Do it My Way!
by Guy W. Thomas
In an effort to deal with some of Gilly's (my Dobie) difficulties with other dogs, I have been reading dog behavior and training books. Recently, I began a book called Culture Clash by Jean Donaldson. Most trainers I'm familiar with fall into two categories. (And of course I'm simplifying things here) The "dog friendly" groups who only want to use positive reinforcement to train dogs. They often use food and praise to get the dog to do commands. Then there's dog trainer's who accept a dominance/submission model of dog training. Basically, they see dogs as pack animals that are acutely aware of their position in the pack. These trainers work on making the dog owner the boss of their pack. They use choke collars and talk a lot about dominating the dog. I was basically taught to handle dogs in this manner and I basically believe this is the way to go. Donaldson was making several good arguments against using many of the dog handling methods I had been taught to use. It's a frustrating argument to read about for a couple of reasons. The most important one is, if she is right I've been unnecessarily torturing the dogs that I really love in my life. The other minor problem is I can't figure out how to work a dog by myself while using things like treats.
My efforts to deal with Gilly's dog aggression have been mostly corrective. If she barks at the dog, I give her strong, "No" and yank on the leash. The problem is, it isn't working. So what we've done (unconsciously) is stop putting her in situations where she might meet another dog. Somehow that got translated in my head, as solving the problem. When in actuality it made things worse. The more Gilly interacts with dogs. The more anxious she got upon meeting another dog. So I've been stuck in this ever-growing loop of Gilly more and more aggressive to other dogs. While I correct her more and more strongly. Which in turn causes her to get more anxious etc.
Although I don't completely agree with the author's premise that using correction on a dog is always wrong. It did occur to me, that part of my problem was my insistence that Gilly respond to my training methods in the way I wanted her to respond. My methods weren't working, but rather than modify them. I continued to use them in the silly hope they would somehow work this time. A bit like the definition of insanity. Where an individual continues to the same thing but expects a different result.
Once that occurred to me, I could consider using different methods to get Gilly to understand what I needed her to do. I was able to get away from blaming Gilly or myself. I just needed to keep the goal in mind getting Gilly to get along with other dogs. It wasn't important that I use the methods I had been taught
That night, I was watching John Stossel on Channel 7. He was reporting on the drug wars. He interviewed Asa Hutchinson the current drugs Czar. Now, I'm no fan of John Stossel but he was making some pretty good points about our general failure to reduce illegal drug use in the US. How drug use hasn't gone down. Drug use has in fact increased. How the illegal drug trade has devastated much of South America and how much money the United States is spending in this failed attempt. Yet Mr. Hutchinson refused to admit any failure. In fact, when he was pushed to justify all the spending we've done on the drug war. He would say, fighting drugs is very difficult problem and all are failures meant we just had Stossel do more of what we were doing.
Stossel talked about where countries had made recreational drugs legal or decriminalize possession drug use went down. However Mr. Hutchinson insisted that Europe and the wrong idea. Doing it their way meant, "giving up". It seemed to me that he was much more concerned with how we fought the "drug war". Than actually reaching the avowed goal of stopping drug abuse.
I have just about, come to the conclusion that some of our more intractable problems are intractable because we want them solved "our way".
Debbie told me a story about an antiwar movement meeting in the '60s. Various individuals are discussing strategy. When the audience is asked for suggestions. A young man stands up and says something like, "You know, if it meant ending the war, I'd blow Lyndon Johnson." I hope I didn't mangle the story too badly Deb. If
Guy
© 2002 by the author, please ask to reprint elsewhere.
