A few weeks ago, I started seeing posts on social media from dog trainers I know and admire, warning people about a new show on Netflix called “Canine Intervention.” The show features a dog trainer named Jas Leverette, who says, “I help the dogs that no one else will.”

I watched the first three (of six) episodes that currently appear on Netflix, and my first thought was, “Here we go again.”

The show is scripted and filmed like any reality TV show: Fairly ordinary situations are filmed in a way that dramatizes the problems people are having with their dogs, making the dogs seem incredibly dangerous and destructive, and the trainer is engaged in such a way as to appear near-heroic. He’s shown dispensing pithy pearls of dog-training wisdom, with other brief animal-behavior “facts” appearing in type on screen. Within each hour-long episode, the dog’s problems are improved or resolved.

That’s a good thing, right? We all want people to enjoy their dogs more, and to learn how to train them! So why are so many trainers upset about the show?

There are three major issues: The first is that Leverette is a self-described “balanced trainer.” This has come to mean someone who uses food treats, toys, and praise to reinforce behaviors that they want from a dog – and physical “corrections” to punish unwanted behaviors. Though Leverette also describes his training as “modern,” up-to-date training professionals understand that while force-based training can be effective, there are MANY reasons it’s best avoided:

• Not everyone can make appropriate corrections with the timing required to make them effective
• Not everyone wants to use force with their dogs
• Most significantly, poorly timed or inappropriate corrections are nearly guaranteed to worsen the dog’s behavior and increase his frustration, triggering defensive aggression.

But the usual justifications for the use of force are trotted out. In the first episode, a guy described as a tech-business owner has adopted a pit bull-mix who displays aggression with strangers and visitors to the tech-guy’s home. Leverette says, “If we don’t fix this, this dog is not gonna have a long future…. She won’t have a second chance….” The owner agrees. “This is life or death, pretty much, for her.”

This sort of language triggers educated dog trainers. If an owner is motivated, there are always more ways to train a dog in order to “save” them, without having to resort to pain-inducing tools and methods. And in cases of aggression, it’s well-established that the use of pain, force, and fear in training often worsens aggression.

Don’t get me wrong. Leverette is not shown flagrantly inflicting pain on the dogs; he’s a much more skilled trainer than that. It’s just that his methods call for making the dog do what he wants, when he wants – even if the dog is “flooded” and completely “over threshold,” physiologically aroused past a state of being able to learn. Instead, the dogs simply learn to give up and give in to the force being used.

By the way, it’s never called out or shown explicitly, but when you first see each “problem dog,” they are generally wearing wide collars. When Leverette begins work with them, they are wearing very thin cord-like slip collars. This allows the dogs to be controlled with a lot less overt force; it’s too painful and choking to pull or “act like a fool” (as one owner describes his dog’s problematic behavior) with a narrow cord on your throat. Look carefully and you can see that with these collars, resistance is futile for all but the most defensive dogs; they have to submit. This doesn’t mean they are learning anything, however.

Second, Leverette uses a lot of language that more educated trainers eschew as outdated, meaningless, and immaterial to the science of behavior modification. He issues “commands” instead of talking about “cues” for behavior. Families are described as “packs” and owners are encouraged to be “pack leaders.” Though this sounds kind of cool, exactly how this is accomplished is never well articulated. “Dogs need to trust their pack leader,” Leverette says in the first episode. Um, okay… What, exactly, should an owner do to make their dog trust them? How will we know when a dog trusts us? And how will “trust” make him understand what I want when I cue a behavior? It’s just fuzzy language that sounds good, but can’t actually be described in concrete or useful terms.

In his training, Leverette promotes the use of a plywood platform that he calls a “box.” “In my system, the box is an important training tool to teach new behaviors,” he says in the first episode. “It’s also a first step in establishing the pack leadership that’s necessary,” he says, while the on-screen caption echoes this: “Obedience depends on a dog’s trust and respect for their pack leader.” Again, this is ridiculous. All sorts of animals can be trained to do all sorts of behaviors without much knowledge of their handlers at all. (Want examples? See here, and here, and here. I could do this all day!)

Demystified, the use of Leverett’s box is simply using a platform (a mat can be used just as effectively) as a “station” – a place where the dog is heavily reinforced when he returns to it or remains there. Using a platform, box, mat, or Hula-Hoop on the ground and giving the dog a high rate of high-value rewards will reinforce the behavior of going to and staying in that spot – it has nothing to do with trust or leadership whatsoever. You can train a wild animal or bird to do it, if you want to. (Read this article to see how our Training Editor Pat Miller teaches a dog to “go to your mat.” Or this one, for another perspective.)

My third objection: Anyone who actually trains dogs – including Leverette himself – knows that while a skilled trainer can change a dog’s behavior dramatically in a very short time, it takes much longer for the dog to really learn. The goal is to get them to understand what is desired of their behavior when given specific cues and to motivate them to work for the reinforcements they understand will follow if they performs the desired behavior. In an hour-long TV-show format, even if the passage of time is accurately reflected (as when Leverette takes the dog in the first episode back to his business location for a several-week intensive “board and train” experience), when the dog is returned to the owner much improved, it would appear that the trainer is some sort of miracle worker. Most ethical trainers will tell you: With some instruction, if you worked with your dog for the number of hours each day that I can assure you that the TV dog trainer actually worked with the dog, you’d likely look like a miracle worker, too.

As with that other famous TV dog trainer, it makes for good TV when dogs can be shown displaying dramatic, aggressive-seeming behavior – and then transform in the hands of the trainer into much calmer dogs. But we know that pain (from choke, pinch, or shock collars, including the very thin slip collars that Leverette uses on dogs in the show) can be used to quickly suppress a dog’s dramatic response to whatever stimuli has them worked up – and that pain cannot change how they feel about that stimuli. Without having experienced a change in how they feel about the stimuli that stressed them in the first place, if, back at their owner’s home, there is no painful consequence for responding in a dramatic way, then the behavior will return. Suppressed responses will need to be maintained by continued painful consequences.

In contrast, true behavior modification changes how the dog feels about the stimulus, by initially managing his exposure to it while reinforcing his calm behavior and choice to (eventually) ignore the stimulus. He learns a more desirable (to us) behavior and classical conditioning comes along for the ride, as he (eventually) finds a previously stressful stimulus to be enjoyable as he gets reinforced for his better (more desirable to us) choices.

It’s clear that Leverette is knowledgeable about behavior modification; with the dog who bit several of the owner’s friends (in the first episode), he’s shown doing some desensitization with the dog. But the process isn’t explained in accurate terms; it’s all dumbed down into populist garbage talk (in my opinion); when the captions read at one point, “A dog without a pack leader is a dog who will ignore obedience commands,” I wanted to throw things at the TV! Come ON! But I understand that the way I would put it wouldn’t be simplistic enough for TV: A dog who hasn’t been reinforced with things that are valuable to him for responding to consistent cues with specific behaviors won’t respond to those cues!

I have to say, there were some things about the show that I liked. I am very appreciative that Netflix made a show featuring a person of color (Leverette is African-American); many of his clients, too, are people of color. It appears that he mentors, trains, and hires other POC, and is committed to spiritual practice, his community, and his family. He seems like a genuinely good guy. It also seems like Leverette is much more focused on the practice of dog training – actually teaching cues and specific behaviors to his canine students – than the last popular dog-guy on TV, though he, too, was full of all this pack-leader “dominance” baloney. And YES, all this “dominance” talk is absolute hooey. Read this informative statement about training and “dominance” from the Association of Professional Dog Trainers.

It’s entirely possible that the TV production company that made the show has run roughshod over Leverette, forcing him to reduce his actual training philosophies and techniques into the catchy little sound bites and captions that so offend me and the trainers I know. Whether he believes them or not, though, my fear is that when inexperienced dog owners see and hear dog training reduced to ambiguous statements about “leadership,” all they absorb is that they aren’t being tough enough with their dogs. It’s no different than saying, “You just have to hold your mouth right!”

The problem with “TV trainers” in general is that TV producers want drama – and good dog training is not dramatic! Teaching people to effectively communicate with their dogs, to give the dogs clear direction and quick feedback when they’ve done the “right” thing, may not reduce to a TV-worthy caption or resolve nicely in an hour. But I wish someone in television production would figure out a way to present truly modern dog training in a way that gave viewers basic instruction in easy-to-accomplish, dog-friendly training. It might not garner the kind of ratings that training celebrities’ dogs might earn, but by demystifying the process and breaking it down just like a puppy kindergarten class, it might actually help WAY more dogs and people. 

On March 2, USA Today published an article about the Seresto collar, originally developed and brought to the market by Bayer Animal Health in 2012. The article highlighted the fact that the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has received nearly 1,700 reports of animal deaths associated with use of the collar. Worried pet owners have been flooding their veterinarians’ offices with calls about whether to remove their pets’ Seresto collars.

Dog owners should be aware that every effective pesticide will cause adverse effects in some animals; that’s the nature of products that are meant to kill parasites. But there are a number of things you can do to reduce the potential for harm to your dog:

• Don’t use any flea- and/or tick-killing or –repelling pesticides unless your dog needs that protection. If you are lucky enough to have never observed fleas in your home or on your dog, you may have no need for flea-control products; don’t buy them unless you need them! In some parts of the country, fleas and/or ticks are a fairly constant threat to pets and pesticides are needed to control and manage infestations. (I put the collars on my dogs when I am planning to hike with them in areas where ticks are numerous, or when my dogs get exposed to a dog with fleas. The rest of the year, they go without!)
• Use an integrated pest management (IPM) plan to control persistent flea infestations, so you can use pesticides less frequently in the future. This link provides a good source of information on how to do that.
• If the pets in your home repeatedly get infested with fleas, try to identify the source of reinfestations. Indoor/outdoor cats are often the culprits, as they may rest in places frequented by flea-infested mice, rats, squirrels, or chipmunks, picking up fleas there and inadvertently bringing them back home to reproduce.
• If you have used a particular flea/tick-control product and your dog had an adverse reaction to that product, note the information in any place that will help remind you to avoid that product or its active ingredients in the future. My granddog Cole had an adverse reaction to Frontline once, vomiting once or twice on the day after the spot-on was applied and exhibiting diarrhea for a day or two after that. About a year later, my son, misremembering which product had caused the adverse response, inadvertently used Frontline on Cole again (after getting fleas from a visit to a friend’s infested home), with the same response. Aghast, he called me to confirm that Frontline was the culprit. Now we both remember, and avoid that product for Cole.
• It’s easy to respond if your dog, like Cole, has an acute adverse response to a particular pesticide. (In the case of an adverse response to a spot-on pesticide, you can give your dog a series of baths to help eliminate all of the pesticide that was not yet absorbed into his skin. If your dog has an adverse response after you have put a Seresto collar on him, remove the collar and bathe him well.) But if your dog has chronic health problems, you may need to more deliberately consider whether any of the topical or oral pesticides you have administered to him may be connected to his health problems. We wouldn’t recommend giving dogs with cancer or those who suffer from seizures any pesticides whatsoever. Instead, we’d use whatever IPM tactics were at our disposal to control fleas if necessary, and would avoid tick habitats at all costs.
• If you have used a particular pesticide product on your dog with great success (fleas disappeared, walks in areas known to be infested with ticks did not result in any or just a few tick-attachments) and without any adverse events, stick to that pesticide if you need one in the future. Don’t introduce an entirely new pesticide that may pose potential side effects for your dog without a solid reason to do so.

That last tip is why I’m not going to stop using Seresto and start using some new product. Neither of my dogs has had an adverse response of any kind to the collars. If either one had, I would avoid that product, but I’m not going to expose them to a new pesticide; I have evidence that Seresto is not causing them harm, but I’d be starting from scratch with a new pesticide.

It’s easy to forget what life was like before we had effective, relatively safe, long-lasting pesticides to kill fleas and ticks on our dogs. Many dogs suffered much more than their modern counterparts. Tick-borne diseases kill many dogs annually, and make many more suffer from chronic effects; without the measure of control offered by pesticides, these numbers would be much higher. Also, prior to the modern age of pesticides, it was very common to see dogs whose front teeth were worn to the gums from just chewing their own bodies in an effort to relieve the horrible itching caused by flea bites. While we would like people to use pesticides more sparingly and carefully, we wouldn’t like to go back to having none of these substances at our disposal.

I have a new little foster dog staying with me. The manager of my shelter called me last week and wanted to know if I would give her my opinion; she had been returned to the shelter twice and the manager was puzzled, because she seemed great!

Long story short, I think she is great. I think the two failed placements were not the right fit for her, that’s all. And I like her so much, I have a home in mind for her. But the family I’m thinking of will have to leave her home alone for chunks of time, and because I was working around the clock all last week, I haven’t yet had a chance to see how she does when left alone for more than 20 minutes at a time.

I shipped the April issue to the printer on Monday morning and decided that the little dog’s “home alone” tests would start that day. I left the dog in my detached little office building by herself, with a frozen Kong toy that was stuffed with canned food and her dry food scattered around on the floor of the office. I went into the house to eat breakfast, take a shower, and answer some emails. From the house, I would be able to hear if she started barking or causing a fuss.

About an hour later, I came back out to the office. As I approached the door I could see her through the glass door, sitting calmly – good job, little dog! I went to open the door and – hey, why won’t the door open? It seemed to be jammed, somehow!

I cupped my hands to the glass and looked more closely through the window. Oh crap! When I left the office, there had been a folding, soft crate leaned up against a file cabinet, across from the door, and it had fallen toward the door – been pushed over, more likely, by a dog pushing a food-stuffed Kong around the office. Unfortunately, now it was lying flat on the ground between the door and the file cabinet, where it fit perfect to very effectively block the door from opening. Ay yi yi! What a fix we were in! There are three little windows in my office, and all of them are locked. Breaking a window  was the only alternative to solving this puzzle to open the door.

Fortunately, the door could open about a quarter of an inch. It took me about a half-hour to find something on my property that I could use to slip through the tiny slit between the door and the frame, hook onto some part of the folding crate, and pull the crate up. It had to be very slender, at least a couple feet long, flexible enough to bend around the door, and strong enough to lift the large crate. A wire coat hanger was not strong enough, nothing plastic was skinny or flexible enough. I kept walking around the properly, looking for something.

Ultimately, I used bolt cutters to cut up a round wire tomato cage, the bottom loop of which met all the requirements: strong, slender, long, and flexible. Then I sat in front of the door, fishing with my wire, trying to catch a strap on the crate. The little dog sat on the flattened crate on the other side of the door, watching me and the movement of the wire intently.

Finally I hooked a strap! I had to bang on the door – “Back! Get back!” – to get the dog to get off the crate, so I could lift the end of the crate enough to push open the door and free the little dog. Hurray! I spent only an hour trying to free her from her hour-long isolation test.

I’ll try again tomorrow, but you can bet that I’ll dog-proof the office a little more thoroughly this time.

I’ve had several opportunities to observe unowned “street dogs” in different habitats, from Indian reservations to beaches to foreign countries. Years ago I went on a school-organized trip with my son’s middle-school class to Italy; watching the famed stray dogs who live in the ruins of Pompeii was the highlight of my trip!

Almost everywhere there is a persistently high population of street dogs, “reservation dogs,” or “sato dogs,” there are organizations devoted to helping them, ranging from capture/vaccination/spay/neuter programs to adoption programs. And this is great, because the threats to the lives of stray dogs are many:

• Parvovirus and distemper kills many unvaccinated street dogs.
• Many suffer terribly from fleas and/or mange.
• Long-term suffering from ticks and tick-borne disease, and from giardia and/or coccidia may also shorten the dogs’ lives.
• If they haven’t been captured and spayed/neutered at some point, they will unavoidably add to the population of homeless dogs. Females may suffer during breeding season, unable to escape being bred by numerous males, and from birthing/feeding more puppies than her body can maintain. Males may suffer from fights brought on by the proximity of a female in season, and from wandering farther afield than they normally would, in search of the scent of a female in season.
• Being hit by cars is far too common.
• In rural areas, many stray dogs meet their ends as they hunt for food and end up getting shot by farmers or ranchers.

On the other hand, I sometimes consider that some of these free-roaming dogs may be happier than some owned dogs who have regular health care, food, and warmth. There are a great many owned dogs who suffer from the helplessness of being locked up in a tiny cage or crate, dependent on a human’s schedule to eliminate when they need to, or for meeting other basic needs. Many dogs are subjected to lives of relative emotional and mental poverty, spending huge chunks of each day in social isolation and deprivation.

“Street dogs” can satisfy their curiosity about anything that catches their eyes or ears, investigating at will. They can exercise when they want, as much as they want. They usually develop relationships with other dogs, staying in a loose “family” group with other dogs they trust.

But it’s undeniable that their lives tend to be short, much shorter than owned dogs. There are just so many hazards.

In recent years, a great many groups have begun to import street dogs from other countries into the U.S., in hopes of finding adopters here. While this undoubtedly saves lives, I can’t tell you how many reports I’ve heard from trainers who have been called upon to help the families who have adopted former street dogs from Puerto Rico or Russia, or brought home by soft-hearted soldiers in the Middle East. Sometimes these dogs have a really rough time adapting to the typical lifestyle of an owned dog in America: being walked on leash everywhere, having no freedom to roam, perhaps being an only dog, and spending a lot of time alone.

There is no way to know what’s best for any individual. But I must say, when a stray adolescent dog on an Indian reservation recently approached me, all of the above went through my mind. If I had been closer to home or had any room in my car, I would have been seriously tempted to “rescue” him – but what if he already had a loving family, and was merely given the freedom to wander?