About Gary Wilkes

I have more than 35 years experience working with people and dogs. I have worked at the highest levels of competence and difficulty with real world behavioral control. A big part of my passion is the 8 years I spent in shelters, where killing unwanted animals was a big part of the job. Most of those owners would have kept the dog if simple solutions had been offered to them. At the time I didn't have anything to offer but a kennel and a two in ten chance of adoption. Now I have the solutions. I had to build them myself because those who claim to want solutions to the humane tragedy haven't bothered to. If I make a statement, it's based on more than 25 years experience with thousands of dogs. If it's speculation, I'll tell you. My goal is to provide information you can take to the bank. I hope you like the offering.

Working with fearful dogs.

Working with fearful and reluctant dogs©
By Gary Wilkes
Copyright 2019

There are many ways to achieve a behavior. One of the most neglected is the use of compulsion. In our modern world, compulsion is assumed to be bad. However, if you have every hustled to get across a street to avoid oncoming traffic you realize the hollow nature of that conclusion. Compulsion is present any time you must do something in order to stay safe or achieve a goal. Technically, a melting ice-cream cone compels you to eat faster. Having an appointment may cause you to shower quicker than usual. Leaving your keys inside the house may compel you to break a window or jimmy a door. In these examples the behaviors were already present. The compulsion forced them to occur in a specific way. So it is with teaching a reluctant or untrained dog to come or be handled. Continue reading

Cane Corso Deluxe:

Click-Wrong-No! Remember those?
To work with an aggressive dog, you need to create your tools. It’s just like any other dog. No tools, no control. This process may include several obstacles but it is not insoluble. Safety is your first concern. If you cannot be in the same room as the dog, you have to be creative. A safe way of creating the pairing is to have a barrier between you and the dog. I am fond of sliding glass doors. There are other ways to limit a dog’s access to your flesh, however.

The Cane Corso Experience:
I once worked with a five-year-old, intact, male Cane Corso. He had an interesting history. He had never been around anyone other than his owner, his owner’s brother and their mother. Then, the owner got a girlfriend. The dog wasn’t having any of it. Let that be a tip for you mothers who never want your little boy to have a girlfriend or parents who want to limit their daughter’s choice of boyfriends. Continue reading

From my Dog Fancy Column – 1998

My dog, Tuggy, likes to lounge around. His preferred position is on his tummy, with his legs tucked beneath him and his head slightly elevated on some sort of pillow. Whenever possible, the “some sort of pillow” is my wife Michele, or me. Tuggy’s favorite way to lounge starts soon after either of us lies down on the bed. As soon as one of his parental units lies down, Tuggy positions his body at a 90o
angle to the reclining human and rests his throat and chin on the person’s neck and head. This rather weighty earmuff certainly keeps our ears warm, but leaves much to be desired when we actually need to sleep. If you are wondering why we don’t put a stop to this odd way of resting, there is a simple reason – he’s so loving and cute when he assumes his position, that we just can’t bear to move him. Let’s face it, we secretly enjoy his loving nature and most often, we rub his ears and talk to him while he tries to incubate our heads. Continue reading

The Andy/Barney effect: Courage and fear revisioned

There are two things out there; reality and our perception of reality. In the world of behavioral science, that is of paramount importance. The researchers draw conclusions that are the product of their perspective. In real science, that is not possible. Either a compound is potassium sulfate or it’s not. Either this is its chemical signature or its not. (K2SO4) 1,000 scientists examining a white chemical with this signature are going to say “potassium sulfate”. It’s not their perspective that matters. It’s their ability to objectively observe reality.

Now we get to behavior – the fantasyland of pretend science. Consider the mighty wolf. It hunts with its eyes. What do scientists focus on? Its sense of smell and hearing. The animal is very simple. What do scientists focus on? Whether this simple creature had mental abilities as compared to humans. The wolf is alternately courageous and cowardly as a matter of its continued existence. What do scientists focus on? Alleged long-term ‘dominance’ that implies that a wolf can be always valiant.
Continue reading

Fit Gloves and Wussies:

If you ever go to Kansas in November to hunt pheasants there is something you should know. There are two types of pheasants; pen-raised and wild. You can kill pen-raised pheasants with bird-shot normally used for much smaller birds. To kill wild pheasants it takes bigger balls. Why? Wild pheasants are toughened up by the environment. Pen-raised pheasants are wussies, by comparison.

This is not an isolated example. One type of pine tree in Yellowstone won’t open up its cones to drop seeds if the tree isn’t exposed to extreme heat – like a forest fire. No forest fire, no replication. By fighting forest fires, a natural event, forest service workers have limited the population of those trees.

The point is that Darwin never said, “Survival of the fittest”. Even if he did, he would have meant that the species ‘fit’ a niche, like a hand to a glove. The needs of a species are not always predictable based on human perceptions. Some of the things we do to our dogs are based on what we like rather than what they need. There are many examples where stress actually causes improved health, both mental and physical.

For instance, Norwegian Elkhounds won’t grow a full undercoat unless they live through at least one cold winter. A California Elkhound isn’t going to get that thick, plush undercoat…that it’s owner will have to strip out for hours before a conformation show. If you have a large breed originally intended for hunting but never do anything that requires a hardy physique? The result is long term weakening of the physiology of the breed.

If you never stress a dog you can expect behavioral overreaction to small things. Do we think that wolves and coyotes freak out during every thunder storm and run willy-nilly away from their family group, trembling all the way?

Our current attitudes about training and behavior depend on the idea that never stressing a dog is a good thing. Then we spend money on psychotropic drugs and tedious processes to ‘desensitize’ them to normal living. If you raise a puppy in a protective bubble you better keep them bubbled-up for life. If you learn to apply stress in an environment that is also rich with new things, fun things and positive training that leads to structure you have the best formula to create a behavioral hardy dog. If you don’t, I have job security.