C/P from a group regarding inclusivity in the dog world, an interesting discussion I had to comment on:
I am a black balanced- LIMA- trainer. I have stated, in the past, that being militant regarding +R training is a problem rooted in racism as well as furthering problems that disproportionately affect disadvantaged groups. For some examples:
Cost. Already stated higher in the thread, but dog training costs money and so does higher education. I have a dog that needs to be trained. Which will I do: buy a choke chain for $10 at my local Walmart, or sign up for dog training classes at PetSmart for over $100? A clicker might only cost $1 but no one knows how to use them.
Time. Balanced/heavy handed board-and-trains might be several thousands of dollars, but people really like the idea of their dog being perfectly behaved in two weeks. Petco’s training classes are structured for it to take AT LEAST eighteen weeks for you to get to CGC, despite being 10% of many board and train facilities’ cost. If my dog is screaming in its crate while I’m out and I’m in a rental, I cannot wait however many weeks it will take for +R to get that behavior to stop.
Perception. I am a black person with a doberman. I am viewed as dangerous with my well behaved, quiet dog at a strict heel. Now try that same picture with my dog pulling, lunging, barking, acting a complete fool. Knowing that most dog owners do not know how to train the dogs they have, and knowing that most PoC are well aware of how a badly behaved dog makes them look to other people, can you really be surprised that someone wants results as cheaply and quickly as possible?
Complications. So you have a young GSD who’s a bit of a punk with other dogs and you need to contact someone to fix the problem. Well, PetSmart and PetCo both say that they can’t take a dog with aggression issues, so your cheaper options are out. Now what do you do? You want your chihuahua to be nicer to strangers that come into your home, but the local trainer says they don’t have the insurance to handle bite risks. Now what? While us in the industry know how to locate someone who IS capable of handling these more complicated problems when the easy options are out, most people don’t even realize that other options exist.
Ignorance. This is both regarding the owner AND the trainers giving advice. In an area with incredibly strict BSL laws, I had a client once with a pit bull who I can only describe as happy-aggressive. He was so happy to see people that he would lose control and start landing several level 3-4 bites if he could reach them. The owner had asked her family for advice and they told her to get an E-collar. She went to PetCo for an E-collar and was told by the trainer there that E-collars are exactly the same as using a taser, and thus she should buy dog training, except her dog was aggressive so she couldn’t buy dog training there. Would you believe this woman, ignorant and feeling out of options, started using her taser on her dog? To this day I’m impressed she didn’t kill him doing that before someone gave her my number. The kicker is that this woman didn’t even seek out this dog, her kids brought him home and she felt too bad for him to give him to a rescue because the laws in the area called for him to be euthanized. The family was black, in a mostly-black area, and the trainer who gave her such shockingly disingenuous advice was white.
Available dogs. It’s something I’ve spoken about before, but if you KNOW you are dealing with a population that is frequently forced into poverty, why are we surprised that most are not getting pedigreed purebred dogs with nice genetic temperament? They rescue, but with the rising rescue costs of 400-600$ in some areas, many just get the free dog from a friend’s litter or pay a hundred or so for a dog they saw on craigslist or whatever. Then we consider the breeds of these dogs- majority of the “pet overpopulation” is going to be chihuahua types and pit bull types, both of which can be weird with dogs and humans if genetic temperament and socialization is poor, and we put them into the hands of someone who doesn’t actually know what they’re doing. Here in New England a lot of dogs are imported from the South or even from other countries, and they’re sick or shy or aggressive and are going home before any of these problems are even remotely close to being fixed. Now I have clients who are spending all of their money making sure their dogs are healthy and are at their wits’ end because this dog they love so much is attacking their neighbor’s kids.
Speaking as someone who doesn’t use +P on my dogs outside of an NRM until they’re over a year old, and only if that’s required (outside of emergencies), yes, it’s true, the majority of pet dogs are perfectly trainable with +R ideals IF they are mentally stable IF they are in capable hands IF there are no additional complications IF the person is willing to invest the time and money into these things. But many times people seek out dog training AFTER the dog has an ingrained bad habit, and the person needs that habit to stop NOW.
On top of what I’ve already mentioned, this also has some problems with other areas of dog ownership I’ve noticed pops up a lot, once again with the more militant/strictly +R (white) folks:
Crating legislation regarding how big, how long, etc always tends towards huuuuuge crates (some places call for crates bigger than the average room in a house), only for an hour at a time, etc. This is a problem for, say, people who work fulltime and rent a small apartment. Perfectly doable if you know how, but there are laws that now have legislated these owners either out of existance or label them neglectful or abusive. A white person accused me of lying about my race because crating was racism and colonism against dogs and akin to keeping black and Indigenous people in zoos.
People don’t sell to those who don’t have a fenced yard or who rent. Knowing that many people in disadvantaged groups fall squarely into that category it’s little wonder why many within these groups do not go about obtaining a dog ‘the right way’.
Requiring spay/neuter is a huge one. Not allowing someone to get an animal (esp one that is already sterilized) because animals already within the home are not sterilized is, frankly, ridiculous to use as a litmus test. My dog is intact. He’s lived with intact female dogs his whole life. We are 6 years on with zero accidental litters. Yet I’ve been denied a NEUTERED dog adoption with the implication that the reason my dog is intact is because I am a bad owner. For many families, neutering is an unneeded expense. Not neutering my dogs did not stop me from spending several thousand dollars on a respiratory health crisis for one of them.
And I’ll never forget the day someone attacked me online because my dog is cropped and docked. He came to me like this but it didn’t matter to them. They gave me a list of countries- mostly arab and african- that do not ban cropping and docking and then asked if I wanted to be associated with ‘those people’. This person was white and living in Germany.
Even dog sports and working dogs get affected by this- how many people who are solely +R only who also dislike specific dog sports and working dog purposes, who then go on to say that they like animals more than humans and thus greyhound racing is synomnymous with the Holocaust, service dogs are akin to slavery, etc. Once again majority white people behaving like this and it always leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Breed bans, happy dogs getting taken away from loving owners because someone wasn’t loving their dog ‘the right way’, trainers that give people shockingly bad advice or end up turning away those who feel like they have no other option, all of these are things are things that disproportionately affect low-income people (which are disproportionately PoC) and repeated microaggressions which impact PoC on a daily basis. I can’t speak for everyone but I’m pretty tired of my racial background being used as a talking point by white people who’ve decided they don’t like something.
A lot of militant +R people do swerve far into the Animal Rights above Human Rights crowd, and that’s littered with racism and microaggressions. But when I’ve called it out, usually to a white-dominated audience, I’m told that I’m overreacting and falling into various fallacies and there’s nothing far reaching or racial about it. On the other hand, when my words or actions are attacked while (white) someone else’s that are exactly the same are not, I’ve had more than one person tell me that they feel mine aren’t well recieved specifically because I am a loud, proud, blackity black person and the other person is white and thus listened to. I can’t verify, but I do find it odd that in the online spaces I occupy, I see white people doing exactly what I’m doing, but it’s me that nets the hatemail and drama.
AND on a hiring standpoint, it’s gatekeeping right off the bat. To be hired at the local +R facilities that are not big box corporations, you need certifications and college degrees and having attended one of their approved dog training schools. I’ve been training for roughly a decade and privately mentored before that, but these employment requirements mean that all of my experience and effort amounts nothing compared to someone with maybe a year of experience who just got their first dog.
You have to pay for these certifications and many times yearly. There’s no difference between someone who is doing things the CPDT way but not continuously renewing their certification vs someone who is… outside of whether they’re continuously coughing up money to an organization everyone arbitrarily decided was industry standard.
THEN you have so many +R training opportunities that are unpaid internships, unpaid kennel work, etc. Free labour is NOT making things easier for PoC to be part of this. In fact, it makes things harder. Historically only those who are supported by someone else or who are paid quite well already can afford to devote 20-40 hours per week to an unpaid position, and with dogs that always includes manual labour. Those saying you have unpaid positions available, understand that even people like me cannot possibly take those positions. I have bills to pay and I cannot afford to work for someone who will not pay me. Unless that unpaid position is a single hour per day, that’s just not realistic. Food costs money and I can’t keep my lights on when paid with experience and a ceritifcation alone.
