Doggone, Doctor Knows Best

By Samara Kalk, The Capital Times
This article originally appeared in The Capital Times on Tuesday, January 20, 1998.

BLACK EARTH, WI - She's the Dr. Laura Schlessinger of the dog world. Except Dr. Patricia McConnell couldn't be abrasive or nasty if she tried.

No, McConnell - call her Tricia - is Dog's Best Friend, and many an owner's too.

She's been dispensing advice since getting a Ph.D. in animal behavior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison 10 years ago, first in her Black Earth private practice, Dog's Best Friend, then at UW-Madison to the lucky 175 students who get into her class (200 or so usually are turned away).

There are also another 180 pet owners how take the dog training classes she runs six days a week on Madison's east and west sides.

In nearly 90 communities there are listeners of her Wisconsin Public Radio show, "Calling All Pets" (which airs at 7:00 a.m. and noon, Saturdays on WHA/AM 970).

And now there are the viewers of her national cable TV show "Petline," which airs on Animal Planet (channel 35 in Madison) twice a day (noon and 4:30 p.m. weekdays) and three times on Saturdays (2 a.m., 1 p.m., 4 p.m.).

When it is suggested to the program's producer, Nat Katzman, that McConnell comes off like a softer, more folksy Barbara Walters, he tries to improve on the comparison, citing the more youthful, spunky personalities of a Katie Couric or a Jane Pauley.

He calls it a cross between that and the radio talk show veterinarian played by Janeane Garofalo in the film "The Truth About Cats and Dogs."

Reaction to the TV show, says McConnell, has been slow in building since the program began at the end of September. She's realistic about the reach of Animal Planet, a spinoff of the Discovery Channel, which is not available on all cable systems. Her own satellite dish on her 13-acre Black Earth farm doesn't even pick it up.

But CNN knows who she is. McConnell was contacted for live commentary recently when Buddy and Socks, the Clinton family pets, got into an altercation on the White House lawn.

"They wanted to know if there is a common problem between dogs and cats and what Bill and Hillary should do," says McConnell.

What was her expert advice?

That Socks should hire an attorney.

McConnell, 49, is flattered that she has become a national authority on animal behavior. But the main joy in her life - besides her four border collies and her Great Pyrenees, Tulip - is in helping pet owners become better pet parents.

The questions she usually gets are variations on "Why won't my dog sit when I tell him to? Why won't my cat sleep through the night?"

It's either "Why won't my animal do what I say or why does my animal do this?"

The generic answer, says McConnell, is because most pets have no idea what their owners want them to do.

Why should your pet know what you want?

"Perhaps you haven't constructed a world where he sees any reason why he should sit," says McConnell. "It's not intuitive to know how to get an animal to do what you tell him and doesn't relate to how much you love him."

So the one basic tip McConnell gives people is to assume their animal doesn't have a clue about what it is their owner wants.

Like any other pursuit, whether it is intellectual, athletic, playing darts or stamp collecting, learning how to train a pet takes time and dedication.

"It's your job to communicate with your animal," say McConnell. "It's actually fascinating when you get past 'You should sit because I told you to, darn it.'

"How do you communicate with an animal that doesn't speak your language, is not in the same species you are, doesn't frame the world the way you do and who would describe 'heel' as 'walk slowly, by your owner's left side at the pace of death while ignoring all interesting things'?"

• • •

McConnell's half-hour TV show takes on properties of "America's Funniest Home Videos" as she and her co-host talk to callers while watching video of the callers' pets and the behavior in question. Each program includes three callers' videos, a training tip and a guest segment.

An interesting twist to "Petline" is that McConnell's co-host is also her ex-husband, Doug McConnell, a television personality in the San Francisco Bay area. She solicited his help on producing a dog training video.

"I have to say that we were a little bit skeptical about the notion of a divorced couple co-hosting a program," says Animal Planet's David Gerber, who commissioned 65 episodes of the program.

"But I gotta tell you, once we saw the chemistry between the two of them, we are looking at divorced couples to host other shows," says Gerber, laughing.

Tricia married Doug when she was 19. Together, starting in Arizona, they moved 12 times in eight years.

"And they were big moves," says Patricia McConnell, from behind the desk of her tidy Black Earth office.

Before it was fashionable, the two were environmentally active, with Doug working on local planning and environmental issues.

He had a master's in political science: Patricia had only a few credits toward an undergraduate degree. She wound up taking some low-paying job to support them, often volunteering part time for whatever Doug was doing.

"It was really sort of silly because there began to be a pattern where you could hire Doug and get Tricia for free," she says.

Patricia became fed up with the itinerant lifestyle after finding herself in spot No. 12 - Ketchikan, Alaska, with Doug wanting to move to Anchorage.

"I sort of woke up one day and said, 'I don't have to do this.'"

Looking back on all the places she had lived, McConnell made the easy decision to call Madison home, enrolling at age 31 as a freshman at the UW. She was unsure whether a career in animal behavior was practical until she heeded the words of one of her professors: "There is always room for people who are good enough."

She and Doug remained friends, and that closeness is evident on camera. McConnell had fun spending two months last summer in San Francisco, where she and Doug taped three "Petline" episodes a day. Driving across the Golden Gate Bridge every day to downtown San Francisco, where the show was taped, McConnell says she felt like Mary Tyler Moore.

"I felt like I should be throwing my hat up," she jokes.

Those who have worked with McConnell call her a TV natural. Though McConnell says she didn't feel that way.

"I didn't feel natural, I didn't feel relaxed," she says. "I felt hurried, harassed, scared, and physically uncomfortable. It did get better, and I like to think I'm pretty good at hiding all that. But I'm not that good at it.

Animal Planet's Gerber is a dog owner and has come to appreciate the advice McConnell doles out.

"My favorite part of the program is the fact that we have these unusual, sometimes quirky and always amusing home videos of people's pets with every problem under the sun. From the cat who has a compulsion to pull toilet paper off the roll to a dog who likes to use the family cat as a plaything.

"The show uses that as a vehicle to get real useful information about how to be a better pet owner," says Gerber. "Trish always has such insights."

If the program gets renewed for more episodes, Gerber says he may tape "the behaviors" of his own dogs.

"It has never even occurred to me to ask her why my dog licks the carpet kind of like a cat."