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Why Is My Dog Worse With Me?

Greta Kaplan, CPDT, CDBC

On one list I belong to, someone recently noted that her shy, reactive dog is much more barky and reactive when he is with her than when he is with other people, e.g. her sister and her pet sitter. She was wondering why. I suggested five possible reasons, and I’ve come up with a couple more since.

First, dogs who really dislike being alone may exhibit unusually affiliative behavior with anyone who relieves their solitude – and if they are dogs who also have anxiety around strangers, their need for company can trump their fear of strangers in some cases. I once fostered a dog who turned out to have clinical separation anxiety (among many other quirks). He was scared of me when we first met and he was in the company of another foster parent. But the second I got him to my house, he was all charm, wiggling like mad and wanting to sit on my lap. He can’t stand being alone so … any port in a storm

Second, some dogs resource-guard their owners. This isn’t protectiveness; the dog isn’t responding to some perceived threat to the owner. Instead, the dog is treating the owner as a valued possession and is [Read more...]

The Art of Dog Training

Greta Kaplan, CPDT, CDBC

Most animal training is a mechanical skill. We can take some basic scientific knowledge about learning, about operant and classical conditioning, as well as about the relevant instinctive behaviors and motor patterns of the species we are working with, and we can accomplish most of our training goals with good timing, criteria-setting, and rate of reinforcement. So, training is science… except when it’s not.

Most dogs are easy to teach to “down.” (Barring dogs with physical conditions, such as pain, that makes the movement difficult, of course.) Typically, someone starting out training dogs trains a few dogs to lie down quite easily. They lure the dog down with a cookie, give him the cookie when his elbows and butt are all the way down, and then fade the lure so that he follows a hand down. Then the hand movement is condensed into a signal and perhaps a verbal cue is added. Most dogs will learn down pretty easily with this sequence.

Then, there you are, teaching a puppy class at PETsMART, and three of the puppies in the class are small breed dogs, or have the short legs of a dwarfed breed. You try to lure a down, and nothing happens. The puppies do a lovely bow, but their butts never drop. Or they let you wave the food around but their noses never go all the way to the floor.

[Read more...]

Control Unleashed: Rule Structures for Dogs

Greta Kaplan, CPDT, CDBC

I have been engaged in an effort to find an acceptable way to explain to my clients how to provide structure and predictability to their dogs in a way that would make their dogs comfortably willing to abide by human rules. I explained that I’m uncomfortable when such programs invoke the concepts of dominance, “boss”, “alpha”, or even “leadership” — not because those concepts are wrong or unimportant, but because of the meanings and connotations that decades of popular dog writing have attached to these words. I also commented that I was uncomfortable with many of the steps in so called “leadership” programs because they struck me as being based on false ethology and having no real training value once the supposed ethological meaning was stripped away. Not much was left!

I attended the “Control Unleashed” seminar in Portland, Oregon presented by Leslie McDevitt, CPDT, CDBC, a very gifted trainer and behavior consultant from the Philadelphia area. Leslie has worked closely with Karen Overall, one of the leading veterinary behaviorists in the world, and has a strong understanding of brain [Read more...]

A Fundamental Skill: Learning To Read Your Dog

Greta Kaplan, CPDT, CDBC

Some time ago, I received an email from someone who wanted to enroll her dog in my Feisty Fido class. The dog was a young adult, male gundog mix. I talked to Mrs. Owner, and determined that the dog had inflicted one significant puncture bite to another dog, so I decided he probably was not a good candidate for the class. We made a private appointment. What a learning experience this turned into!

Mr. Owner came to the first meeting of the class, upon invitation, as it’s a good introduction to a lot of the concepts we’d be using in our private work. He indicated that he knew how to train a dog, and the dog was trained, but they needed help with this dog [Read more...]

Pit Bull Thoughts

Greta Kaplan, CPDT, CDBC

My colleague Christine blogged recently about herding with her Aussie, Conner, and about dogs’ instinctive behavior as modified by human breeding decisions. She mentioned the frequency of dog-dog aggression among pit bulls. This topic has been on my mind lately, and frankly, I’m getting angry.

A very nice woman contacted me recently about bringing her dog to my flyball class. She asked if she could come and watch. Visitors are always welcome to watch my classes before deciding whether to sign up; I encourage it! So she brought her dog with her yesterday to watch class. In her introductory email, she described him as a terrier mix, about 40 lbs and muscular. I wrote back and said it sounded like he had some pit bull in him, and that [Read more...]

Chicken Camp, Part 3

Greta Kaplan, CPDT

Amy and I had signed up for sessions 2 and 3 back-to-back. This was 12 days of class with a 3-day break. All this learning is tiring, and session 3 is the longest of the sessions at 7 days. Still, it was fun and stands out in my memory.

Our task was to create a fixed behavior chain which, at the end of the week, our hens would perform with no external cues or reinforcements until she crossed her finish line. The behavior chain was built around the hen proceeding over a gymnastic apparatus specially built for this session. The apparatus consisted of two towers, each with a platform around its post at about a foot above the table. The two towers were placed about three feet and a “balance beam” or catwalk connected them. Finally, a ladder led diagonally to each tower. The hen would climb one ladder, proceed around the *outside* of the post on the platform [Read more...]

Chicken Camp, Part 2

Greta Kaplan, CPDT

In the first session of Chicken Camp, “Discrimination,” we taught our hens to choose and peck a colored target. Since the hens had done this before, they already had learned to peck a specific color. So, we tested them by placing the three identical targets (other than color: red, yellow and blue) in front of each hen. My hen pecked yellow, so I removed it. Then she pecked red, probably indicating that she had, at some time in the past, been reinforced for pecking yellow. Blue therefore became my new “hot target” and my job was to teach her to peck only the blue target. Our goal was to see if, eventually, she would refuse to peck the yellow and red targets *even if the blue target was not on the table, for 20 seconds.*

Certain rules applied. We could not use lures to get the behavior: No hiding a grain of food behind the blue target to get her interested in that part of the table. However, I could remove the blue target to permit her to [Read more...]

Chicken Camp, Part 1

Greta Kaplan, CPDT

Of all the education I’ve experienced in becoming and being a dog trainer, the one that stands out most is what’s known as “Chicken Camp.” More properly called “Cross-Species Operant Conditioning Training Workshop” (you can see why people prefer to call it Chicken Camp), this workshop teaches advanced, high-quality clicker training skills to the human students. The training subjects are chickens: all hens, in fact. Each student works with one naive bird, who’s only been working Chicken Camp for 1-2 years, and one experienced bird who may have 6 or 8 years of Camp under her feathers. Chicken Camp’s format evolved over the dozen-plus years of its existence, and the four sessions I took (the complete curriculum) were Discrimination, Cueing and Criteria, Chaining, and Teaching Operant Conditioning. Instructor Bob Bailey has also given shorter, more condensed workshops at other locations.

Bob Bailey (and, before their respective deaths, Marian Breland Bailey and Keller Breland) spent many decades operating Animal Behavior Enterprises, a company originally started in the 1940s with the crazy [Read more...]

Canine assistants for dog/dog fear & aggression

Greta Kaplan, CPDT

One of the most difficult practical aspects of working with reactive or aggressive dogs is creating practice scenarios where the client’s dog can be exposed to his triggers in a controlled fashion. Owners often assume we can meet at the dog park, because that is where the dog is having the problem. One of the most basic tenets of our work is that we want to teach the dog to succeed at an acceptable behavior, so dropping him into a situation that may cause him to scream, lunge or bite because of elements outside our control is not good training!

One great way to work is to bring along a “stimulus dog,” sometimes referred to as the “assistant dog” or “decoy.” This is a dog who an assisting handler can walk closer or further from our client’s dog, at a very [Read more...]

Your veterinarian’s role in behavior modification

Greta Kaplan, CPDT

Ultimately, behavior starts in the brain, and the body must carry it out. The dividing line between “mental” and “physical” problems has become more and more blurred as scientists illuminate the functioning of brain cells and chemicals.

When you bring us your dog who is having a problem, sometimes our first instruction is to have your dog examined by a veterinarian. We may suggest a specialist, such as an ophthalmologist or a neurologist. Why do we do this, especially knowing that veterinary testing can be expensive — especially if done by a board-certified specialist?

Most behavior problems can, in some cases, result directly from a medical issue. In some cases, no amount of behavior modification will help. For example, if your dog has a serious urinary tract infection and is [Read more...]

Why Is My Dog Worse With Me?

The Art of Dog Training

Control Unleashed: Rule Structures for Dogs

A Fundamental Skill: Learning To Read Your Dog

Pit Bull Thoughts

Chicken Camp, Part 3

Chicken Camp, Part 2

Chicken Camp, Part 1

Canine assistants for dog/dog fear & aggression

Your veterinarian’s role in behavior modification

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