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.

What a Difference a Good Trainer Can Make--Finnaversary month eleven

My computer has been acting up so I must apologize that the month eleven update is late.

When we adopted Ranger I knew very little about training a dog. We'd had dogs growing up and I remember them as nice dogs that came when they were called (mostly) and would sit when told (usually). We lived in the country and the dogs did what we expected them to do. They barked to let us know we had visitors and barked to scare away coyotes. They were friendly to visitors and that was about all we asked of them. I don't remember that we did much training.

I knew that living in a suburban environment my dog would need more training than our country dogs did so I started looking for a trainer and I started reading books. Having no idea what the heck I was doing I first tried the "trainer" at the local big box pet supply store. It didn't take me long to decide that I was NOT going to use her as a trainer. Without my permission she forced a capful of lemon juice on Ranger when he barked. Ranger didn't react to it with any more than surprise. As far as I could tell she could have given him a capful of water and it would have had as much effect; but her intent was to punish him for undesirable behavior. She also made me feel very incompetent.    Clearly not a good fit.

Shortly after I'd adopted him the Kitsap Humane Society had offered a new pet owner class with some basic behaviorism. I'd learned a lot and really liked the woman offering the class. I thought she might have good insight into where to find a suitable trainer. As luck would have it she was just forming a new basic training class. We enrolled at once. She was a really good trainer. I felt competent, and I was learning a lot about how Ranger learned. We finished basic and enrolled in Beyond the Basics by the end of which Ranger had his CGC (Canine Good Citizen). Each class ran for six weeks meeting once a week  for about an hour.

Working with a good trainer Ranger went from a well-socialized unruly teenager to a confident well mannered teen in twelve weeks. And I had learned a lot about training. I continued reading a lot of books, watching videos, and generally improving my training skills. I was able to do a fair amount for Finna on my own but I was also smart enough to realize that my skills were not up to the task of completely rehabilitating such a damaged dog. As I explained to the trainer we're working with, I have a lot of knowledge and limited experience.

Finding the right trainer for Finna was crucial. I needed someone with a lot of experience working with fear aggressive dogs and one that was committed to positive reinforcement. I couldn't see any good result coming from punishing Finna for behaving badly because she was frightened. Especially not after the amount of time we'd spent teaching her that she was safe with us and we wouldn't let anything hurt her.

Two trainers in the area were highly recommended by people I trust (specifically the behaviorist we consulted when we realized how many issues Finna actually had/has and the Chinese herb veterinary that prescribes Finna's herbs.) I researched both trainers, carefully pouring over their websites and looking for reviews. In the end I chose Shade's Dog Training http://www.shadesdogtraining.net/about_us.htm the neatness with which she captured her journey as a trainer through brief bios of her dogs was the factor that put her at the top of my list. That and her honest assessment of her dog Shadow who sounded like even more of a handful than Finna. I figured a trainer who had clearly been there would be a great choice and I've been right.

Shade makes me feel competent, hopeful, and clearly understands Finna's unique needs. She can clearly see that if we'd had Finna from puppyhood she'd be an awesome dog today. With her guidance and knowledge sometimes we take Finna back to puppy training--for example, gently tugging her collar and rewarding her in the direction we tugged (tug left, treat left, tug right treat right, etc.). It's an exercise that teaches the puppy to move in the direction they feel the tug a great foundation for polite leash walking. Shade corrects my timing a lot but it never feels like I'm being told I'm wrong instead it's a partnership where she's helping me do it better. It's the same kind of feeling I want Finna to have.

With Shade's guidance we are seeing slow but steady improvement in our damaged dog. Finna still has a very long way to go but more and more I'm seeing indications the awesome dog she might become in time. I'll leave you with a video of Finna's latest learning. On Shade's advice we began teaching Finna to walk on the treadmill. We went into the process knowing that it would take as long as it took but for Finna who had no negative associations with a treadmill it took a mere five training sessions. Frankly, it's taking longer for her to accept wearing a new harness than it took to teach her to walk on a treadmill. Of course, Finna has a different notion of how to use a treadmill than I expected. Notice in the video that while I'm rewarding her for walking on the treadmill and asking for specific ways of using it she's off leash, free to leave at any time, and she's having fun.

Finna uses the treadmill

Responsibility

I'm the one that first spotted our psycho bitch at the Kitsap Humane Society; an obviously overwhelmed, terrified, shivering dog with an adorable face and huge ears. I'm the one that took our son back to meet her. I'm the one that encouraged him to ask to meet her for possible adoption. I'm the one that drove him back the next day to pick him up and I'm the one that paid her adoption fee, purchased her collar and leash and planned her initial introduction to our home. My fingerprints are all over this addition to our family.

As we near the one year mark of having taken on the challenge of rehabilitating a seriously damaged dog I've been beating up on myself for my role. The costs of living with Finna go beyond food, veterinary care, and other basics--including training. There is a large emotional cost to living with this dog. Because we have Finna we do not have friends over--not that we were ever social butterflies holding parties every weekend but now no visitors. In fact when a friend does drop by we keep them outside the fence because Finna is not trustworthy. We used to take off for an occasional weekend and take vacations but that's not an option with Finna in our lives. It used to be that the whole family would go to my mother-in-law's house to lend a hand with whatever she needed. But Finna can't go with us and can't be left alone for more than seven hours so only my husband and daughter go to visit her (it's a three hour round trip). Our lives, to a large extent, revolve around Finna and her problems.

Every member of the family pays the price for life with Finna and I'm well aware of that which is why I've been to trying to take as much of the Finna care and training upon myself as possible. What I was forgetting is that we've all chosen to keep her. We've been holding regular family meetings about her fate since we first realized how damaged she was/is. Every time we've held one of these meetings about Finna's fate we've all refused to give up on her. I've been forgetting that and it's had some bad consequences.

The more I've tried to spare the rest of the family from Finna the more important I've made myself in Finna's world. In fact I'd made myself so important that I'd become Finna's chief resource to guard. It was developing into a serious problem; a problem about which I asked our trainer. Her recommendation was that I stop being the center of Finna's universe and that the rest of the family take my place. It's so obvious when you think about it but so hard to see when you're in the middle of it. We implemented the suggestion at once and it has been very good for Finna. As she realizes that others can also meet her needs the extent to which she resource guards me has diminished significantly. And with that diminishment she's also becoming more relaxed. Knowing that every member of her family is committed to her and her needs is incredibly important for Finna. She is a dog that grew up believing that human beings were untrustworthy and unreliable.

Finna remains very much that high performance car that I described in an earlier post. She has gotten better, her brakes and steering don't start getting dicey until almost 50 mph now but she's still designed to be running at 120 mph so there's a very long way to go. And it very much feels like anytime we get one thing fixed it reveals half a dozen other problems. There are many days that I despair of ever getting her to a functional state where she's reliable and there are many days that I see significant improvement and think that we really might succeed in rehabilitating this damaged dog.

Next month will mark the one year anniversary of her adoption. But I'm not looking that far ahead. I'm just waiting to see what tomorrow brings.

Even Well Trained Dogs

In a lot of ways Ranger is like another grown child in my family. He respects the rules: he isn't a teenager who wants to test them or a toddler who is figuring them out and looking for boundaries. If Ranger thinks I'm wrong he'll tell me so very clearly but he'll still defer to me if I insist. I trust Ranger to behave as an adult. I don't think twice about leaving him alone with food that he's not supposed to eat. He has adult-like self-control.

Finna is very much the toddler, into everything, figuring out where the boundaries are, testing them. I don't trust her any further than I would any toddler. With Finna I'm careful to never leave her alone with food that she shouldn't eat. If there's anything tasty left within her reach I anticipate that she will eat it. She has virtually no self-control especially around anything as valuable as food.

This has been a rather crazy week at my house. Tuesday morning my husband called moments after he left for work to say his car had died. The timing belt had broken, fortunately it's a Toyota so all that happens is that the car ceases to function; the engine remains intact. A visit with the mechanic later we learned that his elderly Celica needed parts that would have to be special ordered. We were going to be down to one car for most of the week. Wednesday I got up and took Finna out for some play time as usual but instead of being able to come inside and have a nice breakfast I brought her in and hopped in the car to drive my husband to work. By the time I'd dropped him off I was starving so pulled into a McDonald's drive through and got a sausage McMuffin and a couple of hashbrowns. I'd eaten the hashbrowns by the time I got home but hadn't eaten the sausage muffin yet. Wednesday is also the day the dairy delivers to our house. I parked the car, grabbed the rest of my breakfast and a couple half gallons of milk. I brought those in through the gate and set them on the porch and went back to get the rest of the dairy delivery. Ranger was in the yard but he doesn't go out the gate without permission and he doesn't take food he hasn't been given. Two more trips with more items from the dairy and I could close the gate and start taking things inside. I picked up milk, opened the door and Finna dashed outside immediately sticking her nose into my McDonald's bag. I growled a leave it to which she obediently abandoned the bag and followed me inside.

When I came back out for the second load I had to laugh. Ranger was in the middle of the yard with the McDonald's bag lying abandoned beside him and the sausage muffin carefully unwrapped between his paws. Before I could even open my mouth to say anything one side of the muffin and the sausage had disappeared in a gulp. As Finna ran to see what Ranger had the other half of the muffin similarly vanished. Ranger, being a dog and not the adult child that I sometimes consider him, had fixed things so that Finna couldn't get the sausage muffin I'd forbidden her. He was very satisfied with himself and I found something else to have for the rest of my breakfast. Dogs, gotta love them.

Ten Month Finnaversary: The Saga Continues

We continue to make slow step by step progress in our efforts to rehabilitate this severely damaged dog we've named Finna. Before our most recent lesson the trainer and I amused ourselves by speculating on the various high strung breeds that went into Finna's mix. Finna's paperwork says she's half GSD and half Corgi but we decided there's probably Cattle Dog, Belgian Malinois, JRT, and Border Collie in there as well. We agreed that Finna is certainly crazy enough to be all of those mixed into one high strung petite package of issues.

Everything we've been able to expose Finna to she takes in stride. Vacuuming withing a few inches of her, using power tools within feet of her, bicycle pumps, etc. are not a problem for Finna. Things about which she had formed an opinion before she came to live with us are a problem. That tells me that if we'd raised Finna from a puppy she'd be an awesome dog but being raised in an inconsistent environment by animal hoarders she's a dog with massive issues.

I learned something important at our last lesson. My previous experience in training a dog is not a good guide for training Finna. Training Ranger is a hugely different experience than training Finna. We adopted both dogs at about a year of age from the Kitsap Humane Society. They are both very smart herding breeds/mixes. But that's where the similarities end. Ranger came from a great beginning with lots of socialization and positive experiences. He learned early on that it was possible to affect his environment to create positive outcomes and that people are partners. Finna learned that what she most wanted was to keep scary people and things away from her and that that was the best outcome she could hope for in her efforts at affecting her environment.  Ranger came to us predisposed to working in partnership and relying on me to give him clues about what I wanted. Telling Ranger "no, that's not the behavior I'm looking for" was useful for Ranger. Finna has no understanding that it's possible to be partners and that my feedback has any value. Finna needs to figure out everything for herself. I can reward success but I can't offer any other feedback. If I want Finna to down from her sit and she stands up instead; telling her "no" isn't helping her. Taking a step back and starting over is the only help I can give her. Please, note when I say telling Ranger or Finna no I am not talking about screaming or shouting at them I'm talking about a conversational tone indicating that the behavior offered was not the one requested. Ranger can be coached in this way and he understands that I'm helping him decode the requested behavior. Finna needs to work it out for herself.

All dogs require patience when training them but in Finna's case it will need to be endless patience. There was a Dogster blog awhile back that summed it up especially well. The subject was why clicker training would be a ratings disaster on TV. You can find the article here. The author described in the article about helping his dog learn to focus everywhere.  They went out to a field with interesting smells and tied the dog's long line to a tree. The trainer set down and watched his dog sniff around for 8 minutes before the dog checked in. Clicked and rewarded. Dog sniffed around for another six minutes then checked in again before being clicked and rewarded. Eventually the dog was focused on the trainer and they moved to another spot in the field and started over. It isn't exciting but the dog learns to figure it out and what it is that gets rewards, in this case focused attention. This is what I need to be doing for Finna, I need to give her as much time as she needs to offer me the behavior I want. Coaxing her or otherwise trying to short cut the process isn't doing her any favors.

Another thing we need to be working on is making Finna feel completely safe in her house even when Dad is home. She feels pretty safe with me and the children but much less so when Dad is home. We don't know why she often feels unsafe with him around. It might be the way my husband moves, some studies have shown that men carry their weight forward as if they are about to suddenly lunge forward which is going to feel more threatening to dogs especially dogs like Finna. It's also possible that Finna is reacting to the extra testosterone he has compared to anyone else in the family--Finna can smell that very easily. Or it could be that her previous life taught her that men cannot be trusted, that they are unpredictable and inconsistent--imagine if you are rewarded for jumping up and solicit petting but the next time you do it you're grabbed and thrown on your back on the ground and the same person that was petting you for jumping up before is now holding you down and yelling in your face; would you know how to behave or would you start to be afraid of that person and maybe generalize it to all people of that type? I know that back in the days when I was in college and built like a barbie doll it didn't take me long to reach the point where I crossed the street to avoid walking near construction sites. In my world at that time construction workers were sources of discomfort; I didn't enjoy the catcalls, wolf whistles and multiple propositions. Having passed my half century mark and broadened into more of an Earth Mother shape I no longer cross streets to avoid construction sites; I no longer get the same reaction I did as a twenty-something babe. Maybe time will help lessen Finna's fear of men. Meanwhile, I'll be thinking about ways to help Finna feel safe when Dad is home. Feeling safe in your own house should be a fundamental expectation for everyone two footed or four footed.

I notice this blog entry has been more focused on the problems of life with Finna. It isn't all bad. In fact our last lesson with our Trainer turned out to be the best yet. Finna was able to exhibit a new behavior that we'd worked on a little bit at home a few months back and touch my hand. She was able to sit and actually offered sits and watches in an effort to get treats. And Finna was able to down even with the Trainer sitting in the room. It was really heartening; Finna was acting like a real dog and not like a Finna dog. She was focused, paying attention and giving me the behaviors I asked for. She wasn't stressed out and over threshold. Shade, our Trainer, and I were both delighted with how well Finna did! There's hope for our psycho bitch yet. Maybe someday, I'll be writing blogs about Finna our super bitch instead of calling her psycho bitch. But that day is a long ways off. In the meantime we'll celebrate our tiny victories and be proud of any advance. That's life with Finna.

My Wish for All Dogs

I hope you can read this. I had to make it small enough to fit within the text space and that made the text in the image a bit small. I found it in my Facebook newsfeed one day and I loved it. It captures exactly my wish for all dogs but especially for my fearful Finna. Here, is the place where she will be part of a family and where she will be safe and loved. We will not abandon her just because she's much more of a challenge than we anticipated. Here she will be taught patiently, kindly, and lovingly what she needs to know to be the best dog that she can be. Here she will belong and she will be home.