AVSAB

Posted with permission from the AVSAB.
Please share with others.
AVSAB Letter to Merial

Dear Dr. Line,

The executive board of the American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior is deeply troubled to learn that Merial, a leader in the veterinary healthcare industry, is using Cesar Millan in a promotional campaign for Heartgard and Frontline. We are even more disturbed to find that Merial i s cross-promoting Mr. Millan's behavior video as part of this campaign. Merial's executives may not be aware of the fact that the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists (ACVB), the American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior (AVSAB) and the Society of Veterinary Behavior Technicians(SVBT) have uniformly spoken out against the punishment-based techniques employed by Mr. Millan on his television show "The Dog Whisperer."

At best, the show is entertaining but misleading to pet owners. At worst, Mr. Millan's techniques and misinformation have contributed to increased aggression and anxiety or resulted in physical injury to the pet and/or pet owner. As practicing veterinarians, we all unfortunately have seen many cases of the latter. Merial claims to "enhance the health, well-being, and performance of animals." The use of Mr. Millan as part of an advertising campaign speaks otherwise. In these difficult economic times, it may be understandable that Merial would want to use a "celebrity" to advertise its products in a direct-to-consumer fashion. However, had Merial taken the time to investigate, it would have found that Mr. Millan's philosophy runs counter to the standard-of- care promoted by veterinary behaviorists and taught at veterinary schools.

We are deeply saddened that Merial's executives are not more supportive of the veterinary behavior community and its efforts to promote knowledgeable, scientifically- based, humane training methods. We remain concerned that your company's support of Mr. Millan's controversial training methods through the distribution of his video and financial support of his show will contribute to the number of difficult dogs and injured owners that we have to eventually console, counsel, and reeducate. Perhaps Merial would like to support our efforts to counteract the negative impact of this unfortunate marketing choice that may ultimately serve to alienate educated veterinarians, dog trainers, and owners alike.

Sincerely,
E. Kathryn Meyer, VMD (President)
John Ciribassi, DVM, DACVB (Immediate Past President)
Karen Sueda, DVM, DACVB (President Elect)
Kari Krause, DVM
Kelly Morgan, DVM
Valli Parthasarathy, PhD, DVM
Sophia Yin, PhD, DVM
Laurie Bergman, VMD, DACVB
Posted with permission from the AVSAB.
For the source of this article:
See: <http://www.avsabonl ine.org/>
and <http://tinyurl.com/ly9wlu>

WW Lola

This is Lola, a Puppy Class attendee

Announcement

Clicker Expo location for 2010 has been announced. It will be in Doubletree, Oregon on January 29th-31st.
Already time to start planning some of next years seminars?

Jim Basic Seminar

I went to another seminar. This one was with Jim Basic from California. Sigh! I miss CA.
Him and Nancy Guyes have a series of training articles in the Clean Run Magazine that are very popular. Gamblers was the topic all three days. First day was all about foundation. Driving ahead, teaching the out, not loosing to much "real estate". I really needed to hear about the "real estate". Something simple that will determine a Q or a NQ.
Ryker was a working dog on day three. I felt a bit out of place as he was hyped to the max and even a simple wrap around the jump seemed to much for him. Being in the car the two previous days did not help.
In the end we were able to be were we needed to when the gamble whistle blew. I collected more training tools and will use them in my classes for anyone that is interested in distance games.
Next..... July Stacy Camp with Anne Braue, Stephanie Spyr, Karen Holik and Stacy

Pre-Agility Class

I just finished up a pre-Agility class at a local SLC park.
It has been challenging at times. There were three dogs, all Black Lab mixes at different training levels. The most challenging one was the girl. Very enthusiastic about "live+". I taught the owner how to positively teach impulse control. We did some doggy zen and lots of rewards for doing the behaviors correctly or just sitting still. I saw a lot of improvement within a few weeks. One of the dogs was a bit more on the shy side and I introduced some motivational games with food and toys. We also did some chute training and after a few sessions he had become confident in running through.
The 3rd dog came with more advanced behaviors. He was able to sit and down stay and had an awesome recall. The dog learned a perfect straight chute at full running speed. I was also able to introduce come to hand exercises.
Near the end of the classes I would ask them to perform some basic CGC exercises. This improved some handler/dog focus.
The owners and I were happy with the results at the end of the session.
Everyone had a small taste of how demanding training for agility can be.

Puppy Class using a clicker

Teaching puppy class is one of my favorite things. I love puppies of all temperaments, sizes and breeds (or mixes). I introduce the clicker and at first the owners are very skeptical. However, when they see that within minutes their puppies are paying so much more attention they all want to learn more about it. Since I don't specifically teach a clicker class I give all my students a choice of using a clicker or only a marker word. Clicker trained dogs always come out on top of the class. It doesn't matter what any of the goals are. Training Manners, Tricks, Competition Obedience, Rally, Agility, Flyball or Freestyle; it is all trainable with a clicker. For more information on clicker training visit www.clickertraining.com

Inconsistently Inconsistent

Being consistent is very important in dog training and behavior modification. Being unpredictable will create a confused dog. Sometimes we let the dog jump up and sometimes we don't, is just a small example of a problem behavior we create.
How to create a confused dog:

• Be inconsistent all the time, but not always and don't do the same thing more then twice, only once in a while. Surprise your dog with different rules.
• Use more then one command for one behavior. Come, could also be "get here", "now", "this instant".
• Every human in the household should use a different word so the dog really learns better English, faster.
• Don't enforce rules when you are to tired and change them at your convenience.
• Every member of the household should have a different rule for the same behavior.