Dog trainers use the old-fashioned term “drives” to talk about dogs’ basic personality or temperament. There is social or pack drive, fight drive or defense, prey drive, food drive, sex drive. Neurologists and contemporary animal psychologists don’t use the term “drive” much any more. Instead they will refer to parts of the brain–the amygdala is involved in flight or fight. It also plays a role in excitement. When a dog is hunting, chasing, fighting, playing tug, retrieving, the amygdala is in play producing the feelings of excitement, fear, agitation and anticipation. The thalamus plays a role in regulating attention and arousal. When you are calmly focused on something, your thalamus is hard at work. That crazy dog jumping all over you trying to get you to play with him? His amygdala is all fired up. Scratch your dog’s ear in exactly the right spot. Notice him feeling every move you make, calmly absorbing your attention. Thalamus all the way.
I am over simplifying. Whenever we perform any action many parts of our brains are involved. But I have found that my dog-training students benefit from the simple model: thalamus (calm/focused), amygdala (excited, possibly angry or fearful).
We train working-line dogs for Search and Rescue. None of them are made to be pets. In a pet home, all our dogs would be like Marley. Our dogs have full access to the emotions(drives) of the amygdala. From that follow behaviors that most pet owners dislike. They bite, tug, chase and bark way more than any pet owner could tolerate. Although they are terrible as teens, they can turn into absolutly phenomenal adult dogs. The secret is balance. We work on both sides of the equation–thalamus and amygdala. We balance a 10 minutes session of focused and controlled obedience with three or four minutes of intense ball play. Done correctly, over time, my terrible teenage GSD will become a dog who is energetic, intense, confident and capable of self-control.
Lucky working dogs are born balanced, high drives–they are capable of intense activity and intense focus. They don’t have excessive amounts of fear. Nor do they have too little fear. They are neither too clingy nor too independent. Around other dogs, they are confident, neither overly submissive or a bully. With a dog like that, all the trainer has to do is keep the pup in balance as she matures. But most dogs and most people have a natural tendency to be stronger in some areas than others. So we adjust the training regimen to enhance the weaker parts.
Lucky kids are born with balanced temperaments. The rest of us start out as colicky babies and go on from there. Addiction, ADD, ADHD, Tourettes, truancy, social phobia, poor impulse control, and emotional outbursts of all sorts. The mechanics are much more complicated in humans but the path is the same:engage the student using things that he or she is already good at and likes doing while teaching the lagging skill.
Every semester students at my school apply for a number of internships. I’m part of the team that makes those assignments. I also supervise the student assigned to dog-training. At the start of this past semester, I thought I already had this semester’s intern picked. The student was bright, affable, good around the dogs and seemed extremely interested. It was common knowledge around the school that he was next semester’s dog training intern.
Much to every one’s surprise, I didn’t pick him. Over the semester it became clear to me that he lacked balance. This student’s assets are intellect and charisma. He has untapped leadership potential, but I noticed a certain lack of enthusiasm for the actual work of dog training–the mundane, routine details. That’s not the end of the world. Part of growing up is learning how to stay on task to completion. But until he get’s into the habit of getting right down to work, and working until the job is done, he is going to need more structure and supervision than I have the time (or the temperament) to supply. The dog-training internship wouldn’t have helped. It is a very independent job. Lots of contact with animals. Not much chance to work with other students and not enough direct supervision.
I found him another internship where he will be leading other students and working with a supervisor with aproven track record of developing a solid work-ethic in similar students. That is the plan anyway–like all good teachers and all good dog trainers, I have sufficient confidence in my ability to read kids and dogs to make decisions like this. But I am also a realist. It might not work. I am painfully aware of the limits of my perceptions. Here I am fumbling around with the language of psychology and neuroscience. My predecessors used the language of good and evil, sin and virtue. Someone will, no doubt, come up with an improvement on my approach before too long.
Tagged as:
Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder,
Search and rescue dog,
Working dog
Dogs and other animals are sometimes used in Solution-Focused Therapy. That is where I came across these principles. I am fascinated by them. They can be applied well beyond the therapeutic setting. Think about solution-focused management or solution-focused teaching as you read them. And give me feedback. I am especially interested in stories where these principles have transformed bad situations.
- If something’s working, do more of it.
- If it’s not broken, don’t fix it.
- If it’s not working, do something different.
- Small steps can lead to large changes.
- The solution is not necessarily related directly to the problem.
- The language requirements for solution development are different than those needed to describe the problem.
- No problem happens all the time. There are always exceptions that can be utilized.
- The future is both created and negotiable.
Recently I have been working rule # 6 Re framing the behavior of several students from “attention seeking” to “explosive.” Which I think, better captures what it feels like for those students while still doing justice to the way their behavior impacts others.
My examples come from the residential setting I am most familiar with.
His family visit is postponed due to a family emergency and he storms out of the office, punching and kicking lockers on his way down the hall. In the dorm at night, she accidentally puts her foot on her roommate’s bed. Roommate asks her to move her foot. Instead, she puts both feet on the bed, on and off, on and off until staff are called. Then she starts to scream and cry alternately, claiming its roomate’s fault for correcting her. High drama ensues, everyone looses sleep that night.
Certainly their behavior attracts our attention. Very likely, on some level, the explosive or disruptive student knows that. But his or her thoughts immediately preceding the outburst probably have absolutely nothing to do with getting our attention. In one case, my student acts out and then routinely runs away. She doesn’t want to be with people. She will often seek out one of the dogs for company. She shows all the remorse of an alcoholic back from a bender. Telling her to “stop being attention seeking” just isn’t going to cut it.
The language requirements for solution development require we shift focus from the student’s impact on others, to a focus on the student’s thoughts and feelings. And that we focus on the events and environment that preceded the behavior.
The student needs to learn self-control. How are we going to help her with that?
The student may have some long established ideas about life that need to be challenged. What are they and how might we address them?
Most of the time the outbursts are defensive. The student is afraid and her amygdala has taken over. This is key. Forget about all the other problems they have (well actually, all the other problems they cause you). None of them are going to get addressed as long as the student is reactive and fearful.
Location of the Amygdala in the Human Brain
Be careful here. You don’t need to go into a long laundry list of past traumas–to explain why she is soooooo afraid and defensive. That will only set the student up as a victim.
Instead, focus on what can we teach her so that the rest of her brain can get control. She needs a few seconds and she needs to be able to shift her attention. There a lots of solutions to be discovered mutually, in conversation with the explosive student. But this conversation needs to be focused on the present and the future, not the past.
I will also look at what training or instructions I can bring to the staff at my school so they are better prepared to disarm the bomb instead of pushing the trigger.
One last warning–parents, staff, and peers may resist this work. They are used to the language of the problem–their problem. Your so-called “attention seeking” student has caused havoc and people are mad. They have a list of all the ways she needs to change: He is arrogant. She is self-centered. They lie. They want change, now!
Understandably, asking those who have suffered with the explosive child to alter their behavior, even temporarily, may feel like “giving in.” Why should they change? They aren’t doing anything wrong! That is when you turn to rule # 3; if something is not working. Do something different.
Tagged as:
Amygdala,
attention seeking,
brain,
explosive teens,
Kids and Teens,
solution-focused therapy
My dog Ripley is addicted to a large blue plastic ball. Too large to pick up, she will push is around with her nose until her nose is bloody and swollen and she is exhausted.
When you first see this, it’s funny. As it goes on it becomes disturbing. I let her have the ball once or twice a year. I am working with my students. Each time a student quickly recognizes what we are looking at.
“That’s addiction” one will explain. “Look at that. She’s obsessed”
And they are right. When Ripley has that ball, she is gone. There is a crazed and absent look in her eye. She doesn’t look like she is playing or having a good time. When she is finished, she looks exhausted, not satisfied. Compare this to how she behaves when she has found the subject when we are search and rescue training and wins her toy. Then she prances around parading her toy like a trophy.
But wait a day, or an hour, and show her the ball and she will jump up and bark repeatedly. Her eyes will shine and anticipation of a huge reward. She must remember the thrill of the fight with the ball and be unable to forsee that she can’t win. Neuroscientists like Steven Hyman now talk about all types of addiction as “extreme memory” or “pathological learning”
My students recognize themselves in Ripley. “That’s what I was like with computers,” says one.
“That’s me on oxy” says another.
Computers, oxy, meth, food, gambling, sex, anger, alcohol, whatever–the basic mechanism is the same. Whether it happens after just one or two exposures, or develops over a long period of time. In those of us who are vulnerable, the end is the same–ADDICTION. We have created an indelible, emotionally charged, learned response to a certain behavior or substance.
One day Ripley got the ball away from me outside. (We usually do this at the gym). The school is on a hill, so the ball rolled away from her. It is fast. She is fast. I’m not. Before I knew it she was 100 yards away from me and we were moving away from the campus. The students helped me get her back. Everytime they would get close they would call her.
Ripley is a well trained Search and Rescue dog. These were students who worked with her daily. She would normally respond. She paid them absolutely no attention whatsoever. When we eventually got her and the ball back. One said “Now I know what my mother must have felt like when I tuned her out.”
That is extreme learning. It happened the very first time I put that ball down in front of her. Something about the way it moved triggered the pleasure or attention circuit in her brain, triggered a release of powerful neurotransmitters (the brain’s personal stash) and rewired her brain. On the spot. From that day forward, Ripley’s brain is different. If I want to keep her attention, keep her off drugs, we must avoid the big blue ball.
“What sort of knucklehead runs away on the coldest day of the year?” I said to no one in particular when I got the call at 10 AM. Two boys had taken off from the chapel and were heading north west thought the woods.
It was a rhetorical question. I love all the students at The Family Foundation School where I work, and I know that many of them act impulsively. I wasn’t really surprised. Just worried. The remark was my way of letting off stress. These kids could end up in serious trouble. I knew that because I’m in charge of risk management at the school. I’ve been studying student “elopements” (as they are called ) for the past 5 years, and I am the human half of a K-9 search and rescue team along with my partner, Ripley. Most of the SAR work we do is at the school.
Similar remarks would be made be everyone involved in the search all that day. What struck me as funny at the time was the typical response. I counted at least 5 people including myself who corrected the speaker– “Actually, I think it’s the second coldest day. I’m pretty sure yesterday was even colder.”
What was this? Amidst all the events of the day, why were we compelled to correct one another and get this one thing right?
None of these editorial comments carried a trace of one-up-man-ship or know-it-all-ness. And the person receiving the information –today isn’t as cold as yesterday– didn’t seem upset either. On any other day, little exchanges like that can foster a slightly irritating background noise at work. This was different. For some reason, the fact that it was 2 or 3 degrees warmer today than yesterday was important to all of us. Perhaps we were trying to reassure each other that it could have been worse.
Rita and Ripley
We tracked the two students throughout the day. My team took the first and the third shifts. At about 3 PM we followed the boy’s tracks to a rail bed that proceeded down a corridor. The Delaware river was on one side and mountains on the other. The corridor came out just outside of Hancock. We estimated they were about an hour in front of us and we sent people to intercept them and we caught up with them at the Hancock House Hotel. They had made it out of the woods on the second coldest day of the year, but not safely. Both were under dressed. One had on only sneakers. He had to be admitted to the hospital where he was treated for frostbite.
Again, a weird mixture of responses. Many expressed gratitude that it turned out as well as it did, and sympathy for a boy who will now have feet sensitive to cold for the rest of his life. Others were less forgiving.
“Serves him right,” my student-intern said that night as we were squaring away our gear. “He should have frostbite. Who runs away on the coldest day of the year?” I let the comment stand.
Tagged as:
Delaware River,
elopement,
Family Foundation School,
frostbite,
Hancock House Hotel,
Hancock NY,
Ripley,
Rita Argiros,
Search and rescue,
search dogs,
stress response
Intense teens work with Search and Rescue Dogs
Troubled teens, at-risk teens, difficult children, juvenile delinquents, angry and defiant kids. No matter the term, parents send their children to us at The Family Foundation School after they have tried therapy, medication, alternative schools, more discipline, less discipline, you name it. Every semester between 15 and 20 of the 200+ students come to work with me in the dog training program, now entering its 5th year.
You may be familiar with other canine training programs, where prisoners train dogs, or where students interact with therapy dogs or where they train dogs to become assistance dogs for people with disabilities.
At my school, we train Search and Rescue dogs. Not to knock assistance dogs. They do phenomenal work. They need to have great temperaments. They are smart and exceptionally well trained. But the SAR dog is something else.
Your ideal SAR dog is “high drive,” a polite way of saying–you probably wouldn’t want this dog for a pet. In fact, many search dogs are rescued from animal
shelters where they were surrendered because their clueless owners didn’t or couldn’t deal with their intense personalities. SAR dogs, with boundless energy are exactly what my kids need.
Students (and staff) in our dog-training program are a special bunch. We tend to be a little less comfortable with verbal expression. We have a hard time sitting still. A substantial minority of us have trouble trusting other people. None of that gets in the way of our work with dogs. Dog’s don’t care if we talk, or not. Dogs are at their best when they are moving, they crave exercise and, best of all, dogs can’t lie.
Training SAR dogs lets us play to our strengths. Instead of talking, we observe canine behavior. A good trainer needs to learn to anticipate the dog’s next move and to read a dog’s mood. We channel our energy into playing with our dogs. Playing tug of war is one of the ways that the dogs are rewarded. Most of the training is based upon positive reinforcement. 
Oh yea, and we get to pretend we are lost–and hang out in the woods waiting to be rescued. For many of my students, that’s the best part. Even though they know its only practice, it still makes you feel good to know that you have been rescued. I’ve been saved 100s of times by now and I still get excited every time a dog finds me.
Tagged as:
Assistance dog,
at-risk teens,
dog training,
juvenile delinquents,
SAR,
Search and rescue,
search dogs,
working dogs
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