Canine Discipline in the Animal Rights Era
Jim Engel
Over more than four decades I have been involved in the breeding, training and international affairs of working line Bouviers des Flandres and as a commentator and historian for our police breeds generally. In the beginning there was no one to question that on occasion serious discipline—the application of appropriate physical correction—is a necessary aspect of dealing with such large, aggressive and powerful dogs. But in recent years a cadre of self-declared animal rights activists has come forth to preach that physical correction of any sort is inherently wrong and unnecessary, that we can live with and train such dogs with "positive motivation" only without any need of physical correction.
Over this time there was someplace on the property a twenty four inch length of 5/8 inch garden hose available as a disciplinary device, which over all of these years was taken up three or four times to deal with a serious dog aggression problem. It was actually applied twice, in both instances on a young adult male Bouvier out of our lines, but in the hands of clients with a problem, to correct a propensity to seriously go after small dogs. These dogs received a sharp blow across the muzzle from the unsuspected hose, on one occasion once and on the other a second blow proving necessary. I make no apology. (This was prior to the general availability of the radio collar.)
Although I would not have hesitated to use such methods on dogs with us from birth or acquired from the Netherlands or Belgium the occasion did not ever arise; the need for strong physical correction generally presents itself after patterns of seriously bad behavior have been allowed to become established, usually by an inexperienced owner.
My initial training experience, as a forty year old research engineer looking for nothing more than a physically vigorous activity to get me out of the house evenings and weekends, was with a no nonsense AKC obedience club whose style of training was according to the methods of Bill Koehler, who occasionally flew in from California for a hands on seminar. My approach was according to the description in his book of methods to be applied as a last resort where the alternative for the dog was dire. Nobody of my acquaintance found any of this remarkable; one correction took place in a club setting in the presence of numerous novice handlers. Although cautious for the safety of all involved, including the dog, it would not have occurred to me to see any reason to avoid public scrutiny.
Yet today had these brief sequences been recorded on a cell phone and included without context in the midst of the increasingly fashionable animal rights propaganda videos I could quite easily have found myself in the cross hairs, portrayed as the brutal man relentlessly and with perverse pleasure beating innocent, loving dogs with rubber hoses. This is a serious problem, for society as a whole and in particular for inherently good but vigorous and strong dogs which have come to a point where dangerous behavior propensities cannot be modified by the so called no force approach, who can only be saved from a seriously bad outcome by sufficient physical correction applied with vigor and determination. As a breeder and advocate of large, aggressive dogs I felt a personal responsibility.
Much has changed since the appearance of the Koehler book in 1960, which was very much in the spirit of methods promulgated by Konrad Most in Germany prior to the First World War, the main stream conventional wisdom of the era. That our modern focus on drive building and positive motivation can be enormously effective cannot be denied, but it is built on the more compulsive foundations of pioneers such as Most and Koehler. I do not regret or apologize for my background in the Koehler methodology; but this has evolved just as in any aspect of life moving forward. It was my privilege to observe Bill Koehler working with new people and young dogs in the foundations; he was patient, deliberate, soft spoken and precise; it is a shame that his methodology, not particularly remarkable at the time, of dealing with serious behavior issues has been misused to discredit the only training paradigm that actually works, the application of balanced and sufficient correction with positive motivation.
Particularly in Nordic nations such as Finland but relentlessly spreading throughout Europe and likely destined to intrude into America the Animal Rights movement is increasingly targeting the protection dog, both in sport and in practical service. Small segments of surreptitiously gathered video sequences have been combined, void of context or carefully crafted into false and misleading scenarios, with the ultimate objective of eradicating both sport and service with our military and police. These video segments and arrogant, condescending lectures from effete university personalities, pseudo intellectuals who have never experienced dirty hands working with or deploying police level dogs, proudly and disdainfully ignorant of practical realities, are emerging as a serious threat to our culture and way of life.
As outlined above it is quite clear that had the wrong sixty seconds from my forty years in dogs somehow been included I would be damned along with those presently under attack. Who among you, the community of serious trainers, would be exempt?
In America the drum beat of alarm is emanating primarily from resident commercial European trainers under ever increasing pressure to conform, or appear to conform, to a left wing European mantra of purported animal "rights," particularly the supposed inherent evil of the radio controlled collar, which remains perfectly legal and entirely appropriate in America and the rest of the world not yet under the sway of hysterical extremists.
Largely overlooked or misunderstood in the confusion of the propaganda generated by opportunistic critics is the reality that the radio collar is a significant step forward in terms of safety and security for the dogs as well as training efficacy. It provides inherently safe and reliable corrections or signals thus enabling less vigorous or even frail persons the opportunity of living freely with the dog of their choice. Ordinary persons become empowered to walk in public areas, giving their dog freedom to explore, to just be a dog, confident that a reliable recall is in the palm of their hand.
Modern units incorporate an optional vibration or warning sound in lieu of the shock provided by the contact points, greatly enhancing operational options and effective, timely, measured corrections. Previous methods such as various long line arrangements and thrown bags of pebbles or small stones were inherently dangerous and of dubious efficacy, with the ever present danger of a dog becoming entangled in a line while in rapid motion or being conditioned to cower at thrown objects. Sometimes secondary trainers were employed to handle the lines or throw objects, reducing effective timing of corrections and a confusion factor to all involved, in addition to the inconvenience and inherent confusion of more than one trainer on the field.
Serious training requires a balance of compulsion and drive building or reward, and seriously strong willed dogs benefit the most from this technically advanced equipment. The radio collar applied correctly is the most safe and humane technology currently available and along with other traditional devices such as the prong collar is under attack not in the interest of canine welfare but to bring an end to the protective applications as sport or service. To the extent that these safe and effective tools are forced out of use more brutal and inherently dangerous methods, such as long lines to snap a dog back in a recall on the long attack, will come back into common use.
From the beginning of my involvement in the late 1970s I cannot recall a training field instance of anything approaching what could be characterized as animal abuse. I of course know that such things exist, have been told by two reliable senior judges in a European venue of at least two dogs ultimately dying on the training field as a result of extreme compulsive training. But these are the outliers that inevitably exist in any area of human experience. Evil men do exist and ugly things are done to animals much more often than we would like to think, but banning eminently appropriate technology can do nothing to alleviate this and will in actual point of fact push us back into the bad old days.
In general my experience has been that permissiveness, a reluctance to make timely and sufficient correction, has been more the problem, but hesitation is of course the right sort of error to be making. Over the past forty years our Schutzhund clubs, and the AKC obedience and Ring Sport folks as well, have a strong record of responsible, compassionate training, have made enormous contributions to general animal welfare. We were in the beginning of course woefully ignorant of even the most basic principles, it was something like a year in that I was astonished to see a European helper give the sleeve to a dog to carry off the field. We had so much to learn, so far to go.
American aggression training prior to the emergence of more modern methods, generally in the aftermath of Vietnam, historically tended to be a more or less ugly process. There was no widespread, legitimate body of knowledge and experience to draw on, as existed in much of Europe, which resulted in blind innovation and what are in retrospect bizarre practices such as flanking, grabbing and pulling on a tightly held dog to bring forth an aggressive response. This was commonly advocated and practiced, ignoring the fact that dogs requiring such methods are generally inappropriate candidates in the first place. Other examples could be cited. It was an era of ignorance and stupidity engaged in by those not really acceptable in conventional canine circles, with the blatant use of crude and barbaric methods. There are still instances of such backyard training, and those ignorant enough to engage in it are unfortunately quite often stupid enough to put the video on the internet. But in general this has been greatly mitigated over forty years, largely as a consequence of better and more humane methods pioneered on our Schutzhund training fields. We tend, rightly, to focus on our problems, but we have much to be proud of.
At the moment the focus of these animal rights provocations remains primarily in Europe. Our screw ball left is much more concerned with gun confiscation and suppressing traditional venues such as the circus, rodeo or sea mammal aquariums. Amateur protection training here is much less prominent and mainstream and thus much less in the public eye.
What is mainstream and prominent in America is our deeply ingrained hunting dog culture, the advocates of which are heirs of deep seated cultural values and time honored tradition of enormous consequence in terms of numbers, money, prestige and influence in high places. Fortunately enough for us this hunting community is by and large made up of trainers primarily users and advocates of the radio collar. If the day comes for a crusade to ban such equipment the protection community will be irrelevant, the battle will be with this powerful, well connected, extremely well organized hunting establishment. But such a confrontation is unlikely in any foreseeable future; Americans generally are much more advocates of personal freedom and liberty as opposed to compromise and submission of personal rights and advantage for what is proposed as a common good, the most prominent instance being our deeply entrenched constitutional right to bear arms. For these and other reasons, such as the inconvenient reality that such laws would have to be implemented state by state rather than nationally; I do not see the outlawing of any sort of training equipment as an especially imminent threat. Local or state laws would be rendered virtually unenforceable.
A more plausible vulnerability would be some sort of ban on protection training and police canine deployment. We are living through a firestorm of controversy over the application of police power, particularly in traffic stop and arrest scenarios, and while canine applications have not been featured in recent news it is not inconceivable that future incidents could bring forth new confrontations with wholly unpredictable long term consequences. Media photos of police dogs along with fire hoses used on civil rights demonstrators in the 1960s, particularly in the south, resulted in significant retrenchment of police canine programs, with some units ceasing to exist.
The virtual elimination of Greyhound racing, beginning with a vote of the people of Florida to shut down their tracks and eliminate a long standing program with substantial economic and employment benefit, highlights the danger of the righteous moral stampede. Long standing, traditional institutions such as circus animal performances and most large mammal aquariums are, rightly or wrongly, now largely things of the past.
Through the Second World War America was largely a rural nation with most of us living on farms or in farming communities or at least familiar with such things through relatives; most of us of a certain age can recall the green or red field tractors and the blue Fords in the barn yard. Animal husbandry required breeding, training and effective management of horses, dogs and domestic animals in general. While the heavy hand was without doubt present, most men came to understand from childhood, from the example of fathers and others as they went about their farm business or hitching up the buggy for a trip to town, that effective management of working animals was an essential life skill; there was little patience for controlling guidance from squeamish city folk with concerns for benevolent management or abstractions such as animal welfare. Good training and care, just as in a craftsman caring for his tools, was the norm because it was an economic necessity.
This ongoing surge of hysterical do gooderism seems to be largely the product of dowdy little old ladies with way too much time on their hands and a long cultivated propensity to intrude, to poke their noses into the affairs of others. While this has been more prevalent in Europe, particularly the Nordic nations, than in America we must be aware of our long term vulnerability.
European law, no matter how onerous we might find it, is what it is and it is necessary to understand that national canine organizations, breed and national clubs, must not only obey the law they must not condone flaunting of the law by individuals. It is one thing for a trainer to possess and use illegal devices, where consequences fall on that person, and quite another for this to have implied organizational sanction where consequences will fall on the group with the potential for serious long term effect. It is a fine point, but clubs cannot be expected to serve the police function, the seeking out and reporting of illegal activity, but they cannot condone or appear to condone such things. A photo of illegal activity or equipment in a club magazine can be construed as condoning even if the photo was taken elsewhere and in that context legal. Perception and appearance do matter.
When in Europe we need to be aware that we are guests, that it is incumbent upon us to scrupulously observe the letter as well as the spirit of their law no matter how much we might personally disagree, and be circumspect in what we say. Our Euro friends have more than enough on their hands without the flaunting of what might be perceived as an arrogant ugly American persona.
In the broader perspective being within the letter of the law and morally circumspect is not enough; perception rather than reality is what ultimately shapes social norms and legal restrictions. Our adversaries are ever alert for the opportunity to cast us in a bad light. Ask the man in the street "What do you think of beating dogs with sticks for fun and sport?" or "How about the barbaric use of electric shocks as a means of control?" and we all know what the reaction is going to be. We must be vigilant, situationally aware of the impression we are making as well the validity of our methods and practices. We generally enjoy an open and accommodating legal climate, but while the Animal Rights alarmists have not at this point been especially effective they are there and they are not going to go away.
In the long term the existential menace is not so much external critics as elements of the canine establishment, primarily the quasi commercial show elements, in particular the FCI and their prominent affiliates, taking opportunities to weaken and distract the broad working community, which is at this moment deeply divided and enfeebled by our own ongoing issues.
In a more immediate sense the clear and present danger is that those in leadership roles, all too often with no real training experience or commitment to serious breeding and service, are going to fall all over themselves to throw the real trainers, those on the front lines, under the bus both to appease hysterical outsiders and to weaken the influence of the working community.
These developments need to be perceived in the context of ongoing efforts, by outsiders as well as the show elements, to weaken and further marginalize our working movement. Several years ago many in America were vigorous in opposition to the removal of the stick from the IPO trial, while Europeans, even prominent Nordic trainers and IPO judges, were all too often quick to assure us that it was not a serious problem, that you could still test a dog without actual stick hits, as is done for instance in Mondio Ring.
Much of the open opposition to the stick elimination came from American leadership, particularly USCA, in the person of Jim Alloway, and individual internet commentary. This marked an emergence of escalating American assertiveness and influence which, ultimately, led to our contribution to the emasculation of the FCI in the Euro legal action insuring the right to borrow judges from the SV without interference from overweening bureaucrats.
All of this needs to be taken seriously, but our primary existential hazard is to be found in our own ongoing quarrels and divisions. Outside events and historical trends will in the normal course of human events intrude, but as long as we maintain a united front we will survive and prosper. We continue to be our own worst enemies and much more likely to perish at our own hand rather than as a consequence of external interference.
It is the way of the world.
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Glossary