Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Pit bull in prey drive? All you can do is pray

There was this article in the Toronto Sun.

I spoke to John Wade at the Grand Openings of one of London's Leash Free Parks and I got the impression he wasn't fond of any of the Pit bull breeds. Much of what he said was totally negative to my surprise even with Shasta sitting calmly beside me.

Others that over heard were also angered at what he was saying,

I believe that a professional that receives large fees like he does, should better look at a dog individually, rather than grouping them together just as the government is doing.

As a friend told me regarding this story, "If this dog is a Pit like John Wade says with all the nasty stuff he says - it should be muzzled under DOLA. It could not take a husky by the neck in a park.

If this dog is not a restricted dog, then it's not a Pit and he is sensationalizing and condeming a dog that is not a Pit."

Sun, October 21, 2007
Pit bull in prey drive? All you can do is pray
By JOHN WADE

Q: We own a 5-year-old lab-pit bull cross named Sly, who has been involved in a few incidents.

The first was in July, 2006 when an off-leash husky cross, bounded up to our other dog, Finnegan, who was quite submissive. Sly took matters in his own hands and took hold of the Husky's neck, but didn't do anything other than hold him, however, to break his hold, we had to go to extreme measures to get him off the dog. At that point, we were using a pinch collar on him. Since then he has mauled one of our cats and killed another.

A trainer suggested using a head halter to curb Sly's aggression. She said a prong collar would punish him after meeting another dog, and he would therefore then associate the pain with the other dog.

We're wondering whether Sly would be trainable so that we would be able to call him off of an animal once he's in "prey" drive. The trainer indicated that the incidents that occurred would be isolated and would not carry over to outside the home.
-- Anne, London, Ont.

A: Equipment aside, can a high prey drive dog be called off? Depends. Police dogs have high prey drive and they are called off all the time, but of course they receive intense ongoing training.

You've probably noticed there aren't a lot of pit bulls on police departments. The intensity of their prey drive is a significant reason why.

In some protection-oriented dog sports, I've seen it done, but even if the dog has the potential to be called off the average dog owner hasn't the time nor skill to get there.

As far as future incidents not carrying over outside the home, the trainer is dreaming. That's like saying a border collie won't herd outside the home. That's what they were bred to do and somebody better tell that trainer what pit bulls were bred to do. Given the opportunity, inside or outside, the dog is going to kill another cat and in the right set of circumstances hurt or kill another dog.

Also, the success of the head halters is based more on marketing than true gentleness. Any collar used to control a dog uses some element of pain or discomfort in order to discourage a behaviour or get its attention but try giving your head a "gentle" Rambo twist and see how it feels.

I think you have far more dog than you can handle. You have to permanently get him in the hands of someone that knows what they're doing. Otherwise, his days are numbered.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've trained dogs for thirty years.

I can put it quite simply: the guy doesn't know what he's talking about.

My guess is, he hasn't successfully re-trained many (if any) really aggressive dogs.

My guess is, he hasn't worked with many (if any) 'pit bulls'.

My guess is, he probably became a "dog trainer" through one of those six week accreditation courses, not because he demonstrated particular skill in working with dogs throughout his life, and "fell into" the profession, based on that. There are lots of people who wish they were good at working with dogs. Few of them actually are. When they fail, they blame the dog. Good trainers know they only have themselves to blame.

Very, very, very few professional dog trainers left a profession in canine genetics, medicine, or other scientific field in order to become a dog trainer. I'm not suggesting anyone is unintelligent because they don't have one or more scientific degrees, but they should them limit their conversations to those areas where they do have expertise. I.E. If you aren't a geneticist, you shouldn't be discussing canine genetics. And if you wish to discuss canine genetics, you'd better use appropriate AND ACCURATE terminology, and cite relevant sources.

Again, this guy doesn't know what he's talking about, based on that column. To suggest something as ludicrous as puppies being born knowing how to maul or what a stranger is, or that all Border Collies are herding champions is preposterous. Any honest herding dog trainer will tell you that some dogs from herding breeds show little interest in herding, and lots of dogs not specifically bred for herding will show terrific talent at herding. All will need years of training to become herding champions.

There is a herding titled 'pit bull', for goodness sakes.

Human psychology defines aggression as learned behaviour. The same is true for dogs.

While each of us, dogs and humans, have a desire to manipulate our environments and get what we want, we L-E-A-R-N how to achieve that.

In humans, let's imagine someone with an impulse control problem, which may be congenital, bio-chemical, acquired, or genetic. The cause aside, he/she is as likely to take up extreme sports (a positive activity) as criminality or violence (negative activities). Psychologists agree, the determining factor will be how that person was raised, and which behavioiurs were reinforced.

We've all seen dogs that will do some trick in order to get what they want. They've learned that doing an unsolicited backflip will earn them a treat. Some dogs learn that by growling at their owners, they can get the couch all to themselves.

Heck, we can take it back even farther than that. A puppy merely wants to control its environment. Either from its mother or littermates, or just through trial and error, it may learn that staring can be intimidating to others. If that works, or if it doesn't work (depending on the dog and the situation), the dog may move on to other forms of intimidation, in order to manipulate its environment.

In dogs, the scale of escalation for aggressive behaviours is rather predictable. Staring leads to stiffened body posture and raised hackles, then growling, raised lips, lungeing, attempted bites, and finally successful bites.

I like to put it this way, "A successful, unprovoked bite is never the first sign of aggression in dogs. It's the last."

At any point along the way, owners can recognize the signs of growing aggression, and halt it. They can teach the dog to accept normal, everyday, non-threatening situations, and they can teach the dog what they'd prefer it do, in various situations.

(For example, my dog is so supremely well-socialized, she'd be happier if people or other dogs would visit our property, than just walk by it.)

Either way, the fact that people can raise dogs who never behave aggressively, or rehabilitate already aggressive dogs into reliable pets, proves what I've said for years, "Aggression in dogs can be learned, un-learned, or never acquired in the first place."

(My nine-year-old Great Dane has never growled, for example, much less behaved aggressively in any other way.)

When people teach their dogs to sit quietly at the door when someone arrives, the dog learns to sit quietly, and that's what's rewarded.

When people allow their dogs to bark and jump and create mayhem when someone comes to the door, that is invariably because those behaviours are being rewarded. At the very least, it proves the owner has not taught the dog to do anything more appropriate. And who's to blame for that?

The mailman, the paper boy, girl guides selling cookies...none of them are a danger to dogs in any way. So why would any dog owner accept a dog feeling threatened by these people? No dog has ever lost even one centimetre of property because another dog walked by. So why would any dog owner think it is okay if his/her dog felt threatened because a dog merely walked by?

No competent trainer blames a dog because it is behaving in ways rewarded by the owner.

inc123 said...

I know a lot of people who know a great deal about genetics that aren't deemed as geneticist, which is a job title. No reason why non-geneticists can't have considerable insight and knowledge of genetics and science in general.

Illogical argument. Fail.

inc123 said...

Marjorie:

I.E.

Please don't write, it is apparently beyond your field of expertise-- maybe English is too.
Learn the difference between i.e. and e.g. Learn how to punctutate them too.


You offer many false/invalid arguments, which are also not properly cited(as you argue genetics should be).


"Psychologists agree." hahaha. Psychologists never argree on anything. Or did you mean two you happen to find on the internet somewhere. hahahahah.

You criticize others' education, yet yours is worse. You should not be commenting as an expert, as obviously you are not. Did you not even finish high school before you designated yourself as some sort of dog trainer? Shame on you.