I’m reading the Toronto Star article about the incident in the subtitle. The writer quotes a Toronto Humane Society team member about this. “Train your dog to drop items on command.”
I disagree with that suggestion because prevention can be much simpler to train: teach your dog to ignore items on the ground without a cue.
Many dog trainers instruct owners to teach their dogs to “leave it” which is a cue. Any cue tells your dog to do something. Which means your dog is already doing something else. Often, something you don’t want your dog doing.
Have you ever told your dog to sit after your dog jumps up on someone?
Do you see the problem? Think about how you taught the sit using positive reinforcement. Chances are you used a food treat held above your dog’s nose to get the sit. Then you gave your dog the treat.
After the word was added during the education, your dog understood what would get him a treat: you say sit, she plants her butt on the ground and the treat follows.
All cues reinforce the behavior happening immediately beforehand.
Reinforced behaviors repeat (BF Skinner)
Telling your dog to “leave it” reinforces your dog ignoring you to investigate an area for something to sniff and consume. Throughout your dog’s life, you have to be actively be involved in everything your dog does. That is stressful.
I was just consulting with a couple about reinforcement going wrong. The couple thought about this and realized whenever the dog investigates the backyard and picks up acorns in her mouth, the owners ask the dog to “drop it.” The dog complies every time, releasing the acorn and gets a treat for doing exactly that.
In my mind, I could visualize the clients doing this when they recognized what was going on.
(Editors note: As we head into peak mushroom season, think of how dangerous it can be for a dog to investigate and pick up a bad mushroom. You’ll want to encourage the dog to seek you for reassurance before anything!)
Being diagnosed with a chronic disease with no cure can be depressing. However, I am an opportunist.
My opportunistic nature means I will grasp any advantage my condition confers. These advantages may not influence my health outcomes permanently, but they are something to write about and grow my insights to promote the health of many species. I often use these to create short video content on social media to promote animal or human health.
One advantage I have recognized is the temporary symptoms that I might get when I am outdoors walking my dogs during warm weather. Before I leave, I always check the weather app on my cell phone. The data I collect are air temperature and humidity because those impact how well I function (or not).
I have learned the narrow temperature range where I do not experience any distress from MS. Ideally, I prefer being outdoors when the air temperature is 14C/57.2 F.
Coincidentally, this overlaps with veterinary recommendations about safe temperatures for dogs.
Air temperature impacts the surfaces that dogs’ paws touch. There are many social media posts talking about air temperatures and corresponding temperatures on asphalt or concrete. Those are common surfaces that dog paws come into contact with during walks.
Asphalt and concrete can get incredibly hot despite comfortable air temperatures for both humans and dogs. The heat on those materials rise to the point where paw pads get burnt. If you have ever seen any photos about burnt paws online, those are true burns.
Because I am incredibly heat-sensitive, even a slight rise of 1 degree in air temperature means I start experiencing symptoms. These symptoms are temporary and go away when I get myself out of the heat. When I start feeling dizzy or my coordination becomes more compromised than usual, that tells me the air temperature has gone up from when we left the house.
My automatic response is to tell my dog to go onto the grass. This is so that I can place the back of my hand onto a concrete or asphalt surface in the immediate vicinity. The back of my hand remains on those materials for 5 to 7 seconds as a test.
I then take a sip of water and begin trekking back home, because my heat sensitivity has begun telling me the air temperature is rising. Since I always walk my dogs in the morning, I know the day will continue getting warmer. While we are safe then, I am familiar enough with my condition to recognize that remaining outdoors would mean expecting an increasing decline in my cognition.
To the point where I wouldn’t be able to look out for the dogs.
Being heat-sensitive isn’t great, but I can act as a thermometer to take action immediately. That means I still have some cognitive function able to make decisions before I get into trouble or before my dogs do. This condition can be annoying, but I have learned to make it work.
In my profile, I mention I have multiple sclerosis (MS). MS is an incurable disease causing inflammation in my brain and spine.
Part of the MS package comes heat intolerance.
Temperatures that you feel comfortable in — let’s say room temperature (20C/68 F). That temperature or higher is hell for me.
At those temperatures indoors or outdoors, I start getting confused and disoriented. I might lose my balance.
Last November, I found out exactly how heat intolerant I was while riding in my friend’s rental car.
Toronto, CANADA – November 20, 2018: Landscape view of the city of Toronto with legendary CN Tower
November in Toronto rests between the fall/winter seasons. As you might expect, outdoor temperatures are low during that time. At the end of the month, we might experience the first snowfall. With the low temperatures, I usually put on a light winter jacket or layer my clothing.
In late November 2023, a friend returned from Florida to attend her family member’s celebration of life. “Celebration of life” is an updated term to describe a funeral.
After the event, my friend and her family invited me to a casual social gathering. We went to Starbucks.
That trip went well; I got my seasonal latte and consumed that.
Since we all had time, we decided to meet some other people who lived West of the city
During that car trip, I started feeling unwell — I had my winter jacket on, which I started to remove because the car’s heat made me uncomfortable. Taking off my winter jacket brought me some relief, but I still had a warm vest on and began unzipping the vest.
My friend’s partner was driving, and he kindly started opening the window beside me in the back passenger seat.
I appreciated the gesture, but at that point opening the window didn’t do much.
I vomited, at least 3 times. Part of the vomitus was the Starbucks latte.
At the time, I felt so disoriented that I would not have been able to write this.
Reflecting on that event gave me clarity about what dogs experience when they are left in cars during the summer.
The inside of a car heats up rapidly when the sun’s rays hit the car — I’m sure you’ve experienced the irritation of hot leather seats.
My choice of winter wardrobe, having MS, and riding inside a heated car were analogous to having a furred body and physiology that can’t get rid of excess heat well.
Considering my increasing discomfort as a human being in that moving vehicle, I can only imagine the distress a dog experiences locked inside a parked car during warm weather.
When Melo the cat escaped from his family’s home, he got out from the back door.
The back door is located in the kitchen.
Which was where I began formulating Melo’s anti-door-dash training plan.
I thought about the sounds preceding Melo’s back door opening.
After assessing Melo’s kitchen, I considered Melo’s perspective.
The order of operations allowing a back door exit involved the following sounds:
1) The glass door latch getting flipped
2) Sliding of the glass door
3) Flipping of the screen door latch
Since we were indoors, I focused on the sound created when the glass door latch was flipped.
Which made a “click” noise.
Previously, the “click” meant freedom to Melo.
I planned to counter-condition the click into triggering a brilliant stay behaviour that was entirely Melo’s choice.
To do that, I created value for a location to become Melo’s default “stay” area.
Photo by freestocks on Unsplash
As an animal welfare advocate, I am committed to using positive reinforcement in my work.
Because of my functional limitations, I use a lot of shaping to teach behaviours to animals.
My hand dexterity disability from MS means I can’t use luring or a clicker.
Day 1: Paw Targeting
Total time: 90 seconds — blanket from full-sized to 1/4 size
Paw targeting means teaching a cat to use his paws to touch something.
If you’re a cat owner (slave), you know you have to make that behaviour the cat’s idea.
With paw targeting, I started with a huge surface area using a blanket.
I placed the blanket close to a wall, which served as a barrier for Melo.
Once Melo touched a single paw on the blanket, I marked the exact moment by saying “search” and throwing a piece of kibble away from the blanket.
Because Melo is a domestic cat and a hunter by nature, the view of the flying kibble drew his attention and he followed it.
Melo’s facial expression suggested he was thinking: “What?I walked on the blanket like I wanted to…and a piece of kibble got thrown.”
Then Melo put two paws on the blanket, exactly what I wanted him to do.
When I saw those paws hit that blanket, I threw another piece of kibble after saying “search.”
Melo became hooked on this game — he quickly decided that all of his paws on the blanket might be a good idea.
Precisely what I wanted him to do.
To Melo, that was his idea.
I didn’t leave the game at that.
I folded the blanket in half to see if Melo understood where the value was.
Since the half-blanket remained in the same spot as the full one, Melo decided to try putting all of his paws on this reduced surface.
Again, Melo chose to do what I wanted him to do.
After that, I folded the blanket more to create a quarter blanket.
At that point, Melo decided to sit on the quarter blanket.
For Melo, everything he did was his idea. Plus he received payment for doing those things.
What a win for a cat!
Photo by Belinda Fewings on Unsplash
Day 2: Advancing Paw Targeting
Total time: 60 seconds
For this, I placed the quarter blanket into a basket.
Which would become Melo’s “stay” place.
The blanket within the basket was the spot I wanted to become Melo’s “stay” place.
To set Melo up for success, I started with part of the blanket hanging out of the basket.
Eventually, I had built enough value that Melo chose to go inside the basket on his own.
Where he remained.
Day 3: Adding the Cue
Total time: 13 seconds
Since I wanted the flip of the back glass door latch to be the “stay” cue for Melo, I threw a piece of kibble for him to leave the blanket in basket.
To set Melo up for success, I moved the stay zone closer to the glass door latch because I wanted him to associate the sound of the door latch with “get into your basket.”
The distance I tossed the food was close enough to his future “stay” zone. When Melo left to seek that piece of kibble, I manually flicked the door latch right before he settled himself into the basket.
After a few kibble tosses with “search,” Melo understood that door latch flick meant getting into his stay zone.
Day 4: The Release Cue
Total time: 7 seconds
A release cue is a word that permits an animal to leave a physical position or location.
Melo already had a release cue: “Search.”
Which began on Day 1 with the Paw Target game.
Melo understood “search” meant he was correct and to look for a piece of food on the ground.
I changed the release cue by introducing a new word: “break.”
From Day 1, I dropped single kibbles when Melo was on the blanket.
Once I moved the blanket into the basket, the kibble dropping occurred unpredictably.
Since he had learned the release word “break” on Day 4, I would randomly say “break” to let him know that his job was over and that he could leave his spot.
The one time Melo was incorrect was when I put the empty basket in the living room 🤣
How did Melo’s stay behaviour apply in real life?:
I’d like to share a story about a friend’s dog, “Winter.” Winter showed me that a single incident of vomiting could be a veterinary emergency. Winter was a spirited little American Eskimo dog, a breed that looks similar to the dog pictured below.
I met Winter and his family when I worked as a professional pet dog training instructor in a retail store. Winter and his people were in a class scheduled before my own class. Since there were breaks between classes, I got to know Winter’s family very well. To the point where we became incredible friends. To the point where we became each others’ extended family. One of the things Winter loved to do? Eat snow. Generally, dogs eating or licking snow isn’t a veterinary emergency. In 2009, Winter ate/licked some snow covering the ground in the parking lot at the condo where he lived with his humans.
Where the snow was located turned the situation into a veterinary emergency. Since the snow Winter had eaten was from the ground of a parking lot, the snow likely contained antifreeze. Antifreeze supposedly tastes sweet to dogs.
The antifreeze that gets poured into cars contains methylene glycol, methanol, and ethylene glycol. In other words: extremely toxic and not intended for drinking. Because Winter had only vomited once, his people felt that wasn’t an emergency. After all, he had vomited before and was no worse for wear. This time, the family had to say good-bye to a 3 year old dog.
I spent most of that week with Winter’s humans, including visiting him at the veterinary hospital and conversing with the veterinarians overseeing his care. Eventually, I ended up signing the form authorizing Winter’s euthanasia to end his suffering, because I didn’t want his humans to live with the guilt of “killing” their beloved dog. I even said they could blame me if they wanted to. Since Winter’s family and I remain friends to the present day, I know I did the right thing.
