12 NovEpisode 179 | Two things every dog needs to know: Find it and touch! Featuring SFTD apprentice Leeyah Wiseman. Also: What Nat Geo was told about Cesar Millan’s techniques before The Dog Whisperer even aired
Annie is joined by School For The Dogs apprentice Leeyah Wiseman to discuss two super important behaviors: Touch and find it. She and Annie discuss the benefits of teaching these two things and talk about why both behaviors are such great starting places for many dogs and their humans. Check out @schoolforthedogs' Reels on Instagram to see Leeyah demo both!
Annie also engages in some time travel, reading a letter that Dr. Andrew Luescher, a veterinary behaviorist at Purdue University, wrote more than fifteen years ago. It was addressed to National Geographic, which had asked him to review their show, The Dog Whisperer, before it was released... Based on what happened next, it seems like no one read it.
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Mentioned in this episode:
Andrew Luescher's letter on Cesar Millan
See the Illuminaughtii episode on Cesar Millan on Youtube or find it on Spotify
Find Leeyah on Instagram @galdogtraining
Find Annie on Instagram @annie.grossman
School For The Dogs Professional Dog Trainer Course
Related episodes:
Episode 60 | The Most Important Behavior You’ll Ever Train
Previous episodes with Malena DeMartini:
Transcript:
Annie:
Hi! Today I am joined by School for the Dogs' apprentice, Leeyah Wiseman, who is going to talk about two very important behaviors that we teach all the time at School for the Dogs, Find it and Touch. Leeyah has been doing reels for our Instagram. You can see them @schoolforthedogs on Instagram. You can also find Leeyah on Instagram @galdogtraining, it stands for George and Leeyah dog training. George is her pup.
I tried to schedule this call with Leeyah at a time when my infant daughter would be napping, but I was foiled. So you can hear her goo-goo ga-ga-ing a little bit during this talk. And I apologize for that, but as working mother, sometimes I just have to not allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good, as they say.
In the beginning of the conversation, I'm asking her about Malena DeMartini, who I've had on the podcast before, who was a separation anxiety expert. And earlier in the week, Malena was gracious enough to speak to our apprentices. We have guest speakers who participate periodically. So that is what that is referring to. I will link to the episodes I've done with Malena in the show notes.
Before I share this conversation with you, however, I wanted to do a little bit of time travel back to a world before the Dog Whisperer was ever on TV and Cesar Millan was not a household name. I just came across a fantastic episode of a YouTube channel called Illuminaughti. It's also a podcast, it's spelled I L L U M I N A U G H T I I, and this episode is just a really excellent summary of the controversy around Cesar Millan.
Does an interesting job of presenting various sides and is sort of refreshing in that it's rare to read about Cesar Milan forums, at least for me, in any forum that isn't run by dog trainers who all have their own opinions. This person is someone who is a non dog trainer who really seems to get what so many dog trainers are upset about when it comes to The Dog Whisperer.
And she pointed to this letter that I had never seen, which I found super interesting. And I'd like to share. It was written by Dr. Andrew Luescher, and he is a veterinary behaviorist at Purdue University. He was consulted by National Geographic before the show aired. They wanted his opinion on the show. And apparently this is what he wrote to them:
I reviewed the four preview-videotapes kindly submitted to me by National Geographic. I very much appreciate having gotten the opportunity to see these tapes before the program goes on the air. I will be happy to review any programs that deal with domestic animal behavior and training. I believe this is a responsibility of our profession.
I have been involved in continuing education for dog trainers for over 10 years, first through the How Dogs Learn” program at the University of Guelph (Ontario Veterinary College) and then through the DOGS! Course at Purdue University. I therefore know very well where dog training stands today, and I must tell you that Millan's techniques are outdated and unacceptable not only to the veterinary community, but also to dog trainers. The first question regarding the above mentioned tapes I have is this: The show repeatedly cautions the viewers not to attempt these techniques at home. What then is the purpose of this show? I think we have to be realistic: people will try these techniques at home, much to the detriment of their pets.
Millan's techniques are almost exclusively based on two techniques: Flooding and positive punishment. In flooding, an animal is exposed to a fear (or aggression) evoking stimulus and prevented from leaving the situation, until it stops reacting. To take a human example: arachnophobia would be treated by locking a person into a closet, releasing hundreds of spiders into that closet, and keeping the door shut until the person stops reacting. The person might be cured by that, but also might be severely disturbed and would have gone through an excessive amount of stress. Flooding has therefore always been considered a risky and cruel method of treatment.
Positive punishment refers to applying an aversive stimulus or correction as a consequence of a behavior. There are many concerns about punishment aside from its unpleasantness. Punishment is entirely inappropriate for most types of aggression and for any behavior that involves anxiety. Punishment can suppress most behavior but does not resolve the underlying problem, i.e., the fear or anxiety. Even in cases where correctly applied punishment might be considered appropriate, many conditions have to be met that most dog owners can't meet: The punishment has to be applied every time the behavior is displayed, within ½ second of the behavior, and at the correct intensity.
I would just like to point out three particularly disturbing episodes. In one, a Great Dane is dragged onto a slippery floor by a choke chain. Again, punishment and flooding is used. The dog was under extreme stress. The photographer did an excellent job at documenting the excessive drooling. In another sequence a Viszla is corrected for showing fear by inflicting pain. Would you hit your frightened child if it was afraid, say, of heights? The most disturbing sequence was the Entlebucher Mountain Dog with compulsive disorder that was “treated” with a prong collar. The dog's behavior could be compared to stereotypic rocking in a child. The method Millan used to approach this problem would be like hitting this severely disturbed child each time it rocks. I bet you could suppress rocking behavior, but certainly no-one would suggest that that child was cured.
The last episode (compulsive disorder) is particularly unsettling because compulsive disorder is related to an imbalance in neurotransmitter levels or receptors, and is therefore unequivocally a medical condition. Would it be appropriate to treat obsessive compulsive disorder in people with punishment? Or have a layperson go around treating such patients?
Most of the theoretical explanations that Millan gives regarding causes of the behavior problems are wrong. Not one of these dogs had any issue with dominance. Not one of these dogs wanted to control their owners. What he was right about was that calmness and consistency are extremely important, but they don't make the presented methods appropriate or justifiable.
The title “The Dog Whisperer” is particularly ironic. The title is of course taken from the horse whisperer. The training techniques of the horse whisperer are based on an understanding of equine behavior, and are non-confrontational and particularly gentle. Cesar Millan anything but “whispers”!
I think this series, if aired, would be a major embarrassment for National Geographic. It is not stimulating or thought-provoking, since none of the presented techniques are new. They are outdated and have long been abandoned by most responsible trainers, let alone behaviorists, as inappropriate and cruel. I very much hope National Geographic will pull the plug on this program.
My colleagues and I and innumerable leaders in the dog training community have worked now for decades to eliminate such cruel, ineffective (in terms of true cure) and inappropriate techniques. It would be a major blow for all our efforts if National Geographic portrayed these very techniques as the current standard in training and behavior modification. National Geographic would be in a difficult situation because they would promote an individual practicing veterinary medicine without a license (at least compulsive disorder is a medical condition, and the diagnosis of any behavior problem is considered practicing veterinary medicine in the model veterinary practice act). I also would not be surprised if the large national animal welfare organizations were to sue National Geographic for promoting cruelty to animals. I can guarantee to you that they would have the support of all professional organizations involved in dog behavior and training.
Andrew Luescher DVM PhD DACVB
Director, Animal Behavior Clinic
School of Veterinary Medicine
Purdue University
Again, this was sent to National Geographic before the show ever aired. And unfortunately the show aired, nevertheless.
[music and intro]
Annie:
Hello?
Leeyah Wiseman:
Hi. Can you hear me?
Annie:
Yes. Oh my gosh. [Dog barking] Poppy, come here, sweetie. Go to your crate. Are you the goodest girl?
Leeyah:
Oh, what a good girl.
Annie:
You’re such a sweetie. Yesterday, we had a handyman here. This guy had come before. Poppy was, you know, first she was barking at him and I sat — I mean, it was of course, a little bit of madness and I had the baby tied to me, but I sat and did a little bit of just clicking her for looking at him and relaxation mat stuff. And by the time he was leaving, like she was jumping on him, I mean, in a like happy way, at least.
Of course, I've been trying to work on her jumping, but if she's happy-jumping on this guy that she otherwise would've been scared of, I'm gonna take it. And he seemed fine with it. And then right before he left, I cued her to go to her bed and she went right to her bed, and he was like, ‘She's such a well trained dog.’ [laughs] And I was like, I love you! [laughs] Thank you for saying that after my dog just barked at you and then jumped on you.
Leeyah:
Yeah.
Annie:
And it was like, you know what, both just showed sort of what an empathetic person he was, but also maybe how low people's expectations are [laughs.
Leeyah:
So low. Oh yeah. Basically.
Annie:
But also, I mean, nice that he wasn't like, you know, God, here's this dog trainer with a dog who barks at me and jumps on me.
Leeyah:
Yeah.
Annie:
How are you?
Leeyah:
I'm good. I'm drinking coffee.
Annie:
I was just curious how the Malena talk was on Wednesday.
Leeyah:
It was amazing. Not only did we talk about the separation anxiety stuff, but there was this story that kind of Touched me and it was, have you heard of the starfish story? I'm gonna probably not tell it very well, but it's like a bunch of starfish are washed up on the shore. And an old man is standing on the shore. And another person comes walking down and sees the old man tossing this one starfish at a time back into the ocean.
And person coming along was like old, man, why are you doing that? There's thousands and thousands of starfish all up and down the beach. Like you can't help them all. And the old man was like, well, the tide is coming and I'm sure it matters to like these one, one starfish or that starfish or…
And I was kind of comparing it to burnout and feeling like you're not able to help every dog and human out there, which like, obviously starting out as a dog trainer, I'm Feeling a lot. But that like, even with what we can do, and if we're concentrating on one person and one dog at a time, then we're still making a big difference, especially to that person and that dog.
Annie:
One dog at a time.
Leeyah:
Yeah.
Annie:
I wanted to have you on the podcast to talk about Touch and Find it, because you did this lovely reel on Instagram about how those are sort of two of the most important cues to teach. And I thought maybe I could ask you why you thought that.
Leeyah:
Yeah, totally.
Annie:
Start with whichever you please.
Leeyah:
Well Find It is one that I think not a lot of people even really know. I mean, a lot of people probably know about it, but maybe not why it's so awesome.
Annie:
So can you describe what Find it is?
Leeyah:
Yes. Find it is basically giving your dog a cue to put their nose to the ground and sniff and look for a treat or a reward or something. And it can be like the basis of… it's technically a nose work game.
Annie:
Well, what does Find It look like if you're just watching someone do Find It?
Leeyah:
The person dropping a treat and then the dog sniffing and going and finding it. And before the person tosses this treat they're giving the cue, so they're just saying, Find It, and then literally grabbing a treat and tossing it on the ground, close to their dog at first to kind of make it easy. And then you can start building it up to be further away or hidden.
Annie:
So Find It in this very easy way becomes a cue for, Hey, throw your nose to the ground. Something good's gonna be there.
Leeyah:
Yes, exactly.
Annie:
It's almost like saying catch.
Leeyah:
Yeah, totally.
Annie:
Like if you say catch to someone you're getting their arms up. And they're ready to receive, focused on you and what's coming at them.
Leeyah:
Totally.
Annie:
Find It is, it's so great cause it's so easy, right? It's like all you, like you throw treats on the ground. There's not even any criterion for your dog. I like doing Find It with nice crunchy treats that are gonna make a sound on the ground at first too, to kind of help Find It.
Leeyah:
Totally. Yes. And eventually doing it in grass is great. Using it as a dog-dog play break. So if they're okay with having food around both of them, and kind of like tossing treats in opposite directions in the grass and getting them to forcibly sort of break from play and disengage and lower arousal that way.
Annie:
Totally, totally. And it's so, like what a natural thing we're asking them to do, go find something with your nose, this powerful nose that you have and go find something that you like.
Leeyah:
Yes. Their nose is so amazing.
Annie:
Poppy go to your crate. You know, I'm telling her to go to her crate. Actually, it strikes me that go to your crate is sort of an iteration of Find It, cause it's like, go find something in this very specific spot. And I do it with sort of the same classical conditioning approach with her where it's like the treats are happening in her crate, whether or not she's coming there.
Leeyah:
Yes.
Annie:
Most of the time. So she just knows to run there to get her Yums.
So the other behavior that you talked about in this nice reel was Touch, which I have talked about on the podcast before, but I'd be interested to know how you would describe Touch and why it's an important behavior. Because again, it's a behavior that I think many people would not think to necessarily teach their dog first. Like people think of, you know, Sit and Down, Stay.
Leeyah:
Yes. And those are all really functional, and so is Touch. So first I guess I'll say how versatile it is and kind of what you can build off of it. And in the end you could have behaviors like for cooperative care, you could have long distance recalls starting with just presenting your hand in this basic behavior that you're getting your dog to boop their nose to your hand at first.
Annie:
Cooperative Care being behaviors that we can work on to help dogs do things that can help us take care of them, whether that's grooming, husbandry, et cetera.
Leeyah:
Exactly. You could start out with, so it's just basically the nose area of their face, touching the palm of your hand or two fingers outstretched or something simple like that. But it's very easy after getting that behavior really solid as a basis to use that for all of these other training behaviors. Like a chin rest, which is very similar, it's just kind of like a different positioning of your hand on a different place on their face.
And then, you could use targeting for other parts of their body as well. So like teaching them to target their paw to like a bell on the door. It's just super versatile.
Annie:
What are some things that you have taught George using a hand touch?
Leeyah:
Like a chin rest. So the chin rest that I used off of the Touch behavior, now I can, I eventually used it to be able to have his head resting and putting the toothbrush close to his mouth and then eventually actually brushing his entire teeth using the chin rest stationary behavior for him.
I've taught him to start going around my body, basically luring without using a treat. So I'm using my hand as a lure, since he knows such a good recall to it, so he'll always kind of work towards going and moving his body and his face towards my hand if it's outstretched and I tell him to Touch. And so you can use that to basically lure him into positions without having to use food.
Annie:
Well, how about walking?
Leeyah:
Yeah. If you can get them to follow your hand and start to have their face, which is their whole body is connected to their face, in a position next to you where you can have your hand outstretched. So you can basically have your hand outstretched next to your knee and be walking and have your dog be hand targeting with their face to your hand. That way they're kind of like in that magic zone, walking position next to you which can be more or less around your heel area, but it doesn't necessarily have to be in a strict heel position.
Annie:
I think that teaching Touch is also a good way to get people to not be so reliant on waving food around in front of their dog's faces, instead using their hand as a way to lure the dog. If they're in the habit of lowering and getting them used to separating the behavior from the food reward, if you're using a food reward, using a clicker or some other marker to pinpoint the moment of the Touch. Cause I think a lot of people think that reward based training means waving food around in your dog's face forever.
Leeyah:
Yeah. I think that's a very common misconception is that you have to have — I think that is one of the biggest common misconceptions is that, you know, you always have to have food in front of your dog. And I think that's also the biggest mistake is continuing — maybe in the beginning when they're just learning something or they're just learning how to do training in general —
Annie:
When you're doing, when you're like starting with more sort of just classical conditioning, like, Hey, I want you feel good about the world.
Leeyah:
Yeah, totally, totally. But then like teaching concepts and complex behaviors and things like that, you definitely want to fade the food into the background, so it's not present. And it's kind of brought out after the fact that way it's always a reward for their behavior as opposed to a bribe or something like that.
Annie:
Alright. Well I think we touched on, we touched on Find It. We touched on Touch. Oh, what I was gonna say before about Find It is Kate recently said to me, like, I'm starting to think like the answer to so many dog training problems is just to throw food on the floor.
Leeyah:
Yes. That's good.
Annie:
Kate who's like one of the best dog trainers I know. I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s right.
Leeyah:
Behavior trainer, too.
Annie:
Behavior trainer. Right. And here we are, like how simple can we get it? And yet, like there's so much static out there, there's so much ‘hold the leash in this specific way. Put your hands here. Not there.’ Da da da.
Leeyah:
Yeah.
Annie:
Well, Leeyah, it's good to talk to you. Thank you for coming on the podcast. And Oh my God. You're almost done with our first round of the virtual apprenticeship.
Leeyah:
Oh my God. I know. I'm so excited! And it was great talking to you. Thanks for having me.
Annie:
Yeah. Well, maybe we will have you on again when we open up the next round of the apprenticeship to answer questions about it to other people who might be interested in doing that.
Leeyah:
Yes, it's amazing. And I'm excited to do that.
Annie:
But I think we should hold off on that until I have a signup page even, which I don't. But if anybody’s listening and would like to join the School for the Dogs’ next round of our virtual apprenticeship, I guess just probably best thing is to email me at annie@schoolforthedogs.com and I will talk to you soon. Thanks so much, Leeyah.
Leeyah:
Thank you, Annie. Bye.
[music and outro]
