Groucho Marx remembered that he once sent a telegram to the Friar’s Club that said, “Please accept my resignation. I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member” While not trying to imitate Groucho I sometimes wonder if he didn’t have the right idea. Here’s an example. A veterinarian friend suggested that I join a behavior organization for the purpose of having professional affiliations. I am truly an open minded individual on leap-years so I decided to give it a whirl. I joined the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants. (IAABC) They “Grandfathered” me in because many of them use a method that I created, albeit poorly. 

The primary activity of IAABC is  an internet list where they chat about behavior. They ascribe to an invented dictum represented by the acronym LIMA – least invasive, minimally aversive. However, I quickly discovered that this was not as straight forward as it appears. Without mentioning a context it is impossible to discover what this means. Least invasive compared to what? Minimally aversive compared to what? So in my own blundering fashion I started challenging their core belief. After all, in their by-laws they require that members guide their practice by using scientific and “evidence based” methods. What I discovered was that this was not really taken seriously. If I posted anything either from personal experience or cited peer-reviewed scientific literature that contradicted LIMA, I was roundly attacked. This created an odd irony. They believed that no one should ever  use punishment – unless the person disagreed about that rule. If someone challenged their anti-punishment rule that person would be immediately punished with the most vile and vicious language possible. Who’d a thought? Here is an example of one of my posts that eventually led them to suspend me, without appeal, indefinitely – because of my “tone”…not the content of my posts. It also lead to being accused of the crime of practicing veterinary medicine without a license because I offered exclusively behavioral help to a dog at the request of a board certified veterinary neurologist. I have worked wiht that neurological clinic for about 20 years. That’s a wild stretch that surprised even me. However it shows their colors – a vicious attack doesn’t have to have any logic behind it. The un-appealable suspension from the organizations was actually not authorized by their code of conduct but was a practical use of punishment to shut me up. As I said, they have no problem using punishment against anyone who doesn’t agree with their rule about never using punishment.

Foreward:
This is a response to a thread that is pretty much self explanatory. However, the person I was responding to was a trainer that seems to have joined in order to gain the appearance of an elevated credential. He had posted a cased history where he used a shock collar successfully to stop a dog from chasing alpacas – but he presented it in an apologetic fashion as if he was ashamed of his actions. The post starts here –

From Gary Wilkes:
Caution: This is written in plain speech. No offense is intended, but no
attempt to side-step reality is included. If you are easily offended or
aggressively aroused, I suggest you not read this post.

“We need vets, groomers, breeders, daycares, shelters, and rescues to talk
about the IAABC as the “go to place” for behavior consulting.”

Michael,
We just saw a group of our members struggle with the basic definitions of fundamental concepts from behavior analysis. As our colleague Mary Burch pointed out, these terms are solidly established in the discipline of behavior analysis and well defined. It takes work to learn their definitions correctly, but it’s do-able. The spark that started the conversation was the common distortion of these terms by people who wish to manipulate the market without any reference to actual qualifications. So, if you go into a vet office with an IAABC credential and I do, too, how does the vet know that we are on the same page? Here’s a multiple choice question that sums up the problem.

Which professions have hands-on certifications?
A. Clowns
B. Behavior counselors
C. Carnival Ride Operators
D. PetSmart Dog Trainers

The correct answer is D. Their program was created by Suzanne Hetts, Mary Lee Nitschke and three others whose names escape me at the moment. I am leaning toward Pia Silvani as one of the other three, but I could be mistaken. i.e. People who would be considered qualified to speak at an IAABC conference. Meaning either their knowledge is questionable or the program was created along the lines of IAABC. The students have to complete weeks of study and then weeks of scrutiny as they actually conduct classes. When they are done, they get a certificate that is objectively comparable to other
similar certificates and superior to either the APDT or IAABC certifications.

However, in one very important fashion the PetSmart certification is actually superior. Why superior? Because the IAABC and APDT certifications do not actually require a dog or a client anywhere in the process. They use tests of reading for comprehension and memorization. (The term “Knowledge Assessed” has never been defined. What knowledge?) Our colleague, Ruth Crisler, wrote a very fine article in the IACP “Safe Hands Journal” about the certification crisis. So, my advice would be to have a verifiable superiority before we attempt to corner the market. Otherwise, our IAABC reputation with vets, groomers, breeders, etc. can be trashed in an instant
by someone who has the same certification but simply slid through the paper trail. Likewise, if you put a Manners Minder in a corral full of alpacas, as was suggested here, I really don’t want to be connected with you in the mind of other professionals. I prefer how you really solved the problem. I would trust your treatment protocol or advice on a similar problem, but not the person who suggested the Manners Minder who is obviously clueless and has never actually done what she suggested. Sophia Yin’s own research took as long as 4 mos. to get all of her test dogs to avoid simply charging the door – with the help of private trainers. You were working with a guarding dog attacking the feet of moving livestock. That is the ultimate issue, isn’t it. You both have credentials backed by IAABC – but your information is based on experience and success – hers was simply fluff and speculation. Would you refer to that person as a “go-to” professional if you were asked for a recommendation by a vet whose practice is in her area? If we can’t trust our certification within the group, we can only maintain a false appearance of competence with contacts outside the group. This will last for a short while until they discover first hand that all IAABC members are equally qualified, but some are more qualified than others and some aren’t qualified at all.

As an aside, isn’t it odd that in the alpaca case you used the exactly correct procedure to stop the potentially fatal behavior problem and yet you felt the need to apologize for it? Very few people here could have accomplished what you did in the time you did it, with no harm to either species. You weren’t offered the opportunity to tell us any specifics about the exact tools you used or how you applied them. I fixed two Aussie Shepherds recently who were attacking horses (the owner is a horse trainer and the dogs are at the training facility every day) I used the same solution you did with the Alpacas and the guarding dog. I can’t discuss that openly with you, here, to compare notes and perhaps elevate our mutual knowledge. So, you and I know how to fix that problem but are not allowed to openly compare notes or teach our colleagues a solution to a difficult behavior problem. 90% of the people here don’t want to know anything about it. 100% of the people here cannot learn from your success. Does that make them qualified to get referrals from a vet whose client has a dog who busts livestock? Nope. But, again, they have the same certification you do. That is something that needs to be solved before we can gain credibility in the minds of the public or professionals in allied fields.

Best Regards,
Gary Wilkes