I like Brenda Aloff a lot.

http://brendaaloff.com/

I particularly like that she implements a lot of impulse control exercises in her early puppy training. It is an aspect that is often overlooked when raising a pup. She also encourages  trainers/puppy guardians not to let other people interfere with the learning process and she is very protective of inappropriate interactions.

A client recently got a lab puppy and I have the opportunity to raise this pup or let’s say have a huge influence on how this pup is raised.

The puppy is now 3 months old and would never think of jumping up to get attention and affection just because her  sit earns her everything she wants and has been highly rewarded! It is really wonderful and amusing …she races up to people and sits and looks up!

Recently I was walking her down the street and a woman ran out of a store: “Oh what a cute puppy !!!!!”she screeched. She immediately told me that she had a dog of her own and invited my little student to jump up by slapping her hands onto her thighs. The puppy hesitated : she was getting ready to sit but this person clearly confused her.

I wanted to wait the pup out, let her think it through..I could see she was doing that…and then praise her highly for sitting. Out of the blue this stranger took it upon herself to reach down and place the puppy into a sit!

I caught her in mid action and blocked her with my hand and in a very stern voice said:”NO! PLEASE don’t do that!”

It was an incredible moment for me. I was so furious with that woman.

yellow lab puppy "sit"

When I was apprenticing I had been taught to place the pup into a sit. Even though I have moved so far away from that coercive way of teaching , in that particular moment I experienced how invasive and WRONG and punitive that move is. How impatient people are with dogs.

More and more I realize that if I cannot elicit a voluntary response from the dog I have not allowed it to happen.

I also understand Brenda Aloff’s attitude  more deeply. It has nothing to do with snobbery , simply with protecting the puppy and your relationship with the puppy. Maybe I am overly sensitized but I thought this stranger could have ruined so much. The mutual trust I had built by constantly  rewarding the puppy for sensing what was expected of her but at the same time allowing her the time she needed to learn.

So, I am grateful for the experience because it made me more aware.

It was my first chance to see paintings of Lolabelle which were first shown in Philadelphia.

I found it extremely moving.

Here is an example of my favorite painting

Lolabelle

http://www.amazon.com/Plenty-Life-Is-Free-Reflections/dp/1617810649/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1334581593&sr=8-1

Have you come across this senario: You are walking down the street and you ask your dog to perform some kind of task, for instance: sit and give paw to a person who is interested in meeting your dog. The first reaction you see is delight on the stranger’s face. The second reaction : Oh I see, you are giving him a treat! No wonder he is doing that!

Well, of course I am rewarding my dog for being good. What does that have to do with spoiling of bribing? I am rewarding this behavior because I want my dog to know that I truly appreciate his actions and I want him to know that he gave us pleasure and I want it to be fun and pleasurable for him as well. And so he will happily “give paw” or “wave ” to strangers when I ask him because he thinks it is fun too.

Kathy Sdao’s book very sensitively points out the fine line between coercion and eliciting voluntary behaviors. How the NILIF principle pushed to extremes actually can become coercive as well. I actually had been unaware of the fact that some trainers use the principle of “nothing in life is free” to the point where the dog has to earn every sip of water and, in marine mammal training sometimes even the air to continue breathing.

Kathy points out that instead of NILIF she asks her clients to reward their dog 50 times a day for behaviors that they want to reinforce, reward, cultivate…whatever you want to call it. I realize that I actually do that with my dogs. I reward them for being calm while I am typing this (excuse me ..I just had to walk over to them and give them each a morsel of chicken!).

It is a quiet, calm and joyful way of eliciting desired behaviors.

I highly recommend this book. I am not at all religious the way Kathy Sdao  is

http://www.kathysdao.com/

but I wholeheartedly agree with her that communicating with a dog in this way and teaching a dog what we want rather than correcting what we do not want is a mutually gratifying experience that allows the canine/human relationship to become infinitely more intimate.

Food obsessed Mya voluntarily waiting

The New York Institute of the Humanities is presenting

ALL DAY WONDER CABINET

“SURVIVAL OF THE BEAUTIFUL”

Laurie Anderson has invited me to be part of her show which is scheduled to begin around 7:00PM.

The event promises to be interesting, thought provoking and fun.

Please join us!

Please click on the link below to read about all the fascinating people participating and to see the complete schedule.

http://nyihumanities.org/event/survival-of-the-beautiful

I believe that dogs also have a memory and a preference for certain pieces of music and certain styles of music. They definitely pick up on the emotional content of the music. More research needs to be done on the subject that tone of voice, pitch and rhythm has a similar, if not exactly the same effect on all sentient beings.

Please come and enjoy an unusual event:

An All-Day Wonder Cabinet

Guest-Curated by David Rothenberg

made possible with support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

Saturday Feb. 25^th, 2012
10:45 am till 9:30 pm

NYU’s Cantor Film Center
36 East 8th Street

Free and Open to the Public

Caption:

Doctor, somehow, and all of a sudden, roaming the neighborhood aimlessly, barking at passers by and other dogs, and even ripping up the newspaper have become meaningless to me!

Dogs and  humans have been living together for a very long time. As humans are delving deeper into the evidence that humans are more animal like than we have been admitting and animals have many more so called human traits than we were able to admit it should not be a surprise that dogs enjoy the same things in the same way humans do.

As a former musician I noticed that my dogs had memorized the pieces that I was practicing.  Laurie noticed that her dog Lolabelle who spent hours and hours in the studio with her day in and day out was influenced by her voice and her sound esthetic. No wonder Lola found such joy in “making her own music” on the electronic keyboard.

In my work with dogs it is obvious that dogs are quite creative and have a definite taste in music and a sense of humor.

In the Wonder Cabinet Laurie and I will talk about our experiences with animals, dogs in particular, who have acquired a taste for so called “human” culture.

The Wonder Cabinet is an all day event. Laurie and I will be on at night.

I will post more details as I get to know them.

Super Henry

Henry is one of the cutest and smartest puppies I have ever met. I do not say this lightly, I really mean it. He made an enormous impression on me. He is so engaged, he is like a great dance partner or a great instrument.

His first home, where I met Henry, unfortunately (or fortunately for Henry) did not work out. So now he is back with his breeder on Long Island.

He really deserves a very good home. He needs to be with someone who will truly fall in love with him and who wants to raise this great pup. Corgi’s are cattle herders, they are fearless and smart and very eager to please. That said: they need structure in their lives and I would recommend him only to a more experienced handler or someone who will train him and provide him with plenty of mental stimulation as well as exercise.

If you are interested in this exceptional puppy please contact me through this website or contact Gaye Georges, his breeder, at:

http://www.calistacorgi.com/

dogs are very adept at comprehending tone of voice and emotional content

Very often it’s not what you say, it is how you say it that gives the dog a better understanding.

Jamming!!!

http://lifeasahuman.com/2010/pets/selling-snake-oil-stopping-behaviour-doesnt-make-a-good-dog/

I feel the need to write a few words about punishment because the tradition seems so hard to kill.

Punishment is the lazy man’s way of “teaching” and it is cruel. Cruel because it inflicts pain and it misleads the dog.

Science tells us that reinforced behaviors will increase in frequency.

Most people tend to feel happy when their dog is “nice and quiet” and lets them go about their life as they please.

Dogs are smart. Dogs crave attention.

The bored dog finds something to do since they don’t have thumbs they can twiddle.

bored dog

Dog: hmmm…maybe I will start to do “something” and that will get my human’s attention.

BARK! BARK! BARK!

seeking attention

Human, all of a sudden, manipulated by the dog, will respond.

Human:” hey..”

Dog: Wow! This worked! Maybe if I do more of that I can get more interaction?!!

“BARK BARK BARK BARK.!!!!!”

Human: “HEY!QUIET!!!!!!!!!!”

Dog now feels encouraged to bark more and is getting excited about this and starts jump and race around. Apparently the tactic worked! This is exciting!

I am getting attention!!!!!!

Bark! Bark! JUMP! JUMP!

Human: STOP ! SHUT UP! HEY! QUIET!

agitated dog

Human: Knees dog in the chest. (this supposedly the humane way to stop the jumping)

Dog:…ooh ouch …bark…ouch…jump higher, maybe I am not jumping high enough?!!!

Things escalate to the point where the dogs gets jerked with a pinch collar or slapped on the nose.

(with a newspaper of course which is apparently MUCH better than using your bare hand because using your hand is cruel but using a newspaper is humane?)

Dog: Wow! This is rough! Maybe I need to be just as rough as well!!!! It hurts me and I am getting a bit scared but my human likes this! GRRRRRRRRR!  BITE!!!!!!!

Point to take home:

You cannot teach effectively by forbidding and punishing nuisance behaviors.

A dog can get used to all kinds of abuse and take it as “normal” interaction.

Will the dog enjoy it? NO!

Will the dog love you more for it? NO!

Will the dog have an incentive to please you? Not really!

Will the dog become scared of you? Possibly, that would not be unreasonable.

Will the dog mirror your aggression? Very possibly!

Will the dog learn what would please you? Absolutely not!

I first saw this quite a while ago but I still find it hilarious and I hope you do too!

Talk about impulse control!!!

Ha Ha

Happy New Year’s Eve!