Outwitting Dogs
Category Archives: Dogs
Brits want to zap shock collars
The UK Kennel Club is calling for a ban on shock collars for dogs.
In the U.S., some believe shock collars a necessity for training certain behaviors, such as behaviors that are to be executed at a distance.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Just consider Bob Bailey, who with his late wife, Marian Breland Bailey, showed that even non-domesticated animals can be trained to execute an astonishing array of behaviors without the use of aversives. In a recent Star-Telegram interview Bailey explains the basis of his training approach: “All you have to do is learn what it likes, what it takes for the animal to say, ‘Aha. I will do more of this.'”
He continues:
“The dog is not a little person. The dog will do what will pay off. What your challenge is as a pet owner is to break the training up into small pieces and make it worthwhile for them to play your games.”
Shock collars are a step backward. I agree they don’t belong in Britain, and I don’t think they belong in the U.S., either.
If the cockles of your heart feel a bit chilly
Here’s just the thing you need: The Daily Puppy. Via Pat at Doggywoggie.com, who says “I could spend hours on this site!”
Me, too!!!
UPDATE: Apparently the Daily Puppy is no longer a literal thing, but you can still view puppies at the site :)
Puppy mills outsourced
U.S. puppy mills are bad enough. Now we have people smuggling sick, poorly bred puppies in from Mexico:
Huddled together in car trunks, glove compartments, and underneath seats, thousands of unhealthy puppies each year are being smuggled into the United States from Mexico, animal control officers say.
Usually only a few weeks old, the tiny pups are sold for up to a thousand dollars each in shopping center parking lots and on street corners throughout California.
Stop it, people. Stop buying them.
Pitbulls & Profiling
In a New Yorker article, Malcolm Gladwell examines how municipalities deal with the problem of aggressive dogs. Interestingly, he draws on what we’ve learned about policing of humans (what New York City has done, for example, reduce its crime rate) to make the case that banning a specific breed is the wrong way to reduce the incidence of dog bite.
The article surveys the data about what breeds of dog have been involved in fatal dog bites, and concludes that the reason pitbulls have made the news so often in the past few years is that more people own them:
The kinds of dogs that kill people change over time, because the popularity of certain breeds changes over time. The one thing that doesn’t change is the total number of the people killed by dogs. When we have more problems with pit bulls, it’s not necessarily a sign that pit bulls are more dangerous than other dogs. It could just be a sign that pit bulls have become more numerous.
But who owns these dogs? Here we get to the real crux of the issue. The strongest predictor of viciousness in a dog has far less to do with the dog, and an awful lot to do with the owner:
In about a quarter of fatal dog-bite cases, the dog owners were previously involved in illegal fighting. The dogs that bite people are, in many cases, socially isolated because their owners are socially isolated, and they are vicious because they have owners who want a vicious dog. The junk-yard German shepherd’s which looks as if it would rip your throat out and the German-shepherd guide dog are the same breed. But they are not the same dog, because they have owners with different intentions.
When I was doing research for my novel Loose Dogs — the protagonist is an animal control officer who breaks up a dog fighting ring — I was given a tour of the kennels that Rochester Animal Services use to hold stray dogs they’ve picked up. It’s not unusual for over half of these dogs to be pit bulls, or pit bull mixes.
You know what else? If these dogs — the pit bulls — aren’t claimed, they are put down — the city won’t offer a pit bull for adoption. I can’t say as I blame them. They don’t want to be in the business of offering the type of dog that attracts the wrong type of owner.
But it still breaks my heart.
Shoe! Shoe!
I’m working on a new trick with my dog. It’s a complex one, which is good — it stretches my training skills.
Ultimately, what I hope my dog will be able to do is to hunt for an object I’ve hidden somewhere in the house and bring it to me. I bought three toys specifically for this trick with the idea that she will need to retrieve only the toy I name.
To train it, I’m breaking the behavior down into pieces, one of which is “fetch.” We’re making progress. A big hurdle: the toy sneaker has a squeaker in it, and the noise seems to worry my dog terribly. I’m trying to figure out if it’s related to her impeccable fashion sense or whether the squeak has an encoded message about obeying cats.
[tags] dog [/tags]
Things were quiet. Too quiet.
Some time after taking my dog out for her morning toilette, I realized I hadn’t seen her in quite a while.
So I hunted her down, and found her in the downstairs powder room.
What is she doing standing there, you ask?
I’ll tell you. She is stuck. Behind. The Boots. The awful, awful Boots.
I moved them. She’s free, now.
Happy dog year
Tomorrow kicks off the Chinese year of the dog, which may explain why Google’s tail is wagging.
Blogging will be light today. I’ve realized that I’m way behind in planning for this event. Anyone know a good source for novelty cocktail stirrers? Something with a Corgi theme would be perfect!
I figured out what pets are good for!
Keeping the other pets in line!
I hit a major milestone in the household dog training today: my Corgi discovered alien-cat up on the kitchen counter and barked madly until I came to see what was going on, and then, when alien-cat jumped down, the dog didn’t give chase! I called her, and she came to me!
Good dog! Very very very good dog!
Another reason to eat your kibble.
Dog and Kennel Magazine has published a special report on nutrigenomics — foods designed to influence the way genetic tendencies express in dogs’ bodies.
The report says that the most successful application of this idea, so far, is in treating arthritis (partly because researchers have made solid progress in understanding the genetics of arthritis in dogs). By tweaking the levels of certain proteins and fats in their products, dog food manufacturers believe they can influence biochemical activity at the cellular level, cutting short the progression of the disease.
A twist on the story is that although these foods contain only natural ingredients — no drugs, nothing from a test tube — they are only available, right now, through veterinarians, as explained here by Dan Carey, DVM, “a trained veterinarian who now works as a scientist at Iams,” and Dr. Dru Forrester, scientific spokesperson for Hills Pet Nutrition:
“We want veterinarians to confirm that your dog has the body type and size so he’ll benefit from this diet.” Even more, Carey says, “We want to encourage people to work with veterinarians so they continue to get good general advice about their dog’s health.” Forrester also wants people to go through a veterinarian to prevent the rise of inferior imitations. “Everything in these foods is the result of detailed work. We don’s want to see nutrigenomic foods being copied and sold in grocery stores, where there are fewer controls on the contents.”
Translation: we plan to charge an arm and a leg for this stuff, and we don’t want people to get the idea that they can mix it up more cheaply in their own kitchens.
The article also asks why we can’t do something similar for people.
The answer is that we can exert more control over our dogs’ diets — and dogs are more willing to eat uniform (i.e. boring) food: “For nutrigenomics to work, you must eat the specific foods that have been developed for you, and do it faithfully.”
Faithfully as a dog, must be :-)
That said, the piece predicts this work will influence trends in human nutritional science, which is a good thing.
