The Tajji Diaries: The Wolf in Winter

Tajji December 2016

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged about Tajji, the retired seeing eye dog we adopted in 2014. She is a sweet, loving dog, but had become leash-reactive (not aggressive) to other dogs and sometimes people, making her unsuitable for service work. We worked with her, enrolling in “reactive rover” classes that used positive techniques to lower her anxiety and teach us to help her out in challenging situations. Although she was already an old dog, she learned new tricks: eye contact with humans, “let’s go!” detachment from stressful situations, “puppy Zen” and more. She’s made significant progress, and even though from time to time we are surprised by oncoming dogs on our walks, she trusts us to get her to a safe place. Consequently, she’s better able to tolerate the presence of other dogs while on leash. We’ve been able to walk her by yards with barking, lunging dogs, using our management techniques. Although we continue practicing, we don’t hold out hope that one day we will be able to walk her anywhere, with pass-bys with other dogs and other difficult situations. This is fine with us. Our deal with Tajji is a safe and happy retirement, and so far that’s the case. She clearly enjoys her walks (and all the neighborhood dog and wild animal smells); when we get out her harness, she romps around the living room, tail wagging madly, before dashing for the back door. Her joy is contagious, especially on frosty mornings when we aren’t all that enthusiastic about going for a walk. She gets us out the door.

In addition to walking on paved roads, we have found a place to take Tajji hiking. A nearby retreat center has given us permission to walk with her on their trails as long as we pick up after her and she is on leash. For this, we use a retractable lead to give her a greater range to roam. Some of the paths are fairly smooth and level, but others are definitely hiking territory, narrow twisty trails that involve changes in elevation and scrambling over fallen trees. She loves these hikes, and clearly they exercise her brain as well as her body.

Tajji and Shakir hanging out

Tajji came to us with only rudimentary cat skills. We’re pretty sure she was exposed to them by her initial foster family, but her blind owner didn’t have cats. She has a very low prey drive for a German Shepherd Dog, undoubtedly due to Fidelco’s breeding, selection, and training standards. We took our time introducing her to our two dog-savvy cats, and she has become fast friends with the male. They play chase, he rubs up against her, and they often “hang out” or cuddle together.

In the 2 ½ years we’ve had Tajji, she has become noticeably more gray in the muzzle. Although she has no major health issues, she limps occasionally and moves stiffly on cold mornings. She will trot willingly, but no longer wants to run. The vet prescribed supplements and NSAID arthritis medicine as needed, and the combination seems to make her more comfortable. But given her age and how hard she has worked (physically as well as psychologically), we feel she is entitled to take it easy. We try to take her for a walk or hike every day to keep her joints and muscles in shape.

The other major physical change we have noticed is a deterioration in Tajji’s hearing. As far as we can tell, her vision is still quite good, but she no longer responds instantly to someone knocking at the door or being called from across the house. Commands spoken in a soft voice must often be repeated more loudly. Fortunately, we began teaching her hand signals as soon as she came to live with us, and we have been relying on those more and on verbal commands less. She seems quite content with the shift.

I’ve heard folks say they want to get a puppy so the dog will bond with them and won’t come with any bad habits. Tajji came to us with her own history, training, and personality. She presented us with challenges; some we have resolved better than others. She isn’t perfect, and neither are we. But with a little patience, a bit of perspective on what’s really important, and a huge serving of love, we get to share in the joy of her twilight years. 

The Tajji Diaries: Patience and Progress

Eye contact

One of life’s aggravations is that all too often things happen in their own time and not when I think they should. Writing progress, weight loss, getting from hither to yon on the freeway, you name it.

Dog training definitely fits in this category. Sometimes they “get it” right away; you can see the lights go on in their eyes. Then they’re delighted that things make sense. It must be frustrating to them to not understand what we are asking them to do and why we are unhappy with them. I think that’s why positive (reward-based) training works so well, because it provides a way for us to tell the dog that he did what we wanted. Anything besides the desired behavior -> no cookie, try again. Desired behavior -> cookie! Happy dog -> let’s do it again! We’ve paired something we want the dog to do with something wonderful. Complex behaviors can be broken down into component parts and chained, with lots repetition so they become one flowing behavior.

Behaviors that are naturally part of the dog’s repertoire are easier to train, especially if the dog offers them just by being a dog. This requires patience and precise timing of the reward. Since it’s highly unlikely we’ll be able to offer a treat within a second of the desired behavior, we use a marker, like a clicker or “Yes!” that the dog has come to associate with the reward. Then we have to set up a training environment in which the dog has the choice to offer the behavior we want, or something close to it that can be then shaped. For example, if we are training “Down,” instead of luring the dog with a treat, we bring the dog into an enclosed space (so there are some limitations on what the dog can do) and wait. And wait. And wait. Until the dog lies down, which is then rewarded. Rinse and repeat. Usually, the dog will soon begin lying down  many times in rapid succession. Then we add the cue word. It may take longer for the initial connection, but once that’s made, the dogs joyfully perform the behavior. It’s fun to watch dogs that have been trained this way. At the beginning of a new session, they run through all the behaviors they’ve ever been rewarded for, watching carefully for the trainer’s response. Often they’ve learned how to try new things, the doggie version of being creative.

The Tajji Diaries: Getting Out Of Dodge

Focus 

A little over a year ago, Tajji, a retired German Shepherd Dog guide dog, joined our family. She retired partly due to her age (she will be 11 years old in May) but primarily because of her reactivity to other dogs and sometimes pedestrians. We have been working with her, using positive training techniques such as desensitization and reinforcing alternative behaviors. She has learned to make eye contact with us (something she never needed to do with her former, blind owner), to walk on a loose leash, and how to reduce her own anxiety, although this last is subject to her being overwhelmed with arousal. Her distance threshold for reactivity to other dogs is still quite long. She has excellent vision, and when she came to us, she would bark and lunge at any dog she could see. In class and real-life situations, she has now had many experiences of seeing another dog without “going ballistic.” Once or twice, in a controlled class environment, she has been able to remain alert but relaxed at a distance of 20 or 30 feet (as opposed to 1/8 mile).

Despite these achievements, there are many occasions in which she is overwhelmed. When walking on the street, another dog may come upon us suddenly, for instance around a corner or rushing up to a fence. Then it is no longer possible to teach Tajji — we as her human partners must manage the situation. Our primary tool is to increase the distance between her and the other dog: “Getting Out Of Dodge” (GOOD)

GOOD usually takes the form of human dashing in the opposite direction (or for the nearest visual barrier), using a happy voice, “Let’s go!”

The Tajji Diaries: More Progress

Tajji dreaming

It’s been a few months since I’ve posted our adventures in rehabilitating our retired service dog. Tajji, a 10 ½ year old German Shepherd Dog, could no longer perform seeing eye work due to extreme reactivity to other dogs and sometimes strange people. We’ve had her a year now, and most of that time has been spent working on making her retirement calm and happy.

When Tajji came to live with us, she was not accustomed to cats, although we suspect she had been exposed to them in her pre-training foster home. Our two dog-savvy cats, black male Shakir and brown-tabby-and-white Gayatri, patiently taught her “cat manners.” She in turn taught them fun games. Shakir in particular will invite play with her and the two of them romp about the house. Tajji will gently place a paw on Shakir’s back and he must not mind terribly, because he never hisses or lays his ears back. We haven’t found them curled up together yet, but they often sleep within inches of each other. On the few occasions that Gayatri has escaped the house, Tajji has happily “herded” her back. (Since our neighborhood is also home to coyotes, bobcats, and the occasional mountain lion, we keep our cats indoors.)

One source of stress for Tajji was the entrance of human visitors into our yard. We put up a sign on the back gate, asking folks to ring the hanging bell or call us so that we could settle Tajji in her crate before letting them in. After some practice, Tajji became comfortable just being in the house. Recently, we have found her sitting inside the gate when a friend (or sometimes she’s never met) comes to call, politely waiting to be introduced. Her greeting skills have improved, too. Since she knows “touch,” we ask the visitor to hold one hand at their side, palm out. We tell Tajji, “Touch,” and the moment she does, we call her back for a treat. She now understands that it is not okay to jump on people, although if she gets excited, she will jump sideways in front of them.

The Tajji Diaries: Treat!

The foundational concept behind positive training techniques is that behaviors have consequences. Pairing a desirable behavior with a reward increases the likelihood that behavior will be repeated. (Punishment, or an unpleasant consequence, is far less effective because while it may decrease the frequency of the undesired behavior, it also increases the response of fear, which makes it harder for the animal to learn anything.) In working with dogs, we often use food as a reward. Since human language means nothing to a dog, we need a means of communicating “Yes, you did the right thing!” 

Food is a primary reinforcer because it’s a basic need, and yummy food lights up the brain’s pleasure centers. To more accurately identify the desired behavior, we can use a secondary reinforcer (like a clicker or a word such as “Yes!”) that we then associate with the primary reinforcer. (Click = treat.)

Food is not the only possible reward. Depending on the dog’s temperament, a suitable reward might also be a favored toy, something to chase, or praise. I saw this in the mother of the puppy we owned a couple of summers ago; she was so play-driven as to be oblivious to food but would immediately respond to commands for the chance to play with her favorite toy, a ball on a cord. Whatever it is, the reward must be something of high value to the dog.

Folks attempting to train their dogs with reward-based training can run into problems because they don’t use sufficiently yummy food. Kibble isn’t going to cut it for most dogs, especially if they’ve already been fed and aren’t hungry. Think of it this way:

You’re wandering around a playground, trying out various equipment. Some things are just plain fun, like whooshing down the slide. Others, meh. But when, in your ramblings, you jog a hundred feet, someone hands you a nickel, is that going to make you eager to repeat it? How about if someone hands you a dollar? Twenty dollars? A thousand dollars? Or, in food terms, a stalk of celery versus a Godiva chocolate (versus a whole box of Godiva chocolates). In training, the treats must be sufficiently yummy to that particular dog to elicit the “Wow, let’s do that again!” response.

The Tajji Diaries: Dogs In Love?

Tajji running full-out after the ball

Our new-to-us retired seeing eye dog, Tajji, has been making good progress with her reactivity to other dogs and sometimes to people. A great deal of this progress has occurred in the “Reactive Rover” class taught by Sandi Pensinger of Living With Dogs in Soquel, CA. This does not necessarily mean Tajji can and will take what she’s learned (“good things happen when I look calmly at another dog”) and apply them to other places and other dogs. Dogs do not generalize. To them, every situation is unique. This is why practicing in as many environments and with as many diverse combinations of stimuli is necessary.

At the last formal meeting of the class, only two dogs attended: Tajji (with both of us) and George-The-Labrador (with his surprisingly spry 90 yo owner). We practiced with a small (real) dog decoy behind a blind. This means that the little dog was behind a three foot high screen, and her handler brought her out where the “student” dog could see her. At first, the exposure was just a peek-a-boo, then standing still but constant, then moving.  Movement draws a dog’s attention and is therefore more strongly stimulating. The student dog was rewarded for calm behavior by getting to run away, then praise and a treat. The retreat is a “functional reward” – that is, the thing that makes the dog nervous becomes farther away, and since dogs are highly sensitive to distance, the dog becomes happier and calmer. Gradually, we waited until the student dog disengaged with the decoy: a Look-Away, a lip lick, or even the sideways flick of a perked ear. All these things signal that the dog is not longer “locked and loaded” on the decoy. The dog has chosen to step back from confrontation. A Look-Away is particularly powerful because a direct, fixed stare is threatening. We then reward our dog in the same manner as before for lowering the tension of the visual encounter.

GUEST BLOG: Dave Trowbridge on Tajji and the BAT

Dave and I continue to alternate "dog blogs" on the rehabilitation of our newly-adopted retired seeing eye dog, who has extreme reactivity to other dogs.

Practicing "Puppy Zen"

Dave: Since Tajji’s last class, we’ve been working her frequently and most particularly on voluntary head-turns, as requested by Sandy Pensinger, our trainer. You simply start rewarding any turn of the head towards you, no matter how feeble, under very low-distraction conditions. Then build towards a real check-in with you.

At today’s class, we saw the payoff, which came despite a serious lapse in training the day before that I’ll describe later. We practiced a training method called Behavior Adjustment Training (BAT), which basically involves setting up safe situations in which the dog can learn to manage its reactivity.

The week before we had done desensitization via classical conditioning: exposing Tajji to another dog far away and rewarding her as soon as she noticed it by running away to behind a blind, T-touching her and praising her, and then giving her a treat. This kind of training will help her eventually understand that good things happen when other dogs appear, which helps increase her threshold. (Deborah: The picture shows us practicing a focus exercise, in which the dog is rewarded for sitting very still -- calming herself -- while a tasty treat is slowly lowered.)

The Tajji Diaries – Every Dog Is Different

As Tajji, the retired seeing eye dog that we are rehabilitating for extreme reactivity to other dogs, progresses through her curriculum, one thing stands out over and over again: every dog is different. It’s one of those utterly banal, self-evident statements, and yet how many times do we, even knowledgeable dog owners, take a one-size-fits-all approach to their behavior?

Each of the four dogs in the class (Reactive Rover, taught by Sandi Pensinger of Living With Dogs) is reactive in some way. To other dogs, to strange people, to sudden noises. Yet even dogs who are triggered by the same type of stimulus express their distress in different ways. For example, both Tajji and George are reactive to other dogs. Tajji has greatest difficulties with small dogs, while George, a solidly-built chocolate Labrador owned by an elderly woman, reacts most strongly to other large dogs. We have no history on Tajji’s problems, except for her fractured tooth, whereas George’s problems stem from a specific constellation of events – the deaths of his male owner and his female canine companion plus an attack by another large dog. Tajji has extremely good eyesight and could easily spot a small dog on the other end of the field (275 feet) while George did not appear to notice the small dog until he had advanced quite a bit closer than that. 

Sandi's dog, Pilot - very scary!

Today’s exercise, as you can tell, involved exposure to a “decoy” – last week it was a stuffed dog, this week a well-mannered small dog. The decoy would be led out from behind a blind (a waist-high portable screen) at the far end of the field. If the student dog did not notice, its handler would take a step at a time toward the decoy, waiting after each step.

For Tajji, just being out on the field with strange people and all the smells of other dogs was arousing. She gave lots of signals of being under stress (including shedding, something we noticed as we petted her in long, soothing strokes) in just the walk from the car to the canopied area where the other human students were seated. This was after we had arrived early to give Tajji a chance to sniff around, stretch her legs, and generally get happy in the field. We’d signed up for a one-dog-only play session Monday morning and she had a wonderful time practicing her relaxation lessons and then chasing a ball.

GUEST BLOG: Dave Trowbridge on Tajji's continued progress

Dave and I have been taking turns blogging about Tajji over on Book View Cafe. For those folks following the saga of rehabilitating a retired seeing eye dog here, here's the latest entry.

The intrepid "swamp collie"*

I suppose everyone has had the experience of looking into an animal’s eyes and wondering what thoughts were passing through its mind, or how it was experiencing the moment. When learning to train an animal, the wonder becomes tinged with frustration, as one realizes how poorly one hears the animal even when it’s frantically semaphoring its thoughts and emotions. What chance of sensing its internal life, then, when the animal is quiet?

Looking back from the other end of the leash, such uncertainty disappears. As the result of hundreds of centuries of co-evolution with mankind, Tajji’s mirror neurons give her a pretty good model of my internal life, as far as her purposes are concerned. And what she lacks in empathy, she makes up for with the startling speed with which she learns the rituals of play or training or everyday life.


Paradoxically, the combination of two highly desirable canine traits, empathy and trainability, yields a dog that can actually be more difficult to train. For instance, two of the drills we do with her daily if possible are the “name game” and “puppy in the middle.” In the name game, you throw a piece of food on the ground in front of the dog. As soon as the dog is finished eating, but before it lifts its head, you call its name, then mark and reward any turn of the head towards you. In “puppy in the middle,” two people take turns calling the dog away from the other partner, rewarding in the same fashion for a head turn or, hopefully soon, the dog’s return.

The Tajji Diaries: Rehearsal and Reversal

 We’ve started the Reactive Rover class given by Sandi Pensinger of Living With Dogs, in order to help Tajji with her reactivity to dogs and, to a lesser extent, people she doesn’t know. The first two sessions were watching videos about reading canine body language and specific relaxation techniques. We’d recently seen both, as Sandi invited us to attend the “classroom” part for a previous class that was full. Because the dogs work individually in the “fieldwork” part of the course, each class limited to four dogs. So watching them this time was a repetition.

We felt Tajji had made progress on her walks. She’d gone from barking at pedestrians to looking at them and walking by. Although she still reacted to other dogs, even at extreme distance, we were piling up more times when she came away with us readily, sometimes with a bark or just a huff. There were even instances where she was able to look at the other dog – the old black Labrador who shuffles very slowly up and down the street and then lies down in the sun, in particular – without barking. 

So when Sandi, our teacher, said to not give our dogs any opportunity to “rehearse” reactivity, we thought we were doing pretty well, anyway. The idea is that the more times the dog reacts – barking, lunging, (heaven forbid) biting, piloerection (that’s hairs standing up along the spine), etc., the more deeply that behavior gets “etched” into the dog’s brain. She compared it to a road, where each passage digs deeper and deeper ruts, ruts that become more progressively difficult to jump out of. While we are creating new, positive behaviors, we want to not give our dog the chance to “rehearse” the old ones as well.

The Tajji Diaries: Threshold Success

Tajji, our newly-adopted retired seeing eye dog, came to us with strong reactivity to pedestrians and especially to other dogs. She would bark and lunge as soon as she saw any “triggering” stimulus, and her vision is excellent. Sometimes, she would be triggered when the other dog or person was 1/8 mile away. This distance is called the threshold of arousal, meaning that stimuli farther away don’t cause the dog to “go ballistic.” Tajji’s threshold was so long, she basically didn’t have one. If she could see the dog, she reacted.

We’ve been working on decreasing her reactivity and giving her alternative, highly rewarded behaviors. These have included teaching her eye contact (“Look!”), hand targeting (“Touch!”), sniffing (a self-calming activity), and puppy zen, a calming exercise. We have also been as careful as we can to remove her from any situation where she is overwhelmed.

After a time of regular practice, we noticed that when we turned and walked her briskly away from the other dog, she calmed down in a shorter period of time. We were able to turn her back around to face the other dog, rewarding her for calm behavior. One of the lessons was that we would protect her, that she could trust us to not force her into a situation she couldn’t manage. Then we started to see her attempt to calm herself, mostly by sniffing, but occasionally using the non-threatening gesture “Look Away.”

A couple of weeks ago, we noticed that Tajji’s reactivity to pedestrians was markedly reduced. Using the calming techniques that were now familiar to her, we helped her to tolerate increasingly short distances from the folks walking in our neighborhood. Eventually, she was able to do a “pass by” without becoming reactive.

But would she ever be able to do that with dogs?

The Tajji Diaries: Confidence and Joy

Waiting for the ball

 Our friend Mitch Wagner recently adopted a female shepherd/basenji/terrier mix  that shares some of Tajji’s “issues. He writes that Minnie “lunges and goes nuts when she approaches another dog when we're walking.” One of the things we’ve learned from our trainer, Sandi Pensinger, is that this kind of excitement is not fun for dogs. Whatever their specific history, they act this way because they’re overwhelmed. They no longer can calm themselves or communicate friendly intentions to the other dog. One way to look at this is the dog attempting a “pre-emptive strike” because bad things have happened around other dogs in the past. Dogs on leashes are particularly vulnerable to feeling threatened, because their freedom to act in their own defense (or escape) is impaired. Dogs that are tied up are particularly dangerous.

Another way of thinking about this behavior is in terms of self-confidence and trust. A confident dog with good social skills with other dogs is capable of lowering the tension not only in herself but in the other dog as well. Contrary to the “alpha dog/dominance” model, dogs are highly cooperative, social animals. They communicate their feelings and intentions to one another all the time, and many of these signals are calming signals. In earlier blogs, I’ve discussed how Tajji learned to communicate her peaceful intentions to the cats once she’d found a signal they both understood – the “look-away.” Turid Rugaas’s book On Talking Terms With Dogs: Calming Signals beautifully illustrates this. Here is a slide show from her book, illustrating the “look-away,” play bows, lip licking, and lying down, all powerful calming signals. 

Dogs who are poorly socialized with other dogs or who have had traumatic experiences can be easily overwhelmed (“flooded” with negative stimuli), especially in situations where the other dog is approaching head-on. A direct approach is threatening, as is fixed eye contact. Our dogs need our help in reducing the degree of threat and resulting arousal. The dogs in Rugaas’s slide show aren’t “friendly” in the human sense, but they have excellent social skills and confidence in themselves.

How do we help a dog re-build her self-confidence?

GUEST BLOG: Thoughts on Daoism and Dog Training from Dave Trowbridge

In "the meadow"

“Rulers should always avoid giving commands…for commands, being direct and verbal, always bring to the subject’s mind the possibility of doing the opposite. But since rituals are non-verbal, they have no contraries. They can therefore be used to produce harmony of wills and actions without provoking recalcitrance; if a man finds himself playing his appointed part in li [ritual] and thus already — as it were de facto — in harmony with others, it no more occurs to him than it occurs to a dancer to move to a different rhythm than that being played by the orchestra.” 

Master Zhuang, 4^th century BCE Daoist philosopher
and proto-anarchist

That quotation was seminal in creating the anarcho-monarchical politics of the Panarchy, the interstellar polity that’s the setting of the space opera Exordium. The Panarchs and Kyriarchs all wielded theoretically unlimited power, but most of them died, or were killed, before they learn how to work the hyper-complex network of interlocking traditions, institutions, and governance that executes their will.

It’s also, I now find, a perfect encapsulation of the rather Daoist aspects of the positive dog training techniques that Deborah and I are using to rehabilitate Tajji, a process more like conversation than education, and certainly one in which learning flows both ways. Certainly, our work with Tajji is teaching me that much of dog training, if not all, is about the negotiation, establishment, and performance of rituals rather than the issuing of commands.

As Master Zhuang might have said, those who do not acknowledge the power of ritual will find themselves helpless against it, and it can be argued that this is a fundamental reason there are so many ill-trained dogs in the world: dogs that have established their rituals as the rule of life for a household.

GUEST BLOG: Dave Trowbridge on Rehabilitating Our "New" Old Dog

One of the joys of having a dog-savvy partner is being able to compare notes, especially when faced with a challenged dog. Here are some insights from my husband.

When we began looking into ways to rehabilitate Tajji, at least one source noted a tendency for a dog to backslide for “three to seven days” in the relatively complex training required. Two weeks ago we noted something like this in a rebound in Tajji’s reactivity to other dogs, culminating a couple of days ago in her “going off” at an empty yard where she frequently sees a reactive GSD, then nowhere in evidence. About a week ago she added  barking at pedestrians at some distance. Despite the warning, her regression was a bit disheartening after the more rapid progress of the previous five weeks.

Enlightenment followed last Tuesday, in conversation with one of Tajji’s former owners. Deborah and I had misunderstood the order of events, believing that Tajji’s disorderly behavior was the result of not knowing how to behave outside a service harness. Instead, it turns out that the barking and lunging had developed while she was working. Of course, her blind person had little or no warning, and it got so bad that people were crossing the street to avoid her.  Her owners worked with more than one professional trainer, but nothing helped, and so she was retired.

In short, she had a nervous breakdown.

How To Be A Dog: Walkies

Hanging out

When she came to live with us, our retired seeing eye dog, Tajji, had on on/off switch. “On” meant working on a rigid guide harness, focusing on all the things she had been taught to do for her blind handler, to the exclusion of all else. Guide work is enormously demanding for the dog, both physically and mentally. The dog must learn many behaviors (such as looking both ways when passing through a door or stepping off a curb into a street) and must perform them reliably. In addition, she must be strong enough to physically pull her person out of harm’s way. “Off” meant “no holds barred, completely off duty.” According to her former owner, this included pulling hard on the leash, playing “keep away,” jumping up on people, and barking and lunging at other dogs. We very soon witnessed all of these behaviors, all of them unacceptable in a companion animal. Now Tajji must learn a new set of behaviors: “normal manners.”

One of life’s joys is taking your dog for a walk. It’s not only good exercise, it’s a conversation between you. Even if you’re walking and talking with a human friend, you and the dog can be in communication. When we looked at Tajji’s challenges, we saw several distinct behaviors to work on.

• Walking on a loose leash, both beside the human handler and at a distance, depending on the length of the leash. 
• Enjoying the banquet of smells, but coming back to heel readily when called.
• “Checking in” with the handler.
• Walking calmly past other dogs and humans; approaching them only when released to do so. Greeting humans in a calm way.

Dog-reactivity is a big chunk, so we’re working on that separately. First, we needed to get Tajji solid with the first three skills. She already had the foundational skills of Sit, Stay (Wait), and Down, although her Heel and Come are not reliable when she’s in full-blown “off” mode, so they’ll need more work.

To help Tajji learn not to pull, we decided to never attach a leash to her flat leather collar. Previously, that’s the setup in which she pulled strongly, so we don’t want to replicate those conditions. Dogs have a reflex to push against any pressure on neck or chest, so a flat collar (or even a choke chain, which we do not use on our dogs) gives them that signal. Instead, we chose a front-clip harness. This is a soft nylon webbing harness, so it’s not like the rigid leather guide harness, and it has a clip in the center of the chest strap. When the dog pulls, she is turned toward the side of the leash. This often breaks her focus on whatever it is she is moving toward, as well as restraining her in a humane way.

Go Sniff

Coming back to Heel

Tajji quickly adapted to the harness, which stopped almost all of the pulling (except in the presence of other dogs). We then used clicker-training to reward walking close to us or coming back to Heel when called. Because we live in a semi-rural setting and there are so many wonderful things to smell (traces of other dogs, wild animals), we don’t want to keep her in strict Heel position all the time – we want her to have fun on the walks! At first, she was hesitant to leave the side of her handler, undoubtedly a holdover from her previous work training and having lived in an apartment in a small city. So we encouraged her to Go Sniff. This skill has the added advantage that sniffing the ground is a calming behavior for dogs and we’ll be able to use it as a relaxation technique when we work on Tajji’s dog reactivity.

Practicing Look

Check In, loose leash

Checking in is a variation on Look, one of the things we teach all our dogs. It’s a way of asking the dog to pay attention to us. Eye contact isn’t natural for dogs, the way it is for people, so we practiced it with the clicker and treats indoors, where there are fewer distractions. Once she learned the command Look, we were able to practice it outside (click/treat) and then to click/treat when the behavior is offered without the command. All the while telling her what a good job she’s doing, of course.

Now we have the foundations for a pleasant walk with a dog who keeps in touch with us while “enjoying the scenery” within the length of the leash.

Writing Science Fiction and Reading Canine Body Language

Our German Shepherd Dog, Oka, developed fear-aggression after being attacked by other dogs. I watched him go from "Another dog! Hooray -- great fun, great smells!" to "Another dog -- oh no, OH NO -- he's after me -- ohhelpwhatdoIdo -- Pre-emptive Strike!"

After wrestling with 90 pounds of fit, not to mention intense, dog in self-defense mode, we enrolled in a "difficult dog class." This was my first experience of a dog class, let alone one based on positive training techniques. Several things quickly became clear to me.

One, our dog really wants to please us but much of the time, he hasn't the foggiest notion what we want. What he notices is not necessarily what we think is the major point of the communication. So it's up to us to give him cues and feedback that make sense in dog-experience.

Two, dogs learn from consequences and the shorter the time between action and consequence, the better. There are all kinds of other things happening at any moment in time, things the dog may associate with the behavior in question but of which we are unaware. We need to learn a new way of paying attention, but it never hurts to be in control of a consequence that has a high value for the dog. In Oka's case, that's bits of freeze-dried salmon. This is not "bribery." It's using a powerful reinforcer to let the dog know the behavior is desirable. Salmon equals good. Loose-lease walking past another dog equals salmon equals good.

Three, and most importantly, Oka is very clear in communicating what's going on with him. A huge chunk of the fear-aggression problem was my not understanding when he tells me he's anxious or fearful. I had to learn, for instance, that an off-leash dog bounding "playfully" on a direct path toward him (non-threatening dogs approach a strange dog calmly and on a curved path) is certain to elicit signs of anxiety -- ears pinned forward, body tense, gaze fixed -- even before the fur rises in his ruff.

After immersing myself in books on canine body language, I began seeing mistakes in my own inter-species communication. It's natural for us as primates to use primate-friendly language when greeting a dog. We make eye contact, we bend over. (We also make ridiculous chirping noises.) Direct eye contact is a signal of aggression in dogs (polite dogs soften their gaze and look away to indicate their non-threatening intentions). Bending over a dog is dominance behavior, which makes many dogs uncomfortable or fearful. I've had occasion to practice polite dog language in greeting: look away, soft eyes, don't bend over the dog but beside it, approach slowly, maintain distance if the dog exhibits symptoms of distress. I'm amazed at the clearness of their response, often an immediate relaxation of their anxious body-language.

The situation got even more interesting when we introduced two young cats to the household. One had learned that dogs were Dangerous Cat-Eating Monsters; the other hadn't figured them out yet and decided Oka was a sort of overgrown, illiterate big brother. Watching these two, each trying to communicate in his own body language, each puzzled by the other's response, has been fascinating.

As a primate, I know I'm seeing only a fraction of the interaction. I notice the commonality of "predator stare" and "look away." "I just don't get what that ear position means" (cat) is matched by "I'm signaling submissive 'puppy-ears' but he isn't getting it" (dog). This reminds me of conversations I used to have with a co-worker, he in Spanish and me in French.

Eventually Oka decided that "freeze" was a safe response and Shakir took his immobility as an invitation to come rub against him. Once the dog had discovered a successful approach to non-provoking behavior, he decided to try it out on the other cat. She was not impressed at first, but as she relaxed, her curiosity came forth. She was clearly interested in his smell, now that he would stand still long enough for her to feel safe.

As a writer of science fiction and fantasy, I create alien races and strange, divergent human cultures. I don't want my aliens to be actors with bumpy foreheads. That's sloppy writing. Neither do I want to see my animals as people with fur. That's even sloppier thinking. The lure of projecting human reactions and emotions not only leads to misunderstandings, usually at the pet's expense, but deprives us of the opportunity to get outside our own primate limitations and see the world in a new way.