Walk on the wild side
Pictou County dog trainer has a little training of her own Stateside
Local dog trainer Alex Keir is back after working with captive animals in Indiana’s Wolf Park last month.
Keir, who owns Good Dog Works! in Stellarton, joined nine other trainers to work with animal behaviour expert Ken McCort and renowned wolf specialist Pat Goodman, practising behaviour observation with wolves, red and grey foxes, coyotes and bison.
“Our pets are quite forgiving and generally very engaging with us, but wolves you have to teach,” said Keir.
The aim of such training in animal body language was to hone Keir and her students’ observation skills when ‘reading’ what their own dogs are telling them.
She said that working with wolves was quite similar to helping owners see body language in their own dogs, but the signals are more subtle in wolves.
One or two hairs standing up or an eye blink is an early warning that they are uncomfortable in the situation they find themselves.
However, the wolves learned what normal human behaviour looks like so they can be more relaxed in their interactions with them.
“They don’t make pets. They’re really quick to react. They’re not attached to you and they’re not really interested in attachment,” said Keir.
The training built on previous work with the wolves and included behaviours that increase the comfort of the wolves and foxes in meeting new people and being around small groups of humans.
Keir and her fellow trainers used ‘reward-based training’ with the animals at Wolf Park.
First, animals are taught what they need to do and are rewarded regularly. Once they learned the behaviour in a variety of settings and circumstances, trainers started to phase out and eliminate the rewards.
This allowed bison to more easily approach a truck or a single wolf to feel at ease when surrounded by humans.
“These are not wild animals, they are captive,” said Keir.
The wolves at Wolf Park are socialized however, allowing people to learn more about their wild relatives and take up their cause of conserving them.