Four Paws and You Website Reveal

I’m really excited in sharing my website for my dog training business!!  This is my first ever venture of creating a business for myself and marketing my skills.  I’m a bit nervous, but hugely excited!

My next step is getting business cards printed and talking with local businesses and building a network.

If any of the readers are interested, please take a gander.  Four Paws Dog Training Website

One Thing Is A Lot Like Another…

For the past two weeks, I’ve been sitting and listening; attempting to absorb so much of what is being shared and emphasized during orientation.  I don’t know if its overload or like my post last week, my brain always makes connections and sometimes they are obvious and sometimes not.  Regardless, throughout the orientation process for a before/after school program I was hired to lead, my brain immediately went to hearing about how children behave and how much there is a connection in dog behavior and training.  Let me just say, take it what you want, but I kind of enjoy the similarities 😉

The most mind blowing similarity was in the realm of biting.  Ok, so I don’t have any children, but I’ve worked with adolescent girls for quite awhile early in my career.  Many of these girls were developmentally delayed and or suffered from serious mental health issues.  I have not worked or lived with children who are between the ages of birth to 4 years but, I found the information on developmental milestones intriguing.  In the training I received, I learned biting is a normal development process.  Infants and toddlers bite each other, chew on toys and are actively putting things (appropriate or not) in their mouth for the sole purpose of learning about their environment.  For instance, when small children start teething, they often seek out a release from the pain and often put whatever they can find in their mouths in order to soothe their tender gums.

Caregivers are trained in redirecting children.  For instance, if a child bites another child or is actively putting inappropriate things in his/her mouth, the caregiver is taught to have something else ready for redirection.  Redirection is a tool in teaching children what is and what is not appropriate.

Infants and toddlers also do not possess the ability to verbally communicate how they feel. They become frustrated, angry and well, they do what is most primitive, they bite.  In this case they may bite another child or seek out a toy or another such object.  Their main objective is again releasing whatever is intolerable to them in that moment.  Many times, caregivers will teach young children sign language in order to bridge the communication gap.  Children acquire sign language faster than verbal language and this can create a learning environment which is accessible for young children.  Our job as a caregiver is teaching them alternative methods for communicating how they feel or what they want.

Wouldn’t you know, biting is the same for dogs.  Dogs don’t have hands in which to manipulate toys in furthering their learning about their environment.  They also desire to learn and its our responsibility in teaching them what is an appropriate chew toy.  How do we teach them what is an what is not appropriate?  Well, redirection! Redirection is a wonderful tool in actively teaching a puppy what he/she can chew.  One of the biggest complaints from clients is this “my dog chews on my shoes, furniture ect”.  My answer is redirection.  The dog in question has not yet learned what is an appropriate chew toy.  They may have inadvertently been encouraged to chew on inappropriate items because this is when they get the most attention, even though its with scolding eyes and harsh tones from their owner.  This takes a sea change of sorts by the owner.  I encourage the owner to have a toy out of reach of the dog, but close by in order to offer it up when the dog begins gnawing on hands, feet, electrical cords or whatever else.  Once the toy is given as a redirection tool, I also encourage the owner to praise with a happy voice.  This signals to the dog that chewing on the appropriate toy gets her something enjoyable.  I would also suggest when the owner is not able to offer any redirection, keep the dog in a space where she can’t get anything inappropriate.  If she does, this only rewards the inappropriate chewing.  If children were so easy!

The inability to effectively communicate is another similarity between children and dogs which can lead to biting.  This is not to say, dogs don’t know how to communicate.  Its the opposite. Dogs have a very unique style of language and its our failure as human beings not understanding what they are conveying.  I’ve written about canine body language before, but if a dog is locked in a stare with another dog or a human being, there is potential the dog will bite.  If the dog is staring, growling and snarling, remove whatever the trigger is and the dog will calm down.  For the most part, biting happens because their lower level calming signals didn’t work, the trigger wasn’t removed, therefore the owner didn’t respond accordingly.  The human misinterpreted lip licking/flicking, wide eyes and looking away as nothing.  The dog continued to feel threatened and reacted.  Just like how adult caregivers for children offer opportunities for higher learning, the same goes for our furry friends!

Now, my goal is not to say “good boy” when one of my kindergarten students reads a story to me for the first time 🙂

Vulnerabilities

The past week has been super busy.  I recently became a new employee at a before/after school program for youth.  I see it as a throwback to my younger self just starting out in my career field.  The differences being, then, I graduated with my BSW  and wanted exposure in the social work profession and in a sense, get my hands dirty. Now, I’m looking for avenues in jump starting my dog training business.  I believe people talk about things going on in their lives and often times its sharing things which causes stress and many times those stressors are family and pet related.  Then, I was looking for the high profile populations and the high level of intensity of the workload and the massive critical thinking skills necessary for assessing special needs cases.  Now, I still enjoy the assessment process, but I find working for myself and being creative within my own business will be just as rewarding.  I just need some revenue coming in and meet people in a structured way, therefore I’m going backwards a bit.  I also think I can connect my social work background with dog training and teaching youth.  I have some ideas up my sleeves, but now its just a matter of getting through orientation, getting known at the center and building relationships.

The orientation this past week touched on many things children and immediately my mind started making comparisons with children and dogs.  Yes, I know comparing children and dogs is not really looked at with smiling eyes, but I often go against the grain.  To me the comparison makes sense and it makes me also pause.  If I offend anyone, I apologize, but I’m sharing some anecdotes which came to my mind this week.

First, children and pets dogs or dogs, in general are vulnerable populations.  Both groups are often without a voice and we as caregivers, parents, pet guardians are the responsible party charged with overseeing the care of both children and if you have pets, those too. Both children and dogs see the parent and owner, respectively, as the leader.  Children and dogs depend on us for food, shelter, love and companionship.  Children require way more hands on in feeding, changing, mirroring and basic human touch for survival very early in life and our dogs also desire human interaction throughout life.  I’ve seen first hand of situations where children go without these necessities and it resulted in children becoming displaced in society.  They grow up feeling as though no one cares and they are forgotten.  In one particular situation, there was a child I worked with whose parent never came to see them or have any sort of interaction with her at the shelter.  She was remarkable.  She graduated from high school.  Sadly, her parents were divorced and her mother didn’t make it to graduation.  She didn’t even think her dad would show up and told the shelter her situation.  The director had a staff member attend her graduation so at least she had one familiar face in the crowd.  Wouldn’t you know, before she finished walking down the aisle after receiving her diploma, her dad handed her a bus ticket to go live with her mother.

This broke my heart.  Similar situations exist with adoptable pets.  People who are often ill equipped in caring for an animal are the ones handing over the adoption papers or worse, trolling through craigslist and finding those classifieds advertising “free dogs to a good home”.  I heard about a recent case of a puppy dropped off at Animal Services where the owner cropped the dog’s ears him/herself.  The picture of the dog was horrifying.  Almost 3/4 of the ear was cut off with what could have been scissors or a box cutter.  I can only imagine the owners reaction when cropping the ears on their own, they probably didn’t use anesthetics or have a way in stopping the bleeding.  The screams from the dog and the realization they completely messed up resulted in the owner dropping off the dog at Animal Services.  The dog was traumatized and now needs rehabilitation.

In my mind, many people don’t recognize the level of care and immense responsibility in having children or owning a pet.  Both children and dogs require time and attention and dedication from their parent or leader.  Without this level of care and guidance and education and training, the children and dogs suffer.  Without the guidance, children and dogs become unruly and are seen as bad.  Without love and relationship, children learn making bad decisions results in negative attention, maybe the only attention they ever see. The same goes with dogs.  If all we do is come home and reprimand the dog for jumping on us or guests or peeing where they shouldn’t, they will continue doing these behaviors since these behaviors solicit the attention from their owner.

I’ve also seen the positives.  I’ve seen children grow into young men and women and look back at their parents with adoration.  They articulate the role modeling done by their mom or dad and the teenager understands this is the successful path.  They see their mom or dad as compassionate, understanding and overall someone they’ve grown to trust and show the utmost respect which translates to others outside of their immediate family.  I’ve also seen how loving and involved dog owners transformed a beaten down and shy dog into a dog who demonstrates confidence and a curiosity for her environment.  Love can transform lives and I truly hope more hearts are opened by it.