FEATURE | TRUTH IN TRAINING ORDINANCE
to me that she wanted nothing more than to be able to stop this person, but that she was unable to do so as the animal cruelty laws were not strong enough and the abuser had a knowledgeable attorney. Next to this file was another stack about eight inches thick with complaints of injury or death to dogs by other trainers. Most of the trainers from these files, who had harmed and killed dogs, continue to be in business today.
Obedience to Authority Humans are a social species and with that comes a desire to comply with authority. While being obedient to authority is helpful when managing groups of children, it can cause hugely problematic side effects when the inappropriate entity is empowered. The sociologist Stanley Milgram, attempting to gather sociological information on the holocaust, found that roughly 60 percent of people will do what they are told even if it involves hurting or killing another person. He named this phenomenon“ obedience to authority.” As dog trainers we are given authority by our clients, but unfortunately this also opens the door for abusers to abuse. As an industry we need to be aware of this.
Milgram, and other later research, found females are more vulnerable to obedience to authority. In the North American dog training community consumers are mostly female, which may cause the industry to be more prone to doing what they are told and complying with abusive dog training advice.
Adding complexity, many dog trainers are experts at assuming a pushy role in the owner coaching relationship. Obedience to authority is the perfect in for bullying. Bullying may also be a problem for dogs and for their owners if they accidentally hire an abusive trainer. Several of the victims I met and interviewed felt bullied by their trainers.
Some of the victims described the trainers they had worked with as giving them nasty glares when they displayed behaviors consistent with attempting to get the trainer to stop what they were doing to their dogs. As much as professional organizations are trying to educate trainers and the public that training is not intimidation, it seems the dominance myth is what some abusive trainers may leverage to obtain obedience to authority.
Normalization Normalization refers to a group dynamic that sets“ norms” for social groups. Norms are what is normal for the group. Normalization is what the abuser uses to control the environment by setting a group norm of abuse. Abusive individuals often are skilled at normalizing abuse. Statements such as,“ the dog is choosing the correction” or blaming the dog or client for needing to escalate positive punishment are two strategies victims described to normalize the abusive training of which they were being asked to comply. In one case a client was told“ this procedure is going to be very hard to watch, it is going to look like an exorcism.” The statement worked, the client remained passive while her dog was choked to death and died. This client was so traumatized by her“ participation” in the“ exorcism” that she remained passive and did not attempt to get justice for her dog.
Normalization causes abuse to seem acceptable. This can be achieved gradually, shaping the owner into compliance, or it can be done abruptly making use of capturing. Once the possibly shocked owner appears compliant this captured behavior can be maintained if the owner does not find the means of overcoming the social pressure that obedience to authority causes. Milgram and others found that the“ cure” for obedience to authority is education. However, this solution only poses another problem in that our clients would need to be skilled dog trainers to know who skilled dog trainers are. Consumer education alone is inadequate in protecting consumers and dogs.
Systems of Denial It is easy for trainers to deny there are“ bad eggs.” Recently, at a conference, I spoke to a high-profile trainer about recent events in my county and that trainer stated that in their state there were no abuse problems such as in my county. I found this puzzling and asked the trainer what state they were in, making a mental note. Later, I Googled this state and found that not only had there been cases of dog training and pet care abuse and neglect, but that the state in question had recently passed legislation to address this issue.
As professionals we must resist denial. We are obligated to encourage our clients to report to the police and animal services any dog training abuse. It is our duty to educate clients and the public what constitutes abuse. Only this way can we avoid being part of the system of denial that ultimately keeps abusers abusing.
Physical abuse is common among humans. It is logical to assume that this violence does also affects dogs. The data shows that abuse occurs in all demographic backgrounds. Research shows that violence against animals and against humans are connected. In the United States, according to the National Commission Against Domestic Violence, on average 20 people per minute are physically abused by an intimate partner. One in three women have experienced physical violence in an intimate relationship
38 Building Better Trainers Through Education