The Association of Pet Dog Trainers has declared January to be National Train Your Dog Month.  Too often, owners relinquish their dogs to shelters because an untrained puppy is no big deal, but an untrained dog begins exhibiting behavior problems if the unwanted behavior is allowed to continue. How many phone calls have I received from owners complaining that their dog is attacking people at the front door or won’t come when called resulting in the dog getting into all kinds of trouble? When I ask these owners if they’ve taught their dogs what to do instead, I often hear a description of punishment for bad behavior instead of a description of how their own dog training efforts failed.

Now we know that if you’re reading this blog, you’re a responsible dog owner. You walk your dog, provide lots of environmental enrichment for your dog and train your dog. In fact, the best environmental enrichment for most dogs is training. When I ask owners what environmental enrichment they provide for their dogs, the first thing most owners mention is exercise. I know, I know, a certain famous dog trainer has convinced dog owners that they must exercise their dogs into the ground to be a responsible owner, but I’ve got good news. Domesticated dogs need 30 to 45 minutes of vigorous exercise per day, just like us. Have you ever seen wild wolves exercising? Geez. What dogs are missing in their daily, domesticated lives, is the opportunity to analyze, decision make, and act. You know this is true if you’ve ever tried getting your dog’s attention when he’s stalking or chasing a squirrel. January is a great time to think about exercising your dog’s brain. What better time to tire out our brains than when the weather is bad?

Owners don’t train their dogs for any number of reasons: I don’t have time, I don’t know how, training is boring, my dog is fine the way he is, etc. Well, let’s take these excuses one at a time. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it 10,000 times, if we all just trained our dogs for 5 minutes a day, we’d have beautifully behaved dogs. Trust me, 5 minutes a day will get you the best trained dog in town.

If you don’t know how to train dogs, that’s OK. I don’t know how to fix my car, repair my plumbing, or remodel my house. If I had the inclination, I could buy books, DVDs or take classes to learn how to do these things, but I choose to hire professionals. That’s why we offer Day Training services to our Companion Animal Solutions clients. We train our clients’ dogs for them and then we conduct hand off sessions with our clients to teach them how to maintain the training that we’ve installed. Once most owners see how smart their dogs are and how quickly they learn, they become excited about training their dogs. Some even sign up for dog training classes to learn more.

If you’re the “do it yourself” type because of temperament or budget constraints, check out our Book and DVD Recommendations on the Companion Animal Solutions web site. If you want to take a class, search for classes that use positive reinforcement based training and don’t forget to look for fun classes like agility, fly ball, tracking or tricks.

Now for that pesky “dog training is boring” excuse; Of course dog training is boring if all you ever do with your dog is sit, stay, come, and heel. Try some trick training instead! Trick training is incredibly fun while you’re doing it but it’s also fun to show off your dog’s trick repertoire to your friends and family. If you want to learn how to teach your dog tricks, I highly recommend the 101 Dog Tricks book/DVD set. I also love the Take A Bow Wow DVD.

Lastly, the old, “my dog is fine the way he is” excuse; Well, yes, your dog is wonderful but your dog would be so much happier and the bond you share with your dog would be so much deeper if you communicated with your dog for 5 minutes a day. Training a dog (or any animal) is communication, pure and simple. It’s such an exhilarating feeling when you see the light bulb of understanding dawn on a dog’s face. You wouldn’t expect your relationships with your family members or co-workers to be sustainable without at least 5 minutes of communication a day, so why expect a truly good relationship with your dog to exist with less?

And for all of you cat and parrot owners out there, training is wonderful environmental enrichment for your pets too. Many cat owners are stunned when I recommend clicker training for their cat’s increased environmental enrichment (or to solve a behavior problem). Don’t let those cats fool you. They are highly trainable. Check out our Cat Behavior and Training Recommendations on the Companion Animal Solutions web site. I especially like the Clicker Training Cats kit for beginners. Let’s not forget the owners of our feathered friends either. We have Parrot DVD and Book recommendations for you too.

The same principles of training and learning apply whether you’re training a dolphin, horse, parrot, cat, or dog. So at Companion Animal Solutions, we’re declaring January to be Train Your Pet Month. Please send us your stories and videos of your training experiences. We’d love to share your journey of learning and bonding with your pets. We hope that one of your New Years Resolutions will be to get clicking!

I see many, many new dog behavior cases each year and I love my work, but sometimes, I need to branch out and learn about the behavior of other companion animals. My partner in Animal Behavior at Companion Animal Solutions is Jim Ha, PhD, CAAB. Jim sees all of the cat and parrot cases that we take. I’ve been privileged to learn about animal and bird behavior by riding along with him on his private behavior consultations with our clients. The ride along opportunities that I enjoy the most are the parrot cases. I love cats, don’t get me wrong, but the parrot cases fascinate me. When I first embarked on my parrot behavior and training research, I was disappointed at how difficult it was to find quality information about parrot behavior and training. The internet is rife with dog training information (some of it excellent and some of it awful and downright harmful), but information about parrot behavior is harder to come by. After some time consuming research, I began to compile a list of resources that include the most respected researchers, veterinarians, applied animal behaviorists, and trainers. I wanted to share what I’ve learned with our readers interested in parrot behavior and training.

For those of you who live in the Seattle, Washington area, your first stop for finding like minded people should be the Northwest Exotic Bird Society. When I attended my first meeting, I was surprised and thrilled to discover that many of the people attending the monthly meeting brought their birds with them and many of those birds were getting the opportunity to socialize with one another and fly freely around the room! The members of NWEBS were very knowledgeable as well as being friendly and welcoming. I was hooked! I went right home, logged on to the web site and joined. Once you’re a member, you can attend the monthly meetings at the Lawn Bowling building at Greenlake, receive their informative newsletter, and gain membership to the yahoo group. Members of NWEBS also belong to the Northwest Avian Flyers. The Northwest Avian Flyers conduct “indoor free flight” sessions twice a month. The Northwest Exotic Bird Society’s website is full of scientifically correct and practically useful information about caring for, living with, and training your feathered friends.

The next stop on our parrot learning tour is Barbara Heidenreich, owner of Good Bird Inc. Barbara is a leading authority on parrot behavior and training as well as being a huge proponent of clicker training and learning theory based training for parrots. I was shocked to learn that there are “dominance” and “punishment” based training proponents in the parrot world too (so sad). Barbara is a voice of reason and practical alternatives to those outdated and harmful proponents. If you’d like to learn about modifying your parrots behavior or clicker training your parrot, Barbara Heidenreich is a necessary resource in your toolkit. If you’ve spent any time on the Companion Animal Solutions website, you know that we highly recommend Barbara’s books and DVDs. I’m a enthusiastic subscriber to Good Bird Inc magazine which now comes in electronic form (PDF) as well as the traditional paper copy. If that weren’t enough, Barbara writes a blog and produces Wings ‘n Things podcasts available on Pet Life Radio. Barbara just released a new DVD titled Get Your Bird Back! about what to do if your parrot flies away. This DVD contains a wealth of resources such as lost bird flyers, lists of people to contact and a variety of parrot calls.

When I contacted Barbara about listing her books and DVDs on our web site, I asked her if she had recommendations for other authors and she was gracious enough provide me with more resources. Here are some of Barbara’s picks for books, DVDs, and blogs: Happily Ever After with Parrots (DVD) by Ellen Cook, DVM,  Captive Foraging (DVD) by Scott Echols, DVM, DABVP, A Parrot for Life (Book and Blog) by Rebecca O’Conner, and bloggers Sid Price, and Linda Rasmussen.

Susan Friedman, PhD is a professor at Utah State University. Dr. Friedman’s specialty is behavior analysis and she offers online workshops for veterinarians, animal behaviorists, and trainers. The Behavior+ Works website contains useful information on parrot behavior, behavior analysis, and learning theory, just download the free PDF files.

Another nice online community for parrot owners and advocates is the Nationwide Parrot Place Organization. You can become a member of this 501(C) non-profit organization for an annual membership fee of $12 per year. A new online resource for beginning parrot owners has recently come online called The Parrot Forum. This is an online forum where owners can ask questions and learn important information about Health, Nutrition & Diet, Housing, General Parrot Care, Parrot Species, Basic Training, Trick Training, Recall Flight and Indoor Freeflight. As with any forum dedicated to helping people and their pets, please be polite at all times and thank people for the time and effort they spend answering questions.

I informed via the Northwest Exotic Bird Society group that Chris Biro will be presenting at their meeting on Thursday, November 19th at 7:00PM. His topic will be Parrot Training and Free Flight. This will also be the first time that a presentation will be webcast so that viewers can watch from home. The webcast includes a chat feature so that Internet viewers have the ability to submit questions to the speaker. The webcast can be found at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/chris-biro

That brings me to the end of my list of resources for parrot owners. Do you have other resources for parrot behavior and training you’d like to share? If so, please post a comment.

I am frequently asked about readings in animal behavior.  One of the nice things about practicing in a region like Seattle is that our audience is so well educated.  So not infrequently I have clients who want to learn more, want to read more about animal behavior.  Most often, they want to read more about what we call Applied Animal Behavior.  Applied animal behavior is the relatively new field which deals with the behavior (and misbehavior) of our companion animals based on a scientific approach that extends from the modern academic field of animal behavior, or ethology.  Ethology was historically based in Europe, and is a field of biology and psychology, that is, it is a sub-discipline of evolutionary biology.  The basic precepts of ethology are that behavior has a genetic, and thus evolutionary, basis, overlaid with environmental influences (learning and experience), that we can best learn about the behavior of animals by learning about the behavior of close and distant relatives in natural environments which allow the expression of species- (or in the case of dogs, breed)-typical behaviors.  It is an approach that traces its roots, like all the rest of modern biology, back to Darwin in the mid-1800’s, and one that has been revolutionized, again like many topics in biology, by the DNA/genetics revolution.  The mapping of the entire dog genome at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in recent years has begun to confirm the long-standing assumptions of ethology.So here I present a highly personal reading list in ethology.  In this entry, I suggest some reading in basic ethology, and in a later entry, I will focus in readings in applied animal behavior.  These are sort of readings, both basic and applied, required of students of this field, beginning at the undergraduate level and right on through graduate or board-certification work in ethology.  These are the books that my students, graduate and undergraduate, read.  And these would provide the foundation for an excellent library in animal behavior.

General Readings in Animal Behavior and Ethology: Textbooks
I have not listed years because there are many editions: the more recent, the better, but any will do.  These are the basic textbooks in animal behavior, with Alcock and Drickamer being the most advanced “serious” texts.  Klopfer’s book is a little different, taking a historical and personality approach to the basics of behavior.

Alcock, J.  Animal Behavior: An Evolutionary Approach
Drickamer, L. et al.  Animal Behavior: Mechanisms, Ecology and Evolution
Goodenough, et al.  Perspectives on Animal Behavior
Maier, R.   Comparative Animal Behavior: An Evolutionary and Ecological Approach
Klopfer, P.:  An Introduction to Animal Behavior: Ethology’s First Century (a very readable introduction to the history of modern animal behavior)

Evolution
To understand modern animal behavior, you need to understand evolution, and these books will give you a great start to a huge scientific discipline.

Brackman, A.: A Delicate Arrangement
(a description of the relationship, or lack thereof, between  Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace)
Darwin, C.: The Origin of the Species
(the classic that started it all, not an easy read and not the best introduction to evolution as we now understand it: read it for the historical perspective)
Dawkins, R.: The Selfish Gene
(a wonderful and thought-provoking book about the implications of modern Darwinism)
Dennett, D.: Darwin’s Dangerous Idea
(a very recent book by a philosopher of science about the deeper implications of Darwin’s view of evolution)
Gould, S.J.: (numerous collections of essays — sometimes controversial, always entertaining: take some of it with a grain of salt)
Stone, I.: The Origin
(an historical novel about Darwin’s life: a great introduction to his life and times)

Personal Accounts
I put these here to provide a very accessible introduction to how ethologists think and work.  Many of these have been best-sellers in the population literature, but all provide a glimpse into the world of the modern animal behaviorist.

Fossey, D.: Gorillas in the Mist
(one of “Leakey’s Women,” along with Goodall and Galdikas, this and the next two books illustrate the payoffs to patient, time-consuming field work and the risks of attempting to do science without training)
Galdika, B.: Reflections of Eden
(Leakey student’s study of orangs in Indonesia)
Goodall, J.: In the Shadow of Man
(Leakey student’s study of chimpanzees)
Heinrich, B.: Ravens in Winter
(fascinating and eccentric study of a difficult-to-study species)
Lorenz, K.: King Solomon’s Ring
(very readable insight into the early days of ethology, one of my most recommended readings in behavior)
Mowat, F.: Woman in the Mist
(a different, and more objective, view of Fossey’s work and life with gorillas)
Schaller, G.: Year of the Gorilla
(story of the early work with wild gorillas which laid the groundwork for Fossey)
Tinbergen, N.: Curious Naturalist
(the life and studies of one of the founders of ethology)
Wilson, E.O.: The Naturalist
(autobiography of the brilliant Harvard scientist who established the direction of much of behavior research for years to come: winner of several book awards)

Advanced
These are books that delve into the details.  These are more advanced, a little “thicker” than most of the books listed above (except maybe the textbooks), but these show you the details, and the future, of research and learning in animal behavior in general.

Axelrod, R.: Evolution of Cooperation
(very readable intro to game theory and the evolution of social behavior)
Lehner, P.: Handbook of Ethological Methods
(the bible for methodology in animal behavior research)
Mech, L.D.: The Wolf
(detailed report of a long-term wolf research program)
Poundstone, W.: Prisoner’s Dilemma
(a biography of an interesting character, John Von Neumann, who invented game theory, and the application of games to human behavior)
Wilson, E.O & B. Holldobler: The Ants
(the main resource on ant behavior: readable too!)
Wilson, E.O.: Insect Societies
(everything you wanted to know about ants, bees, and wasps, and probably more)
Wilson, E.O.: Sociobiology: A New Synthesis
(the book that started an entirely new field)

So that’s my reading list for general animal behavior… later, I will present a similar sort of list but more specifically directed at applied animal behavior, from both an academic and a popular view.  Feel free to leave me a comment if you have a favorite book to recommend, or a question about a book you’ve seen or read, or a specific topic in animal behavior for which you would like a reading recommendation.  Time to read!

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 chemistry.  She works mostly with troubled dogs, but also with many sports dogs, including flyball and agility dogs with serious arousal issues.  In an earlier blog entry, I reviewed her book (also entitled Control Unleashed) and talked about how good I thought the program was.  In addition to the two seminar days, I was able to watch the following day which consisted of private lessons for “not ready for CU” dogs.

Control Unleashed was originally written as a series of articles for Clean Run magazine to help agility competitors with overamped dogs teach their dogs to focus and relax.  Most of the dozen dogs at the seminar were competition dogs in agility (one in flyball), and two were non-performance dogs looking for improved life skills.  The dogs’ stress reactions ranged from shut down to goofy to frantic.  Leslie worked each dog in a series of games designed to promote physical and mental relaxation, calm focus, and the ability to raise and lower arousal with ease.  Leslie uses lots of food, but she also makes extremely heavy use of the Premack Principle — the idea that a higher probability behavior will reinforce a lower probability behavior.  (Being allowed to chase a ball will reinforce a sit — if you have a ball crazy dog.)

As I watched, it occurred to me that a lot of the CU exercises are what Leslie calls “rule structures” that incorporate into daily life.  One lovely example is the reorienting exercise.  Leslie suggests that each time you transition to a new space, you have your dog reorient to you.  This involves having the dog sit in front of you, make eye contact, and pause.  Leslie uses this moment to check the dog’s breathing (stress panting or calm breathing?), attention (calmly looking at handler, or ears swiveling madly about?) and demeanor (cringing? about to explode?).  If the dog is not calm and focused, she will pause for some calming work before moving further into the space.  She uses this reorienting technique when dogs go out the front door, out of the car, into the classroom, or out of their crate in class.  The dogs know it’s coming and soon learn to relax themselves at each predictable transition.

So — the dogs have a rule to follow.  It involves exercising self-control, which is always a good thing, especially for dogs with “issues.”  It involves self-calming, which is great for dogs that are scared or reactive or just amped.  It involves a highly predictable behavior that has them interact and connect with their handler.  In short, it provides a highly predictable rule structure *and* valuable learning benefits *and* increased connection and teamwork between dog and person.  Doesn’t that sound like a good thing?

Control Unleashed is full of rule structures that can be incorporated into daily life with the same benefits.  Instead of artificial, arbitrary rules “just to have rules” or imbued with some doubtful ethological benefit (do dogs really think we’re in charge just because we eat first?), these rules actually ease handling and teach the dog useful skills.  And they provide a high degree of predictability and give the dog desirable ways to get what he needs.

I love this book so much that I’m considering ordering it in bulk to be able to get it clients fast!

I just finished a book written by one our native Seattle daughters, Cristine Dahl, titled “Good Dog 101”. I should disclose at the beginning of this review that Cristine was my original mentor in dog training and canine behavior. OK, now you know that I’m a biased reviewer, and an unashamed one at that, but I genuinely feel my bias does not lessen the usefulness of this book for average dog and puppy owners.

“Good Dog 101: Easy Lessons to Train Your Dog the Happy, Healthy Way” was recently released by Sasquatch Books, a regional book publisher. Since I orginally posted this entry, this book has received 5 stars by reviewers on Amazon.com.

This easy to read and enjoyable paperback book is a comprehensive volume that combines step by step instructions for training obedience behaviors with easy to follow instructions for solving common behavior problems that inevitably come up with owners in any obedience class or puppy kindergarten. In addition to her chapters providing step by step instructions for training behaviors such as sit, down, come, leave it, and drop, Cristine devotes a chapter to “Common Canine Behavior Problems and How To Resolve Them” which covers Potty Training, Barking, Greeting Problems, Chewing, and Stealing. The author includes chapters on Aggression, Puppies, and Geriatric Dogs, the last of which is often given short shrift in general dog training books. Geriatric dogs have special needs and issues, but as owners, we’re often in denial about why our beloved companions have suddenly started behaving “badly”. Good Dog 101 can help owners identify that the issues their geriatric dogs are having are age related (organic) and not behavior related.

What makes this book so relevant is Cristine’s constant focus on scientific methods and animal learning theory. Her research is sound and her methods consistent with the scientific data on how dogs learn. Her chapters on the history of dog training and traditional/military style training techniques are illuminating. I don’t think I’ve ever read a dog training book geared towards average dog owners, or the training community for that matter that did such a wonderful job of documenting the history of dog training and how those out dated, military methods of dog training (and the metal collars that came with them) came into popular use in the pet dog population. This is an important historical context given the resurgence of these techniques.

I only have two minor criticisms of this book. After the chapter detailing the military history of dog training and traditional methods, I would have preferred that those comparisons had been edited out of later chapters. Why reinforce methods we’re trying to replace with more scientific and effective methods? Secondly, in this age of YouTube and iPods, the inclusion of photographs or illustrations might have made the text more usable for some readers. Overall, however, I feel these are minor issues compared with the overall value of this book to the public consciousness.

Cristine does an admirable job of explaining “positive” training and giving owners tools for determining whether a trainer is truly using positive methods or just using the term “positive methods” to land clients. Our congratulations go out to Cristine Dahl for making canine ethology and animal learning theory understandable to the general public in her first book.