Clean Run Magazine - February 2009 - 67

Changing Consequences: From Caution to Trust By Jenny Ruth Yasi, photos by author except where noted No training program begins with a perfectly clean slate and fortunately, that’s not always a bad thing. Observation of existing behaviors is perhaps the most important place to begin. Without accurate initial observations, it’s almost impossible to understand how we are influencing our dogs’ perceptions of the consequences of their behaviors. And it’s the dog’s perceptions that shape future behaviors, not the trainer’s. By avoiding unintentional delivery of punishments, we create an atmosphere where trusting, confident, and engaged canine behaviors are more likely to develop. Charlie’s Story Last December, I called about a pretty rescue Border Collie puppy that lived a few states away. I loved the idea of endless BC stamina, but the puppy was said to have some resource-guarding problems. This didn’t worry me, but it might worry my other two dogs, especially my Barbet, Tigerlily. She was three years old and simply not fond of dogs in general. So, I was enjoying puppy cravings last February when my husband Albert bought airline tickets from icy Maine to Puerto Rico. And there, we were overwhelmed by the plight of street dogs. They are everywhere, of every size, shape, and condition. It broke our hearts, so we tried not to look. One morning, walking a north coast surfer beach on our way to breakfast, Albert and I literally tripped over an emaciated heap of skin and bones. He was a big-eared, big-toed, funny-looking dog, whose short coat perfectly matched the color of seaweed strewn sand. His coat was so dried-out, we thought he was dead. He cracked one eye open and gave us a hopeful smile. Surfers told us the dog lived on the beach and was friendly. Warily, I gave him a pet, but that’s all it took for the dog we began to call Charlie to stagger up and follow us, his rear end collapsing now and then as he squatted to relieve himself of bloody diarrhea. His predicament gave me a headache. Though his fur was puppy soft and his sad brown eyes broke our hearts, he certainly didn’t have that endless stamina I was looking for. Were the collapsing hips a structural defect? I couldn’t decide if he was young or old. That night, Charlie accepted food and water very politely, and plumped back up. Obviously, he’d been very dehydrated. The next morning he was back, eating and drinking some more. We took him to the local veterinarian. She recognized him, and told us he was born on the beach in the previous summer and she’d neutered him in a catch-and-release program. Now he was infected with a dangerously heavy load of parasites; parasite-induced dehydration often kills puppies and had likely killed the rest of his litter. Charlie got shots and pills, a bath, and a health certificate. I decided that I had to set aside my It seemed every grocery store parking lot had its own pack of feral dogs, eating out the dumpsters and seeking shade under cars. The feral dogs are generally surprisingly docile. © Albert PresgrAves There are all kinds of “feral.” Charlie’s first year of scrounging, sleeping, and playing on a surfer beach apparently wasn’t entirely bad. There were many feral dogs and a constantly changing group of tourists sharing this beach. It must have felt like a mixed message coming from the humans, who sometimes left him food and sometimes chased him away. But he was also getting awesome experience in climbing trash cans nailed to telephone poles, climbing in and out of dumpsters, stealing and sneaking, hiding, begging, and cajoling. He knew how to avoid trouble and also how to make friends. Beach life didn’t hurt his intelligence any, and now that he was rehydrated, he even seemed sort of athletic. Maybe he would be fun to train for agility. Border Collie craving for now. Maybe Charlie would never play agility; maybe he wouldn’t get along with Tigerlily. But Charlie’s intriguing personality had won our hearts. He deserved a chance. Charlie wasn’t a pushy visitor. Despite how docile the feral dogs usually are, locals kept their distance and were amazed that we weren’t afraid of him. We got lots of stares when we started walking with him on a leash. February 09 | Clean Run 67

Clean Run Magazine - February 2009

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Clean Run Magazine - February 2009