I had to look up the word 'mensch'; I knew it was Yiddish but I didn't know the exact meaning. It's complimentary -- more so than I deserve. Click here to read the interview.
In a few days I'll be heading to St. Charles, Missouri on what will probably be the last rescue trip for awhile. I thought this would be a good time to start using Twitter, so if you're interested in the play-by-play, I'm @stevemarkwell. I have no followers yet and it's embarrassing, but on the other side, I'm not following anyone. Is it bad that I don't really want to? Regardless, Twitter can be a valuable promotional tool and I felt I needed to use it, along with Facebook and blogging, to give people multiple ways to connect with my work. With the article about the Sanctuary coming out in the LA Times soon, I figured I'd better get on it quick, too. Funny about MySpace... anyone still using it?
So check me out on Twitter if you're a ... Twitterer? Tweeter? What a stupid site. But I'm still going to give it a fair chance.
A few months ago I wrote an entry about mandatory spay/neuter laws and how I supported them, and I still support them, at least in theory, but there is one problem that deserves to be mentioned, and that is what occurs when MSN legislation is passed and there is no system in place for people to get their animals sterilized cheaply and easily. And unfortunately, that's what seems to happen in just about every instance where MSN exists.
When MSN is passed, people are less likely to license their animals, and low income families and individuals frequently have their pets confiscated and are unable to retrieve them because they can't afford the fines or the cost of the surgery. The number of animals killed in shelters increases. Clearly, while spay/neuter means fewer animals, the way we mandate it has a lot of bearing on how effective it will be.
My state has a bill on the table for spay/neuter assistance, and that's a great start, but when the state funding runs out, the nonprofit sector needs to be prepared to partner with local law enforcement to provide low-cost or even free spay/neuter in order to increase pet retention. Simply confiscating pets and destroying them in shelters isn't helping the situation; people need animals in their lives, and when you take them away, they will get more. When you return a sterilized animal to the home where you found it, people don't need to produce or purchase more pets.
So if I were writing a mandatory spay/neuter bill, this would be the gist of it:
Just some ideas. There has to be a way we can do this legislatively without forcing people to go underground. Affording it, now that's another story, but I suspect that the more money we put into spay/neuter, the more we save in the long run. It might even be worthwhile to pay people in low income areas to spay and neuter their pets.
I received an email this afternoon asking my advice on dealing with a dog who tended to be defensive around strangers. The dog, a Doberman pinscher, had jumped up and nipped a man who had approached too quickly. The sender of the email said that all of the resources she had consulted had recommended a dominance-based approach, and upon reading an article about me in today's paper, she had become curious about what I did differently. Here is my brief (brief for me, at least) response:
I guess I'll start by saying that I used to go for the alpha dog approach, and I found that a few things happened. First, the dogs were stressed, which made them defensive and more prone to fighting. Second, when a fight broke out between two dogs, a third dog would usually nail me when I was busy trying to break it up. Third, the dogs were confused about their roles with regard to me, and tended to treat me as a resource that needed to be protected, against each other and against other people. It basically made for an intense, volatile environment.
When I started working with more timid dogs, I began using a submissive approach, and found that when the dogs were at ease and didn't see me as a threat, they were less stressed. I began using the same techniques with my other dogs, and found that they fought with each other less, and I wasn't getting 'sneak attacked'. I changed my attitude as well, from 'I'm the boss' to 'I'm the guardian' -- my job is to protect the dogs, and I don't have to be a pack leader to do that. I'm not a dog, I'm a human, and my role is to protect. When that's my attitude, the dogs eventually pick up on it and begin to feel safe and secure. They also see me as an ally, not a rival. In contrast. the pack leader is the most vulnerable dog in the group, because there's always another dog looking to depose him/her. What's more, the pack dynamics that are preached with regard to dogs are wolf behaviors, not dog behaviors -- a healthy social group of dogs does not have a pack leader. Healthy dog packs are loosely organized, and dominant/submissive roles are traded back and forth. Genetically, dogs are wolves; behaviorally, they're not. When we try to force them into a wolf behavior paradigm, they become stressed and start acting like wild animals, because that's what wolves do. So ask yourself, do you want a wolf, which is a dangerous, wild animal, or do you want a dog, which is a faithful companion?
Dominance-based training uses positive punishment, which legitimate behaviorists agree is outmoded and dangerous. Unfortunately, the "Dog Whisperer" and his ilk have brought about a resurgence of these inappropriate conditioning techniques that, at best, use discomfort to control animals. Freedom from discomfort is a pillar of the western animal welfare philosophy; choking, physically dominating, and intimidating are wholly inappropriate. Instead, we need to reward the behavior we want to perpetuate, and ignore what we don't like.
Don't put yourself at risk of physical harm, but work on a couple of things: first, be the human guardian, not the pack leader. You can adopt submissive postures that tell the dog you're relaxed, not worried, and he shouldn't be worried either. Often, by lying on my back, performing play bows, and mimicking other submissive postures, I end up with the dog basically demanding that I take a more dominant role, for instance, trying to crawl under my body when I'm lying on the floor. Consider how much more powerful that role of protector is when the dog has asked you to take it on, as opposed to you demanding it. Second, in tense situations, use body language to communicate to the dog that everything's OK. The trainer Turid Rugaas is the pioneer here; she calls this body language "calming signals". For example, if I am dealing with a dog that sees me as a threat and wants to defend himself, I may turn away slightly and yawn -- this tells him I'm not interested in fighting and don't intend to challenge him. You can use calming signals directed at other people, dogs, etc., too, which will communicate to your dog that those 'scary monsters' don't have you concerned. Do a search for "Turid Rugaas" and "calming signals" for more examples of these techniques. They're great for catching shy strays, too.
Look at the dog's triggers -- what are his problem behaviors and what sets him off? 99% of the time, his problem behaviors come from him feeling threatened. Decide which triggers you can reasonably remove from his life, and which ones will have to be addressed. I am a proponent of behavior management first, behavior modification second. This means that what you're already doing, taking small steps, and not giving him more than he can handle is the most important thing. Sometimes merely the passage of time is what's needed for a dog to shrug off some of the old behaviors. For example, if you have a dog that's threatened by strangers, it's better to give him time to forget how much they scare him than to expose him to them day after day, which only further cements the defensive response into a habitual reaction. I have a small terrier here that used to go crazy when he heard children's voices; here, he doesn't hear them very often, and when he does, he has no reaction. He's forgotten how much he dislikes kids. Another example -- I have some resource guarders here that are as bad as you can imagine -- 'kill you for a bread crumb' kind of resource guarding. But by not challenging them, they get better over time; they'll probably always be resource guarders, but nowhere near the level that they used to be. Had I responded every time to that behavior and physically taken the food or toy away from them, they'd have only learned to guard even more fiercely.
Regarding the pinch collar, I'd ditch it, because it uses discomfort to control the dog. I have a very simple technique for leash training, that can be a bit tedious, but it is gentle and effective -- when the dog pulls, I simply walk in a different direction. It sometimes looks like I am walking in circles, or even like I've been drinking, but by changing my direction, varying my speed, and keeping the dog guessing, he has to pay attention to me and follow my lead. There's no choking, tugging, or punishing here -- just redirection. You can use treats to augment this if you like.
Remember to take small steps and keep your expectations realistic. If you want a dog that will play at the dog park and go into Home Depot with you, you may need to adjust your goals a bit, but if you want a dog that can go for walks when there aren't thousands of people around and isn't going to break his teeth on the car window every time a jogger runs by, your chances of success are pretty good. Remember also that his happiness, not your convenience, is what's at stake here. You're his guardian, which means your job is to protect him and do what's best for him. You belong to him, in that sense. Keep his interests at the heart of your decisions, and you should be fine.
I got an email this morning from a rescue in the Seattle area, asking if I could provide temporary placement for a pit bull while they searched for an appropriate home for him. The dog had to be placed today; normally I don't respond to last minute requests, because I don't like being manipulated into making a decision on short notice based on limited information, but with this one, I didn't feel like that was an issue, and I could see how the rescue group didn't have very many options. Here's what happened:
Some weeks ago this rescue took in an adult male pit bull; they didn't know his history, except that he had scars from fighting. They tested him with cats and determined that he should not have access to them, and assumed that he would not be safe around smaller dogs, either. Like a lot of smaller rescues, they rely on foster care and boarding facilities to house their animals, so the dog went to a boarding kennel where he escaped from a dilapidated pen and did over $3,000 worth of damage to an unfortunate dachshund. The kennel owner demanded that he be removed immediately, and was adamant that the dog be put down. Luckily for him, the rescue had a different philosophy.
The dog got along well with certain, other dogs, like female pit bulls, but some dogs would set him off and he'd attack them. The rescue consulted with a trainer, whose response to his reactivity to other dogs was to lift him off the ground by his leash, throw him on the ground, and step on his neck. From there, he went to stay with another trainer, who claimed to specialize in "aggressive dogs". The dog was there for three weeks, during which time he was kept in a crate, in a shed, with five other dogs. The rescue received regular reports that he was doing well and making progress, but yesterday he tried to fight with another dog, the "trainer" jerked back on his leash, and he turned on her instead. She wasn't hurt, but she immediately returned him to his crate and demanded that the rescue group take him back right away and kill him. It's OK, you're allowed to think it, and you can bet I was thinking the same thing -- what a stupid bitch.
So the rescue, with no suitable foster homes left at its disposal, asked me to hold onto the dog for a few days while they searched for more options, and I agreed, because it's a short term thing, and because I hold a special love for dogs who are subjected to abuse at the hands of so-called experts, behaviorists, and trainers. Truthfully, the only trainers I've ever met that weren't complete ass hats were the ones at Best Friends, and they made it clear that they used the word 'training' very loosely -- that their primary focus was behavior management, something which came as quite a relief to me. After spending so much time trying to heal the wounded dogs left in the wake of hacks and charlatans claiming to be professional dog trainers, I was beginning to think I was the only person in the country who was trying to manage troubling canine behaviors instead of doing magic tricks to make them disappear.
Of course, for political reasons, particularly with regard to their having a TV show on the National Geographic Channel, Best Friends' trainers have to be careful where they point the finger, and even in private, off the record, just between us, none of them was willing to say much about their Nat. Geo. colleague, Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer. Fortunately, I'm not subject to such limitations.
There has been a distinct increase in positive punishment techniques in recent years, despite the predominant view among psychologists and behaviorists (real ones) that positive punishment is outmoded, counterproductive, and dangerous. In case you're not familiar with operant conditioning, or you've forgotten your Psych 101, here's a quick overview:
Punishment: an effort to discourage the repetition of a behavior
Reinforcement: an effort to encourage the repetition of a behavior
Positive punishment: the introduction of an unfavorable stimulus for the purpose of discouraging the repetition of a behavior; for example, choking a dog when he tugs on his leash
Negative punishment: the removal of a favorable stimulus for the purpose of discouraging the repetition of a behavior; for example, taking a dog's toy away when he tries to guard it
Positive reinforcement: the introduction of a favorable stimulus for the purpose of encouraging the repetition of a behavior; for example, giving a treat when the dog sits
Negative reinforcement: the removal of an unfavorable stimulus for the purpose of encouraging the repetition of a behavior; for example, removing an uncomfortable collar when the dog is quiet
Negative reinforcement is the most frequently misused term from the four; often, when people use the term negative reinforcement, they are actually describing positive reinforcement. The important distinction to make is that the words 'positive' and 'negative' don't refer to any value judgment of the behavior you're tying to perpetuate or eliminate, but to the introduction or removal of a stimulus. You can use positive reinforcement to perpetuate behaviors you don't like -- it just means you're giving something, rather than taking something away.
Positive reinforcement is by far the safest, most effective model for perpetuating favorable behaviors in a dog (or any other animal, child, etc.); 'ignore the bad, reward the good' is the mantra every dog caregiver should adopt. Negative reinforcement and negative punishment have their place, particularly the latter, but their effective use tends to be a bit less obvious.
Getting back to positive punishment, this dangerous model for behavior modification happens to be the the one most heavily utilized and promoted by Cesar Millan on his TV show, because intimidation and physical pain produce immediate results, if not lasting ones. Also in his bag of tricks, flooding -- a technique based on classical conditioning in which a subject is bombarded with the stimulus that triggers his fear response, in order to wipe out the negative associations he has with that stimulus. Flooding sometimes works, and sometimes it causes massive trauma and does permanent, psychological damage. Think 'throwing the kid who's afraid of water into the pool' -- sure, she might come to see that there's nothing to be afraid of, or she might drown, or nearly drown and become even more afraid of water. Preferable to flooding is a technique called systematic desensitization, which essentially means exposing the subject to the stimulus a little at a time; it takes longer, but it's safer and more reliable. Unfortunately, the more sound techniques don't always make good TV, and TV's where we get all of our information these days, because reading is for elitists and research is for nerds.
On the surface, it may appear that the Dog Whisperer and I have similar philosophies, but the truth is that I run a nonprofit rescue and he runs a for-profit business; I provide dogs with safety and a fulfilling life in spite of their behavior and he tries to change their behavior for the benefit and convenience of his clients. We do not do the same thing, or even pursue the same results. But the fact that we're not actually in the same business doesn't mean I don't have strong opinions about what he does, especially in terms of his impact on the treatment of animals; I make it no secret that I think Cesar Millan is a hack. I think his techniques are dangerous, his results are temporal, and if he pulled any of his shit with some of my dogs, I'd probably be scraping pieces of him off my walls for days, not that I'd ever let someone like that near my animals. But that said, what the Dog Whisperer does to make good TV is of little consequence compared to what I'm calling here 'the whisperer effect' -- the tremendous damage that's done when fans of Cesar Millan's TV show decide to take up his methods and go into business for themselves. It's the blind leading the blind, via satellite.
When people start calling themselves experts on canine aggression, I have to chuckle a little, because what others call aggression, I call normal dog behavior. I'm still looking for that vicious dog -- that truly aggressive monster that's not worth saving. It's my white whale. Maybe I'll find it some day, and as I lie bleeding to death on the kennel floor, my last words will be 'kill... that... damned... thing...' But it's not likely, because the truth is that I don't believe in animal aggression. I think it's a fake thing that people have invented to make sense of behaviors that scare them, especially the ones that trigger that primal, prey response in us, because while we like to think we're powerful and in charge, it hasn't been all that long since lions, tigers, bears, and even dogs were wiping their asses with the likes of us. We may not be conscious of it, but we, as human beings, really hate the notion that we could be on someone else's menu; it brings with it a type of emotional discomfort and uneasiness that you just don't get from being called a homo or finding out your trashy wife is cheating on you with your dad.
So to make sense of the powerful emotional responses we experience, when dogs bite us, we call it aggression. When they kill cats, it's aggression. When they fight with rivals, it's aggression. It's something I ought to know a little about; I have, at the moment, 45 dogs, and of those, I consider 14 of them to be significantly dangerous or even deadly, and another 20 or so to have severe enough behavioral issues that I'd be extremely hesitant to ever consider adopting them out to even the most qualified caregiver. I only have six that I'd call 'safe'; three of those were my pets before I started officially doing dog rescue, and two are small dogs, of which one is feral and one has bitten several children and one old man. Hell, they all bite, even the 'safe' ones, so you might call me an expert on canine aggression. You might say I'm immersed in it, surrounded by it, that it's a huge part of my everyday life. But since I don't believe it exists, the red flags shoot up whenever I hear about dog trainers with that particular specialty, because if I'm as immersed in canine aggression as I am and yet disbelieve its existence, I have to wonder what the hell the experts think they're seeing that I've missed all these years, living with all these dogs that bite, fight, and kill.
Of course, the talk of aggression is just one part of it; when people start spouting all that pack leader, alpha male, dominance shit, I do a little whispering of my own: "Damn you Cesar Milan!" TV's a powerful medium, and all the disclaimers in the world won't keep your stupidest viewers from 'trying this at home'; you'd damn well better make sure that 'this' is based on sound science and produces reliable results, or we all suffer. And when you have only a high school education but still presume to operate a "dog psychology center", you're practically inviting the least educated and least experienced members of our society to follow your lead and call themselves experts, not to mention fostering an attitude that people in animal services need not have the credentials required of their human services counterparts.
The funny thing about experts who don't have any education or experience to back up their self-bestowed titles is that they fail to understand even the simplest principles: Choke a dog when he reacts to the presence of a second dog, and you teach him that whenever he sees a strange dog, he gets choked. Throw him on the ground and step on his neck and you teach him that whenever he sees a strange dog, someone's going to try to kill him. A smart dog learns from that experience and attacks the trainer before the trainer can attack him. The trainer, rather than admit to not knowing what the hell she's doing and seek help, pisses herself and blames the dog. And then I get a call. Thanks, Cesar.
As for my white whale, it was another no-show. All I found today was a sweet, friendly pit bull who doesn't like other dogs very much. I may be missing something, but I just can't see how that warrants a death sentence.
A little over a year ago I got a call from the county animal control officer about a dog she had in a trap about six miles from my place. For about ten years he'd belonged to a meth addict who lived in a shack in the forest; he loved the dog, but didn't take very good care of him (shocking, right?) and as a result, the dog was very fearful, as well as being morbidly obese and having some other health problems. When the drug addicted dog-owner overdosed and dropped dead, his dog sat with his corpse for a couple of days before anyone noticed what had happened, and being pretty well freaked out and unwilling to let anyone come anywhere near him, he had to be trapped. The ACO knew that with all of his snarling and lunging, he wouldn't last a day at the humane society before they'd kill him, so she asked if I would take him in, or at least come and take a look at him.
When I arrived at the property, I found just what the officer had described -- a big, fat chow mix who was very unhappy to be in a trap and wanted nothing to do with me or the scary woman who'd caught him. I decided to put the trap into the back of my truck and shut myself in with the dog, having the officer close the latches on the canopy so that the dog couldn't push the window open and escape back into the woods. Of course, that meant I would have a tough time getting out as well, in the event that he decided he needed to kill me. Occupational hazard. I opened up the trap, but the terrified dog wouldn't come out. I climbed into the trap and held out my woven ski cap to see if I could elicit a bite, but he wasn't going for it; I finally stuffed the thing in his mouth, but he still wouldn't bite down. You've heard of the proverbial dog who is all bark and no bite -- this was the one.
I brought him back to the Sanctuary and named him Moose; one of my donors had a dog by the same name and I really liked it, and for some reason he also reminded me of Meatloaf's character in Fight Club, who was described as a "big moosey". Over the next couple of days, Moose let me pet him, and I was able to leash train him. It took about a week before he'd let me approach him when he was out in the yard. Then, he became a noisy, complaining, needy crybaby who wanted constant attention and coddling; it was alternatingly annoying and amusing. Moose was never especially fond of the other dogs, but he tended to stay out of their way and they stayed out of his; one day, however, he decided biting them in their asses would be a good thing to do, and one of the pit bull mixes let him have it. In the scuffle, he got a few lacerations and a broken tooth.
I knew Moose was in need of dental surgery anyway, so I figured that was as good a time as any; what I didn't know is that the state of his mouth was so bad that he would need ten teeth pulled and a number of abscesses opened up in a surgery that would take several hours and cost over $6,000. Holy shit. You've heard the saying, 'there's no such thing as a free lunch'; well, in my experience, there is such a thing as a free lunch, but there's definitely no such thing as a free dog.
After Moose's surgery, I had a husky to rescue in Michigan, and it was one that I'd had to fight over with the local animal control agency and the courts for weeks; when I finally won the right to take the husky (who had been declared dangerous after killing a smaller dog), I was given a very short time in which I could take custody before animal control killed him, and they really wanted him dead. I couldn't wait for Moose to recover from his surgery and there was some specialized aftercare involved, so I opted to take him along for the ride.
Imagine the sound Chewbacca would make as he lay dying, blood gurgling in his throat from some fatal wound, desperately clinging to a life that would be over in moments -- that's the sound Moose made in a hotel room when I was trying to remove his stitches. I thought we were going to be kicked out. It was so disturbing I could scarcely stand to do it, and if I had it to do again, I would just leave them in and let them dissolve. The Fentanyl adhesive pain relief patch would have to come off, though; being a Schedule II narcotic, it wasn't something I could just let fall off on its own and hope some kid didn't eat it.
During the Michigan trip, Moose started having some problems keeping his food down; the trouble became more severe, and it reached a point where he vomited immediately after every meal, no matter how small. He was losing weight rapidly, and my vets were all baffled as to what was going on with him. They did all manner of tests, x-rays, and exploratory surgery, bringing the grand total for his veterinary care close to $10,000, but still, they couldn't find the root of the problem. Moose lived at the vet clinic for weeks, where he received various injections around the clock to help him keep down the six, tiny meals he was fed each day. I drove the 70 miles a few times a week to visit, and on one such trip, one of the doctors told me that she had begun to fall in love with Moose.
"Do you want to keep him?" It was hard for me to ask, but for a dog with such complicated health problems, I couldn't think of a better home for him than with a vet, not to mention that we were fast approaching the upper reaches of our budget, and the county animal control officer, who I was hoping would help with the bills, wouldn't even return my calls. The doctor explained that she had never taken home a dog from a client, even though many had asked her to, but there was something special about Moose... she said yes.
I was at once sad and relieved, because I had fallen for the dog as well, but I knew that with a few dozen others to care for, it would be tough for me to keep on top of Moose's feeding and medication schedule, and we still didn't know what was wrong with him. I went back to the vet's office to visit him from time to time, but he had quickly bonded to the doctor and no longer wanted anything to do with me; on my last visit, he stood at the door and cried to be let out of the exam room and away from me. I admit it hurt a little, but it made me feel a little better about giving him away; it clearly wasn't that traumatic a change for him.
Over the next year, I received updates: Moose had lost so much weight that his eyelids had curled under; he kept getting his ass kicked by the vet's potbellied pig, but wouldn't stop going into the pigpen; at one point, all of his hair fell out; when the doctor brought home another male dog, Moose had to wear a diaper because he wouldn't stop peeing all over her house to mark his territory. When she took Moose out in public, people looked at her with disgust, believing, based on his appearance, that she was the worst dog caregiver ever. She said he was a truly repulsive sight, and his needy, whiny attitude didn't help things. Even the other employees at the vet clinic, true animal lovers who I've come to know and trust, found Moose hard to be around. Some of them asked the doctor why she'd bothered to keep him alive for so long. They couldn't understand why she loved him so much, or why she'd been willing to spend thousands and perform multiple surgeries on a dog that seemed to be falling apart in spite of her efforts. A dog that was noisy, needy, stinky...
But then something changed. Moose started getting better. He stopped losing weight. His hair grew back in. He was able to keep food down, provided it was a hypoallergenic, vegetarian diet, and the only medication he needed was the occasional eye drop. He was feeling better, too, which he expressed by killing a couple of chickens and a rabbit at the vet's house. Shit.
The doctor told me that if Moose had killed all of the small animals in her home, she'd have kept him, but because she still had parrots and other little creatures that Moose could potentially gain access to, she felt her only responsible course of action was to ask me to take him back. I must admit I feel a little guilty taking him back now, after he's weathered such a storm of health problems and gotten better, but the truth is we still have no idea what's wrong with him, and he could become sick and die any time. I am, however, glad to have him back, even if I only have him a few months before his body decides to give up. That sounds a little too grim -- he actually looks pretty good, and he's a much sweeter, more social dog than he was a year ago. Moose is always happy to see me; he barks and complains whenever I leave him alone, but he stops after a minute or two, which he never used to do. He's even getting along with Phoenix, the other old man dog I recently brought back from New York. I've increased his food by about 50%, and he may even be putting on weight; in a few days I'm going to try mixing in a tiny amount of a different brand of vegetarian food and see how his stomach handles it. It's a little hard to explain how much I love this dog: he trots around on stiff-legs, with his tiny ears bouncing up and down; he gets his feelings hurt really easily; he has an extremely low pain tolerance; he's a crybaby; he always seems unsure of what he should be doing; he snores and farts a lot... he's like that socially inept kid in school who had no idea how much he annoyed his classmates, or that he had food in his teeth and smelled like he had a load in his shorts. He's a dopey, awkward, pain in the ass, and with any luck, he'll stick around awhile.
Big Moosey, not quite as big as he once was
Moose eating grass, which caused him to vomit 30 seconds later. I love this dog.
