in his crate, outside the car, and fed him peanut butter and played LAT while Lana and Andre walked around the parking lot. Vanya did much better at this than I expected, until Lana and Andre approached us directly, then he started vocalizing (not aggressive barking, but his shrieking "let me, let me, let me have what I want!")

So: what did I learn from this?
1. leash control: I had dropped Vanya's leash, so that he wouldn't start screaming at leash-restraint, but this was a mistake. It would be better for me to hold onto a leash and do my best keep it as loose as possible, while the other handler uses a long line, and allows her dog to leave Vanya if he gets annoying.

So, in essence, I should be doing Donaldson's "On Leash Meet and Greets With Tarzan" (pp 50-53), rather than "Remedial Socialization" (pg 34), unless I can find a group of 3 to 4 solid, calm, large dogs who like rough play.

2. Choice of dog: I had thought Andre fit Jean Donaldson's "bomb proof dog" definition (pg 29), but he's too young and inexperienced, and too vulnerable at his age to fallout from a bad experience. (He is huge, but only 10 months--which alas, I didn't realize until afterwards, because I would not have let him interact with Vanya if I had known). Plus, of course, he's male, and Vanya's likely to do a lot better with a female. So I'll need to find a calm, playful, bombproof, female lab. Any ideas?

3. Muzzle: Vanya finds his basket muzzles too heavy on his nose. He's been conditioned with a ton of cheez whiz, so he doesn't fight them, but his ears go back and his expression gets spectacularly sad. More importantly, I think the basket muzzle may make him more reactive. I've also conditioned him to an ordinary, padded vet muzzle that is quite wide on him, so he can easily eat and drink with it. He seems completely oblivious to this muzzle--it doesn't appear to bother him at all. I tried Amber's basket muzzle, but it also seemed to put uncomfortable pressure on his nose. Interacting today with the vet muzzle on (for only a few minutes), he didn't seem to get at all heat-stressed in it, or reactive from it. (The temperature was 50 degrees and drizzling. Most importantly, I worried a bit that, because the vet muzzle was so wide and loose on him, he might be able to nip with it on. But he couldn't, and he couldn't get it off (he didn't try). So for short socialization sessions in cool weather, the padded muzzle will work.

4. CER to being pulled: Whenever I pull Vanya away, he looses all composure and begins to scream his head off, so I should work again on a positive CER to the tight leash, and perhaps even to the exciting experience of being dragged away. This winter, when we were skijoring a lot and Vanya was getting tons of praise and rewards for keeping a very tight leash and pulling like mad, he did better.

5. Next time: we'll start at a good distance, keep both Amber and Vanya well under threshold, use the cars as visual barriers, and do BAT and LAT. Then, if the dogs manage to stay calm, we might try some of the calming routine from Liz's class with Ginger.

Day 2

2010-06-02T23:48:00.000-05:00

Another calm day, snoozing in the sun for 16 hours, with occasional breaks to lick the UPS Man, greet our neighbor Tim while on a walk, chase squirrels, terrorize chipmunks, chase a few more squirrels, pounce on the everlasting treat ball, explore the caves, and hunt down the buster cube. All in all, a good day. He may have been guilty of a little over-excitement when Tim and the UPS guy showed up, but they think he's cute and they're flattered by his extravagant joy when he sees them. He was able to shut up and sit momentarily for each of them.

Much calmer day....

2010-06-01T16:34:00.000-05:00

Today is much, much calmer for my hyperalert little pup. We went for a short stroll on the quiet dirt road, and when the van went by, he managed to sit and watch it without flipping out. Good job, Vanya! For the rest of the walk, he was a bit too alert--scanning a lot--but he never started whining, and he was able to relax and sniff.

The big news is: I just talked with Dr Chris, his wonderful vet. Vanya's starting Prozac. I hope it will help him a bit, relaxing some of his obsessive/compulsive fixations (ie, scanning and screaming at spots of light), and I hope it will allow training and his counterconditioning protocols to work a little better.

The rest of the day, we've been exploring the sea caves beneath the cabin, which are now, officially, Vanya's Favorite Place.

I can hang out on the mermaid rock and Vanya can scramble up and down and inside the little caves, clamber up onto promentories, and generally have a wonderful time. I try not to think about how unstable these cliffs are, nor do I think about how many rocks come tumbling down each spring. It's such a good thing for Vanya to have a safe place where he can hunt and explore off-leash.

He gets very cheered up down in the caves, and he loves to come bounding over, leap onto the mermaid rock for his treat, and then go flying off the rock onto the sandstone ledges. (Last year, he screamed his little head off each time he got onto the mermaid rock and then couldn't figure out how to get back down. This year, he magically realized he could simply jump down, flying safely over the waves. Progress!)

anxiety getting worse, perhaps

2010-05-31T11:43:00.000-05:00

The holiday weekend is tough on Vanya. He gets to see lots of his favorite people, which is lovely, and he's been very good about not jumping up and not getting too excited when greeting. But with all the dogs running by, all the cars, all the people--I just can't keep him under threshold.

When we're out walking and vans go by without stopping, he shrieks in the same way he only used to do when a dog was too close to him: piercing, heart-rending shrieks. Cars are fine--he can hold a polite sit and watch them quietly. Vans? Nope. He screams at the top of his lungs.

We see two women in the distance, and he begins to warble softly with his desire to go say hello. He's managing to be a good boy about not pulling on the leash when we walk toward the women, but then an unleashed lab comes bounding up (toward the women, still 200 yards from us.) At first, when we see the dog, Vanya is interested and whining, but not shrieking or lunging, and I praise him and then do a gentle turn in the other direction, to head back down our driveway to let them go by. But when he realizes he's going to have to go in the opposite direction of the women and dog, Vanya loses it. He begins shrieking and screaming and wrestling and trying to pull out of his harness and snapping at the leash, as badly as I've ever seen him. I have two leashes on him, two attachments, so I'm not worried about him getting loose, but I hate to see him go so terribly over his threshold. I can't just stand there and let them get closer, so I end up dragging him down the driveway behind the car. (When he's out of visual contact, he does quiet quickly down).

I would love not to drag him, but I don't know how else to get him out of there before the other dog comes running up. We have been practicing about faces, over and over again, adding first very small distractions in front of him, trying to work slowly up to bigger distractions, people, then eventually other dogs. But it still falls apart when there's a real dog in the distance.

When it's time for him to walk away from Gail and Peter, he shrieks at the top of his lungs, and wrestles mightily with his harness, trying to get free. He sounds just the same as when he had to leave sight of the other dog, but with Gail and Peter, I know there's not an ounce of aggression: it's all about social desire. Gail and Peter are both doctors, and they watched him and talked about brain-damaged orphans who never got socialized. Peggy, another wonderful neighbor who is a psychotherapist (and very fond of pit bulls), watched him flip out about the car driving away, and suggested that we talk again with our vet about meds. Nancy, a former public health nurse who has been endlessly kind to Vanya, mentioned how similar he seems to some of her fetal alcohol syndrome kids--loving, but with profound boundary issues (whatever that might mean in a dog).

I'm lucky to have so many kind neighbors who are sympathetic, interested in Vanya's progress, and unlikely to condemn us. But sometimes I feel at my wit's end.

Well, plans help, so here's my plan:
1. go back to doing the relaxation protocol each day, on the deck, then in the driveway, then possibly at the top of the driveway--a place that makes him hyperalert, because that's where new dogs sometimes pop up
2. continue to work on shaping calm about faces, "this way!"
3. call my vet on Tuesday and talk with her about meds
4. cover the window that faces onto the street so he can't see dogs passing through the forest. The street is so far away, and so hidden by the forest, that it seemed hard to believe that could be stressing him. But I think it is.

playtime, overexcited

2010-05-28T16:44:00.000-05:00

We tried playing with Buddy today, the little male, intact miniature poodle. Well, it was interesting. Not perfect, but interesting. We didn't actually set this up; Buddy was just bouncing around off leash and came zooming up to us when Vanya and I were on a walk.

Because I suspected Buddy might be around, I had muzzled Vanya before we walked down the road near their house. When I saw Buddy come charging toward us, I did manage to get Vanya to focus on me for a microsecond.

( If I had been setting this up properly, I would not have let Vanya interact with Buddy until he was politely walking on his leash and watching me when requested. I would have asked Lyle to put Buddy on a leash, and we would have played the penalty yards game, walking toward Buddy as long as Vanya was being polite and going backwards back to the start line as soon as he started pulling or vocalizing. We do this when he wants to greet new people. Anyway, so much for best-laid plans.)

Buddy came zooming up to us and Vanya and Buddy started dancing around--no vocalizing, no heads on shoulders. Vanya tried a couple awkward play bows (good boy!) and then he started getting pushy, shoving himself into the little poodle. Buddy wasn't impressed with full body contact, so he snapped at Vanya. Unlike a well-socialized dog, my little tarzan reacts to being told "back off buster" by getting all pissy and snappy (which is why I was glad he had his muzzle on).

Buddy retreated, I called Vanya back to me, Vanya shrieked with frustration and started offering little yips and play bows, Buddy came dancing back over, and we repeated this several times.

Shirley (she's the mom of Lyle, who owns Buddy. Shirley loves Vanya, heaven knows why) was watching all this. I think both Lyle and I were ready to call it quits, but Shirley suggested that we let Vanya off leash, thinking that he might be better able to interact a bit more without setting Buddy off. So we tried that for a moment, but then another yippie dog (Happy) came bouncing out, off leash, at us and a curious cat came walking up. Ok, too much excitement. Can we all say "over threshold" together!

At the point, I grabbed Vanya's leash, Lyle put all their critters inside, and Vanya got to go climb into Shirley's lap and give her kisses. Then Lyle came out and Vanya got to lean up against him and grin with joy as Lyle scratched his chest for a long, long time.

When it was time to go, Vanya of course decided that he didn't feel like it, because life was obviously a lot more exciting at the Huuskos. So he put on his display of "I'm a terrible toddler having a breakdown." Impulse control? Hello? How many years have we been working on this? Sometimes I think it's getting worse, not better.

When a car drove by with neighbors, and they stopped to chat, Vanya shrieked like his little heart was breaking when they drove off. At this point, I lost my temper, put on his gentle leader and made him alternate heeling and sitting the rest of the walk home.

So what did I learn from this little playdate?
1. Vanya may adore tiny poodles, but they don't adore him. He was too big, and more important, too unsocialized and rough in his play style for Buddy the miniature poodle. I really wish I had a big, tough, mellow, calm, lab who likes full-body play.
2. Vanya has pretty good play skills with Tiva, but none whatsoever with other dogs. Stay tuned for: "can this dog's play skills be saved? Or is he condemned to a life of plush dogs for pals?"

Up at the Lake

2010-05-26T22:34:00.000-05:00

We're up at Lake Superior for the summer. Here's the cabin, the world's tiniest space (10X20ft). No running water, but I did put in DSL, since I'm addicted to the internet.

Vanya is delighted to see 2 or 3 new people each day. He's so delighted, he sometimes forgets his manners and shrieks and pulls if I'm not walking quickly enough toward his heart's desire. Then we walk backwards until he stops pulling, and try again. Luckily I have the world's most patient neighbors. Some of them think Vanya is insane, but most of them thank he's adorable. Actually, Vanya's antics probably just make them feel good about their own dogs.

Our first night up, my friend Nancy (and Vanya's bestest friend, since she cooks liver for him and lets him up on her couch) and I walked with him down to the beach in the dark. Bears were about, so we were all a little on edge. When we got near the Huusko's house, a little poodle came running out toward us in the dark, with an owner (Lyle) behind, shouting "Buddy! Come back!" Buddy of course ignored Lyle and came charging and barking, 10 lbs of fuzzy frenzy, right up to us. Vanya was excited, but not at all aggressive. In fact, he seemed delighted to meet this crazy little critter. Nancy stepped in between Vanya and Buddy; Buddy ran back to Lyle; and Vanya whined and yearned to go play. I'll never figure that dog out! But now Lyle and I have arranged a playdate on the beach for Vanya and Buddy, once Vanya's new muzzle arrives. Wish us luck. Maybe we have a little dog in our future--I have noticed that Vanya seems thrilled by little dogs, and his furious reactions are all toward big honking black dogs.

Our first morning, we drove into the village to do chores (with Vanya in his crate in the backseat). A huge ancient black lab came ambling up to the car, and at first Vanya just looked at her, but when she kept coming, he got overwrought, barking hysterically. Oh well. Then when we went to Siskiwit Farms to pick up the grass-fed meat, their dogs were out too, and also came bounding up to the car. Such indignity for poor Vanya. But he was happy to get to go sniff at the well, where I fill my water containers.

Today he swam, romped on the beach a few times, clambered around in the sea caves under my rocks, scrambled through the rock falls, scaring the daylights out of me, barked at a bear out the window, and is now snoozing on the couch.

Here he was on the deck, panting in the sun:

summer

2010-05-24T14:04:00.000-05:00

OK, it is officially summer here in southern Wisconsin, and miserably so. Yesterday it hit 90, and today is hotter and much more humid.

The dogs are insane. I've been trying to keep them inside in the air conditioning. But nope, they want out. I finally let them out and instead of heading for the shade, they went right to the sunniest spot on the porch. Sunbathing in a zillion degree heat! They're stark raving mad.

Working on leash reactivity again, finally

2010-05-17T15:30:00.000-05:00

Today, I took time off from the weeding to bring Vanya up to town with me.

We swung by the big Prairie dog park, which is insanely busy even on Monday, but which does have a big church parking lot across the street, where I can work with Vanya and know that no dog is going to come near us. Much of the time, he was slightly stressed when we played Look at That, but able to calm down and pay attention. (I try to keep him far enough away when we play LAT so that he doesn't show any stress signs and can just lay on his bed and flop over, but that far away, I don't believe he can actually see the other dogs.) A couple of times, however, a large black GSD set him off and he started shrieking (even though that dog wasn't paying any attention to us, she was chasing a ball obsessively). But he was able to calm down quickly enough.

What worked the best to allow Vanya to relax a bit: salmon burgers, broken into tiny pieces and tossed in the grass so he had to track them down. Giving him a chance to track and hunt really helps him stop focusing on other dogs, and put his focus back on something he loves to do.

I also gave him a puzzle game--a tupperware container that I could put bits of spraycheese or salmon inside, and toss into the grass. Then Vanya could chase it, pounce on it, and then figure out how to open it up and eat the treats inside. Once he had these games to play, he was able to get a lot closer to the dog park dogs without getting too stressed. Another game that worked: spray cheese on a lid, and then he could use the unsprayed side as a target stick (with the reward a brief lick on the cheesey side). He doesn't love to target my hand, in part because he sometimes got a static shock during the very dry weather. With the target lid, he'll happily dash around after it, do his jumps, and play other games. Obedience games work OK to keep him from focusing on other dogs and freaking out, but chase/hunt/track games are a lot more engaging for him.

What else helped: I used a 16 ft flexi, attached to my waist (with a bungee that was attached to my treat/bag/belt). The flexi gave him a lot more options, and allowed him to chase, do his recalls, and avoid any significant tension on the leash. Only once did he go to the end of the leash. My goal was to keep him from hitting the end of it and feeling restrained--I wanted him to be obeying my recalls and other cues, not getting controlled by the leash.

He sure gets exhausted quickly by this work. We stopped on the way home at a little prairie park, across the street from a pasture with 2 donkeys and a vet's parking lot with a horse being exercised. Vanya was curious about the donkeys and horses, but not particularly interested--after a quick look, he got busy sniffing the gopher holes.

Quiet Life on the Farm

2010-05-16T19:30:00.000-05:00

Between the past month of book tour for TOXIC BODIES, and the craziness of spring on the farm, I haven't been taking Vanya out for leash-reactivity work. Instead, he and Tiva lead a blissful life hunting ground squirrels in the fields. Tiva eats them. Vanya just tosses them in the air and then looks puzzled when they stop squirming. He has spent the past 2 hours trying to dig one out from under a pile of lumber from the old greenhouse frame. Mr. Obsessive. When he comes in at night, he's too tired to beg. Well, maybe not that tired.

In the past few days, Mr Vanya has turned into Houdini, wriggling out of any little gap in the gates, etc. Each day, I find him over in the DNR land, covered with thick mud, happy as a clam from hunting bunnies. Each day, I drag more fencing material over to cover the tiniest gaps. Lord knows why, after 2 years, he has suddenly become obsessed with getting to the other side of the fence. Luckily, our neighbor doesn't have the cattle in the adjoining field. Ever since Vanya got kicked, badly, in the ribs by one of the heifers, he has seemed very leery of them. But I would still be a lot happier if I could plug all the gaps in this fence.

Next week, I head up north to the cabin with Vanya. He gets a lot more practice greeting new people up north (at least one new person a day), and he sees a lot more new dogs. But he's confined to the cabin, or the half-acre that's fenced, or walks in the woods with his canicross gear. He's much, much happier with the 20 fenced acres and gobs of critters to hunt, down here on the farm. But I can't be dog-less up north, and even though he misses the freedom of the farm, he's happy enough to be within 10 feet of me all summer.

Fourth day in a row of pass-bys: two steps forward, ? steps back

2010-04-13T16:00:00.000-05:00

Today was the fourth day in a row that we worked on passbys, polite behavior around other dogs, etc. Most of the time today, Vanya behaved nicely. He completely lost it, however, when I wasn't expecting it: on a long walk in the woods at the state park, when we passed a campsite that happened to have a dog hiding out. The dog barked, and even though we were walking briskly by (on the opposite site of the road, of course), Vanya completely lost it. He couldn't see the dog (which sounded pretty small and squeaky to me). When he loses it, he doesn't actually lunge or bark. Instead, he screams and begins thrashing like a fish on a line. It's very odd. He can wiggle out of his harness very quickly, so I always have a backup system (this time, the canny collar). While he was thrashing about shrieking to high heavens, I tried (unsuccessfully) to drag him out of there, since he sure wasn't paying attention to my cues. Finally, I put his nose-piece of the canny collar on and hauled him away (guess I won't have to clip his nails for a while!). Then, as he finally got his brain back together and started walking with me, the woman came out of the campsite and Vanya once again lost it--this time with his desire to go say hi to her. Same exact screaming, same exact thrashing, but in this situation I know it's all about social desire, not some desire to rip someone's throat out. The woman walked by, and instead of telling me off, she smiled and called out, "he's having a bad day, huh?" We chatted a bit about dogs and their bad days, all the while Vanya was thrashing about on the leash. I did tell her that he was being such a brat because he wanted to say hi, but he wasn't allowed to say hi when he was being a brat. Whatever. I'm long past feeling embarrassed by Vanya's behavior, even though I really do want to avoid sending him over threshold, both because it's not good for him to practice this craziness, and also because pitties have a bad enough reputation as it is.

I was ready to go home, but I decided to take him back up to the Prairie Moraine dog park and practice outside the park. We did that for over an hour, and he actually did very well. He's best in the church lot across the street, where he can walk fairly close to the park and the romping dogs without going over threshold. He was able to do all his obedience cues, and we alternated a bit between BAT and good old LAT. He's really becoming a champ at LAT. A couple of times he started warbling, even as he played LAT with me, so I would take him back to the car and let him settle down. We also did a bit of relaxation protocol in the car in between walks. At one point we were actually parallel walking with other dogs. Of course, they were dozens of yards away, but hey, Vanya was still able to do his cues (heel, sit, down, target, jump, watch, sniff) with other dogs in the vicinity. I'm not sure if he's getting used to other dogs, or just wiped out.

Now he's snoozing. I get to write my talks, do laundry, do powerpoints, and get ready to go to Western Michigan U tomorrow am for the book promotion events.

Pass-bys

2010-04-12T13:46:00.000-05:00

Third day in a row of practice with new dogs, new places, new people. Vanya did fine with Jake, showing only a little stress whining, although he was reluctant to leave and very cautious about where he placed his feet on the trail, as if something was hurting him. He greeted a DNR worker very nicely, with polite sits and no inclination to jump. This particular DNR guy has American bulldogs, so whenever he sees Vanya he tells us all how gorgeous and well-behaved Vanya is. Vanya likes this. So do I.

Then we went to the village park, next to the lake--same place as yesterday. Today, a cloudy Monday, was much quieter, without people or dogs visible. So we just sniffed around, playing attention games, and then crossed the street to where the park is usually a lot busier. Vanya found a vole or mole hole in the rough grass, and he was transformed--from looking obedient but slightly uneasy and tense, to being a joyful terrier merrily trying to dig out a rodent. I let him dig for quite a while (he was blissful, seeming to completely forget that he was in a novel environment), and then we tracked the scent trail of what I assume was the same rodent. What a happy dog! The transformation was wonderful to see, and I hope we can keep finding opportunities to dig up rodents and track their scents when we go to the park. I should lay a scent track before I let Vanya out of the car, and then have him track it, to see if that helps him relax in the new places. Hmmm--dragging a hunk of stinky salmon may let me lay a track that keeps him absorbed and helps him settle into new spaces. An idea!

Then, after he tracked in the park, we went back to see Jake the Mellow Lab, and Vanya was fine--reluctant to leave, again, even though he wasn't interacting with Jake, just sniffing around the other dog's kennel quite a bit. I tried to incorporate a bit of BAT, perhaps with a little success, following the wonderful diagram in Boogie the Boston Terrier's blog.

Another day, another bunch of dogs

2010-04-11T17:09:00.000-05:00

Now that the weather is lovely, lots of dogs are out and about. And now that I'm finally home for a few days, I can practice with Vanya around new dogs.

And I think I have finally figured out a set-up where we can stay under threshold and yet not be so far away from new dogs that they're tiny dots in the distance (and so far that I'm not really sure my pup sees them. Aha! No wonder he's minding his manners! He thinks they're ants off in the distance!)

Ok, here's the set-up:
1. We go someplace filled with romping dogs who have better things to do than pay attention to my darling nutcase
2. We go far enough from people so that I don't mind if Vanya starts shrieking (of course, for his sake, I want to keep him calm, but sometimes that just doesn't happen. And if he loses it and starts warbling, I prefer not to have the police called on us for disturbing the peace.)
3. We find a spot where I can leave the car door open for him. I tie his crate door open as well. He loves his crate. He feels very safe in his crate, curled up on his huge dog bed. Why did it take me so long to figure this out? If he can take a quick break in his crate in the car, he calms down much, much faster.
4. We find a spot where either the car or, better yet, some structure acts as a blind. Again, Vanya can stay calmer much more easily if he can get out of visual contact with the dog for a moment.
5. I use his sensible harness, attached with a 5 ft leash to my waist-harness. I also use his canny collar (or gentle leader) as backup, with a 6 ft leash loose in my hand. Most of the time the canny collar or GL nose-piece is off him, but it's available as a quick backup if something happens that means I need more control over his nose. Having 2 leashes makes me feel much more secure, and keeps me from needing to have pressure on his nose-piece for more than an instant.

Yesterday, I found this in the church parking lot across from the Prairie Moraine dog park (25 minutes drive, and a church parking lot is hardly ideal for a Sunday LAT game). Today, I found all this much closer, in our little village, just 5 minutes away. Lots of dogs were romping in the lake park, and as we found out the hard way in March, the regular parking lot is far too close to all the unleashed dogs (this isn't a dog park, just rural Wisconsin where few people pay attention to leash laws). But across the street, on Highway 69, there's a little pull-out with a big limestone monument to veterans. I can park in the pull-out with the car door open, and we can play our Look at That games from behind the stone monument. Vanya can peek out around the monument and see nice elderly couples walking their dogs on the opposite side of the little lake. Water, a stone monument, and a few trees lie between us and the rest of the world. No loose dogs are going to come zooming up at us (and if they do, the car is right there with its door open). The set-up is calm enough so that Vanya can play LAT with the other dogs without getting excited. When Vanya begins to show some signs of stress (low whining, usually, or a fixed look) we can zip right behind the monument and calm down. When he's calmed down a bit, we can go sniff bushes and drink from the pond and pee on the woods. He stayed calm enough today to do all his nifty tricks--in front of people! (Well, they were a ways away, but he still got some admiring glances from kids for his good behavior, instead of the usual looks of horror we seem to collect when he's getting over-excited).

The other thing I realized: those stinky swiss landjaegger sausages are wonderful rewards. I bought 4 for my own trip, but Vanya ended up getting most of them as little rewards. Amazing rewards. They could break his focus on those romping dogs, no problem. I also tossed treats for him in the grass, so sniffing them out was another way of keeping him from getting focused on those other dogs.

And we also did a number of walk-bys around Jake, the huge lab. They went pretty well--Vanya was fine walking by the lab, but when I let him go sniff with the dog, he didn't want to leave. But at least he didn't lunge, growl, whine, scream, shriek, warble, pull out of his collar, or any of the other things he can do when over-excited.

All in all, a good day. These dog exercises exhaust both of us, but I think we're making progress.

Near new dogs...

2010-04-11T08:01:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, after a morning walk on the bike trail and then a couple hours with Shawn from Capitol Times, Vanya got to go see dogs in the distance. This doesn't sound exciting, but for Vanya, it is. Very exciting.

We went up to the Prairie Moraine dog park outside of Verona, a vast and very crowded dog park with miles of trails, and most important for our purposes, several places where you can park well away from the park and still see dogs and people. We started up at the end of the park fence, and Vanya did well there for a while, playing LAT with dogs in the distance. When he started whining, I'd have him hop back into the crate inside the car, where he could calm down faster. But then an odd man with 4 barking dogs came up along the fence and stopped and stayed too close to us. Even though I had Vanya jump into the car and even though I shut the door and kept clicking away for moments of silence, this still sent him far over threshold.

So we drove to the church parking lot a little further away, and this worked much better. Over and over again we practiced LAT with the distant dogs, then taking a break by jumping into the car or walking off behind the church to sniff the mulch. Vanya was clearly calming down a lot, but I suspected this was a bit of flooding, although possibly a bit of realization that those other jumping, leaping, barking dogs in the distance weren't going to come over near him, so he was safe.

It's taken me a while to realize how much anxiety and fear are mixed in with his responses to other dogs. Because part of this is my fault (keeping him from playing with other dogs because of my concerns about his potential reaction; associating the sight of new dogs with pain and tension on the leash, etc), it's hard to see. Vanya became very eager to jump back into the car between our brief forays out into the parking lot. When we did our short walks, he was able to target, watch, sit, etc.

Exhausting, but I think it was valuable, once I figured out how to keep him at a consistent distance where he didn't have to worry about a dog showing up suddenly too close to him.

lots of travelling, not much posting

2010-04-08T08:22:00.000-05:00

I've been traveling to promote Toxic Bodies--first for 10 days to the west coast, then to France for a week, and now I'm on the east coast for several days. Tuesday I gave a talk at University of Virginia; yesterday I did a TV show, podcast, and public lecture at the National Conservation Training Center in WV, and this morning I'm driving down to DC to talk in the plenary session at the Organization for American Historians. Then I get to go home, and take a few days on the farm before heading off to Western Michigan University for a few events.

Vanya is having a lovely time hanging out with Frank and Tiva on the farm while I'm gone. He doesn't get any training, but he does get a lot of time running around the fields hunting for voles. Sometimes he actually catches a vole, but as Frank put it, he's too fastidious to eat them. Tiva comes over and watches him very very carefully as he trots around with his prize. Then he drops it and goes over to sniff something else, and Tiva dashes over, grabs it, and swallows it in one gulp. She is not a fastidious dog, to put it mildly.

Really Reliable Recall: When I'm home, we practice Leslie Nelson's Really Reliable Recall games. Vanya's cue is "CHEESE!" He roars over to me, fast as he can, when I yell "CHEESE!" I give him lots of tiny bits of cheese (or salmon, or beef) and tons of praise, then I put him in a sit/stay, go off and hide out of sight, and repeat the game several time. He of course thinks this is tons of fun. Next step is to introduce greater distractions (ie, have Frank playing with Vanya and giving him boring kibble,) then I yell CHEESE, and hopefully Vanya tears himself away from the distraction and comes zooming over to me.

Premack: The DNR lands seem to be filled with deer carcasses. So Vanya has been getting practice with premacking the deer. When he's chomping on a bone, I walk over near him, ask for a "watch", click and give him a hunk of salmon, and then release him back to his bone. We do this several times until he no longer wants to pay attention to the bone and only wants to get the clicks going. Well, that's the idea anyway. He plays this game happily, but when it's time to walk away from the carcass, he's not too thrilled about that, even though he doesn't guard the carcass from me. If Frank or Tiva approached, he would hunch over the bones and eat them faster and faster (neither Frank or Tiva are silly enough to actually walk right up to him when he's at a carcass). When I get back, I'll go into those fields alone and hide the carcasses somewhere-surely there's a limit to the number of gory bones that a dog should eat?

Shaping Calmness: well, we need to work on this a lot more. After I've been gone for a while, Vanya is certainly a lot more hyper-aroused in the face of new stimuli, since Frank doesn't take him into the village for little socialization sessions, or off to new environments. Because Vanya isn't meeting new people each day the way he used to, when he does get to see new people, he is extremely excited and he has a hard time calming down. Some people are kind enough to play the calmness game with us: when Vanya is calmly sitting, they take a step closer, but if he gets up, they stand still, out of reach, approaching for a pet only when he sits. The poor dog is SO desperate to greet people, he slams his butt on the ground incredibly hard when he remembers the game. Then he starts wiggling and wiggling and soon can't contain himself, stands up, the people stop, Vanya slams him butt back down, and so on. Eventually, they are petting him and he leans into them, ecstasy on his goofy face. Soon he's upside down in their arms, trying to lick their chin as they scritch his chest. He is a goofball.

Vanya loves hanging out on the farm. While Frank's pruning the apple orchard, Tiva and Vanya snooze together and hunt together and keep tabs on Frank together. If I'm not around, Vanya can start to play too roughly with Frank, which I think is because Frank encourages him--he loves to roughhouse with the dog, but doesn't like it when the dog gets over-excited. No matter how many times I remind Frank to stop roughhousing with Vanya, and stop pushing Vanya away when he jumps up, Frank can't seem to break the habit.

Here's a typical conversation:
Frank: "so what do I do when Vanya starts to jump on me?"
me: "ignore him. Don't give him any attention. But you know the look in his eye when he's about to start jumping? When he gets that look, BEFORE he jumps, ask for a SIT and toss him a treat." (and Frank does recognize this look, and he can do this routine when I'm around).
Frank: "yeah, but what if I don't have a treat in my pocket?"
Nancy: "fill your pockets with treats before you go outside."
Frank: "what if I forget?"
Nancy: "then when he sits, praise him and run with him to the kitchen for a great treat. And stop forgetting."

Two steps forward, two steps back...

2010-03-18T17:04:00.000-05:00

Vanya had a rough time staying under threshold yesterday. I had a rough time managing the environment so he could stay under threshold! Oy.

I've been traveling for 11 days, promoting my new book, so Vanya wasn't getting much training. Frank is sweet and takes care of his basic needs, but Vanya didn't leave the farm for nearly 2 weeks, much less practice calmness around novel stimuli. He basically hung out with the guys on the couch and found deer carcasses in the back field (not a bad life, of course).

Anyway, so yesterday the vet came to the farm (to check and make sure that Miss Tiva's new bumps weren't a return of her mast cell cancer--good news! they're not! and to extract 5 little teeth that were in bad shape from 14.5 years of playing with big sticks. Tiva is in great shape, happily). Vanya and Tiva absolutely adore our wonderful vet (Dr Chris Severin, The Visiting Vet, who comes to our farm with her van/vet clinic that's set up for surgeries, etc). Dr Chris gives the dogs super-wonderful treats and tons of attention, and when her vet pulls onto the farm, all the dogs are thrilled. Vanya was so thrilled he instantly forgot all of his manners and tried to jump into her van through the open window. Then, when I tried to put him inside the house so Tiva could have her checkup and surgery, Vanya lost his marbles. He screamed and wiggled and did his "I'm completely out of control" imitation. Even with his harness plus gentle leader on, with 2 separate leashes, I couldn't get him from Point A to Point B without him thrashing and shrieking.

The good thing about this: all this kookiness looks a lot like his extreme response to new dogs. But with the vet, and other people, it's all about a desire to greet, mixed with an utter inability to get control of his impulses when he's frustrated from his desires. This suggests that his extreme reactions to new dogs may be as much about greeting desire and frustration, not about aggression.

What was frustrating to me is that the dozens and dozens of hours we've put in, the thousands of repetitions, the endless endless practices--it's not enough. More, more, more! Sometimes, when I look at Vanya, I think: how much is enough, sweetheart? Can I ever do enough repetitions so that you can stay calm when you want something?

Anyway, when the vet finished with Tiva's surgery and it was time for Vanya's checkup, he was thrilled to bits and was a wonderful boy with Dr Chris. When his visit was over and it was time for him to go back out, he refused, wanting to stay with her and her freeze-dried liver treats forever. She finally came out of her van to walk back to the farmhouse, so I didn't have to haul Mr Let Me Stay with the Nice Vet Forever across the farmyard. My, he looked beautiful as he did a lovely dancing heel by her side, gazing into her eyes (hoping for her liver treat)--he looked like he was ready for the Westminster Show.

Ok, enough excitement for the moment. An hour later, I had to run into the village for some milk, so I brought him along for a practice walk in the village to work on greeting new people nicely, and then a practice walk on the bike trail to walk calmly by Jake the Mellow Lab. As we drove into the village, he started screaming from his crate. When we tried to walk through the village, 7 dogs came by (in 4 different groups). We didn't get far from my car, which I was using as a blind--when Vanya begins screaming at another dog, moving him out of sight can calm him down quickly. Each time I got him to calm down for a moment, ANOTHER few dogs would come running by (luckily, thank heavens, none of them came running up to us, even though some were off leash). Finally, I just gave up, cut my losses, stuffed him back into his crate, and got the heck out of Dodge. I'm surprised the people in the parking lot didn't call the police--we sure were disturbing the peace. Oh well.

On the way back to the farm, we did stop by the bike trail to do pass-bys with Jake the Mellow Lab. Vanya actually showed no interest whatsoever in poor Jake, who looks pretty ill. That sad dog seems to be kept in his kennel 24 hours a day--they used to take him out for walks, but this time his kennel had a lot of poop in it, and Jake seemed either ill or just too dejected to come out of his dog house and greet us. Poor, poor Jake. This reminds me that, for all Vanya's challenges, he really does have a wonderful life: tons of downtime lounging around the house hanging out with people, 20 fenced acres to run around in as much as he wants, a long walk or bike ride or ski every day, another dog and plenty of people to play with, and an endless supply of rodents and bunnies to track.

Today Vanya went up to Madison with me for an interview, so I could take him for a long hike on the Ice Age Trail after the talk. He did very well indeed on the walk--no pulling, screaming, etc; only one person and no dogs to greet, but a ton of lovely smells to sniff.

Good and bad

2010-03-02T20:49:00.000-06:00

Vanya did well on his evening pass-by with mellow Jake the yellow lab. He didn't do so well on his twilight walk in the village of Monticello--everything seemed to get him wired. Twilight clearly isn't his best time for new environments. After a few blocks, I decided to cut our losses and head back to the farm, the super-duper size of Jim Beam in tow. Vanya did get to meet a couple sweet people, who were even kind enough to stand still and wait for him to sit before they cooed and petted him. In his red jacket, he's pretty adorable--it screams "I'm a goofy puppy!" rather than "I'm the terrifying pit bull!"

Another pass-by

2010-02-28T20:04:00.001-06:00

Another little success today: we did another pass-by with the yellow lab, and Vanya was too bored to even yodel. Yippie! Doing these pass-bys after I ski-jor with him helps a lot--although he wasn't too tired to yodel at a nice couple passing by, who laughed at him, because he was wagging his tail so hard he almost knocked himself over.

I still don't have the nerve to try this with a regular dog walking by on the sidewalk, since Vanya in full cry does a passable imitation of an emergency warning siren.

I've been traveling for work, so Vanya hasn't gotten as much practice as I'd like. We've skijored a couple times in the past week, but I think we're all getting tired of mushy snow and mud. We're working on recalls a lot more, since they've degenerated a bit, probably because of using the e-collar (on very low stim, but it still changed the cue from meaning: "run really fast to Nancy because I'm about to get the most amazing treat and game possible!" to "I'd better amble on over, otherwise something ucky might happen". Our emergency recall cue was going to be "Cheeseburgers!" but I shortened it to "cheese!" to remind me that this is about Vanya WANTING to come, not about me forcing him to come.

Going to Town

2010-02-21T15:30:00.000-06:00

Today we went to the village. How exciting! Well, for Vanya it is. We got to practice: walking calmly past the yellow lab in his kennel, greeting the lab, coming away from the lab, greeting two people (the lab's owners) and trying hard to sit politely while they scratched his ears, looking at other people and not screaming when denied the chance to greet them, walking calmly through the main street of town and ignoring the decrepit souls going into bars at midday on Sunday.

He did much better at all these activities. He was able to keep a loose leash and unfurrowed brow while we approached the kenneled dog, and he wasn't particularly interested in greeting that dog (Jake, by the way). We passed by the lab 5 times, and each time he was able to glance at the lab and then focus on other things. He did try to jump up on the nice lady (Peggy) who petted him (and who owns Jake) and he did begin to yodel when the worker across the alley didn't have time to say hi to him. And he was pretty intense on the village streets, stressed, but not vocalizing at people (having trouble watching me, however, when cued to do so. Bribes helped). Overall, he did much, much better than he has in the past. Even though he wasn't very relaxed about town yet, at least he didn't go over threshold at all. I tried hard to capture and mark and reward his moment of relaxation and calmness. Now he is very tired. Me too!

More Shaping

2010-02-20T13:47:00.000-06:00

We shaped front feet up on a perch, rear end circling around, in part for me to practice clicking for behavior, treating for position.

Here's the first clip, when I'm still trying to figure out where to stand:

Here's the second clip, when Vanya begins to believe that he's being clicked for dipping his head, not for moving his feet (since he dipped his head and moved his feet at the same time, when I was clicking his read end moving). I have a hard time isolating specific behaviors, to put it mildly: if I keep the rate of reinforcement nice and high, my dogs can't tell what exactly I'm reinforcing. If I try to isolate the specific behavior too quickly, they get frustrated:

And finally, here's the third clip, when he's turning (and still dipping some):

Another stuffed dog

2010-02-20T13:37:00.000-06:00

On another forum, someone who also has a leash reactive dog asked if it's possible to use a stuffed dog to teaching a dog more appropriate greeting behavior. In Click to Calm, Emma Parsons suggests that those of us with reactive dogs can shape better greetings in our dogs, starting by teaching our dog to do a quick nose-target to the new dog (face and bottom) and then return to us for a treat. I was a little dubious about doing this with an actual dog, much less a stuffed dog, but I figured more practice with targets can't hurt.

Here's a clip of Vanya going over to his familiar Miss Plushy and the new plush spaniel (Puppy) for a nose-target or sniff, then turn run back to either me or the Manners Minder for a treat. He caught on quickly, although it really seems like target practice, not greeting-a-new-dog practice:

We also worked on pass-bys with the 2 plush dogs, first on the leash, then off leash (off leash he did dash over to nose Miss Plushy):

Now I need to work on being lower-key, aiming less to distract him with hyper behavior on my part, and more on rewarding all his little signs of calmness. We did this yesterday, but I didn't take video clips. Now it's time to try it with real dogs---but today is so snowy and wet, I really don't feel like venturing out into the muck.

Yesterday we tracked bunnies in the wildlife area. He sure is enthusiastic, especially when he's zipping through a patch of briars and I'm flailing about trying to follow without impaling myself.

A real dog!

2010-02-17T15:22:00.000-06:00

Today, after a week of Miss Plushy, I got up the nerve to do meet and greets with a real dog--a huge, intact male yellow lab, who is the calmest, least reactive dog in the world, so far as I can tell. The dog lives in a kennel along the bike trail in Monticello, and several weeks ago, Vanya ran up to the dog and greeted him (separated by a fence) reasonably well: play bows, low wagging tail, some wiggles, which is a huge improvement over the usual screaming, lunging, tasmanian devil imitation.

Today, Vanya was very good with the real dog, able to approach him calmly on a loose leash, and actually pretty uninterested in him once he got a chance to go sniff and greet (they were separated by the kennel fence). Vanya was much, much more interested in greeting a person who walked by than in greeting Real Dog. I've never seem him so calm around an actual dog, so maybe this many-times a day encounter with Miss Plushy is working! To be honest, I think the most important thing about Miss Plushy is that she shapes calmness in ME. I've been so worried about screwing something up in actual dog encounters and ending up with someone else's dog hurt, that no matter how hard I try, I get tense. The first few times with Miss Plushy, I could tell my heart was racing, even though the stakes were low. So I'm getting calmer each time, and so is Vanya.

We've ordered another fake dog: the sitting Cavalier King Charles spaniel, complete with a little tongue flick.

Why are we letting Vanya meet the fake dogs? Sarah Kalnajs of Blue Dog Training mentioned that some trainers who work on assessing reactive dogs will let the dog meet the stuffed dog, in order to assess whether the test dog is likely to attack new dogs, or just likely to be a goofy Tarzan around them.

There's a specific protocol she described: start by letting your test dog see 4 actual dogs at a distance without being allowed to get near them; then round a corner and have the test dog suddenly encounter Fake Dog. Let test dog off his leash to run up to Fake Dog. If test dog, primed by seeing real dogs at a distance, immediately attacks Fake Dog, that suggests a different prognosis than if Test Dog runs up wagging and licking Fake Dog.

We didn't have 4 real dogs to set up this protocol correctly, so instead I worked on shaping calmness in Vanya in the presence of his triggers: dogs, real or fake. When Vanya was able to stay calm with a loose leash around Miss Plushy, I decided to reward him by letting him interact with her. I was, of course, curious to see if he would attack her or try to greet her.

If Vanya had launched into a scary attack of Miss Plushy, I would now probably be focusing on management strategies and getting him to be reasonably quiet when we pass leashed dogs off in the distance. But since he seemed so happy to greet Miss Plushy (and has been the same way the few times we've encountered dogs and he's been off leash), working towards Vanya having a few real dog playmates seems like a more reasonable goal. My ultimate goal, when 14 year old Tiva eventually dies, is to be able to get a second dog--in part because we live in dog heaven (20 fenced acres, 2 people who do much of their work at home, 2000 acres of wildlife land around us, a super-abundance of bunnies in the meadow ready to be tracked) and in part because I like living with 2 dogs. We had assumed a 2nd dog would be impossible because of Vanya's reactivity, but Sarah K thinks it might be a reasonable goal, so we're hoping for the best.

Today we also went ski-joring with Vanya along the bike trail (in between meet and greets). When we turned back after a couple miles to go back to the car, we got about 1/2 mile and then saw a person on the trail with 2 unleashed dogs. Oops (I had been wondering why Vanya was pulling so well as we ran back towards the car). Luckily, I had been rehearsing to myself what we would do if this happened, so I was able to turn around on my skis, calls out in a happy voice "this way!" (our 'reverse direction' cue, which we practice in calm places), and ski back, away from the car. I knew that in a few hundred yards, there was a place I could ski off the trail, back into the woods. So we did that, found some good bunny tracks to play tracking games, and waited for a while, hoping the person and dogs would have gone on by. They hadn't yet. So we turned around again (still calmly), playing some more tracking games in the woods, then tried again, and by this time, the person was out of sight.

Vanya could probably still smell them, because when I gave him the hike command, he took off and pulled like mad for the entire 2 miles. Since I'm working on his pulling, I encouraged this, letting him pull all my weight, and even snowplowing a bit to slow him down (and to make possible a quick dash into the woods if the dogs popped up suddenly). We made it back to the car, after greeting 4 snowmobilers (Vanya LOVES snowmobilers, of course), and then put the skis away and did another meet and greet with the kenneled dog. Very calm on Vanya's part (of course, he was probably exhausted after doing all the work on the run back to the car). Then a brief walk around the block in the village on the busy block, saw a dog a block away, no reaction, back to the car, and even reasonably quiet in the car. So a good outing.

When Pigs Fly: shaping games

2010-02-16T13:14:00.000-06:00

My copy of When Pigs Fly arrived this afternoon, when I was supposed to be preparing for a seminar I'm leading this evening. So I put aside my notes for the seminar and started reading all about flying pigs. Killon starts off by reminding us owners of non-biddable dogs about the need to shape rather than lure behavior. (Being an impatient sort, I nearly always lure.) So I dug out a wine box, set it on the floor, and started shaping. Vanya likes to play games. If something new appears in his environment, if he can't eat it, he usually steps on it:

At first, I shaped getting in the box, although it hardly counts as shaping if that's his first impulse (sniff? look at the box? nahh, I'll just hop inside). Then I shaped sitting in the box. Then I flipped the box over and aimed for standing on the box, then sitting, then once he started to lie down, I figured my next criterion could be: lying down on top of the box.

Cute, isn't he?

Happy Valentines Day! Youtube clips of Vanya and his sweetie

2010-02-14T13:01:00.000-06:00

Here are some video clips of Vanya and his valentine, Miss Plushy.

First, Vanya is trying to be calm as we walk, on leash, near Miss Plushy. He can manage this for a little while, but then he gets frustrated and tries to pull out of his harness: (he's blurry and off in the distance, upper left of screen); see this video and the others after the break....

He does calm back down in about 20 seconds (off screen), offers me his focus behaviors nicely, and as a reward, he gets to run over and greet Plushy:

Then he can focus much closer to her, on leash, and offer his focus behaviors politely (although he's still excited enough to jump up a bit for his treats):

And finally, off leash, he does a couple recalls and as a reward gets to go pounce on her again. By now, he's had several interactions with her this morning, so he knows she's a stuffed animal, not a real dog:

Vanya meets Miss Plushy; falls in love

2010-02-13T18:36:00.000-06:00

Vanya got to meet Miss Plushy yesterday, and today they had their second date. I think he's in love, or at least in lust.

Yesterday, he was behaving politely near her, so I let him off leash and gave him the "go say hi!" cue, which I also use with the chickens (and it means: sniff and wag, but no teeth). If Vanya had zoomed over and attacked Miss Plushy, I would have been worried. But instead, he bounded over, tail wagging, sniffed her mouth, then curved around and sniffed her bottom then her groin. He began to seem a little puzzled and came back to her mouth and started licking her muzzle. She fell over (what a nice submissive pup!) and he went back to sniffing her groin, then doing some play bowing in front of her. Eventually, it seemed to occur to him that she was awfully unresponsive, so he started chewing her nose, and at that point I called him away. Then I moved Miss Plushy to new places around the farm, and every time I walked him back into sight of her, he got excited once again: A DOG! Woo Hoo! (Ok, maybe Vanya's not the sharpest knife in the drawer).

I was very reassured that his response to her was to greet her, not to attack her.

Today we went through the routine again. He once again got very, very excited to see her off in the orchard, and had a bit of a hard time heeling politely as we walked in her direction. When I released him to go greet her, he bounded over, tail wagging, and started licking her. So, he's not polite, but at least he's not too aggressive. Just frustrated. Today he decided to try humping her to see if she's wake up and start playing (the very first thing I've ever seen him try to hump). When that didn't work, he decided to chew her toes (ok, I have a pervert for a pup).

LAT with chickens, Miss Plushy part 2, village walk

2010-02-11T12:44:00.000-06:00

SHAPING CALMNESS AROUND THE CHICKENS:
Yesterday Vanya did a very nice job being calm with the chickens. His main concern with the chickens right now is getting to eat their food scraps, of course, but he can still play LAT (even though at first he thought I must have been referring to a squirrel, so he scanned the woods for squirrels rather than looking at the hens). That's fine:

SHAPING CALMNESS AROUND DOGS:
We had another fun session with Miss Plushy. This time we got much closer--perhaps 12 feet away. He lunged at her once or twice, but with fairly playful body language. He was able to perform his cues, and also calm down quite a bit, which I tried to reward him well for (salmon burgers). My attempt to film this session didn't work--I got a nice video of the car by mistake.

Another nice thing about practicing with a fake dog: I can calm way, way down. I don't have to worry about anybody getting hurt if I screw up! Even in the midst of practicing with Vanya and Miss Plushy, I could tell my heart rate and excitement were up, so repeated practice is a way to shape calmness in ME, not just in Vanya.

SHAPING CALMNESS IN NEW ENVIRONMENTS
Not so good last night--we tried a walk in the village of Monticello, outside the grocery store. It had just gotten dark and was quite cold. Last night, he was pretty stressed, although he could perform his cues (sit, target, heel) once we got off the main street. When I took the GL off his muzzle, he was actually a bit calmer, which is interesting. In the fall, we went here a fair bit and he could stay reasonably calm, so his stress last night surprised me a bit. We'll try again today in Monroe, when it's bright outside and warmer.

PLAYING GMAB
Going well with Tiva and the chickens.

feb 2010: practicing with Plushy, the stuffed life-size dog

2010-02-09T15:55:00.000-06:00

Our life-sized plush husky came today (from amazon; Melissa & Doug is the brand), and much to my surprise, from a short distance, she really does look real. I had set her up in the snowy orchard for some LAT/shaping calmness/focus around distractions work with Vanya, but I had no idea if he would be persuaded by her, or if instead he would wonder why a stuffed toy was standing out in the snowstorm. My husband drove up, however, and he thought the dog was real--he also thought I had lost my mind, coming home with another dog from the pound.

Once I calmed Frank down, he went out to "play" with the plush stuffed dog in the orchard (let's call her Plushy), while I put Vanya in his harness combination, armed myself with treats, and walked out around the barn, perhaps 100 ft from Plushy and Frank. The instant Vanya saw the two of them, he started pulling and vocalizing with excitement and trying to run over to them (he had already greeted Frank, so this wasn't about seeing Frank--it was his classic attempt to greet a new dog or person. Not aggression, but over threshold. Oops).

So we regrouped, retreating back behind a barrier, while I gave Vanya time to calm down so we could try again with a less intense setup (Frank was no longer near Plushy, Vanya and I started further away, and my treats were better).

We then did a series of quick exercises around her, staying at first about 100 feet away while Vanya practiced LAT, hand targets, sit, focus, "this way" (sudden changes of direction), and heel. I'm not really sure if Vanya wants more distance or less distance as a reward, but I know that he always wants salmon as a reward, so he got a lot of crumbled costco salmon burger. He was able to perform his cues, as long as we kept moving and I didn't let him stare at Plushy (he could glance, but then I wanted him to look back at me--not just to avoid going over threshold, but also because I didn't want him to figure out she's fake.) We didn't get all that close, because Vanya was pretty intense about glancing at her and then whipping his head back to me, and I didn't want to send him over threshold. However, he was able to offer calmer signals after several pass-bys at a distance--softer mouth, lower wagging tail, softer posture.

So: until he figures her out to be an imposter, we have a way to practice!

feb 2010: apostle island sled dog races

2010-02-09T09:41:00.000-06:00

My first sled dog race! What a blast! I want to be a sled dog when I grow up. As a friend said to me, in the midst of the pandemonium from 200 excited sled dogs: "I never thought I'd be around dogs who make Vanya look calm."

For a taste of the sound and excitement:

And for some pictures of the dogs--these are dogs that are lined up in the starting block, the next team to go, being held by volunteers while the driver (often a young woman--some mushers were as young as 8) does the final check. Each photo is taken during the 30 second countdown before the whistle. These dogs are ready to go. (The first two slides are of my friend's granddaughter, who is imitating a werewolf. She's Stella, also known as Vanya's skijor ballast on the sled.)

From Apostle Islands Sled Dog Races Feb 2010

feb 8 2010: successes

2010-02-09T09:39:00.002-06:00

So many of these posts are about Vanya's challenges. But he's also had tons of successes, so here's a quick list of things that used to trigger a stress reaction and now do not. Thanks to Control Unleashed, DS and CC, and tons of cheezwhiz.

Current Triggers

off-leash dog (some)
on-leash dog (some)
the city
person approaching in the city--he's not afraid, but he sure does want to greet them, and if he can't, he sometimes whines and struggles
bikes & runners zipping by in the city
slowing down when we're driving or turning (are we there yet??)
lights reflecting on the cabin skylight
6 people in the tiny cabin eating dinner off the coffee table and then he finishes his bone and people are still eating. At nose height. That's hard. He whines.

OK, he's not always calm. But look at all the things that used to flip him out and no longer do ------

Former Triggers:

ones in blue elicited fear or hyper-sensitivity

ones in green elicited zoomies/hyper-play/way over excitement

ones in pink elicited being a PESt and screaming for what he wanted.

ones in red elicited aggression or guarding

baths--oh the screams and dancing away when I first tried
someone eating in front of him: FEED ME NOW!!!!he would shriek and launch himself into the diner's lap
someone eating upstairs when he had been put downstairs after being a pest and leaving his mat
being left alone: now he snoozes, no SA
a piece of cloth touching his back (when I first tried to get goose poop off him)
booties for the snow, jacket for snow
nail clipping
bikes & runners going by the farm
vans with kids and car seats
people trying to get him out of cars
people coming near him when he found a bone
people grabbing his collar
people pulling him away from stolen chicken feed
noises in the woods
noises on the street
noises in the basement
waves on the shore
deer, rabbits, chickens, any critters
people coming to the farm
people leaving the farm
people driving by the farm and not stopping
the maillady
the UPS guy
the FedEx guy not so much
spending his first night in our new house
snow
skis
snowmobiles passing him while sking
pulling a sled behind him
a noisy, goofy little girl
people touching his eyes, ears, toes, back
Frank hugging him or restraining him
anyone leaving: PET ME NOW!
anyone coming: PET ME NOW!
anyone petting him: YIPPIE!!!!
anyone walking by: PET ME NOW!
anyone playing with him: YIPPIE!!!!
the vet
tug
walks

Ok, a lot of this was just intense excitement at getting out of the shelter and into a new environment. He took a while to settle.

To work on his overall arousal levels, we did the following:

Karen Overall's Relaxation Protocol
Zen games
mat work
shaping tiny approximations of the desired calm behavior, especially starting with nose targets (ie, if nail clipping or eye drops were going to freak him out, I started by having him target the clippers or eye dropper)
Off Switch games in CU
Give me a Break in CU (but I was never sure I really understood those--still trying)
Lots of default sit work
Freeze tag: an off switch game
Nose work: at first just scattering his kibble in the grass, then food puzzle games, eventually home-grown tracking work which we still try to do often
wrapping him up tightly at night (not in an anxiety wrap, just in a blanket--what a difference that made with night startles
melatonin when he was waking up a lot at night and scanning the ceiling
L-theamine now
lots of long, slow walks in the woods where he could be off leash and sniff around
lots of wandering around in the our fields, orchard and prairie
lots of hanging out under the trees reading (well, I read; he chews his bones--he's smart but not that smart)

feb 7 2010: consult with Sarah Kalnajs of Blue Dog

2010-02-09T09:39:00.000-06:00

After a 3 hour private consult with Sarah Kalnajs of Blue Dog Training, she felt Vanya was one of the more hyper-aroused dogs she had ever seen. The Dog's Best Friend private trainer back in Feb. 2008 had said pretty much the same thing. He wins a prize!

Seriously, new environments do get him wound up. For all the progress we've made with him on his arousal issues, he has a long, long ways to go. Wish us luck! We're both exhausted. At some point I will write out the homework and training goals Sarah set for us, and possibly even describe the consult, once I've digested it a bit more.

Briefly, part of my homework is to figure out what his triggers for arousal are and what his various signs are--I'm to get a baseline on the farm (where he is very calm, after years of relaxation protocol and impulse control work), and then take him to 3 new places (without dogs). She wants me to record his triggers for arousal, and rank them from 1 to 5, and record his signs of arousal (scanning, shrieking, staring at ceilings, piloerection, etc), and then record how long it takes him to calm down in various situations.

His foundation focus behaviors are very good with distractions on the farm: watch me, sit, let's go, target, leave it, recall.

But in the city, at her house, he started out being able to offer his foundation behaviors, but after 30 minutes in the room (small room, 3 new people, 8 dogs and cats in the house but not visible), he was getting more wound up, and soon his cues fell apart and he started shrieking at runners he saw through the window. He's not used to cities, to put it mildly. On the walk with the trainer, he didn't scream, or lunge at dogs that he saw halfway down the block, but he did teeth-chatter when he peed, and he wasn't able to take treats or respond to target cues. The main part of my homework is to take him into the village and town, away from other dogs, and work on his foundation behaviors in novel environments.

And then I need to take him to far outside a dog park (or place with other controlled dogs that won't run up to us), and work on shaping calmer behavior--essentially, the relaxation protocol work we did for quite a while on the farm, but off the farm. Then, if we can shape calmness around her dogs (he can glance at me for a treat, but he doesn't calm down now), we'll try working up to pass-bys. She is going to talk with Dr Sophia Yin about consulting with my vet on meds, if we can't shape a bit more calmness in novel environments over the next month.

For a comparison, she thought he is less dog aggressive than many dogs we work with, but among the most aroused of dogs she's worked with. She is confident we can make progress because he has calmed down so much on the farm, around our chickens and around our dogs.

For another comparison, I asked how he compared to Dr Yin's Podhee, who lunges and barks a lot more. She said Vanya was far, far more aroused. She held her fingers close together: "this is Podhee's arousal." Then she held her arms wide apart: "this is Vanya's arounsal." Okey dokey.

Here's Podhee for comparison:

http://www.askdryin.com/elearning/lsh.php#

She and her co-workers eventually took a basket-muzzled Vanya out to interact in the back yard with one of her calm female dogs. Vanya was muzzled and also on the hands-free leash (held at, I think, 4 ft). I watched from the porch, so Vanya wasn't reacting to me reacting. Vanya did not do very well. The female dog had to tell him to back off, buster, when he put his head over her neck, and he snarled when she told him off. Then he got pulled away, and from where I was standing, he seemed to get very frustrated. He got another chance to sniff her behind, and from what I could see (which was a partial view--I will get the video), she warned him off again, a sign to the trainers that he was sending aggressive signals to her.

Sarah thought he hadn't started out as an aggressive dog, but he had failed to learn appropriate dog-signals and was acting like a jerk. She wanted him to learn to calm way, way down around new dogs before trying introductions again. So we are to work on two things: focus in greater distractions and shaping calmness in greater distractions.

winter 2010: skijoring

2010-02-09T09:37:00.000-06:00

I had tried to start ski-joring with Vanya the first winter I got him, but he was too hyper, so I put that idea on hold. This winter, I figured I'd try again. Juneau had been a wonderful ski-jor dog, and she hadn't ever really needed training. With Vanya, because I'd spent much of the past 2 years training him NOT to pull on leash, teaching him to pull in harness was challenging. But a blast! He is proving to be a champ at ski-joring, and we have a wonderful time doing it.

Here are a few basic things we learned along the way:

1. PULLING: First and most important, ski-joring is NOT really a weight-pulling sport; it's a running sport. You ski the whole time, and friction is minimal with the snow, so the dog pulls only a tiny fraction of your weight. Somewhere I read that it takes less than 20 lbs of force for a dog to pull a 200 lb skier, but I can't find the citation, so don't quote me on that. This means that when I've done the drag-training ground work, I've rarely gone up above 8 lbs (a gallon jug filled with water).

2. WARMTH: Equally important, dogs don't need thick coats for ski-joring, and sprint dogs are nearly always short-haired pointers (or pointer mixes). The thick coats are needed for mushing dogs who do the long races, since they sleep out at night, but skijorers rarely have to worry about that. A long coat is actually problematic for ski-joring dogs (supposedly it makes it harder for them to cool off during a sprint, but that sounds odd to me, because the paws and panting are where a dog cools off).

Staying warm: Vanya's coat doesn't get very thick in the winter, so we use this coat if the temperature is below 25: http://www.dogbooties.com/products/indogjacsmal.html

It's very well made, a great price, a great company, and it's easy to put on and off. I put it on when we're getting geared up, and if he starts to warm up too much when we're running, I can take it off in a flash and store it in my backpack.

3. FEET: A pit's feet are actually pretty well designed for snow, since they don't have enough hair between the toes to form ice balls. Still, I always carry booties, and if the temperature is below 25, I put them on the dogs. These booties have worked the best for us:http://www.dogbooties.com/products/330decobo.html

Thin cordura nylon seems to work a lot better than fleece (unless it's below 5 degrees, in which case fleece might be needed for the warmth.) Booties are cheap and they wear out after 100 miles of running. You need to pull the velcro a bit tighter than one usually thinks is necessary, but not so tight they cut off circulation. Fancy, thick, expensive booties sold by RuffWear and other companies aren't good for skijoring or other winter sports--too thick, too uncomfortable.

Mushers Secret can help for conditioning the pads, and TuffFoot is good too. But these two products don't provide protection against cold, so they don't replace booties. Lots of treats got my dogs used to the booties quickly.

4. HARNESS & GEAR: x-back harnesses aren't great for skijoring, since the angle is too steep up to the skijorers belt. And pits don't really fit the x-back harnesses all that well. Most skijorers I know use something called a "Distance harness" (scroll a third of the way down the page): http://www.howlingdogalaska.com/index.php?page=supplies

Again, since this sport is about running rather than weight, the harness requirements are a bit different than for weight-pulling.

The skijoring belt and tugline made by Howling Dog are great, but a bit pricy. I love them: (scroll to the bottom of the page: http://www.howlingdogalaska.com/index.php?page=supplies

People have good things to say about this skijor belt and tug, which are less expensive: http://www.nooksackracing.com/skijoring.html

Their trekking belt is inexpensive, but if you're doing much skijoring, the more expensive belts really do take a lot of the pressure off your lower back, so I think they're worth the extra $15 or so.

A skijor tug line should have bungie in it, so neither the dog nor the person gets hurt from sudden pressure on the line. Howling Dog, Nordkapp Racing, and this company (Nordkynn) all have good examples: http://www.nordkyn.com/skijor.htm

Trails: stay off groomed ski trails, of course. Forest Service roads are great; multi-use snowmobile trails are fine, if allowed. Wear a blaze orange or road safety vest so the snowmobilers can see you. My favorite places to skijor are on frozen sloughs, bays, estuaries, marshes and lakes, when the snow is windpacked and there are lots of places to run.

5. Training:
a. start with groundwork, of course, training your dog to happily pull a light weight (5 lbs) behind her. You start out with her leashed to you, trotting along in front, offering lots of praise and treats. Then ease back behind her, until she is trotting with the weight in front of you. I've used targets and lures and "rabbits" to chase, but it might well be best to follow the slow, steady progression described here: http://tinyurl.com/yz7kr35 (you may need to be a member of the clickersolutions yahoo group to read this).
b. I find it very helpful to go out with other skiers and snowshoers to encourage my Vanya to skijor. It's also helpful for me to ski beside him (with a leash connected to his harness), while he pulls someone else, or a sled with a child or weight in it. Soon he'll want to be pulling both of us, so I drop behind and add a tiny bit of my weight to his harness.
c. as always, keep the sessions SHORT and fun, and stop before the dog wants to stop. Always keep a little pressure on the line, so your dog learns to expect the pressure. This means a lot of snowplowing when you go down hills. And never, ever, run into your dog with your skis. While you're learning, it's helpful to hold the line in your hand so you can drop it instantly and ski to the side if you feel you're losing control

d. basic commands to teach:
LINE OUT--walk 10 steps or so forward in harness, to take up the slack, then wait for the next command:
HIKE--means start to run (or trot for my dogs)
WHOA--stop!
EASY--slow down
ON BY--don't stop to sniff that deer pee; keep on going past the distraction
GEE: turn right (I just use "go right")
HAW: turn lefthttp://www.Sleddogcentral.com is a great website. They have a program to connect you with a mentor to help you with skijoring

When the snow is off the trails, you can switch to canicross or scootering (safer than bikejoring!). Dogslovetorun is the best yahoo group I've found for advice on skijoring and scootering. http://www.rundawgrun.com/canicross.html is a useful website as well.

The toucan 20 is very popular with skijorers for spring and fall training: http://www.bikemania.biz/ProductDetails ... e_Toucan20

fall 2009: the wonderful manners minder

2010-02-09T09:29:00.000-06:00

Youtube clips from Fall 2009:

For my birthday, I got a Manners Minder. Oh wonderful thing!

I started by following the excellent training DVD to teach Vanya calm behavior when visitors come. Here's a youtube clip of him learning how to handle actual people (before the MM, I would keep him on the leash and have him sit when he greeted people, while I shoved treats into his mouth, since otherwise he would jump all over them in an effort to lick their faces. He adores all new people):

Vanya soon became extremely attached to his MM, and I realize it could be an excellent tool for training distractions. We live in a rural area, so it can be hard to find good distractions for him, but the MM fit the bill. So, to work on his loose leash walking, I used the MM as his distraction for working with the penalty yards technique. The MM would start beeping and dispensing, and we would walk toward it as long as he kept the leash loose. This was a wonderful way to work on his LLW. Then we worked on the gentle leader, again with the MM as his distraction. Here's a clip:

Then we worked on proofing off-leash attention, stays, heeling, and recalls, once again with the MM as his distraction:

Then we started training Vanya to ski-jor, where he needs to pull in harness. Since I'd spent a lot of time teaching him NOT to pull, this took some effort. I used the MM as a lure in the early stages to get him to run and pull, then I started fading the lure by placing the MM out of his sight:

But our biggest challenge with Vanya is leash reactivity. We play a lot of "look at that" games from Control Unleashed to help work on this, but I'm also wondering about ways we might incorporate the MM into this. It's really hard to find something that can get his attention when a strange dog is in the vicinity--even when we're walking on a trail and a new dog is hundreds of yards away, too far for me to see or hear, Vanya will go into high alert mode (letting me know another dog is
approaching). Standard treats, even cheese, won't work to get his attention, so we have to be very very far away to play the LAT games. But since he is sooooooo in love with his MM, I'm wondering if I might have luck using it. Perhaps I'll try a setup, when we're a zillion miles away from a dog in the distance (ok, 100 yards), and see if Vanya can offer a quick glance at the dog then glance back at me for a MM beep/treat.

The MM has been a real life-saver for this hyper young pittie. We use it every day--for his regular meals, for practicing recalls and targeting, stays and distractions, and just for entertainment and exercise on rainy days.

Oct 2009: another unfortunate consult with private trainer

2010-02-09T09:28:00.000-06:00

In October 2009, I went to yet another private trainer to work on Vanya's leash reactivity. My goal was to get him to a place where he could socialize off leash with other dogs, so that his counterconditioning to leashed dogs could proceed a bit more smoothly. A kind trainer had suggested earlier (online) that I read Jean Donaldson's book FIGHT and look at the section on "Tarzans," because she thought my Vanya sounded a lot more like a Tarzan than an aggressive dog--ie, a dog with terrible social skills who was desperate to meet and frustrated by being restrained around other dogs. So I had embarked on a search for a trainer who would work with me to get Vanya to the point where he could be off leash with some selected dogs. (First I had bought him a basket muzzle and conditioned him to stick his nose into it for cheezwhiz). The e-trainer ran socialization sessions and after she watched Vanya on a long line around another dog, she thought it wouldn't be a problem to get him to that point, because she also thought he lacked social skills but wasn't showing aggression.

This was a very well-respected e-collar trainer, and because the e-collar had worked so well to stop Vanya's livestock chasing, and because I was feeling a bit desperate to find socialization opportunities, I thought: well, okay. We first went to her for a consult in July 2009, and her work with Vanya around another dog was pretty overwhelming (read: flooding), but it did seem to have some benefits right afterwards--he was able to play briefly (muzzled) with another male dog (but too roughly), and then he was able to approach that dog several times, leashed, without completely flipping out. So I tried to do the homework she gave me, and then when I returned to southern Wisconsin in the fall, I went to see her again in October, hoping that we could try some socialization around other dogs.

I wrote that evening:

"Today my reactive young pittie Vanya and I had a stupendously terrible experience with a private trainer. But I think I learned a useful lesson. The goal was to work at a distance with calm dogs, so that Vanya could stay under his threshold and work on paying attention to me, instead of shrieking, lunging, and doing his tasmanian devil imitation in his attempt to get to them (this seems mostly in a frustrated desire to greet, but it's inappropriate all the same).

But instead of a nice training session, it was the 20 minutes from hell. I arrived early, went to check in, and she was working with a class of trainers-in-training. The trainer did not ask permission to let her group observe or participate; she just said her class would be over soon. I said I'd be out in the outside field, walking with Vanya a little, while she got ready. Vanya and I were out there, working on a nice loose leash walk, when all 8 people suddenly walked out and starting clapping and calling him, as a distraction. Surprise! Vanya forgot his LLW and pulled toward them, wagging his tail and yodelling, in an attempt to lick them all. I got his attention (and he actually turned back to me for a sit and treat). Ah, but the very fact that my dog pulled toward them for a moment was proof of "the failure of our relationship". I should have left at that moment. But alas, I stayed.

All 8 came up to me and for the next 20 minutes proceeded to give endless amounts of punishment (to me, not Vanya, whose leash was in my hand). All 8 seemed to be talking at once, telling me different things about what was wrong with Vanya, what was wrong with my relationship with him. They were seriously all talking at once, but none of them gave me a clue about what behavior they wanted from me in response. I had no idea whatsoever how to turn their verbal punishment off, because I didn't have a clue what response they wanted from me. I kept trying to do what they seemed to be telling me to do, (ie, someone would say: "you shouldn't be talking so much to him," so I would get quieter, and then they would say "you need to tell him what you want from him." Everytime I did something, they would tell me that I did it wrong--but not specifically should have been different-- and then go on and on and on about the "flaws" in our relationship. I tried to focus on him, and they told me that was wrong, I should let him be a dog and not stay focused on him. So I released him to go say hi, and they told me I did that wrong. Then they all started telling each other what a smart dog he was, if only I wasn't training him all wrong. Finally, the trainer told me a specific behavior she wanted from me: she wanted me not to look at my dog, and only look and talk at the people. I did that for a little while (but how long did she want me to do that? who knows.) Finally, I looked down at Vanya. Then the trainer said: "See ! I can't help you. You're too focused on your dog."

So I left.

It was the most surreal experience. On the drive home, I thought maybe the trainer had planned this as one of those training games for her trainers-in-training: "look! I'm going to show you all that's wrong with negative punishment and negative reinforcement! We'll use this unsuspecting client as the animal. Watch carefully, class! You just keep punishing a critter without giving her any information about how to turn the punishment off, you never communicate clearly what you want, and look! she stresses out! she shuts down! Look carefully and you'll learn exactly what you should never do to a dog! Observe closely what the absence of positive reinforcement does in a training session. See--because we're never giving her any praise, she has no idea when she's doing right, which means she has no idea what we want from her. Remember this well when you go to train your clients and dogs!"

Oh well, I learned something useful: the importance of positive approaches. Ethically and intellectually, I've always believed in them, but until that moment, I didn't really have an emotional sense of how confusing and stressful bad training is for the creature being trained. The punishment they were giving me conveyed no information whatsoever. I had no idea what they wanted. I had no idea how to turn it off. I'm a pretty confident, stable, happy person, but I still shut down under all that. If I were a dog, I would have bit them.

One hopes I can remember this lesson when I teach my own grad students, and see them shut down under the pressure of criticism in oral exams."

This experience also taught me never to put the e-collar on Vanya when we might encounter another dog.

oct 2009: loose leash walking

2010-02-09T09:26:00.000-06:00

We tried a number of different things over the years (sensible harness, gentle leader, "be a tree", silky leash, etc). Here's what worked best for us:

"Teaching loose leash walking (LLW) has been quite a struggle for me with my

young, reactive pitbull. We've tried tons of different methods, and they've been
about 90% successful, but when he sees something he really really wants, he
pulls. I finally (this week!) figured out a method that works. It's pretty
obvious, of course, why my dog wasn't learning before: I was increasing criteria
too quickly, and my reinforcements weren't strong enough, and the rate of
reinforcement was too low. So I sat down, with my nifty new toy the Manners
Minder (which has quickly become my dog's favorite thing on earth) and wrote
down a plan. It's a mixture of Lindsey Newman's LLW game (posted in the files
section on the Clicker Solution's yahoo group website, at
http://tinyurl.com/lpehpl) and a modified version of the penalty yards game
posted at http://www.clickertraining.biz/nopull.htm

This may seem obvious to everyone else, but breaking the process into tiny steps
and writing them down really helped us.

1. FOUNDATIONS:

Start with the foundations: rewarding the dog intensively for being near you
when you walk. Teach her what you want him to do. Start inside with no
distractions. Then work up to larger distractions inside, then move outside to
the yard, and only then try a walk. Use wonderful treats and use a lot of them.
For 3 days, the dog gets all his kibble as treats during this game. Every single
kibble!

a. start in your living room without a leash. Play with your dog for a moment
to get him interested, then walk away, and c/t when your dog follows you. Turn
and walk in another direction, c/t for following you. Do this 10 times
(quickly--it's a game).

b. then raise your criteria: only c/t when he's within 6 feet of your left side.
Do this for a minute (I set a timer which keeps me from cheating), offering at
least 10-15 c/t during that minute. Then stop and call him over for a sit. Then
start again. Repeat the minute-long game 5 times quickly.

c. then take a break, and later that day, do it again. Vary your speed a bit and
do lots of turns, c/t whenever your dog is close to your left leg. Do this for
one minute intervals, with a brief break in between each time, and repeat 5
times. Keep the reinforcement rate very high.

d. then put on the leash, and repeat. C/t at least 15 times in a minute, repeat
5 times. Your dog should be merrily chasing you around the living room. You,
Lee, are the Treat Machine and Archie is playing the world's best game: making
the Treat Machine dispense.

2. BORING YARD as DISTRACTION

Now go outside in a fenced, boring yard, then start the game over from a through
d, this time with the minor distractions of the yard.

Then go back indoors, and add a friend (or spouse) trying to distract the dog
while you are practicing. Increase the distractions one at a time, with tossed
balls, squeaky toys, etc.

Then move outside to your boring back yard, adding in distractions. Make the
game fast, merry, rewarding, fun.

3. A REAL LIVE WALK!

Now it's time to try a walk down the street. Give him lots of aerobic exercise
in the yard before you head out for practice walks, of course, since you won't
actually be going far--maybe 100 yards, if that.

Practice for a moment inside, then in the yard, then move onto a boring road.
Keep your rate of reinforcement very high--you might be shoveling treats into
his mouth.

Pick a leash length you want him to stick to (I use 6 ft), and C/t BEFORE he
reaches the end of that length. Vary your direction, run around a bit, make this
FUN. Set him up for success, keeping distractions at a minimum, using tons of
treats.

He should NEVER have a chance to get to the end of the leash in this first set
of walks. Rinse, lather, repeat. A lot.

Keep a written record. It helps.

4. ADDING A CUE:

Then I add a cue word--I use the word "easy," meaning "walk with me on a loose
leash." Some people don't like to use cues for LLW, because they want loose
leash to be the default behavior, but I'm more comfortable with a cue.

Repeat using lots of c/t.

5. PENALTY YARDS GAME

After 3 days, with ALL the kibble coming from this wonderful game, your dog may
now be ready for the Penalty Yards game. The beauty of the game is that it
allows you to add powerful distractions in a controlled manner, once you have a
strong set of foundations.

To start the game, move into a low distractions outdoor setting. Place a Truly
Wonderful Thing your dog desires intensely (i.e., a huge pile of stinky treats),
and put it in an obvious place, say on your quiet driveway. Let your dog watch
you place it there, and let him get a good sniff of whatever you've set down
there. Make sure he really knows it's there, and make sure he really wants
what's there. (I use the Manners Minder, now my dog's favorite thing on earth,
especially when it beeps telling him that food has been dispensed.)

Then run cheerfully (with several yummy treats in your hand) with your leashed
dog to about 20 feet away, where your dog can see the Wonderful Thing. Make sure
this starting point is obvious to both of you--I mark it by placing a jacket
there, since we'll be running back there a lot at first.

Then give your LLW cue and start walking quickly toward the Wonderful Thing.
The instant the leash goes taut, back up quickly all the way back to the
starting point. (I cheerfully say "oops! Back to the beginning!" but it's
probably best to do this silently).

Then cheerfully say your LLW cue again and walk quickly back to the Wonderful
Thing. Move forward quickly when his leash is loose, and instantly reverse
direction and zip back to the beginning the instant the leash goes taut. Make it
snappy.

When your dog finally makes it to the Wonderful Thing, throw a party. Jackpot!
Let him devour his wonderful thing, and then give more treats. Then run back to
the start point and repeat 3 times.

It took my dog 3 very frustrating attempts to get at his Wonderful Thing until
he finally reached it. But when he got it, he really understood.

After a break, repeat, and begin the play the Penalty Yards game in different,
more distracting places. Make sure the Wonderful Thing is truly wonderful for
your dog, something he desperately wants to reach. The more alluring it is, the
faster he'll figure out that LLW gets him what he wants.

Good luck! The lesson from my experience is: work on the foundations first;
increase criteria slowly; use great reinforcements at a high rate; and add
distractions in an orderly fashion. And keep records. (Yes, I know, that should
all go without saying.)

Nancy in WI, with a very tired Vany

sept 2009: fight

2010-02-09T09:25:00.000-06:00

Much to my dismay, Tiva and Vanya got into a fight over a package of raw chicken a guest put on the ground between them, and they each bit the other. The fight lasted maybe 10 seconds, and neither dog grabbed or held the other--it was all flashing teeth. But the teeth made contact, for the first time, and Tiva required stitches. (When my husband picked Tiva up and held her over his head, he thought Vanya's teeth got her as he pulled her away, leading to the rip. Who knows). They've had a few little snarks in the past, but they were all vocal displays and no bites. This was very upsetting.

We were prepared to crate and rotate, since our farm is well set-up for it (two floors in a loft that can be separated with a baby gate), but I wanted to get them calm together again. This is what I did, and it has reduced their tensions enormously:

" Vanya has begun resource guarding certain indoor spaces from Tiva's approach. I'm managing the situation with baby gates (separating the two dogs we're in the room with them) and more secure separation when we're away. But I'm hoping for ways that we might be able to let them hang out together with us, without worrying that Vanya will feel the need to guard certain spaces from Tiva.

A little context: the dogs have been together for 2 years; until 6 months ago, we had a 3rd dog, an ancient husky mix. When she got quite old and feeble, Vanya also started guarding his bed area and me against her, and I dealt with that purely by management, so my ancient Juneau would never have to worry about him. Before she got feeble, they played together politely for the most part, so this seemed age-related, because Juneau was always very deferential and careful around the young male Vanya.

Tiva, however, is another matter. She's old (14), but still full of energy and she has no intention of being pushed around by the young punk. The two dogs used to play for hours outside, until Tiva got cancer 18 months ago, and she stopped wanting to play with Vanya at all. In the past month, much to my surprise, she has started initiating outside play with him again (under my close supervision), and they get along well outside.

Inside, they'll never challenge each other for a spot once they're settled, and Vanya is perfectly polite to Tiva most of the time. But if Tiva gets off her spot on the couch and wanders over to the kitchen, or bumps into Vanya's bed, he'll snap at her. (She doesn't turn her head away, as Juneau used to do--being another pibble, even an ancient one, she would get into a full-fledged display. We avoid all this by trying to be super-vigilant).

I spend a lot of time now training both of them together, and they seem to love it, and they're perfectly polite side by side, waiting their turns for the treats. I also enlist my husband's help playing Look at That with Vanya: Frank brings Tiva closer to where Vanya and I are hanging out, and as Tiva gets closer, Vanya plays LAT and gets lots of cheese for remaining calm and relaxed as Tiva approaches. When Tiva goes to the water bowl, I play LAT with Vanya. When Tiva goes to the stairs, I play LAT with Vanya. When Tiva goes to the door--you get the idea.

My sense is that I just need to keep playing this LAT game in various contexts that Vanya might feel the need to resource guard, and also continue using baby-gate management techniques when we all want to relax.

(Over the 2 years, they've had a number of noisy displays that never involvedany teeth contact, until several months ago when a guest plunked a pile of chicken parts on the ground right in between the two dogs, and Vanya bit Tiva, resulting in a few stitches. That's when the resource guarding began, and that's also when all the baby gates and LAT began. Interestingly enough, a month after I started playing all the LAT games with Vanya, Tiva started playing with Vanya again--so my guess is that, even if LAT hasn't 'solved' the indoor guarding, it has relaxed them enough so that Tiva would choose to start playing with Vanya outside. If Vanya tries to initiate play outside and Tiva turns her head away, Vanya will politely trot off and play with something else instead)

My goal is to get Vanya's resource guarding inside reduced enough so that we can have both of them in the room together with us vigilant, but not hyper-vigilant."

feb 2009: cattle chasing

2010-02-09T09:22:00.000-06:00

Vanya once again chased the neighbor's cattle, getting through the double fences we had put up. This time he got kicked, was lucky to survive, and it was clearly time to think about other options.

I wrote to the clickersolutions list: "He chased the neighbor's cattle again, getting under the 2 fences we had erected (let's not talk about the $8000 bill from the fencing company that did a lousy job, and then $1000 worth of materials and weeks of work I did on the rest of the property to completely enclose it. All I can say is: a fence is a wonderful thing, especially around 20 acres.). He got kicked badly. I wrote: "But last night, in the dark, in the 10 minutes of chaos when I got back to the farm, he somehow got under our fence, bashed through the state wildlife land marsh, and under the neighbor's cattle fence. When I called him, he came back down the hill, covered with blood and poop and barely able to drag himself. (At least he has the recall down pat.) Now, with the help of the emergency vet clinic, he's recovering (I hope) from a kick to the ribs and a (mild) lung contusion. It breaks my heart to see exuberant Vanya so quiet for the first time in his life.

Anyway, besides fixing the spot in the fence where I think he may have squeezed under, does anyone have any ideas for reintroducing him to the cattle when he recovers? Should I keep working on "leave it" commands, while he's on a long line on our side of the fence? Or should I just barricade the fence even more, and never let him catch sight of the cattle again?

Sadly,
Nancy in WI"

It turned out that a surveyor had left a gate ajar. After this, we talked with the neighbor again (a wonderful family) and realized that our options were essentially to keep Vanya tied up or inside for the rest of life, or else work with an e-collar. So we chose the e-collar, and while I don't want to describe the actual work we did with it, I will say we worked with it on very low stim, and it worked very well indeed for proofing his recalls and training him to leave livestock and deer alone, even when I wasn't right there beside him. It also meant that I could take him off leash on the DNR land, where I was fairly confident unleashed dogs wouldn't surprise us. It also meant that he completely stopped jumping up and roughhousing with people, even though I was careful not to stim him around people. The collar didn't reduce his exuberance at all, although when we first started using it, he certainly showed stress signs (tongue flicks).

We still put it on him every time we let him out onto the farm--it's backup to protect our neighbor's cattle, and to protect Vanya's freedom to roam on our 20 fenced acres.

summer 2008: CU and leash reactivity

2010-02-09T09:20:00.002-06:00

After that Feb 2008 class, Vanya became super- leash reactive. We immediately took him to a Dog's Best Friend for a two hour private LR consult, and he got so wound up--lunging, screaming, super-aroused--that the trainer didn't offer much hope, or at least I wasn't able to hear any hope in what she said. I started trying to find dogs I could practice Look at That on from a long distance--100s of yards away--but I couldn't find any nearby. We went into the village on a few snowy, icy days, and Vanya's proper loose leash walk (on the farm) turned into skidding, screeching, sliding over-arousal, just at the sight of new cars, people, houses. The city--actually, even the tiny little village of Monticello--seemed to push him into such arousal I couldn't reach him. He never redirected at me, and never showed an ounce of aggression toward me, but I worried.

When May came, I headed up north to Lake Superior, where I spend summers doing my forestry research, living in a tiny cabin on an acre, surrounded by public forestlands and a lot of neighbors with unleashed dogs nearby. At first, our two elderly female dogs came up with me and Vanya stayed on the farm, since we figured that farm life was a lot better for him than life on a leash.

But after a month, Frank told me that Vanya was scaring some of the farmworkers when he tried to roughhouse with them, and he was pestering some of our farm guests, so essentially he was having to stay inside all the time, and his behavior was getting worse. And then he got under our neighbor's fence and chased their cattle (didn't hurt them, but did scare them: completely not acceptable).

I realized that I needed to keep training Vanya every day, so on the next trip up north, he came with me and the elderly girls stayed home on the farm.

Then we started endless CU games. I really, really wanted to work on having him learn to calm him down around other dogs when he was leashed, so we tried to persuade some of our neighbors to let us practice CU games with their dogs, leashed, off at a very far distance.

It was slow work, complicated by the fact that I couldn't control what other dogs did, and I didn't have many dogs to set up at a distance. We got very good at taking off into the forest when I saw a dog in the distance. We went through a lot of liver treats. I got lots and lots of encouragement from my kind neighbors, all of whom probably thought I was insane for adopting a pittie, but all of whom were sweet about his nuttiness. Luckily, he was still the most social, loving dog on earth with new people, so he won them over with his wiggles and clowning around. Then they would see him doing his tasmanian devil imitation at the sight of a distant dog and think: woah!

feb 2008: disastrous class, or how to create leash reactivity

2010-02-09T09:20:00.000-06:00

Vanya hadn't met new dogs since the first class hadn't worked out (except once on the bike trail, an unleashed big chocolate lab came bounding up to us. Vanya alerted and seemed very interested, but he didn't shriek or whine, and the lab ran off into the wood once he got to within 20 ft of us.)

I knew he needed to learn to be calm around other dogs, but because I wanted to be a responsible pit bull owner, I also knew I couldn't just let him loose to play with stranger dogs. So I signed up for a "barkers" class offered by a local trainer. I emailed with trainer, describing Vanya, and she said he would be perfect for her completely positive class. No aversives, she promised. None whatsoever.

Here's what I wrote, in tears, after the first class.

Hi-
Many of you have helped me with my questions over the past couple months about Vanya,our male neutered young pit bull rescue. He lives with 2 other female dogs, and he has learned to play with them very well and respect their boundaries. We live on a farm, so while he meets tons of new people (we have a guest house), he never meets new dogs.

When we adopted him from the humane society 3 months ago, they said he was very selective about which dogs he liked, and we haven't intentionally introduced him to new dogs, wanting to wait until we got him calmed down a bit. He has done incredibly well at the farm with a mixture of "control unleashed" and click-to-calm stuff and
relaxation protocol exercises.

Tonight we took him for the first night of a "barkers" class, with 3 other dogs and 4 instructors. It was supposed to be based on positive reinforcement and held in a very large space. The space seemed quite small to me, and the instructors warned us at the beginning of the class that they would use a water spray if a dog got out of control.

For some of the hour, Vanya was able to listen to me, responding to sit, watch me, look at that, and walk with me commands, and for much of the time, he didn't seem too anxious (none of the other dogs were barking, whining, or lunging). But interspersed with all his paying attention, he also started whining, louder and louder. When he started whining, I walked him away further from the other dogs, which calmed him down a bit. But then the instructor told her assistants to spray him with water because he was getting too excited, and these kids started following us around, spraying him constantly whenever he whined (finally one girl commented that it only made him more nervous and wasn't quieting him down--what a surprise!). I was trying to click and treat him whenever he gave signals of calming a bit,or of watching me, or of listening to me, but when the assistants started spraying him, he started shutting down. I should have taken him out of the class at that point--I could tell he was glazing over, even behind the barrier and further from the other 3 dogs.

After the other students had left the room, the instructor told me to stay for a moment. (After the first 5 minutes, she had completely ignored the two of us, letting her assistants chase us around the room). The instructor told me we needed to use a slip collar for the other classes. She put one on him and gave him a couple quick corrections (even though he was just wagging his tail at her).

I didn't argue; I was completely shut down by stress. I just took the slip collar she gave me and took Vanya out to
the car. On the way to the car, we passed a new dog--a shepherd-- coming in for another class (at about 20 ft away in the parking lot), and Vanya reacted like he's never done before: lunging, barking, aggression. And then Vanya seemed weird to my husband in the parking lot--not barking or growling, just very tense, and he wouldn't get in the car. When we got home, he got snarly with my other dogs (but calmed down when I called him and distracted him). Now he's asleep, exhausted.

So now I'm disappointed in myself, feeling like I've failed Vanya by trying to stay positive with him and follow the exercises in control unleashed, and really failed him by not introducing him to more novel stimuli, and failed him even more by taking him to a class where he got sprayed and jerked and pushed after he went over his threshold.

I don't know what to do now--keep him out of the class, and possibly make him worse by keeping him away from new dogs, or take him back to class, and let the teacher jerk him around, which only seemed to make him aggressive with dogs (something new--he's been anxious and overeager, but never aggressive).

So I feel freaked out about this class, but I also feel freaked out about the training I'm doing with him. I think the aversives only made him go over threshold, and didn't do any good at all. But I also felt unable to argue with that trainer, and unable to get him out of there, and now unable to trust that positive approaches will actually work...

Thanks for advice and reassurance. I feel like I'm screwing up this wonderful dog."

This class really was not good, for it started an association for Vanya: new dog=bad thing happening. Nancy gets really stressed; people start chasing me around doing scary things to me, and all hell breaks lose. Damn. Guess I'd better scare off those new dogs before they get everything all flipped out.

Of course, my reactivity increased as well.

nov 2008: hyper-arousal; or piranha pittie

2010-02-09T09:18:00.001-06:00

The day we brought Vanya home, it was clear that he had a lot of energy. A lot! And it was also clear that the chickens weren't going to be free range for a while--back in the fenced chicken yard for them, since Vanya couldn't resist chasing them. Not a problem--the hens have a great big yard. Training proceeded nicely: I pulled out my clicker and started working on crate games, sit, down, come, stay. He was brilliant--very quick to catch on to the clicker, very eager to eat treats, very very eager to get any possible attention.

Of course, at night he didn't want to settle. He never wanted to settle. I had several days at home on the farm, so I kept him tethered to me while I worked on the farm and on my lectures, and gave him a vast variety of chew toys. He was very mouthy, but he could quickly redirect to chew toys.

10 days or so after Vanya came home with us, I got home from work and asked my husband, Frank, how Vanya had behaved that day. "Not so good," was the answer. It turned out that Vanya had been out in the field of oats, off leash with the other dogs (Tiva and the ancient husky cross, Juneau), and after romping a bit with the other dogs, he had gotten the zoomies and redirected onto Frank: leaping and barking and whirling around Frank, grabbing at his jacket. Frank reported that Vanya's tail was wagging fast as could be, but he also reported that this was terrifying, because Vanya seemed SO intense, and SO checked out of his brain. Frank tied Vanya up and continued with his work, and Vanya quickly calmed down when Frank was out of reach. Then he quickly chewed through his line and zoomed right over and started leaping, barking, leaping, barking. This time Frank got a metal chain and tethered Vanya with that, and Vanya quickly calmed down again.

I said something silly like "oh, I'm sure he was just playing. Carry treats and ask for a sit if you think he's about to start doing it again."

Frank replied: "I don't know Nancy....I think this is why his family got rid of him. He was terrifying."

The next day, Vanya did it to me, and I realized how terrifying it really was. His mind seemed to shut down: he was 50 lbs of pure muscle and frenzy and noise, and the treats I whipped out were just about as ineffective as the "sit" cue I called out.

I had joined a few positive pit bull forums and I was lurking at the clicker-solutions yahoo group, where I had learned about Leslie McDevitt's Control Unleashed. Just the ticket, I thought, and ordered my own copy, and began asking lots of questions on the CU yahoo forum, the clickersolutions yahoo forum, and the positive reactive dogs forum as well.

The advice, support, and feedback that members of these forums offered me were a lifesaver. I can't say enough about how welcoming, helpful, and sympathetic the professional trainers and pet owners were. I spent a lot of desperate hours at the computer with Vanya tethered beside me, while I googled and searched for approaches that would help him calm down.

Here's a sample I posted soon after getting him:

"Vanyagoes from 0 to 60 in 1 second). Vanya's doing great, overall, and he's learning more self-control, but he has definately gotten overwhelming at times (mouthy, jumpy, seemingly going instantly from collected play to piranha-puppy with the zoomies. Very cute when it's focused elsewhere, but scary when it's focused on me!).

We have another rescue pit, (12 yo female, incredibly calm and gentle), and they now play together very well. Playing with her used to get him so wired that he would turn to us and try to play as physically (not good). We weren't sure whether to stop him from playing with her until he learned not to ramp up, or whether suppressing his play-behavior with her would only make him jumpier (option two seemed more likely--4 mile daily bike rides and long walks weren't tiring him out, but playing with her does). So we clicked/treated like mad for good play with her, and that seems to have worked--he doesn't get as over- excited either with her or with us. And now, if he gets into intense play behavior with me, I can ask him for a sit, and he throws his butt on the ground fast as can be, instead of zooming at me."

It sounded hopeful, but Vanya soon learned if he ramped up, he could train me to do a nice chain: he starts to get the zoomies, I ask for a sit, he gets a treat and starts the cycle over again. And of course, if he got really ramped up, he couldn't respond to the sit cue or to treats tossed over his head.

For the first few weeks, CU exercises worked very well. Here's one post I sent to the clickersolutions group:

" 'Control Unleashed'focuses on helping an exuberant dog learn self-control, and at least for Vanya,
that's exactly what he needed. Teaching "default" behaviors was particularly useful, so whenever Vanya gets excited now, he knows to offer a sit for attention, instead of lunging and grabbing for attention. (This meant a zillion click/treats for the behavior we wanted--ie, sits, and then 'leave its', and 'watch me's'). Radically increasing the rate of reinforcement also helped a lot, so we were giving Vanya a lot more help in understanding what we consider desired behavior. Working on the "Off-switch" game also helps a lot, and so does the "premack principle".

Now, just a week after working on the "Control Unleashed" exercises, Vanya's lunging and grabbing (and rough play with his dog-housemates, also a self-control issue) have decreased about 95%..."

But then the snow came, and it seemed to ramp him up much, much, more--so much that at times I feared my own dog. I wasn't worried that he was 'human aggressive', but I did worry that he was so quick to arouse, that he might go right over arousal into something that could hurt people--not me so much, as someone else who responded by screaming and running away, thus imitating a squirrel.

Here's another post from that first week of December--how chipper my tone sounds, considering how worried I was about Vanya:

"After a midwest ice storm, it's hard to get the dogs much exercise. I took Vanya, the pit bull adolescent, out in the ice & snow to work on the off-switch game from Control Unleashed, and realized how important timing is. I jumped up and down to get Vanya excited, then cued a sit (we do this inside all the time, and it works great, and we also do forms of "freeze" tag--go wild, then freeze and reward a sit). This worked fine for a few runs, then the novelty of snow and ice plus a new game (new for outdoors, anyway) revved him into overdrive. So he changed the rules of the game from "dance around then sit for a click" to "dance around then jump and hang onto an arm and shake and do a little play-growl and wag your butt real hard and see what happens". Oops.

Soon we were inadvertently doing a routine of sit/click/treat/ grab the arm/sit/click/treat/grab the arm ....He had figured out the best way to get a click/treat was to grab my arm, then offer a sit. Ow! Once I got the timing better, and starting
rapidly reinforcing his calm moments, we made it back inside (before running out of treats...) Even though he's a very friendly pit bull, there's still nothing like a pit bull dangling from your arm to make you want to realize how important timing is. I was trying to click/treat his moment of calming, but I think I was capturing his moment of excitement, not calming.

Back to trying this inside a bunch more...

[a few days later]....Oww! He did it again today (snow sure gets him excited). I am a little worried about the pit bull part of all this (if he did this with a child, etc etc). He's doing really well with learning self-control, but it can't happen quickly enough, especially for our two elderly female dogs' sanity. Our very old but still fast female pit bull can't believe what this pup gets away with. He did what?! He put his teeth on a person?!!!! She plays nicely with him, but one tiny bit of pushiness from that boy, and she has him on his back, waving his feet in the air, licking her jaw, playing the submissive little puppy, in a flash. It's impressive."

We kept working and working on this, and soon I learned to always go out with a drag line on Vanya and walk with him along fencelines. Whenever he started to zoom, I would drop the line over the post and stand just out of reach, ignoring him completely until he calmed down. Eventually, this helped. I never went anywhere without treats, and for a while I carried something (usually a water jug or tug) in my hand, so he could redirect onto that instead of me. Slow progress, but progress. He still got mouthy with my husband, and training my husband not to roughhouse with the dog was much harder than training Vanya to calm down.

Some other things I learned: turning my back only seemed to make him worse (he ran around to see what fun things might
be on my other side--I must be turning because something cool is over there, right?). Long walks would increase the behavior, and so would excited play with our elderly pit bull. After huge amounts of helpful advice from folks on the list, here's what eventually worked for us.

First, of course, I tried hard to learn the look in his eye that meant he was about to jump, so I could cue sit and then toss treats in the other direction. But if I missed that moment, tossing all the treats in the world wouldn't distract him from the great joy of jumping on my back. So:

1. instead of turning my back or folding my arms, I played "be a tree". This is what kids in school are now supposedly being taught as a response to excited dogs. You stand, head down, arms down, fingers laced--boring as a tree. Supposedly, you become so very very dull that the dog sniffs your fingers and soon wanders off in boredom, no longer reinforced by your turning around or folding your arms. I was doubtful, but I found that it did work surprisingly well.

2. I also taught Vayna that the "be a tree" posture was another cue for sit. I did this a zillion times

3. then whenever he jumped, I acted like a tree, and if he sat, he got a treat. Repeat a million times. If he gnawed at me, I looped his leash over a handy fence-post (we walked along fence lines a lot that winter) and stood like a tree just out of his reach. Pretty quickly he would realize he couldn't contact me, so he would sit for his treat. Repeat a zillion more times.

(I couldn't expect my farmworkers to have this kind of patience, so I gave them all cans of spray shield (citronella) to carry. After a couple spritzs of citronella in his face, just the sight of the spray shield can made him sit for his treat. I am, of course, not recommending this aversive to anyone--just reporting honestly that I didn't rely on 'be a tree' alone.)"

To work on his overall arousal levels, we did the following:

Karen Overall's Relaxation Protocol
Zen games
Off Switch games in CU
Give me a Break in CU (but I was never sure I really understood those--still trying)
Lots of default sit work
Freeze tag: an off switch game
Nose work: at first just scattering his kibble in the grass, then food puzzle games, eventually home-grown tracking work which we still try to do often
wrapping him up tightly at night (not in an anxiety wrap, just in a blanket--what a difference that made with night startles
melatonin when he was waking up a lot at night and scanning the ceiling
L-theamine now
lots of long, slow walks in the woods where he could be off leash and sniff around
lots of wandering around in the our fields, orchard and prairie
lots of hanging out under the trees reading (well, I read; he stuck to his bones--he's smart but not that smart)

halloween 2007: adopting Vanya; first class

2010-02-09T09:15:00.000-06:00

We adopted Vanya from the Rock County Humane Society on Halloween 2007. He had spent 2 months in the shelter, after being dumped by his owners (a stray, but it seems that when his owners were tracked down, they surrendered him). We chose him because he's absolutely adorable and friendly with people, and wanted to ooze against each person who walked by. And he wasn't barking in his cage, unlike most of the other dogs. He was able to go on a parallel leashed walk with our two female dogs outside, and greet them in the meeting room, without getting too excited, which was a key factor in our decision--the much calmer pit we were considering went into screaming, lunging, barking when he saw our females, so he was not a possibility.

I did worry a bit that he couldn't focus on us in the meeting room, and that he was scanning and in high alert the whole time when I walked him out back of the shelter. But he had passed all his temperament tests with flying colors. Except the shelter warned us that he didn't get along with a lot of dogs. Since we've lived with a pit, Tiva, for 7 years, we figured that we knew how to deal with dog aggression and could handle the management and training involved.

Meanwhile, even before he came home, I had signed him up for a family obedience class with a famous positive training company in Madison, and the class was scheduled to start at the beginning of November, almost exactly a week after he came home with us. I had emailed the class trainer before we had taken Vanya home, letting her know that he had just been adopted, and he was a young male, neutered pit bull, our second pitty. She said that would be fine.

When we got to the first class, I was a little concerned to see that it was being held in what seemed like a small room, filled with lots of dogs and people (13 dogs, if memory serves, and perhaps 20 people in there). My husband got stuck in traffic, so he met me there after work, a little late--not the best set-up. Vanya came charging in like a little sled dog (loose leash walk? he had it yesterday!) and I soon learned he was very excited by the sight of 13 dogs and 20 people--too excited at first to take treats. Surely they were all there for him to greet? Right now! Now! Now!

Whenever one of the trainer's assistants came over to say hi, he was all wiggles and whines and licks. He was much more interested in greeting people than in the other dogs at first, but once he realized he wasn't going to be allowed to go say hi to anyone else, he began reacting to the other dogs by whining and wiggling. For 5 or 10 minutes, I could distract him with o his doggy pushups (sit, c/t, down, c/t, sit c/t, etc), but then he went over threshold and started whining louder. Taking him out of visual contact into a foyer where I could walk him in circles calmed him at first, but not for long. Back into the training room, more pushups. The trainer demonstrated how to call a do, with a happy encouraging voice, and Vanya bounced right over to her, wiggling and licking her face. Oops. (I didn't let go of the leash, but he got too close to the nervy dashund, who nipped at him. Vanya ignored him, too intent on wiggling into the lap of the trainer, but the little dog was not at all happy.)

After his excitement led to more whining, the trainer asked us to go to a separate room, where we could hear her instructions and follow along, but where Vanya couldn't see or distract the others. It took Vanya about 20 seconds to calm down and roll over for belly rubs. After the class, the trainer came in and looking at him waving his paws in the air, and said with surprise: "oh, he managed to calm down." I told her that he calmed down very quickly, and she rubbed his tummy and said: "well, I don't think he's dangerous to people," a comment that surprised me. If any dog on earth was giving off social signals, it was Vanya, so her comment seemed based on discomfort with pitbulls, not with Vanya's behavior in any way. She then told us the class wouldn't be appropriate for his arousal levels, something I was relieved to hear, to be honest.

Unfortunately, she told me to wait for 6 months before taking a class, so that we could bond more with him. I was puzzled, because I figured a 10 month old pup that had just spent 2 months isolated in a cage needed as much socialization, as soon as possible. But she was the trainer, so I agreed and went home. Bad idea. Bad, bad, idea. I really, really wish she had told us to take him for a private session and a lot of socialization. Oh well.