Wednesday Smile: Birthday Tryptic

Random Acts of Kindness

I listen well enough: I sit, stay, come when I am called (unless there is squirrel around), and have a few cute tricks up my sleeve. For those of you who have been following along with my adventures, you've probably figured out that I also have a mind of my own. There are some things that just simply have to be done. The human has generally learned it is best to follow along with me when I get into one of these moods.

Sometimes of course I'm just being an obstinate basset hound. I remember where interesting things are along our walk to and from the office and I insist on revisiting places that I like. For example, on Green Street there is a tree branch hidden under a hedge of boxwood. I like to stop there every night on the way home and play tug with the stick. I found a rat scurrying around near the old police station in Central Square three nights ago. I insist on pouncing on that very same spot every time I encounter it. I'll pull the human across the street if we are on the wrong side.

The human finds the stick amusing. He finds the rat down right disgusting. Other times he finds himself just a little amazed at where my little mind takes us. For example, yesterday during a walk I started dragging him around a corner. The human wasn't in the mood to be dragged and he started complaining about my behavior. I ignored him and kept tugging him in a different direction. He finally saw things my way and let me lead. A couple of minutes later we turned another corner and walked toward a woman sitting on a park bench. She was crying and at first didn't seem like she was very happy to be interrupted. I wagged my tail more and jumped up next to her and pushed hard against the side of her body while she petted me for a few moments. She scratched behind my ears, said thank you to my human, and walked away.

You humans might thing that perhaps I heard the woman crying (dogs do, after all, have a sharp sense of hearing). Others might think that I used my high-powered sense of smell and detected the distress someone was experiencing off in the distance (again, dogs to have a sense of smell that is hundreds of times more sensitive than humans). Others of you might just thing this was a coincidence: my pulling of the human toward this spot had nothing to do with the woman crying on the bench.

The only two that really knows what happened was the woman on the bench and me, the dog on the leash. I'll leave it for you to decide what you believe. What are your thoughts?

Wednesday Smile

The news has offered up a lot of sad and devastating images from the Gulf of Mexico. With oil still gushing into the ocean, unknown and indescribable devastation is occurring.

What better way to bring a smile to our faces (and a wag to our tails) to see a bit of good news? Here is a clip about a local family of birds. I've noticed them several times on the way home from work. Now I know what they are. Seeing people take interest in--and be in awe of--nature gives me a lot of hope.

On Manners and Meeting New Friends

Well that was scary!

I was walking along the side of the reservoir this evening sniffing some greenery. There are crickets living amongst the flora and I find them to be the most curious thing. The quiet was disrupted by a rather large dog that came barreling around the corner. The young man walking the dog was saying "heel" but said dog was clearly not paying attention.

I was excited at first. Most of my experiences with other canines have been positive. I wagged my tail, put my head down low, and avoided direct eye contact. It's my usual way of making a friendly introduction with a new dog.

While I was making preparations to say hello a woman suddenly came from the other direction with two large dogs on a tandem leash. She was struggling and appeared to not be in control of her dogs and the young man was struggling and appeared to not be in control of his dog.

It was at that moment that both I and the human knew that trouble was brewing.

It happened very quickly. The human first paid attention to the woman with the two large dogs. To her credit, she was aware she wasn't able to control her dogs and she was walking into a difficult situation: she went around a corner with her dogs and down a hill. The young man with the Boxer decided they were going to meet us with my human turned in the other direction and kept approaching.

With the human's back exposed, I felt that I clearly needed to protect him from the Boxer coming toward us. The human turned back to me as I was moving from play position to a protective posture. What follows takes awhile to explain but in reality took up about five seconds of time.

The hair in the center of my back from the nape of my neck to the base of my tail stood up in a mohawk. The dog lunged, lurched, and leaped toward me and the human. The Boxer wasn't paying attention to me and what I was communicating. My hair was up, which is a sign suggesting that it's not a good time to play. I was looking to the side and licking my lips which is a sign that I'm trying to calm myself and the other dog. Think of it like this, when I do that I'm saying: "hey, leave me alone, I'm not a threat because I'm not looking at you but can't you see my hair, if you keep coming there is going to be trouble."

Well the boxer kept barreling toward us and the young man was being dragged along. In a split second the boxer came directly toward my face. He growled while continuing to approach. I turned and fixed my stare directly on him and snarled. He still did not stop and when he was inches away from my nose I snapped but did not bite.

While all this was going on the human pivoted between me and the boxer, and shouted in a friendly voice "hey big puppy" just as I snapped a warning at the dog. The human said "focus" and I immediately moved from the boxer to him (this happened thanks to practicing this command thousands of times). The human put himself between the two of us because he knew I was attempting to protect him, he read the dog as being out of control but not aggressive, and wanted to startle the other dog to try to distract him off his approach.

Unlike the young man with the boxer, my human did not pull hard on my leash. The boxer was choking on his pinch collar, which was likely raising his anxiety levels. It wouldn't do any good to pull on my leash because I wear a harness, not a pinch collar. Well that plus my human knows that a good way to increase the probability of a problem when dogs are meeting is to tug hard on a leash or communicate anxiety to the dog.

As soon as my focus shifted the human said "follow me." (I don't heel, by the way, the human believes in taking turns--sometimes he leads, sometimes I lead). When he says follow me he always means business: it's time for me to stop sniffing and exploring and walk quickly and quietly by his side. He walked away from the other dog at an right angle from the direction in which he was approaching. He was calm yet quick.

Big crisis was averted. Don't you think?

So what's the message here? Humans needs to be keenly aware of how their dogs communicate, and have a working knowledge of some of the basic ways other dogs communicate. With that knowledge, humans need to be paying attention and reading the situation when dogs meet for the first time.

This dog wasn't coming to me to politely shake my hand and ask me if I'd like to play. He looked like he was going to rough me up, or rough my human up, and I didn't like that. In all likelihood he probably just did not learn proper social skills as a puppy and doesn't know how to make friends.

I read the signs and was moving to protect my human and myself. My human read the signs and knew that there was danger brewing. If he hadn't been paying attention there could have been a bite, a fight, or worse. Even with his careful attention the situation could have ended poorly. He made a calculated decision to change the dynamic by getting between us. He trusted our developing bond and hoped that he could get my focus and lead me away.

What's a dog owner to do? It's not enough to teach your dog to sit, stay, and come. I hear lots of folks are doing this at home by reading books and watching TV shows. It's a start, mind you, but not enough.

Too many dogs are out there pulling their owners around and lacking in canine social skills. Take your puppy to a good puppy class. From an early age, a puppy class is a great opportunity for dogs to get feedback from other dogs and learn how to communicate in dog. Watch puppies and dogs as they interact and socialize. Learn to read a dog's body language as it relates to lots of different contexts. Keep your eyes out for experienced dog handlers--watch how they interact with groups of dogs. Ask lots of questions.

And please, don't ever let your dog meet another dog without first asking if it was okay. Had this young man with the boxer done this basic step, this whole situation would have been averted. The human would not have had his back turned, he would have already asked me to sit, and he would have asked the young man to stay at a distance. When given a choice, my human never lets me meet new dogs that have owners who are not paying attention and in control of the situation.

Curing my Anxiety Disorder

Yes that's right, I'm not afraid to admit it. I have a phobia. Every since I was a little puppy I had a phobia of metal grates on sidewalks. Sure, there were other things I was afraid of: elevators were super scary at first. It's still touch and go when I see women wearing sunglasses and hats. For the most part, I was exposed to just about every kind of stimulus as a young puppy so while I might be cautious, I'm also curious.

Only a particular kind of grate bothered me. You see, sewer grates were okay. I would sniff them, walk over them (assuming my paws didn't fall through), and generally be okay with them. I was fine with the metal coverings that some trees in urban areas have. They are a wonderful storehouse of smells: I tend to stop at each on of them and smell ever square inch.

There is a particular kind of metal grate that they use to cover subway access vents that really bother me. Some grates that cover electrical vaults under the sidewalk also really bother me. I avoid them at all costs. I walk around them, I sit down and look at the human with pleading eyes, and well, you get the picture. There is a bridge that we walked over once that was entirely a grate: I made the human carry me all the way across the bridge.

No one really thought of this as a huge problem. There were plenty of places for me to walk where there were no metal grates. It was easy enough to go around the metal grates. It never got in the way of my enjoyment or that of my human. I'm small enough that in an emergency I could be carried (like the bridge).

My human tells me that my grate phobia was on his list of things to work on in the future. He's got more pressing things to teach me, so he wasn't in a rush. In the end, this required no work on his part at all: a friend who discovered a well placed piece of food did the trick.

Before we get to explaining how I was cured of my anxiety disorder, let's talk about two popular techniques that are frequently used in helping fearful dogs: flooding and systematic desensitization.

Flooding is a behavioral technique involves exposing a dog to the fearful stimulus until the dog remains calm. This tool is popularized in Cesar Millan's television show, The Dog Whisperer. In my case, I would have been placed on a grate and forced to stay there until my fear response dissipated. An important key is that there is no punishment applied at any time: I would be simply confined to a metal grate and left there until my fear response ended. Flooding is a tool that was researched in the lab with humans. For example, someone who had a phobia of snakes might be locked in a room filled with snakes. The human isn't let out until they stopped trembling.

It's highly effective. It's also dangerous. If a human lacks the necessary skills to induce a relaxation response the episode of flooding can induce a traumatic response. Phobia + trauma equals more problems, not less. This also seems more than a little cruel to me, does it to you? How would you feel if I locked you in a room of snakes, spiders, or growling aggressive dogs? You wouldn't like it? Then why would you want to do that to me?

Another tool is systematic desensitization. In state-of-the-art behavioral treatment for phobias, humans are generally taught a variety of techniques to induce a relaxation response. When the human has mastered these tools they are gradually exposed to the stimulus that triggers the phobia. A person might think about snakes and then practice a relaxation technique, for example. Once a human masters thinking about snakes without inducing a panic response the stimulus becomes progressively more intense. The human looks at pictures of snakes, the human looks at other people handling live snakes, the human looks at snakes closely, and finally the human touches the snake.

Since dogs don't understand English, humans can't teach them progressive muscle relaxation, mindfulness, or other distress tolerance skills. Dogs can only be confined to an area where they have to cope with a stimulus. Humans can only hope the dogs nervous system is effective enough that some sort of relaxation response will naturally be induced. If it doesn't happen, the dog is likely to develop secondary behavioral problems as a result of the flooding.

So what's a caring human to do? Dogs can be desensitized to fearful stimuli. It just takes a lot of time, effort, and love. My human has let me sniff the scary metal grates for months. This was preparation for his intervention. While I was scared of the grates and wouldn't step on them, I was fine sniffing them. I've had hundreds of opportunities to sniff the metal grate and discover that nothing scary happens. His next step was to start rewarding me every time I sniffed the grate. A "good girl" or a pet behind the ear would suffice. Again, he'd do this every time I sniffed a metal grate (which is at least four times every work day). Eventually the human would catch me touching the grate. Maybe my nose would touch it or perhaps even my paw. My human planned on having a big party every time this happened. An excited "good girl", a scratch behind the ear, or maybe even a little piece of turkey. Yum. Turkey.

In time, I'd be walking across the metal grates. It's not rocket science. It's also not very sexy. Systematic desensitization is slow, methodical, and frankly rather boring. This kind of work doesn't make for exciting television, either. It is however humane, highly effective, and enduring. It also builds a bigger foundation in the human/dog bond.

This brings me to my story. My anxiety disorder wasn't particularly intense. The human never forced the issue thus increasing my fear. I sniffed the grate, walked to the side, and went on my way. It was a minor fear, with inconsequential consequences.

Thanks to a psychologist friend paying close attention yesterday, I was cured of my phobia in a minute. The two humans were talking psychology things (some sort of complaint about insurance companies, I think) when we encountered a metal grate. My human walked to the side so we could avoid it. He wasn't paying attention to me (the nerve!) but the other human was. She saw me sniff the grate and I happened to have the edge of my paw on the metal. She made a big deal about it, said my name in a super excited voice, and got down close to the ground. I got carried away with her excitement. She seemed to excited that I thought there surely must have been something exciting for me to investigate. I walked right over to her on the metal grate. It was a lucky coincidence that there was a piece of food lodged in the grate. I licked and licked and licked, and totally forgot I was standing on something scary.

The humans said goodbye at the T stop and we walked back to the office. We passed by that same metal grate and--you guessed it--I walked right onto it looking for the food. The human was prepared for this and had some turkey in his pocket. Yum! Turkey!

Mind you, I'm still wary of other metal grates--just not the one I found food it. My human tells me to expect to find food in random metal grates from this time forward. By the middle of summer I'll probably we walking on all of them.

That was easy, wasn't it?

Wednesday Smile

I hope she is wearing sunblock!

Wednesday Smile: Friday Edition

I'm a little late on this one. My love of sticks never gets old. Here is what I was up to today while on a walk. Hope you smile.