Observe and Learn Part 2

In 1976 when we came to Williamsport and initially became “dog people”, there was a small group of us who were primarily interested in obedience. The majority of folks, however, were breed oriented and the local AKC club was dominated by the breed people. The obedience folks began to organize and formed an obedience dog training club and I was somewhat involved at the time. Now in 2008, I wondered what, if anything happened to that obedience group. When in doubt, Google. So I did. Up popped The Williamsport Dog Training Club. Their website indicated that classes were starting in May. One of those classes was for beginners. 

This time I asked permission to observe and via email I did get an invitation! The first class was for people only, no dogs. I went and the lady running the class gave a good over-view and informed us that the class was totally positive, non-aversive, using clickers. Sounded good to me. She did, however, make a comment that gave me pause. She said that if you trained a dog with a collar and leash, then you would end up with a dog that would be under control, only when he was wearing a collar and leash. If that were true, then no one would ever have qualified for those titles where the dogs are off leash! She said that since leash laws required dogs be attached to their handlers, collars and leashes would be required for classes, but the collars had to be flat collars. She stated that the most important purpose of a dog’s collar was to hold the license, rabies and identification tags. As far as the leash was concerned, the handlers could loop it around their waists so that it did not drag on the ground.

Our speaker stated she tended to be long winded and I can confirm that she did not disappoint! It put me in memory of my Bubby (that’s what we called my Grandmother). We would have dinner at Bubby’s and she would pile your plate high with delicious food that only Bubby could cook. If you cleaned your plate, which, of course, was expected, Bubby was "Johny on the spot" to ladle out more of the “good stuff”. By the time the meal was over you could hardly waddle away from the table. The problem was that you were so stuffed, food became a turn-off. 

I found a parallel truth with the transfer of information; more is not necessarily better. The art of teaching is to leave students just a tad hungry so that they want to come back for more. For any public presentations, it’s just as important what you leave out, as what you put in! Over the years, I have sat for hundreds, perhaps thousands of hours in a multitude of classes. I’ve also had the wonderful opportunity to be on the opposite side of the lectern and have taught seminars, and classes. In my most recent experience I have had the responsibility to lead a once weekly class that had over fifty participants. I realize that it is hard for those who lead classes to know when enough is enough!

Although there were no dogs, the class leader did bring three of her own dogs to use for demonstration purposes. Two of the three dogs were crated on a rotational basis in her van, but one of the three was always out and about. Unfortunately, the free dog became a distraction while the leader spoke. At one point the dog, an eighteen month old Chesapeake retriever, literally, crawled up fully onto the lap of a gentleman who was the dad of one of the younger participants! Talk about making a scene. At the very end of the talk, the leader finally needed the dog to demonstrate how to work the clicker to reward the dog. The class leader had failed to gain the perspective that sometimes our behavior speaks so loudly that no one can hear what we are saying. Again, this said to me that there is a distinction between trained and obedient.

I came back the next week when people brought their dogs and it was a good class. There were eight teams of various sizes and descriptions. I noticed that all of the human participants were female. I was the only male there. Why was that?

Pam clipped an advertisement in the paper that said that the City of Williamsport was sponsoring a free, 22 week (weather permitting) Doggie Boot Camp. Did I mention free? I decided to check it out. There was an excellent turnout of all sizes and shapes and that doesn’t even address the dogs that were there! The woman who was the class leader was a no-nonsense type individual and her approach was to use slip collars, also commonly called “choke collars”. It became evident that she was especially enamored with the prong collar. If you didn’t want to buy such a collar, they would supply one to you during the class. I saw them put such a slip collar on a toy breed puppy. The collar probably represented 10% of the pup’s weight. I noticed that all of the dogs of the people who were running this class all had prong collars. Obviously, they all bought into this concept. In one of the books I read, the author mentioned that a prong collar was like putting power steering on a dog. I am sure that some dogs do benefit from this training tool. I am suspicious, however, when one technique applies to every situation. Again I surveyed the people population and although not everyone was female, most were. All of the instructors were female. 

One very attractive young couple showed up with a very handsome one year old Rottweiler. He was wearing a strange looking getup which I later learned was a Gentle Leader and the dog was not too pleased with it because he periodically would flop onto the ground and try to rub the device from his muzzle. The lead trainer was particularly negative about this device, because she said that in her experience, she had seen dogs slip out of these devices, and a Rottweiler running loose in a public park among 40 other dogs could create pandemonium. I found myself agreeing with her! When the training began, the young husband stepped back and his wife worked the dog. Why was that?

I had an interesting experience just one week later. I ran into our local K-Mart and on the way out I noticed several local high school cheerleaders raising money for their sports teams. There was an older women with two very well behaved dogs on a Down exercise, right there with the cheerleaders. I couldn’t resist (perhaps I should have). I asked what was the significance of the dogs. The women said that going to a store with lots of people, coming and going, was a great opportunity to socialize her dogs. Those two dogs were obviously well socialized and well behaved. So I asked her if she was affiliated with any dog group. She said that she was a volunteer instructor at the business that was running the Williamsport Doggie Boot Camp. I looked down and both her dogs had prong collars. 100%!

At this point I had been exposed to various approaches and I decided that when we did get our pup, I would start with non-aversive, clicker training and reserve collar corrections for later, if need be. 

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