Before I begin heartlessly dissecting this whole thing, let me make the disclaimer that I do actually feel a great deal of sympathy for owner, dog and I suppose, on a much lesser level even the "trainer". The entire event is a sort of parable about the state of the industry and of our total remove from reality as "animal lovers". But there's an awful lot of ugly to go around here, so get out your spoons and hold your noses...
In some ways, this just goes to show you that old thing about fools and their money. On a lot of levels. First:
A year ago Lisa Bernstein rescued Ringo, an 8-week-old German shepherd pup, from the Tri-County Humane Society. The high-spirited dog became her teenage son's best friend, though the pooch didn't much like others.
So, you spent an "adoption fee" on a dog that doesn't like people.
The owner is no different than any other well-meaning dog lover being suckered into thinking that by "rescuing" something she is buying good pet-owning karma. Any time someone says they "rescued" an animal, I must ask them from what: drowning? burning? Peter Singer? The choice of words (rescue vs. adoption vs. purchase) says a lot about the state of mind of citizen dog owners. There was once a time when "rescue dog" meant a SAR canine. Now if you are an actual SAR handler and you say "rescue dog" when referring to your stalwart canine partner, your audience is almost guaranteed to breathlessly ask you what kind of abuse the poor thing was rescued from.
So. You purchased an 8 week old puppy from a shelter. Not like 8 week old puppies are on the short list for the purple juice at animal shelters, although all of the wild-eyed "Speuter Everything" zealots would have you believe that. Actually, it's adult dogs that get 86'd the most, especially when well-meaning but illogical humane groups import litters of pups and cuter, smaller dogs from other regions to fill the local demand.
Let's say you "Adopted" him, OK? But you didn't "rescue" anything.
"The woman came into my house with a dog that was in perfect health. She sat on my dog for one hour and killed him," Bernstein said, weeping.
One hour? As in sixty minutes?
Leave it to me to blame the victim, I guess. However, after a few minutes, I think most of us would have said, "Hey, Boss, this doesn't seem to be doing the trick. And Ringo is panting like a priest at a Cub Scout meeting. Let him get up."
But you know what? A lot of the women (and it is women) in my client base have such a helpless, built-in victim mentality that they practically live like hostages to their dogs. Then they finally seek help from a treat-slinging trainerette and allow all sorts of expensive ridiculousness to go on for another few months or years as they continue to follow the outrageously impractical and ineffective recommendations of the "no consequences" dogma. Then they let the Big Bux Behaviorist down at the Fancy Skool gork the dog out on whatever Farnam is pushing this season. So why wouldn't this poor lady hesitate to question the "trainer" in this case, because after all:
She's been on national talk shows displaying her ability to bark like 200 breeds of dogs.
Wonder if the "trainer" knows how to say "HELP ME! I'M SUFFOCATING!" in Shepherdese?
Let's let poor Mrs. Bernstein be.
Instead, let's turn our attention to Jill Deringer, who allegedley
used what some trainers call a questionable technique, muzzling the dog and holding him down to show him who's the boss.
"I do an alpha role. Many trainers do this. I hold it down to prevent myself from being bitten," Deringer said.
OK. I confess. I use corrections. And if someone saw what I did without understanding the context, or if they were one of the Omnipresent Wincers who bite their trembling lower lips when reading the words "pinch collar", they might think I was up to no good.
But:
The "alpha roll" (I pray that "role" was a typo and not this "trainer"'s understanding of the term) is not something "many" trainers use. And Ms. Deringer seems to be confused...did she do this to "show the dog who's boss"? Or, as she said in the interview, did she do it to prevent herself from getting bitten? Let's just say that if it's the former, she's a typical wannabe who read too many Monks of New Skete books and sits in glassy-eyed adulation during episodes of The Dog Whisperer (and hey, I think he's cool, too, but some of his moves are...um...not so cool for most people to try). But if it's the latter, she's very lucky worse things haven't happened. Someone who claims to have worked with lots of "aggressive" dogs and yet uses this as their first defense against mauling must be talking lots of shit. And if he was trying to bite, how did she put the muzzle on? And if he had a muzzle on, why was she worried about getting bitten in the first place? I mean, muzzle strikes hurt, but they aren't going to put you away. But then she says:
she was simply holding the dog — kneeling over him, but not applying her full weight — to prevent him from kicking her. Despite those efforts, she said, "He struck me over 100 times. I have the scratches to prove it."
You know how to keep a dog from kicking you? Don't hold him prone on the floor.
When Ringo finally calmed, Deringer took off the muzzle but he just sat there panting. That had never happened before, she said.
Well, Jesus Christ, what usually happens when you let up a dog you have successfully "alpha roled" to (a) show him who's boss, (b) keep him from biting you and (c) keep him from kicking you? Does he stand up on two legs, shake your hand and say, "Thanks, lady, I needed that." ?
Deringer said the whole situation is "sad and emotional."
No shit it's sad and emotional!
A spokesman for Petco, where Deringer worked, said company officials were aware of the situation and were looking into it.
"This is unfortunate all around. What this person did is something she is responsible for, and we are investigating it fully and will take appropriate actions," said Don Cowan from the company's corporate office in San Diego, Calif.
Cowan said their trainers go through a certification program that includes classroom training and some on-the-job training with other trainers.
Kids, can we discuss this?
I am absolutely no fan of the alleged "training programs" offered by the Cosmodemonic Pet Supply Companies, and would no sooner trust one of their in-house "certified" "trainers" to help me with my dog any more than I would trust the acne-scarred cashier at the CVS to give me medical advice.
Oh, I know, there are plenty of solid trainers who work at the 'Co and the 'Mart to supplement their income. But the ones who are indoctrinated by the corporations themselves are woefully unprepared to do much more than teach puppy manners to semi-retarded Golden Retrievers.
Believe me, I have all of the "training materials" that one of the corps uses to teach its instructors (thanks to a mole who used to work there) and it is scary. All of their emphasis on the "pet parent" mentality makes me wonder if its more astute consumers would do a more literal comparison and ask themselves if they'd entrust the education of their human child to the senior waitron at Chuck E. Cheese.
Here's your first assignment, HOBD readers: go to your local Big Box Store Pet Supply Warehouse and observe an obedience class. Then get back to me about whether you actually saw any training taking place, or if it was mostly cleancut Miller Youth towing rambunctious dogs around on head halters and flat collars, all the while giving them "requests" in a tone that Julie Andrews would find offensively saccharine and force feeding them corporation-approved treats at a rate that makes you wonder if there is a secret market for canine foie gras.
The suits at the 'Co must be shitting their pants right now...this person, in her own time, has actually killed a client's dog. It literally has NOTHING AT ALL TO DO WITH THEM. But now their name is attached to it, and frankly, I feel sorry for them. Up until now, their rather impotent approach to training and behavior modification has probably not cost any dogs their lives. I mean, even the cheapest bastard among us would have to think twice before giving up their dog as incorrigible after taking a $99-for-life obedience course in the dry food aisle of a retail store, right? But now their name is attached to an alleged dog-killer. Does this mean that they'll stop hiring all outside trainers with real experience, choosing to limit their liability to their own homegrown "educators"? If they knew that Deringer used techniques that fall well outside of their so-called "dog friendly" standards, why would they reco her to anyone? What if they didn't know? Why didn't they? How do they screen people who say they "know how to train dogs"?
You know, the most incomeptent trainer I ever knew talked a good game. Her husband was a real trainer, balanced, humane, results-oriented. But she was a wannabe; an ex-groomer who spent lots of time on the internet and who couldn't train her own dog if you pointed a gun at her head. But she could talk the talk, in her annoying, Roseanne Barr-like voice, and that was enough to get her appointed Head Trainer at a major rescue group. My moles there used to regale me with stories of her dangerous, clownish behavior and her total lack of even the most basic handling knowledge. Her "methods" changed with whatever she read on the Internet that week, leaning mostly toward "dog friendly" stuff. She could get a paralyzed double amputee bitten by a 12-year-old blind Therapy Lab: she was that unsafe. Last I heard, one of the big Corps hired her. Be afraid.
It's unclear what training techniques Deringer used while at Petco, but Stephen Zawistowski, a certified applied animal behaviorist with the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in New York, said the "alpha dog" method is based on concepts that are 20 to 30 years old.
No, Stephen, you egghead, it's based on poorly interpreted but totally valid concepts that are about 10-20,000 years old. You know, the ones where canids live in structured hierarchies and routinely maintain pack order through ritualistic displays of dominance and submission? Oh, that's right, B. F. Skinner trained rats to release pellets using the concepts of operant conditioning, and if you can get those famously frustrated captive sea mammals to stop fucking each other, you might make them jump through hoops for a piece of chum with the same methods, so the way that dog-like things communicate with each other is now totally incorrect and irrelevant. Got it.
"Theoretically, beating kids with a strap used to keep them behaved, but we don't do that any more," Zawistowski said
Speak for yourself, you geek.
"Our concept is that humane training does not inflict unnecessary distress or discomfort."
And you're right. But who gets to decide what's "unnecessary"? And who gets to decide what "distress" and "discomfort" are? What if the dog owner thinks it's necessary to give his dog a quarter-second electronic stimulation to keep him from running out into the street and being hit by a truck? What if the young, well-adjusted Siberian Husky I'm training right now thinks that a Level 5 on a TriTronics Classic 70 isn't all that uncomfortable? Am I allowed to go to 6? Or is that inhumane? Or should I tell his owner to simply keep him in a crate all of the time to "manage" him rather than to correct him when he starts to eat a stray sock, remote control, or piece of drywall?
On Tuesday, Bernstein got a call from Jeannette Christos of the Tri-County Humane Society that another German shepherd, one the same age as Ringo, was available for adoption. Her family had moved to Costa Rica and couldn't keep her.
Uh-oh, I know where this is going...
It was a "beshert," Yiddish for "meant to be," said Bernstein. "This dog needed us and we needed her. She is going to help us heal."
Yes, but are you going to help her heel? Or are you now permanently damaged when it comes to hiring a trainer due to your unfortunate experience with the last one you met? And who could blame you?
How do you say "I don't foresee a happy ending" in Yiddish?
2 comments:
I need to paste and highlight parts of this somewhere. It gives me a good chuckle when I am feeling down. Especially the priest at a cub scout meeting line. "hey boss"
And by the way, although you don't want to do this, you should definately post these to a PP C/T TDF blog. They just make too much sense as usual.
Robin, as much as I'd love to think about the pozzie extremists' brains boiling out of their ears as they read my stuff, I just don't have the stomach (or time) to answer them back, or even to read their empty-headed defenses of their religion.
They have a lot to say about "what gets done in the name of training the dog", but what they do in the name of NOT training the dog is 100% more offensive to me.
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