PetSpeak by The Editors of Pets: Part of the Family & Dennis Mosner

Author:The Editors of Pets: Part of the Family & Dennis Mosner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Potter/Ten Speed/Harmony/Rodale
Published: 2000-05-09T04:00:00+00:00

MESSAGES AND MEANINGS

Paper from the Past

Had the CIA’s evidence disposal unit known about Ch’a, it would have hired her on the spot. At one time, Ch’a, an American Eskimo dog, had a natural gift for reducing paper to its smallest possible parts. Everything was fair game: receipts, monthly bills, even postage stamps. If Ch’a could reach it, she’d shred it.

Ch’a’s owner, September B. Morn of Bellingham, Washington, realized that she had to do something. She had gotten Ch’a from a rescue organization, and she figured something in the dog’s past was causing her to be so destructive. As it turned out, Ch’a had been spanked regularly with a rolled-up newspaper. “No wonder she was determined to shred every paper she found,” September says.

Once dogs are grown, it can be difficult to teach them new ways of doing things, especially when their behavior is related to something negative in their pasts. But September, a trainer and author of Dogs Love to Please . . . We Teach Them How! had an idea.

“I taught Ch’a to fetch me things that I threw for her, including bits of paper,” she says. Each time Ch’a brought paper back, September gave her something good to eat. Ch’a was resourceful. She realized that she didn’t have to wait for September to throw things. She began looking for opportunities. If she found a scrap of paper on the floor, rather than destroying it, she would take it to September, then eagerly wait for her reward.

The paper shredding stopped, and Ch’a never took it up again. Looking back, September realizes that punishing Ch’a for her behavior couldn’t have worked. Ch’a shredded paper as a way of dealing with stress, and punishment would have added to that. By giving Ch’a an incentive to preserve paper, not tear it, she was able to convert a negative behavior into a positive one. “This gave Ch’a an outlet for her energy,” she says.

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