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The "Canine Good Citizen" Test May Harm Dogs (and People) »

doberbutts:

And the followup post, here.

Okay folks, this is one I’ve resisted posting about for a while, but enough people have sent it to me (including a link from WADTT from a group where the author goes further into detail on this subject, thank you darling <3 ) that I guess it’s time.

I’m going to start with- this is why I don’t like it when people who are not involved in something decide they want to judge something they don’t know anything about. I’m, of course, not saying this woman doesn’t know anything about dog training- her credentials are enough to say otherwise. But the phrasing of both of these articles indicate that she has never taken her dogs through a CGC before and, indeed, has never done any sort of AKC event before. In fact, one of her main problems with it (and one of her source’s main problems with it, but I’ll go into that later) is that the AKC is an organization that makes money because people do stuff with their dogs with said organization. Her source is more talking about puppy mills- in which it exaggerates a bit and implies that the money the AKC makes yearly is mostly coming from litter entries (ignoring the large sums coming from show entries, titles, etc) while her post implies that they’re getting quite a hefty sum from CGC entries (ignoring… all the other stuff the AKC does). Another reasons she gives for not liking the CGC is that the rulebook states that they don’t care what method you use to teach the items- something true of all AKC titles- as long as your dog is in the approved back-clipping non-restrictive harness, flat collar, martengale collar, or slip collar come testing day. She even does not like that the CGC allows the slip collar to be used during the test, despite the fact that- like all AKC titles- it’s not meant to be used during the test, as correcting your dog even verbally will fail you.

Far be it from me to claim the CGC is the end-all of dog behavior. We have had dogs right here on dogblr that decidedly were not the epitome of good temperament pass CGC and even CGCA. I’ve passed a dog that I know is dog aggressive, but he was not during testing time or class, so I also could not fail him. I just had an argument with a high profile dobe breeder about why the CGC program is not an ideal standard for service dogs. I have my own problems with the program, and my own problems with the AKC, and I can’t really say either is perfect.

I’ve taken close to 50 dogs through the CGC in 2018 and the first couple days of 2019 alone at this point. As most of you are aware, I am not a +R trainer by the strictest sense of the term. As most of you are also aware, I am required to be so while at my job. That means the vast majority of my students must adhere strictly to force-free methodology, and exceptions may only be made when there is a serious safety concern regarding strength of dog vs strength of human. This also means that the majority of my CGC students have run through the CGC without ever feeling any sort of pressure or compulsion. While, yes, the rulebook does state that whatever methods you want can be used for teaching the items, my job states that I am much more limited. Besides that, I’m pretty pro-don’t-punish-your-dog-for-not-reading-your-mind and anti-use-corrective-collars-to-fix-your-shitty-foundation, so there’s that too, even with my personal dogs aka dogs I’m allowed to actually do whatever I want with. Just as an aside, but I took CGC classes at Petco as well when I ran through the program with Creed because I can and they’re free for me, so I also was not allowed to have him on anything more corrective than a martengale during class or test. This means no slip collar either- something allowed by AKC rules but not by the testing facility. Clearly the CGC can be passed while sticking firmly to a +R ideology.

But that’s not enough- in the group where she discussed her reasonings for this, the mere fact that the CGC rulebook states that it allows slip collars, that you can do whatever you want in training, and that the AKC refuses to totally ban metal aversives is bad enough to never want to take a CGC. Simply funding the organization with your $10 is bad enough to not want to do it. That, to me, is more than a little ridiculous.

Onto the next point- the fear that more people beginning to require a CGC to insure or rent to dog owners would split up dogs and humans- specifically fearful or aggressive dogs, and low income families. This is a tricky one to navigate, and one that I’m very much wishing she hadn’t thrown human social talking points into (misogyny, violence against women, income status, etc). First of all- there is no current punishment for failing your CGC besides a little bit of embarrassment or frustration if you thought your dog was ready, so the whole “scarlet letter of bad citizen” is exaggerated hyperbole at best. Second of all, no insurance company to date has required a CGC that I am aware of, but has given discounts for one being present. Third, HOAs and landlords have actually changed from disallowing pets completely to saying that they will allow a pet if it’s trained to a visible standard- this is a good thing. This is not “landlords and HOAs used to allow dogs all the time but now they require your dog pass a test”, it’s “landlords and HOAs used to not allow any dogs or only allow dogs smaller than 25lbs or have breed bans and now instead of that they just want to make sure your dog is somewhat trained”. Forward progress. Creed failed his CGC at 13 months. He passed it at 22 months. Failing it the first time had literally zero effect on his ability to pass it the second time, except that I knew what things he still needed practice with before our second go around.

If your dog is too fearful or too aggressive to pass a CGC test with dedicated training, you probably shouldn’t be renting with it. These are easy things to pass and things your dog will have to navigate at some point in its life. Your dog is going to need to be touched by strangers at the vet or groomer. Basic obedience- positions, recall, stay, those are things that literally save lives in emergency situations. Your dog is going to need to be able to peacefully coexist with other dogs when going outside to pee, on a walk, at the vet, at the groomer. With the increasing number of vets that take the dog into the back, away from its owner, for simple procedures like shots and blood draws, your dog is going to need to be okay not being next to you for a whole 3 minutes. Not everyone likes dogs, so it’s imperative that your dog can walk by strangers without bothering them, especially if you have neighbors in the same building. While loose leash walking and distractions are perhaps the most easily discarded of all of these items, the #1 complaint I receive as a dog trainer from new clients is that their dog pulls on leash. The #2 complaint is that the dog is easily distracted by everything and thus “doesn’t listen”. That’s your 10 items on the CGC. If your dog cannot do those things with a combination of training and management techniques, then, yeah, your dog probably shouldn’t be in a rental and you should look into additional training. Additionally- dogs that bark constantly, especially at movement/sound from neighbors or due to seperation anxiety, get their owners evicted. That’s the hard truth. Dogs that are not properly housebroken get their owners evicted, or at the very least get their owners charged thousands of dollars for repairs when an angry landlord has to replace flooring or carpet or furniture. That’s why the dog owner pledge exists.

HOAs are much the same- barking dogs get neighbor complaints which then get you evicted or fined. Leaving a dog outside to bark in the yard is one of the biggest reasons animal control gets called on dog owners. A pesky neighborhood gardener has the right to work in peace- if your dog won’t stop barking, nothing is stopping you from bringing it inside or moving it away from the windows. I don’t know why we suddenly jump to taping the mouth shut or surgical debarking- unless the dog cannot be calmed once it starts, in which case a visit to the vet and a behaviorist (or trainer otherwise skilled in BAT) is in order to determine what combination of management techniques and medication is required for the dog to have its extreme anxiety or aggression calmed to a more reasonable point where it stops being unfair to the dog to exist in such a stressful mindset. The pledge does not say you can’t do that- and anyone working with a trainer to pass the CGC should be provided that option should they request it.

People don’t like it when dog owners let their dogs poop in their yards. Even if you clean it up, there’s still residue. It’s also pretty terrible for the environment to not pick it up in your own yard, as well as a public health and safety hazard if allowed to collect over a long amount of time or if there are multiple dogs. E.coli, salmonella, coccidia, giardia, and various parasites such as roundworm and tapeworm can and do spread to humans if on contaminated ground- a worry for children who may not know better than to put their hands in grass a dog has recently pooped on and, since there’s no visible trace of poop anymore, then puts their hands in their mouths. Distemper, parvo, and lepto spreads to dogs with weak immune systems that cannot be vaccinated, or puppies who have not completed their vaccinations yet. Rain water pushes these diseases out of a dog owner’s yard and into other ground as well as into rivers and other sources of drinking water. Making sure that your dog only uses certain areas to go to the bathroom, and then immediately doing your best to pick up after your dog is the only acceptable compromise. And people are very bad at even doing that- outside of my store, where there is a poop bag station every couple of feet, we still completely fill a trash bag full of poop weekly because people will not pick up after their dogs. That’s why the dog owner pledge exists. At least daily inside of my store, we discover a trail of feces and urine down an aisle from a dog owner that either wasn’t paying enough attention to their dog to see that it was doing that, or that didn’t care enough to clean it up, even with several easily accessible clean-up stations within the store. Sometimes it’s right at the clean-up station.

That’s why its phrased the way it is. Good citizen- or in Canada, good neighbor. It’s an attempt to curb bad human behaviors while also teaching dogs a very simple, easy-to-pass test. If the CGC or CGN isn’t your cuppa, there’s also others such as CLASS and SPOT and even various things from DMWYD. But all of them are similar in that they attempt to solve this problem as more people with more dogs becomes more widespread.

As for the rest- dogs that growl get dismissed from the test. This does not mean dogs-that-growl-ever. This means, dogs that growl during the test. It’s included because the AKC got tired of evaluators and judges and other dogs being attacked by dogs. Any aggressive behavior whatsoever displayed during the test is grounds for automatic dismissal in the vast majority of AKC events. This prevents the owner from attempting to “work through it” and invariably flooding the dog and getting someone bit. Instead, the dog is dismissed, and the owner is forwarded to someone who can find out why the dog is growling and how to make the dog more comfortable with whatever the problem was. Dogs that cannot hold their urine for the 30 minutes max each test takes, yes, get dismissed, because nobody likes a dog that pees all over everything. This includes dogs that submissive or excited pee, because the owner should be working with a vet and behaviorist on proper management solutions. Dogs are allowed to startle during distractions, as long as they do not attempt to flee, run, or bark. It even says the dog may look at the distraction with (mild) interest, as long as it is neither pulling towards the distraction nor running away from the distraction.

Once again, far be it from me to be the white knight of the CGC or even of the AKC, but this article is, frankly, mostly the same type of nonsense I always hate seeing from people who wish to make talking points about things they’ve never experienced and thus don’t have any idea what they’re talking about. Again, I am not saying this woman doesn’t know what dog training entails. Her credentials alone say otherwise. But I am saying that it’s very clear she’s never even attempted the CGC, nor attended a class of people attending the CGC. Again, in the FB group where she discusses her reasoning, she even says that while she understands people do go through the CGC with all forcefree training, her problem is that it allows people to not do that, and so it’s still unacceptable. So all training is required to be forcefree, written in the rules, or else there’s the potential that someone somewhere might do something to their dogs that she doesn’t like, and so it’s bad. That’s… ridiculous.

There’s also some things at the end about wanting legislature to require forcefree only training, about wanting all dog trainers to pass a certification that requires people to only use forcefree training, and some bits about people like me who occasionally use tools not allowed by +R methodology in certain circumstances being inhumane and unethical, but I won’t go into those more than my warning that I always have for things like this.

Always be careful about strong opinions formed by people who have never done or experienced or worked with the thing they have strong opinions about. Especially so when they are strong opinions that may become enforced by law. At that point, everyone loses.