KC DOG BLOG

Great Friday Reads

I usually try to add this as part of the weekly roundup, but there have been some great posts from around the internet the past 10 days or so and I just really want to put them out there for some excellent reading.  I really do encourage you to click through -- some great stuff out there.

Sam theDog Trainer has a very good new article on some of the causes for dogs biting young children. The keys are supervision children and dogs, providing proper training and exercise for your dog, and not creating a stressful environment for your dog.

Great news from Austin Pets Alive -- the Austin city council unanimously passed the resolution to make the necessary steps to make Austin a no-kill city. Here's a link to the shelter recommendations on how they plan to achieve no kill.

The folks at Animal Ark Foundation in Minneapolis have a great You Tube video they put together on how the animal welfare industry lost their way -- based on the book Redemption. It's very much worth watching -- it's 20 minutes long but goes very quickly.

Fred at One Bark at a Time has a really great article about dog bites.  The reality is that most dog bites happen for a reason -- and it is usually caused by something the human did wrong. The more we understand dog behavior, the more we can properly assess whether a biting dog is truly aggressive or not. Fred shares a couple of personal stories that provide great examples for discussion.  I'm a fan of Fred's writing (and photography), but I think his telling of personal stories like this are him at his best.

Christie had a great article in the San Franscisco Chronicle about why dog advocates aren't moving on when it comes to Michael Vick's unpaid dues.  Vick's actions went far beyond dog fighting and into nearly unspeakable animal cruelty...for which Vick has never shown even the slightest bit of remorse.

This one is seemingly a bit random, but this is an article by John Stossel one what he feels like is a double-standard that journalists seem to have about bias. When Stossel first started as a journalist, he mostly reported about companies that were trying to screw over consumers (he has some interesting thoughts on this), and when he was doing it, other journalist liked him. But now that he has turned his focus onto the government and media and its constant fear mongering.  I think it's a pretty good read following my series on the Science of Fear a few weeks ago.  For what it's worth, I did a write-up about Stossel's Series: Fear Mongering in America back in 2007 - -you can read those installments here, here, here and here.

PBRC has launched a new blog called Pitter Patter. The site is mostly really cute pictures of 'pit bulls' in really funny moments and with funny headlines. Think of it as the LOLcats for 'pit bulls'.  Nearly guaranteed to bring a smile to your face.

YesBiscuit has a good commentary on "What if we all neutered our pets today?" in response to the push for mandatory spay/neuter in Northeast Georgia.

Temp testing and Rehab, part 2

On Friday, I posted about the first part of Dr. Linda Wolf's presentation on Temp Testing and Rehabilitation (in a course "Expanding Adoptable" at the No Kill Conference).  Yesterday, I also provided a link to the For the Pit Bulls blog that talks about her adopted dog, Mina, that had "failed" its temp test and the joy this dog has brought to her life.

In the first part of the lecture, Dr. Wolf spoke about behavior -- and temp tests. She noted (and many others have echoed in the comments section here) that temp tests should not be used as a pass/fail mechanism to determine to determine which dogs get killed.  However, she did believe the tests were extremely valuable for helping determine behavior that needs to be worked on.

"If you don't recognize and understand the signs of dog behavior, you won't know how to deal with it," she said.

The second part of her lecture focused on rehabilitation - "dealing with it".

She began by talking about various forms of training techniques -- which I'll outline here.  She jokingly referred to herself as a trainer as either a toy or a treat dispenser -- which is pretty funny and pretty accurate.  Here were her training techniques:

Negative punishment -- taking away something the animal likes. This one is particularly useful for a dog that may not have appropriate bite inhibition and when the dog bites too hard, you take away what they want, which is you playing with them.

Positive punishment -- physical force with the dog (she, of course, highly discouraged this one).

Negative reinforcement - taking away something from the dog that they don't like

Positive reinforcement - giving them a treat or reward for doing what is wanted (food motivated dogs are very easy to train with this, although some dogs prefer toys or even praise for their good work).

Flooding -- overwhelming the dog with something they don't like and hoping they get over it -- she gave an example of a dog that is scared of thunder and flooding them with the sound of thunder until they get used to it. Again, this is one she didn't recommend as it's pretty cruel.

Systematic desensitization -- This is exposing them to the fear stimulous in moderate levels until they become desentitized to the stimulous. This is the much nicer way of dealing with that vs flooding.

She also talked about a Constructional Aggression Therapy (CATS) that she thinks is a great way to construct a new behavior for dogs with aggression issues. This is one that she appologized for not spending more time on but there is apparently a really good DVD on the topic.

She also really stressed doing things like obedience and agility training.  She thought it was highly important to give the dog something to do -- "Give them a reason to be proud," she said.

Then, Dr. Wolf discussed various forms of aggression (which is the "reason" many shelters will kill an animal that fails temp tests).  She identified 10 different types of aggression, and one other major behavioral trait that is an issue for many animals in shelters.  She didn't discuss many of them in detail due to time limitations, but will do my best here. One of the key pieces to this was thinking about a simple formula:

Threat + Resource + Behavioral Options = Aggressive Response.

So here are her key forms of aggression:

Dominance Aggression -

Fear Aggression -- the 2nd most common type she finds in shelters -- especially in abused dogs. She said the trick here is to reward the dog when it finally relaxes.

Possession Aggression - A very normal, adaptive behavior -- and the most common type of "aggression".  She talked a lot about this and how to get rid of possession aggression by "trading up" for a higher reward treat. So if the dog loves a toy, it will resource guard the toy. However, if it likes a different toy better, you can "trade out" toys -- saying "can I have it?" and when they give you the lower valued item, you can replace it with a higher valued item.  This allows them to get used to giving you the item not being associated with it being a bad thing.

Territorial Aggression -- technically a resource guard where territory is the possession

Punishment aggression -

Pain Aggression - My dog Grommit got this as a pup when he had a major ear infection....it took us a bit to figure it out, but boy, solving the pain, solved the problem.

Predatory aggression - cats, rabbits, squirrels, etc

Maternal aggression - How many times each year that a young child gets bitten when it walked up to pet newborn puppy? 

Dog Agression -

Re-directed aggression -- the dog gets so excited by something else and then is startled it re-directs that aggression on what startled them.

She also discussed, at pretty good length, separation anxiety, which is often associated with the fear of isolation, abandonment, and the fear of losing their most prized possession -- their owner.  She noted here that any type of punishment would reinforce the behavior, and that the best way to solve the problem is to give the dog stuff to do while you're away (peanut butter-filled Kongs have almost proven fail-proof for me) and to work with the dog, spending brief times away, starting with being gone for 5 minutes at a time and then working up to a couple of hours.  Once you get to a couple of hours, the dog will be fine.

The bottom line was that is that many shelters inappropriately use temp testing as a reason to kill animals, instead of using the tests as a way to determine what behavior needs to be worked on -- and using that knowledge to rehabilitate the dogs. The reality is that most canine behavioral issues can be retrained if there is enough properly educated staff/volunteers to do so. While not every shelter has these resources currently, I think that should be the end goal for these shelters -- and a goal for people who care about animals to step up and volunteer at their shelters (if they are not already doing so).

This must be the end goal...we need to put a stop to the using of temp tests as a reason to "fail" dogs and begin using them so we can learn more about the dog's behavior to help them to succeed.  We should be administering these tests with the first thought of "what do we need to do to rehabilitate this dog?" vs "should we kill this dog?" 

Most of these dogs deserve it.  And dogs like Mina have proven that their future owners deserve it too.

Temp Testing and Rehabilitation - Part 1

One of the sessions I went to at the No Kill Conference was entitled "Rehabilitating and Adopting Dogs with Special Needs."

The presentation was given by Dr. Linda Wolf -- who is a veterinarian and animal behavior consultant who does a lot of consulting for Animal Ark -- a No kill Shelter in Minnesota.  With Dr. Wolf's guidance (and a lot of work from a dedicated staff and volunteer group who are dedicated to the saving of animals' lives), Animal Ark has euthanized only 1 dog due to behavioral issues in the past 4 years.  At a time when many people are using basic temperament tests as a way to kill dogs without consequence because they were "unadoptable."

While much of what Dr. Wolf talked about was not new to me, per se, there were a lot of new nuggets that tied a lot of different pieces together for me .

She began talking about what forms behavior, and signs of dog behavior. "If you don't recognize and understand signs of dog behavior, you won't know how to deal with it," she said.

She talked about when certain behaviors develop. Even during the prenatal period, behavior is affected a lot. Stressful situations before birth can have negative consequences for a dog. Dogs that are heavily petted during pregnancy will have puppies that tend to be more docile and desire more touching.*

From 0-14 days, puppies require touching to develop their motor development and nervous system. Dogs that are handled during the first 2 weeks after birth tend to be more confident.

From 3-12 weeks is a dog's main socialization period. This is when the puppy's brain develops rapidly and they learn to socialize with their littermates.

From 12 weeks to sexual maturity, this is when dogs learn aggressive behavior. They learn a lot by "play biting" -- especially bite inhibition. This is when a puppy learns to bite by not using their full strength so they don't cause injury. Many people inadvertantly cause two dogs from having proper bite inhibition by breaking up play-fighting -- by doing so, the puppy never learns what that 'max level' of biting is to when the other dog gets hurt.

"Without bite-inhibition, socialization, and habituation, you'll end up with a serious bite."  If you have bite-inhibition, without the other two, you'll end up with a much less serious bite," said Wolf.

* None of this is really very supportive of the idea that nature is a bigger driver of behavior than nurture....in fact, in a 2 1/2 hour lecture on the topic, the topic of genetics never once came up as a driver of behavior.

So then Dr. Wolf talked about different gestures -- filled with all kinds of visual examples of such behaviors.  She discussed Distance-reducing behaviors -- these are appeasement gestures that encourage approach.  Often the dog has its head/neck lower, the dog will be twisted somewhat sideways, eyes will be looking slightly away, or often, the dog will lie down, with it's belly up. Other signs might include licking, tail wagging (but be aware of how high up the tail is, if the tail is nearer to vertical, that is a different sign), and a raised paw/shake-type gesture.

She also discussed Distance-increasing behaviors: Stiff body, ears up and forward*, tail up and staring directly at the target.

Dr. Wolf also discussed fear behaviors (cowering, head very low) and calming signals (Sitting, lying down, nose licking, looking away).

* Interestingly, she brought up her huge dislike of things like cropped ears and tail-docking.  When a dog has cropped ears, the ears are always in an "up and forward" position. Other dogs will almost always interpret a dog with cropped ears as being in a distance-increasing posture, which can lead to the other dog mirroring that behavior -- which leads to two dogs in more aggressive-type positions. It is hard not to think that the popularity of ear-cropping in 'pit bull' breeds has actually caused some of the "dog aggression" issues that people perceive because it actually spurs other dogs to react less invitingly to the dog with cropped ears, which can spur a little more rivalry between a couple of dogs. I also wonder if ear-cropping had something to do with Randall Lockwood's initial thoughts on "pit bulls' back in the mid-80s when he said that pit bulls didn't give warning signs before attacking -- because one of the major "warning signs" would be ear position -- and I don't know how much we understood about canine behavior when it comes to body position subtleties in the 1980s. 

After this, she discussed different temperament tests. It was Dr. Wolf's opinion (and one I share) that temperament tests should not be used as a pass/fail -- with "fails" being killed at the shelter.

She said there are many flaws in using temperament tests for the sole evaluation of a dog's behavior:

-- Environment -- if a dog is in a strange environment they are likely not going to behave in a natural way

-- Stressed -- a dog that is in a strange environment, around strangers, is likely going to feel stressed

-- Length of time - -many temp tests are only 5-10 minute tests -- and don't really give the dog ample time to show their very complex behavior.  Let's face it, if someone met you for 5 minutes, they most likely wouldn't have a full understanding of your behavior.

-- Experience/skill of the evaluators -- many evaluators are not properly trained to do temperament evaluations

-- Testing only "potential problem dogs -- in many shelters, they only test dogs they perceive to be "potential problems". So evaluators realy don't get an understanding of how a "good dog" would do on the test, so they don't have a good comparison of how the dog should perform.

-- She also warned that testings assumes a one-size-fits all approach to dogs and that only one type of temperament is acceptable.

The end result: Most dogs fail, and failure = death.

Which is happening all to often in many of our shelters today.

Part 2 will come soon.

Fear the Dachshund

 Unless you've been in a cave for the past few days, you've probably seen the story about the a dog bite study that was done in part by a University of Pennsylvania researcher that named the Dachshund as the biggest biter among dogs. The Chihuahua and Jack Russel Terrier finished #2 and #3 respectively.  This story has been covered virtually everywhere, in newspapers and in blogs.  Even the Kansas City media jumped on this.

No one really published the actual data behind the study, although I did finally find a copy of it here.It appears from the chart that the study covered just over 3500 dogs and tested them for aggression vs humans, their owners and other dogs.  According to the numbers, over 50% of Dachshunds showed some type of  aggression (I do not know if the numbers are mutually exclusive, so I've assumed they are for these purposes).

There are several different ways we could interpret the data.  We could take the "mad mothers" route and push to ban these dangerous dogs, known for their eating of toes and genetalia. It sure sounds ridiculous when I say that in the context of Weiner dogs and Chihuahuas, but let's face it, if we'd seen Rottweilers or pit bulls top the list, these news stories would certainly have had a different twist.

Or, we could simply ignore the numbers, citing things like small sample sizes, the reality that no body seems to have a clue about their methodology, etc and decide that this isn't really accurate and get nothing from it.  That seems like a mistake too.  So what should be the takeaway?

In total, nearly 20% of the dogs showed some form of aggression. 4.4% showed aggression toward strangers. 1.9% toward their owners, and 13.5% toward other dogs.

For starters, aggression is not breed specific. Look at the list. Every single breed (all 31) that was covered in the story showed the capability of having aggression. Every single one had at least one bite directed toward its owner or a stranger.  Every single breed showed at least some signs of dog aggression.

Dogs are generally friendly to strangers, with 95.6% of dogs being kind to strangers.  No single breed had the majority of its dogs that showed aggression toward strangers.  The highest were Dachsunds at 20.6%, Chihuahuas at 16.1%, and Australian Cattle Dogs at 9.6%.

No dog breeds were likely to bite their owners.  Beagles topped this list at 7.9%.

Dog vs dog aggression is really quite rare also, with 86.5% of the dogs studied showed no signs of dog vs dog aggression.  While a good many people perceive 'pit bulls' to be "naturally dog aggressive", over 2/3 of the pit bulls covered in this story did not show any type of dog vs dog aggression. Their numbers comparatively high, but their 30.3% number trailed Jack Russell Terriers at 30.8% as the two most "dog aggressive" breeds.  However, many other breeds had over 29% of their dogs have some type of incident, including: Dachsunds (25%), English Springer Spaniel (24.6%), Australian Cattle Dog (24.3%), Chihuahua (21.4%), German Shepherd (20.9%), Wheaton Terrier (20.4%), Boxer (20%) Border Collie (17.8%).

So what do I take away from it? I guess the same thing that I've always thought.

1) In spite of what media reports would have you believe, most dogs are not by nature aggressive. In fact the VAST majority of dogs are not aggressive at all.  And the vast majority of ALL breeds are not aggressive.

2) That said, all dogs can be aggressive if certain instances present themselves, either through heredity, lack of socialization, environment, or other learned instances.

3) Dog vs dog aggression is far from a "unique" pit bull characteristic and can carry across all breeds of dogs.

4) If we're ever going to get at the very root of aggressive dogs in this country, we're going to HAVE to quit pretending this is a breed-specific problem, and educate and demand that all dog owners take responsibility for the training and behavior of their dogs.  When we start doing that, we will start making progress. Until then, people will continue to believe "their breed" isn't a potential problem and the problem will not be solved.