Man is an animal that makes bargains; no other animal does this. No dog exchanges bones with another.
—Adam Smith
Nature’s laws are the invisible government of the earth.
—Alfred Montapert
When it comes to becoming our dogs’ pack leaders, the equation is not complete without understanding the concept of discipline. As we learned in Identifying Instability, your dog cannot be balanced and reach true peace in life without rules, boundaries, and limitations as part of her daily routine. For rules and boundaries to exist, someone has to set them—and that is the job description for a pack leader.
Many animal professionals who say they disagree with (what they perceive to be) my techniques follow the “rewards-only” trend of dog training—training being the key word. Remember, I don’t “train” dogs. True, that was my original ambition when I came to America, but I quickly came to see that my own special skills could be put to much better use. It appeared to me that this nation’s dogs needed much more to make their lives complete beyond the ability to sit, stay, heel, roll over, and fetch the newspaper. What I do is rehabilitation, although I absolutely 100 percent believe in positive reinforcement techniques for training purposes and rehabilitation, too, whenever possible. My philosophy about discipline and correction with any animal, for any purpose, is that they should always be applied with the least force necessary to accomplish the behavior you are asking for. And I do use positive reinforcement and food rewards all the time, in the appropriate situations. But I also believe there is a time and a place for every technique. The issue that many in the “positive-only” school of behavior seem to have with me is that they believe I should be using treats and clickers to redirect some of the behaviors that I choose to correct with energy, body language, eye contact, and physical touch. I believe my techniques work on very difficult aggressive, obsessive, or anxious cases because they are a simple, common-sense approach based entirely on Mother Nature.
I believe there is an enormous difference between the idea of discipline and the concept of punishment. To me, discipline is part of the order of the universe: It is the very core of how Mother Nature works to make the planet operate. Discipline is order. Discipline is the rotation of the earth, the cycle of the moon, the rising and setting of the sun. Discipline is one season turning into another—a time for planting and growing, and a time for harvesting. Within this bigger context, discipline is how all members of the animal kingdom survive. Every morning in your backyard, the squirrels set out early and begin to forage. Some birds come to the bird feeder hanging on your porch; others peck along the ground, looking for worms and other goodies. If you take the time to observe them every day, you’ll see that their routines rarely vary much, except when dictated by other factors such as raising their young, migrating or getting ready for winter, keeping out of the rain, finding a new tree after one has been blown over in a storm. None of these animals takes Sundays or holidays off. They live every moment to the fullest, and all those moments are guided by discipline. Their natural wiring tells them what to do to keep order in their lives. When there’s a squabble over food or territory or a mate, they keep discipline among each other, and the environment maintains discipline among them all.
In the natural world of the social carnivore, discipline and order are incredibly important. In their world, the rules are set in two ways: by their “programming” (their survival instincts), and by the others in their group. Dogs, being pack animals, are finely tuned to the rules of the group. Cooperation means survival. Social animals rely on knowing their place and their role within the group in order to ensure the group’s survival. If a dog doesn’t have a solid sense of where she fits in the pack order, she almost always exhibits some sign of instability. This instability comes from a deep, primal place—a need to guarantee the group’s continuation, no matter what the cost to the individual dog.
As opposed to the discipline that the natural world provides, punishment, to me, is mostly a human concept. Punishment is when I send one of my sons, Calvin or Andre, to his room, and tell him to think about what he’s done. There is reason involved in this kind of punishment—based on Calvin and Andre’s abilities to make thoughtful, conscious decisions and connections. When we send a man to prison because he has committed a crime, we assume he knows right from wrong, and that prison is a consequence for making the wrong choice. The concept behind prison is to keep the criminal away from society and—at least in an ideal world—to give him time to reflect on what he’s done, so he won’t make that bad choice again. But punishment is often a terrible choice for conflict resolution—any marriage counselor will tell you that. If my wife and I have a fight and I decide to “punish” her for a week by being sarcastic or rude to her, am I helping to solve the original problem? Of course not. More likely, she’ll end up being even angrier with me than she was in the beginning. This is the danger of thinking “punishment” when we talk about disciplining dogs.
Animals do not have the ability to make conscious choices between right and wrong, good and bad. Giving a dog a time-out after she’s chewed up your best pair of shoes is the kind of punishment that might work with your kids, but it doesn’t work with dogs because they can’t make that kind of intellectual connection. Yelling at or hitting a dog in anger only confuses the dog or frightens her. When someone adopts a dog from a shelter, then returns her because she is too aggressive, the dog has no idea why she’s being brought back to a cage. She has no ability to reflect on how she blew yet another chance at a nice home and she can’t feel bad and resolve to do better the next time. In the simple cause and effect universe that guides much of dog behavior, these “punishments” do not make it clear to the dog what behavior is unwanted and what behavior needs to be substituted to take its place. They are left to their own devices to figure that out, and often, neither they nor we are very happy with the solutions they come up with. That is why I personally prefer the words discipline and correction instead of punish when I talk about rehabilitating dogs.
Simple Math—Negatives and Positives
After the second season of my show aired, I was flattered to learn that clinical psychologist Alice Clearman, Ph.D., often uses episodes from Dog Whisperer to help illustrate principles of human behavior to her first-year college psychology students. A dog owner and rescuer herself, she has worked therapeutically with all kinds of people—from severely mentally ill patients to children with learning disabilities to law enforcement officers who deal with unstable members of the public. As someone who has focused her life work on studying the mechanics of learning and behavior, Dr. Clearman was very helpful to me, a layman, in breaking down the principles of reward and punishment as they apply both to humans and animals.
According to Dr. Clearman, there are two basic ways of changing all behavior—reinforcement and punishment. In human psychology, there is positive punishment and positive reinforcement, and there is negative punishment and negative reinforcement. Positive and negative work the same way that they do in simple math. If you add something, it’s a positive. If you subtract something, it’s a negative. Positive reinforcement means adding something I like to encourage me to repeat a behavior. If I do a seminar and get a standing ovation, it reinforces my experience of giving the seminar, and I’ll want to do it again. Negative reinforcement is often thought of as equivalent to punishment, but it is absolutely not punishment. Negative reinforcement is when you reinforce a behavior by removing something someone doesn’t like. Dr. Clearman uses the example of taking aspirin for a headache. If she has a headache, takes an aspirin, and her headache goes away, she has successfully reinforced herself for taking aspirin. The aspirin removed the headache—the thing she didn’t like.
Positive punishment, on the other hand, is adding something I don’t like to discourage me from repeating the behavior. If I give a seminar and everyone in the audience hisses and boos and throws things at me, that’s positive punishment. I am now going to rethink my approach for the next seminar, to avoid an experience like that again. Negative punishment is subtracting something I like. When I tell Andre he is not allowed to play video games for three weeks, that’s a negative punishment. Don’t forget, the words positive and negative don’t have anything to do with whether the consequence could be considered nice or not nice. It’s not a judgment call—although we often react to those words with judgment. It’s strictly math.
Based on Dr. Clearman’s explanations, some of my techniques in working with problem dogs would be correctly termed positive punishment, but because the word punishment connotes something human to me, I prefer to think of these techniques as simple corrections. For example, I will curl my hand in a clawlike position to simulate the mouth and teeth of a mother dog or a more dominant dog, and firmly touch the dog on the neck.
“THE CLAW” HAND POSITION, USED TO SIMULATE ANOTHER DOG’S BITE. THE GRIP IS FIRM, BUT NOT A PINCH.
It’s important to be clear on this: I am not hitting or pinching the dog! I am simply replicating what among canines is a natural correction, which has a primal significance to them. It is a form of touch with a very clear meaning behind it—“I don’t agree with that behavior.” If a dog is out of control on a leash, I might give a slight tug to the side on the leash or choke chain (see The Best Tool in the World), or I might use my opposing foot to tap a dog on her hindquarter. This has the effect of snapping her out of whatever she is fixating on, and also communicates, “That is not an acceptable behavior in my pack.” Again, this is not a kick. It is a touch. It is the same kind of touch you use when you tap a friend firmly on the shoulder to get his attention. Above all, the energy behind this touch is absolutely key—it cannot be angry or frustrated, tentative or fearful—it must always be “calm-assertive.” I am not correcting the dog because I’m mad at her or at my wit’s end, or because I’m embarrassed about what she’s doing or terrified at what she might do next. As a pack leader, I am always focused. I have a vision in my mind of proper behavior in my pack, and I am reminding her to pay attention to me while I communicate to her what that behavior should be. The reward for the correct behavior could be treats, affection, praise, or simply my silent, internal pride and happiness in her accomplishment. That, in itself, is affection to a dog! Many dog handlers in professional situations—on hunts, in search-and-rescue or law enforcement missions, or on stage or movie sets—aren’t within reach of the dog to give praise through treats or even words. But they communicate their great appreciation of the dog’s hard work through a nod of the head, a hand signal, and most of all just their focused, pure, positive emotion. Remember, your dog will always be reading your energy and emotions—and mirroring them right back to you.
When visitors come to my Dog Psychology Center and are about to walk through my pack of thirty to forty dogs for the first time, in addition to telling them “No talk, no touch, no eye contact,” I always remind them to keep moving forward, even if dogs approach them or bump into them. Dogs don’t take it personally when you touch them in a firm manner or if you bump by them as you’re walking, as long as you don’t do it with an energy that’s abusive, angry, or overly aggressive. If your energy is truly calm-assertive, a touch to them is simply communication. Dogs communicate all the time with each other using touch as well as energy. They push and shove and nose each other constantly. It’s a way of claiming personal space; of showing interest or affection; of agreeing or not agreeing with a certain behavior of another dog. In fact, the very first communication between a mother dog and her pups is based on touch, as they wriggle toward her to nurse, or as she pushes them away when she’s had enough.1 I regularly use my body simply to block or redirect a dog that is engaging in a behavior with which I don’t agree. In the animal world, it’s a very simple, no-nonsense way of getting a message across.
Positive reinforcement holds great power for changing the behavior of both humans and animals, and is usually the form of “discipline” people feel most comfortable about using. Positive reinforcement makes both object and subject feel good—but it is important that it’s applied within limits. Take this example from the human world that Dr. Clearman shared with me. If her son comes home from school with a painting and she says, “That’s a beautiful painting; you did a good job trying to draw those palm trees. Those are hard to do,” that’s a good, limited use of positive reinforcement. It’s positive feedback—and it’s powerful. However, if every day he brings home a painting and she fawns over every one, saying, “That’s brilliant! You’re the best little boy in the world! You’re a genius! That’s fabulous! Everything you do is perfect!”, how much impact is her praise going to have when she really needs to use it? How does she get him to believe her when she tries to encourage him after he’s actually failed at something? Since she is always rewarding him no matter what he does, she has lost total credibility. Too much positive reinforcement can create the appearance of weakness in the one giving the praise—or the treats, or the applause, or whatever that reward might be.
I have seen this kind of response in dogs that have never achieved total respect for their owners but are constantly being reinforced with treats for practically every behavior they do. The owner uses food treats for conditioning the dog to sit and stay, but also in situations where the cause and effect for the dog is often unclear. If a dog is growling at another dog, the owner will redirect the behavior with treats. If the dog is chewing on something, the owner will offer treats to give him something else to chew on. If the dog is on a sofa, the owner will throw treats on the ground so the dog gets off the sofa. The problem is, the owner may have temporarily redirected the behavior, but he hasn’t addressed the state of mind that was causing the behavior in the first place. He hasn’t earned the dog’s respect by letting her know through energy and body language that no, it’s not okay with me that you sit on this couch. He’s also “numbing” the dog to the reinforcement method, making it ultimately less effective—and he may also actually be nurturing the dog’s bad behavior at the same time! I wouldn’t be surprised if many of these dogs go right back to growling, chewing, or jumping right back up on the sofa as soon as all the treats are eaten. Like the mother whose words lose their power because she praises her child constantly no matter what he does, the treats lose their meaning because they are not seen by the dog as directly connected to the unwanted behavior.
Positive reinforcement can actually backfire by nurturing a behavior that you don’t want your dog to assert. In the human world, if a child hurts himself and begins to cry, his parents will naturally comfort him, stroke him, and say, “It’s okay, it’s only a boo-boo,” and words to that effect. But most parents understand that if they go too far in their nurturing behavior—if they panic and get overly emotional themselves—it will only serve to heighten the child’s distress. Though stroking a dog can have a calming effect on her, it also indicates affection—and affection is a powerful positive reinforcement tool. Remember it’s positive—which means you are adding energy. In Cesar’s Way, I gave the example of Kane, the Great Dane that was afraid of slippery floors. After he slipped on linoleum and collided with a glass door, he might have recovered on his own, at least if his life were ordered in the way it would be in the natural world. He may have been more cautious in the future, but would not have become completely phobic. Because his owner made a huge event out of the collision, however, his shock and trauma were intensified ten times over. Every time he and his owner returned to the “scene of the crime,” she would reinforce Kane’s insecurity by babying him and giving him extra amounts of stroking, comfort, and affection. Dr. Clearman gave me another example from the human world: a student who is nervous about failing an upcoming final exam because she doesn’t feel prepared for it. If her roommate says, “Oh my God, you are so right to be worried. I had that teacher, too, and he is a nightmare—you’ll never be prepared and you’ll probably fail,” the roommate is agreeing with the behavior and acknowledging the feelings, but reinforcing the fear. Likewise, petting or giving treats to a dog in a fearful state maybe distracting her in the short run, but it can also be communicating to the dog that you actually agree with that state of mind.
Treat-based positive reinforcement training has been around for as long as there have been dogs and humans who wanted to control them. Across all species, tasty nourishment is a no-brainer when it comes to an incentive for an animal—any animal, from gerbils to bears to children—to do something. Clicker training is a more sophisticated step than simple treat-based training. It was originally developed over thirty years ago for trainers of marine mammals, to get them to perform certain tricks and behaviors. The clicker—or whistle, in the case of the performing cetaceans and pinnipeds—serves as a bridge between the food reward and the behavior. The clicker allows instant, split-second feedback between the animal and the trainer, so that the very moment the animal “hits her mark,” so to speak, the clicker makes a sound that signals that food is coming. In the early phases of clicker training, a food reward instantly follows the clicker when the animal has performed the behavior. Once the animal has been thoroughly conditioned and is totally comfortable performing the behavior, often only the clicker is needed for positive reinforcement, since it is associated with the reward, and promises a reward is eventually on its way. In controlled situations, clicker training is incredibly effective and has even been shown to accelerate the process of learning in many species of animals. The clicker works most efficiently at adding behaviors, not removing them, although it can be used to remove unwanted behaviors by shaping and rewarding new responses.
Treat-based or clicker-based positive reinforcement techniques are ideal for teaching a dog to do tricks, to track, to hunt, to fetch—basically anything she is already capable of doing naturally in some shape or form. It also works to manage behavior and basic obedience in low-to-medium-energy, happy-go-lucky, already balanced dogs. But many of the dogs I work with are highly unstable and won’t be tempted to change their behavior by a treat, no matter how tasty. You could throw a juicy steak in front of a red-zone dog—a dog that wants to kill another dog—and she wouldn’t even notice. Can you imagine trying to click and throw treats while you are struggling with all your might to keep your dog from attacking someone or another dog? A client of mine from a New York City Dog Whisperer case actually faced that exact situation, minus the clicker. Pete had been at his wits’ end with his red-zone Lab-greyhound mix, Curly, and had consulted several trainers. One trainer told him to throw treats on the ground whenever Curly’s aggression toward other dogs flared up on walks. Pete told me, “It only took him a couple of times before he realized if he ate the treats really fast, he could get a snack and then attack the other dog. A two-fer.”
I believe there are many ways to help dogs become balanced—and they include both positive reinforcement techniques and humane corrections. Ultimately, the goal is the same—to help the dog.
Four-alarm Wilshire
The story of Wilshire the fire dog is a great example of what I consider to be the perfect combination of positive reinforcement training plus my three-part formula of exercise, discipline, and affection. Wilshire, a Dalmatian puppy, was about two months old when he showed up on the doorstep of Fire Station 29 in Los Angeles. His owners had bought him from a breeder—no doubt on a whim after the kids had watched 101 Dalmatians—but had quickly found him way too high-energy for their family life. When the family brought him to a shelter, however, they were informed that if he wasn’t adopted in twenty-four hours, he would have to be put to sleep. Wracked with guilt, the family was driving by Station 29 when it occured to one of them, “Dalmatian = fire dog!” They brought the feisty pup to Captain Gilbert Reyna at the station and pleaded for him and the rest of the firehouse crew to take the dog in. At first, Captain Reyna said, “Absolutely not.” How was this extremely busy fire station going to deal with raising a hyperactive, excitable, orphaned Dalmatian puppy? But then, a few more of his crew wandered out to take a look at the little guy. They held him, played with him, passed him around, fed him a few snacks. You know the formula. Forty-five big, beefy, macho firefighters plus one adorable little puppy equals love at first sight. How could they possibly turn him away?
Wilshire instantly won the hearts of the forty-five firemen at this landmark station, but the humans definitely didn’t win his respect at first. In fact, by his second day there, he was running the entire firehouse. He would climb all over the tables in the lunchroom, eating food off everyone’s plates. He would teethe on coats, hats, and valuable, life-saving hoses, cables, and wires. He ran wherever he wanted and he peed wherever he wanted—a violation of city health codes. All the firemen were constantly on edge, because whenever a call came in and they had to get the engines out of the garage, Wilshire would dash out the door and make a run for it, straight toward busy six-lane Wilshire Boulevard and its deadly traffic. Sometimes he’d run right in front of the enormous fire truck’s wheels—in the middle of the driver’s blind spot. One day, a group of schoolkids came by for a tour of the firehouse, and Wilshire got so excited, he ran all the way down a long hallway and launched himself through the air like a rocket—hitting a little boy full in the chest and actually knocking him to the floor! The Los Angeles city attorney’s office made a warning call to Captain Reyna—get this dog under control, or he’s out of there. Of course, all the guys had bonded with Wilshire by this time, and there was no way they were going to let that happen. Wilshire had to be rehabilitated!
When the firemen called me in to help, Wilshire was only three months old and was already king of the firehouse. He had all the guys running around, flailing their arms, yelling, “Oh my God, Wilshire! No, Wilshire! Oh no, stop, Wilshire!” I had to laugh—these are the same guys who risk their lives every day rescuing people from the worst imaginable disasters, all the while staying calm, cool, and collected. And now here’s this little dog sending them into a panic. When I pointed this out to them, they were all very embarrassed, but they had to laugh, too. I said to them, “When you pull someone out of a burning building, do you say to them, ‘Oh my God, you look awful! Those are horrible burns, oh no, what are we going to do?!’” Of course they don’t! They show leadership and share calm-assertive energy—exactly the kind of energy required to be a perfect pack leader. These were men who already had all the skills they needed to manage Wilshire. They just didn’t have the right information to put it into practice.
In fact, the firehouse is an ideal example of how a smoothly functioning human “pack” can work. The captain sets the rules, but only enforces them when necessary. Every person knows his or her place and job. The whole operation has the steady but soothing hum of an efficient, productive beehive. The day begins and ends in a routine, but emergencies are the stock and trade. When a call comes in, there is a rush of activity, but the firefighters react in a totally organized, disciplined fashion—much the same way that wolves or other social carnivores perform together in a hunt. Wilshire, as a pack animal, could not have found himself in a more perfect place for a dog than this firehouse. But Wilshire needed to become a disciplined member of the pack—not its out-of-control, underage pack leader!
My job was to get Wilshire’s behavior under control, then show the firemen how to follow up after I left. Of course, because Wilshire was still a puppy, he was hungry for knowledge. He was practically crying out for some rules, boundaries, and limitations. I began conditioning him with a firm touch, with my hand curled in the teeth position, to keep him away from the firemen’s food on the table in the firehouse kitchen. He learned right away to be submissive. After a couple of touches, all I needed to do was raise a finger, move my body toward him, and send him my calm-assertive energy. Because he was a puppy, he had no lifelong habits to break. What I was telling him to do—to submit to the laws of the pack—was already prewired into him. With only one or two touches, and later with body language alone, I was able to create for him an invisible boundary in the garage through which he was not allowed to pass. He learned very quickly, and so did the firemen.
This is the wonderful advantage of having a puppy—you have the perfect opportunity to mold his behavior. The ability and desire to cooperate and get along—to fit into a social setting—is already there, programmed into every dog’s brain. When adult dogs nudge or growl at young pups to let them know they are playing too roughly or otherwise breaking the pack rules, there’s never any negotiating—but the pups don’t take it personally. Again, this is not punishment—it’s discipline. Humans can learn much from natural dog-on-dog puppy training. If you watch puppies of any canid species—whether African wild dogs, wolves, or dingoes—you’ll notice how little rebellion they give the adults in the pack that set the rules for them. The more naturally dominant or higher-energy puppies may put up a little more challenge—testing their limits, so to speak—but they instinctually know that their survival is dependent on following the rules and rituals of the pack.
Another aspect of rehabilitating Wilshire was finding a way to get his very high energy level under control. Puppies need a lot of exercise, and Wilshire was no exception. When the guys came to work at the firehouse, there wasn’t always time for one of them to take him on a brisk walk through the neighborhood. Fortunately, the firemen’s own rules and discipline provided them with the perfect solution. It’s a mandatory condition of employment that every Los Angeles firefighter does a run on the treadmill every day when he or she comes to the station. Fire Station 29 has two treadmills, side by side. First, I taught Wilshire to run safely on the treadmill—using a food reward to keep him interested for the first few minutes until he got into the flow of it. After that, it was up to the firemen. During the three weeks before I returned, the guys decided to designate one of the treadmills as “Wilshire’s treadmill,” and almost any time one of the crewmembers came in to run, Wilshire would follow along, jump up on “his” treadmill, and plead to be able to join in. Wilshire had a lot of energy to burn, and his daily runs went a long way toward making him more controllable. It wasn’t long before Wilshire was running on the treadmill without a leash, and the act of him running side by side with every member of the fire crew created an amazing bond among all of them.
When I returned, I brought along Clint Rowe, an A-list trainer who has been working with animals in Hollywood movies for over thirty years. His resume includes films like White Fang, Turner & Hooch, The X Files, The Journey of Natty Gan, and Man’s Best Friend. Clint even trained the luckless bear in Borat. Clint has wrangled and trained animals from deer to cougars to wolves, and of course dogs, which are his specialty. Clint brought one of his tools—his clicker—along with some treats, and started Wilshire with just the “stop-and-drop” part of the routine. Training a dog to perform tricks on cue can be a time-consuming exercise, and it takes patience, timing, and a lot of repetition. It’s also best not to overload an animal with long “cramming” sessions, but to do a little bit, maybe ten minutes or so, two or three times a day. I really enjoyed watching Clint work, and he was clear and concise as he explained and demonstrated his methods to the firemen.
One difference between Cesar and me is that he works in “real time,” which is pretty impressive. In training animals to perform in films, the only real time that exists is on the set, on the actual day of the filming. People don’t realize that most of our work is done in preparation, behind the scenes, day after day.
In what I do—especially in films—you really want the animal to enjoy what he does; you want him to actually pull you to the set, he’s so excited to get to work. With Wilshire, the first thing I had to find out is what drives him; what motivates him. Luckily, I saw right away that he had a great food drive.
We started with just stop and drop. We gave Wilshire a little blanket for his comfort, and we set a little mark on it to be the spot he’d go to that would start the behavior sequence. I used the clicker, then rewarded him with food at each stage. Stop on the mark, click, and reward. Down (“drop”), click, reward. Eventually we phased out the food. What the clicker provides is a neutral environment. It works to separate out any tension that occurs naturally or unnaturally between you and the animal. It allows the animal to work on its own, responding to its environment on its own. The learning process becomes relaxed. When learning happens in a relaxed way, the lessons are retained both quickly and smoothly.
The key to working the clicker is keeping your emotions “neutral.” Cesar might call it calm and assertive; to me, it’s just a nonemotional place. I’ve seen people yelling at animals, getting upset with animals, and they still don’t get why they fail. I agree with Cesar—it’s really about the energy you’re sending the dog, not the tool you’re using—that determines the outcome. If I get frustrated or angry or tired—say, it’s been a long day—it doesn’t matter how great my timing is, or his food drive, or anything. If I get too excited and overpraise or overreward, it’s the same problem. You have to keep your emotions—your “energy”—steady, or it’s just not going to work. The animal’s trust and security—both in you and in himself—is always built around and grounded in your calm emotions.
Cut to four weeks after Clint first came to work with Wilshire. Our Dog Whisperer crew, ever mindful of television deadlines, were there to film Wilshire’s first on-camera performance, at a local elementary school. Clint was there, too. I couldn’t have been more proud to watch a lanky, maturing Wilshire do his perfect stop, drop, and roll routine in front of a classroom of delighted preschool and kindergarten children. But remember, it all began with the simple rules, boundaries, and limitations the firemen and I had set into place during my first visit. Before that, Wilshire had no attention span, no focus and, most importantly, no respect for humans. Though it is possible to force new behaviors or tricks on a dog that isn’t balanced—I witnessed this once at a facility where I worked when I first came to America—that dog will be much less likely to retain the behaviors, and may also become inconsistent in responding to commands. As I’ve mentioned before, a dog that is “trained” is not necessarily balanced; just as a Harvard graduate isn’t necessarily mentally healthy. Balance can be achieved, however, with exercise, discipline, and affection, and in training with the right blend of both positive reinforcement and well-timed corrections.
Clint tells me that Wilshire has proven such a great student; he’s still adding even more difficult tricks to his routine. When we filmed an episode for Dog Whisperer, either Clint, or the fireman who was Wilshire’s trainer for that day, would have to be right next to him in order to get him to stop, drop, and roll on cue. But recently, Wilshire made a special guest appearance at a huge pet adoption fair with hundreds of people in the audience. Wilshire’s trainer was a full ten feet offstage while Wilshire did a perfect stop, drop, and roll! Clint and the firemen have now taught Wilshire to “suit up”—meaning put his head into his own collar—and are working on teaching him to do an army crawl, another lesson in fire safety. Wilshire is the perfect example of how the formula of exercise, discipline, and affection, consistent calm-assertive leadership, and reward-based behavioral conditioning can all come together to create a happy, balanced, and psychologically challenged dog. From a pup whose very life was on the line, Wilshire promises to become a role model for all firehouse dogs—as well as a real Los Angeles institution. Captain Reyna says that when the fire truck drives up with Wilshire in the front seat, people spontaneously jump to their feet and cheer.
Once a dog is stable and balanced using my exercise-discipline-affection formula; once the human pack leader has earned his or her dog’s trust and respect—then the benefits of reward-based training and conditioning are endless. Dogs need psychological as well as physical challenges, and learning new behaviors—especially those that make a dog feel useful or proud of herself—are all a part of that. Just like humans, dogs are social animals that flourish when they know what their job is in keeping the pack running smoothly. Recently, most ethologists and other experts who study wild animals in captivity are becoming champions of the common-sense notion that all animals need some sort of “job,” or purpose, to be psychologically healthy, especially when they’re living in our artificial, human environments; that is, behind walls. Behavioral enrichment for animals is a new field where experts study what tools, games, and challenges work best to keep captive animals engaged in and excited about their environments. Those of us who work with animals have known for a long time that a happy animal is one that feels she has a purpose. For years, trainer Clint Rowe worked on training a tightly knit pack of wolf hybrids to play the parts of real wolf packs in movies. Wolf hybrids are some of the most difficult dogs to train, since they are genetically as close to their wolf ancestry as a dog can come, and always retain many of the raw survival instincts and sensitivities that undomesticated animals tend to have. Yet Clint describes performing with this pack as one of the most profound experiences of connecting with animals that he has ever had in his life. “Working with the wolf hybrid pack preparing for a film, and on the set itself, was like a ballet. They anticipated what the next steps were and so were totally tuned in to their environment and of course me, since I was a key in their focus—their leader. The pack knew everything I was thinking and wanted them to do—and I knew that they were going to follow through beautifully. We were just so completely connected—there was an energy field between us that nobody could see, but even the film crew could sense there was something powerful happening there.”
Like Clint and his pack of wolf hybrids, therapy dogs, agility dogs, hunting dogs, farming dogs, police dogs, search-and-rescue dogs, and even dogs of war often develop these incredibly deep, fulfilling bonds with their human handlers. Giving your dog a “job” means having to become an even stronger pack leader than a mere “pet owner” usually does. You, the owner, are actually creating a kind of purpose and structure for dogs that most closely reflects the kind of lives and functions that they were originally built for.
Turning a Negative into a Positive
The point of all behavioral work with animals is to end up with a positive experience and a win-win situation, for both the animal and the handler. In nature, discipline, rules, and boundaries are positive things, because they ensure survival. When a more dominant dog corrects a more submissive dog, the payoff is that the second animal learns how to get along better within the pack. The dominant dog helps create an environment with less conflict. Through a momentary correction, a positive result is reached. That’s why I always say, when working with dogs, you must always envision the positive outcome that you desire, which will allow you to turn any negative into a positive.
If an experience is made positive, it can even override an animal’s natural instincts, to help her assimilate better into our human world. For example, the three female sea lions in the Central Park Zoo in New York perform dozens of variations on their natural play behaviors at feeding time, three times a day. But the animal professionals at the zoo also need to give the sea lions a daily medical checkup, and that’s something that sea lions wouldn’t submit to in nature. Remember, in the wild, an injured or diseased animal can attract predators, threaten the security of the group, and even be targeted by the group itself—so animals instinctually don’t “advertise” when they’re not feeling well. Except for human beings, you won’t find any whining hypochondriacs in the animal kingdom. Therefore, the trainers at the Central Park Zoo must encourage the animals to display behaviors such as opening their mouths wide for checkups and teeth cleaning in exchange for positive encouragement and food rewards. There is a huge amount of trust and respect between the sea lions and their handlers—because they are turning what, in nature, is seen as a negative behavior, into a positive one.
When I feed my pack at the Dog Psychology Center, I make everyone wait, then I feed the calmest, most submissive dog first. In nature, of course, the most submissive dog would eat last. By doing this, I encourage the rest of the pack to mirror the behavior that was rewarded with food. Though I continue to believe that you should always work with Mother Nature, never against her, when it comes to dogs, I also think that making the decision to work around instincts that are no longer advantageous for an animal that must survive in the midst of our often alien human world is not an exception to that rule. In this case, we are manipulating instincts to make life better for the animal so she can live more peacefully and stably in our environment—even if our modern world comes in a sloppy second to the place nature might have chosen for her to live.
Canine Democracy
It seems to me that in our current “politically correct” climate, many of us, especially in America, have somehow concluded that it is wrong to assert leadership over our pets. We’ve gone from the old-fashioned authoritarian extreme—where animals existed only to do our bidding—to another unhealthy extreme—where animals are considered our equal partners in every area of our lives. This is not to say that we are better than animals in any way, shape, or form. Absolutely not! We are simply different. But one very clear reason we need to be in control of our pets is that we have brought them into our world, not the other way around. We have brought them into a world fraught with strange dangers—concrete floors, moving vehicles, electric wires, and high-rise apartments. Everything about our world is unnatural to them. Sure, with our guidance they can learn how to navigate around that world safely; they can become accustomed to it and even come to live happily in it. But it is still not the way Mother Nature intended them to live, and it never will be. The more we understand the way our dogs think, the more we can learn to fulfill their needs, despite the fact that they are living with us in a world that is foreign to them—and on a deeper level, to the animal within us as well.
Saying that we must take the leadership role with our dogs is not saying we must become ruthless dictators over them, and saying our dogs should be calm-submissive does not mean we make them “lesser” than us, either. Like all social animals, both humans and dogs need structure and leadership or their lives dissolve into chaos. Though democracy maybe the highest ideal that most human societies strive for, even democracies have leadership figures. And trust me—your dog has no desire to live in a democracy! Every cell in your dog’s body would rather have a clearly defined social framework, with a fair, consistent pack leader whom she trusts and respects at the helm—more than she would ever want an “equal vote” in how your human household is run. Human beings would be wise to worry about perfecting the concept of democracy among one another first, before they start imposing it onto other animal species.
Punishment, Abuse, and Out-of-Control Emotions
Showing an animal strong leadership and giving it rules is not the same thing as instilling fear and punishing it in an abusive fashion. A quick, assertive touch is not the same thing as a strike. Creating respect is not the same thing as creating intimidation.
The first time I witnessed animal abuse was when I lived in Mazatlán, Mexico, as a child. It tore me up inside to see people throwing rocks at dogs and swearing at them. Later, as an adult, I witnessed firsthand the effects of abuse on dogs. I have seen animals that have been hit and kicked, neglected puppies tied to trees in backyards for days, and dogs denied food and water. One memorable case is Popeye, a pit bull. Popeye lost an eye in an illegal dog fight. After this, his owners abandoned him. With his new vision impairment, Popeye felt vulnerable, grew suspicious, and became very aggressive toward other dogs in an attempt to intimidate them. Rosemary was also used in illegal pit bull fights. When she lost a particularly important fight, her owners poured gasoline over her and set her on fire. A rescue organization stepped in and saved her life, but the horrific experience turned her into a dangerously aggressive dog.
Thankfully, I was able to rehabilitate both Popeye and Rosemary and provide them with the proper leadership they needed to be fulfilled and feel safe. However, not all dogs are this fortunate. Out of fear, abused dogs may attack and kill other dogs, and sometimes even humans. Society often sentences these dogs to death, despite the fact that it was because of humans that they became dangerously unstable in the first place.
The way I see it, most animal abuse comes from unbalanced human emotions and our own repressed, negative energies. Just as it is ineffective to punish a child when a parent is out of control, it is useless to vent your rage or unhappiness on an animal that can’t possibly understand what you are upset about. And, as hard as it is for most of us to face it, love is not enough, either—for animals, or for humans! I always say, if love were all it took to change unwanted behavior into good behavior, then there would be no unbalanced people in the world! Likewise, if love were enough to make your dog into the perfect pet, she would be thinking, My owner loves me so much, I’m not going to chase the cat today. Of course, your dog doesn’t think like that. She can’t rationalize or ponder her own behavior. That is reason enough never to let any animal “push your buttons.” Never, ever correct an animal out of anger or frustration. When you try to correct your dog out of anger, you are usually more out of control than your dog is. You are fulfilling your own needs, not the animal’s—and in a profoundly unhealthy way. Trust me, your dog will sense your unstable energy and often escalate her unwanted behavior instead.
SOME BASIC DOS AND DON’TS OF DISCIPLINE
• DO establish your house rules, boundaries, and limitations between the human members of your pack before you bring a dog into your home.
• DO make sure all the humans are on the same page as to what is or isn’t allowed.
• DO remain clear and consistent with your dog about the rules.
• DO begin enforcing rules from your dog’s first day at home—your dog doesn’t understand the concept of a “special day” or “holiday” from rules!
• DO always call up your calm-assertive energy when you notice a behavior you need to correct.
• DO offer your dog an alternative to the disallowed behavior.
• DON’T enforce rules if you are frustrated, angry, emotional, or tired. Wait until you can respond unemotionally to your dog’s behavior.
• DON’T yell at or hit your dog out of anger, ever!
• DON’T expect your dog to read your mind.
• DON’T expect your dog to follow rules that aren’t consistently enforced.
• DON’T reinforce or encourage a fearful or aggressive state of mind.
• DO reward your dog with treats or affection, but only when she’s in a calm-submissive or active-submissive state.
Remember, your dog is your mirror. The behavior you get back is usually, in some way, a reflection of your own.
SUCCESS STORY
Bill, Maryan, and Lulu
We rescued our dog Lulu from the local shelter. When we first brought her home, she would roll over and pee if you tried to pet her…. She was especially afraid of me and would normally roll over on her back, tail tucked between her legs, when I entered the room she was in.
Outside the house she was very difficult to control on the leash; off the leash she’d tear off across our yard, then the neighbor’s yard(s), and I’d end up down the block before I’d be able to get her back.
Both Maryan and I were very concerned about our inability to control her, and that she seemed interested in the cats more as a meal (or a snack) than in having them as friends.
As we’d both seen the Dog Whisperer show, and had been impressed with what we’d seen, we decided we’d try out a few of Cesar’s methods. Cesar’s philosophy of exercise, discipline, and then affection is so simple, it’s hard to believe the difference it makes.
Two [methods] in particular stood out to us. The first was the tshhhst sound he makes on the show; it always gets the dog’s attention, and nearly instantly. The second was using the leash, but up high, right behind the ears, instead of lower, near the base of the neck.
A third method, using a treadmill to provide exercise when you’re otherwise unable to take the dog for a walk, seemed like something we’d like to be able to use (as Maryan has had great difficulty walking for any extended period of time), if we could figure out how to get her [Lulu] to do it. Initially she’d try and get off, but with her on the leash, and keeping her up there, she eventually started walking. Today, she’ll actually get our attention and then go to the treadmill as if she’s asking for a session. It has been a truly amazing transformation.
I’m happy to report that in just a few short weeks these three seemingly small techniques have transformed our life with Lulu. She’s far more confident, calm, and far less of a “handful.” Maryan is now able to take Lulu with her when she walks to the mailbox; Lulu is attentive, calm, and incredibly gentle on the leash now. No longer tugging or refusing to move…instead she’s become a great walking companion.
She and the cats have made friends. Our cat Precious and Lulu have become such good friends, they actually will sleep next to one another at times! Now we’ve all become “a pack”—my only real wish is that these same methods would work on the cats!
Cesar’s overall philosophy, one of balance, ties closely to my own. I’m of the belief that in order to achieve balance we need to live “in the now.” It’s a belief most often touted by Eastern religions…that once it’s examined, causes you (or at the very least it caused me) to realize that the “now” is all we ever have. The past is gone, and nothing about the future is guaranteed; all we ever have is the moment we’re living in, right now.
Millan, Cesar, Peltier, Melissa Jo
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