Columnist Susan Snyder: It takes time to teach Fido

Friday, Feb. 16, 2001 | 9:27 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column appears Fridays, Sundays and Tuesdays. Reach her at snyder@lasvegassun.com or 259-4082.

Animal shelters have to be among the most heartbreaking places on the planet.

Kill or no-kill. Bright or dungeon-like. Little can change the hollow stares and pleading gazes that beg, "Pick me."

What truly is sad is that many cats and dogs are surrendered because they didn't behave properly at home, said experts who spoke during the Western Veterinary Conference at the MGM Grand this week.

"It's becoming a huge issue," said Peter Eeg, a Maryland veterinarian. "We have 8 to 12 million dogs and cats euthanized each year, and about 90 percent of them are taken in because of some kind of behavior issue. We're talking about a family pet who just wants to chew on the shoe every day."

Eeg was teamed with Marc Street, a Massachusetts trainer, and Brian Kilcommons, a New York trainer and author. The trio also represents Invisible Fence Pet Containment, an electronic device that can keep dogs and cats in the yard. But the men barely talked about the fence during their two-hour session Tuesday. They say Invisible Fence, choke collars and other control devices don't work unless pets already are trained to obey their owners.

And that kind of relationship is built by first training the humans.

"(Poor) housebreaking is not a puppy's behavior problem. It's a pet owner's behavior problem," said Street, who also runs a pet training center in Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts.

Dogs must learn to look to their owners for guidance and not obey out of fear, Street said. Any dog can learn to obey such commands as sit, come and stay, and Street proved it in front of a roomful of people.

In 20 minutes he successfully taught a couple of simple commands to a wagging, wiggling bundle of puppy from the Nevada Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals shelter in Las Vegas.

OK, so the chewy treats helped. But promise of a treat doesn't do it all. It was obvious the pup wanted to please Street. He was a veritable doggy whisperer.

"Come," he said. And she did. "Sit," he said. She did that, too.

Holding the pup's pink leash loosely, Street led her across the stage. When he stopped walking, she sat down in front of him and looked up as if asking what to do next.

Street's tone was always happy and never sharp. He sat on the stage floor and called her. If she jumped on him when she arrived, he stood and ignored her. He didn't yell, "Get down!" He simply stood up. After a few times the pup figured out which behaviors brought the attention she wanted. And she stopped jumping when he called her.

It takes uninterrupted daily training to make such lessons stick, but many pet owners are too impatient, the experts said. They give up too easily, and the dog ends up in a shelter.

"People want a quick fix when they've got a dog chained in the yard 22 hours a day and it barks. It's barking because it's a social animal," Kilcommons said. "If you work 10 to 12 hours a day, you shouldn't have a dog."

The SPCA says more than 20,000 unwanted dogs and cats will die this year in Clark County animal shelters.

What a shame that so many will die for failing to do what they weren't taught.