Saturday, June 28, 2008

Dog Training in a Bad Economy

Dog Training in a Bad Economy
By Robert Forto, PhD
I am not an economist but I do not think it takes one to notice the skinnier pocketbook after bills are paid and purchases are made. It does not take an economist to notice the news about increasing foreclosures or the pets that are dropped off at shelters by owners claiming they "cannot afford him anymore" or the news of possible recession. I have even heard of a few people who have had an ingenious change of plans for the summer vacation this year. Maybe they will decide against driving to Walley World in the Family Truckster and visit Aunt Edna instead. The following article is meant to be satirical but has a severe element of truth attached. I encourage you to read my ramblings and comment on what you think.
I still feel the bite in grocery, gasoline, and utility prices. It is hard to say what one would do in another's situation but I do know that I regard my dogs as family and that not many things in this world would separate me from them. In that vein, I have a few, hopefully helpful, tips for homeowners who have lost their homes to foreclosure and are faced with landlords who are not friendly to the idea of pets on their property. There are also ways to ease the cost of keeping a dog by learning how to do some things yourself and by discussing alternatives with your veterinarian or local shelter or low cost community clinic. Most of them are sympathetic and want to help you find ways to keep your pet. But that is not the topic of this article. I would be happy to speak with you about these tips and alternatives, just give me a call.
To introduce myself: My name is Robert Forto and I am a certified canine behaviorist and the training director for Denver Dog Works in Colorado. I have been in business for eighteen years and the status of our economy is said to be the worst in my lifetime. I remember the gas shortages in the seventies and having to ration food until my parents got paid again but I also remember that our little mixed breed, Sugar, always had what she needed.
Dog training is not a luxury item for most people, like an evening on the town or a weekend vacation to Vail. Dog training is a necessity. With 77.1 million dogs in this country that equals a lot of bad mannered pooches. Dogs need basic manners. If they don’t have these it leads to bigger problems and often lands them in a shelter.
The way I look at the economy is that the glass is either half full or half empty. I tend to err on the side of realist, but that is just my point of view. It appears to me that people are in a near panic because gas prices have gone up a couple dollars in the past few months, the stock market is in a deep slide and people are losing their homes because they were greedy and materialistic, and bought a house with nothing down and then decided to blow their equity on boats, plasma TV’s and ATV’s. Now they are forced to move out of their homes because of foreclosure and they are leaving their beloved pet behind to starve to death. How is that for going from bad to worse?
But really what has changed? True, when President Bush came into office gas was $1.60 a gallon, we were not at war based on false pretenses, and the stock market was in the middle of an Internet explosion. We still had dogs, just not as many dog parks with dog owners on cell-phones and yelling “leave it”. We didn’t have much in the way of big-box, corporate America—pet store-six dollar an hour earning cashiers/shelf stocker/can-I-help-you-find-something please…/dog trainers. It was a different world then. Now we have a presidential candidate pushing “change that we can believe in” rhetoric, and we still have dogs and they still need training right? They are still pulling on the leash, tearing up our couches that we got on a loan that we could not afford from a big furniture warehouse. They still need grooming and vet care and they still require our attention. Rightly so, we should be devoting this attention to our family and kids (and dogs) instead of working two, or maybe three, jobs because we are so worried about the price of gas. I vaguely remember when I was a kid some obscure quote about the price of tea in China. What was it?
Now China is the second largest economy in the World and we are hardly a threat to them anymore. Hey, they do have the Olympics starting on 08/08/08. Do you remember what was supposed to happen on 01/01/00? What a dud that turned out to be. I am a huge fan of the Olympics and will probably stay up all night watching ambiguous sporting events that don’t exist except in the Olympics. True, I could just log on to the Internet and find out who won--but why? I won’t be able to sleep because I will be too worried about the status of the Dow Jones Industrial Average that really doesn’t mean anything to anybody anyway. Maybe I will work on the long-down exercise with my dog.
When I was writing my dissertation for my doctorate I had grand plans of researching getting the sport of dog sledding into the Winter Olympics. Maybe I need to rethink that idea and concentrate my research to using a dog team as a mode of transportation. When I lived in Duluth, Minnesota I did just that. I would hook up my 12-dog team in the middle of a blizzard and mush to the local convenience store for “staples”, or at least what I thought were staples, for a recent 20-something college grad. But even a dog team is not cheap and I would venture to guess, more expensive than gas if all is tallied right—it averages about three dollars a day to keep a dog for a dog team. That is a lot more than four dollars for a gallon of gas. I digress.
Yes, dog training is a necessity. Maybe not for the dog. They do not read the Journal, even though they think in black and white. I admit I read the Journal, not for those cool stipulated (and pixilated) pictures but for the articles of course. Dog training is for us. Dog training is a necessity to save our sanity, to save us from our self-destructive selves. The thought dog training brings me to paraphrase a line from a movie, A Christmas Story: to make “all is right in the world”. Dog training brings us back in line with a simpler time. Even if that was just the 1990’s when ‘Generation X’ was making millions on the Internet and Homeward Bound, Air Bud, Iron Will, Fluke, and the cute little dog, “Eddie”, from Fraiser won our hearts and we aspired to have our dogs trained just like them. When a Doberman named “Raisin” won the Westminster dog show and we found out that he flew on a private jet. We all had grandiose dreams and inspirations for our four-legged mans-best-friend. This is when I chose to became a dog trainer and why I still love what I do. True it is trying at times. Dog training is difficult work. It is the ultimate customer service job. I have been criticized countless times for standing up for my training philosophies, my staff, why I would want to offer an agility class outside in the middle of winter, and of course people having unrealistic expectations. I learn from every client and I am passionate about what I do. I realized a long time ago I don’t just train dogs, I change lives.
Training your dog can change your life too. It will bring you closer to humanity and to your dog. It will allow you to think outside the box and stop the incessant worrying about the economy. Orthodoxy is not the norm in dog training. It is not mundane and relentless. Like the agility class in the middle of winter that people were so critical of at Denver Dog Works. Sure it was cold and there was snow on the ground but no other dog training school would even think of such a thing. People thought Sir Edmund Hillary was crazy for climbing Mt. Everest and why people still try to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel. People thought they were avant-garde, but didn’t they change people’s perception? Dog training will bring you a new perspective on life and the simplest of experiences that we love so much about our dogs. Such as: why we can sit and wonder why they turn their head a certain way when we talk to them, or why even old dogs, like my 11-year old Siberian Husky, Ineka, can still run and frolic and wake me up every morning with those intense ice-blue eyes. Dog training can bring you happiness, joy, and understanding to an otherwise out-of-control world. Now that is change we can believe in.
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Dr. Robert Forto is the training director of Denver Dog Works in Colorado. He welcomes your comments, both positive and negative. Dr. Forto encourages you to give Denver Dog works a call so we can see this through together. Dr. Forto can be contacted through his website at www.denverdogworks.com or by phone at 303-522-1727 anytime.

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Fear in Dogs

By Robert Forto, PhD

As a canine behaviorist and the training director of Denver Dog Works in Colorado, I am often treating cases of fear in the family pet. In some cases it is relatively mild, say thunder or a car backfire, but far more common is fear related aggression and generalized anxiety with a fear component. The anxiety coupled with fear is usually a result of lack of improper socialization in the dog’s early environment. I will see this very common in rescued dogs. At least once a week a pet owner will come in for an evaluation and say that they just rescued Max, from the local shelter and their primary complaint is that he is scared to death of everything. I counsel the new owners about fear and how it develops in dogs and my opinion of why so many dogs end up in shelters in the first place. Fear is a central catalyst for this occurrence and dogs in shelters.
Every dog or animal with a reasonably developed central nervous system has fear. Fear is one of the basic drives, along with hunger, thirst, sleep, sex and sociality. Out-of-control fear is as much of a problem as any other drive that is out of control. But fear in normal amounts is essential, as is hunger and thirst in normal amounts. Fear is what keeps us from having a pick-up game of football on the freeway in the middle of rush-hour, and keeps us from walking on thin ice literally and figuratively. Fear helps us avoid certain disaster and keeps us alive longer. It does the same in dogs. However, we and dogs are not born with fear. Humans and dogs have an apparent fear of, snakes, it takes time to develop, about two years in humans, and several months in dogs.
Uncontrollable fear is a delicate training protocol. It is not teaching a simple sit or walking on a loose leash. You cannot treat fear by attending a group class or a puppy kindergarten, while these programs are good for the basic commands, they should not be used after a dog exhibits extreme examples of fear. Treating fear involves a program of desensitization and counter-conditioning. While these are the building blocks for canine training and behavior modification, they are principles that are unfortunately not learned by most dog trainers these days. If you suspect fear, or any other severe behavioral issue, my advice is to speak to a canine behaviorist. The difference between a behaviorist, and a trainer per say, is that the behaviorist is educated in the sciences and nuances of canine behavior and its origins. They do not practice lure based training or intimidation in behavior modification like so many of the dog trainers do today.

In the dog, fear begins between six and eight weeks of age. As an average figure, fear becomes noticeable in a pup and rapidly escalates in the seventh week, plus or minus one week. By three weeks after the onset of fear responses, fear plateaus out at a level for pups and for the specific genetic complement that have. In humans, fear begins at about two years and is not fully developed until about 20 years later. Ever see a teenage boy who did not think he was indestructible?
So, fear develops sometimes early in the life of a dog, but does not develop at the same rate in all dogs, and obviously occurs at different levels in each individual. There are three factors which alone or in combination act to determine the level of fear any given dog shows.
The first is genetic. The dog inherits a predisposition of fear. If the genetic potential is for a high level of fear, or put another away, if the dog has a low threshold for fear-inducing stimuli, it will overreact to a fearful stimulus, or what is more often the case, to a whole gamut of stimuli. What would cause a mild startle effect response in a dog with a normal fear level will drive the over-reactor ballistic.
A second factor that causes uncontrollable fear is early environment, usually from improper or even total lack of primary and secondary socialization during the critical sensitive period from 3 to 12 weeks of age. Under the influence of this fear-inducing factor, the dog might be genetically solid as the famous rock, but it missed exposure to people, various sounds, short periods of separation from Mom and the siblings when the socialization window is wide open. Therefore, the dog has never formed the association between people, sounds and objects, and low anxiety prior to the development of the fear, the only time the association can be formed. The dog will forever fear these things that will normally occur every day of its life.
The third factor is learned fear. It comes about by the chance association formed between some arbitrary neutral stimulus—say the ringing of the phone—and a negative reinforcement, something painful—like stepping on a thumbtack. If the ring happens coincidentally with or milliseconds before the pain of the tack in the foot, the dog associates the ring with the pain and will show a fear reaction to the phone ringing. Learned fear is always specific to the stimulus in the same class. So any ring similar to the phone will cause the fear response in the dog. If the fear is only to the ring of the phone and very similar ring sounds, we can live with it, but if it is something that seriously interferes with the dog’s hunting performance like fear of a loud noise (translation, a gunshot), it must be fixed and can be.
In an upcoming article I will discuss the treatment options available for the different factors of fear. Please note that these articles are for informational purposes and should not be used as a substitute for treatment of fear, or any other severe behavior problems, in your dog. This treatment should only be done under the guidance of a canine behaviorist or on a recommendation of your local veterinarian.
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Dr. Robert Forto, PhD is the training director for Denver Dog Works in Colorado and routinely treats fear in dogs. If you would like to schedule a consultation with Dr. Forto, he can be reached through his website at www.denverdogworks.com or by phone at 303-522-1727 anytime.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

I Don't Have Time to Train My Dog!

I Don’t Have Time to Train My Dog!
By Robert Forto, PhD

How many times have you said to yourself: "Gee, I need to practice with my dog, but I just don't have time to train today." A client recently said this very thing to me. Of course, having dogs most of my life, being a certified canine behaviorist and believing in practical training, I readily had an answer: "Do you have time to eat? Do you have time to watch television...even the news? Do you have time to get your mail? Do you have time to surf the Internet?"
Well, then you have time to train. Isn't the purpose of training your dog to improve communications with your pet and increase the harmony between all the 2-legged and 4-legged members of your family?
Training does not always have to mean going to a dog-friendly park. Training does not have to take place on a large field. Training does not always include special equipment and time spent setting it up. Training does not have to involve a 30-minute block of time. And, training should never be tedious or boring.
Training opportunities are all around you. There is no better place to begin than in the home and there is no better time than RIGHT NOW!
Note: Adjust each training suggestion to the appropriate level for you and your pup, increasing the difficulty as training progresses. If you have questions, please check with your trainer. Dr. Robert Forto of Denver Dog Works in Colorado offers many specialized training program for you and your dog. At Denver Dog Works most of our clients sign up for basic manners classes. These classes are designed to make your canine companion a welcomed member of your home.

TIPS - Training In Practical Situations
Watching Television:
Place the dog on a down/stay during each commercial break. If the pup is housetrained, allow it freedom during the program.
When your dog is easily holding a 5-minute down/stay, reverse the procedure. Have the dog do a down/stay during the program and practice a more active command, such as heel, during the commercial break.
As training progresses, place your dog on a down/stay and leave the immediate area during each commercial break. Remember to enforce the command before leaving the room and upon re-entering.
If crate training is an issue, place the dog into the crate during each commercial and allow the dog to come out during the program. Then flip the times in the crate and the times outside. The randomness of your actions will lessen anxiety associated with crate training, i.e. owner leaving home.
If your dog becomes nervous and anxious during thunderstorms rent a movie that features them, i.e. The Perfect Storm. With your dog on a down/stay by your side, start the movie and play it very softly. Play and replay the weather scenes - - very softly. As your dog becomes accustomed to the noise, g-r-a-d-u-a-l-l-y increase the volume. Do this several times over a period of days, or even weeks, until you have solved the problem. This method also works for gunfire. Remember: go slowly. There are also CDs available with specific sounds. Denver Dog Works can also tailor a training program that deals with noise phobias.


Getting the Mail:
Our mail is not delivered to our door; I must walk to the end of the drive. While it is not far I take the dog along and use this time for a lesson in heel, walking sits or walking downs. Have your pet sit/stay while you reach into the box. Leave your dog on a stay and walk away; then, recall the dog to heel while you are in motion.
Is your pup learning to carry or to retrieve? Getting the mail is the perfect opportunity to let your pup practice by retrieving a piece of purposefully dropped junk mail and carry it back inside.
If you often meet up with neighbors at the cluster mailbox, this is a perfect time to practice socialization skills with your pup. Be sure you have treats to pass out to neighborhood children so that your dog can be petted by a variety of people. You may wish to introduce a command such "make friends," to insure that socialization is done only with your permission in appropriate circumstances.


Working in the Yard:
Place your dog on a down/stay as you move about the yard. Randomly, turn and face your dog, reinforcing the stay command. Periodically, break that pattern by either returning to your dog and releasing it or calling the dog to come to you.
Yard time is great for walking sits, walking downs, recall in motion, figure-8 heeling patterns - around two trees, two lawn chairs, etc.
Prior to taking the dog into the yard, place "forbidden" food items. Take your dog into the yard, on leash, and practice the "leave it" command. Be certain to have appropriate dog treats (food/ball/toy) for a reward.
"Leave it" can also involve chasing a rake or a broom. (Note: be certain never to practice this command when using power tools or equipment such as an edger or weed-whacker. Keep your pet, and yourself, safe.)
Teach your pet to be a good citizen by retrieving pop cans and placing them in the garbage. This "trick" is very impressive in the park and sets a great example for children.
Introduce your dog to water play after yard work. Whether running in the sprinklers or chasing ice cubes, remember to have fun.

Mealtime:
If allowed by your house rules, station your dog in a quiet, out of the way corner of your kitchen or dining room. If your rules say "no dogs in the kitchen," station the pup where he can still see you moving about. This is a great place to practice down/stay. There are lots of distractions: noise, odors, people coming and going, etc.
Use kitchen time to practice the "leave it" command, if your pup shows interest in food dropped on the floor.
If your dog is in front of a cabinet or pantry door, make it an opportunity to teach the command "move", by pointing to another place and encouraging the dog to relocate.
During dinner, place the dog on a down/stay under the table. No eye contact; no whining; no begging. Soon your pup will be ready to join you at a dog-friendly outdoor cafe and will be welcome on family camping trips. (Note: no people food should ever be given to the dog while you are eating. If you wish to offer table scraps, do so after you have finished and make certain they are placed in the dog's dish.)

Be Creative:
Chairs make wonderful obstacles for practicing heeling, right turns, left turns, about turns and figure-8 patterns. On a rainy day, train in the family room or dining room.
Teach your dog the command "under" using a coffee table, a child's desk or a hall bench. Make certain the item is appropriate for your pet's size. This command is great when hiking or visiting that outdoor cafe.
A ladder placed flat on the ground can help growing puppies learn to manipulate their hindquarters and become more sure-footed. Use lots of patience, praise and rewards to encourage your pup, on leash, to walk the length of the ladder, stepping over the rungs.
To encourage your pup to chew their toys/bones and not your furniture or clothing, establish a toy basket just for the pet. Place a variety of toys of variable textures and sizes in the basket--including plush toys, rawhide chews and a ball. To keep your pet interested, hide a few special treats in the basket before encouraging your pet to get a toy. You can eventually move the basket with you, to entertain a pup while working in your home office.

Times NOT To Train:
When you are not feeling well.
When you are angry, negative or upset.
When you are low on patience or out of energy.
When there are too many distractions for you in the training area.
When there are too many distractions for your dog's level of ability to concentrate on learning a new command. (Instead, try proofing your dog on commands that are already well understood).
When you are unclear how to perform or teach an exercise to your dog. Clarify what you should be doing, with your trainer, before working your dog.
In Summary:
Training is really all the little things you do each and every day, showing your dog what you expect from their behavior. Training should be a special time for you and your pet to enjoy being together. End each session with something your dog is good at doing--and praise, praise, praise.

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Dr. Robert Forto, PhD is the training director of Denver Dog Works in Colorado. Denver Dog Works is an all-breed training school that specializes in canine sports and working dogs. If you would like to find out more about our programs visit our website at www.DenverDogWorks.com or give us a call at 303-752-2818 anytime.