Life happens… even to trainers

Last Sunday we decided that we were going to take both Laika and Deuce for an “urban” walk in Santa Fe. I know it sounds funny to think of Santa Fe, NM as “urban” but since we live in the country about 10 min. away from Santa Fe, we think of walks within city limits as urban walks. These urban walks are some of the things that I miss the most from where we previously lived: Berkeley, CA. I used to take Laika (we did not have Deuce at that time) for 1 hr. walks almost daily. I had my routes depending on how I felt and what kind of training I needed to do with Laika.

A big plus for me during these walks was to have the opportunity to relax by looking at how people kept their gardens (as it seems everyone in Berkeley does). During our walks, I would also enjoy taking in the smell of flowers in spring… ah… I surely miss the fragrance of Jasmine! Here in the high desert there are not fragrant flowers on our walks. As we headed down a semi-busy street in downtown Santa Fe – John ahead with Laika and me behind with Deuce. As I was trying to manage his compulsive border collie (and highly obnoxious) behavior of spotting cars ready to chase them, a car with a huge brown dog - half way out the window sped by with the dog constantly barking.

I tried to warn John that Laika might begin to pull hard on the leash in a combination of frustration and wanting to get to the dog- this is called "barrier frustration." Barrier frustration in dogs is quite ubiquitous. In a nutshell, barrier frustration occurs when the dog that is being held back by any kind of barrier - in our case the leash - becomes frustrated because they cannot access something that they want: dog, person, cat, etc. An animal can get very thwarted over time and it begins to associate the stimulus that initially he/she wanted to access with a source of (the feeling) frustration and thus can respond by lunging, barking or any other display of frustration such as whining.

Laika’s outbursts are for the most part not a source of concern. This is after six years of on-going training, know-how and lots of treats and patience. In essence, a dog that has barrier frustration will ALWAYS have the predisposition to react with an explosive display while in the presence of the stimulus that elicits frustration; since this is just how this particular dog responds to feeling frustrated… think of someone who is under stress and frustrated responds with “road-rage” while others continue to follow the tune on their radio.

This past Sunday was the perfect example of Laika not being able to keep her “stuff” together: the close view of the massive dog halfway out the window barking at her was too much! She began to pull and puff! Off she went in hot pursuit of the car and dog! Needless to say, both John and I were startled and consumed with worry that Laika might either: 1. get run over by the car with the dog or by another car, and the possibility of the dog jumping out of the car followed by a dog fight, or 2. Laika jumping on the car intending to get to the dog and scratch the heck out of the car. John began to run after her as I walked - still holding on to my dog and trying to ignore the pain in my left foot (bad case of plantar fasciitis). The car, Laika and finally John made the corner… out of my sight but not out of my mind. I approached the corner with Deuce in tow to find John and Laika reunited.

So indeed, life happens also to (good) trainers! Collars get loose and we are encountered by circumstances that are beyond our control and potentially very dangerous to our dogs. Is there a moral to the story? I will say yes, since in my view there is always a silver lining.

Now here is an interesting fact for you: Dogs are one of the easiest species to train. Perhaps because of domestication and how much we know (in relation to other species) about them in laboratory settings. Having said this, a dog that will respond to a given cue (request) 90 % of the time (under the same circumstances and levels of distraction) is considered well trained. What I am trying to get at is that in training and behavior modification, as in life there is no 100 %. Of course it does not mean that we need to be satisfied with a behavior having a rate of 90 % when with practice in a myriad of situations (this is called generalization or proofing a behavior in trainer’s talk) a behavior’s reliability will go up.

I wanted to write this week about this particular incident because sometimes I feel people have unrealistic expectations about what their dogs can do albeit a little training and effort on their part. If trainers got paid for every time we heard from a potential client: "I want my dog to come to me when called ALL the time" we would be really rich!

Having a dog follow with our requests is really not magic as in: give your dog this pill and call me tomorrow if things have not improved. Training takes a LOT of effort and consistency- something we humans are not good at  - at all!

There is yet so much more that I can say about dogs chasing cars and their motivations for doing so, but instead I am planning on teaching a class to give clients of dogs who chase cars ( which by the way, it is normal dog behavior- pre-installed and all) some tools so that they can better understand circumstances where their dog might take off in hot pursuit after a moving car (or bike or…). The class that I am designing will also teach the dog alternative behaviors to chasing moving objects.