Comment on Chicago Reader Story about Dog Training
What Ami Moore says she does with a shock collar compared to what she
actually did in the park to the Newfy puppy and the bichon frise is
shocking. Is she a rogue trainer or is this disconnect between the
hype and the actual practice common in shock (ecollar) trainers?
Marc Goldberg's trademarked "forcefree" method uses shock collars. He
says in the Reader article that he uses the term shock instead of stim
or nick as many other shock (ecollar) trainers do, but it is
hard to find the word shock or even ecollar on his website. So, let's
assume you don't want to train your dog with shock, you might assume
that his "forcefree" method would not use a shock collar especially with this
description of Goldberg's method from his website:
"The ForceFree Method (tm) is an intuitive system of training that
makes sense to both people and dogs. Effective and gentle, the
training method works WITH the dogs instincts rather than against
them. We achieve off leash reliability, even with distractions,
amazingly fast. Most dogs perceive the training as simple "pack
cooperation" and play. Therefore, they quickly shed rebellious
behavior, and give you more focus than you imagined possible. Doesn't
that sound like more fun than correction after correction?"
My guess is that most people don't want to train their dogs with shock collars,
so some shock collar trainers' websites, especially the board and
train ones, don't mention that they use them.
Goldberg also said the shock used is less than what you feel when you
touch the doorknob. Personally I don't see a dog running full tilt
after a squirrel responding to a shock that has less intensity than
the shock you get from touching a door knob. I feel if you don't need or use the
higher levels of shock intensity, then the higher levels shouldn't be
on the collar. What about the people who try the shock collar on and say it only
gives them a mild sensation? I think a more accurate test of a shock
collar training would be for the human to wear it for a day and give
the controller to your boss, spouse or sibling. They then shock you to
get you to do what they want you to do. They aren't allowed to tell
you verbally what to do. If you don't respond properly, they are
allowed to increase the intensity of the shock. After all, many dogs wear
these collars every time they go outside.
Fred Hassan, like Ami Moore, sometimes uses multiple shock collars on
one dog and he has no age limit (it is ok to use them on puppies). He
also states on his website that they calibrate the level of the shock
so they can only tell the dog is being shocked by carefully observing
the dog's body language, like Goldberg, he mentioned an ear flick. In this
summary of first hand account of a Hassan seminar, a dog trainer wrote:
All dogs displayed one or more of the behaviors listed below including:
trying to run away
yelping
offering a paw
jumping away
panting and drooling
screaming
making themselves small
freezing
moving in slow motion
Like the example above, with you wearing your collar to the office and
giving your boss the remote, trainers simply pushed the button until
the dog did what they wanted.
At this particular seminar, Hassan told a story about having a remote
controlling 2 collars and mistakenly pushing the wrong button and so
repeatedly shocking a dog resting in a crate at higher and higher
levels. He laughed about this.
Therefore, Ami Moore may be at the extreme end of a continuum but she
use techniques that appear to be used by other trainers. None of us
are totally immune to good sales pitches. Most of us lead very busy
lives. When we need to hire someone we often rely on short
cuts (ask a friend for recommendations, go to Angie's list, or check
which websites come out on top). When I googled, "Chicago dog
training" today, the top four websites had loaded their websites with
keywords. The top four also include people cited in the article, Goldberg
is #2 (chicagodogtrainer.com) and Ami Moore is #3 and #4 (dogdoright.com). This doesn't mean they aren't good dog trainers but it does mean that they are getting their top ratings partially by writing certain words over and over on their websites. When I taught evolution classes at several Chicago colleges, I
assigned my students a book called "The Power of Persuasion: How we
are bought and sold?" by Robert V. Levine.
Here is a review of it, Link
This book discusses our tendencies to use short cuts to make decisions
when we are inundated with information. I find a number of sales
techniques discussed by Levine used in dog training websites:
1. strong imagery with few facts that encourage us to use mental shortcuts
2. repetitive ads and slogans
3. great pictures of dogs and sometimes children
4. our tendency to believe more expensive means higher quality
5. testimonials and peer pressure
Again, none of this means a top ranked google website is not from a
high quality company; it just means a company with top ranked google
website doesn't have to be high quality. If you see 20 darkened words
(key words) in a company's paragraph summary, you should note that,
especially if they don't give you any specifics about how they will train
your dog. Levine warns that if you find yourself at a sales seminar, you
usually will be in the hands of a likable and talented salesperson. Finally, Levine's book also covers Milgram's classic experiment on human obedience,
where many volunteers obeyed orders to jolt human subjects with what
they thought were dangerous levels of current. If most humans obey
orders to shock strangers from an authoritiy figure they have just
met,even though those strangers are screaming in pain, we can
understand better why people didn't leave the Hassan seminar and why
they laughed along when Hassan described mistakenly shocking the wrong
dog.
Susan Meddaugh's story "Perfectly Martha" is a wonderful parody with a
Perfect Pup Institute willing to train your dog in one day. The
Perfect Pup Institute's technique involved turning off all parts of
the dogs' brains except the obedience part creating a population of
perfect dogs reminiscent of the Stepford wives. After I began looking
at the dog training websites, (I want to disclose that I am also a
Chicago dog trainer with a website that usually comes up on the first
or second google page), I realized that this book was a good-humored jab at the
sites that will train your dog in 3 or 10 days and our tendency to
want things done quickly and painlessly whether it be dog training,
muscle building or weight loss. The perfect pup parents in the book
say, "A perfect dog in only one day" and "And we didn't have to do
anything."
Luckily Meddaugh's story has a happy ending, Martha rescues the
Stepford dogs and "So once again dogs scatter the trash and drink
from the toilet. They bark and scratch their fleas and sleep on the
furniture. But they also greet their owners with wagging tails and slobbery
kisses." I was happy to read that one of the dogs trained by Ami
Moore had a similar happy ending.
Jane Masterson, Phd and CPDT |
