Category: Site Original

Good Days and Tad Days

Michael Baugh CPDT-KA, CDBC

Seriously, most of my days are good days.  My best days are Tad days.

It takes me a little more than an hour to get to the clinic where Tiffany and Tad work. On the way I think about Tad, how much he’s improved, and the work we still need to do.  I also sing along (a bit too loudly) to some of my favorite music, but that’s off the subject.

The truth is Tad is improving – a lot.  I walked into the treatment area of the clinic unannounced and he didn’t make as much as a peep.  Tiffany says he’s not barking very much at all when he’s in that area looking out into the lobby.  He doesn’t bark at all anymore when the front door chime rings; and he greets people nicely in the lobby.

We focused this visit on teaching Tad some manners in the treatment area (go to your spot and stay).  We also addressed his habit of biting for attention during play.  Play biting isn’t the same as emotionally driven fear biting or so-called aggressive biting.  Still, it hurts just the same.  I was pleased when Tad and I played a bit and he didn’t bite me.  I was equally chagrined when he gave Tiffany a few good chomps.

For dogs, the function of bites that are rooted in fear or aggression are all about making something stop or go away.  The function of play bites is to get something going.  The motivation is totally different.  How do we stop it?  First, we teach Tad how to control his play.  Good dog play includes pauses, short breaks.  Watch dogs at play and you’ll see them stop and start often.  That’s the polite way to play.  So we’re teaching Tad how to start play with humans (when we prompt it) and how to “settle,” which means sit and take a short break.  The idea is to keep these training sessions short so Tad doesn’t get excited enough to bite.  If he bites and ignores the “settle” cue, he gets a “too bad” and a time out.  For a social animal like Tad, nothing could be worse than losing a round of play for a trip to the penalty box.  That’s how he’s going to learn to watch his mouth.

Tad uses his teeth a lot playing with dogs too.  That got me wondering about the great mystery of his past.  A lot of play biters were single puppies, or puppies removed from the litter too early (prior to 7 weeks of age).  Was Tad an only child?  Did he loose his siblings too early?  Puppies are good about teaching their littermates to mind their mouthy manners. I get the sense Tad missed out on this learning.

Dogs can’t tell their own stories.  We’re left to wonder, what was Tad’s life like before Tiffany found him, skinny and sick, lost and forgotten?  So much of his behavior tells us he lived with people.  Who were they?  Did they send him away or just let him wander off?  Was it because of the biting?  Do they think about him?  Do they miss him?

I think about that on my way home, south on I-45 toward Houston, almost 6 months to the day from when Tiffany found Tad.  I don’t know, but I believe dogs draw from a deep well of forgiveness.  I like to think Tad’s moved on and doesn’t dwell on the hurt of past offenses the way we humans do.  There’s lots to learn from all this.  The thing is it’s hard to tell sometimes who’s doing the learning and who’s doing the teaching.

It’s a hot Fall day in southeast Texas and there are plump promising rain clouds on the horizon.  Tad’s improving, and it’s already better than a good day.  Time to turn up the music and sing.

In Tad We Trust

Michael Baugh CPDT-KA, CDBC

I get to see Tad again tomorrow, and the anticipation has had me thinking about the brilliant truth of teaching and learning.

Given the right set of circumstances, a learner will tend toward making the right decision.  Scientifically that means if we set up the environment correctly our student will succeed.  That includes both environmental cues and pleasant consequences for the learner.  So much for the nerdy part.  Here’s the softer part.  All of my students really are working toward success; it’s the natural tendency of progress.

A perfect learning relationship

There isn’t anything inside Tad that predestines him to behave poorly.  There’s no internal badness in dogs that we humans have to break or dominate.  Dogs, like all other learners are naturally (meaning it’s in their nature) built to discover the easiest right choices for behavior, and to act on them.  In fact, even “bad” behavior is at the time the perceived right choice for the dog.  Our job as teachers is simply to clear the path, make the choices we prefer more obvious, and reinforce those correct choices joyfully.  That’s teaching.

I always trust my client dogs to find and make the right choice.  If they don’t, I look at myself first to make adjustments.  I never look inside the dog for sinister intentions with flimsy labels like stubbornness or jealousy.  What can I change in this student’s environment to make it easier for him to make a correct behavior choice?  When he makes that correct choice, how can I tell him he got it right so that he makes that choice again in the future?  I joke that dog teaching isn’t a religion it’s a science.  Still, it takes a whole lot of faith to ask those questions, trust the dog, and trust the process.

I smile every time I remember that humans can be trusted too.  When we talk about a learner’s environment, we’re really talking about relationships.  A supportive, empathetic relationship between a teacher and a learner (and really we’re all co-learners) sets the client up to succeed, every time, without exception.  I nod respectfully to the late Carl Rogers who brought this knowledge to us.  Humans are naturally built (meaning it’s in their nature) to ascend to the highest level of success possible, given the right environment and relationships.  Abraham Maslow called that “self actualization,” and all of us are on the path.  My path as a teacher and a learner fills me with faith every day.  I trust the people I teach, and the dogs they teach in turn.  I learn from them too.  Certainly, it’s not always easy.  Tiffany will tell you that, as will Tad in his own way.  Still, we travel on together, clearing the path for our better selves, applying the science with abiding faith.

Keeping Tabs on Tad

Michael Baugh CPDT-KA, CDBC

I like to stay in close contact with my clients.  This is especially true for cases which involve bites, or even lunging and barking.  With my newest clients, Tiffany and her dog Tad, I’m using an online training journal.  Tiffany and I share the journal on Google Docs.  Daily, or at least every other day, she adds an update on her progress with Tad.  I respond with feedback, and sometimes notes on how we can make his behavior-change plan more efficient and more effective.

The journal really helps all of us involved.  It keeps Tiffany thinking about our training plan every day.  She observes Tad more keenly and works with him more regularly, because she knows I’m expecting journal updates.  The journal also helps Tiffany reflect on her own progress with Tad, because she has to take moment to stop and record her thoughts.  Writing in the journal is a planned “pause and take a deep breath” moment.

As a behavior consultant, I benefit a great deal from the online training journal.  There are several ways a behavior change plan can get slowed down or derailed altogether.  One is poor execution.  Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t about beating up the client.  Tiffany, as an example, is an extremely committed and intelligent person.  However, two weeks will have passed before our next appointment (even a week would have been a long time).  Much of the material she learned to help Tad is detailed and technical.  Mistakes happen.  It’s better to catch those along the way than two weeks down the line.  The online journal is very helpful with that.  As her coach, I can help her catch execution errors within a matter of hours rather than weeks.  Of course, there are occasionally problems with the training plan itself.  If an issue comes up on the training journal highlighting an error I’ve made educating the client, I want to be able to fix that immediately.

Tad benefits the most.  Two species are learning new information at once throughout this process.   One of the tricky parts of behavior cases like this is that both the human and the dog are putting brand new skills into action as they are learning them.  That can set both the dog and the person up for some added stress and possible mistakes.  For Tad’s benefit, it’s a good idea to have at least two human brains collaborating on his behavior-change plan daily.  Again, that’s where the online journal plays a key role.

Of course the journal is not a replacement for regular phone and email check-ins.  I do those with my clients as well, and that includes Tiffany.  The journal is definitely a more-is-better addition to the client-coach relationship.  We have two learners from two species taking in brand new information.  Add to that, in some of these cases the stakes are pretty high.  I’d rather not leave anything to chance.  And if everything is going well, then excellent; checking in is still worthwhile.  If nothing else, the online journal is a great way to remind Tiffany and I that we are both involved in helping Tad and that neither of us is walking this path alone.