Getting Inside Your Dog’S Head Author Uses Canine Psychology To Understand And Train Pets

Anyone who has ever owned a dog knows the feeling.

There you are, asleep in bed, and suddenly you hear a noise. You rouse yourself long enough to figure out the source.

It’s (choose one: Rover, Fido, Ginger or Marmaduke) standing in front of the picture window, barking at the (choose one: squirrel, raccoon, marmot or magpie) frolicking on your porch.

You call out, but your pet ignores you.

What do you do?

If you were Paul Loeb, you’d throw something.

You’d do it because it’s part of a training system you’ve been developing for more than 40 years (Loeb calls it the “Magic Touch”). You’d do it because it’s something you preach in books such as “Smarter Than You Think” (PocketBooks, 272 pages, $14 paper).

Mostly, though, you’d do it because it works.

“The dog has better senses,” Loeb says, speaking with his co-author, Suzanne Hlavacek, over the phone from New York City. “It can hear better than us, see better, smell better, run faster, bark louder, jump higher, do everything. So why would it want to listen to us?”

Because, he says, we can do something it can’t.

“We can show the dog that we have medical degrees, law degrees, but it doesn’t impress them,” Loeb says. “What impresses them is the fact that we can do something that they can’t.”

Namely, touch them from across the room.

“When you throw something at them, they will smell the object and smell your scent on it,” Loeb says. “They’ve been studying you since you brought them home. So it changes things. Now they’re put in the position of having to listen to you.”

You can hear Loeb smile from 3,000 miles away.

“It’s like an invisible leash,” he says.

It’s also harmless, Loeb says - as long as you use something soft: a rolled-up sock is perfect; a paperweight wouldn’t be.

Still, the very idea of throwing anything at a pet is bound to upset some people. And Loeb has his detractors.

One reviewer on Amazon.com’s Web site commented via e-mail that Loeb’s “book contains potentially dangerous advice. Anyone who’s (sic) dog is showing emerging or existing signs of aggression would be well advised to avoid using some of the suggestions in this book.”

Such criticism doesn’t faze the 63-year-old Loeb. In addition to being past director of education for the New York chapter of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, he is a former columnist for Parenting magazine. The author of several books, he has trained animals for an estimated 600 television commercials and worked with more than 8,000 pets in private consultation.

He met Hlavacek, 40, in 1991 when she contacted him about working with her two dogs.

“We found out that we work very well together,” Hlavacek says. “He starts a sentence and I finish it.”

“And vice-versa,” he adds.

It is Hlavacek who outlines what are generally considered to be the more controversial aspects of “Smarter Than You Think.”

1. The “Magic Touch.”

2. “Everything we do, we do right away,” she says. “It happens very quickly.”

3. “We don’t use a one-word language with our dogs.”

4. “We stop bad habits immediately.”

5. No crates or cages for house-breaking.

“We find that very inhumane,” Hlavacek says. “We think locking your dog up is a punishment reserved for the worst animals. What did your dog do that’s so bad that he should be locked up?”

6. Diet.

Loeb is an adamant foe of the pet-food industry. In particular, he believes that dry pet food is responsible for every ailment in dogs and cats from dry coats to early death.

“Dogs don’t smoke cigarettes,” he says. “Dogs don’t drink alcohol. Dogs don’t take their clothes off and sun themselves. And yet the rates of cancer in this country in dogs have increased over the past three decades. Why is that?”

Uh, bad diet? Bingo, he says.

“If you give your dog fresh food” - and by this Loeb means the same foods that humans eat - “the skin problems will disappear,” he claims.

So will the animal’s need to chew, its nervousness, its unwillingness to be housebroken and more.

Loeb’s definition of a suitable diet is simple and can actually come from table scraps: “It’s one-third carbs (rice, pasta, potatoes), one-third protein (chicken, beef, fish) and one-third steamed vegetables (skip the gas-producing carrots and corn).”

We humans enjoy eating, he says. “And when you put good food down in front of a dog, they’ll eat it up. The reason they don’t eat the dry food as quickly is that they don’t like it. And it doesn’t like them.”

Not everyone agrees with everything Loeb preaches, of course.

Spokane dog trainer Carol Byrnes, for example, sees value in Loeb’s “Magic Touch” method.

“I think that, in theory, that’s a really good way to break a dog’s concentration,” she says, adding “as long as you’re using something soft like a rolled-up towel. It distracts them, but it doesn’t hurt them in any way.”

As for the diet, Byrnes is less certain.

“I think there are pros and cons to everything,” she says, “and I think that some people go way too far in one direction or way too far in another.”

Byrnes admits that not all dog food is of high quality, and she stresses that pet owners need to be knowledgeable consumers. But she does use a brand of high-grade dry food for her own dogs.

Further, she sees value in crate-training, especially for pet owners concerned for the safety of a new puppy.

“A crate or an exercise pen is no different than a crib or a playpen for a baby,” she says. “If you’re cooking dinner and you have to turn your back on them, babies pull TVs on them. And so do puppies.”

Loeb stands his ground. He’s used to conflict, even with Hlavacek.

“We’ve had slam-bang arguments while writing things,” he says, “tearing up certain stories, restructuring them, rewriting both sides.”

And he’s not ready to give in on what he believes is best for all pets, especially when it comes to food.

“If you’re going to listen to a dog-food company tell you everything you have to know about your dog’s nutrition,” he says, “you might as well listen to Kellogg’s tell you everything you need to know about yourself.”

Controversy or no, Loeb’s concerns for the pets come first.

“Dogs,” he says, “are responsibilities. They aren’t possessions.”