Are you saying you willing to be the vet behaviorist who makes less than the income of the rDVM but put the extra time in? Or are you saying you would want to be a vet behaviorist that doesn't get the referral because behavior isn't generally treated like a specialty? I'm not commenting on the validity of either situation, just trying to understand what you are saying.
I agree it is a problem, but it is kind of the horse to water conundrum. There is a college for vet behavior, the information is out there, but there are going to be some vets that never drink. And the sad part of that is I have encountered many vet students that, despite having behavior education, refuse to even conider any approach beyond CM and Kohler. There are also vets who are going to prescribe pred for everything in every animal. I'm not sure there is much that can really be done to change that. As Bill points out, it is what the market supports; and tracking/regulation/etc costs $$$.
hmmm...careful, pain, shock, and force CAN be used to successfully train an animal....P+ does work when used appropriatly. And if you say that to folks educated in behavior or training you may discredit yourself The issue is that using it correctly may be difficult, and use in general may lead to unexpected consequences or fall out. Though I'd love to see the proof (at least where I came from science didn't prove anything...but that is old-school me talking) that P+ doesn't work. However, as long as there aren't any restrictions on who can give behavior information (neighbor, kid, youtube, TV, etc) there isn't any way to regulate this sort of thing. I mean, when a trainer can place 2-3 shock collars on a dog (including genitals) and walk away without any consequences (despite the dog's death following training) we haven't yet moved to a place where much is going to be addressed in this regard.
I personally wasn't suggesting you or anyone else should stop offering advice. I was just pointing out that unless there is a limitation on supply, then demand for services that cost money will always be minimal. I have at times suggested that the use of terms like 'behaviorist' should be restricted, much like in many states one can't call themselves a 'stylist' without a particular level of training and licencing.
Either way, it comes down to demand making the behavior specialty difficult to practice in. I think it is different than zoo med in the sense that zoo med is rarely a dvm competing with a non-dvm for a client base...and there really aren't a ton of DVM folks lusting after behavior jobs (the cases most behaviorists get are far from easy) like zoo jobs, but a lot more GP's think they can handle difficult behavior situations...while I think very few SA or LA vets are willing to sign up for unguided medical procedures on killer whales. I know a lot of GP's that never refer to vet behaviorists (even when faced with euth) despite one being relatively close....but they do refer for derm, surgery, IM, etc.
I think behavior is kind of like trying to practice vet med in a place where performing surgery on any animal is legal by any person, regardless or training or experience. I know way too much about the specialty because I do a lot of behavior work in exotics (on top of running a pet training business) but I have already realized that if I pursue it, I will do so because of personal interest....not because I think the specialization holds any value.
Good points
🙂 I'd like to clarify a few things:
If I was a veterinary behaviorist (boarded, only seeing behavior cases), and someone would not be able to afford my services, I would rather the client get sound behavior advice from a reputable source than from one of the so-called trainers on the market out there. So, for instance, if every veterinarian stopped giving behavior advice today, there would be other sources doing so. Veterinarians, I think, have at least some (hopefully--depending, literally, on the school they attended and their interests) more behavior expertise than some other people in the layperson setting. Heck, anyone can call themselves a dog trainer, slap a prong collar on a dog and go all CM on him or her. That is just my personal opinion, but there may be others out there. I am also very big into volunteer work, so that may influence my opinion.
Yes, positive punishment does work. It works short-term, and many people do not understand how to use it properly. Many people watch a show like the Dog Whisperer and (despite warnings all over the screen not to try his techniques at home unsupervised) people perform them incorrectly and end up causing more stress to their animals. I have seen people who 'follow' CM yank a chihuahua so hard on a leash pop that the dog flew several feet of the ground. Is that safe? Heck, no.
When faced with the +P vs. +R debate, I like to say two things:
1) If you screw up with +P, the risks to your dog are very high; the same could not be said with +R (beyond possible obesity caused by too many treats!). It's "oh darn, I timed my treating wrong, the dog doesn't understand what I wanted him to do" vs. "my dog has been flooded by outside stimuli and is now shut down emotionally." The latter leads to a ticking time bomb. CM's techniques lead to learned helplessness (not saying ALL +P trainers' techniques do, but many of the ones I've seen fall into this category...).
2) If you know there is an alternative (+R) to using pain to get your animal to do what you desire of it (+P), why would you cause the pain? Sure it may be faster, in some cases, but is that the relationship you want to have with your dog? That they only respect you because you shock them or that they respect you because they love the learning process and want to please you (heck, if it works with dolphins...)
I'm not saying that all +P trainers are trying to kill dogs, or that all +R are wonderful in their science. I truly believe that training should be afun for both human and animal. If you ask many +P trainers (I mean the clients, not the trainers themselves), they say they feel guilty about the leash jerks, etc, but don't know an alternative. My friend was required to wear a prong collar on her leg all day by the SFSPCA in getting her CTC. I've seen the pictures, and they aren't pretty. The fact of the matter is, is that many (I would say, most) people do not understand positive punishment techniques to the point that they would be able to safely utilize them in training (timing has to be
perfect), and therefore it is not a technique I would recommend to the lay person. People just see CM on TV and go around yanking their dogs, thinking they are trying to be "dominant" over them.
Dominance theory has been disproven in dogs, and even wolves, unless in an captive situation where there are multiple family groups living together. The "alpha" wolves in the pack are the breeding pair and the other wolves are merely their offspring. When a young wolf gets to an age when it is ready to breed, it breaks off from the family 'pack' and forms his or her own with another breeding wolf. The guy who popularized the phrase in 1970 now speaks out against it and condones its application to dogs (resources upon request).
The AVMA does not condone +P techniques in their issue statement. And if there is a safer, more fun alternative for an animal that we share our lives with and spend billions upon billions of dollars with a year, I would rather spread out the goals of +R (trust, mutual respect, fun of learning), than the goals of +P (corecion, dominance, fear).
I agree with many of your points. I don't understand why a vet is willing to refer to an oncologist with a difficult cancer case, but advocates easily, without even an asking of advice by the client, alpha rolls their new puppy to "show him who's boss." It's actually disgusting, IMO, that people are going to vets as the expert on all things animal-related, and they know next to nothing about behavior (it's one 3 week class in some schools, and an
elective in others--we all know which class the vet students are going to choose
😉).
Behavior is more an important part of any vet clinic than complicated diseases you may only see once in an entire career. House training, obedience, spraying, tail chasing, clawing furniture--these are all behavior issues that come up every week in the practice I shadow at. I'm not sure how to fix the problem, because, as you said, there are many, many people calling themselves "behaviorist" out there with faulty science.
I think the horse-to-water analogy is a little off, though. If you don't make the information AVAILABLE to veterinarians, they aren't going to make educated decisions. If a person can look at all the facts, all the case studies, and the veterinary profession itself (AVMA) and say that +P is the way to go, then I'm not about to argue with them. If a vet comes out of school having had
3 weeks or less of behavior training and watches CM on TV and thinks "he is the best trainer ever," then I think that's a disservice to the profession.
I think I hit upon all of your points, and tried to back mine up, as well. Let me know if I missed anything
🙂
