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anything that smells of you can destroy everything.

Gradually throwr simply place-the dumbbell he retrieves with ease closer and closer to the other odorless dumbbells. Work at this for five to ten minutes, and stop for about half an hour or so to let both you and your dog rest. If he gets tired or bored, he won't want to retrieve any dumbbell. Moreover, if you are working him outdoors in the summer, make sure that you do so early in the morning or in the early evening. Never work in the hot sun, because it could do your dog harm. The only tricks to do at this time of day are water tricks. Keep throwing or placing

 your dumbbell closer and closer to the others until eventually it is right next to them. Your dog should automatically pick out the familiar one, and if so, the trick is done! If he takes the wrong one, tell him "no" and make him drop it, as he has been taught. Go back to throwing or placing it at a distance from the others, and gradually bring it closer again. To make your dog perform properly, make sure you know what you're doing. One of my clients complained to me that his dog could not do this trick no matter how hard and long he worked on it, so I went over to check on exactly what he was doing. When I got there, he proceeded to demonstrate. He threw a dumbbell out as far as he could in one direc tion, and when the dog took off after it, he quickly and daintily picked up two other dumbbells, one in each hand by the thumb and forefinger, and ran on tiptoe very quietly in the opposite direction. He then dropped them quickly and ran back to his original position. When I asked him what on earth he was doing, he explained that this was where his dog broke down. He kept on hiding these two other dumbbells with his scent on them, but his dog couldn't find them at all. I had to explain that no dog is going to keep sniffing around after he's already fetched one object and that, moreover, this trick is an exercise in scent discrimination, not a scavenger hunt. The fact that he had missed the point of the exercise completely didn't surprise me as much as the fantastic speed with which the owner executed this whole procedure. After your dog can handle one dumbbell out of three, you can start to use different objects. Eeither have him pick the correct object from among several identical ones, or from a variety of different objects. But when working with a number of identical objects, remember to mark the correct one so you can be sure that he retrieved it. Your sense of smell isn't as keen as his. Shopping The ultimate in fetching stunts is Plum's feat of shopping for his own dog food in my absence, as was mentioned in the first chapter. Again, this is the result of a long series of separate tricks that were eventually chained together to form one. The best way to explain this trick is to tell you how I taught my dog to do it. I cannot give you exact directions, since I don't know what the shopping situation is like in your neighborhood. I think that by changing a few particulars, you can probably teach your own dog to shop. The first thing I did was to take Plum over to the dog-food shelves in the local supermarket-with the manager's permission, of course. I would bring a piece of dog candy, put it on the shelf just a few inches from the edge, and then let Plum take it and eat it. I did this until, whenever we went into the supermarket, Plum would go straight to the dog-food shelf to get his candy. Once this was a well-established pattern of behavior, I had one of the store assistants place the treat on the shelf for me. This way Plum no longer waited for me to put it there. The next step was to make him sit in front of the shelf and not allow him to take the candy, which had already been placed there before our arrival. Instead, I would place two cans just in front of the candy, making sure he could see that it was still there. I would then tell him to get his treat, and to do so he had to take it from behind the cans. Once we established this, I proceeded to place a bunch of cans on eeither side of the original two, leaving just enough space for Plum to insert his nose. However, the space was just small enough that in order actually to pick up the candy, Plum would have to knock the two cans in front of it off the shelf. I kept at this until he went straight for the shelf, didn't even bother to sniff, but simply knocked off those two cans. Needless to say, the candy was always there, not to disappoint him. I then started on another step involving the commands, "take it," "hold it," and "drop it," all of which your dog should know by now. Whenever I went into the supermarket, I made Plum pick up or "take" one of the small carry-around shopping baskets that most stores have in 159 addition to carts. I then heeled him to the dog-food shelf, making him hold the basket in his mouth all the way. When we got over to the shelf, I sat him down with the basket in his mouth, directly in front of the two cans hiding his treat. I then gave him the command to "drop it." He simply dropped the basket to the ground, directly in front of the cans. Then I told him to get his treat, which he did, and by doing so, knocked (D 161 the cans into the basket. After he ate his candy, I told him to pick up or "take" the basket, "hold it," and then "heel," until we got to the counter.

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This will make sure that the dog knows that you are asking him to jump

Once your dog is bounding over whatever you point to (as long as it's within his reach), then you can proceed to teach him trick jumping such as through a hoop. Most owners don't realize that the concept of jumping through a hoop is simply not a natural act for an animal. Originally your pet cleared the hurdle because it was set up in a doorway and the only way for him to get "around" it was in a vertical direction. He thus learned the concept of up and over, but if I ask my dog to jump a vertical object like a garbage can and he thinks it's a bit too high for 

him, he will jump, but slightly to one side of the can, just to protect himself. An animal is used to going to one side, or under, or over obstacles, and sees no point in going through them unless the aperture is like a doorway, enclosed on all sides. To be able to jump through a hoop, he must learn to go over the bottom, under the top, and between the two sides, which is slightly more complex than a simple flying leap. Take a large hula hoop, wrap it all around with toweling, and set up the original hurdle you used when you first started to teach your dog to jump. Put the leash on your dog and place him on one side of the hurdle. Then feed the end of the leash through the hoop and place yourself on the 148 opposite side of the hurdle, holding the leash with one hand and the hoop steady on top of the hurdle with the other. Then giving the command "jump," pull your dog over the hurdle and through the hoop. Continue in the same way you did when first teaching your dog to jump over. Once he gets the idea, remove the hurdle and hope for the best. again, don't forget this is not a natural act for a dog, so use a great deal of patience and plenty of praise. It may help if there's another dog around who can perform the trick perfectly. Then your dog is likely to pick up the concept and do it properly. But conversely, don't train more than one dog at a time, since the results can be disastrous when each dog picks up the mistakes of his fellow pupil. I once tried to show a friend that my dogs were trained to jump through things. I took a large, roughly circular wire sculpture down off its pedestal and placed it, neatly blocking a doorway, then told my dogs to jump through the central aperture. This should have worked, except that the first small Maltese, who came to the doorway first, had never jumped through this particular apparatus before. So instead of risking a jump and possibly getting hurt, he simply evaded the issue-ducked his head and squeezed under the sculpture's lower hoop. The other Maltases followed suit. My Weimaraner, following after them, naturally tried to go under it himself, but not being built so close to the ground, he only succeeded in shouldering the sculpture off balance. It capsized with a terrible clatter, and he had to scramble frantically to get out of the way. The piece wasn't damaged, but it became more difficult for me to teach him to jump through that particular sculpture, since his first try ended in racket and embarrassment "Out" or "Go" Certain exercises such as jumping, fetching, and tracking are directed from a distance. If the command "out" or "go" is taught correctly, you can send your dog out in any direction you want, merely by pointing in that direction-and when he gets there, your can give him any other commands you want. He should, of course, respond immediately to these other commands, for at this point in his training you should already have taught your dog all the very basic commands, and he should really enjoy doing them to please you. At the same time, the "out, or "go" command is a means of getting your dog used to moving in whatever direction your hand points. You can also use this command, of course, when you simply don't want your dog around-but be careful. Many people have a tendency to use it as a reprimand, like sending a child to bed without supper. This technique does not work with dogs any better than it does with children. In fact, it has even less effect with a dog, because he does not understand what you are trying to do. Many people make the related error of saying "go away" or "get out of here" when their dog has done something wrong. This is a very bad mistake, as the dog may never learn the "go" or "out" command correctly once it has been used as a punishment. I don't say to be nice to your dog after he has done something wrong. I mean that you should reprimand him immediately and then ignore him, but never send him from you as a punishment. To make your dog understand the word "out" or "go," whichever you prefer or the obedience trials demand, start teaching your dog indoors, where you can control his movements. First put a leash on your dog and walk him over to a doorway. Then gently push or pull his leash until he crosses over the threshold into the other room, but don't cross over yourself. At the same time, give the command "out" or "go," pointing with one hand. When he gets there, tell him "stay," go to him and praise him very enthusiastically. Passing from one room to another gives him a very definite objective, and he can easily associate the word with crossing the threshold. You must show excitement in your praise because 149 your dog has learned to be secure in your company-so when first doing this, he may think you are sending him away because you are displeased ,with him, and sulk out of the room. If you praise him with great gusto, he will quickly get the idea that it is a good thing to do. Continue this exercise till the dog seems to be going through the doorway on his own or with very little help. Then go on to the next step. Take off the leash. Sit him facing the open doorway. Stand on his right side and point to the doorway, giving the command "out" or "go." If he does it properly, go to him and praise him, then repeat this exercise going in the opposite direction through the doorway. If he doesn't respond, nudge him through, and praise him when he's completed it. Continue this exercise, gradually increasing your mutual distance from the doorway. But do not try to increase the distance until he is completely ready. If he fails to respond properly at any point, then go back a step until he is responding perfectly to both voice and hand commands. Remember to say "out, only once. If he refuses to respond to your command, you must make him do so. Start walking into him, pushing him out. You must stop the instant he starts going on his own, and praise him when he does the right thing, which in this case is when he gets through the doorway. Once he seems to have this down pat, then take him to other rooms and do the same exercise. This will get him accustomed to working in different areas. Always remember to start working with your dog at a very close distance to the doorway, and as he learns the command, gradually increase the distance.

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limitations on the tricks which dogs can perform?

it may not seem so, because your dog's ancestors have endowed him with a remarkable physical agility. I once went down the steps to a California beach, leaving Sleepy, my four-pound Maltese on the rocky cliff thirty feet above. I assumed he would use the steps too. But instead, the dog simply launched himself over the cliff in a series of short jumps from rock to rock. If he missed his footing, he still had enough stamina to leap back to his previous takeoff point, a feat generally conceded only to mountain goats. Your dog can charge right at 

you and stop short, without touching you. In fact, a running dog will often brake so fast with his front feet that his hindquarters swing around into a new position, ready to launch his body in a new direction. This action is like the controlled skid employed by racing drivers. Have you ever seen a dog and his master walking down a street where the local animals haven't been curbed? The man will usually step right in a pile, the dog never. Even when a dog's running, he's surefooted enough not to put his paws in the wrong place. Unless, of course, he doesn't know it's a wrong place-if, for instance, he hasn't learned to avoid the glint of a broken bottle. Most of the time a dog will do anything for you. If something is too difficult to do, he usually just won't do it. But since he can't anticipate, he must learn by trial and error, and an eager owner can sometimes push his dog too far. When teaching your dog to do anything, check ahead of time to be sure that he is perfectly safe. There should be no surprises, otherwise you'll scare him, and he'll never trust you. Surprises have a place, but for punishments and reprimands only. Common sense should tell you that not all dogs can do the same things. For instance, you can't expect a ten-pound dog to jump a six-foot fence. You wouldn't want to teach a dachshund to sit up on his hind legs, because his back couldn't support him. In general, great Danes should not be taught to jump over objects. Instead of strengthening their hind quarters, as it would, say, a German shepherd, the weight of the too-heavy body could damage them. Some exercises are within a dog's capability, but are simply too complex for any but an experienced trainer to teach. One woman had seen a Lhasa do a somersault number on a television show and wanted her very own acrobatic apso. I old her that her dog could probably learn the stunt, but that I would have to teach the dog personally. I don't attempt to teach owners to teach their dogs any complicated acrobatics that can cause physical injury to eeither dog or owner. I feel that the average person, no matter how well trained his dog may be, is not qualified to teach such things, because great precaution and many years of experience are required. I don't want to see any dog get hurt, so stick to the simple but effective tricks that both you and your dog can handle. Don't expect too much of your dog. Allow him his doghood. He's not meant to be an entertainer. Some of the tricks in this book may seem almost incredibly advanced, but none of them puts your dog in the least physical danger. Nor are they the last word in dog training. They're simply a primer to show you what can be done. It's up to the individual owner to think of new stunts and try them out. Don't try to make an animal go completely against his nature, because it is so much easier to work with what is already there. just as each breed was bred for specific purposes, they have certain strong points and certain weaknesses, and you should take them into account. Hunting dogs are very good at any retrieving tricks, and tricks involving the sense of smell. You might use your collie or Hungarian pull to round up the children as he would sheep, for these are herding-type dogs. A water spaniel or Labrador retriever can be taught to ride on a surfing mat at the beach or dive down under water to retrieve clams from the bottom. Use your common sense along with your imagination and think up little tricks for your dog to learn in accordance with his breed and background. "roll Over" and "Play Dead" Many times I have to convince my clients that exercising the dog in obedience is the best way to get him to perform well. One lady got her dog to roll over by using a hair dryer on him. I explained that she could have had him do the same thing without props, after some constant coaxing and practice. When teaching your dog to roll over, you must remember that he doesn't really like to do this. It tends to throw him off balance, and an animal likes to be in complete control of his body at all times. Rolling over is not harmful in any way, however, and is a cute trick. This is one of the few tricks for which I use a treat in training the dog. First make your dog lie down, then take a dog biscuit and tempt him with it, while holding him in a lying position. When he starts to get interested in it, pass it in a circular motion over his shoulders and around his back very slowly, keeping it just out of reach of his mouth

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Make sure he is perfect here before trying him without restrictions.

Work with him step by step, as you did when you first started to teach him the heel command. Place your dog at your left side in the heel position and, instead of jerking the leash, slap your left thigh with your left hand and give the command "heel." If he refuses to heel, then put the leash on him and heel him with the leash. After you feel he is ready, try him once more. Then, increase heeling off the leash in the same way you did heeling on the leash. PART FOUR Tricks and Advanced Training Tricks-an Introduction Once the chewing or biting 

or barking have been stopped, satisfied clients frequently decide that tricks are in order. I agree, but only after a dog has totally forgotten all his bad habits and is thoroughly housebroken and obedience-trained. I consider tricks to be a bonus. Always make sure that your dog has a thorough basic obedience background before you attempt any tricks with him. Trick training will do no good and could be a complete frustration to you if your dog doesn't understand basic commands, since all basic commands are integrated in some way with the actual performance of any trick. If you have already taught your dog "sit," stay, "lie," "down," and 'come," and you find any one of these commands isn't working properly, then forget everything else. Go back and work only with the command or exercise he is weak in. Do this exercise over and over until the dog responds perfectly. Only then can you go on to other commands. Always go back on any weak points you find in his basic training. Otherwise you will never be able to do more complex acts with your dog. Most owners, naturally, are interested in having their dogs perform for their friends. The cardinal rule here is to pretend that there are no other people present. Your dog is performing for you, and your satisfaction, not your guests'. In short, concentrate on your dog, not on his audience. If he does something out of step, the dog must be corrected immediately. Some people are embarrassed when their dogs don't per form, and just laugh it off, leaving their pet to his own devices. Such a dog will never perform properly. It is always a good idea to review his basic commands once in a while, even after he is perfect in them. After he executes all the basic commands perfectly, then start to mix the order in which you give the commands to your dog. This is to keep him aware and ready to do what you want. If you always tell him to sit, then lie, he is going to start anticipating. So, when you tell him to sit, he might just lie down, knowing that command comes next. On the other hand, you will want your dog to anticipate in just this fashion while teaching most of the tricks in this book. You will 138 139 be linking basic commands together for greater effect, and eventually your dog will begin to anticipate, and will learn a routine that he will perform consistently after you give him only a single command. When teaching a dog any advanced obedience training, hand commands are often the only way to communicate and get him to respond to you. For instance, one of the simplest but most sought-after tricks is having your dog "shake hands," that is, extend his paw when anyone makes the gesture of wanting to take it. This trick is even taught with body language, in fact. Simply tell your dog to sit and stay. Extend your hand as you would when you go to shake hands, and with your other hand gently push him to one side, throwing him slightly off balance, at the same time saying "shake hands." He will automatically lift his paw in order to regain his balance. At this point, simply take hold of his paw and shake it, saying "good boy." By placing your hand close to the paw you want, you can get him to give you the paw of your choice on command, even to the extent of teaching him to respond to "left' or "right." But whether your friends approach him with "give me some skin," "puter there," or whatever, he will still understand and "shake" whenever he sees their hand coming in the appropriate gesture. Some training manuals give hand commands that do not direct the dog but only look good. Ideally, your hand commands eventually become the trigger of any trick. For instance, in teaching a dog to jump, you constantly use the word "jump" at the time that he actually goes over the object. This way he eventually learns to associate the word with the action of jumping, but at the same time, he will also learn your accompanying gesture. At first this gesture must be very expansive, but eventually you can do it in a more contained way, so that finally a very small, even unnoticeable, gesture can be used to trigger a command. Some animals are more attuned to visual cues than others. This does not depend on breed necessarily, but on the individual dog. If you work fairly close to any animal and coordinate your voice and hand commands with the movements of your head and eyes, eventually-by always working step by step-you should be able to get the dog to respond solely to changes in your facial expression. However, this requires much concentrated hard work. If on television or in the movies you see a dog picking one object out of four and you can't hear his onstage trainer saying anything, he is most probably giving a head or eye command. This is total body communication between dog and trainer, and in my opinion is the greatest form of dog training. If a dog learns to respond to the basic hand commands from the very beginning, these can eventually be linked together to form a more complex command which he will be able to perform as long as he watches your hands. Ultimately, you should be able to guide your dog by hand commands the way a conductor leads an orchestra.

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My Philosophy on Dog Training part 3

Once your dog's entire makeup is clear to you, you'll find it easier to do the right thing automatically. And knowing the full range of feats that dogs can perform will give you greater confidence for the more elementary steps. The Love Fallacy One of the chief reasons we have difficulty understanding dogs is, paradoxically, because.they've been associated with us for such a long time-so much so that we take them for granted. The first evidence of dog's association with man is found at the Mesolithic site of Star Carr in England about 9500 B.c when the 

dog's superior sense of smell probably directed man to within bowshot of food animals. Recently in the ruins of Pompeii the lava casts of the bodies of a little boy and his huge dog were found. On the dog's bronze collar was the still legible inscription: "This dog has saved his little master three times once from fire, once from drowning, and once from thieves." The dog had obviously tried to rescue his master once more. * Very few domestic animals were found in the archaeological excavations of Pompeii. Animals instinctively know of impending catastrophe, and obviously most of the dogs fled before the eruption occurred. The night before the San Francisco earthquake in 1906, dogs barked strangely. Horses snorted and stampeded minutes before anyone realized what was going on. In the mountains of Sicily, people leave their houses should the dogs suddenly exit. * In England,medals and trophies are awarded for canine bravery. One is the National Canine Defense League Medal, the dog's version of the Victoria Cross. Swansea Jack, a black retriever, saved twenty-seven people from drowning at the Swansea Docks and was awarded the dog's V.C. Chum was decorated by the Duke of Gloucester for bravery in saving two people from a fire. The dog was sixteen years old. John Garfield once turned down a film role which required him to mistreat a dog. "Slapping women, robbing kids, yes, but the public would never forgive anyone who kicked a dog." One of my most unforgettable clients was a man in his forties who had built a towering reputation in New York's manufacturing community. Midway through his executive life, he acquired a Newfoundland puppy. He found that he had barely enough time to play with the dog when he came home in the evening. Most owners would compromise with such a p full schedule, but not this gentleman. He retired from his enormously successful business and moved away from his family. During the winters he and the Newfoundland went to live in Florida, where he served as a cabana attendant. In the summers he came north again, to tend bar and have the full day to spend with his dog. For seven years he relished his full-time companionship, never missing his previously wealthy life. Then tragedy struck; the Newfoundland became ill with a spine problem. Over $ 10,000 was spent on surgery and recuperation kennels, but the dog was still unable to walk. His owner hired physiotherapists to take the dog swimming each day in the surf-but to no avail, and eventually he had his pet put to sleep. Heartbroken, the man no longer had any "excuse to keep on with his nomadic existence”. He went back to his old line of work, and in a few short months, he had turned a few inventive ideas into a fortune. This brought him no particular joy, but his success was a thorn in the side of his competitors who retaliated-if you can call it that-by leaving another lovely puppy literally on the doorstep of his brownstone. And indeed, he became so involved with his new pet that again he left his business to spend his waking hours with a four-legged companion. An unhappy majority of the population work at jobs they don't like, taking orders from others, forced to hold back their emotions. When they return home in the evening, their only emotional outlet is through their family or their pets. Those who live alone have no immediate family, so they use the dog to balance the day's ledgers either by being nice or being nasty. When they realize that the animal will accept them with no backtalk, they usually look forward to coming home and enjoying their animal. I always remind owners that the ultimate one-to-one relationship is with another person. But if a man wants to take a walk after supper to relax and do some heavy thinking, who does he choose to take along-his wife, his kids, or the dog? People can tell a dog anything, be inconsistent and ill-tempered, and still be assured of faithful love. Some people tell me that if it weren't for their dogs, they couldn't have gotten through moments of stress. When I'm bothered about certain things, I find it relaxing just walking and playing and even talking to my dog. My wife finds pleasure holding her dog in her arms and dancing with him to some good music. I hate to admit it, but if I had to choose between saving my dog and a total human stranger, I would probably save the dog. Check the daily listings in the newspapers lost-and-found column to see how much the average dog can mean to its owners. And once a dog is adopted into the family, no expense seems too high to be justified. An interesting example of this occurred to a New York couple, each of whom was extremely wrapped up in a career. They acquired a collie and since neither was able to walk the animal on any regular schedule, a professional dog walking service was hired. When the husband complained about the bills, the wife told him simply, ,It's too late. “The dog is already part of the family." The status conscious will pick a breed that's very showy and obviously very expensive: a saluki, Afghan, or Russian wolfhound. The dogs that New York's -swinging singles pick are all very good measurements of what the owners want you to think of them. But the owners who worry me are those who choose certain breeds to compensate for their own deficiencies. Some people want very aggressive dogs because either they are, or want to be, aggressive people. Specifically, I find that many owners themselves are physically shy and feel put-upon. So they choose a dog who's anything but. The most common problem, of course, is that the shy master finds it difficult to control an animal he has already decided is 46 stronger' than he is. Many people consider their dog a human being, or at least a creature who appreciates the same luxuries we do. Who hasn't seen households with covered-up chairs for the dog's comfort, televisions turned to a certain channel "for the dogs"? On Park Avenue, there's a poodle who lives in the utmost of style. He has steps up to his bed so that he doesn't have to jump. A rubber mat lies under his sheets, which are changed daily by a maid hired especially for this purpose. The poodle is fed pits, caviar, and champagne, and has a tailor-made wardrobe. His mistress doesn't want to inhibit him in any way. A middle-aged woman called me to check on what supplies she would need for a weekend trip to the Poconos. When questioned what she had already added to the carload, she listed dog deodorizer, foam cushions, food, water bowls, chew bones, toys, a spatula, and a New York Times.

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My Philosophy on Dog Training   part2

My desk is an architect's drawing board, and calls come in constantly to either of two phones on the floor of my cluttered foyer. Callers often want a little something extra for their dime, especially free advice. They call up and say things like "What kind of progress are you making in the study of animal behavior?" Or "What is your method of making a saluki sit?"* Very few diagnoses can be made over the phone, and I am most adamant about working with the owner and dog in their own environment, the home. Some dogs have 

more problems than others, radier, some people have more problems than others. And, of course, certain cases deserve special attention. I don't always succeed in my goals, however. A convent of nuns on the West Side tried to engage me, but when they found out that I had to come to their residence, they changed their minds. No man had ever been inside the convent, and they would not budge from their firm policy. * Salukis are fascinating dogs. They move very deliberately, much like an antelope, and are very alert. They are the oldest hunting dogs on record, and are pictured in ancient Egyptian tomb paintings. But the clients home is where the dog's habit patterns are formed and where all the training problems should be solved. That's where the rug is being soiled, where the curtains are being chewed, so that's where we work the problem out. If the dog has trouble behaving in supermarkets, I work with him in supermarkets. In one secretary's apartment, the furniture was all scarred because "Baby" had been chewing everything in sight, and his mistress didn't know how to stop him. He was her first dog, and like most people, she didn't know how to handle him. The dog was six months old, and I would rather he were six weeks. By six months, a puppy has had time to pick up bad habits that have to be removed. At six weeks, he hasn't had as much opportunity to make mistakes, and if properly trained, he can be more easily molded to his owner's way of life. With this particular dog, the first thing I did was to discard the greasy steak bone he had been chewing. I explained to the owner that every spot that a greasy bone touches will absorb grease and meat odors-and thereby becomes a potentially nice place for chewing. When I entered the apartment of my next client the cocker spaniel immediately jumped up on me, and I carefully flipped him over backward, saying "no"-the way to stop a dog from jumping up on people. The cocker quickly retreated to his special closet-from which he attacked anyone who went near him. As a puppy, he had been sent there as a punishment after being reprimanded. He soon learned that he could avoid a reprimand by running to his closet whenever he felt he might be punished. Surrounded by walls on three sides, where a human could get at him only by bending down and reaching in, he felt very secure. He knew he had the advantage there, and he took it. This spaniel had a lot of other problems too-urinating on the rug, shoe chewing, nipping the children. As is customary, I wanted to see how the family acted with this dog. I had to meet every member of the household to assess the difficulties involved. I wanted to find out what was the cause of this behavior problem, and so I tried to get a complete history of the dog. In this particular case, it was very obvious that the owners were at fault. I explained that what they thought was punishment-putting him in the closet-was in fact a lesson in aggression for the dog. By putting him in the closet, they had unknowingly given him a "fortress" ' from which he could strike, a way for him to control them. And when he saw what he could get away with, he, like any other animal, decided to take advantage of the situation. What had to be done with this dog was to take away his security spot, neutralize his aggression, and teach him some good habits. And it had to be done in this order, or it wouldn't have worked. At another stop, a more technological-and expensive-approach was needed to control an obstreperous pet. The dog was left to wander alone through the apartment, while I watched his actions on the screen of a closed-circuit TV monitor outside. Whenever the dog started to chew furniture, urinate, or literally tear up the house, I would say "no" into an intercom mike, and my voice was amplified many times by a speaker inside the apartment. The animal quickly shaped up. This is a rather expensive way to train dogs, but sometimes, as in this case, there is no alternative. By this time, of course, you've realized that it's the owners who are my pupils. And if I feel a person won't follow my advice, I won't take him as a client. There's little point in taking a dog and training him to my way of life. The dog is living with his owner, not with me, and he should be trained by him and not me. I theorize that, since most problems come from the owner and not the dog, the owner should be taught to under stand the dog and his role in the dog's life, and vice versa. Now and again I have had to retrain dogs who have been to other training schools. Some of these trainers never fully explain the dynamics of dog behavior and owner-and-dog relationship. They simply lay down a series of iron-clad rules and employ inexperienced help who train strictly according to the rule book, with little or no flexibility. The owner is seldom if ever warned to expect occasional breakdowns in discipline or given instructions on what to do if the dog errs. After the usual contractual time limit of six to eight weeks is over, the owner's complaints are answered in one of two standard ways: "Your dog is untrainable." Or "It's your fault." In general, I visit my clients once a week, and if there is a problem with their dog, I ask them to call between visits. When there are absolutely no calls from a new client, I know there's a giant list of problems. Nobody can have a perfect dog in the first two weeks. Dogs are living things and, like us, are all subject to idiosyncrasies. I consider my work a practice, not a business. I have no set rules for training. Each dog is a new experience, just as each family is unique -and therefore the problems and causes of these problems are different. When I listen to people talking about their dogs, I usually find they don't know too much about dog behavior. So training must start at the most basic point, the beginning. The first thing I do is to try to make my clients feel relaxed. I want people to think of training their dogs as enjoyable rather than a chore. The most important principle in my training technique, however, is transference-making sure the dog recognizes his owner, not me, as the authority figure. I try to take advantage of a dog's natural pack instincts, only substituting the dog's owner as the dominant pack leader. The dog should never be a leader but always a member When people ask me to spell out dog-training techniques and care, I find that stories about other owners and their dogs is the best way of illustrating dog problems and their solutions. This book, then, is full of my experiences and case histories, and shows what happens if exercises are not done correctly. You can learn from your own as well as others' mistakes. This book should entertain you as well as instruct you, and the lessons apply to owners of mixed-breed dogs as well as to owners of purebreds. Your dog can probably learn as many as eighty or even a hundred commands in his lifetime, and by following my instructions in this book, you can teach him to do almost anything within reason. It's a good idea to read this book completely through, however, before starting any training at all.

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My Philosophy on Dog Training

One Long Island socialite had a three-and-a-half year old Maltese, which she had trained herself. Assured that he was perfectly housebroken, she bought another to keep him company, and then had her entire house redecorated. The final result-with eighteenth-century antiques, oriental rugs, and fine engravings-was so splendid that soon she received a call from the feature editor of a top home-decoration magazine, who wanted to interview her and publish full-color pictures of her decorator's work. The editor and photographer were shown in 

and settled themselves on a needlepoint couch. One of her Maltases sauntered into the room. "Do your dogs ever mess up the house?" the editor asked, smiling. "Never," the owner assured her. "I trained them both myself, and this one is perfectly housebroken." With this, the "perfect" Maltese came closer, sniffed, and urinated copiously on the editor's shoe. The interview was quickly terminated. The next morning the chagrined owner called me. Among other things, I explained that a "perfect" dog often regresses when a new dog enters the house. But there are techniques to stop this kind of behavior. I have four dogs-three Maltases (Inches, Sleepy, and Snapper Dan) and a Weimaraner (Plum)-all of whom are totally housebroken. I will not have them lifting a leg in my apartment, which is full of large houseplants, and patchwork leather and suede couches and chairs fashioned entirely by hand, by my wife Jo. In addition to the dogs, I have a parrot, Martha (who won't talk but can bark), and a parakeet, Saturday. I also recently installed an eighty-gallon all-glass saltwater aquarium, with a number of damselfish, angelfish, and tangs. And last but not least, there's my daughter, Stephanie, who is the only one in the house who doesn't listen to me but whom I have to listen to when she practices on her piano or talks for hours on the phone to her friend Mary. Plum, my Weimaraner, is a showpiece for my theories and techniques. He responds to voice, hand, and body commands with absolute precision. When I merely indicate an object with a gesture, he leaps over it with the grace of a gazelle. As a joke, he will steal a specific lady's purse on command. People are fascinated by his ability to bring back the magazines of my choice. I say, "Bring me Time." Plum passes by Newsweek and picks up Time. I floored everyone in the bank one morning by asking the teller for one one dollar bill and one one-hundred dollar bill, then having Plum successfully fetch me the larger denomination. However, my favorite feat is to send Plum out to shop for groceries. Given a basket and sent out the door, Plum makes his way to the proper shelves, tips cans of dog food into the basket, and trots up to the cashier, who, recognizing Plum, charges me for the day'S basketful. Plum races home, careful not to spill, and gets a reward for his good work. All the tricks in this book are ones that my dog has mastered. The training techniques I used to teach him are ones you will soon learn. In some twelve years of working with animals, I have trained approximately eight thousand dogs for individual clients. In addition, I have trained the animal actors for hundreds of movies, TV commercials, and ads. I grew up in Brooklyn, where I was first drafted into dog training when my father brought home a puppy named Tonto. He gave me and my two brothers four weeks to housebreak the dog. The first three weeks we didn't bother to try to train him. Like all too many people, we thought that training takes care of itself. As the four week deadline approached, Tonto was still untrained. The three of us, fearful of having to give the puppy away, set up round-the-clock watches of eight hours each. Tonto would misbehave, be punished, be taken out again and again-and finally shaped up. The next dog I got was after I had left home. I started training him, and almost immediately I noticed a great difference between him and the dogs we had as children. I realized that it's the owner who makes a dog what he is. I soon became so fascinated by this principle that I began devoting all my free time to training the dog and researching the effect that people have on their dogs. I never thought of making a business out of training dogs, I was just fascinated by the whole relationship of dogs and people and wanted to find out as much as I could about the subject. I read as many books as possible, researched every conceivable training method, including military training, police training, hunting, obedience, trick, and anything else you can think of. I spoke and worked with many different trainers. Some I learned from, others learned from me But this just wasn't enough. Nobody could explain the one thing I wanted to know more than anything else-the human element. Nobody's dog is the same as anybody else's. No dog responds in quite the same way as another. Therefore, I started to research dog owners and not just dogs, and in order to do this I had to start working with them. By this point, I had made a fair amount of money in the Seventh .Avenue garment industry-a job I really didn't care for. I left and devoted my time to researching owner/dog dynamics. That was the beginning of my career. Since then, I have made many personal TV and radio appearances across the country and abroad. Whenever I'm on, the questions run pretty much the same from program to program: :'How do you stop a dog from chewing?" 'My dog bit someone. He used to be so gentle. Why did he do that?" "How do you stop a dog from pulling you down the street?" "How% do you stop a dog from relieving himself in the house?" "'that kind of dog will go with ours?" "We would like to mate our dog. Can you set it up?" "Did you train the dog in this commercial? Or that movie?" (When the inevitable leopard-coat question comes up, I simply reiter ate that it should be left on the leopard. T7he only skins we should use are those of animals raised for food.) At home, the questions continue .

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Genius in Dogs – The Breakthrough

Until recently, science had not taken the genius of dogs very seriously. The abilities of dogs like Chaser and Rico to learn new words could have been discovered as early as 1928. In that year, C.J. Warden and L.H. Warner reported on a German shepherd named Fellow. Fellow was something of a cinematic star; his most memorable scene was saving a child from drowning in the film Chief of the Pack. Much like Rico’s owner, who got in contact with my colleague Juliane Kaminski, Fellow’s owner contacted the scientists and reported that 

Fellow had learned almost four hundred words, noting that Fellow ‘understands these words in much the same manner as a child under the same circumstances would’. He had raised Fellow almost from birth and talked to Fellow the way you would to a child. Warden and Warner went to examine the dog. They had his owner give commands to Fellow from the lavatory, so he would not unwittingly give Fellow any extra unconscious cues. They found that Fellow knew at least sixty-eight commands (some of them helpful to a canine film star), such as ‘speak’, ‘stand close to the lady’, ‘take a walk around the room’. Others were more impressive, such as ‘go into the other room and get my gloves’. The scientists concluded that although Fellow had nowhere near the abilities of a child, more research was needed to understand this type of intelligence in dogs. Unfortunately, their call was not answered until Juliane Kaminski undertook her research on Rico in 2004. In the intervening seventy-five years, dogs were largely ignored. When scientists began studying animal cognition in the 1970s, they were more interested in our primate relatives. Eventually, enthusiasm extended to other animals, from dolphins to crows. Dogs were mostly left out of the equation because they were domesticated. Domesticated animals were seen as artificial products of human breeding. Domestication supposedly dulled an animal’s intelligence because they had lost the skills and intelligence needed to survive in the wild. Only two research projects were conducted to evaluate dog intelligence between 1950 and 1995, and both found dogs to be unremarkable. Then in 1995, I did an experiment with my dog in my parents’ garage and started something new. I discovered that instead of domestication making our best friends stupid, our relationship with dogs gave them an extraordinary kind of intelligence. Almost simultaneously on the other side of the world, Ádám Miklósi conducted a similar study and independently came to the same conclusion. These studies caused an explosion in the field of dog cognition. Suddenly, people from a range of disciplines realized what had been under our noses the whole time – dogs are one of the most important species we can study, not because they have become soft and complacent compared with their wild cousins, but because they were clever enough to come in from the cold and become part of the family. Perhaps the biggest biological mystery of all is the origin of our unlikely relationship with dogs. Every human culture on every continent for thousands of years has included dogs, from dingoes in Australia to basenjis in Africa. Our new understanding of dog genius has provided answers for some big questions about our best friends. How, when, and why did this powerful relationship begin? And what does it mean when we think about the origins of our own species? And just as importantly, what does it mean for your relationship with your dog? For the first time, we can hope to answer these questions. To begin our journey, and to understand how this relationship came to exist at all, we must travel back millions of years to a time long before dogs existed. Before wolves and humans had even met.

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GENIUS IN DOGS? part 4

Western scrub jays are also part of the corvid family, and they also frequently hide food. Unlike the solitary nutcrackers who rarely steal, however, scrub jays make a habit of it. They watch other birds hide food and later return to steal it. When tested for their ability to remember where other birds had hidden food, scrub jays proved themselves masters while nutcrackers were hopeless in the same situation. Competition has made scrub jays into geniuses of social memory. (Scrub jays do not just pilfer, they also defend against prying eyes. 

They prefer to hide their food in private, will re-cache their food later in a new location if another bird observes them hiding their food, and even prefer to hide food in darker locations to avoid others seeing them cache it.) By giving different types of memory puzzles to these closely related species, scientists have been able to discern each species’s unique form of genius. By observing the problems each species encounters in the wild, scientists have also been able to understand why the two show different types of genius. As with people, just because a species looks like a genius in one area does not mean its members are geniuses in other areas. For instance, some ant species are impressive in how they co-operate. Army ants can form living bridges over water, allowing others to cross over on their backs. Other ant species fight wars to protect workers and breeders, and some even ‘enslave’ other ants, or keep other insects as ‘pets’. But ants have one severe limitation. They are not always very flexible. Most ants are programmed to follow the scent trails of the ants ahead of them. In the tropics, you can find an ‘ant mill’ where hundreds of thousands of ants walk in a perfect circle that resembles a crawling black hole. Ant mills have been observed up to 350 metres in diameter, with a single lap taking up to two and a half hours to complete. These ant mills are also known as ant death spirals, because often the ants mindlessly follow one another in tightening circles until they exhaust themselves and die. They loyally follow the pheromones of the ants ahead of them to their death. This leads in to the second definition of genius – the ability to make inferences. Sherlock Holmes was a genius (albeit a fictional one) because even if the solution to a mystery was not clearly apparent, he was always able to find it by making a series of inferences. Humans make inferences constantly. Imagine speeding towards a crossroads. Even without seeing the traffic light, you can infer the light is red when you see cars entering the road from the other street. Nature is far less predictable than traffic. Animals have to deal with unexpected surprises. For ants, following the scent of a pheromone trail is usually a foolproof method. But when the pheromone trail becomes circular, ants do not have the mental abilities to realize the trail they are following is going nowhere. When an animal encounters a problem in the wild, they do not always have time to slowly figure out a solution through trial and error. One mistake can mean death. Hence animals need to make inferences – fast. Even when animals cannot see the correct solution, they can imagine different solutions and choose among them. This leads to a lot of flexibility. They might solve a new version of a problem they have seen before, or they might even spontaneously solve new problems they have never encountered. Yoyo is a chimpanzee living at Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Uganda. She once watched as an experimenter put a peanut through the opening of a long transparent tube. The peanut bounced when it hit the bottom. Yoyo’s fingers were too short to reach the peanut, there were no sticks around to use as a tool to reach it, and the tube was fixed and could not be turned upside down. Undaunted, Yoyo made an inference. She collected water in her mouth from the drinking fountain and spit it into the tube. The peanut floated to the top, and she happily gobbled it up. Yoyo realized she could make the peanut float, even though no water was visible when she thought of her solution. In the wild, her ability to make an inference like this could mean the difference between a good meal and starvation. John Pilley, a retired psychology professor, adopted a Border collie named Chaser. Chaser was eight weeks old and typical of Border collies – she loved to chase and herd, she had intense visual concentration, she enjoyed being petted and praised, and she had limitless energy. Pilley had read of Rico the Border collie who knew at least two hundred German words, previously studied by Juliane Kaminski, and he was interested in seeing if there was a limit to the number of names a dog could learn. Or perhaps the memory of some of the older objects would fade as Chaser learned the names of new objects. Chaser learned the names of one or two toys a day. Pilley, known as ‘Pop’, would hold up the toy and say, ‘Chaser, this is . . . Pop hide. Chaser find . . .’ Pilley did not use food to motivate Chaser. Instead, he used praise, hugs, and play as rewards for finding the right toy. Over three years, Chaser learned the names of more than 800 plush toys, 116 balls, 26 Frisbees, and more than 100 plastic objects. There were no duplicates, and all of the objects differed in size, weight, texture, design, and material. In total, Chaser learned the names of more than 1,000 objects. She was tested every day, and just to be sure she was not ‘cheating’ by getting hints from anyone, every month she had to complete a blind test in which she fetched objects in a different room, out of sight of Pilley and her trainers.

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GENIUS IN DOGS? part 3

For instance, a woman known as AJ (to protect her identity) had a remarkable autobiographical memory. She could remember when and where almost everything happened in her life. When  experimenters named various dates, she could report with uncanny precision important personal and public events that occurred – even down to the time of day. But her memory applied only to autobiographical events. She was not a particularly good student and struggled with rote memorization. In another study, neuroscientists found that London taxi

 drivers had a higher density of neurons in an area of the brain called the hippocampus. The hippocampus is involved in navigation, and a higher density of neurons means more storage capacity and faster processing. This gives taxi drivers unusual abilities in solving new spatial problems requiring navigation between landmarks. What makes AJ and taxi drivers worthy of being credited as geniuses is not what standard IQ tests measure. Rather it is their specialized, extraordinary memories. There are many definitions of intelligence competing for attention in popular culture. But the definition that has guided my research and that applies throughout this book is a very simple one. The genius of dogs – of all animals, for that matter, including humans – has two criteria: 1. A mental skill that is strong compared with others, either within your own species or in closely related species. 2. The ability to make inferences spontaneously. Animal Genius – Not All Just Song and Dance Animal Genius – Not All Just Song and Dance Arctic terns have a genius for navigation. Each year they fly from the Arctic to the Antarctic and back. Every five years a tern will travel   the same distance it takes to get to the moon. Whales have an ingenious way of co-operating to catch fish. They create massive walls of bubbles that trap schools of fish, netting them a much heartier dinner than if they hunted alone. Honeybees have evolved a form of dance that allows them to tell other bees where to find nectar-filled flowers – it is certainly a form of genius to be able to make your living by dancing. Genius is always relative. Certain people are considered geniuses because they are better than others at solving a specific type of problem. In animals, researchers are usually more interested in what a species as a whole is capable of, rather than each individual animal. Even though animals cannot talk, we can pinpoint their particular genius by giving them puzzles. Animals do not need to talk to solve these puzzles, they just need to make choices. And these choices reveal their cognitive abilities. By presenting the same puzzle to different species, we can identify different types of animal genius. Since any bird would look like a genius at navigation compared with an earthworm, it helps to compare closely related species. That way, if one species has a special ability that a close relative does not, we can not only identify their genius but also, more interestingly, ask why and how that genius exists. For example, the spatial memory of Clark’s nutcrackers easily rivals the best taxi driver. These birds live at high altitudes in the western US. In the summer, each bird may hide up to 100,000 seeds throughout its territory. In winter, Clark’s nutcrackers retrieve the exact same seeds they hid nine months before, even though the seeds are covered in snow. When compared with their corvid relatives, Clark’s nutcrackers are the champions of finding food they have hidden. A tough winter

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GENIUS IN DOGS? part 2

Most of us have at some time been given a test where scores determine how we are taught or which university we attend. Alfred Binet designed the first standardized intelligence tests in the early twentieth century. His goal was to identify students in France who should receive extra scholastic attention and resources. His original test evolved into the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale, which is known as the IQ test.IQ tests provide a very narrow definition of genius. As you 

probably remember, IQ tests focus on basic skills such as reading, writing, and analytical ability. The tests are favoured because on average, they predict scholastic success. But they do not measure the full capabilities of each person. They do not explain Ralph Lauren, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg, who all dropped out of university and became billionaires. Consider Steve Jobs. One biographer said, ‘Was he smart? No, not exceptionally. Instead he was a genius’. Jobs dropped out of elite Reed College in Oregon and went to find himself in India; at one point was forced out of Apple, the company he co-founded, when sales were slow in 1985. Few would have predicted the level of his success by his death. ‘Think different’ became the slogan of a multinational monolith that fused art and technology under his guidance. Jobs may have been average or unexceptional in many domains, but his vision and ability to think differently made him a genius. Temple Grandin, a professor of animal studies at Colorado State University, is autistic, yet she is also the author of several books, including Animals Make Us Human. Grandin has also done more for animal welfare than almost anyone. Although she struggles to read people’s emotions and social cues, her extraordinary understanding of animals has allowed her to reduce the stress of millions of farm animals. A cognitive approach is about celebrating different kinds of intelligence. Genius means that someone can be gifted with one type of cognition while being average or below average in another. The cognitive revolution changed the way we think about intelligence. It began in the decade that all social revolutions seemed to have happened, the sixties. Rapid advances in computer technology allowed scientists to think differently about the brain and how it solves problems. Instead of the brain being either more or less full of intelligence, like a glass of wine, the brain is more like a computer, where different parts work together. USB ports, keyboards, and modems bring in new information from the environment; a processor helps digest and alter the information into a usable format, while a hard drive stores important information for later use. Neuroscientists realized that, like a computer, many parts of the brain are specialized for solving different types of problems. Neuroscience and computer technology highlighted the fatal flaws in the idea of a single- dimensional measure of intelligence. People with well-tuned perceptual systems might be gifted athletes or artists; people with less sensitive emotional systems will succeed as fighter pilots or in other high- risk jobs; and those with unusual memories might do well as doctors. This same phenomenon can be observed in mental disorders. There are myriad cognitive abilities that are not necessarily interdependent on one another. One of the best-studied cognitive abilities is memory. In fact, we usually think of geniuses as people who have an extraordinary memory for facts and figures, since such people often score off the charts in IQ tests. But just as there are different types of intelligence, there are different types of memory. There is memory for events, faces, navigation, things that occurred recently or long ago – the list goes on. If you have a good memory in one of these areas, it does not necessarily mean your other types of memory are equally as good

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GENIUS IN DOGS? part 1

Can I really be serious about the title? Most dogs can do little more than sit and stay, and can barely walk on a lead. They are baffled when a squirrel disappears up a tree by circling the trunk, and most will happily drink out of the toilet bowl. This is not the profile of a typical genius. Forget Shakespearean sonnets, spaceflight, or the Internet. If I used the clichéd definition of genius, this would be a very short book.

I am serious, and hundreds of studies and the latest research back me up. This is because in cognitive science, we think about intelligence in animals a little differently. The first thing we look at, when judging the intelligence of animals, is how successfully they have managed to survive and reproduce in as many places as possible. In some species, such as cockroaches, success does not have much to do with intelligence at all. They are just very hardy and excellent reproducers. But with other animals, surviving takes a little more intellect, and a very specific kind of intellect. For instance, it does not do any good composing sonnets if you are a dodo. You are obviously missing the intelligence you need to survive (in the dodo’s case, this was learning to avoid new predators such as hungry sailors). With this as our starting point, the dog is arguably the most successful mammal on the planet, besides us. Dogs have spread to all corners of the world, including inside our homes, and in some cases onto our beds. While the majority of mammals on the planet have seen a steep decline in their populations as a result of human activity, there have never been more dogs on the planet than today. In the industrialized world, people are having fewer children than ever but are simultaneously providing an increasingly lavish lifestyle for a growing population of pet dogs. Meanwhile, dogs have more jobs than ever. Service dogs assist the mentally or physically disabled, military dogs find bombs, police dogs do guard duty, customs dogs detect illegally imported goods, conservation dogs find scat to help estimate population sizes and movements of endangered animals, bedbug dogs detect when hotels have a problem, cancer dogs detect melanomas or even intestinal cancer, therapy dogs visit retirement homes and hospitals to lift spirits and speed recoveries. I am fascinated with the kind of intelligence that has allowed dogs to be so successful. Whatever it is – this must be their genius.