on adoption events

Many of us in rescue are encouraged to bring our foster dogs to adoption events, by rescue groups that are eager to get their dogs adopted out so they can save more lives. Many rescue groups even have a policy that dictates all foster dogs must go to a certain number of adoption events, regardless of the dog's temperament or background.

This one-size-fits-all policy does a disservice to many of the dogs who end up in rescue, who may not respond well to the pressure of exposure to many new people and/or other dogs all at once. For rescue dogs who are fearful, a few hours at an adoption event just adds another trauma to what may already be a long list, requiring further rehabilitation and training to recover. Many of these dogs may spend the entire event huddled behind a bush, or barking at other dogs, or bristling when people come up to meet them. This not only makes their chances of being adopted very small, but allows them to practice these frightened, reactive behaviors and get even better at being fearful and reactive.

All good training--training that has a chance of teaching behaviors that stick and are well-learned--works with a dog sub-threshold. This means that we keep our dogs in a place where they can remain calm and comfortable, whether by working with them at a distance from things that upset them (giving lots of treats as soon as they see another dog from a distance, but before they start getting upset) or by working with just a mild case of what upsets them (exposing to just one or two new people at a time, instead of a whole crowd).

When you think about it, for many fearful or reactive rescue dogs, an adoption event is a perfect example of the very old-school method of flooding--over-exposing a dog to something in the hopes that he'll "just get over it"--a method that has been shown to increase fear and reactivity in dogs (although in the short term, the dog may appear calmer because it is overwhelmed and just shuts down). At an adoption event, dogs are standing around amidst many other dogs, encountering people they have never met before, many of whom are coming up to them and touching them without asking. For dogs with "personal space" issues, this can be very stressful.

Foster

As I realized with my foster dog Pax--who spent the entire two hours of an adoption event barking and lunging--not all dogs are meant for adoption events. I should have realized it even sooner, with my foster dog Foster, who spent adoption events huddled behind me out of sight. Those experiences didn't help Foster or Pax feel more at ease, and they didn't get them adopted either.

In fact, in 3+ years of fostering and placing dozens of dogs and cats, only 1 found his forever home at an adoption event (that was PJ, who was pretty darn well adjusted). The vast majority of my dogs have met their adopters online. Here are some things you can do to promote your fosters without exposing them to the stress of adoption events.

1. Craigslist ads. Go to www.craigslist.org, find your town or city, and click on "post" in the upper right. All kinds of people visit craigslist, so you'll have to screen carefully, but you should be doing so anyway.
2. Petfinder. This terrific site allows adopters to search by breed and by location. You'll have to register to get an account, or ask the rescue group you work with for its ID and password. Be sure to upload a few sweet pictures, or even better, a video.  
3. Petfinder ads can also be printed out, making it easy to create a flyer you can post at pet shops, vet offices, training facilities, etc.
4. Get an "Adopt Me" vest or bandanna, and bring your dog to parks or along popular trails. If you are working with a rescue group, they should have some vests you can use; you can also order them from http://www.dogbooties.com/admoptmevests.html. These environments, while certainly too stressful for some shy dogs, may be less stressful than an adoption event because they permit a dog to move around and because there is less social pressure to behave a certain way--for dogs and handlers! If you think your shy dog can handle a trail or a park, be sure you bring treats and reward her for calmly looking at and interacting with other dogs and people.
5. Outfit your pup in his vest, and go to a pet store. Most pet stores will be happy for you to come inside and speak with prospective adopters, and have your own personal adoption event. This allows your dog to meet new people one at a time, with fewer other dogs around, and is less stressful for the fearful dog...although of course, even this is too much for some dogs! Call first to make sure this is OK with the pet store folk.
6. Post your pet to neighborhood and community email listserves. 

These are just a few of the ways resourceful rescue groups and fosters can help their pups get adopted, without making them go through a level of stress they may not be ready for. If you have more, please feel free to share them. 

more exercises for impulse control

I was assisting at Al Winder's Control and Focus class with Your Dog's Friend this past weekend, and was reminded of how great some of Leslie McDevitt's exercises are for calming impulsive dogs and helping distracted dogs focus on their people. In Control Unleashed, McDevitt describes a few ways to help distracted dogs that use completely positive methods. Here is one of them:

Gimme a Break

This exercise is great for the dog who is way too  interested in squirrels to focus on you when you're on a walk, or way too distracted by the other dogs to concentrate on the exercises when you're in your agility class. The exercise helps the dog reorient to you by showing him that focusing on you is what's really rewarding...not by punishing those times when he is distracted.

1. Choose a behavior to work on, and an enclosed, low-distraction area like a fenced yard or large basement to work in. Behaviors you might work on include Go to place,  walking in heel, or even playing tug of war. Have a chair for you to sit in.
2. Start working on your behavior, rewarding your dog frequently. If you're doing Go to Place, reward your dog frequently as long as he's on the mat. For Heel, walk in a circle and reward as you walk and your dog stays close by you and gives you his attention. 
3. After a minute or so of working, say your release word like "All Done" or "Break" and turn away from him and go sit in your chair. If your dog disengages first by looking away or going away from you to sniff, immediately go sit in your chair.
4. For up to a minute, allow your dog to sniff around and do his thing while you stay in your chair. Do not talk to him during this time; remain unengaged. 
5. The second your dog reorients to you--glances your way, turns an ear towards you, or comes up to you in your chair, you want to reengage him in your rewarding exercise. Resume walking, going to mat, or doing whatever you were doing, with a high rate of reward.  If he does not reorient to you, reengage him and resume the work you were doing .
6. Very gradually extend the time of your training sessions, but keep them short enough that your dog does not choose to disengage before you say your release word.

Lamar taking a big break!

The goal of this exercise is that your dog becomes less interested in distracted sniffing around, because focusing on you is so rewarding. As dogs practice, they quickly get to a point where they don't even want to take a break--instead, they remain focused on us when we give the release cue and ask us to keep working.

If you work on it in low-distraction environments until your dog is reliably reorienting to you after you release him, you will gradually be able to count on his attention even in very distracting environments--like in the backyard with all those squirrels!

Pre-training session meditation

The more I think about it, the more I realize how well meditation, mindfulness, and dog training go together.

Relax

Lamar relaxing and enjoying a paw massage

Our dogs are highly sensitive and tuned in to our mental states. Their noses are so sensitive that they can pick up pheromonal changes the moment we break into a nervous sweat. Having co-evolved with us for hundreds of years, they are highly adapted to pick up on nuances of human emotion. Staying relaxed when we work with our dogs helps them stay relaxed as well, as we project our relaxation down the leash and into them. Here is a meditation to practice at the start of training sessions with your dog.

Meditation: You have already arrived

We live in a very goal-oriented world, and it seems we spend a lot of mental energy thinking about how our lives could be better and the goals we hope to realize someday. We may think about what we’ll do once we’re more wealthy, or how our lives would be if we were more beautiful, had a nicer house, or our dogs were better behaved.

It is important to realize that though we can do many things to improve our lives, we also have everything we need for complete happiness right here, in this very moment.

Close your eyes, and take a deep breath. As you breathe in, imagine you are breathing in white light that floods your lungs, then your chest, then your entire body.

Now think about all the things you have ever wanted: more material wealth, a better job, more friends, a dog who behaves well and responds to your requests. You may have felt that these things were beyond your reach, but remember that with mindfulness, anything is possible.

Now imagine that You Have Already Arrived. All the physical beauty you have ever wanted, is yours. All the material wealth you ever wished for is already in your grasp. Your house is beautiful and sustains you, your friends are generous and abundant. Your dog is tuned in to your wants, and eager to do as you wish. You have already arrived.

To concretize this feeling, imagine a beautiful lotus flower blooming in your chest. The flower is nourished by the white light you’re breathing in, and with each breath the full, waxy, fragrant petals extend into your shoulders, your throat, your belly. This flower represents your completion, your attainment. Enjoy this feeling of abundance, and come back to it frequently. 

Practice this meditation with your dog beside you and think about what a wonderful being she is. Do you know anyone else so sensitive, intelligent, and affectionate? Show her your appreciation, and take some time to enjoy the appreciation she shows you.

more pit bull insights

This great pit bull blog sheds more light on this deliciously affectionate breed. Lately, Fozzie has not been content to sleep entwined in Florian's legs but insists on curling himself up, in a thankfully compact, doughnut-like form, in between our pillows. I enjoy the firm, muscular gluteals to rest my head against, not so sure about the scratchy, bony, gangly paws that occasionally jut out across my throat.

Why foster?

Lars has been back since just after we returned from Switzerland, due to circumstances beyond his control. Roy misses him, and I don't blame him. He is still anxious, but his nose is as long as ever and he still adores me, loves to play with me and Fozzie, and seeks out affection.

At night, when we go to bed, the other 3 dogs are in the bedroom with us. Fozzie is usually on my pillow making out with Florian, sometimes under the covers, sometimes snoring. Lamar won't allow Lars in with us, so Lars anxiously paces around for a while in the living room. I feel terrible that he is exiled from his tribe like this, so I have been trying to spend some extra special time with him before I go in to bed.

If I just spend a few minutes showing him he can lie on the couch--I don't think he realizes it yet--then cuddling him, stroking him, and loving him on the couch, he settles right down and sleeps right there.

This is why I put up with the front yard, a disaster area of torn up flower pots, dismembered plants and stuffed toys, potholes, compost and wood chips scattered across would-be walkways. And the house, which requires daily sweepings to remove the piles of dog hair, dust, and chewed up fragments of what was once my sweatshirt or Florian's underwear.

Fozzie Insights

Like a good neophyte dog trainer, I am subscribed to a slew of positive training listserves and they are an absolute superhighway to enlightenment on all things dog training. Recently I posted a question about Fozzie, in the hopes of making him even more adoptable (as if a tongue kissing cuddle muffin is not adoptable enough.) Here's my question:

I wonder if anyone on this list might have ideas about my adolescent pit bull/presa canario (or something) foster dog, who has been with me about 8 months.

He was about to be euthed at the shelter (failed his eval, probably because of his high arousal/play drive) and in the end he's been the best education I could have asked for as a trainer who is relatively new to the art. He has made great progress in impulse control through waiting at doorways and for meals and snacks, sitting and making eye contact before I throw his ball, and some of the on-off switch and other impulse control games in Control Unleashed and elsewhere. He is a brilliant learner of tricks and skills and one of the most affectionate dogs I have ever met.

The main continuing struggle is on-leash. He becomes a lunging, barking, yodeling, wheezing, squeaking madman when he sees another dog, which is no mild event since he is 65 pounds of pure muscle. On those occasions when he has been allowed to approach another dog, he greeted with wags, play bows, and sniffs, which then became rowdy, pushy playing. He is for the most part good with my own two dogs, though sometimes a bit pushy, and he's just such a strong beast that I don't feel confident about allowing him to greet other dogs on-leash....I would rather he learn to calmly accept their presence and move on.

Would you call this leash reactivity, even though a lot of it is play excitement? I have also wondered if his prey drive is contributing, as his is over the top (he smashes from side to side against the windows of my van if not held firmly when we are driving, trying to eat passing cars).

I have tried to find that "magic spot" at which he notices the other beast but is not yet freaking out about it, but I am not sure if that spot exists for him. He can reorient to me during non-stimulating times on walks, but the moment he becomes aware that there might be a dog somewhere around, he becomes that sniffing, wheezing madman who couldn't care less about snacks. There is almost something hound-y about his indifference when we're on walks....when in a training session in house or yard he is your textbook biddable pit bull, but outside he reminds me of the plott hound foster I once had--all nose to the ground.

I got several helpful responses, but the most helpful was the following, from Douglas St. Clair:

You got a great sort of dog there. The Pit bull, as you can clearly see, has a bad rap. They were the most popular dogs in America back between WW I and WW II. If you have seen Little Rascals films their dog was a Pit, but back to your post.

I'll bet he wants to touch, lean on, and be physically close to you more than any other dog ....

These dogs IMO are in every way physical. Just as they want to be physically near members of their family they want to play physically with toys and other dogs.

...these dogs are poor at projecting calming signals to other dogs. I have trained my dog to go behind me and sit when we are about to meet a new dog.'

....First consider a Border Collie and our dogs. A BC is as supple as a rope. Our dogs are as supple as a log. The differences in their build translate into differences in overall movement. Should two aggressive BCs approach one another their bodies stiffen. Does the natural stiffness of our dogs look to them like a dog who is approaching for a fight? I don't know, but I do know that our sort of dog is sometimes surprised by the truly aggressive approach of other dogs.


...Having a dog sit behind [the handler] addresses that possibility five ways. First it calms your own dog to sit our down. Secondly it sends a calming signal to the approaching dog. Thirdly it positions you between the two dogs and the person who takes this posture is also assuming responsibility for the one behind them both in the eyes of their dog and the dog who is approaching. Fourth s/he can see you and see if you are tense or relaxed. When your dog is in front of you there is no way for them to see your reaction to the situation without looking away from what may be a threat to both of you. Fifth If s/he is in front, taking responsibility for both of you, then s/he is going to be more tense.

...For reasons I can't explain I think the dog finds the leash frustrating in general. Tolerable but always at least a little frustrating. When another dog approaches this frustration is increased. So if as you say the dog is initially excited then frustrated by the leash the manner in which s/he addresses the other dog is going to reflect all this. I also think that the presence of the leash makes 'talking' with the new dog a little like trying to great a new person while someone is holding your tongue. Need I describe your reaction for you? :)

I thought this was such a great synopsis of the pit bull--highly physical, quick to arouse, easily frustrated, perhaps poor communicators because of it. But thoroughly affectionate and so loving.

Fozzie is definitely frustrated by the leash and it will take some more practice over time of giving him tasty snacks and making the leash way more rewarding.

The "Go behind me and sit" trick when another dog is coming will take some work--Fozzie is now so excited when he sees another dog way  in the distance, that a sit may be too much to ask as he waits for the other pooch to approach--but it's a great idea for less excited dogs.

For Fozzie, I think I need to work with a  friend and another dog as we approach each other slowly, doing lots of treats and T-Touch. Or maybe Premack: click and allow wild tug of war with a rope toy in exchange for looking at me while another dog approaches? Would have to be at a distance.

Fozzie reminds me of a little kid--those floppy ears, the deep eye contact, the wild energy juxtaposed with a deep desire for approval and affection.

Dog Training au Geneve

Our recent trip to Switzerland to visit Florian's family held an unexpected joy--getting to assist in a dog training class!

Katia Pillonel teaches right next to Florian's parents' house outside Geneva, in Puplinge. We went by there one day and she invited us to come back for her classes the next two Sundays, and her classes were such a delight.

Not surprisingly, the Swiss seem much more progressive in their dog training than we are, overall. There wasn't an active emphasis on the fact that they were doing positive training, it was just the way things were done. When I asked Katia--the one in the cowboy hat --whether there was any correction training in Switzerland, she seemed to indicate that reward-based training is just the way everyone does it.

The class was so joyful--happy chiens just ranging about off-leash, their people leading them in training games like Freestyle dance, Musical weaving among chairs, Wait until your owner counts to Trois (even if s/he counts to un, deux, quatre, neuf, sept first) before coming to get the treat, and Find the Key Hidden in the Box. Katia had me demonstrate Heel with eye contact with one of her chiens, and was impressed with how the pooch and I gazed lovingly into one anothers' eyes. I was also very happy to advise one student on helping her shy shepherd mix by working on touch targeting and getting her to touch non-threatening parts of new people's bodies--a kneecap, a foot--with her nose, then lavishing her with treats.