The Future of Police Dogs: Where Science Takes K9 Training Next
Find the Right Dog Earlier: How Canine Cognition Can Save Police Time and Money
The Wasted Opportunity: Why Good Police Dogs Are Lost Before Training Even Begins
How to Build a World-Class K9 Unit Without a World-Class Budget
K9 Units That Pay Their Way: Building Budget, Public Trust and Community Support————————————————————————————–
The age-old question of “what is the best training method” has been answered for me after nearly 50 years of training trick dogs, cats and horses, performing and lecturing around the world. The one amazing thing about speaking at the world’s most prestigious events is you get to see the same world-famous trainers again and again and again, weekend after weekend, show after show until you know their material as well as they do.
Sadly, a lot of it broke my heart. Especially early on. I had a role model in England I literally dreamed about going to train there, and when I got there I found the trainer could barely ride! It was all theory. Then winning a scholarship to train with one of the Olympic riders in the USA, only to literally watch her drug her horse right in front of us filming. Then, probably the two final insults – my greatest hero watching him beat and beat a horse for piaffe, and ultimately after judging a horse literally last out of 30 horses, and the other judge (a much lower level judge) judging it first out of 30. Later, as I was leaving, the show being rain-delayed and most people had already left, I watched, for the last time I ever judged a show, the other judge go and accept the ribbon for the horse she had marked first.
You can see below that I come from a long line of trainers who were quiet and slow moving, and gentle. I don’t think we even saw it as “kindness”, we just knew that being quiet around the excited dogs was the only way to calm them down long term. We knew being quiet on and around horses (at least in the beginning, bearing in mind I trained mounted police with firecrackers and standing still while bus air brakes go off and strange little fuzzy battery-operated animals would wriggle around making terrifying noises for a horse, and have them quietly stand there, or for dogs, not have them rip the little wriggly testing animal to pieces!
Simply put, classical training is making an animal do something. It’s what traditional horse breakers do “back in the day”.
It’s the “buck them out” with horses and the “rolled up newspaper method” on dogs, and, yes, when the horse never gave up and continued bucking, you’d blame the horse and shoot it. And when the dog finally retaliated to your newspaper and rubbing their nose in feces, and turned and attacked you, you blamed the dog, and…you guessed it…shot it.
There were no videos to record the beatings to create piaffe, as there were no social media accounts showing that strangulation is the way to ask a dog to sit.
It is the horse breaker “educating” a little foal that was completely untouched, lasso the poor frightened baby, ignore the mother screaming and yelling in her paddock, and “prance” the foal into a yard one hand reefing it’s tail up in the air so painfully it can’t think of anything else – the other hand around it’s throat strangling the poor thing as they walk along.
For dogs – it’s electrocution by e- collars, and dog whips sold by Woolworths on their website!
For (big) cat’s – it’s a whip and a chair in the circus.
For dressage horses – it’s spurring
For elephants – it’s also spurring but the circuses have already banned it (dressage, spurs are mandatory!)
For race horses – it’s whipping
It’s fast. Can’t think of anything else positive to say.
How many times will someone abuse you before you retaliate and fight back? Or, shut down completely? Just like children – you can get an immediate result with punishment – but the children will hate you in the long term.
Risk of serious injury from equipment. Risk of serious injury to humans because of virtually guaranteed retaliation from the animal.
Ever tried using a prong collar to get a cat to pur?
Ever tried teaching a horse to leap off an embankment into a river below and ENJOY it enought that they would repeat it on their own?
Where “Natural” training terminology became popular with the horse world “Balanced” training became popular with the dog world.
Here is where we see more rewards introduced. More breaks. More rest moments. More reading the animal’s body language to assess training techniques to be used. However it still used punishment, just rephrased it, repackaged it and definitely remarketed it to appear more kindly when in fact it was often just a series of soft punishments, followed by a moment of reprieve, a brief moment where the horse wasn’t being chased around a round pen, or a brief moment where a dog was allowed to stop and think and make choices and decisions.
Probably the second fastest way to teach.
Less painful and stressful than purely punishment methods.
Some equipment used (prong collars, e-collars, some bits and some spurs and ships) are illegal in some countries, and more and more countries joining the fight against cruel equipment every day.
Even if it is not illegal in your specific area, the court does not look favourably on peopole not employing the “gold standard”. in their training.
Upward half halts or “hanging” a dog, or “choking” it is still common, in fact highly rewarded on Youtube.
No matter how many Woolworths dog whips you use, no matter how many prong collars you jerk, you cannot get a cat to purr, a dog to wag it’s tail, or a horse to “laugh” when they piaffe at liberty (yes, they will laugh – I’ve heard it myself!)
Cannot use for guide dogs, service/assistance dogs…and sure as hell can’t use it on a cat.
Cannot be used for bomb sniffing or quarrantine dogs as they’ll lose their enthusiasm.
Big cats will literally turn on – ad kill – their owners (such as happened in Las Vegas)
Research started mostly with foxes, then wolves for nearly 100 years. Now so successful they can know if a labrador is going to be a successful guide dog, or perhaps a bomb sniffing dog at just a few months, before they’re even trained, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in guide dog, bomb and quarrantine dogs and assistance dog training.
Where “Natural” training terminology became popular with the horse world “Balanced” training became popular with the dog world.
Here is where we see more rewards introduced. More breaks. More rest moments. More reading the animal’s body language to assess training techniques to be used. However it still used punishment, just rephrased it, repackaged it and definitely remarketed it to appear more kindly when in fact it was often just a series of soft punishments, followed by a moment of reprieve, a brief moment where the horse wasn’t being chased around a round pen, or a brief moment where a dog was allowed to stop and think and make choices and decisions.
The ONLY method accepted by:
World’s largest community science projects such as Duke University’s “Dognition” giving fun and interesting games and tests, and decades of irrefutable evidence with thousands of dogs around the world submitting their test results.
It’s proven. Not just with a few dogs, but with thousands throuth citizen science where anyone can particpate – for free – and have their dogs tested, and contribute the results to the massive data base of information being recorded by universities.
World’s largest community of personality and behaviour texting with University of Pennsylvania Q-Barq on line in depth personality and behaviour assessment.
No pain – no stress – if started with puppies, foals and kittens, and the least amount of stress and pain if started as an adult animal.
There is a great campaign by classical and balanced trainers to say that this is just “treat training”, when in fact it is not. The animal is corrected, obviously, as this is the only method accepted to train guide, assistance, support and psychiatric support dogs.
No other method is acceptable.
It’s easy to lose focus on what you’re doing. It’s easy to lose patience. But that’s the PERSON – not the animal!
People mess up the timing. They reward when the dog should be ignored, and they ignore when the dog should be rewarded. Again, a human problem.
The method does not fail unless there is a medical reason why.
The method also will not fail – unless the owners fail. If they fail with the actual technique, or fail with consistency and repeatability, then it will fail (as all methods will fail).
The aim is not perfection. The aim is to make everyday life with your pet feel more manageable, more informed, and a whole lot less stressful.
There is endless pet advice online — endless opinions about behaviour, feeding, products, and “experts.” The problem is that loud advice is not always good advice.
Why REAL SCIENCE matters in pet care and trainingYou will often hear that a product or food is “recommended by scientists,” but when you look more closely, the science is not always independent, and quite often the scientist recommending the product actually works for the company themselves. Who can you trust? Pet Professor is completely independent. We are not funded by feed companies, pet stores, toy makers, educators or vets unless a product or technique has been safety tested by relevant authorities, has been tested and peer reviewed in a major science magazine, or by a panel of the world’s best trainers with specific knowledge in that area. |
Science first. Nonsense second.The point is not to drown people in theory. The point is to separate useful information from marketing noise, fashionable nonsense, and advice that sounds impressive but does not really help.
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Mary Louise Berry
– a WOMAN starting young horses? OUTRAGEOUS – get my pearls!:
My great-grandmother, Mary Louise Berry, was a tiny woman, barely over 4 feet tall, who was famous in her district for training horses—something women NEVER did in the 1800’s. Apparently, the men would go out droving and fencing, and not come home for days, weeks or even months if they were droving hundreds of miles in the “long paddock“. By the time they got home, that little foal had already been handled. And, apparently this grew and grew until she did her first saddling and mounting as well. This was truly outrageous for the times. #QuietAchiever
Bertha Mary Manual – trick dogs
While I never knew my great-grandmother, my Grandma lived with us all her life. While she wasn’t so much into horses, she always had little dogs, and they always did tricks. They never barked or did anything bad at all that I can remember, even when one of them was dreadfully abused by an outsider, the dog never retaliated. I’ll never forget that last little dog “Mitzy”. Thankfully my Grandmother never lived to see the abuse. But it was a huge changing moment for me, to see it with my own eyes. A drunken family member attack a little dog, and throw it across the room. Silver things always can be found if you look hard enough, I remember thinking it was strange the dog never retaliated. But, then again, we didn’t either. From this comes my understanding when I work with people with PTSD. Why was she such a “revolutionary”…she got a JOB. Women didn’t get JOBS. Certainly not young single women, they sat at home and practiced cross stitch, and baked scones. But my Grandma, she worked in a store, in an accounting section, telling tales of great leather books that were bound and unbound and magnificent calligraphy so fine it probably sits in some museum somewhere. #BreakTheRules
Alan Manuel – the quiet horse “breaker” that never broke anything, much less horses!
My beloved Grandfather Alan Manuel was known as the man you could train anything. I was brought up on stories of this dreadful horse did this, or that one hurt the owner, they’d all end up with Grandpa, and he’d always fix them, and get my mother (age about 10 – 13) to ride them home to the owner bareback. He was my hero. I would walk with him and have to run beside him as he took these huge long steps. But, looking back, he was a man that truly walked quietly on this earth. He was a revolutionary in that he quietened horses. He never broke their spirit, or their thinking. He never “broke” the fun (with great memories of horses being dressed up as Santa, and a famous photo I hope I can find one day of his horse dressed in a man’s suit and top hat). He was the kindest man I have ever met. He walked softly on this earth. #WalkQuietlyTrainQuietly and that leads me to…
Gwen Manuel (Kelly) – horses, dogs and especially cats
My mother was never accused of being “quiet”. She was loud, funny, elegant, graceful, beautifully mannered and educated (by Grandma via correspondence as they did on the farms, and still do). She was an absolute revolutionary – she shocking she rode ASTRIDE! Gasp…clutch the pearls, quickly. Women didn’t ride astride. In fact she always was one of th emost remarkably balanced riders in her seat, nothing could ever get her off. She always told the famous story of moving the zipper in her brother’s jodhpurs to the side so she could wear men’s pants and ride safely – shocking the entire district! While my mother was an incredible rider, training all of our dogs to do every trick you could think of. What was (I found out later very rare) was she trained cats as well. It was from my mother teaching me “cat language”, and from her years and years and literally thousands of miles ridden (I started in endurance riding, before polocrosse, then hacking, then dressage, then vaulting, then performing gala evening shows/musical performing with the horses and dogs). #GivePeopleHellGiveAnimalsTreats
Frank Kelly I’ll have to put Dad in here too, although the horse would fart loudly and he’d fall off (I can hear him laughing from heaven, because it was so true). Dad could not ride, nor could he shoot, nor could he train a dog or cat. Dad was the bird guy. On our farm at the back of Mt. Nathan in the Clagiraba valley, we would class the three lots of birds – the honey eaters, the seed eaters, and the meat eaters as three different groups, after watching them fly onto the farms at certain times of day. If a kookaburra came along, or a hawk, everyone else bolted and left town, you wouldn’t see a tiny bird for hours. So, what Dad did was quite remarkable. Somehow he trained all three groups of WILD birds to come in together. #MoreThanOneSideToAPerson
Colleen Kelly – Yes that’s me – greatest achievement – wasn’t my training Olympic level horses, or Paralympic Medallists but teaching WILD Ducks to Showjump. LOL (True story!)
You might have read that I worked with Olympic level horses. Or that I worked with ParaOlympians that medalled – for several countries – for SEVEN Paralympics in a row. Or, you might have heard that my biomechanics safety program received awards from Police around the world. Or, about my world lecture tours speaking at the world’s most prestigious events (World Equestrian Games), Universities, and Police …but did you know I trained WILD ducks to showjump, lol lol lol. Not kidding.
When Dad had the three lots of birds fly in every day, eventually they retired and it was only me on the farm. Every afternoon at 3pm our stallions would all get stupid – they could tell the time better than a dairy cow. So, we’d always go in with a bit of nice pellets in a bucket, and work them as soon as they started giggling at girls. (I do the same with fireworks, people try to hide their animals away, that’s the EXACT time to train them – needless to say our horses were literally bomb proof – they had to be if I was going to be training Police Mounted Units around the world of the caliber of the London Metropolitan Police and Royal Canadian Mounted Police). So…I admit, I’m addicted. Give me an animal that won’t come out from behind the couch, and I’m “on one”. I won’t give in until that poor thing has realised that I’m not there to eat them, and that I’m really OK. I love that part of training, that very first time a wild horse touches you, or that elderly cat finally pokes it’s head out from under the covers. So, little by little the ducks came in, and I just one day started putting up little obstacles, and of course some were real show jumps. Now if you can teach a duck to show jump, I think you’re onto some kind of method. (BTW their jumping SUCKS, lol). They’ll jump onto hay bales, and from there onto barrels, and from there onto the bench (did I tell you this was a cross country in our garage, lol). But their actual stadium jumping, sorry that sucks, lol. They can jump ONTO things, but not OVER things.
