The One With My First Seminar
Today, I had my first of eight days of seminars, and it was fabulous. I was attending a Biting Dog Conference with several speakers, but the main one today is the one I'm going to see two days of later this week, the one who will be using Muggsy as a demo dog. After today, I'm very excited to see her.
She talked a lot about detecting aggression in dogs before the initial signs that most people can detect. It was very enlightening, and I know I will be watching my own dogs much more carefully. She discussed going from saying, "I just got a funny feeling," to noticing the signals that are giving you that feeling. She wants us to view dog training as much more scientific to take the emotions out of it since when you're dealing with a dog that you know in your heart should not be with people you make excuses for the dog and explanations for his actions when really you are seeing a very dangerous dog.
The greatest thing I thought she talked about was a program she has begun in Harlem called Lug Nuts. She knows it's very hard to reach people in poor areas who buy bully breeds and refuse to neuter them so they are creating almost a race of very dangerous dogs that roam the inner cities. Instead of reasoning with them, she came up with an alternative to street fighting called Lug Nuts. She holds contests in Harlem where she has dogs harnessed to weights and has weight pulling contests with cash prizes. The beauty of this is that it's natural for the bully breeds and you have to food lure them to get them to pull -- it can be coerced with force -- so they have to use positive training. But here's the best part -- cash prizes double if the dog is neutered!! Positive training with the people, too. It's excellent. My boss and I are ready to get this started here, though I'm sure you all aren't thrilled to hear that I'll be hanging out in Compton soon. :)
She went on to talk about how much she has changed her perception of things since working with inner city people. She had a couple of wonderful examples when explaining that most of these people, despite popular belief, hate it that their dog is aggressive to people. One guy had a very dangerous dog, but he won a lot of the contests and his dog was neutered, so it was double prize money. She overheard him telling someone that he was saving the money for his education. I swear, that brought tears to my eyes. Another story was a guy who had a very aggressive dog who lunged at her while she was explaining how to put on the harness, he bent over and a crack vile fell out of his pocket. She decided not to mention it, since he didn't notice, and was going to pick it up later. When she went to grab it, she realized it was prescription ashma medication. She said she couldn't explain how bad she felt that she had stereotyped that kid that way. It was a great example of what I said a couple of posts ago about how much you change when you open your mind to other ways of life that you aren't familiar with. We all have prejudices and stereotypes. It's natural. I can't fault anyone for that. But I think it's our responsibility to get out and expose ourselves to things that could shatter our perceptions. Often, they do. And I think it's wonderful that she can admit what her prejudices are and that she was wrong. I can't wait to spend two more days learning from her. I think it will be wonderful.
But that's all for now. I have an aggressive dog to deal with. I just "got a feeling" (whites of the eyes, widened pupils, defensive body posture) that Muggsy was about to attack Chubbs. What do you know -- stopped him just in time. I confined him, and now I should go spend time with him.
She talked a lot about detecting aggression in dogs before the initial signs that most people can detect. It was very enlightening, and I know I will be watching my own dogs much more carefully. She discussed going from saying, "I just got a funny feeling," to noticing the signals that are giving you that feeling. She wants us to view dog training as much more scientific to take the emotions out of it since when you're dealing with a dog that you know in your heart should not be with people you make excuses for the dog and explanations for his actions when really you are seeing a very dangerous dog.
The greatest thing I thought she talked about was a program she has begun in Harlem called Lug Nuts. She knows it's very hard to reach people in poor areas who buy bully breeds and refuse to neuter them so they are creating almost a race of very dangerous dogs that roam the inner cities. Instead of reasoning with them, she came up with an alternative to street fighting called Lug Nuts. She holds contests in Harlem where she has dogs harnessed to weights and has weight pulling contests with cash prizes. The beauty of this is that it's natural for the bully breeds and you have to food lure them to get them to pull -- it can be coerced with force -- so they have to use positive training. But here's the best part -- cash prizes double if the dog is neutered!! Positive training with the people, too. It's excellent. My boss and I are ready to get this started here, though I'm sure you all aren't thrilled to hear that I'll be hanging out in Compton soon. :)
She went on to talk about how much she has changed her perception of things since working with inner city people. She had a couple of wonderful examples when explaining that most of these people, despite popular belief, hate it that their dog is aggressive to people. One guy had a very dangerous dog, but he won a lot of the contests and his dog was neutered, so it was double prize money. She overheard him telling someone that he was saving the money for his education. I swear, that brought tears to my eyes. Another story was a guy who had a very aggressive dog who lunged at her while she was explaining how to put on the harness, he bent over and a crack vile fell out of his pocket. She decided not to mention it, since he didn't notice, and was going to pick it up later. When she went to grab it, she realized it was prescription ashma medication. She said she couldn't explain how bad she felt that she had stereotyped that kid that way. It was a great example of what I said a couple of posts ago about how much you change when you open your mind to other ways of life that you aren't familiar with. We all have prejudices and stereotypes. It's natural. I can't fault anyone for that. But I think it's our responsibility to get out and expose ourselves to things that could shatter our perceptions. Often, they do. And I think it's wonderful that she can admit what her prejudices are and that she was wrong. I can't wait to spend two more days learning from her. I think it will be wonderful.
But that's all for now. I have an aggressive dog to deal with. I just "got a feeling" (whites of the eyes, widened pupils, defensive body posture) that Muggsy was about to attack Chubbs. What do you know -- stopped him just in time. I confined him, and now I should go spend time with him.
posted by Rachel at
7:37 PM
2 Comments:
Hey girl! That's awesome (the program, the speaker, the seminars)!!! Sounds like you are going to have a great week. Keep us posted, I love to hear your dog stories and how much you are learning in your new home. I can tell you are really happy, which makes me :)! Love, Monica
By
Monica, at 12:01 PM
Yesterday, we learned defensive handling skills, which will be really useful once I practice. The speaker was an Animal Control officer in the Bronx, and he had some great stories, the best being the time he had to get a 450-pound tiger and 6-foot alligator out of an apartment in Harlem. An apartment. He ended it by saying this, "This will tell you how crazy New Yorkers are -- two people were renting rooms from him with their only promise being that the animals would be locked up when they left for work and got home from it." :) Animal control was called when they decided the tiger was dangerous because they gave it a kitty to play with and he killed it. Hmm, not too bright.
By
Rachel, at 12:06 PM
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