save the pit bull, save the world.

My first exposure to Susan Garrett was a number of years ago when I was really struggling for attention with Luce. Someone suggested, and I purchased, her book Ruff Love and I was quickly put off by the harshness of her program. Maybe I would feel different these days, I don’t know. Maybe I wouldn’t. I just was not comfortable with the idea of removing every aspect of my dog’s life that didn’t immediately revolve around me. Not for a dog who is supposed to be my friend and companion above everything else. Maybe if I needed my dog to be a world class competition dog. If I had human-aggression issues that stemmed from control issues with a dog, I’d consider the Ruff Love program appropriate. But it was beyond what I was comfortable with, so I moved in a different direction.

Anyway, last spring I sucked it up and purchased her Crate Games DVD. While it wasn’t the solution to my problems, it did not make me uncomfortable, and I took a lot more away from it than I did from Ruff Love. I’ve used some of the ideas with Steve in getting him happier with his crate.

Shaping Success is a completely different beast, and a much more enjoyable one. Part dog training book, part dog training diary, part examination of personal training methods and the ability of one trainer to be pushed, changed, and grow through experiences with a challenging dog, and part just good old story telling, I tremendously enjoyed Susan’s story of her experiences with Buzz, the red Border Collie who changed her life.

Susan Garrett was already an extremely successful dog trainer and national level agility competitor when Buzz came into her life. Buzz wasn’t like the other dogs, though, and he forced her to look at what she was doing, and make some changes in her goals and her methods. Part of it was just straight-up dog trainer experimenting, which I always find interesting. But part of it was that Buzz forced her to think outside her box, whether she liked it or not. In order to stop him from causing himself repetitive stress injuries from bellyflopping into her pond, for example, she taught him to back into the pond until he was deep enough that he couldn’t hurt himself before he was free to go swim. It doesn’t get much further outside of the box than that.

This book follows Buzz from puppyhood, through his initial foundation training and into his first agility trial, and then through the rough spots and on into success. She also addresses some dog-aggression issues and some ways to work around training contacts in dogs with some health/conformation concerns. It also includes instructions on training 2×2 weaves, and that intrigues me as well. I’ve not yet taught a dog to weave. I’m vaguely familiar with a number of different methods, but I really do wonder if 2×2 would work well for Mushroom, and I’m thinking about trying it.

All in all, I enjoyed Shaping Success and would recommend it, especially to people with Border Collies and an interest in agility.

I rang in the new year last night snuggled in bed between two pit bulls and a handful of cats with a good book, drugged on cough suppressant. No big parties here, not even any booze. BFF and I did hit the diner for dinner, but we were home well before the real celebrations even got started. And that’s the way I like it. Warm, cozy, content.

Looking forward is better than looking back. 2008 brought a lot of sadness. I lost my friend Sara in a tragic accident. I lost my old dog Harvey to a probable brain tumor. I tried and failed to save a tiny, sick puppy dubbed Cash. Luce had her second knee surgery. But 2008 brought its highlights, too. I was part of the majority who elected Barack Obama to the highest office of this nation. Luce and I managed two legs toward her Rally Novice title. Mushroom and I started agility. I brought home a crazy puppy.

This year I hope to finish out Luce’s RN title, and I’m contemplating registering her with the APDT and trying to get her Rally 1 title as well. I’m not a huge fan of trialing at this point, but I’d like to prove that she can. And I better get used to the pressure so I can do well by Steve in the future.

For Mushroom, my goals are to figure out a way to teach him contacts that he can understand, because right now, I’m just not communicating to him what I want. In order to get out of Foundations class, he needs to have contacts, and I’d like to move forward with him in agility. I’d also like to teach him how to weave, and I’m thinking Susan Garrett’s 2×2 method might work well for him, as it seems to break things down into really small, manageable pieces.

For Steve, my goals are pretty simple, yet daunting and huge. I want to continue to train him with no physical corrections, coercion, or physical manipulation. I want to give him a good foundation for life and for dog sports. I want to teach him to heel nicely. I want to teach him contacts. I want to teach him to relax in a crate in public. Possibly I’d like to try to get his CGC, depending on whether or not he’s grown a brain.

Outside of dogs, my goals for 2009 are to read 100 books (a goal I managed by the skin of my teeth in 2008), and to continue to write here regularly. We’ll see what happens.

Happy New Year, everybody. May it be safe, happy, and productive for all of you.

I made a lot of mistakes with Luce.

A lot.

When I first brought her home from the shelter, I really had no idea what I was in for, despite all the research I’d done, all the reading I’d done, all the time I’d spent on websites and discussion boards about the breed. It’s different when it’s a living, breathing, zooming creature screaming on the end of a leash. (And when I say screaming, I mean screaming.)

So I dealt with her ridiculous behavior the only way I knew how: with leash pops. Punishment. First on a flat collar, then a slip collar, and eventually a prong collar, because guess what? They didn’t work. Oh I was usually able to interrupt her carrying on enough to drag her away from the situation, but it didn’t “fix” anything, even when paired with cookies that she was too amped up to eat.

It’s fortunate that I made all these mistakes on a dog as solid and stable as Luce. Prone more to eye-rolling than redirecting, to ignoring me like a pesky mosquito rather than shutting down into a non-functioning shell, I don’t think I did her any lasting harm.

It’s even more fortunate that I ended up in the hands of a trainer who had more tools in her box than leash corrections. I did several private lessons with her and a “bait poodle”, and it was then that I learned how to use a clicker to mark and shape the attention on me that I wanted, how to desensitize a dog to a trigger, and made the first baby steps toward a sane, well-adjusted dog. She clicked, I fed. I wasn’t skilled enough to do both on my own at first. That came with practice, and my timing improved immensely.

I also read a lot. I read Jean Donaldson, I read Patricia McConnell, I read Brenda Aloff’s wonderful and complete book on Aggression in Dogs. (It wasn’t until after the problem was largely solved that I read Control Unleashed and Click to Calm but both of them would have been immensely helpful to me at the time.)

It wasn’t fast. It was kind of boring and not really that much fun (which is probably why it took so long- Control Unleashed games would have made it much more fun), but it was important so I did it. And it was effective. Oh it was effective! And long-lasting. She passed her Canine Good Citizen test in early spring of 2005 (I got her December 2003). The strange dog section of the test didn’t phase her in the least. It was all uphill from there.

She’s still dog-aggressive to bitches and to dogs who get all up in her face. I don’t think that will ever change, and really I don’t have a problem with that. She can do all the things I want her to do- she can go out for walks without an issue, she can go to dog classes and to dog shows and trial without carrying on at other dogs, she can go to dog festivals that are packed with other dogs and navigate through them without aggressing. She can be like a normal dog. There was a long period of time when I thought I would never ever be able to take her out in public. There was a long period of time when I thought about giving her back.

I feel bad for all the punishment I rained down on her. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t effective, and it was mistake after mistake. On the flip side of that, though, I know that if I hadn’t made those mistakes, I would not have learned that there is a better, more effective way to change behavior. I wouldn’t have learned to communicate with my dogs in a manner that they are better able to understand. I wouldn’t have gained the skills that make it possible for me to tackle training Steve in a completely different fashion than I tried to train Luce, that have made it possible for me to deal with Mushroom’s issues in the wake of having been attacked by another dog and traumatized by it.

There are a lot of dog people out there who say that you get the dog that you deserve.

I have learned so much from Luce, and I suspect she’s still got a lot of stuff to teach me. I’m not sure what I did to deserve such a good teacher, but it must have been something right.

I’m a terrible dog mom. In the midst of the puppy madness, I managed to overlook the Gotcha days of both big dogs. Since I don’t know either Luce or Mushroom’s birthdays (I have made up ones, of course, but I don’t even know for sure if the year is accurate), I instead celebrate the anniversary of their homecomings. Luce’s is December 11. Mushroom’s is December 12. Except this year I forgot. The puppy ate my brain.

I can’t believe it’s been five years since I brought my little red maniac home from the shelter. She looked so sweet and innocent in her kennel there, but boy did I get played. I brought her home and she turned into a crazed, zooming, crate-destroying, snorting, kissing wildebeest. She ran and ran and ran and ran and bit my legs and ran and leaped and grinned. Oh it was good to be free!

She turned my world upside down. She was more dog than I could even have imagined. I knew pit bulls were athletic, intense dogs, but knowing that on paper is a lot different than having one in your house. But she was so sweet and so enthusiastic and she was mine, above all things. She learned. I learned. I learned more. I did a lot of things wrong. I finally got headed in the right direction, and what do you know- I ended up with a really fantastic dog.

Mushroom came home a year later, primarily because A) he needed a home and B) Luce needed a buddy. I didn’t choose him for any reason other than he was a nice dog and Luce liked him. Again, my world was rocked. He’s so different than Luce. He’d roll on his back and pee if I got frustrated or annoyed and made “angry eyes” or raised my voice. He was so easy in some ways- took to the crate immediately, was 100% housebroken from the word go- and so hard for me to adjust to in others. It took quite a while for me to really bond with him, but we’re there now, and I love him to bits and do a lot better job of respecting who and what he is (though I admit I still struggle a little bit with the softness).

I am so grateful that these dogs came into my life and have stayed here, nestled on my couch, running in my yard, jumping on each others’ heads and destroying all the toys they can get their mouths on. I am so grateful that I had trainers who taught me how to turn Luce into a respectable being, and who helped me build Mushroom’s confidence so that he can better cope with the world (as long as the world doesn’t expect him to compete in Obedience trials). I know that a lot of what you get out of a dog depends on what you put into them, but part of it is what they are born with, as well, and both of these dogs were born with hearts full of goodness. (Ok and some naughtiness.)

Happy Belated Gotcha Day to both of my big dogs, and thank you for being such Good Dogs.

You may have seen it reported already. Bad Rap had the story on Tuesday. Pet Connection earlier today. But it’s worth repeating and repeating and yelling from the rooftops. Sports Illustrated, mass media itself, has put one of the surviving Vick dogs on the cover of their December issue, complete with a five-page story that proves that at least some journalists really, honestly get it.

It’s good news for the Vick dogs, many of whom are safe in homes living normal lives (or as normal as possible in the case of Sweet Jasmine, the descriptions of whom break my heart), others living in sanctuary at Best Friends. But it’s good news for other dogs, like those recently seized dogs in Oklahoma who were at least given the benefit of individual evaluations instead of the mass-death that has been the norm in far too many fight-dog busts. Those involved in the Vick dog seizure turned the world upside down with their insistence on evaluating the dogs, saving those who could be saved. And the more that word gets out, the more social pressure is put on other “humane” officers to do the same, the more dogs will be treated as dogs instead of monsters.

Because they are not monsters. They are dogs, just dogs. Some are stable, safe dogs who can exist in the world, and some are not, but either way, it is not fear that these dogs need. It is sympathy. It is understanding. It is a chance.

It is hope.

Merry Christmas everybody.

Also, today is the one year anniversary of the beginning of this blog. Happy birthday, blog!

I love sharing a bed with my dogs.

This morning I woke up to Mushroom under the covers at my front and Luce snuggled up against my back with her chin on my neck. Hey, it was cold last night, okay? Steve was in his crate on the bedroom floor, which makes me sad. When I first brought him home, he slept in a Vari-kennel on my bed, but he’s outgrown it, so he has to sleep on the floor now. If he’s ever housebroken and chew-proofed (ha!) he’ll get to sleep in bed if he wants. I don’t care where my dogs sleep as long as they stay in my bedroom, but Mushroom always sleeps with me, and Luce sleeps with me when it’s cold, though not always in the summer.

I understand people who don’t want dogs in bed for whatever reason- space, dog hair, not waking up to a butt in your face- but I do get sad when I hear people say that they don’t let their dogs sleep in bed because that is allowing the dogs to become dominant and above their position. From bed to world domination in one easy step. Or something.

Now if you have a bed-guarding dog, other aggression issues, or some sort of significant behavior concern with your dog, letting them in the bed is not the best idea. But for your average emotionally-stable canine who is generally respectful of his humans, letting the dog on the bed is not going to give him delusions of grandeur. Honest. Personally I think it’s a nice little bonding thing, especially since I work full-time and don’t get to spend as much time with my dogs as I’d like. Letting them sleep in my bed is a way of being with them. They haven’t tried to eat me yet (somewhere along the line somebody said that owning a pit bull was like sleeping with a serial killer. I wish I could find that quote because it cracked me up with its absurdity. I wonder what that person would think of sleeping with pit bulls.) and they haven’t, as far as I know, taken over the world. (I worry more about Catzilla when it comes to that. Of course, he sleeps in my bed too. Often on my face.)

Of course, I did make the effort to teach them to get off the bed on command (I need this for bed-making purposes more than anything) but it was a quick easy game for them to learn and it’s a quick easy game for anybody to teach. Works great for in and out of the car as well.

In related news (and I’m a smidge late on this one), the American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior (AVSAB) has released a statement speaking out against the use of dominance and coercion based training. The website isn’t currently working for me right now but I’m posting it anyway in the hopes that it will come back up later.

There are a bunch of changes taking place in Pennsylvania Dog Law right now, many of which pertain to kennels, which is a good thing, but right now a chaotic and somewhat confusing thing. For example, all boarding kennels are suddenly required to have veterinarian-approved exercise programs for their boarders, but there are no guidelines dictating what makes up a sufficient exercise program. None. Zero. It just has to be veterinarian approved. Which makes things a little, well, stressful for the veterinarians.

So there’s been a lot of discussion about the new law at work, which has led to some really, well, disturbing information coming out.

Under the old law, there are five different levels of commercial kennels running from 26-50 dogs own/sold/traded/transferred per year to 251+. The small ones are labeled K1. The large ones K5. The new law provides a whole extra level for kennels with 501+ dogs. Fantastic.

Anyway, according to the 2007 Kennel License Report the number two county for K5 kennels was Blair County with 11. There were three counties who licensed ten kennels with 251 or more dogs.

And then there was Lancaster County. The puppy mill capital of the East Coast.

Lancaster County licensed EIGHTY K5 kennels. Along with 185 smaller kennels. Their dogs sold listing puts Lancaster County heads above the rest with 35,142 dogs (though this number also includes non-profit kennels). Cumberland County comes in second with a mere 14,741 dogs.

I know the numbers shouldn’t surprise me, but seeing them up there in black and white… it’s harsh, man. It’s harsh.