Dog Safety

I teach a class for kids 5-9 most years about dogs. The class started out with the goal of simply getting kids to think of their dog at home as being more than just part of the furniture and landscaping. Over the years this basic goal has remained but the class has expanded to include dog safety, simple behaviorism, basic clicker training, and introduction to a variety of working dogs.

I was delighted when a friend shared this adorable video with me, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36Z9RRjiQMA. This little song was perfect for class. In fact I took the liberty of writing many more verses that we learned in class.

 I Speak Doggy tune of London Bridge is Falling Down

What dogs like I understand,

understand,

understand,

what dogs like I understand

‘cause I speak doggy

I hug friends I don’t hug dogs,

don’t hug dogs,

don’t hug dogs

I hug friends I don’t hug dogs

‘cause I speak doggy

I pet with one hand collar to tail,

collar to tail,

collar to tail,

I pet with one hand collar to tail

‘cause I speak doggy

When he eats I walk away,

walk away,

walk away

when he eats I walk away

‘cause I speak doggy

When he sleeps I walk away,

walk away,

walk away,

when he sleeps I walk away

‘cause I speak doggy

If he jumps I freeze like this

freeze like this,

freeze like this

If he jumps I freeze like this

‘cause I speak doggy

If he’s rough I’ll be a rock,

be a rock,

be a rock,

if he’s rough I’ll be a rock

‘cause I speak doggy

I will never stare at him,

stare at him,

stare at him,

I will never stare at him

‘cause I speak doggy

With a dog I will not shriek,

will not shriek,

will not shriek,

with a dog I will not shriek

‘cause I speak doggy

I will ask before I greet,

before I greet,

before I greet,

I will ask before I greet

‘cause I speak doggy

To greet a dog I’ll give my hand,

give my hand,

give my hand,

to greet a dog I’ll give my hand

‘cause I speak doggy

A wagging tail, can tell me stuff,

tell me stuff,

tell me stuff,

a wagging tail can tell me stuff

‘cause I speak doggy

A calm relaxed dog wags like this,

wags like this,

wags like this

a calm relaxed dog wags like this

if I speak doggy

A hyper dog will wag like this,

wag like this,

wag like this

a hyper dog will wag like this

if I speak doggy

  

Greet the calm dog this I know,

this I know,

this I know,

greet the calm dog this I know

‘cause I speak doggy

If he’s hyper I’ll let him go,

let him go,

let him go,

if he’s hyper I’ll let him go

‘cause I speak doggy.

If he warns I’ll walk away,

walk away,

walk away,

slowly I will walk away

‘cause I speak doggy.

Be respectful to the dog,

to the dog,

to the dog

be respectful to the dog

‘cause NOW you speak doggy!

I love the idea of setting good dog information to familiar childhood tunes. They are fun, easy to remember, and just maybe it will make the life with my fearful Finna a little safer. 

Why Ranger and I Are a Therapy Dog Team

Ranger has had a busy time lately. Wednesday he was at school with me helping kids learn about dogs, Saturday he joined other Therapy Dog International dogs at a local nursing home, and the following Wednesday he listened to kids read at the library.

At school Ranger got to show the kids that he listens and obeys better if you speak to him gently rather than shouting at him. He showed them why you don't stare at dogs and how dogs don't really like hugs. Ranger and I have a very good relationship and I take a calculated risk and loom over him staring at him or throwing my arms around his neck and hugging tight. It's hard to miss how he backs away and looks uncomfortable when I loom and stare (although to be honest by now he's been through this demonstration so many times that he doesn't react very strongly) or how his happy smile disappears when I hug him tightly.

Ranger makes me laugh, all 15 kids in the class petting him at once is just what he likes. I keep a close eye out for any kid that isn't treating him appropriately or any sign of stress on his part but I almost never have to intervene. After my Dig those Dogs class Ranger usually waits through my next class in the back of the car but Wednesday was warm and sunny, too hot to leave him in the car so he got to stay for my second class. After all the kids petted him I handed his leash to the TA who'd come in just for that purpose and set about testing another one of those projects you can find on the internet. It turns out you really can dye fabric with sharpie pens and rubbing alcohol. While most of the class continued adding designs to the dishtowels I'd brought for dyeing one student asked if he could pet Ranger instead. As he put it "I have sharpies, towels and rubbing alcohol at home, I don't have a dog." He spent half the class petting Ranger and I noticed that one by one other students finished their designs and came to love on Ranger until probably half the class was petting him. As the kids were heading out for pick up by their parents the one that had first asked if he could pet Ranger told me that he'd been having a lousy day, and that he'd been kind of stressed out but after petting Ranger he was feeling calm and relaxed. That's why we do what we do.

At the nursing home Ranger interacted with a lot of people and made them feel good but two women stand out. One was slumped in her big walking frame and completely disengaged from everything. I asked if she liked dogs and took her vague noise as a yes. Ranger walked up beside her and she continued to slump there doing nothing. Thinking she might be blind I told her that if she'd slide her hand to the side it would land on Ranger's head. She complied, letting her hand flop onto Ranger, after a couple minutes her hand began to move in his fur and she straightened slightly. When Ranger indicated that it was time to move on one of the other dogs in our group took his place. By the fourth dog the woman was sitting up straight and smiling.

The other woman was sitting in a chair when I asked if she'd like to pet Ranger she indicated that she could hardly move the hand on the side nearest him but that she'd like to pet him. I asked him to move closer to the chair and she reached across her body with her other hand to pet him. After a bit another dog came to take Ranger's place and we moved on to someone else. When I glanced back I saw her reach out with her bad arm to pet the dog. In petting the dogs she'd forgotten that one arm was damaged and was so engaged that she used that arm to pet. That's why we do what we do!

At the Library Ranger listens to reluctant and hesitant readers. I love it when they're reading a book with a strong rhythmic component. Ranger will often huff along with the beat or echo it. The kids get the biggest kick out of Ranger reading with them. At the end of their session the child has enjoyed a very positive experience with a book and a big dog. That's why we do what we do.

I know I used this same photo recently but it captures things so well. Ranger is a Therapy Dog.

Dog Training Dog

If only I could be as clear, unambiguous, and have excellent timing like Ranger when I train. He really is a master and I learn a lot from him.

Recently we went for a walk with a friend and her dog. She has a young cattle dog typical of the breed. His favorite game is chase and herd and he barks at the head of the animal he's trying to turn, in this case Ranger. Ranger loved the off leash running in the woods and playing herding games with his pal but Ranger does not love having someone bark in his face. Because he doesn't like having someone bark in his face Ranger set about training his pal. Running, chasing, cutting each other off, and even stare downs were fine and Ranger would happily engage in herding dog play but bark in his face and Ranger immediately stopped engaging with his friend. He wouldn't run, he wouldn't chase, he wouldn't even look at his playmate. He would simply freeze and pretend his friend wasn't there. As soon as the barking would stop Ranger would re-engage. They had maybe half an hour of off leash time together. In the beginning there was a lot of barking by the end there was hardly any.

Let me recap. Ranger knew exactly what behavior he wanted to end--barking in his face. Ranger rewarded any play behavior that wasn't barking in his face and Ranger never rewarded the behavior he didn't like. His playmate got reinforced for all play behavior except barking. The barking was nearly extinguished in half an hour of play. What Ranger did not do was use positive punishment to end the undesired behavior.

I need to take a brief digression here to talk about punishment and reward as defined by behaviorists. Behaviorists assign things to four categories, positive reward, negative reward, positive punishment and negative punishment. Please, remember I am not a trained behaviorist but as I understand these categories, positive reward is adding something to increase the chance of the behavior being repeated--Ranger playing with his pal for any behavior that wasn't barking was giving his friend a positive reward, play, for playing that didn't involve barking. Negative reward is removing something to increase the likelihood of the behavior being repeated. When Finna glances away from one of her triggers and I immediately take her further away from that trigger I am giving her a negative reward--something that she found scary is not as close anymore. Positive punishment, adds something to decrease the likelihood of the behavior being repeated--if Ranger had growled at his playmate to get him not to bark that would have been positive punishment. Negative punishment removes something to decrease the likelihood that a behavior will be repeated. Ranger removed his attention and engagement from his friend in response to barking. The calculation for his friend became simple and went something like this, "Bark and Ranger won't play with me, don't bark and Ranger will play with me. I like to play with Ranger so I won't bark."

Ranger is easily twice the size of his cattle dog pal so physical intimidation would be pretty easy for him but Ranger didn't use positive punishment. He used positive reward and negative punishment. His friend was given clear feedback and could make his own choices about how he was going to play with Ranger. If barking was the only way the pal could play he could have kept barking but he wouldn't have had a playmate. Rather than shutting his friend down with a growl or snap every time he barked Ranger provided a clear choice don't bark and we can play or bark and we can't play.

I don't consciously use positive punishment in training Ranger and Finna although I'm aware that sometimes they may interpret thing that I do, such as hugs, as positive punishment. I do my best to be clear and consistent but after watching Ranger training his friend I'm even more aware than usual that my timing is lousy and my consistency is slipshod. I'll just have to keep practicing and keep watching Ranger for training tips.

Ranger Recommends: Fired Up, Frantic, and Freaked Out

Fired Up, Frantic, and Freaked Out: Training Crazy Dogs from Over-the-Top to Under Control by Laura VanArendonk Baugh CPDT-KA KPACTP is another of those books that Ranger and even more Finna would heartily recommend. I picked up the book because the title made me laugh and definitely captured life with Finna. It turned out to be the perfect 'textbook' to go with what our trainer is teaching us.

When we're working together on training Finna with her right there we don't have the luxury of going into the logic behind what our trainer is asking us to work on. I have a wide ranging knowledge but very little practical experience--although I sometimes think that by the time Finna is done with me I should be able to pass any test for training certification with my eyes closed. Fired Up, Frantic, and Freaked Out is the perfect bridge between the practical hands on work our trainer directs and the theoretical knowledge I've gained through my wide reading.

On nearly every page I found myself thinking "Oh, so that's how those pieces fit together. That's great. Now I get it." For example, I've read a lot about the limbic system and how it affects a the way dogs, and other mammals too for that matter, respond to stimulus. We've worked a lot on impulse control with Finna and on giving her tools that allow her to respond thoughtfully. Baugh provides a simple graphic at one end is the fight or flight response and at the other is the rational thoughtful response. As she describes it dogs are born somewhere on the continuum between these two extremes. Dogs like Finna are born much closer to the fight or flight response and dogs like Ranger are born more toward the rational thought end. Every dog has it's own genetically programmed range on the continuum. Good training can move a dog like Ranger who tends to think before he acts anyway to a position on the continuum where he is darn near bombproof. Good training can move a dog like Finna out of the fight or flight response into an area where she can think. She's never going to be as bombproof as Ranger but she is able to learn much better responses than barking and lunging at anything she finds frightening. I looked at Baugh's graphic and her brief description and suddenly all the things I've learned about the limbic system and all the work we've done with Finna on impulse control meshed and I understood how the two related and it all made better sense.

Reading Fired Up, Frantic, and Freaked Out helped me to connect my theoretical knowledge and the practical applications and made me a much better trainer. Ranger and Finna both highly recommend it for anyone who is dealing with a crazy dog. Not only was it extremely helpful but it was also a very enjoyable read. We all recommend it.

Finnaversary number 16

Let me start by saying I love our trainer. She gets me and she gets Finna. That counts for more than I can say. We have a dog that is genetically predisposed to be a pessimist whose early upbringing reinforced her expectation that whatever happened it wasn't going to be good for her. Ranger by contrast is predisposed to believe whatever happens next will be good and his early upbringing reinforced that belief. One of the things that frustrates me the most about Finna is that her pessimism can be tempered by experience. If it was new to her when she began living with us she's fine with it. A dog that is hardwired to be afraid of everything would have a hard time learning to use the treadmill or tolerating the vacuum cleaner. Finna mastered treadmill use in about 10 days and she'll let me vacuum to within about six inches of her before she gets up and moves. She didn't immediately embrace these things with enthusiasm but we went slowly and gave her room to think about it. One slow step at a time; the first step was just being in the same room as the moving treadmill belt. From there we asked her to be a foot away, take treats with her head over the belt when the treadmill was running, to touch the moving belt with her paw, to step onto the moving belt and eventually to trot at speed. If we'd had her from the time she was a puppy and she'd been introduced to everything in the same slow deliberate fashion she wouldn't be the mess she is today. Imagine if instead of introducing the treadmill one small step at a time we'd dragged her over to it, turned it on, tied her so she had to run on it and bumped it up to a goodly speed. I'm afraid that's the way most things happened for Finna in her formative years.

Finna is a very conflicted dog; like all dogs she's hardwired to want to be social; to be part of a group. Unfortunately, she's also a dog that is pessimistic about the outcome of social interactions. This means that she both craves and resists contact. She'll beg for petting and ear rubs but mouth at my hand while I'm delivering the petting (harder to mouth the hand that's rubbing her ears plus ear massage is relaxing). Where it really gets frustrating is in terms of Finna's relationship with my husband. She'll lay there next to him with her head in his lap but will snap at him if he tries to pet her. She wants to be close to him but her genetic pessimism and her early experience are totally at odds with what she wants. Talk about conflicted--she wants to be touching him but not to have him touch her.

In great news Finna has found a way to not get protective when my husband wants to bring me something or talk to me. She grabs a rubber ball and chews it like a piece of gum. She finds it sufficiently relaxing that she even lays down while chewing it when he comes near! He's learned to pause for a bit while she finds her chew ball and all is well. If he forgets to pause she gives him what we've dubbed the wait, wait, let me get my ball bark, he pauses she finds her ball and everything is fine. And best of all now that she's found a way to soothe herself when he's moving around I'm noticing that she's needing to do it less all the time! As you know if you've been following this blog you know this has been an ongoing issue so I'm totally thrilled that she has something that works for her that allows him to move around the house freely and even come close to me without Finna behaving badly.

And for bad news I realized today that Finna has been such a velcro dog for so long that she never learned a solid "come." Guess what we're working on now. ;-)

All in all though, 16 months into this adventure we have a different dog than the one we started with. The dog we have now can usually think and can make better choices for how she wants to behave. Finna is now taking group classes for reactive dogs and at our last class she was so good that other participants wanted to know why she was there!! She's come a long long way from the initial meeting where our trainer tried very gently but clearly to warn us that not all dogs can be rehabilitated.  Here's the dog we adopted in a photo taken very soon after we got her home.

This is not the dog we still have. The Finna of today is more relaxed and confident. She still has a long way to go but I think she really can become the dog she was meant to be. 

Ranger Recommends Animals in Translation by Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson

Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior

Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson

In my journey to understand the new creature in my life this is one of the books that really made a difference. Ranger would highly recommend this book.

Temple Grandin is a noted animal behaviorist and a person with autism. During her long professional career working with animals she's had ample opportunity to observe them. Grandin's observations lead her to the conclusion that animals process the information their senses provide much like an autistic person does. The subtitle of the book captures that thesis very well "Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior."

Most people have a verbal narrative that runs in the background of their brain providing descriptive labeling for things being experienced. "I bumped my leg on the coffee table and it hurt." Many of those with autism and, in Grandin's thesis, animals don't have a verbal narrative. Instead, for them there is a silent movie that records experiences. In my short example above where I would have the narrative Grandin would have a movie of herself bumping her leg on the specific coffee table and of herself experiencing pain as a result. She argues that the way animals experience the world has a lot in common with the way autistic people experience the world. Where my internal narrative allows me to fudge a lot of details or ignore information that doesn't fit in the narrative autistic people and animals have no such luxury, for them all details are recorded. This is why it is often so difficult for most people to figure out what is spooking an animal. The coat hung on the fence post for example isn't important in the narrative and people don't see it but to a cow or horse that coat is something new in the environment and possibly a threat. To an autistic person the coat on the fence post is an observed detail that is part of the whole picture.

For a person with autism or an animal, generalizing is very difficult. I see a brown truck of a certain shape and shade and immediately identify it as being a UPS truck no matter what angle I'm seeing it from or what it is doing. For an animal or someone with autism this generalization is absent. Because Grandin does such a great job of explaining how a mind that interprets the world through pictures rather than narrative handles information I'm a much more mindful partner for Ranger and Finna. Ranger has seen UPS trucks in our neighborhood a lot. He's viewed them from the front, from the back and both sides. He's seen them driving past him both forwards and backward and driving toward him and to me he should recognize and understand that UPS trucks are not a threat as long as we were on the side of the road. Yet early in our relationship as we were walking home there was a UPS truck backing down the street and Ranger freaked out. I'd already seen, labeled and dismissed the truck so I was very startled by his reaction. Fortunately, I'd read Grandin's book and could look at it through his eyes. He'd never seen a UPS truck behave in that fashion and it was frightening, he wasn't able to generalize the other behaviors he'd seen from UPS trucks to the current behavior. Because I knew what was going on I was able to calm him and help him through the initial fright.

It's a fascinating book. As "Entertainment Weekly" put it "At once hilarious, fascinating, and just plain weird, Animals is one of those rare books that elicit a 'wow' on almost every page." That's a pretty good summation of a book that is well worth reading. Ranger highly recommends it.

One Year Later--12 month Finnaversary

When we brought Finna home I confidently announced that if everyone would give me a year she'd be a different dog. Looking back I've both succeeded and failed at fulfilling that boast. Physically Finna is much healthier, she's eating better, she smells better, her coat feels soft and sleek. When she first came to live with us the only things she'd eat reliably were marrow bones and cat kibble. She craved protein. She still loves protein but now she gets it eating her Primal Raw nuggets. Her coat that was greasy feeling and shedding in handfuls is soft as satin and sheds surprisingly little for a short coated dog. She has very little odor now although when she came to live with us she had a very powerful doggie smell. I didn't want to traumatize her by giving her a bath immediately--there was still so much she needed to learn about living with a family--and as her health has improved her smell as dissipated and I still haven't given her a real bath.

The dog that had no idea how to play has learned to play fetch, catch, and tug. She's learned to solicit games from her humans and she's learned how to learn and that she can affect her environment in positive ways by her behavior. The dog with no idea of the kind of manners humans value in a dog now waits politely at the door to be released before going out. She now waits, most of the time, to be invited to jump into my lap. And she knows that sitting and eye contact are the best default behaviors.

We recently had to have a lot of work done in our yard dealing with plumbing related issues. Eight months ago the only way we could have done this would have been by tranquilizing Finna. Today, while I was exceedingly careful not to let her outside into the yard while the crew was working she was able to stay in the house and cope. She did bark some but it was never the frenzied, over the top, out of control barking that we used to get at anything out of the ordinary. We could easily call her away and reassure her that it was OK the crew was allowed to be there.

Finna is a different dog, a better, more relaxed, more confident, less fearful dog today than she was a year ago. She's come a long long way and overcome a lot of her bad beginnings. In the year I so casually boasted it would take to rehabilitate this dog we've made huge strides. Sadly, however, she was even more damaged than I originally estimated. For all our strides, for all the progress and improvement Finna remains a very damaged dog. She will not let anyone outside myself and my two children touch her. She still will not let my husband touch her. In some ways this is the most frustrating of her problems. She will gently take treats from "Dad," curl up against him on the couch, and rest her chin on his knee; as long as the contact is initiated by her and he is only the passive recipient all is well but if he moves his hand toward her she'll growl, bark, and even snap at him. Her relationship with "Dad" remains suspicious. He can engage in activities she considers 'normal' for him but she'll bark and growl at him for things he does that she doesn't expect. Generally once he comes home he doesn't go back to the garage until he's leaving for work the next morning. If he tries to go back to the garage Finna will bark fiercely at him. After almost 25 years of marriage I expect that his behavior will be unpredictable but Finna has a herding dog's need to anticipate movement and control it. Not being able to anticipate where he'll go is a serious problem for her and her choice to address this problem with barks, growls, and snaps is a serious problem for us.

Finna has also turned into a resource guarder although she generally only guards one resource--me. I'm told that German Shepherd bitches almost universally go through a phase of wanting to guard their person and Finna's paperwork identified her as half GSD and half Corgi. We're working on the problem but it is a real problem. It is incredibly frustrating when my husband tries to bring me something and Finna leaps between us barking at him to get back or my son comes downstairs to do schoolwork and Finna must leap on my lap to keep him from getting to me.

Going back to the car analogy that I've used in previous posts, Finna was adopted on the assumption that she was an econo-car sedan that we could put some work into and have a nice reliable family 'car.' Instead, we as we worked on getting this 'car' running again we discovered that Finna was really a high performance sports car with no brakes or steering. Our first plateau in her rehabilitation she was that high performance sports car that had brakes and steering that were only reliable below 35 mph, not a good thing in a vehicle designed to work at 120 mph. Today her brakes and steering are reliable to about 55 mph, after that they start getting dicey but expert handling can sometimes compensate up to about 70 mph. However, she remains that high performance sports car without reliable brakes or steering. Until she's safe at any speed she's not a safe dog.

Finna has come a long long way in a year. And the fact that she has made such a lot of progress gives me hope for the future. We'll continue to work with her, train her, teach her, and love her and we'll see what another year brings.