Forever Home…
Dog Training 101 & How To Be A Better Shelter Volunteer
Mike Deathe CPDT-KA
Copyright © 2012 Mike Deathe CPDT-KA
This book is for educational purposes only. You should always have a professional dog trainer present whenever these or other techniques are being implemented. Do not institute these ideas in your shelter without consulting the staff and management.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior consent of the publisher.
The Publisher makes no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any commercial damages.
2013-05-15
Dedication
This book is dedicated to those dogs that never made it out alive… For the memory of them and the sake of those still in shelters, lets get out there and make a difference!
Acknowledgments
I know I will forget someone here so I apologize up front, but thank you to:
Kate for helping me with the edits.
Humane Society of Greater Kansas City, for edits and allowing me to be part of the team.
KC Pet Project, for edits and letting me help from time to time.
Animal Haven for starting this idea many years ago with a simple talk to the volunteers.
Introduction
To start this book in the most logical way, I need to introduce myself. My name is Mike Deathe. I am a dog trainer from Shawnee, KS with a BA in Psychology from KU; a professional member of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers; and an American Kennel Club Canine Good Citizen Evaluator. I volunteer with several animal shelters in the Kansas City Metro, and have seen first-hand the effect of shelter life on dogs and dog behavior. This is the primary reason for writing this book. While there never seems to be enough prospective pet owners to save all the dogs in shelters, there seems to be, at least in KC, no shortage of people who want to help and to become volunteers. That’s the good news! The bad news is…most of the folks who want to help have little, if any, experience of how to train a dog, and nominal understanding of dog behavior in general. In many cases, good hearted, well intending people actually do more damage to shelter dogs than help them, because of that lack of knowledge.
About a year ago I was asked by a local shelter to put together a presentation for their volunteers that covered dog training basics, canine body language and my thoughts of what volunteers should actually be doing with dogs in a shelter. After many presentations and supplemental clinics, I realized that a book needed to be written on this topic. While this book may not ever be a best seller, I feel it is way overdue. Additionally, while its goal is to improve the shelter world, it will no doubt also help folks with their own dogs at home; and isn’t that the end goal? Hell, I have even put video highlights from the presentations up on our Kiss Dog Training website to help those who don’t like to read! I could really care less how the information gets out there, all I know is it needs to spread like wildfire!
My goal in writing this book is to give volunteers (and pet owners) three things:
1 A basic understanding of positive reinforcement dog training.
2 An introduction to the three types of volunteers I believe every shelter needs.
3 A basic primer in dog body language, and how to stay safe in a shelter environment.
According to the Humane Society of the United States, in 2010 alone, 6-8 million pets (dogs and cats) entered animal shelters and only 3-4 million were adopted. You do the math, but my calculations say that those other 3-4 million animals die in shelters each year. I can tell you from personal experience as a dog trainer that many of those dogs ended up in shelters due to behavioral issues. As you read this book, you will hopefully see that if we implement some, if not all, of the ideas found here, volunteers across America will be able to actively take part in making dogs more adoptable, thus helping them find their forever homes. Let’s face it people, isn’t that why we allow dogs into our homes as foster parents, or adoptees or the reason for becoming shelter volunteers?
A final note on this book: I have never, nor will I ever claim to know everything about dogs or dog training. I have no doubt there will be some people who might disagree with my ideas and/or the messages in this book. I simply ask you to read the book, keep an open mind, take only what you like, and leave the rest right here in these pages. My goal is that you love the entire book, but if not, I hope you find something you can use at your local animal shelter or at home with your own dog. It just might be the difference between a dog running out of time and a dog learning the skills that will help him find his forever home! Enjoy the book, get out there, make a difference, and be a better volunteer!
The Future is the Past…
Let’s say you had a time machine, traveled back 20 to 30 years and decided to stop in at the local animal shelter to look at the dogs and cats. It would be very different than the shelters you see today. This difference is in the make-up of the population of the shelter. We have done such a good job with one problem that we have inadvertently created another one. Years ago it was determined (correctly) that overpopulation was the main problem in shelters. Very few dogs were getting “fixed” and the population of puppies was exploding. When you walked into a shelter back then, there were usually more puppies than dogs of any other age. Even though puppies are cuter and more adoptable, there were just too many of the furry little critters to find homes for all of them. The solution that took shape was with the idea of spay and neuter programs; where as a rule, every shelter dog was fixed. With lots of hard work and education about the importance and benefits of “fixing” animals, we witnessed not only a decrease in the number of puppies but also the creation of low-cost spay and neuter programs all over the country…we made a difference.
Today the number of puppies in shelters has decreased dramatically, which is great, but now we find ourselves in a world where the majority of shelter dogs are of the juvenile/adolescent variety. Unfortunately, these dogs are typically not as cute, needy, or emotionally pleasing as their puppy counterparts, which makes them much harder to adopt. On top of all of this, many shelter dogs now come to the shelter by owner surrender or from being picked up by animal control because they got out and nobody went looking for them. Ask yourself two simple questions…
1 Why would someone get rid of a perfectly good dog?
2 Why are the majority of these dogs between the ages of 6 months and 18 months?
The answer is two-fold: lack of appropriate training combined with a difficult developmental period, otherwise known as PROBLEM BEHAVIORS. People today find it easier to take a dog to the pound and drop it off, rather than putting in the work to prevent the problems. With this book, my hope is that we as volunteers and even some of the folks at home, can do what the volunteers of the past did. With hard work and education on dog training dog behavior, we can make a difference; thus learning how to prevent and/or fix these problems. We, as pet owners and volunteers, must take the first step, and pay attention to how we react to the dogs around us in a shelter environment and/or at home.
Love Blind!!!
In many cases, the problem behaviors in shelter dogs come from a truly good place, but one that unfortunately, never works…the volunteers simply love too much. Not to say that love is a bad thing, but when we force our human emotions onto the world of other animals (in this case dogs), sometimes we get unintended