Got an animal? Got a problem? Get on the horn to call-in radio host Patricia McConnell, who shows some pretty canny people skills while bridging the gap between pet and owner.

By Katalin Wolff
This article and photos originally appeared in the June 1997 issue of Madison Magazine, a monthly city magazine published in Madison, WI.

Why is it that so many fans of Patricia McConnell's public radio show Calling All Pets don't own a pet, yet tune in faithfully on Saturday mornings to hear about the neuroses and behavioral problems of other people's animals?

Maybe it's curiosity about the peculiar quirks of animals. Or the guilty pleasure of hearing about other people's problems. But more than anything else, it's probably the sheer fun of listening to McConnell, a behavioral zoologist, and her co-host, Larry Meiller. "She was an instant hit," says Meiller, a 30-year radio veteran and UW-Madison professor of agricultural journalism. "Her personality is so engaging that it draws people in."

Susan Highland, the associate dean of academic affairs at the UW-Madison veterinary school, uses strikingly similar language to describe McConnell's popularity with students: "I understand her undergraduate course in animal behavior is a big hit. Students are standing in line to take it."

That's a figure of speech. Students at the UW don't stand in line to register anymore, but, each year, only a little more than half the students who want to take McConnell's course, "Human-Animal Relations," manage to get in.

An indication of the popularity of Calling All Pets is its strong performance during Wisconsin Public Radio pledge drives. During the most recent drive, the show attracted more pledges from Wisconsin listeners than did such nationally acclaimed shows as All Things Considered or A Prairie Home Companion, says WPR's national director, Monika Petkus.

In Madison, Calling All Pets is aired at 7 a.m. and 12 noon on WHA-AM 970; WHAD- FM 90.7; and WHHI-FM 91.3. The show is also syndicated through Public Radio International to 36 stations around the country, from Alaska to Florida. And McConnell herself is on her way to becoming a household name.

"I get embarrassed by all the attention," she says, confronted with the subject of her own popularity. "It's not me, it's the topic. People love to learn about why animals do what they do and how to influence them." (She also credits much of the show's appeal to Meiller, whom she calls "a real pro.")

From McConnell, one gets the sense that we can't help but be fascinated with animals, given our long history together–in the case of dogs, for example, well over 10,000 years. But even more fundamental is the fact that we, after all, are animals, too. "Sort of naked, complicated messy ones," McConnell jokes.

Learning about animal behavior gives us important insights into the behavior of our own species, she believes. But she differs with other animal "experts" who attribute human qualities to animals. "It's equally dangerous to assume that animals are furry people as it is to assume that animals are nothing like us," she says. "But there are a tremendous number of similarities."

As a zoologist who has researched human-animal interaction and written two books on training dogs, McConnell knows what she's talking about. She's also a certified animal behaviorist and trainer, a border collie breeder, the owner of "Dog's Best Friend," an animal training and consulting business in Black Earth, and an assistant adjunct professor at UW-Madison.

She sometimes flippantly refers to herself as a "doggie shrink," although she has mixed feeling about the term.

"It sounds like a frivolous, yuppie thing to do. Besides, it's a totally different procedure. I can't put a dog on a couch and have long discussions with it about its mother. I'm more like a mechanic."

But her work is anything but frivolous if you consider that behavioral problems are the most common reason people abandon dogs and cats at shelters–and the reason millions of pets are euthanized each year.

Changes in people's, and inevitably pets', lifestyles have made animal behavior a much more salient issue than it used to be, she believes.

"When I was growing up, we would let the dogs out in the morning, and they'd entertain themselves all day. If they got into trouble, people would just shrug and say, 'Oh those dogs!'

"But we have totally different expectations of them nowadays. Our relationship with our pets has become more intimate. They're more integrated into family life."

Unfortunately, although our expectations have increased, the time most of us have to spend with our pets has not. The result is a lot of bored, inactive animals. "Many dogs spend the day in a crate, get only two leash walks a day, and eat their food out of a bowl. They didn't evolve to live that way," says McConnell.

"Dogs are very intelligent social animals that have evolved to do a lot of problem-solving. They need plenty of mental and physical exercise. If you don't give them a job to do, they'll make one up," she notes. And often that leads to trouble.

"I wish more people would consider owning smaller pets, such as rats," McConnell says. "They're social, interactive, trainable, and you don't have to feel guilty about not walking them."

If you can't bear to trade in Spot for a rat, it's up to you to make his life worth living, McConnell makes clear to her listeners. One way to provide him with mental and physical exercise is to teach him tricks such as "fetch," or "find the toy." Dogs seem to enjoy these as much as their owners.

For her greeting card this year, McConnell trained two of her border collies, Luke and Tay, to carry a banner reading "Happy," while jumping over a sign reading "Holidays." I watched Luke and Tay playing out at McConnell's farm in Black Earth one day. Eventually they picked up a stick, each holding one end, and began to "practice" their banner trick.

"I could never have forced them to do that. They do it joyfully," she says.

For all her professional credentials, the secret to McConnell's success is her ability to relate to people's problems, Larry Meiller believes. And that comes from owning two cats, five working dogs, and 30 sheep. No matter how bad a problem or difficult a solution, listeners get the feeling that McConnell has been there, done that.

Photo by Joe Demaio

 

She was all sympathy when a caller recently asked how to get his Great Dane to stop knocking him over (apparently for sport). It had happened to her, too.

"Boy, I know why clipping is illegal in football. My dog ran into me going down hills–and almost killed me. I took some awful flyers."

Her solution? Well, she admitted, she threw a spectacular tantrum after one particularly nasty spill, and it seemed to make an impression.

"The next time your dog does it to you, I want you to come up really spitting. Don't run at her or hurt her. Turn your body to the side so you're not right at her, and throw a fit! Yell, tear your hair out, jump up and down.

"Your dog will be looking at you like, 'My human is going crazy.' And dogs don't like it when we go crazy. So give it a try ... and videotape yourself and send me a copy," she added with a chuckle.

That interchange sums up McConnell's attitude to animal training, which seems to be: "When the going gets tough, the tough lighten up." Her offbeat sense of humor enables her to address even weighty topics without sounding pedantic.

"My mother told me you could fool boys with makeup, but not girls," she told co-host Meiller, by way of introducing a discussion of sex imprinting in zebra finches. She told of an experiment in which the beaks of some male finches were painted the color of females' beaks, which fooled other males into courting them.

"The males wanted to mate with birds that had the same beak color as Mom, which didn't go over well with the birds who had painted beaks. But the females weren't fooled." She didn't belabor any comparisons to humans, just as a good comic wouldn't explain a punch line.

"She's humorous, but she's always respectful of her callers," notes UW-Madison journalism professor Sharon Dunwoody, who admits her professional judgment of the show is colored by her "visceral enjoyment" of it: "She comes up with something nice to say–even to the most venal pet owner. I bet people hang up with a warm glow after talking to her," she says.

What's intriguing about McConnell's approach, Dunwoody says, is that she's really trying to train the owner, not the pet. "Those of us who study influencing people's behavior know that it's very hard to do. Most people tend to tune you out, so you have to be very careful and sophisticated in how you do it," observes Dunwoody.

McConnell is especially skillful at saying things people might not want to hear, Dunwoody notes. A recent caller wanted to know how to teach a young cat, which had killed several litters of her own kittens, to be a good mother.

"Real young females do not make good moms, just talk to social services," McConnell told her. "Probably, your cat will never be a good mother. Have you thought about spaying her?"

The caller resisted because she wanted kittens. "You know, there are a gazillion–speaking scientifically–cats at animal shelters that need homes," McConnell suggested.

"Patricia does a spectacular job of persuasion. People are more likely to take her advice because of how she frames it," notes Dunwoody. "If she were critical, it wouldn't work."

McConnell's ability to understand what goes on in the mind of an animal seems at times uncanny. I reflected on this as I sat in her office at "Dog's Best Friend" in Black Earth one day with a Doberman who had a history of attacking strangers eating doggie treats out of my hand.

McConnell had given me the treats before "Hallie" was brought in, with instructions to feed the dog tiny bits to let her know I was an OK kind of human. She had also cautioned me not to make any sudden movements or act afraid, because aggressive dogs act worse when they sense fear.

I thought of the running gag in the movie Father of the Bride, in which Steve Martin freezes every time he encounters his in-laws' Dobermans. But McConnell's advice worked like a charm. After she'd eaten all the treats in my hand, Hallie sniffed calmly around my chair for a few minutes and even rested her chin on my shoulder briefly in a gesture that seemed friendly enough.

McConnell kept saying to the dog in a soothing voice, "Good girl. Goooood girl, Hallie," all the while tossing her treats from a tin on her desk. Hallie seemed a regular sweetie pie, and I began wondering what all the fuss was about, but as soon as McConnell stood up and approached her, the dog bared its fangs and barked viciously.

"She's really spooky. It doesn't take much to set her off," McConnell observed. "On a scale of one to 10 for reactivity, she's a nine. Dobermans are a sensitive breed, and some individuals are more so than others. Fearful dogs can do the most damage." Hallie may have been abused as a puppy (she'd been adopted from the Humane Society as a stray), but it was just as likely that she had been neglected and not well socialized. Inborn sensitivity and poor socialization made for a bad combination. "The bad news is that she's dangerous," McConnell told the crestfallen owners. The good news, though, was that Hallie could, in time, be taught to relax in situations that made her jumpy. But her owners also had to address the issue of status.

"In dog society, higher status individuals have more responsibilities and are therefore more prone to aggression. They're the so-called alpha dogs," McConnell explained. Hallie was under the misapprehension that she was an alpha, and she needed to be set straight. "You simply can't cater to your dog like a geisha girl," McConnell writes in her book, Beginning Family Dog Training. "All dogs can get into trouble eventually if they think they are in charge."

What denotes status to a dog can come as a surprise to humans. Take petting, for example.

"To humans it's a way of showing affection, but to dogs it's grooming, and it's usually done by subordinates to dominants," she explains. "When a dog asks for petting, we think she's so sweet and loving, when what she's really saying is 'Yo! Human! Pet me ... right NOW!' We act subordinate by going over to pet them all the time." With a dog that has shown aggression, like Hallie, petting should be done only for obedience (as when it sits on command), and then only briefly. Allowing an aggressive dog to sleep on the bed - as Hallie's owners admitted they did - can also give her the wrong idea. In dog society, McConnell explains, the "best" (that is, highest) sleeping spot belongs to the alpha. (The section of her book that deals with sleeping arrangement is titled "Four on the floor.")

"Some sweet, subordinate dogs you can spoil. But I feel sorry for some of my clients who have pushy dogs," she says.

I understand now what McConnell means about animals not being furry people, but what about all those similarities between pets and humans that she talks about? "There's a basic desire inside every animal to obtain what it needs or makes it feel good, and to avoid what is aversive or painful," she replies. "That sounds obvious, but it explains a lot.

"A dog grabs food off a counter for the same reason a person speeds. Most of the time the behavior is reinforced."

Occasional punishment only serves to make the offender sneakier. "The dog looks out for you before grabbing the pork chop. The speeder looks out for the policeman," she notes.

"Positive reinforcement is the most profound and long-lasting way to influence behavior. It's a basic principle of learning," says McConnell. But using positive reinforcement to teach an animal - or human, for that matter - can be tricky. What if a dog doesn't want the reward you have to offer?

"Positive reinforcement is always defined by the receiver, not the giver," McConnell says. "It's what the individual wants at a given time and is willing to work for. For a dog, it could be a doggy biscuit, a run outside, a chin rub. I love chocolate, but sometimes I'd rather have a back rub."

What if the dog doesn't understand what you want?

"That's usually because people aren't clear in their commands, and the dogs don't know what they mean. A dog is always doing about seven things when you say 'no.' How's he to know which one you mean?" she asks.

How about when positive reinforcement seems to backfire, and the dog performs only if the reward is given?

Think of your dog as a gambler, McConnell tells clients. He'll perform an established behavior more consistently if you dole out rewards like a slot machine, not a vending machine. When he discovers that he might get a reward, maybe a really good reward, he begins to associate being obedient with a generalized feeling of well-being, rather than with a predictable treat.

Of course, there's more to training than giving treats, McConnell is quick to point out.

"I'm not saying you should spoil dogs, kids, or horses. I believe they need to feel boundaries. But punishment should not be used very often, and it should be brief. If you find yourself doing it a lot, it means it's not working, and you should try something else.

"Anger can sometimes be useful, but it's hard to turn it off. If you keep yelling at the cat it doesn't learn what you want."

Besides being ineffective, harsh punishment can make an animal afraid, which, in turn, can lead to aggression.

"Force rarely works. I encourage people to get rid of leashes as much as possible, except in situations where they're needed for safety. The goal should be to make the dog happy to do what you want."

McConnell does use a technique called "remote correction," less as a punishment than as a way of startling an animal into stopping what it's doing. Some of the funniest moments in her show occur when she comes up with an ingenious - and often goofy - application of the technique.

Regular listeners know that the way to curb a cat that climbs the curtains is to give it a spritz from a squirt gun; the way to get a puppy to learn not to chew on electric cords is to send an empty pop can (filled with coins and taped shut) flying through the air to land near him; and the way to keep a dog off the furniture is the "mouse trap routine."

"Put a lot of mouse traps upside down on the couch. When the dog jumps up, the couch explodes," McConnell explained recently on her show. It works best, she added, if the dog isn't too smart.

"I had one client whose dog dragged a blanket over the mouse traps, set them off, then laid down on top."

Remote corrections work best when you immediately redirect the animal to an activity you want it to do, she emphasizes.

"It's so easy to fall into the trap of paying attention to negative behavior instead of concentrating on the behavior you want. But you can learn to pay attention when the animal is not being bad; it just takes practice." The applicability of this advice to humans occurs to many listeners, Sharon Dunwoody among them

"I get a lot of tips from the show that I use in my interactions with other people," she said. "McConnell could just as well do an 'interacting with your neighbors' program." McConnell loves it when people tell her this. It means they've gotten her whole point.

"Once you have learned to influence one animal, you can apply it to others," she says. "If I were queen, people would learn these principles in elementary school. They're the key to a better life."

Katalin Wolff is a freelance writer based in Madison.