As some of you might now I am a dog trainer in Portugal. My main clients
are Portuguese speaking countries, so I have developed my business mainly in
Portugal and Brazil. I am fluent in English and all my training and studies
were made in English, and I have had the enormous pleasure of doing some work
abroad mainly in the UK.
I have always strived to have good qualifications and I do that because
this industry is unregulated, so anyone in the world can call themselves a dog
trainer, behaviourist or whatever they feel like it. Very few people will ask
for proof of learning, degrees, mentorships or even certifications. This is
true specially here in Portugal and also Brazil.
Despite that I have made and continue to try to educate myself AND get
the diplomas, certificates, and also get my work criticized by institutions
formed by my peers in order to validate my knowledge and to make sure I will
never be outdated and that I am always up to par with the best practices and
techniques.
Those of you who know me a little bit, also know I am a bit of an
activist in that I feel like I need to give dogs a voice, they are voiceless
and like children and many times the elderly they are unable to fend for
themselves.
I started my career as a what we know aversive trainer. My first course
was a 3-month hands on in Canada, and it involved mainly punishment-based
techniques.
At the time I knew very little about dogs apart from that I loved them
and wanted to work with them and help people. I was failing that course because
I was unable many times to adequately apply the punishment with the right strength
and timing. Dealing mainly with Huskies, Malamutes and dogs around that size, I
was having difficulty giving a proper choke chain correction when they pulled
merely because I lacked the strength.
Whereas in the beginning it looked like it was working, very quickly my
poor attempts to apply the same "correction" were ignored by the dogs.
When this happened along came the prong collars, and they worked wonderfully,
as the dogs would no pull at all, and I didn't relay anymore on my strength. As
long as the prong was on the dogs neck properly fitted, I could direct him
anywhere with little to no effort. At the time I thought nothing of it, except
how great it was. I did not like the appearance of the collar, but the
trainers, told me it was fine, the dog would hardly feel anything and it was
used commonly especially with large dogs.
But then there were other issues, like bolting, aggression, anxiety and
making the dog comply at a distance. I was following all the indication from
the trainers, but as I did that I started to become really uncomfortable with
some of the things we needed to do. Although I knew very little about dogs, I
knew what fear looked like in a dog, since I had grown around them all my life.
And it was fear I started to observe around me.
15 girls, 15 dogs at that course and we were all learning the same. Some
dogs required more punishments and different tools, others not so much. We had
food with us all the time, and we did give food to the dogs periodically. It
was never clear to me, when or for what.
During the course in Canada. I did not learn anything about classical
conditioning, or operant conditioning, or canine body language. I learnt only
recipes. I learnt how to stop behaviour and force behaviour and how to escalate
and which tools and how to use them to get the result.
One of the students we had was a basenji with aggressive behaviour
towards strangers. We had a total of 4 classes with him, all of us plus the
trainers from the school. The first class, he told us to walk the dog and
surround him. There were 15 of us around a small dog, who was literally shaking
and watching us as we walked glued to him. After walking a but like that as a
strange group cult with a small dog in the middle, the trainer gave large
working gloves to three of us, and what followed included, we stop and touch
the dog, and did not stop touching even if he tried biting.
It was absolutely upsetting to watch I again, refused to touch the dog.
Our second class, with him the trainer brought a football horn. Made us do the
same walk as a group around the dog, and then touch him, if he tried to bite,
we would sound the horn close to his ears.
I remember clearly being completely confused because the first time he
sounded the horn I had to leave because the noise was overwhelmingly loud, most
of us asked to step away because we were having problems with the horn sound.
I remember thinking that I knew dogs had great earing, and wondering how
was he feeling if I was upset by it. Nonetheless he managed to touch the dog
and he was not being aggressive, looking back I think the dog was in pain from
the sound, since he was panting and stopped moving. The owners sat back looking
at all this, I remember the lady talking to us and some of the girls reassuring
her it was ok.
I am not going into the 2 other classes we had with that dog, but I can
say I never saw before that day a dog pee and poo in shear fear. That night I
could not stop thinking about it, torn between trusting the “professional” and
the “process” and trusting nothing but my gut feeling.
From the 15 dogs, 3 were showing aggressive behaviour when we started
the course, at the end of the 3 months, 7 had bitten and one, a Collie, sent
the owner to he hospital ripping her hand open when she was applying a
correction.
Culture Clash and Ian Dunbar fell on my lap after I spent all my money
on the course that I just quit 2 days before the end and all my dreams of
becoming a dog trainer had come to an end. I remember so clearly reading those
books on the airplane journey back to the UK and being so excited that I was
reading that there were people training dogs and not using things that were
confusing to me.
This time was specially important to me because I decided to give up dog
training I believed I was not “cut out” to do it, because of the way I felt,
but, thanks to these two people and very quickly Karen Pyror, I started my
journey into learning to train Force Free, and reward based.
I learnt about the clicker, rewards, science of learning (classical and
operant conditioning), I learnt canine communication signals, and above all I
learnt that educating dogs had so much hours of training as it had of studying.
I began training every single dog I could applying all the new things I was
learning. I still had some bad habits, but I was making an effort and to me it
was not very hard to let go of them as the alternative worked better and made
me feel great. I also started to realize what had happened at that course in
Canada.
This was in 2005 and we are now in 2021. I specialized myself in dealing
with aggressive behaviours, much because of the Basenji and Charlie, a pitbull
I saw being hung up until he lost consciousness. It was made clear to me at my
first course I would never be able to deal with aggressive dogs, I lacked the
leadership and skills and also apparently some strenght they said.
As I started to learn more and more about real education of dogs and
animals, I made it my goal to learn how to truly help and understand aggressive
behaviours in dogs. I also took a vow to make up for all the dogs I had hurt
during that time that I was always going to do whatever I could to stop those
things from happening to them.
So here I am today.
I choose Portugal to launch my career not because I am Portuguese, but
because here it was more of a challenge since “positive dog training” was not
has common here when I started. In the UK I still worked a couple of years
whilst studying, with positive dog trainers, in London and also with RSPCA
which gave me time to learn and practice and develop my skills having someone
looking at what I was doing.
My first real course what from CASI Institute and I am so thankful I
came across it. It was the best choice for me, I learnt during those 4 years
having James O’heare as my mentor that I had found real passion. Training dogs
became a healthy obsession and being a complete science nerd I had found so
much science behind teaching and educating dogs which till that time I was told
was not part of training dogs.
Educating sentient beings requires a huge responsibility. You are
dealing with the lives of the dogs, how will they live their lives alongside
their human family. You are also responsible for the human family being happy
with their dogs.
It’s a lot of work, and as I learnt a lot of hours of training and as
many hours of studying.
This is a huge introduction to say that when looking for the best people
to learn from as I continue to do so and so thankful they are willing to teach
I also grew more and more sensitive to those vows I made in the past.
For many years, maybe the first decade I had not time for confrontations
or arguments. Yes I had my passion talking moments, I had some planting seeds
and I also confronted some professionals who continued to do what I had learnt
to be so bad and above all unnecessary. But mainly I kept to myself, I had too
much work and too much learning to do to be worried with proving anything to
anyone of changing anyone’s mind. I surrounded myself with like minded people
and those I could learn from.
However I now, feel a bit differently. I have come to a point in my
career as a dog educator, that I continue to train and learn but it bothers me
to watch dogs being shocked, choked and suffer under the same ignorance and
tools I saw in 2004.
It is a hard pillow to swallow to watch so many “so called
professionals” still using tolls that to me are nothing but old news!
But the hardest pill to swallow is when suddenly the community of dog
trainers who train force free starting shaming other force free trainers for
the way they approach other professionals.
I am still baffled that in 2021 I am being constantly told my what I
consider colleagues and wonderful trainers not to point fingers at trainers who
use e-collars daily. I am being constantly told, it is better just to do my
thing. But this is not my story. And to me there is not more time to wait. I’ve
done the “my thing” and the “don’t point fingers” and after more than a decade
there is more people using shocks to “fix” aggression in dogs and prongs to
walk them, then ever.
I am in Europe, and I see a huge difference from European to USA
trainers. In the USA there is way more use of aversive tools, than in Europe. I
don’t know exactly why that is, and I have no data to substantiate this however
this has been my anecdotal experience from having dog educator friends around
the world.
Brazil is fighting a good fight. Unfortunately, being such a huge
country, information comes late sometimes, but there is a great community of
trainers, dog professionals and vets, working hard to end what I call abuse in
the name of training.
Also, I need to expose my view on this,
I am not talking about the use of quadrants such as R- and P+ but the
use of tools that to me are inherently abusive. To me there is absolutely no
one who can justify using those tools – remember I am talking about
professionals. Dog owners get confused and can get influenced and choose
without knowing exactly what they are doing.
But dog trainers, have the responsibility to know exactly what they are
doing. My fight is not with a trainer who after careful planning decides to use
R- but those who charge money to people to use prongs to walk a dog without
pulling, or shock a dog so he does not bark at other dogs.
Professionals, whether being certified or not have a responsibility.
Taking away that responsibility from their hands is giving them power. No, not
all dog trainers are interested in changing their ways or doing better. I know
this from personal experience from the trainers on my first course, who was the
most toxic, narcissist, aggressive men, who had pure pleasure in enforcing his
power over dogs and women.
The ugly truth is there are a lot of people out there, who have millions
of dog owner followers and who could not tell you what R- is. So when my own
community points a finger at me it makes me sad. Not all need to be activists,
but let me do my thing, because I owe it to the dogs and I need to try and do
whatever I think I need to do within my small power to change things,
yesterday.
There is no more time for me, because I don’t want to listen to one more
dog being shocked, or pronged or choked. To me this is not training its pure
abuse. We would not contemplate giving a child an electric shock to have her do
what we want, even if we deemed it dangerous for the child herself, but with
dogs? All goes.
I never hear marine mammal trainers, argue if giving electric shocks to
a dolphin is abusive, heck as Kathy Sdao says no one among the marine animals
trainers, even discuss if training these animals is made with food!
But why must we be so complacent with abuse in the name of dog training?
Why are we backing down and waiting for the other side to “come around”? I do
not relly on common sense for people to change, were that to be true, we did not need laws telling us to respect speed
limits, or not to drive drunk! But we need these laws and such legal
punishments and still look at how many problems we have.
In saying this I do not condone punishment, and above all shaming other
people. But I most definitely will point a finger to a trainer abusing a dog as
I would and do if I see someone abusing a child in the name of education and so
on.
I am tired of excuses I just want to create awareness. I want dog owners
to go “what?” this is abusive? I don’t need this?
I want governments to prohibit these tools and fortunately there are a
few already.
I want to stop the abuse.
To finish this long story I want to say I am certified behaviorist by
IAABC. To me this association was one of the best and getting this
certification was incredibly hard. Where I was proud I am now disappointed to
say the least. More and more through these last years IAABC have turned a blind
eye to abusive tools. They never took a clear stance against shock collars, and
turned LIMA public which is being used by shock jogs as a green card to use
them.
IAABC is failing me personally they have more than once failed to take a
clear stance. Why that is, is not clear to me. I have had many discussions
about it to no avail. Be inclusive they say and I hear “turn a blind eye to
those who still abuse dogs with abusive tools”.
But the last drop to me was the announcement of the last Lemon
Conference 2021 where they are bringing Alexandre Rossi basically the Cesar
Millan of Brazil. A veterinarian who succeeded in resurrecting leadership
ideas, prong and choke chains and fixing aggressive behaviour with lots of
flooding and behaviour suppression.
It is public on Youtube you can find videos of him putting people in
danger. There is a series where he is teaching people how to present a cat to a
dog, he is using his own very well-trained dog, and ends up hanging the dog and
spraying him with citronella. You can also find a video of him, dressing an old
person (grandad of the family) who lived with the family and the dog who tried
to bite every time he could, in a protection suit, and have him touch the dog
the whole time whilst being bit on the suit continuously. A few episodes later
and who knows what more happened, the dog is in grandads lap and all is well in
paradise.
Brazilian and Portuguese community have been creating channels, videos,
there are more and more dog training courses based in force free techniques,
more webinars, seminars, and invitations to bring the best international
speakers in a group effort to stop the dissemination of that trainer and his
followers who are by the millions.
All this effort is being ignored by IAABC. I learnt that IAABC was
inviting him to the Lemonade Conference through a Brazilian trainer who came to
vent. She said she contacted IAABC and was completely dismissed. She linked
videos and proof but to no avail.
I took it to myself to try myself. I wrote to IAABC, and the answer was
only ridiculous, He is bringing another person who has a physical problem and
learnt everything from him, and she says he is great. Well, of course he is, to
her he is the best, and like so many followers and admirers of Cesar Millan
will swear all he does is the best and only way.
However, they did not look at any of the very upsetting videos, or any
of the things I said that go against the guideline communities of IAABC.
IAABC chooses to give a huge highlight to a dog abuser. Someone who last
month made a video saying people should use choke chains on dogs because it
saves their lives!
I am coming out in public, saying this institution is no longer in my
humble opinion one I respect or even care about. Fortunately, others came
around who give me hope we have the same goals. But IAABC not only allowing
these tools to be used without any consequence, but now they are endorsing
trainers who choose ignorance and abusive methods, because the means justify
the methods.
I spent my life fighting against racism, bigotry, and human rights causes,
and all the good fights are done with words. By speaking out loud. Loud and
clear so everyone can hear it, so people can be moved, so dog owners can be
truly helped.
So here, I am pointing a finger, I want to end dog abuse in the name of
training, I dream towards the prohibition of these tolls everywhere, forcing
everyone to actually study and practice other more effective and helpful
methods. I dream of less time having to point a finger and trying to explain
the 101 of dog training to someone called Joe the dog trainer which has 500k
views of people praising him for making a dog urinate after getting a shock for
interacting with another dog. But I will keep doing it, and I will die doing
it, because I owe to the dogs, to the dog owners and to myself.
So go on, point the finger back if you wish but I will not be silent.
