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When it comes to pets, do you go with your heart or your head?
By Christie Keith
July 15, 2010
Barbara Woodhouse’s name might not ring any bells with younger people reading this, but she was the first of the celebrity TV dog trainers back in the 60s and 70s.
Along with recommending increased exercise and social interaction to improve canine behavior, she advocated what she called “telepathy” as a training method, and blowing into dogs’ noses as a form of introduction. Her combination of no-nonsense and nonsensical training methods earned her a wildly popular television show in her native Britain and a ready audience for her books.
Her show, “Training Dogs the Woodhouse Way,” made her trademark, a sing-song call of “Walkies!”, a household word in Britain, and it became known even in the United States, where her show was syndicated on PBS. Woodhouse insisted there were no “bad” or untrainable dogs, and even today, watching her enchant unruly canines on grainy black-and-white film has lessons for those who have moved on to more modern training methods.
What reminded me of Barbara Woodhouse yesterday was not, however, a dog. It was a friend’s two cats, Champ and Charger, who were having a “Can this marriage be saved?” moment in their relationship.
A few days ago, a tomcat appeared at the window of my friend Dawn’s ground-level apartment. Champ and Charger, who are indoor kitties, reacted by hissing and yowling at him through the glass. But the cat, whose un-neutered status was unmistakable, didn’t run off. He marched around hurling insults and threats at them in secret cat code, knowing they couldn’t get at him through the glass, and probably confident of his ability to take these pampered housecats on if they somehow did get out.
Frustrated and frightened, Champ and Charger did what many cats do in similar circumstances: they turned on each other. It’s called “feline redirected aggression,” and it can in rare cases permanently destroy a previously harmonious multi-cat household.
My friend went online. She talked to cat-savvy friends. She implemented some of the suggestions gleaned from those sources, like separating the cats, putting paper over the windows, and using a spray called “Feliway,” which uses cat-calming pheremones to calm stressed out cats.
Things didn’t progress well. The cats kept meowing and hissing at the closed bedroom door. After two sleepless nights, she began to worry that Champ and Charger would never regain their former relationship, and, not unimportantly, that she’d never get to close her eyes for more than ten minutes again.
All the advice says that the biggest mistake you can make is to re-introduce your cats too soon. It’s what I told her. It’s what other cat-knowledgeable friends told her. It’s what she read everywhere she looked.
But out of all that advice and wisdom and experience, there was one thing missing. “No one knows my cats better than I do,” she told me. “This isn’t working.”
So she opened the door and let them figure it out (she was present during this experiment, in case it went badly), and while it’s too soon to say whether or not things are going to get back to the way they were, they immediately improved. The cats sniffed and avoided each other, but after a few hours, things had calmed down. And she got some sleep at last.
Which brings me back to Barbara Woodhouse and that whole nose-blowing, telepathy thing.
I have seen some great animal trainers in my day, people who seem to have an almost magical ability to talk directly to the minds of members of other species. The whole origin of the “whisperer” terminology in animal training was that exact phenomenon.
But I don’t believe in telepathy or magic. Nor do I think it’s necessary to possess supernatural powers to avoid and handle most feline and canine behavior issues. It takes something Barbara Woodhouse had, and that my friend demonstrated with her cats: animal sense.
Take me, for example. I’m less like Barbara Woodhouse than I am like my friend. I’m in general a mediocre dog trainer, lacking the patience and the interest to get beyond the minimum level required to keep my dogs from jumping on people and peeing in the house.
When it comes to training a dog not to pull on a leash, however, I’ve never met a dog I couldn’t have walking quietly at my side in half an hour. I can tell from the way their energy vibrates up the leash, from their body language and the way they move, when I do and don’t have their attention. And when I don’t have it, we don’t go anywhere.
I could call that “telepathy,” I suppose, and write a book about it, but all it really is is that I notice and recognize the perfectly obvious signs that the dog is displaying. For people who have been around animals for most of their lives, such recognition is unconscious. It’s second nature.
So when my friend threw the book on cat behavior out the window in favor of her own instincts, it worked. That may be because in general cats refuse to read “the book,” and in fact, when they do get a look at its pages, set out to do exactly the opposite. Still, it was a watershed moment for her, the day she compared what her animal sense was telling her to what the experts had to say, and went with her gut.
What about you? How do you get the “head vs. gut” mix right with your own animals?
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Barbara Woodhouse once trained a cow to be ridden over fences. How she found a saddle to fit, I don’t know.
Nor do I know what that stuck in my memory. But she was a helluva horse-trainer, as I recall reading. And a very good rider, too.
Comment by Gina Spadafori — July 15, 2010 @ 11:28 am
Whatever I had in my mind about responding to Christie’s post is now completely lost.
…trained a cow to be ridden over fences… hmm…
Comment by YesBiscuit! — July 15, 2010 @ 11:50 am
Like a show jumper. I’m sure there’s a pic floating around Teh Interwebs of it.
Comment by Gina Spadafori — July 15, 2010 @ 11:55 am
I’m speechless myself. Maybe it WAS magic and telepathy.
Comment by Christie Keith — July 15, 2010 @ 12:26 pm
OMG, I am older than I thought as I remember a video clip of her riding a cow. And, to this day, I still use “Walkies!! Whaaaat a good dog”. Mostly to annoy my husband, but still. Henry, the golden, smirks when I do it. Must be the tone in my voice.
Comment by Jill — July 15, 2010 @ 12:54 pm
The best line ever is the first line of Dr. Benjamin Spocks’s old baby book: “You know more than you think you do.”
Not true for all people, of course, but common sense and calmness beats fancy theory, fear, and flapping arms most days.
What all good trainers and parents bring to the table is good timing, consistency and calmness.
P
Comment by PBurns — July 15, 2010 @ 1:21 pm
Woodhouse had fantastic chops. She expected what she was doing to work, so it did.* She was also extremely loopy and often gave terrible advice, real WTF? stuff.
People who are “natural” at physical skills — because The Universe is Unfair, or because they started learning from the crib — typically suck at teaching said skills, and furthermore, frequently misattribute their success to something that is not responsible for it.
The resulting dogmas can range from comical to downright alarming.
Now, with my own animals, I’d call myself a naturalist, or unconscious trainer most of the time. I cut my teeth working with animals, and by myself much of the time, so in some ways it’s no different than a mostly self-taught skiier who got her first lift ticket when she was five. Including unconscious bad habits that are the very devil to unlearn.
When I’m dealing with students/clients, I have to translate through language — so there is a lot more consciousness and “method” in the mix. I had to learn how to instruct very consciously. (NB — it is not possible to learn a skill and learn how to instruct a skill at a professional level simultaneously.)
What formal training my own dogs get is frequently me trying out something — a new technique, or perhaps breaking down what is for me a fluid process into client-friendly bites. They are the crash-test dummies.
Many of us in the English shepherd world have observed that people who need a cookbook to raise a dog — no matter how knowledgeable, diligent, and devoted — generally fail as owners, frequently creating neuroses in genetically stable dogs — and if the ES is not stable by nature, look out. The most definitive field mark is a person who quotes the Famous Trainer Du Jour on email lists.
Send the basket case of a teenage pup that the fad chaser creates to foster with some Luddite farmer who barely gives him a moment’s consideration because she’s busy, and the dog frequently reforms overnight, if not faster.
_________
* She was downright abusive to her human students, and made a generation of pet owners terrified of attending obedience classes for fear of public humiliation, just like the instructor on teevee dispensed. And the young folks may not know her name, but they’ve seen her parodies countless times — it’s been absorbed into the pop culture. People tuned in to watch the student browbeatings — the reality TV of its day.
Comment by H. Houlahan — July 15, 2010 @ 2:17 pm
LOL I’ve been around a long time and remember the Woodhouse wave—and a lot of others.
The thing is, people forget that animals are animals and as we get more removed from nature and having critters in our day-to-day lives a connection is lost—along with a lot of common sense.
I’ve been in my field too long and can’t tell you whether my skill comes from a natural ability gleaned from exposure to animals, an intuitive knack of paying attention and “listening” to what the animal is communicating, or also to my years of training (practical and academic) in animal behavior and training.
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter as long as you sort out the situation without getting anyone hurt or killed in the process.
Sometimes it is as simple as using common sense and your gut to get to your other side. (I’ve had people get mad at me for spouting the obvious.)
My belief is that training is an art AND a science. You have to blend the two but making the right choice doesn’t always compute but it mostly seems to work and that is the art of it.
Make sense? Hope so…
Comment by Ark Lady — July 15, 2010 @ 2:36 pm
I used ‘Ms Walkies” as a guide how not to teach people. I even took education classes - how to teach classes - at the local college so I could do a better job.
Even now hearing ‘walkies’ will send chills up my spine!
Heather we need to meet over coffee one day - we’ve got a lot in common! smile….
Liz
Comment by Liz Palika — July 15, 2010 @ 4:13 pm
Yeah, you know what it reminds me of? All the bitter angry shelter killing apologists who hate the “irresponsible public” and treat them like crap, and then insist there’s no way to train a dog except using “positive” methods. HELLO CAN YOU NOT GRASP THE CONCEPT HERE?
Although BW did some things with the dogs that made me cringe even then, it was still incredible to see her go from mocking and berating their owners to cooing in the dogs’ ears.
HOWEVER… her total fail at interpersonal skills doesn’t change the fact that she could get a whole room full of unruly dogs she’d never met before to look at her and do what she wanted.
The other thing that she did, which I’ve actually written about before, is something Heather mentioned: She would believe her success was due to her techniques or tools (like her special choke chains!) when none of those things had anything to do with it. She had a way with dogs, and it was inborn or came to her with her mother’s milk.
Liz and I were chatting about this yesterday, in fact… how I can teach a dog to walk on a loose lead, but totally suck at teaching their owners to do it, LOL. Maybe I AM more like BW than my friend. ;)
Comment by Christie Keith — July 15, 2010 @ 4:56 pm
@Christie Keith
I have often wondered: why, oh why, if someone believes that you don’t house train a dog by “shoving his nose in it”, do they simultaneously profess to believe that blaming the public for shelter killing, and doing so in a manner essentially equivalent to “shoving their nose in it” will result in an end to shelter killing.
One of life’s mysteries, or not.
Comment by Valerie — July 15, 2010 @ 6:11 pm
Christie: I agree with you one hundred percent that she could handle dogs! Oh yes! And I watched her shows as she did that.
However, when she wasn’t nearly as good at relating to people, and by being less apt with people, her message was lost with many of them.
And I understand that, too. I have to work hard at it in classes because I’m often known as the dragon lady. I do not tolerate fools easily. Especially fools who mess up dogs. Luckily my business partner, Petra and Kate, are much ‘kinder’ than I am and balance me. smile….But I continue to try to change myself; it’s just not easy.
I fully admit that to be the best - to make the biggest difference in peoples’ and dogs’ lives - one cannot focus totally on the dog. A huge part of training is teaching people. As you and I talked about.
Comment by Liz Palika — July 15, 2010 @ 9:05 pm
When I meet a new horse we always touch noses so the horse can smell my breath. He usually lets out a big sigh and all is well. My new shetland pony, a rescue, always calms down, we do this every day.He’s learning…
“Walkies” works because it is not a command, it is an invitation— you can’t help but say it in a positive happy voice!
Comment by Terry Albert — July 16, 2010 @ 7:46 am
Waaallllllllkkkkkkkiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeesss!
Comment by Christopher@BorderWars — July 16, 2010 @ 10:28 am
I thought Barbara Woodhouse was amazing when I was younger, because, like me, it was obvious that she and four-footed animals ‘got’ each other, while she and two-footed ones had a problem. I related so well. I try, for the animal’s sake, to relate better with people, but it’s often either me being too timid or too angry. With non-humans, I know whether they want to be around me, how close I can be, and how much actual physical contact they’ll be happy with, almost unconsciously. Sure, I’ve been bitten, kicked, and scratched, but almost always because I was paying attention to the people more than the animals.
I had a ‘conversation’ with a woman who’d attended a ‘professional dog training school’ who informed me that although I’d been working with animals (of numerous species, not just dogs) for 35+ years, I couldn’t know as much as she did after her 24 week education (she was also less than half my age), and I shouldn’t think I knew anything about dog training. All my dogs and the dogs (and a couple cats) of friends and aquaintances I’ve ‘helped’ with house manners would laugh that my innate knowledge and skills don’t exisit without ‘certification.’
Comment by KateH — July 16, 2010 @ 3:04 pm
Heart, mostly, but with one really important exception.
I’d always had very good luck getting my dogs to do what I wanted. Then came Woody, a terrier mix literally on his last day at the shelter. Sweet, smart, but with BIG behavioral problems that only came out a couple weeks after he came home with me.
He snapped. He peed. He guarded. He had panic attacks. He lurched between submission and aggression. I was totally out of my league with this one. I was seriously considering finding him another home when a really good trainer walked into my life.
I didn’t agree with this guy’s philosophy - he was very focused on pack order and leadership. Woody had to spend weeks on a leash, off the couch, working for everything he got. I’d never treated a dog that way in my life. But I stifled my doubts and gave it a shot - it was Woody’s last chance - and it WORKED. We don’t have those problems anymore.
So I guess what I learned is that I didn’t know as much as I thought, and that my behavior was as much the problem as the dog’s was, because I didn’t understand what that particular dog needed. I’ve mostly gone back to my soft-hearted, intuitive ways, but it’s good to know what to do when that doesn’t work.
Comment by LauraL — July 17, 2010 @ 9:47 am
Yay! I remember watching Barbara Woodhouse specials and reading her books as a young girl. (I vividly remember her pointing out how a dog, over time starts, to imitate a human smile by the smile lines that appear on the outer eyes. Like a calming signal used specifically for human communication.) She got me interested in animal behavior.
After watching her and watching the rise of the positive only methods growing up I realized that positive training is wonderful and worked with most animals, that there were many “brutal” methods that did not traumatize certain dog personalities while some dogs stressed out/became utterly frustrated with the positive only camp teaching. From there out I vowed to use a blend or techniques that are the least stressful for the animal, setting it up for succcess. Some dogs flourish with positive only training. Some only learn with a 2x4 (figuratively) applied upside the head. My motto is use what works best for the dog.
Comment by Kristy — July 28, 2010 @ 2:14 pm