By LillyKat
PTR Senior Staff Writer
Resident Pawz BloggerThink dog?
If you're Victoria Stilwell, you do.
And you do it quite well.
Host of
Animal Planet's immensely popular It's Me or the Dog, author of two best-selling books ("It's Me or the Dog: How to Have the Perfect Pet" and "Fat Dog Slim: How to Have a Healthy, Happy Pet"), Victoria has been widely praised for being a champion of reward-based training methodologies. BlogTails recently caught up with her as she was preparing to start shooting the second season of the US version of the show, and she was keen to talk about her passion for animals, the inspiration of her family and her devotion to the Think Dog philosophy.
One would think someone this good at working with animals would've been raised in a house full of dogs, cats and the like, but she wasn't even allowed to have a dog as a child.
"My parents both worked," says Victoria, "and my father wasn’t a dog lover anyways. But, my grandmother bred Beagles, and she was passionate about her dogs. I spent a lot of time with her growing up, and it was always a big treat to go to her house and be with the dogs."
Even more than that, Victoria didn't plan on becoming a trainer in the first place. Her foray into owning her first dog-walking business was really only a means to an end - an acting end.
"I was always going to be an actor," she says. "That is what I trained to be. I went to drama school in London. But before I went to drama school, [and] after university, I need[ed] to get money in order to go to drama school. So, I started a dog-walking business. My sister was a veterinary nurse, so she was very much involved in [the] world [of animals]. And really, from then on, the passion just took hold. For a while, I was doing both, [acting and training] simultaneously, but the training just took over. I was much, much happier in that environment, and much, much happier working with animals."
That's not too surprising to hear given the immense challenges that accompany those striving to become actors. And yet, her thespian training serves her well given she's seems to be a natural on camera - both in working with animals and people.
The show just wrapped up airing its first full season of US-based episodes after having previously aired four seasons worth of programs that had been filmed exclusively in Victoria's native England. The US version of the show is twice as long as its UK counterpart (an hour as compared to 30 minutes), and that, Victoria says, allows for much more of the process of the training methods to be filmed and observed. Her focus remains on countering the traditional, dominance-based training methods developed in the 1970s with a more positive, reward-based training methodology.
Says Victoria: "Scientific research - from the American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior (AVSAB) and also top behaviorists and methodologists - has proven that using dominance-based [training] can create potentially bad side effects for the dogs. It also can really heighten the bite statistics and the chances of owners being bitten by their dogs if you’re dealing with an aggressive dog. I think Britain has been ahead of [the] curve in [embracing more of a rewards-based training methodology] simply because [the] education [has] been more available. But now here in America, there are a lot more university courses [available] in animal behavior, so people [here in the states] are now being trained to teach animals in a very kind way rather than in a harsh way."
Given there are two distinct camps on how best to train a dog, Victoria puts it squarely on the shoulders of the owners to decide what kind of leader they want to be and what kind of training they want to adopt.
"Here’s the difference: Do you want your dog to follow you because it wants to? Or, do you want your dog to follow you because it fears what’s going to happen to it if it doesn’t? I want to have a relationship with my dog that’s built on cooperation, not domination. That is the major difference between the two methodologies. So, while you might seem to have success [using dominance-based methods] because your dog is listening to you and is behaving, inside [you have to ask] are you really improving that dog’s psyche by using traditional methods. The proof is out there - you’re not. And yet, people do have a choice. Everybody is free to train their dog in the way that they think best. But, what is going to make a dog happier?
"I can have a dog behave for me," she continues, "and feel much better while its behaving without having me use forceable methods. It's sort of the same [reevaluation of] behavioral principles that we've adopted [now] with [regards to] raising children vs. [what we were doing] 20-30 years ago - [when] we still thought corporal punishment was a way to get our children to behave. Today, we realize there is a better way to get our children to behave. Being a parent, a dog owner and a trainer, I would much rather have my dogs and children have a happy life – a rewarding life – rather than fearing me. That’s the difference. And that is why I caution people about the use of traditional training methods when there is an alternative for them to consider."
So how does she sum up her concept of "Think Dog"?
By taking the perspective of your four-legged friend.
Literally.
"'Think Dog' is this," she says, "I really don’t believe you can understand your dog until you try and think how a dog perceives the world – and use that dog’s experience to make training easier. If you ‘Think Dog’ – if you think what is the world like from a dog’s point of view – you can get so much more information that helps you become a better owner. And it really is about education – learning how a dog sees; how a dog smells; how does it hear; how does it view people; how does it talk; how does it communicate in body language; [even] getting on all fours [to] feel how it feels to be that small, as it were. It's all that kind of stuff. And that’s why, with ‘Think Dog,’ you do become a better owner."
Speaking of owners, Victoria finds her biggest challenge to be centered on motivating owners to keep at the training long after she's exited stage left.
Says Victoria: "For any trainer, the greatest challenge is motivating the owner to work, to be able to carry on the training after the trainer is gone. In a way, I think this is why the traditional [dominance-based] methods seem to have more of an appeal because they look like a quick fix – shout at your dog, your dog won’t do [something] anymore because it's scared of you and you think [the problem is] fixed. But actually, I always say quick fixes very quickly become unstuck. Now, that's not to say that the positive rewards-based training takes longer. However, I would say that some times, when you’re changing an emotional problem in a dog, it might look like the dog is cured after you’ve shouted at it, or alpha-roled, or punished it in some way because the dog stops the misbehavior. But, the dog still feels bad inside and is likely to repeat the behavior. With positive training, you spend time on changing the way a dog feels inside. That sometimes can be a longer road, but in the end, you’re going to get a much better result. Therefore, as a trainer, you’ve got to be able to motivate owners to keep working at it because we want to have the results stick – that’s where the work comes in."
Work, it seems, is what Victoria does best - and that includes plans to launch the Victoria Stilwell Think Dog Foundation come this June where the organization's focus will be to raise money for the smaller rescues and shelters across the country as well as various animal assistance organizations.
"We want to raise money for the smaller rescue shelters," says Victoria. "The larger rescues always get considerable funding, and it's always the smaller shelters that lose out. But, not only that, we also want to raise money for various foundations that work with dogs and disabled children, for example, or hearing dogs for hearing-impaired people – that kind of thing. So, we're going to be raising money for assistance dogs and their organizations as well as the rescues."
Given Victoria inspires dog owners and lovers everywhere to be the best they can be - both for themselves and for their pets - where does she find inspiration?
The answer is simple: in her family, and in having been on the front lines of rescue shelters.
"I did a lot of volunteer work when I was younger in rescue shelters," she says, "and I’ve seen the pain, the abuse, the neglect and the suffering of thousands of animals. I just want to provide people with the right kind of education so there are fewer animals given up to shelters. I want there to be a resource that can help people. That’s a massive inspiration for me. But I'm also a mother, and the biggest thing in my life is to make my child’s life the best it can possibly be. So, [my daughter] is my inspiration. Having the miracle of [her], seeing her grow – and seeing her love of animals, now – that spurs me to carry on. I do spend a lot of time away from my family whilst I’m filming, and though I don't like being away, I do it because there is a bigger agenda – and that’s [my daughter]. She is my true inspiration."
BlogTails Quicktakes with Victoria Stilwell:I'm most comfortable when I'm ...Sitting down, watching a movie at home.
The best part of my day is when I'm ...
Reading my daughter a bedtime story.
If I weren't a dog trainer, I'd be ...An actress.
The best piece of advice ever given to me was ... and he/said ...My grandmother. Because I broke a lamp in her house and didn't own up to it, she always told me: 'Don't lie.' Always tell the truth. It's much better in the long run.
The oldest thing in my closet is ... and I keep it because ...
My school tie. It reminds me of when I went to a very strict girl's school, and we wore ties. It reminds me of that - and makes me laugh.
Last time I laughed so hard I cried was when ...I was watching Larry David's
Curb Your Enthusiasm.
If it came down to Captain Jack Sparrow or Will Turner, I'd sail the seas with ...Captain Jack Sparrow.
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BlogTails would like to extend a very special thanks to Victoria for taking the time to share her insights on how she does what she does and why she does it. You can tune in Saturdays at 9 p.m. to Animal Planet for
It's Me or the Dog. And be sure to visit Victoria's official Web site,
VictoriaStilwell.com to catch up on all-things Victoria. For even more of this Q&A with Victoria, visit
Pass the Remote.
It's October.
We are starting to think it really is a small world after all.
That said, we are seriously bummed we won't be able to attend in person.
Four legs.
On the road again ... I just can't wait to get on the road again ...
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