From the monthly archives: February 2012
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In the final post in this series (delayed I know), I’ll offer some thoughts on just one or two of the issues that most concern me about how some trainers and behaviour professionals approach “aggression” cases in dogs. This I’ll contrast with more established and informed methods of B-Mod (behaviour modification), as well as some of the advantages of more recent advances, incorporating an assessment of emotion and mood and its relationship to behaviour. I do this for a simple reason – since I first started working in this field I have been consistently alarmed at just how many ‘trainers’, ‘consultants’ and ‘behaviourists’ continue to ply a very lucrative trade based on claims of knowledge and expertise, or near-miraculous instinctive skills, they appear not to possess.
Other-blaming and collateral damage
But let me first provide some context. Ever since the incident on Clifton beach on January 11th and the flood of negative publicity that accompanied it, James Lech has continuously claimed that the reportage has been fundamentally inaccurate, and that this misrepresentation has unfairly damaged his reputation. The proof of this, we have been told time and time again, will be made abundantly clear in a ‘report’ he keeps promising to compile, author and publish on his blog. However, this keeps getting postponed for reasons best known to him alone.
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