The Book Works co-hosts Kathy Santo's visit with Buddy's:

February 22, 2008

Dog expert gets inside dogs' heads

By Katie Punsly

Buddy's, established at the Flower Hill Promenade two months ago, is just a puppy of a boutique. Yet, this pet shop has already begun treating its customers monthly to professional pet experts.

In a casual atmosphere of wine and snacks, a group of dog enthusiasts gathered around Kathy Santo. An expert of canine behavior, Santo has written "Dog Sense," with more books on the way. She has worked with the dogs of autistic children. These types of kids generally prefer animals because of their easily identifiable faces that don't become unrecognizable or distorted with emotion as a human's might. Santo's main goal is keeping dogs in the family and out of the pound, and uses her natural talent to keep pets part of the family.

"I didn't live with dogs. I had never had been to a dog show," said Santo. "I think I am a living example of someone who is genetically predisposed to do this, and I didn't resist it."

Her approach is psychological, but the form of classical conditioning she uses tries to disassociate discipline with the owner.

"Smart dogs will try to out-think you," said Santo. She said dogs that figure out the owner's enforcement mechanism will simply wait until he is out of the room and continue the negative behavior. Lenore Hawkins, owner of Buddy's boutique, has a rescue dog that already had some negative connections formed by its previous owner.

"I didnt want to associate me with some thing scary," said Hawkins. "This is a dog that's already damaged; I don't want to add to that. I just want to have bad associations with some behavior."

Santo suggests that good-intentioned owners can train their dogs without having to be the bad guy by disguising their connection to the punishment. This can be done by holding objects behind their back that make noises or tossing them out of nowhere into the dog's proximity. However, most local owners worry so much about being the bad guy, they taken the opposite route.

"The most common problem with the dogs I take care of is that the owners forget these are dogs and they need to have set rules and consistency," said Martie Grace, a professional pet sitter. "What I see across the board is that everyone loves their dogs so much today, like they're their kids, that they forget to set the boundaries." Grace, after listening to the behavioral tips, plans to reward the dogs she looks after more often for good behavior. Santo, however, does not have the problems of the average owner.

"She seems to be very practical in not treating the dogs harshly, but not treating them like people either." said Helen Jo Thorpe. "She's treating them like dogs." Santo dealt personally with Thorpe's dog, which has issues paying attention to Thorpe while being walked.

While some people might feel dog domestication to be counterintuitive to a canine companionship, behavior experts emphasize the aspects necessary for the dog's safety. The example Santo gave was insisting pets obey the command to keep out of a room with broken glass on the floor.

Book Works owner Lisa Stefanacci, who brought her dachshund [Harry!], commented, "Even though he's so little, he still has to learn the down command or the stay command because there may be an emergency where I need to keep him safe."

Even smaller, lap dogs need to have a set of rules to keep them out of harm's way according to Santo. Naturally, consistency is needed to enforce these rules and it all returns to the behavioral psychology Santo encourages.

Grace, the pet sitter, plans to read Santo's book because of her interest in "learning more about how dogs think, what's going through their mind and trying to understand a dog's thought system."

Santo is one of many dog experts trying to unravel that mystery and shed some light on it, but her approach is all natural, from the ingredients of her products to her study of the interaction between pets and their people.