KC DOG BLOG

A Lawyer's Guide to Dangerous Dog Issues

I'm traveling this week -- so I'm a little behind on posting. In the meantime, I wanted to pass along some information on a book that I'm pretty excited about.

The book is "A Lawyer's Guide to Dangerous Dog Issues".

The book is edited by Joan Schaffner, a nationally respected expert on animal law and an associate professor at the George Washington University Law School and founder of the school's Animal Law Program.  I got the opportunity to meet Schaffner at the No Kill Conference back in May and have been excited about this book coming out ever since.

The book takes a really close look at the topic of the law and "dangerous" dogs -- a quickly growing field in law. As communities and governments struggle to address public safety in the wake of the growing media coverage of dogs attacks, they are often looking at legislation and ways to define dogs that are dangerous. It addresses questions like, is breed discrimination immoral? Unjust? Ineffective?  And what other solutions are all of those, if any? 

The book provides progressive approaches to address the concerns of wreckless dog owners and provides strategies for defending dangerous dog cases. It should be a good resource for governments and legal and private associations on handling this emerging field of law.

Writers of the book include: Ledy Van Kavage of Best Friends Animal Society; Michelle Welch, assistant attorney general of the state of Virginia; David Furlow, Houston; Marcy LaHart, West Palm Beach FL; Professor Bernard Rollin, Colorado State University, and Professor Larry Cunningham, St. John's University School of Law.

In seven chapters, these experts from around the nation will consider key topics including:

-- An overview of ordinances targeting reckles owners

-- The concept of canine profiling

-- The Constitutionality of breed-specific legislation

-- Enforcing and defending dangerous dog laws

-- Information on dangerous dog registries and hearings

Other topics include the use of witnesses including victims, animal control officers, physicians and animal behaviorists and a primer on homewners' insurance and dog owners.

The book is sponsored by the American Bar Association -- so a trustworthy source on the topic of all things legal. I'm really excited about this book coming out.

A bit of a warning, the book does come with a healthy price tag of $79.95...but I do think it will be worth it for people who are involved in working with city legislation on canine laws.

Hopefully I'll get a copy soon and be able to give a full-on review -- but it you get to it first, please feel free to send me your reviews.

In seven chapters,

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.

Blaming the "irresponsible public"

One of the more refreshing things about the No Kill movement -- and something that came through loud and clear at the No Kill Conference this past weekend -- was the need for, and desire that, shelters would quit blaming the "irresponsible public" for the killing that is taking place in America's shelters today.

Oh sure, there are irresponsible pet owners out there. And they are exactly the reason that animal control officials and shelters will exist. Some people just don't have the ability to dedicate themselves to any task -- including properly caring for a pet for the duration of the pet's life.

Thus the need for the shelter system.

However, these people are not the majority of people out there. Most people truly want to do the right things -- and will - -if they a) know what the right thing is and b) make it fairly easy for them to do it.

When we think about the public in this way, it is amazing what a difference it makes.

Instead of creating laws like mandatory spay/neuter laws -- that almost always lead to an increase in pets taken from homes and more animals dying in the shelter -- we can focus on low-cost, convenient, voluntary spay/neuter programs.  These programs do not increase the number of animals taken from homes. They just successfully rely on the reality that if you remove the barriers to doing what we want them to do (in this case, the biggest barrier is usually cost), most people will voluntarily comply.

It also changes the way we look at dogs running at-large. Instead of thinking "man, some irresponsible owner let this dog run loose, and now it's my problem to deal with in the shelter" the mindset should be, "wow, someone's dog got loose, I bet they're worried sick about it and I hope I can find that dog's owner".  What different steps would shelter directors make to find the pet's home (where it belongs) if they always look at at-large pets as "lost", not "strays".

I think it would dramatically change the effort we put into getting animals back home.

The same goes for adoptions. I know of far too many rescue groups that assume that most potential owners are irresponsible. They look at applications and seek out reasons to avoid adopting pets to these people.

Did you once have a dog that got hit by a car?

Do you not have a fence?

Do you have young kids?

Do you travel too much?

Do you not make enough money and if a crisis came up, affording vet care would be a problem?

Do you already have a dog of that gender in your home?

Then forget about adopting this dog.

The reality is, I would probably have a difficult time adopting a dog from many rescue groups because they would find a reason to not adopt to me. And that's too bad.

Instead of looking for reasons why this owner may be irresponsible and why we shouldn't adopt to them, why would we not look at every application for adoption with the mindset of "what would it take to make this application a good home?"  And then work to make that a reality.

How many more adoptions would we have then?  And how many fewer people - -denied from adopting - -would turn to breeders for their puppies where they could buy a dog, no questions asked?

It's amazing what a difference it makes in everything we do when we think of the public as mostly responsible (they are) vs mostly irresponsible.  That doesn't change the fact that there are irresponsible people out there. They are.  And we will continue to have to deal with them.  But that's what we're here for -- those dogs that fall through the cracks due to these owners. However, these owners are not the majority of people. And the sooner we realize that, and quit treating everyone like they're irresponsible, the better off the animals will be.

No Kill Conference Day 2 -- some reading material

I didn't get anything posted last night...we were mingling a little late and by the time we got dinner it was a pretty late night back at our hotel.

I must say that Day 1 of the No Kill Conference exceeded my expectations.  I have seen many of the speakers here before and I was somewhat concerned that a lot of the sessions would be a review of things I've previously heard.

But they're not.

I'm getting a lot out of this conference. I plan to pass along a lot of the stuff in the coming weeks on this blog - -hopefully starting as early as tomorrow.  We'll see.

All I can say is I'm excited about the movement to end the senseless killing of dogs and cats in our shelters.  I'm excited by how many people are involved. I'm excited that as a country we're as close as we are to achieving this goal (even though it may not seem like it at times).

If you can't wait for my posts, you can catch Kim's review of Sue Cosby's presentation, which I didn't sit in on as I'm doing mostly the legal track (sorry Sue).

Christie did a solid job of live-blogging Winograd's first presentation on Legislating No-Kill (which I did sit in on, and will comment later).

Meanwhile -- this is not Conference related, but Rinalia has a really nice post on leaving dogs alone together -- it's a great, honest look at her dogs and why she doesn't leave them alone together -- and an example of another person who may have been better off if they'd known their dogs better.

Enjoy -- more later.

No Kill Conference

  On May 2-3, 2009, Nathan Winograd and his No Kill Advocacy Center (teamed up with the George Washington University Law School) are hosting the first ever No-Kill Conference.

The purpose of the conference is to help people create No Kill Communities and to teach folks how to use the legal system to save the lives of animals.  Early registration for the conference is only $100 - which barely covers the cost of the books/cd that you will get.  Early Registration ends 2/28 -- so sign up now!

Topics will include:

No Kill Sheltering

Rehabilitating and adopting dogs and cats with special needs

Harnessing Community Compassion

Turbocharging Pet Adoptions, Redemptions and other placements

Reforming Animal Control

Overcoming Internal Obstacles to Success

Legislating No Kill

Rethinking Dangeorus Dogs

Legislating and Litigating an End to Puppy Mills

Litigating No Kill

Drafting No Kill Policies

Combining your legal skills with your passion for animals

Speakers will include:

Nathan Winograd - Director of the No Kill Advocacy Center and author of Redemption

Richard Avanzino -- Director of Maddies Fund

Susanne Kogut - Executive Director of the Charlottesville-Ablermarle ASPCA

Abigail Smith - Executive Director of the Tompkins County SPCA

Mike Fry - Executive Director of Animal Ark, a no kill shelter in Minneapolis/St. Paul

Susan Cosby - Executive Director of  the Animal Welfare Association of New Jersey

Bonney Brown - Executive Director of the Nevada Humane Society

Wendy Anderson - Director of Law at Ally Cat Allies

Claudine Wilkins - Legislative Counsel for Best Friends

Kat Albrecht - Director of Missing Pet Partnership

Linda Wolf - A veterinarian with an emphasis on animal behavior

Mitchell Schneider - Field Supervisor for Washoe County Animal Services

Claire Davis - President of the Coalition for a No Kill King County

Ryan Clinton - Director of Fix Austin

Warren Patitz - Director of Move To Act (Indianapolis)

Donald Cleary - Director of Publications for the National Canine Research Council and Treasure for Animal Farm Foundation

Ledy Van Kavage - Senior Legislative Analyst for Best Friends Animal Society

Karen Delise - Founder of the National Canine Research Council and Author of "Fatal Dog Attacks" and "The Pit Bull Placebo".

Joan Schaffner - Associate Professor of Law at George Washington University Law School

Sheldon Eisenberg - An Attorney with experience and specialty in animal advocacy laws

Marshal Tanick - national counsel for the American Dog Owners Association

Michelle Welch - Assistant Attoney General in Virginia

Rebecca Huss - A professor of Law at Valparaiso University School of Law

Kate Neiswender - A Lawyer specializing in animal rights and environmental Law.

This should be a great conference with a lot of great experts and speakers. I look forward to seeing you there.