It’s A Wild, Wild, West!
I have a fascination with time travel; in fact one of my favorite shows is Quantum Leap which, by the way, has been rebooted this year. How amazing would it be to visit past times to see how people lived?
Well, apparently some are actually living in the past right now!
Back in the the mid 1800s, a time known as the Wild West, there was a lot of unrest. Conflicts with the Indians, dangerous outlaws, gritty lawmen and as it turns out, medical practice too, was part of a chaotic free-for-all, as there was little respect for science, as described in Elaine G. Breslaw’s book, Lotions, Potions, Pills and Magic: Health Care in Early America. And while fascinating to read about a bygone area, we can feel lucky that we are not living like that in this century…That is until recently, during the height of the pandemic, as researchers worked tirelessly to find a lifesaving vaccine for the deadly COVID virus, we experienced some of the same “Wild West” attitudes from a very vocal anti-science minority who spoke out against the vaccine and instead hawked products like bleach, hydroxychloroquine, and my favorite, Ivermectin, a product used to rid animals of parasites!
As usual, you’re probably wondering what the heck any of this anti-science, wild and crazy scene has to do with the small world of dog training, so I’ll digress…
The dog training industry is not regulated, so as far as old school traditional trainers are concerned, there is no science, and until recently, they were correct. This meant that back in the day, trainers used instincts to tell them all they needed to know about “fixing” a bad dog’s behavior, and to hear them tell it, they cured the problem and saved the dog from horrible fates. Well today we have data, and a lot of it, to support the science. But the trainers who practice like they are living in the “Wild West” are proud and VERY LOUD, as they push hard against those who are lobbying to regulate this industry that currently allows any human holding a leash to call themselves a dog trainer. This is especially frightening when those “trainers” have TV shows, podcasts or big opinions!
And the arguments for using weapons on our dogs, to name a few: prong collars, electric collars, and choke chains, is bolstered by the vocabulary that helps justify their use. After all, we “break” horses; we “housebreak” our puppies, and of course we “break” any kind of undesirable behavior that we see in our companion animals. This explains to some degree, why the general public will often seek out these “Wild West” trainers, because the fear mongering they use is an easy sell, as no dog owner wants their dangerous outlaw of a dog to murder the family in their sleep. But I’ll digress again…
While this contentious “cowboy and Indian” war, rages on, something is being left out of the equation, and that is the poor dog has been portrayed as an “outlaw” who needs to be punished severely for his “crimes” in order to keep him in line.
In the 1960s, former WWII military dog-trainer, turned Hollywood dog trainer, William Koehler, advocated hanging dogs to teach them a lesson, and his barbaric tactics are unfortunately the core tenets of traditional dog training!
While some trainers enjoy living in the past, clinging to their tightly held beliefs, there are others of us who have evolved to an enlightened time that has shone a light on what canine cognition research has revealed. We know dogs understand that when a human points, it is a communication gesture; dogs can learn the names of colors and shapes; dogs can be taught the names of many objects, and when an unknown object is placed among the know objects, they can select it by inferring. By the way, dogs can also learn to count!
The future has arrived for those who dare pull their heads out of their past! And for those who continue to live in the “Wild West”, they are wrangling an animal who has the learning level of a human toddler. So hang ‘em high, cowboys, while I teach my dogs how to read!
HAPPY TRAINING & ENRICHMENT
© Fran Berry CPDT-KA, UW-AAB all rights reserved 2023
