BehavioRx Case of the Month
for March 2002

The Most Important Command - To Come from Attractive Distractions
An Avoidable Problem

Sally and Don couldn't wait to get started in a local basic obedience class with "Toby," their 6 month old, intact male Labrador Retriever. They had spent the previous weekend chasing Toby around an Oregon mountain campground to a chorus of chortles and jeers from their camping companions. Toby had eaten almost all of one neighbor's nearly cooked barbecued chicken, burned his paw pads in the process, and tipped over the Coleman barbecue. That was after he had chased the friendly deer from the campground and spent the rest of the morning deep in the woods, avoiding Don's outraged commands to come.

"That's it... either he learns who's boss or he goes to the damned pound." Don's face was crimson as he dragged Toby into the travel trailer. There he remained until later, when someone left the door ajar and the seductive aroma of barbecuing chicken beckoned to another primal drive.

Toby and his frustrated owners lasted only three weeks before they dropped out of the class. Don then shared his woes with a high-tech private behavior consultant. Sally had convinced him that Toby deserved another chance. Don said this was the last one. (Actually, Toby would still need yet another chance.)

The behavior consultant met the dog and the folks in some nearby woods, strapped a remote control shock collar to Toby's throat, waited for him to take off after a stranger, and succeeded in freezing the dog in his tracks with an initial, minimum strength shock. There Toby stuck, trembling, obviously frozen with fear. Sally insisted the training session end, Don drove the car close enough to lift his now catatonic Labrador into the back seat, where Sally sat and tried to bring him out of his apparent trance during the drive home. As soon as they pulled into the driveway Toby looked around, perked up and returned (apparently) to his old self.

The change in his personality wouldn't surface until the next weekend in the woods when a strange man approached and Toby started growling. Before the shock, he had always been delighted to meet new people. Don and Sally now had a new problem, even more serious than not coming when called. That's when the veterinarian referred him to us.

Rehabilitation took six weeks, during which Toby's distrust of strange men was overcome by creating positive emotional associations with them, using the BehavioRx Instructions for Over-Protectiveness. At the same time he was taught, using Bio-Sonic Beanbags, to come to a special code word ("Koy") when called from behind while running away, and not to run away from Sally and Don when first distracted by animals.

With the panic-situation-command learned, the beanbags were then used to inhibit running away by using the Bio-Sonic beanbag sound without any command. This is done in order to condition the dog to control itself from chasing at the sight of attractive, but potentially dangerous distractions. Toby, Sally and Don made set-ups on weekends between our meetings, where other set-ups were arranged. After 6 weeks, Toby was chase-free, and he, Sally, Don and their two new children went on to enjoy more than fourteen happy years together. The point of this story is to ask the question. Moral: If Toby had learned to come when called, all his woes might have been avoided.

http://www.webtrail.com/petbehavior/biosonic.html

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