What I think veterinarians need to know about dog training: Part One

Recently I was asked to give a presentation to the Mississippi State Veterinary School’s Behavior Club. I spoke to about 90 vet students on dog behavior and training. It was a challenge to distill down into two hours the things that I think are most important about dog training and behavior. This a topic after all is one that I can, and have, spent days talking about! Having worked at a vet school for a great many years I also know that there is a surprisingly very wide range in the degree of animal knowledge and skill amongst veterinary students. This is especially true in regards to their understanding the non-medical aspects of our interactions with animals. In the first part of my talk I wanted to make a brief overview of training and behavior and then get to police dog training and demos.

So here is what I consider most important for the former part:

First, dogs are not wolves. Comparing dog behavior to wolf behavior is a flawed way to understand dogs.  There is a very wide genetic divergence in the canid family tree between wolves and dogs. Dogs have been selectively bred for a great many characteristics and traits that make them compatible with humans and pretty poorly functioning wolves. Much of the wolf observations that have led people to apply wolf behavior to dogs were based on observations of captive wolves. These were often unrelated animals existing in an artificial environment.  Don’t get me wrong; I think wolf behavior is fascinating, but it should not be depended on to interpret domestic dog behavior.

Second, people are not dogs. We cannot interact with dogs as if we were a wolf or another dog – they can learn our communication skills and we can learn theirs. We can find some common bonds – I can understand their distance increasing signals and they can figure out sarcastic humor. However we have to acknowledge that, no matter how good our communication skills are, we are still interacting as two different species. I suspect that dogs regard some of us who try to emulate dog body language as akin to the person who goes to a foreign country and tries to speak the language very slowly and much louder than necessary. Just hang a big “I ain’t from around here” sign on your neck.

Third, it IS extremely important to understand the dog’s body language. But learn this from a person with a proven knowledge base, not a self declared expert without real credentials at training or behavior modification. Veterinarians especially need to understand the behavioral and physiological effects of stress. At a minimum they need to learn to recognize distance increasing signals – behaviors that dogs exhibit in order to avoid a confrontation, the “please don’t make me have to bite you” behavior. A good resource is Brenda Aloff’s Photographic Guide to Dog Body Language; it is excellent and should be on every dog trainer’s book shelf.

To Be Continued….(See I said there was a lot of information! I had to talk really fast!)