Forgiveness is a way of living

One dog yelps, and the other dog keeps pushing the envelope. As the noise rises, the first dog backs away, looks at something else. In a matter of minutes, the two dogs are running around and playing with each other, tails high, eyes and ears alert, having fun with each other.

Just like these dogs, we have all had times when a friend or a relative has hurt us. We have all had times when a friend or a relative doesn’t seem to see that they have hurt us. But can we, do we, turn off the anger, forgiving the friend, when this happens to us?

For the dogs, forgiveness is a way of living. One dog in the household steps on a foot, grabs something that is not theirs, but when they do this, forgiveness is not far behind. Just as small children quickly get over what appeared to be a huge fight, so too the dogs let go and forgive.

You see, for the small children and for the dogs, forgiveness is not a matter of one insisting that the other has to be in the wrong. Forgiveness is simply the way life is.

We have no way of knowing, when a person says something that makes us feel that they are wrong, whether they are really wrong or not. Or if something they said that hurt us was really meant to hurt us. And even if it were meant to hurt us, does it make sense to go to all out war with the other person and cut them out of your life?

Dogs and children can teach us a lot about forgiveness. Watching them, we see that forgiveness is not about getting another to apologize or make up to us. Forgiveness is about letting go of the anger we feel for a particular person at a particular time. But if, like the children and the dogs, we just let go of the negatives, they won’t come back to haunt us over and over. They won’t harm the relationship.

Often times a friend or relative may say or do something that really annoys us. And what’s even worse, they don’t seem to know that they have hurt us. But whether or not they know they have hurt us, we need to forgive them. Forgiving is not about accepting what someone else did or said. It is about letting go of the anger we feel for the other. Until we let go of the anger, we will have difficulty moving into the future.

The hardest step of forgiveness is that we cannot know what the other person was thinking. In other words, we do not know their perspective. Usually the person wasn’t being mean or malicious or purposely nasty. Just as we unknowingly may have done things that hurt people in the past, and just as we have wanted forgiveness from others when we did something that offended or hurt, so too, we should be willing and able to forgive people who have hurt or offended us, regardless of whether they meant it or not. The dog does not ask the other dog if they meant it or not. The dog doesn’t hold a grudge. The dog moves on into the fullness of life..

Although it is never too late to make peace, sometimes it may take time to reconcile with another person because they may have lost some of their trust in us. In that case, we have to rebuild trust, and we cannot do that simply by saying “I forgive you” or “I am sorry.” Anyone can say they were wrong and ask for forgiveness. However, after a hurtful incident, we have to earn trust all over again.

Even if it takes a long time tp rebuild this trust, we need to remember that we should always be working on building healthy relationships. In order to do this, we have to be willing to understand that other people may do things that hurt us or get on our nerves without ever meaning to hurt us. The more we learn to let go, the less likely we will be to overreact or turn little incidents into major ones.

We also need to continually remind ourselves that having mutually respectful relationships is important in all areas of our lives It may take a lot of patience, love and commitment on our part to have such a relationship with some people, but if these people are, or ever have been, important to us, it's definitely worth the effort to build a good relationship..

Just watch the dogs and children at play. Be like the five year old child who was told by another child: “I don’t like you.” The child on the receiving end looked at the other child, and said. “That’s OK. I like you and you can still play in my sand.”

The Joy of Showing Your Own Dog, or How I Learned to Love the Show Ring

By Joyce Miller


Handling a show dog in the ring takes lots of practice, good teachers, lots more practice, and lots of experience. It requires a willingness to make mistakes and to learn from those mistakes. Above all, it requires a willingness to lose and know that in the losing you have learned something. And it requires that when you lose, you smile and congratulate the winners, knowing that tomorrow is another show.

When I was a child, my mother bred and showed Boxers. She loved showing her dogs, and the handler she emulated was Jane Kemp. She took me to shows with her, and I don’t think I ever saw her happier. But my father, who had chosen the breed and purchased a bitch with the agreement to show her, to breed her, and to return a puppy, had little use for the show ring, or as he called it, the beauty ring. To him, it was nothing more than a beauty pageant: the dogs and owners only had to walk around the ring and stand at attention. I grew up believing there was nothing to showing dogs.

I didn’t learn how wrong he was until I was in my 50s and had to show my first show Airedale. I look back with embarrassment on my first attempts in the ring: stiff, stilted, no clue of what it took to show off a dog or how to train a dog to do this. Handlers told me there was nothing to it. People who called themselves mentors told me what to do: loose lead, keep the head up, make sure that the dog is moving correctly, hold the head up, the tail up, and keep the dog stacked. Every time I entered the ring, I felt like “Baby” learning to dance in the movie, Dirty Dancing.

Handling classes were of no help: every Tuesday evening, I took my first show Airedale to handling class. No one gave us any instruction. We just lined up, kept moving up to the front of the line, stacked our dog, took it down and back, and went around to the end. Every week, I looked desperately around the class: What was I supposed to do? Who could I emulate? Each week, I picked someone who seemed to know what they were doing and tried to copy them. Even though many of the people in the class were very experienced, I did not have a clue whether I was copying something that would work in the Airedale ring or not. In short, to quote Corally Burmaster, a good friend of mine, all I was doing each week in handling class was rearranging my ignorance. My first show dog and my second show dog were finished by professional handlers.

Years later, with 16 Tom and Kay Lams workshops and four George Alston workshops under my belt, with one owner handled champion to my credit, and even teaching a successful handling class, I still did not feel confident in the ring. I was showing Dilys, a granddaughter of that first show Airedale, and when she was finally in good coat and condition, she decided that judges could not go over her. Looking back on this, I now know that she was reacting to my stress as the judge approached: “ooh, mum’s clenching and the judge is coming towards us.” She did this at three shows under three wonderful judges who gave her every opportunity. Each judge counseled me to get her out more frequently during the week. But I was doing that, and I knew that was not the problem.

The problem was me. I was tense and insecure in the ring. I had to get over that, and I had to do it with that dog. By then I was teaching a handling class the way I wanted handling classes organized: a six-week course focused on two weeks of gaiting, two weeks of presentation, and two weeks of putting it all together. In my classes, I had both AKC and UKC exhibitors. The UKC exhibitors seemed to be much more relaxed about showing than the AKC exhibitors. So I decided to go to a UKC show with them.

I entered a UKC show in Giddings Texas. I had the only Airedale entered. The judges were excellent, and the people were very friendly. The first judge I showed to gave us best of breed and then a Group 2. But more importantly, I was so relaxed when I went into the ring that my girl stood rock solid for exam, with her ears alert and her tail up. At the second of the three shows that weekend, she was so solid that she took Group 1 and then went Reserve Best In Show. And I was having so much fun and getting so many good wishes from all the exhibitors that I did not think twice about being nervous.

Not only did I have fun in the ring, but I got to talk to other exhibitors, learn about their breeds and what they were doing, and I got to talk with the judges. On Saturday night, we all went out to dinner with the judges. And the judges talked freely at the show and at dinner about what they liked, what they were looking for, and, when they were talking with us individually, they talked about what they liked about our dogs and what we were doing right as handlers. The atmosphere removed the fear and the nerves that I had always experienced at shows, fear and nerves made worse by all the critics I had outside the ring who pounced on what I did wrong and never told me what I did right. Above all, these judges renewed my confidence in my dog.

After the fun I had at that UKC show, I decided to try another venue, the International Shows that were held in Hutto TX on New Year’s weekend. This would be four shows in two days under four AKC judges, two from the United States, two from Canada. Once again, we were the only Airedale entered. And once again, we had a great time. At both the UKC and the International shows, there is no focus on grooming. My Airedale was well groomed, but instead of spending hours getting her ready for the ring, I kept track of time, and about 10 minutes before we were to go into the ring, I put her on the table, brushed her out, and took her to the ring.

At the International Shows, as at the UKC shows, the atmosphere was friendly and relaxed. Judges talked to exhibitors throughout the day, during breaks, and not only gave you written critiques in the ring, but gave you more information about how they saw your dog in informal conversations during breaks. At these shows, the first level championship requires three certificates from judges who rate your dog as conforming well to your standard, and one of those judges has to come from another country. If there are more dogs of your breed, you still compete to win classes and the breed, but every dog in the ring, regardless of whether they finish first or fourth, can get the coveted certificate. All weekend, my girl went Best of Breed (no competition) and then went on to go Group 1 at two shows to show in the BIS ring. So we ended up with 8 ring experiences and an International championship.

But the most significant part of these experiences was that I changed. I became a more relaxed handler, and I started having fun in the ring. I actually looked forward to going into the ring, and regardless of the outcome, I had fun. Win or lose, I praised my dog and I could feel the difference in me. I am sure that my dog felt it too.

Our next show was an AKC show. Instead of going to the show early, I got there in time to set up, brush my dog, and go in the ring. Instead of being fearful and nervous, I was eager to show my dog to the judge. And it worked: she won a four-point major under a top terrier judge. We went to three more shows together before she finished. We did not always win, and one weekend, we didn’t even win our class. But she finished with four majors, and, win or lose, both of us showed well and we had fun in the ring.

These non-AKC shows provide an excellent venue for building confidence in yourself and your dog. They also provide good venues for introducing a new dog to the show ring and for introducing puppies to the show atmosphere. Both UKC and International shows have classes for three to six month puppies, and the judges are very good with the puppies. Other exhibitors make much of the puppies, and the casual, sometimes chaotic, atmosphere of these less organized shows give puppies great experiences.

And you come home with ribbons and medallions that your dogs recognize as significant. By the end of our first weekend at a UKC show, when the last judge handed me our huge best of breed rosette, Dilys grabbed the rosette and pranced out of the ring. This was her rosette, and it was meant to hang on her crate! She and I had become an equally invested team.

To learn more about The International All Breed Canine Association of America (IABCA) and its shows, go to http://www.internationaldogshow.com/ for show requirements, registration information, and a current show calendar.

To learn more about United Kennel Club shows, go to http://ukcdogs.com/. Click on Events and keep clicking until you get to the conformation show calendar to find shows in your location. UKC has different groups than AKC, but our group is the Terrier group so we have no confusion.

Dogs that are AKC registered can be cross registered in both of these registries with their AKC registration number or certificate. UKC allows day-of show entries, but you save money by entering in advance.

To learn about the experiences of others who show in both AKC and UKC, join a show list, such as the Let’s Discuss Judging list at www.groups.yahoo.com and check out the archives under UKC.

8 Tips for Preparing to Compete with Your Dog

By Joyce Miller

The first Week of the Airedale (WOTA) 2003 captured the imagination of Airedale lovers worldwide. We thrilled at Airedales tracking, trailing, flushing and retrieving. We enjoyed the dogs in the companion day events. We applauded the rescue Airedales as they paraded by us. We marveled at how uniquely Airedales do obedience and agility. We applauded the Airedale drill team. And we admired the dogs in the conformation ring.

What does it take to train a dog for a competitive event like this?

After WOTA, I interviewed Mary Barker, the winner of the most versatile handler award and the owner of the dogs that won most versatile and runner up most versatile Airedales. In that interview, she outlined eight tips for training dogs to compete in events like this.

1. Use soft words. Be patient. Always keep your voice pleasant. Never raise your voice. And use corrections that give your dog specific information on how to do a specific exercise. For example, Mary sometimes used a wooden spoon coated with peanut butter to show one of her Airedales exactly how to do something.

2. Keep it simple and picture the behavior you want your dog to do. “Form a mental picture in your mind of what you want your dog to do,” Mary said. “With that picture, you can give corrections in such a way that you help your dog understand what to do.” Not only does Mary visualize her dogs doing an exercise perfectly, she pictures them doing it with a happy attitude and with their tails and ears up.

3. Make training fun. Since Mary competes in obedience, agility and tracking, she keeps training fun by mixing exercises from different sports in each training session. This helps her dogs pay close attention to her and have fun in every session. So mix things up and don’t overdo one thing in any one session.

4. Don’t rush into competition. Like a good teacher, Mary takes her time and makes sure that her students (her dogs), are ready to do what she wants before she puts them to the test.

5. Plan in advance. Mary attributes her success with her dogs to her professional experiences as a teacher and an engineer. She focuses on the details and breaks each task down into many small details. When she is training a dog, she works on different parts of an exercise every week. When she and the dogs have learned all the details of a specific exercise, she pulls the whole exercise together. To train for WOTA 2003, she planned every detail, from which events she would compete in, how she and her dogs would prepare, what distractions she needed to prepare her dogs for, and more. She broke every exercise into goals and then identified the individual things that she needed to do with each dog and did them.

6. Work every day. No matter how short or long, work your dog in some aspect of what they will be doing in a competition every single day. Mary and her dogs worked six nights a week for six months to prepare for WOTA 2003. Every night, they did routines and Mary focused on one specific thing in one exercise: heeling, head up, sits, downs, weave poles, etc. until she was satisfied that she and the dog had that part of the exercise down pat.

7. Be ready for anything. Mary says, “It’s the trainer’s responsibility to expose their dog to all the things that they may encounter in the competition.” Because WOTA 2003 was an outdoor event and Mary and her dogs were accustomed to competing indoors, she moved all her training outdoors as soon as the snow was off the ground in Wisconsin. “That only gave me a month,” she said, “but it was enough.” Then when she arrived at Purina farms, she noticed that the grass was longer than AKC regulations permit and the longer grass really bothered one of her dogs. So she took the time to practice with that dog in the longer grass until he ignored it.

8. Find lots of ways to measure your progress. Use fun matches to determine where you and your dog need more work. Ask friends to run you through routines so you can check on how you are doing. Work with your dogs until what you do matches the picture in your mind of each routine.

Work and Fun with Dear Jubilee

Teaching Children How to Be Safe Around Dogs


As an AKC Canine Ambassador, Neisha and Kate, my Airedales, helps me teach children about dogs. We visit schools, summer camps, Libraries, and Junior Girl Scout, Brownie and Daisy troops to teach children about being safe around dogs, how to take good care of dogs, and how to help dogs in their communities.

Some areas have serious problems with loose dogs, and I often find that many of the children that I talk to are afraid of dogs. Some have been chased by these dogs and knocked down. I talk to them about how to be safe around dogs, about never approaching a loose dog, about telling an adult about a loose dog so the adult could call for help for the dog, what to do if a loose dog is running towards them, and what to look for before approaching a dog.

Using advice from another AKC Canine Ambassador, I tell the children to be sure they can see a collar attached to a leash held by a person, or more briefly Collar - Leash - Person and I get the children to chant those three words so that they will remember to look for the collar, the leash and the person.

I tell the children that when they see a loose dog coming towards them, they need to stand still and “be a tree,” either crossing their arms on their chest or putting their hands in their pockets. And I tell them not to stare at the dog, but to look to the side or down at the ground. I tell them about a time when I was a child and two St. Bernards loved to chase me when I rode my bicycle by their house. I tell them how I learned to stop, be very still and firmly tell the dogs to go home. Amazingly to me as a child, the dogs stopped running towards me, turned and ran towards their house. They never chased me again. I tell the children how that worked for me and helped me get over my fear of dogs that were not part of my family.

I demonstrate how to ask permission to pet a dog (as long as it has a collar, leash and person) first with an Airedale stuffed toy and then with Neisha or kate. I show them how to determine even if they get permission whether the dog seems happy to be petted by the child, how to let the dog sniff their closed fist, and how to pet the dog under its chin or on its chest, and not on top of its head.

Then I let them approach me and my dog one by one. They are always so cute, and at this last visit, a child who had been knocked down by a loose dog was one of the first children to approach us. Neisha and Kate stand quietly, and lets each child approach them, sniff the children’s fists, and let the children pet them. When a child forgets to pet under the dog’s chin and reaches over to pet her head, both Neisha and Kate do just what I had demonstrated with the stuffed Airedale: the dogs follow the child’s hand with their nose making it impossible for the children to pet their head because they are so busy sniffing their hand.

When every child has had an opportunity to pet the dog, we relax with her, usually by sitting on the floor around her with one child at a time stroking her, giving her a treat, or just talking to her. Both dogs love this part of the visit, and often initiate it by lying down in the midst of the children.

All too soon, our visits are over. I give each child one or two AKC coloring books, one about safety around dogs and the other about responsible dog ownership, and a bookmark with reminders about caring for a dog. Then we pack up and head home..

All together, a great outing and a great experience. Neisha and Kate seem to enjoy doing this as much as I do.

"There Is No Greater Therapy than the Love of a Dog"

by Joyce Miller

A dog that likes meeting people is gentle, adaptable to new environments, totally non-aggressive. Does this description sound like your Airedale? Maybe, but it also describes the temperament of a therapy dog, a dog that visits hospitals, nursing homes, detention facilities, and rehabilitation facilities with its owner.

Like many other activities that people can do with their dogs, therapy dog work is gaining in popularity, and thanks to published research about the benefits of dogs as therapy, more and more facilities are opening their doors to dogs. Twenty years ago, most nursing homes forbade visits by animals. Today, more than half have their own pet therapy programs. Published research has shown that pets are beneficial in therapy, that people who have pets have lower risks of heart disease, and that pets can build rapport with hard to reach patients and help patients improve self-esteem and reduce depression and anxiety. The dogs give patients something to think and talk about other than themselves and their physical problems. They provide emotional support, giving patients physical contact with other living creatures. And the dogs’ unconditional love and acceptance provide a deep sense of comfort. According to Kathy Davis, author of Therapy Dogs: Training Your Dog to Reach Others, the dogs help other people without their owners knowing exactly how and why. They can also trigger people to do physical activities that they otherwise wouldn't do. For
example, people who will not raise their hand to brush their own hair will reach out to pet a dog.

Many Airedales Work as Therapy Dogs. Airedales around the world are taking part in this work with their owners. And their owners -- breeders like Liz Mattison (Bristol Aires), Joan Clarke (Penaire), Anita Pisarcik (Stryking), and Nancy Foster (Willo-Aires) as well as ATCA members David Hofeling, Tom Smith, and Airedalers in other countries like Pip Smith (Canada) and Monica Dixon (UK) -- are finding the
work rewarding and the benefits far reaching. Shelley DeMerchant (Appyairs) of Ontario Canada has been working with Airedales as therapy dogs for 15 years. Today, she has three therapy dogs and visits five facilities a month. She is affiliated with the St. John Ambulance Therapy Dog Program, a nationwide program in Canada. Shelley fondly recalls how her dogs have helped patients emotionally: the man who
recounted his experiences with the Airedale he had as a child. Petting and caressing Shelley’s Airedale, he smiled and said, “That Airedale was my best friend.” On another occasion, they visited a lady who they had visited several times. She always petted the Airedale, but she never said a word. On this visit, she petted the
dog and said, “Nice dog.” Those were the first words the woman had uttered in six months. The dog broke through her barrier of loneliness and despair. Denise Masterson of Houston Texas is affiliated with Paws for Caring (PAWS), a local therapy dog program. She recalls visiting a man who could not talk because of
a ventilator and tracheotomy. Her dog, Kirby, put his head up against the rails of the man’s bed to be petted. When she left, the man smiled and mouthed ‘thank you.’ As an obedience teacher, Mary Lukaszewski worked with a group that often held winter classes at a nursing home in Stamford Connecticut. Patients loved to crowd into the room to watch the dogs train. Mary’s Airedale, Big Jack, used to circulate around the room so patients could pet him or brush his coat while the others were being trained. One night while they were in class, the fire alarm went off: Jack entertained the patients on the back lawn until they could return to the facility. And Anna Marie Fornelli’s Airedale, McGwin, became so important to an elderly friend that the man’s family asked the Airedale to serve as an honorary pallbearer at his
funeral.

Protect your dog.
When working with your dog in a therapy visit, it is absolutely critical to pay attention to your dogs and never betray their trust. Donna Noland of Remlap, Alabama, has worked with her Airedale, Dosi, through The Delta Society, a national therapy dog organization. Donna emphasizes the importance of knowing your dog and, if necessary, changing assignments to ensure a comfortable experience for your dog.

When she first started doing therapy work, Donna and Dosi visited a domestic
violence shelter. Not only were many of the small children afraid of the dog because of her size, but the dog was not happy in the confined space of the shelter. On one occasion, a child started petting Dosi and started hugging Dosi, soon squeezing her and refusing to let go. Donna moved in to loosen the child’s grip. Dosi stood absolutely still, but Donna could tell that she wanted help. As Donna says, “She knew I was going to rescue her, and I did. That’s one rule you have to remember when you are visiting: Protect your dog.” Donna realized that her Airedale needed to be able to walk around and visit people without “plunking herself down to sit a spell.”

Dosi then started visiting a Cancer Center and later a geriatric psychiatric clinic. In both of these places, Dosi could move from patient to patient, get a few pets and be on her way. Shelley DeMerchant also stresses the importance of knowing your dog. You must be familiar with his or her signs of stress: tail tucked, ears back, leaving sweaty paw prints on the floor, excessive panting, clinginess or that look of anxiety in their eye. The dog is telling you that he or she is not happy in the
situation. Also, she cautions, you must be careful of things in the environment. Be aware, if your dog likes to check out wastebaskets, that people may dispose of their medication in these receptacles. Also be careful of people offering your dog food: they may offer them a cooking, but they may also offer them a pill thinking it is candy, or a bone, or a chocolate bar. Take along something like a bland vanilla wafer so you can give the patients something to feed your dog. Shelley recommends human food because the patients may eat it themselves!

Train and condition your dog.

In addition to working her own dogs, Shelley tests and certifies dogs for
the St. John program across Canada. Although therapy dogs need training and conditioning, they do not need to be trained for competitive obedience work. They do need to know the basics, such as reliable sits, stays, leave it, settle and other commands. Most organizations suggest that owners start out by having their
dog tested for the American Kennel Club Canine Good Citizenship (CGC) title, a 10-part test, that includes accepting a friendly stranger, sitting politely for petting, welcoming grooming and examination, walking on a loose lead, walking through a crowd without over-exuberance or excessive shyness, sitting and staying in
place, coming when called, behaving politely around other dogs, behaving confidently in distracting situations, and maintaining good manners when left with another person.

Rubyanna Skrede, who works at the Quansa Training Center in Illinois, uses five Airedales as therapy dogs. She says that when she and the other trainers at Quansa decided to do canine therapy work, they wanted to do it very well. They formed a group called Pet Ambassadors to the Community (PAC) that is known for calm and trustworthy dogs. Although their dogs are tested and certified by Therapy Dogs International (TDI), they are trained to pass a much more rigorous test than the TDI test. They also train each dog to do one simple trick because people love to see the dogs do tricks. And they train the dogs to wear costumes for holidays!

Rubyanna Skrede also recommends conditioning the dog, especially Airedales, to some situations that they may encounter during their visits. For Airedales, people may grab their face hair and do not let go. So she says, condition the dog for this, for grabbing his ears, for grabbing the collar, for thumping on their heads enthusiastically. Also condition them for odd smells, such as things that smell like tiger balm. For machines that make funny noises and move erratically. For being backed into a corner by someone walking with a cane and reaching down for their face.

Hard work.

Therapy work can be hard for both the owners and the dogs. Many people volunteer with the best of intentions, but in their early exuberance, they over commit themselves and their dogs, setting themselves up for burn out. Rubyanna Skrede recommends that you pace yourself and your dog. She says that any dog, but Airedales in particular, can get tired of all the petting. If you do too many visits, or the
visits are too long, the dogs are apt to regard the work as boring and turn off. The same goes for the handler who must stay up and excited and happy for the people who are so happy to see the dog. Rubyanna says that you don’t have to stay for a long visit, and Shelley DeMerchant stresses the importance of the commitment that you must make: “Many people that you visit eagerly anticipate the arrival of the dog. Can
you imagine their disappointment if the dog does not show up?”
Your Dog Can Earn Therapy Titles. Susan Morawski, of Russell, Massachusetts, and her dog, Pepper (Wyndridge Starship Shaandra)work with Therapy Dogs International. Pepper, who will soon be nine, has been a therapy dog for four years and still enjoys her visits. According to Susan, “She always knows when it is Tuesday, and as soon as we turn the corner to the Nursing Home, she’s up and wagging, ready to go.”

At the nursing home, Pepper performs tricks for treats and gets lots of hugs and kisses. Pepper earned Therapy Dogs Internationals, Inc. working certificate/title “Therapy Dogs International Active Volunteer (TDIA).” This working certificate/title was developed by TDI, Inc. in 1999 to recognize "active volunteers who share their dogs for the benefit of others, and the dogs' tireless determination to work in the field of therapy." In order to qualify for TDIA, Associate Members and their dog(s) are required to provide documentation of 50 therapy visits since the start of the program--May 15,1999. Now, Pepper and Susan are working on the next level of TDI titles: TDI Outstanding Volunteer, but, says Susan, “we need another 100 visits for that!”

Enjoy the Therapy Your Dog Provides. Joan Clarke fpr,er;u of Fort Worth, Texas, began working with Paws Across Texas (PAT), a state-wide therapy dog program, in 1986. Her dogs -- first Sadie and then Sadie’s daughter, Annie – both passed PAT’s rigid screening tests with flying colors. Sadie visited patients in nursing homes, and Annie specialized in visiting psychiatric rehabilitation facilities where she formed lasting relationships with patients who had low self esteem. Joan saw first hand how much the patients improved their self-esteem, as they cleaned Annie’s teeth, brushed her coat, and commanded her to sit and down stay. Both Annie and Sadie took part in numerous Special Events. Joan said, “Our favorite was the
Fort Worth Christmas Parade of Lights. Both Sadie and Annie wore their Reindeer Antlers and illuminated collar and lead, and both of them enjoyed the cheers and the smiles on all the children who came out to see Santa.”


Is your Airedale a therapy dog?

If you have a friendly, well mannered Airedale, if you’re willing to
commit to regular visits, and if you would like to share the love that your Airedale gives you with others, you might want to consider therapy dog work. If you do, you should look to one of the major organizations of therapy dogs to certify you and your dog as a team. In the United States, there are three national organizations and countless local groups. The national organizations are Therapy Dogs, Inc., Therapy Dogs International, and The Delta Society. Certification will make it easier for you to visit various facilities with your dog, and it will provide you with liability insurance. For more information on certification and how to prepare and evaluate yourself and your Airedale, see the following:

Organizations and sites on the Web

Delta Society Pet Partners Programs (206-226-7357): http://petsforum.com/deltasociety
Therapy Dogs Inc. http://www.therapydogs.com
http://www.therapyanimals.org/links.php?linkSectionID=3

http://www.dog-play.com/join.html This site has a list of local organizations listed by state

http://www.dogsaver.org/dreamworkers

Organizations

Therapy Dogs International
Tails of Joy/NW CT Dog Club (a division of Therapy Dogs International) Phone: 860-379-8879
Pet Assisted Therapy Facilitation Certificate Program, State University of New York Phone: 401-463-5809
Pet Assisted Therapy Services, San Jose, CA. Phone: 408-280-6171
St. John Ambulance Therapy Dog Program, 1199 Deyell 3rd Line, Milbrook, Ontario L0A 1G0
Pets As Therapy, a therapy dog organization in the United Kingdom that currently has approximately 4,500 dogs (and a few cats) doing therapy work with their owners.

Books:
Kathy Davis, Therapy Dogs: Training Your Dog to Reach Others, Howell Book House
Liz Palika, Love on a Leash: Giving Joy to Others through Pet Therapy, Alpine Blue Ribbon Books, 1-800-777-7257
J. Root, K-9 Therapy Groups: Organization and Management, Alpine Books, 1-800-777-7257

Articles
R. Voelker, Puppy Love Can Be Therapeutic, Too in The Journal of the American Medical Association
(1995) 274 (24), 1897 1900.

Do You Know Where Your Airedale Is?

Should you microchip your dog and register him or her in a national registry? Many dog lovers believe you should.

In the year 2000 Montgomery catalog (the dog show catalog of the Airedale
National Specialty in Pennsylvania), among the ads for all the beautiful show dogs,
there was a startling ad titled “Do You Know Where Your Puppies Are? We Thought We Did.”

Below the headline, instead of a picture of a beautiful groomed Airedale, there was a picture of mangy, dirty looking Airedale with two lines of copy: “There’s no such thing as too careful” and If you breed, please help with rescue.” The ad was placed by Debbie Hempstead of Tekoah Airedales.

Debb had found a dog of her breeding in a shelter in terrible condition. The story had a very happy ending: she took the dog home, took care of its problems, and placed it in a wonderful forever home. And from then on, Debb started microchipping every puppy before it goes to its new home and keeping the microchip registration in her name. This ensures that any dog from her breedings will be returned to her if it is lost and found. This also encourages the owners of a puppy to keep a breeder informed of future moves, if for no other reason than to make sure that if their dog is lost, found and returned to the breeder, the breeder can find them.

I never forgot that ad or the story behind that ad. We were already microchipping our own dogs and recommending that puppy people do the same. In Texas, the Airedale Rescue team microchips every Airedale that they rescue and place in a new home.

Why should you microchip your dog? Shelters, rescue organizations, and good samaritans receive hundreds, probably thousands, of lost dogs, cats and other animals every month. If the animal has a microchip, they can instantly track down the owner through a pet registry (as long as that chip was registered by the owner) and reunite them quickly.

How big is a microchip? The microchip is about the size and shape of a grain of rice. It is injected with a 12-gauge needle under the skin of the dog, usually in the neck area. Once in place, neither you nor your pet will be able to feel or notice it.

How does a chip work? The chip works like an antenna, and when scanned with a scanner made for the purpose, the scanner detects a radio wave that shows up on the scanner as the dog’s unique registration number. Those numbers are registered with a registry. Since it doesn't have an internal battery or power source, most of the time the chip is inactive. When the microchip reader is passed over it, it gets enough power from the reader to transmit the pet's ID number. Since there's no battery and no moving parts, there's nothing to wear out or replace. The microchip should last throughout your pet's lifetime.

Is microchipping expensive? While the price can vary from one veterinarian to another, it often falls between $25 and $40. A lot of veterinarians will charge even less if they perform the implantation at the same time as another procedure, like spaying, neutering, or dental work. It's a one-time fee; the chip never needs maintenance or replacement. There may be a fee, generally under $20, to enter your pet's ID number in a database, and there may be a small fee for changing your address, phone number, or other contact information in the database. Still, microchip identification is cheaper than making flyers, calling around town, and taking time off work to find a lost pet.

Will it hurt my dog? The procedure is simple, routine, and painless, and it doesn't require any anesthesia. Your pet simply gets an injection just under the loose skin between the shoulder blades; it's a lot like getting vaccinated. Veterinarians have been implanting microchips in animals for years, and the process has been proven to be very safe. The chip is made out of an inert, biocompatible substance, which means it won't cause an allergic reaction in your furry friend, and it won't degenerate over time.

Tips for microchipping: Make sure the chip is scanned before it is implanted in your Airedale. Make sure the dog is scanned immediately after implantation to make sure it is working. When you visit your veterinarian, ASK that the chip be scanned to make sure it is working and has not migrated. If you have your Airedale at a dog show or event that features microchipping, ask to have your dog scanned to provide
yet another check of the chip.

Today, more than a million pets are registered with either the American Kennel Club’s Companion Animal Recovery system (which uses the HomeAgain system) or American Veterinary Identification Devices. And more than 150,000 lost pets have been reunited with their owners through these systems.

The microchip has the advantage of permanence; collar and tags can be lost or removed. In a perfect world, leashes, fences, and doors would be enough to keep your pet safe at home. In the real world, accidents happen, and your pet depends on you to protect her against the things that could go wrong. With a little effort now, you can take a big step toward ensuring that your furry friend will be with you in the future.

Microchipping Worked For Us: One rainy night in December, 2002, I learned first hand how valuable the microchip and our decision to hold the registration is. It was dark, cold, and the rain was pelting down. The phone rang, and a very pleasant woman identified herself as calling from Companion Animal Recovery(CAR) and told me that my dog was safe. This was a dog who lives in another home. I didn't know she was
missing. The woman gave me the name and telephone number of the person who had found her, and I called him. He had seen her yellow tag with the CAR 800 number and her unique ID number on it, and he had called the CAR. They told him her name so that he could call her by name. I asked his address and called her owners. They were out looking for her, so I caught up with them on one of their cell phones. Within an hour of her disappearance, they had her back, safe and sound.

Clicker Training: What’s the Big Deal?

By Joyce Miller

° "Thank you, thank you--clicker training is a miracle! "
° “It was just stunning ‘eureka, I get it’ moment of a dog making a connection.”
° “My dog who used to lunge and bark frantically is now a different dog: he enjoys playing with other dogs. "
° “My six- year-old dog never came when called. After ONE afternoon with the clicker, he comes when called!!!!”
° “I have a young rescue dog who was incorrigible...With the clicker, she was soon
behaving nicely both on and off leash and having fun with tricks like jumping through hoops!”
° “Using a clicker, it took me five minutes to teach my dog to stop pulling on the leash
after three years of her taking me for walks. This is a great tool for working with older dogs.”
° “This is the first dog I have trained with a clicker: she can do more things and learns faster than any other dog I've ever had.”
° “Clicker training is the most compelling kind of dog training that I have ever seen…no dog should be without this information.”
° “This training really works and anybody can do it!!”
° “I went to a clicker seminar before we brought our new puppy home: it made all the
difference in how we trained.”

These comments were all made by people who discovered the miracle of clicker training
and how it could help overcome problems people have every day with regular approaches to training.

Why does training not work? If you live with dogs, you have probably marveled over how dogs know what the doorbell means, what the can opener means, what is going to happen when you put on your coat or pack your suitcase, even how they know when someone is coming home. No doubt about it; dogs are smart.

In fact, dogs learn more from us than what we teach them. They watch us endlessly: they study us, learn our personalities, seem to intuitively know what we want or what we are going to do—not that they always do it. In fact, I think they have a special antenna that tells them when they do not have to worry about paying attention to what we are trying to tell them.

With all the attention they pay us, why then, do we have so much difficulty training them not to jump on strangers, to come when they are called, to sit or down quietly while we eat, to respect our space? Could it be that we are not making use of their intelligence in the training process?

Positive Reinforcement. There are several approaches to training with positive reinforcement that make use of your dog’s intelligence and require your dog to use his or her mind to figure things out. And there is no doubt about it, just as with the doorbell, the suitcase, and other things they learn on their own, when your dog uses his mind to learn something, he does not forget what he learns.

Clicker Training. One of these positive approaches to dog training is called clicker training. Clicker training is, according to Peggy Tillman author of Clicking With Your Dog, a simple proven way to communicate with your dog using positive reinforcement.

Using a small plastic clicker that makes a unique sound, you can tell your dog, “Yes, that is what I want you to do,” and your dog remembers that you liked what he offered you.

Although the use of the clicker is based on a scientific concept, operant conditioning, you do not have to understand scientific theory to use the clicker. The method is so effective that young children can use it very effectively, and many working, service and entertainment dogs are routinely trained with this method.

Scientifically, clicker training is training that is founded in the established principles of operant conditioning. Operant conditioning is the way any animal (including the human kind) interacts with and learns from its environment. Simply put, an animal tends to repeat an action that has a positive consequence and tends not to repeat one that has a negative consequence. Trainers can take advantage of that natural tendency by providing positive reinforcement following an action that they want the animal to repeat. In order for the animal to connect the positive reinforcement to the behavior that he is doing, the reinforcement must happen AS the behavior is occurring, not afterwards.

Trainers needed to find a way of letting the animal know that he was doing the right thing, so they began using a conditioned reinforcer. A conditioned reinforcer is anything that wouldn't ordinarily be something the animal would work to get. A primary reinforcer, on the other hand, is something that the animal automatically finds reinforcing, such as food or water or going outside. When a conditioned reinforcer is paired with a primary reinforcer, they become of equal importance to the animal. Enter the clicker as a conditioned reinforcer, followed by a treat, the primary reinforcer.

Regardless of the science behind it, to your dog, clicker training is one big, fun game! The game is simple: you have something the dog wants (a treat or a toy), and she must do something for you in order to get it. To the dog, it boils down to one question:

“What do I have to do to get this nice person to do what I want?” So, as your dog figures out how to control you and get her prize, the dog gives you what you want the dog to do. What could be more rewarding for both of you: a true win-win situation.

Are you wedded to the clicker forever once you start? No. The clicker is a training tool: as soon as your dog learns the behavior, you will never need the clicker again to get that particular behavior. A friend’s dog entertained a group of Airedale lovers with her “Get a cool one” trick. The dog, on command went to a small beer cooler, opened it, and took out a bottle (a plastic bottle that looked like a beer). The trick was worthy of an ad for the Super Bowl! My own dog, Buster, learned how bow for the queen. Once these two dogs knew these tricks, they were always ready to show them off when their handler simply gave the command to get a cool one or who’s the queen. Likewise, a dog that is clicker trained to heel on a loose lead, to sit politely when a guest enters your home, that lies down quietly while you eat your dinner, and comes happily when you call will do all of those behaviors without a clicker.

The emphasis is on “happily.” Clicker training is fun. Both you and the dog will look forward to your sessions. Each session will begin when you pick up the clicker, and as you progress, that becomes the cue for your dog to offer you a stream of behaviors. “Do you want me to sit? . . . to down . . . to come . . . to touch the door . . .” he seems to ask, tail wagging, ears alert. And depending on what you are planning to train that day, you will click when the dog offers you a behavior that is also the start of what you want to train.

Who’s the Queen? For example, when we trained Buster to bow, we started with a down that he offered. Since it was a behavior he knew well, I only clicked it the first time he did it. Then I just stood there with him lying down and watching me. He got frustrated: obviously, the nice lady was not going to give him the treat for down. He got up; he pranced around. He offered me another behavior. No treat. Finally, he got very cute about it and teased me with a play bow. I clicked and gave him a treat. Then I stood there. He tried to do another down, then a sit, then the play bow. I clicked the play bow and gave him a treat. Then I stood straight.Immediately, he did the play bow. Yes! I clicked. We did that several times, and then we stopped for the day.

The next day, when I picked up the clicker, I immediately got a play bow. Yes! So this time, as he went into the play bow, I said “who’s the queen?”, clicked and treated the play bow. We did this for about 10 minutes. The next day, all I had to do was ask the question (give the cue): “Who’s the queen?” He immediately did the play bow, and I clicked it and treated it. From then on, I did not have to use the clicker or a treat. All I had to do was ask the question, “Who’s the Queen?” and Buster responded with a cute play bow! He loved doing it; we loved watching him do it; and he amused a lot of people with this simple trick.

But clicker training is not just for tricks. Often a dog is confused and really does not know what you want. Using a clicker, you can now communicate very clearly to your dog what you want. Or an older dog that has been adopted has some negative associations with training and does not seem to pay attention to you. The clicker can help the dog learn what you want, and it can certainly help focus the dog’s attention on you. For example, consider the dog that won’t look at you. Just stand there. It may seem like forever. Watch the dog. Don’t watch TV, look around you, or talk on the phone. You want the dog to pay attention so you pay attention to the dog. Then suddenly the dog takes one quick peek at you, and you click and treat. Then you both go back to what you were doing, but you keep your eye on the dog. There, another peek; another click and another treat. After a few repetitions, you can almost see the light bulb come on: “If I look at her, she will reward me.” And suddenly, the dog is looking at you all the time.
You have his attention. What could be simpler?

No dog is too young or too old to enjoy this happy way of training. We saw an older dog take a new lease on training with the clicker. The owner had brought the dog to one of our club’s clicker seminars because she had not been able to establish a bond with the dog; the dog would not look at her; and the dog ignored every attempt at training. The owner was thinking of surrendering the dog to rescue. Before the first morning had ended, the dog was glued to the owner, and once the attention was established, new behaviors tumbled out of the dog, much to the owner’s delight and relief.

Puppies love the clicker. They seem to think that it is their birthright to grow up communicating in this simple and effective way with their human companions. In fact,
Corally Burmaster, an Airedale breeder and clicker trainer, starts training her own puppies with the clicker when they are five weeks old.

So whether your dog is young or old, if you would like to do more training with your dog and develop a more rewarding bond with your dog, you might want to consider the clicker. You can train all the behaviors for the Canine Good Citizenship test with the clicker. You can teach an endless stream of tricks with the clicker. And through it all, you can have so much fun that you can forget about prong collars, the hard work that training used to be, and join the thousands of people who do their training in short fun-filled segments whenever they have a moment with their dog.

If you like the sound of this way of training your dog, here are some resources that you can explore to learn more about clicker training:

Websites:
www.clickandtreat.com
www.clickertrain.com
www.clickertraining.com

Books:
Morgan Spector, Clicker Training for Obedience : Shaping Top Performance – Positively
Karen Pryor, Don’t Shoot the Dog
Karen Pryor, Getting Started: Clicker Training for Dogs
Melissa Alexander, Click for Joy
Mandy Book & Cheryl Smith, Quick Clicks
Pat Miller, Power of Positive Dog Training
Deb Jones, Click and Sniff
Peggy Tillman, Clicking with Your Dog
Gail Fisher, Clicker Training Manual
Deb Jones, Clicker Fun
M. Shirley Chong, A Clicker Cookbook With Training Schedule
Videos:
Corally Burmaster, Puppy Kindergarten (video)
Deb Jones, Click and Go (video)
Gary Wilkes, Click and Treat Training