Debunking the “Alpha Dog” Theory

November 13, 2019 by The Animal Health Foundation

From the Whole Dog Journal   By   Pat Miller, CBCC-KA, CPDT-KA

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Exerting “dominance” over your dog is the wrong way to build a good relationship.

The alpha myth is everywhere. Google “alpha dog” on the Internet and you get more than 85 million hits. Really. While not all the sites are about dominating your dog, there are literally millions of resources out there – websites, books, blogs, television shows, veterinarians, trainers and behavior professionals – instructing you to use force and intimidation to overpower your dog into submission. They say that you, the human, must be the alpha. They’re all wrong. Every single one of them.

The erroneous approach to canine social behavior known as dominance theory (two million-plus Google hits) is based on a study of captive zoo wolves conducted in the 1930s and 1940s by Swiss animal behaviorist Rudolph Schenkel, in which the scientist concluded that wolves in a pack fight to gain dominance, and the winner is the alpha wolf.

The Origin’s of the “Alpha” Dog Theory

Schenkel’s observations of captive wolf behavior were erroneously extrapolated to wild wolf behavior, and then to domestic dogs. It was postulated that wolves were in constant competition for higher rank in the hierarchy, and only the aggressive actions of the alpha male and female held the contenders in check. Other behaviorists following Schenkel’s lead also studied captive wolves and confirmed his findings: groups of unrelated wolves brought together in artificial captive environments do, indeed, engage in often-violent and bloody social struggles.

The problem is, that’s not normal wolf behavior. As David Mech stated in the introduction to his study of wild wolves (Mech, 2000), “Attempting to apply information about the behavior of assemblages of unrelated captive wolves to the familial structure of natural packs has resulted in considerable confusion. Such an approach is analogous to trying to draw inferences about human family dynamics by studying humans in refugee camps. The concept of the alpha wolf as a ‘top dog’ ruling a group of similar-aged compatriots (Schenkel 1947; Rabb et al. 1967; Fox 1971a; Zimen 1975, 1982; Lockwood 1979; van Hooff et al. 1987) is particularly misleading.”

What we know now, thanks to Mech and others, is that in the wild, a wolf pack is a family, consisting of a mated pair and their offspring of the past one to three years. Occasionally two or three families may group together. As the offspring mature they disperse from the pack; the only long-term members of the group are the breeding pair. By contrast, in captivity unrelated wolves are forced to live together for many years, creating tension between mature adults that doesn’t happen in a natural, wild pack.

Dominance-Based Training is Disrespectful to Your Dog

But that’s all about wolves anyway, not dogs. How did it happen that dog owners and trainers started thinking all that information (and misinformation) about wolf behavior had anything to do with dogs and dog behavior? The logic went something like, “Dogs are descended from wolves. Wolves live in hierarchical packs in which the aggressive alpha male rules over everyone else. Therefore, humans need to dominate their pet dogs to get them to behave.”

Perhaps the most popular advocate of this inaccurate concept, Cesar Millan, is only the latest in a long line of dominance-based trainers who advocate forceful techniques such as the alpha roll. Much of this style of training has roots in the military – which explains the emphasis on punishment.

As far back as 1906, Colonel Konrad Most was using heavy-handed techniques to train dogs in the German army, then police and service dogs. He was joined by William Koehler after the end of World War II.

Koehler also initially trained dogs for the military prior to his civilian dog-training career, and his writings advocated techniques that included hanging and helicoptering a dog into submission (into unconsciousness, if necessary). For example, to stop a dog from digging, Koehler suggested filling the hole with water and submerging the dog’s head in the water-filed hole until he was nearly drowned.

Fast-forward several years to 1978 and the emergence of the Monks of New Skete as the new model for dog training, asserting a philosophy that “understanding is the key to communication, compassion, and communion” with your dog. Sounds great, yes? The Monks were considered cutting edge at the time – but contrary to their benevolent image, they were in fact responsible for the widespread popularization of the “Alpha-Wolf Roll-Over” (now shortened to the alpha roll). Reviewing the early observations of captive wolves, the Monks concluded that the alpha roll is a useful tool for demonstrating one’s authority over a dog. Unfortunately, this is  a complete and utter misinterpretation of the submissive roll-over that is voluntarily offered by less assertive dogs, not forcibly commanded by stronger ones.

The Monks also advocated the frequent use of other physical punishments such as the scruff shake (grab both sides of the dog’s face and shake, lifting the dog off the ground) and cuffing under the dog’s chin with an open hand several times, hard enough to cause the dog to yelp.

While professing that “training dogs is about building a relationship that is based on respect and love and understanding,” even their most recent book, Divine Canine: The Monks’ Way to a Happy, Obedient Dog (2007), is still heavy on outdated, erroneous dominance theory. Immediately following their suggestion that “a kindly, gentle look tells the dog she is loved and accepted,” they say “But it is just as vital to communicate a stern reaction to bad behavior. A piercing, sustained stare into a dog’s eyes tells her who’s in charge; it establishes the proper hierarchy of dominance between person and pet.” (It’s also a great way to unwittingly elicit a strong aggressive response if you choose the wrong dog as the subject for your piercing, sustained stare.)

Despite the strong emergence of positive reinforcement-based training in the last 20 years, the Monks don’t seem to have grasped that the “respect” part needs to go both ways for a truly compassionate communion with your dog. Perhaps one of these days . . .

The Birth of Positive-Reinforcement Training

Just when it seemed that dog training had completely stagnated in turn-of-the-century military-style dominance-theory training, marine mammal trainer Karen Pryor wrote her seminal book, Don’t Shoot the Dog. Published in 1985, this small, unassuming volume was intended as a self-help book for human behavior. The author never dreamed that her modest book, paired with a small plastic box that made a clicking sound, would launch a massive paradigm shift in the world of dog training and behavior. But it did.

Forward progress was slow until 1993, when veterinary behaviorist Dr. Ian Dunbar founded the Association of Pet Dog Trainers. Dunbar’s vision of a forum for trainer education and networking has developed into an organization that now boasts nearly 6,000 members worldwide. While membership in the APDT is not restricted to positive reinforcement-based trainers, included in its guiding principles is this statement:

“We promote the use of reward-based training methods, thereby minimizing the use of aversive techniques.”

The establishment of this forum facilitated the rapid spread of information in the dog training world, enhanced by the creation of an online discussion list where members could compare notes and offer support for a scientific and dog-friendly approach to training.

Things were starting to look quite rosy for our dogs. The positive market literally mushroomed with books and videos from dozens of quality training and behavior professionals, including Jean Donaldson, Dr. Patricia McConnell, Dr. Karen Overall, Suzanne Hetts, and others. With advances in positive training and an increasingly educated dog training profession embracing the science of behavior and learning and passing good information on to their clients, pain-causing, abusive methods such as the alpha roll, scruff shake, hanging, drowning, and cuffing appeared to be headed the way of the passenger pigeon.

A Step-Backward for Positive-Reinforcement Training Techniques

Then, in the fall of 2004, the National Geographic Channel launched its soon-to-be wildly popular show, The Dog Whisperer. Dominance theory was back in vogue, with a vengeance. Today, everything from housetraining mistakes to jumping up to counter surfing to all forms of aggression is likely to be attributed to “dominance” by followers of the alpha-resurgence.

“But,” some will argue, “look at all the dogs who have been successfully trained throughout the past century using the dominance model. Those trainers can’t be all wrong.”

In fact, harsh force-based methods (in technical parlance, “positive punishment”) are a piece of operant conditioning, and as the decades have proven, those methods can work. They are especially good at shutting down behaviors – convincing a dog that it’s not safe to do anything unless instructed to do something. And yes, that works with some dogs. With others, not so much.

My own personal, unscientific theory is that dog personalities lie on a continuum from very soft to very tough. Harsh, old-fashioned dominance-theory methods can effectively suppress behaviors without obvious fallout (although there is always behavioral fallout) with dogs nearest the center of the personality continuum – those who are resilient enough to withstand the punishment, but not so tough and assertive that they fight back. Under dominance theory, when a dog fights back, you must fight back harder until he submits, in order to assert yourself as the pack leader, or alpha.

Problem is, sometimes they don’t submit, and the level of violence escalates. Or they submit for the moment, but may erupt aggressively again the next time a human does something violent and inappropriate to them. Under dominance-theory training, those dogs are often deemed incorrigible, not suitable for the work they’re being trained for nor safe as a family companion, and sentenced to death. Had they never been treated inappropriately, many might have been perfectly fine.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, a very “soft” dog can be easily psychologically damaged by one enthusiastic inappropriate assertion of rank by a heavy-handed dominance trainer. This dog quickly shuts down – fearful and mistrusting of the humans in his world who are unpredictably and unfairly violent.

Most crossover trainers (those who used to train with old-fashioned methods and now are proud to promote positive reinforcement-based training) will tell you they successfully trained lots of dogs the old way. They loved their dogs and their dogs loved them.

I’m a crossover trainer and I know that’s true. I also would dearly love to be able to go back and redo all of that training, to be able to have an even better relationship with those dogs, to give them a less stressful life – one filled with even more joy than the one we shared together.

We Aren’t Dogs, and Our Dogs Know It

Finally, the very presumption that our dogs would even consider we humans to be members of their canine pack is simply ludicrous. They know how impossibly inept we are, for the most part, at reading and understanding the subtleties of canine body language. We are equally inept, if not even more so, at trying to mimic those subtleties. Any attempts on our part to somehow insert ourselves into their social structure and communicate meaningfully with them in this manner are simply doomed to failure. It’s about time we gave up trying to be dogs in a dog pack and accepted that we are humans co-existing with another species – and that we’re most successful doing so when we co-exist peacefully.

The fact is, successful social groups work because of voluntary deference, not because of aggressively enforced dominance. The whole point of social body language rituals is to avoid conflict and confrontation, not to cause it. Watch any group of dogs interacting. Time and time again you’ll see dogs deferring to each other. It’s not even always the same dog deferring:

Dog B: Hey, I’d really like to go first. Dog A: “By all means, be my guest.” Dog B passes down the narrow hallway.

Dog A: “I’d really like to have that bone.” Dog B: “Oh sure – I didn’t feel like chewing right now anyway.” Dog A gets the bone.

Social hierarchies do exist in groups of domesticated dogs and in many other species, including humans, and hierarchy can be fluid. As described above, one dog may be more assertive in one encounter, and more deferent in the next, depending on what’s at stake, and how strongly each dog feels about the outcome. There are a myriad of subtleties about how those hierarchies work, and how the members of a social group communicate – in any species.

Today, educated trainers are aware that canine-human interactions are not driven by social rank, but rather by reinforcement. Behaviors that are reinforced repeat and strengthen. If your dog repeats an inappropriate behavior such as counter surfing or getting on the sofa, it’s not because he’s trying to take over the world; it’s just because he’s been reinforced by finding food on the counter, or by being comfortable on the sofa. He’s a scavenger and an opportunist, and the goods are there for the taking. Figure out how to prevent him from being reinforced for the behaviors you don’t want, and reinforce him liberally for the ones you do, and you’re well on your way to having the relationship of mutual love, respect, communication, and communion that we all want to have with our dogs.

Pat Miller, CBCC-KA, CPDT-KA, is WDJ’s Training Editor. Author of numerous books on positive dog training, she lives in Fairplay, Maryland, site of her Peaceable Paws training center, where she offers dog training classes and courses for trainers.

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Posted in: Behavior and Training | Dogs | Human-Animal Bond

Heart-Wrenching Study Shows The Long-Term Effect Yelling Can Have on Your Dog

November 11, 2019 by The Animal Health Foundation
From SCIENCEALERT.COM by MICHELLE STARR  7 NOV 2019

Your dog may be the apple of your eye, but let’s be honest: she is an animal, with her own instincts and idiosyncrasies, and there are going to be times when she makes you want to tear your hair out.

According to a new study uploaded to pre-print server bioRxiv, aversive training such as punishment and negative reinforcement can have long-term negative effects on your dog’s mental state.

“Our results show that companion dogs trained using aversive-based methods experienced poorer welfare as compared to companion dogs trained using reward-based methods, at both the short- and the long-term level,” the researchers write in their paper.

“Specifically, dogs attending schools using aversive-based methods displayed more stress-related behaviours and body postures during training, higher elevations in cortisol levels after training, and were more ‘pessimistic’ in a cognitive bias task.”

This sort of research has been conducted before, and found that aversive training has negative effects, but it’s primarily been on police and laboratory dogs. In addition, the aversive training tends to be shock collar training, which is only one of several tools used.

So, led by biologist Ana Catarina Vieira de Castro of the Universidade do Porto in Portugal, the international team of researchers conducted their new study on companion dogs.

Each dog was filmed during the first 15 minutes of three training sessions, and saliva samples were taken to assess stress levels from training – three from each dog relaxing at home to establish baseline levels of stress hormone cortisol, and three from each dog after training.

The researchers also analysed the dogs’ behaviour during training to look for stress behaviours, such as yawning, lip-licking, paw-raising and yelping.

Unsurprisingly, the dogs in the aversive training classes showed elevated stress behaviours, particularly yawning and lip-licking. Their saliva also had significantly increased levels of cortisol compared to when they were relaxing at home.

By contrast, the positive reinforcement dogs were pretty chill – far fewer stress behaviours, and much more normal cortisol levels.

The next step was to assess the longer term effects of this stress. A month after the dogs were assessed at training, 79 of them were then trained to associate a bowl on one side of a room with a sausage snack. If the bowl was on that side, it always held a delicious treat; if located on the other side, the bowl never had the treat. (All bowls were rubbed with sausage to ensure the smell didn’t give the game away.)

Sure enough, the more aversive training a dog had received, the more slowly it approached the bowl. Interestingly, dogs from the reward-based training group actually learnt the bowl location task faster than the aversive-training dogs.

This suggests that reward-based training may actually be more effective, although the researchers suggest this may be because the dogs already understand treat-based training methods. It’s possible that the other group would learn more quickly were an aversive method applied – more research needs to be done to determine this.

Overall, though, the results seem to imply that aversive training doesn’t necessarily have an edge over reward training, and that reward training is much better for your dog’s happiness.

“Critically,” the researchers said, “our study points to the fact that the welfare of companion dogs trained with aversive-based methods appears to be at risk.”

The full paper is available on bioRxiv ahead of peer review.

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Posted in: Behavior and Training | Dogs | Human-Animal Bond

The 5 Things You Should Never Do With a Pet in the Car

November 5, 2019 by The Animal Health Foundation
Analysis by Dr. Karen Shaw Becker
  • November 02, 2019
  • A recent study confirms what almost all of already know — pets riding in cars should be restrained
  • The study showed that free-roaming pets in vehicles increase driver distractions, unsafe driving behavior, and stress for both drivers and pets
  • It’s important to know the five things you should never do with a pet in the car
  • For everyone’s safety, including your pet’s, it’s important to secure him or her with a preferably crash tested harness, travel crate, or travel carrier
  • Other important tips for safe travel include ensuring your dog or cat is wearing an up-to-date ID tag, and bringing along a pet emergency first aid kit

Recent research conducted by Volvo and The Harris Poll confirms what most of us already know — allowing your pet to ride and roam around in your car unrestrained is not a good or safe plan.1 The study showed that “free-range” pets in vehicles leads to an increase in unsafe driving maneuvers, driver distraction, and stress on both the animal and the driver.

A previous report by the same researchers suggested that 32% of pet parents have left a dog at home because they felt their car wasn’t safe enough, and 77% of Americans believe people don’t take vehicular dog safety seriously enough.2 Clearly, pet owners know better than they do, when it comes to traveling with furry companions.

Why Allowing Your Pet to Ride Unrestrained in Your Car is So Risky

The just-released study followed 15 drivers with dogs in their vehicles for more than 30 road hours. The researchers set out to compare how driving with an unrestrained pet vs. a pet in a seat belt, harness or carrier affected driver behavior. A few highlights:

  • Unsafe driving behaviors — including pets climbing on drivers’ laps or hanging their head out the window — more than doubled when pets were allowed to roam freely, with 649 instances vs. 274 with restrained pets
  • Driver distraction caused by dogs jumping from seat to seat or otherwise pulling drivers’ eyes off the road also more than doubled at 3 hours and 39 minutes with unrestrained pets vs. 1 hour and 39 minutes with restrained pets
  • Heart rates increased for both drivers and unrestrained pets, with dogs averaging 7 beats per minute faster and drivers, 28 to 34 beats per minute faster

Beyond these significant issues, free-roaming pets in cars can receive devastating injuries in the event of an accident or can run away from the chaotic, frightening scene of the accident, never to be seen again.

5 Never-Dos When Traveling With Pets

Veterinarian Dr. Elisa Mazzaferro, an expert in emergency and critical care of animals, offers the following tips for driving with pets:3

  • Never drive with your pet in the front seat — In the event of a collision, your dog or cat can be thrown into the windshield, even if restrained. Deployment of the passenger side airbag can also be dangerous to a small pet.
  • Never drive with your pet on your lap — It is not only a serious distraction to driving, but your pet can get caught under the steering wheel and cause an accident or be thrown forward in a collision.
  • Never drive with your pet unrestrained — Not only can your pet be a distraction, but an abrupt stop can cause him to fall and be injured. In the event of an accident, your frightened dog or cat may jump from your vehicle and run into moving traffic, be hit by other vehicles, or become lost.
  • Never allow your pet to lean out your car window — Debris can fly into your pet’s eyes and cause abrasions or punctures that could result in blindness.
  • Never leave your pet unattended in a vehicle — Depending on the breed, level of anxiety, and the time of year, some people may be tempted to leave their pet in the car while running a short errand. Even during cooler months, never leave your dog unattended in your vehicle, no matter how short a period of time, to avoid extreme temperatures and hyperthermia/ heat stroke.

Pet Restraints: Harnesses, Travel Carriers, and Travel Crates

Putting your pet into a crate, carrier or secure harness is for their safety as well as yours. As discussed above, an unrestrained dog or cat can be a distraction while you’re driving, and more than a few have crawled under the driver’s feet, causing an accident, and an unrestrained animal can become a projectile, which is life-threatening for both your pet and other passengers.

You’ll want to choose a crate or carrier that fits your dog or cat snugly, with enough room to be comfortable but not excess room (which poses a risk in the event of an accident). The crate or carrier should then be secured into the back seat or cargo area of the vehicle — not the front passenger seat.

While you can fasten almost any crate or carrier in your vehicle using elastic or rubber bungee cords, this method may not be secure enough in an accident, putting your pet at risk of injury. In addition, many pet restraint manufacturers claim their products are crash-tested and safe for use in a vehicle, but there are no established test protocols or standards required to make such claims.

Fortunately, the Center for Pet Safety (CPS) and Subaru have collaborated to perform crash tests on a wide range of harnesses, carriers and crates on the market. CPS actually provides a list of crash test certified pet restraint systems (up to date as of November 2018). The links below take you the test pages, including videos, for each product:4

Safety Harnesses Travel Carriers Travel Crates
Sleepypod Clickit Sport (Sm, Med, Lg, XL) Gen7Commuter Carrier Gunner Kennel G1 Small with Strength Rated Anchor Straps
Sleepypod Clickit Terrain (Sm, Med, Lg, XL) Gunner Kennel G1 Small with Strength Rated Anchor Straps Gunner Kennel G1 Medium with Strength Rated Anchor Straps
ZuGoPet The Rocketeer Pack Sleepypod Carriers Gunner Kennel G1 Intermediate with Strength Rated Anchor Straps

The CPS and Subaru also crash-tested pet travel seats. These are portable booster seats for small dogs that are placed on the passenger seat or console to elevate small dogs so they can see out the windows. None of the four tested seats safely restrained the (stuffed) dogs in the crash tests,5 so while they may be fun for dogs, they shouldn’t be considered effective safety restraints.

10 More Important Tips for Safe Road Trips With Your Pet

  1. Make sure your dog or cat is wearing a collar with a current ID tag. If your pet is microchipped, make sure the information is current in the microchip company’s database.
  2. Put together a travel kit for your pet. Include appropriate paperwork, food, fresh bottled water, bowls, treats, a harness and leash, and any supplements or medications your pet is taking.
  3. A first aid kit for emergencies is also a good idea. You can include a comb or brush, some toys, and, bedding. It’s also an excellent idea to include some recent pictures of your pet from various angles that would show any unique markings or any unique characteristics about her in the event (heaven forbid) she gets separated from you while traveling.
  4. If you plan to feed fresh or raw homemade food during the trip, obviously you need to pack an ice chest or some way to keep the food frozen. If you opt to switch to canned food for your journey, it’s important you make the dietary transition a week or so before you plan to leave, so you don’t encounter any unexpected bouts of diarrhea during your trip.
  5. Have clean up supplies on hand. Sometimes, there are potty accidents or vomit episodes that need cleaning up.
  6. Most cats won’t use a litterbox in a moving vehicle. If you make stops along the way, you can try to entice him to use the box at rest areas. It’s important to have a litterbox available when you make stops, but it also means that you’ll need a litter scoop and some plastic bags for used litter if your cat does decide to take advantage of the litterbox.
  7. Never open your cat’s carrier while there are any car doors or windows, even a sunroof, open. It’s a precaution you should follow religiously at all times when traveling with your cat.
  8. If you’re traveling with a dog, make sure his leash is attached to his harness or collar before allowing him off his travel harness or out of his travel crate.
  9. Don’t try to feed your pet while the car is moving. It’s best to offer a light meal a few hours before departure. If you’re traveling some distance and will be staying at a hotel in the evening, feed a second meal once your dog or cat has settled down in your room for the night. In the morning, feed some breakfast a couple hours before you get back on the road.
  10. Never leave your pet unattended in your car for any reason.
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Posted in: Cats | Dogs | Traveling with Your Pet

When Animals Mourn: Seeing That Grief Is Not Uniquely Human

October 31, 2019 by The Animal Health Foundation
Olaf Kraak/AFP/Getty Images
An elephant at the Emmen, Netherlands, zoo stands at the edge of a ditch in 2009, a day after another elephant fell into the ditch and died.

Eleanor was the matriarch of an elephant family called the First Ladies. One day, elephant researchers in Kenya’s Samburu National Reserve saw that Eleanor was bruised and dragging her trunk on the ground. Soon, she collapsed.

Within minutes, Grace, the matriarch of another elephant family, came near. Using her trunk, she pushed Eleanor back up to a standing position. When Eleanor, greatly weakened now, thudded once again to the ground, Grace became visibly distressed: she vocalized, pushed at the body and refused to leave Eleanor’s side.

How Animals Grieve     by Barbara J. King  Hardcover, 193 pages

How Animals Grieve
When Eleanor died, a female called Maui, from a third elephant family, hovered over her body, pulling on and rocking over it. During the next week, elephants from five different families came to the body. Some individuals seemed motivated only by curiosity. But the behavior of others, including Grace and Maui, clearly involved grief.

The breadth and depth of animal grief is the topic of my book How Animals Grieve, just published. Writing this book often moved me profoundly; through reading the science literature and conducting interviews with experienced animal caretakers, I came to understand at a new, visceral level just how extensively animals feel their lives. Elephants grieve. Great apes (think chimpanzees, bonobos) and cetaceans (such as dolphins) grieve. So do horses and rabbits, cats and dogs, even some birds.

Here at 13.7, I often write about science books. So it’s gratifying to write now about my own, especially this week when it’s the focal point of a story in Time Magazine called “The Mystery of Animal Grief.”

In my work, I define grief as some visible response to death that goes beyond curiosity or exploration to include altered daily routines plus signs of emotional distress. Horses who merely nudge or sniff at the body of a dead companion, for example, can’t be said to be grieving. Horses who stand vigil in a hushed circle, for many hours, at the fresh grave of a lost friend may well be grieving. A horse who refuses food and companionship, becomes listless and won’t follow normal routines for days when her friend dies? Why wouldn’t we see this as grief? (These examples are explained in detail in the book.)

As I’ve mentioned, it’s not only the big-brained “usual suspects” — the apes, elephants and dolphins — who grieve. In this brief video produced at The College of William and Mary (where I teach), I describe what happened when one duck named Harper, rescued by and living contentedly at Farm Sanctuary, witnesses the necessary euthanasia of his best duck friend Kohl. Emotionally, Harper simply cannot recover from his loss.

YouTube

In our own lives, when it hits hard, grief can be a wild and terrible force. In another post to come, I will outline some ways in which I think human mourning and thinking about death differs from the grief of other animals.

For now, I’ll conclude with the same words with which I close my book:

It won’t ease our deepest grief to know that animals love and grieve too. But when our mourning becomes a little less raw… may it bring genuine comfort to know how much we share with other animals? I find hope and solace in [these] stories. May you find hope and solace in them as well.

You can keep up with more of what Barbara is thinking on Twitter: @bjkingape

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Posted in: Cats | Dogs | Horses | Other Pets | Wildlife

Angel Fund Helps Trojan

October 31, 2019 by The Animal Health Foundation

One day last October, Yolanda Magallanes, took Trojan, her four-year-old pit bull mix, to get some exercise in the park across the street from her Fountain Valley home as she frequently does.  All went well until it was time to go home.

“He didn’t want to walk,” Yolanda said. “He didn’t want to go anywhere.” And when they entered her house, he defecated on the floor. “That was not normal for him. I figured he had a little tummy ache.”

When she went to bed that evening, Trojan did not come in to sleep with her. “He has done that since day one. He just wanted to lie on the tile floor.” He was lying in the same spot when she got up in the morning.

Before leaving for work, Yolanda called her sister, Irene Caudillo, and asked her to come get Trojan and take him to see her veterinarian, Dr. Mark Malo at Garden Grove Dog and Cat Hospital.  She met her sister there.  Dr. Malo did not have good news: He said that the dog was in bad shape and might be dying, she said.  He wanted to take x-rays and install an IV.

When Yolanda returned a couple of hours later, Dr. Malo said that the x-rays showed a large mass and that Trojan needed surgery.  He asked her to take the dog to a specialty hospital.

After what she described as a “royal” welcome for Trojan, the specialty hospital did an MRI and “put me in a room and said the doctor would be in soon to talk to me.”   When the doctor entered, Yolanda said, she was told that her dog had a large mass and needed surgery immediately.  There was a 65% chance that the mass was cancerous, the doctor said.

The doctor told her: “Your choice is either emergency surgery now or put him down.  If you’re keeping him alive, it’ll cost you $6,000 to $8.000 for the surgery.   And with the cancer treatments [that follow], you’ll continue to pay.”

Yolanda asked: “Where am I going to get that kind of money?  I don’t make that kind of money.  I don’t have that kind of money.  The doctor said, you might want to consider putting him down.  And I said, putting him down is not an option.”

She asked for a few minutes with family members, who were at the hospital “to figure this out.”  But the doctor told her, she said, that “we need a decision within the next few minutes.”  She felt pressured.

Yolanda began to sign the paperwork that would permit the hospital to euthanize her pet.  “But I just couldn’t go through with it,” she said.  Irene offered to lend her $4,000, the sum the hospital wanted before the surgery would be performed. After the credit card transaction, Trojan was taken into surgery.

Following the operation, Yolanda was told that the mass was not malignant and that her dog had suffered a ruptured spleen. Today, Trojan is a happy, healthy dog and Yolanda is “almost done paying the money, little by little, that I borrowed from my sister and from my bank.”

When she asked the specialty hospital about finding help for the surgery bill, they mentioned Angel Fund.  Yolanda called the fund and was impressed with how she was received.  “Angel Fund was very good to me,” she said.  “There was no waiting period and the lady I talked to was very nice and very polite.  She was great.”  She was granted $500.  After a call from Dr. Malo, she said, the specialty hospital reduced her bill by 10 percent, more than $800.  She also received a grant from another charitable group.

Yolanda did not see her relationship with the specialty hospital as one of trust.  “I didn’t feel that they were communicating with me,” she said.  The day after she took Trojan home, she took him back to see Dr. Malo.

She is a single mother who has raised two sons, 19-year-old Edward and Michael, 18, without help from their father.  Both still live at home.  She works for Advance America, a short-term loan company.

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Posted in: AHF Grant Recipients | Dogs

What You Likely Don’t Know About Service Animals, but Should

October 17, 2019 by The Animal Health Foundation
Analysis by Dr. Karen Shaw Becker

Story at-a-glance

  • A service dog is “Any dog that is individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of an individual with a disability, including a physical, sensory, psychiatric, intellectual or other mental disability”
  • Any breed of dog can be a service animal, as can miniature horses
  • Service dogs do not require professional training and there are no required ADA certifications for service animals
  • People with disabilities are allowed to bring their service animals to all public facilities and private businesses, without providing any type of “proof” of their disability or dog’s “service animal” status
  • A service animal may also be denied access if its presence interferes with “legitimate safety requirements,” such as a hospital unit that must maintain a sterile environment
  • Service dogs should not be approached, talked to or touched, unless permission is asked for and granted by the dog’s handler

Service dogs provide invaluable support to their owners, alerting them to potentially life-threatening medical problems or offering psychiatric or visual support. While most people will never experience the close bond that exists between service dogs and their owners, most everyone will cross paths with a service dog at some point in their lives.

Despite their prevalence — you’re likely to spot one sooner or later, since service dogs are allowed to accompany their owners virtually everywhere — many misconceptions persist about these generous animals. This is partly because service dogs look like any other dog, which leads some to believe they should be treated like any other dog — which isn’t the case if the dog is “working.”

Also problematic, the U.S. has no centralized process that allows people with disabilities to register service dogs,1 which means, even though service dogs are afforded special rights, there’s a lot of grey area when it comes to how those rights are protected, for both the dogs and their owners.

Clearing up common misconceptions is an important part of ensuring that service dogs and their owners get the respect and protections they deserve.

Service Dogs Are Not the Same as Emotional Support Animals

The Americans with Disabilities Act 1990 (ADA) defines a service animal as, “Any dog that is individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of an individual with a disability, including a physical, sensory, psychiatric, intellectual or other mental disability. Other species of animals, whether wild or domestic, trained or untrained, are not service animals for the purposes of this definition.”2

Miniature horses have been added as an exception, however, provided they are housebroken, under the handler’s control, can be accommodated by the facility and will not compromise safety regulations.

On the other hand, emotional support animals (ESAs), according to the Fair Housing Act and Air Carrier Access Act (ACAA), can be any species of animal, who must fulfill a disability-related need and whose use is supported by a physician, psychiatrist or mental health professional. ESAs do not have to be trained to perform a particular task and do not qualify as service animals under the ADA.

Service Dogs Are Not Only for the Visually Impaired

Guide dogs for the visually impaired are just one type of service dog. Service dogs can be trained to help people with physical or mental difficulties, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). If a veteran is experiencing anxiety or stress due to PTSD, for instance, a service dog can be trained to notice the signs and step in to provide calm and comfort.

They may wake a veteran up from nightmares and are also taught specific commands, including “block,” in which the dog stands in front of the veteran to provide for more personal space, and “cover,” in which the dog goes behind the veteran to “watch their back.”3 Other examples of tasks that service animals may perform include:4

Assisting individuals who are blind or have low vision with navigation and other tasks Alerting individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing to the presence of people or sounds Providing non-violent protection or rescue work
Pulling a wheelchair Assisting an individual during a seizure Alerting individuals to the presence of allergens
Retrieving items such as medicine or the telephone Providing physical support and assistance with balance and stability to individuals with mobility disabilities Helping people with psychiatric and neurological disabilities by preventing or interrupting impulsive or destructive behaviors

Not All Service Dogs Are Professionally Trained

Service dogs do not require professional training and there are no required ADA certifications for service animals. While most service dogs come from reputable trainers or organizations that specialize in training service dogs, according to the ADA, “People with disabilities have the right to train the dog themselves and are not required to use a professional service dog training program.”5

That being said, many service dogs undergo about two years of training before they’re ready and will continue to learn and adapt to their owner’s changing needs over time.6 There are also misconceptions about what type of dog can be a service dog; according to the ADA, any dog breed can be a service animal.

In choosing a service dog, personality is often more important than breed; dogs who are fearful or aggressive are not well suited to be service dogs.

Can Service Dogs Ever Be Denied Access?

People with disabilities are allowed to bring their service animals to all public facilities and private businesses. The owners of a business may ask two questions to determine if the animal is a service animal — and only if the need for the service animal isn’t obvious (such as a dog guiding someone who is blind. Those questions are:7

  • Is this animal required because of a disability?
  • What work or task has this animal been trained to perform?

Beyond this, no further questioning or “proof” is needed. As noted by the ADA, “A public entity or private business may not ask about the nature or extent of an individual’s disability or require documentation, such as proof that the animal has been certified, trained or licensed as a service animal, or require the animal to wear an identifying vest.”8

Generally, service animals are allowed to go where their owners go, but there are a few exceptions in which a business can ask for a service animal to be removed, including if the animal is out of control or not housebroken. A service animal may also be denied access if its presence interferes with “legitimate safety requirements,” such as a hospital unit that must maintain a sterile environment.9

Should You Pet a Service Dog?

One important point to remember is that certain rules of etiquette apply when it comes to interacting with service dogs and their handlers. Generally speaking, don’t interact with them at all; let the dog and the owner go about their business uninterrupted.

Service dogs should not be approached, talked to or touched unless permission is asked for and granted by the dog’s handler, but take no offense if the handler asks you not to interact with the dog — doing so could distract him from his important role, which is to look out for the health and safety of his owner.

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Posted in: Animals with Jobs | Dogs | Emotional Support Animals | Human-Animal Bond | Service Animals

Why Fake Service Dogs Do More Harm Than You Might Think

October 15, 2019 by The Animal Health Foundation

From www.fearfreehappyhomes.com and Award-winning journalist Jen Reeder 

A service dog named Elmer has made a wonderful difference for a 7-year-old boy named Gavin Swearingen. As a toddler, Gavin fell off a swing and suffered a traumatic brain injury that led to complex medical issues, from strokes and epilepsy to cerebral palsy marked by weakness on his right side.

Elmer, a Labrador-Golden Retriever mix raised and trained by the nonprofit Canine Companions for Independence, teamed up with Gavin in November of 2018. The attentive dog assists Gavin in numerous ways: acting as a buffer in public places since Gavin has no peripheral vision on his right side, engaging Gavin with physical therapy tasks (that seem more like a game with a dog) such as throwing a ball or holding his leash, and supporting him through his tenth cranial surgery.

Having a service dog has given Gavin “an independence and a strength,” according to his mom, Amanda Swearingen.

“We’re just grateful,” she says.

The Trouble With Fake Service Dogs

While Swearingen has witnessed the positive effect a trained service dog can have for people with disabilities, she has also learned firsthand that fake service dogs have a negative effect.

For starters, after fraudulent service dogs misbehave in businesses, staff, owners, and other patrons can grow leery of legitimate ones. One woman got “really angry” at the Swearingens for having a dog in a restaurant soon after they brought Elmer home; in another instance, a man asked, “Is your son disabled enough to need a dog?”

Safety is another huge issue. Recently when Amanda, Gavin, and Elmer were trying to enter a hospital, they crossed paths with a woman walking a small dog – clearly not a true service dog – who started barking and snapping at them.

“We couldn’t go in,” she recalls. “And for me it’s scary because I had a child attached to a dog and he’s not a robot. He’s still a dog. He has been through years and years of training, but he’s still a dog.”

Dogs Outside the Law

Service dog fraud has become so widespread that one in five Canine Companions graduates feel their quality of life and independence has been moderately or severely impacted by fraudulent service dogs, according to a 2018 survey by the organization.

“We are committed to the safety and access rate of our graduate teams, which is impacted by the presence of out-of-control dogs, whether they are wearing a vest and purporting to be a service dog, or a pet dog that is in a public place where they are not permitted under the law,” says Wallis Brozman, outreach program specialist for Canine Companions.

It’s a professional as well as a personal issue for Brozman, who is a three-time graduate of Canine Companions.

“I actually had to retire my second service dog after two and a half years because he was attacked so many times that he was completely uncomfortable going into public places and didn’t want to work because he was constantly looking for other dogs to make sure he was safe,” she says. “At that point, if your dog doesn’t feel safe, that’s a safety issue for you as a person with a disability.”

Canine Companions for Independence®Canine Companions dogs undergo around two years of socialization and training, and the nonprofit invests about $50,000 in each service dog (and provides them free of charge to people with disabilities). A service dog’s early retirement is a significant loss to both the handler and the organization.

Even without an attack, a phony service dog can distract a legitimate, task-trained service dog from his or her job. Fake service dogs can also create a bias against actual service dogs if they have an accident or incident in a grocery store or other business that allows only service dogs, says Brozman.

“I think a lot of people see fraudulent service dogs as not really hurting anyone,” she says. “The reality is that people are actually getting hurt. We have someone like me, who has had to start over and lost a service dog because of this very issue.”

Brozman says it’s important to note that while people might want their pets to go everywhere with them, their pets might prefer to be left at home. When a dog reacts negatively to other dogs or strangers, it’s often a sign of fear or stress.

“I think a lot of dogs love their life of leisure where they’re at home,” she says. “That’s something to keep in mind with any animal in your life: ‘Am I doing what’s best for my animal?’”

For more information or to take a stand against service dog fraud, visit: CCI.org/StopFraud

This article was reviewed/edited by board-certified veterinary behaviorist Dr. Kenneth Martin and/or veterinary technician specialist in behavior Debbie Martin, LVT.

Cover photo courtesy Liz Kaye Photography; inset photo courtesy Canine Companions for IndependenceÂŽ

Award-winning journalist Jen Reeder is former president of the Dog Writers Association of America.
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Posted in: Animals with Jobs | Emotional Support Animals | Human-Animal Bond | Service Animals