FEATURE | DR. IAN DUNBAR
�Dr. Ian Dunbar with Dune
An Interview with APDT Founder, Dr. Ian Dunbar
By Devon Hubbard Sorlie, COTD editor
This is the first of a two-part interview with APDT Founder Ian Dunbar, Ph. D, BVetMed, MRCVS. The second part, concerning the future of dog training and APDT, will conclude in the Fall issue. Dr. Dunbar will be a keynote speaker at the annual conference Oct. 17-20 in Memphis, Tennessee.
Back in 1971, an English veterinarian didn’ t have plans to become a dog trainer when he moved from Great Britain to the United States to earn a doctorate degree in animal behavior from the psychology department at the University of California Berkeley. He planned to do years of research on the olfactory communication, social behavior and aggression in domestic dogs.
At Berkeley, Dunbar observed puppies as they grew up while studying their development of social hierarchies. In one litter was a male named Sirius, a full-of-himself puppy who tended to push others around. Sirius tried to bully a female from another litter who was larger and older by three weeks. There was an altercation that lasted about 10 seconds and Sirius went from being the most belligerent bully to a low-profile, seeking-to-please type of dog. And that stunned Dunbar, because the general view among behaviorists is you could change behavior, but not temperament.
Another serendipitous moment came when Dunbar got a Malamute puppy, Omaha, in 1981, he discovered there were no training classes for puppies. The typical thinking then was to wait for the puppy to be at least six months old. But the behaviorist in Dunbar knew puppies were capable of learning much earlier. In 1982, he founded Sirius Puppy Training, naming the first-ever puppy training school after that rascal from the study. The school was based on lure-reward methods— treats, praise, toys and proper socialization— he had seen his grandfather and father use on their farm animals back in England. And even more shocking, it was done off-leash.
Owners and trainers began to embrace his classes and videos, which provided an alternative to the more commonly used punitive, punishment-based training. He created a video,“ Sirius Dog Training” in 1987.“ On the strength of that video, I went all over the world, giving talks about puppy training and lure-reward training, with the emphasis on early socialization and preventing aggression as the way to go,” Dunbar said.
At some point, Dunbar was asked to do a 10-week course on dog behavior at the university extension.“ Now instead of talking to academics, I was talking to dog owners, and I absolutely loved it,” Dunbar said.“ I mean these to me were natural and meaningful issues; my dog is anxious when left home alone, he flattens people, peeing on the carpet. I got such a high talking to them. They were just really interested in what I had to say. In academics, the most common question would be‘ is this going to be on the midterm?’”
In the dog behavior classes, as well as the puppy training classes, Dunbar found his calling. He talked about the training he watched his father and grandfather do on their farm animals.“ My grandfather used classical conditioning on every animal on the farm, including children. They were classically conditioned from day two,” Dunbar said.“ It’ s so old it’ s new again. They were just forgotten the past 70 years. It wasn’ t until recently these techniques were given names.”
Photo courtesy of Dr. Ian Dunbar The APDT Chronicle of the Dog | Summer 2018 17