Monday, August 8th, 2022, was my first day at the Training For Professionals: Across Species course at the Karen Pryor National Training Center (The Ranch) in Washington state. I attended this course with my good friend, Cindy Benso, of Benson Maremmas, who was taking the course for the second or third time. The weather was nice enough that most of the lectures and videos could be held outdoors on the deck, with the beautiful view of the pastures and barn with Mount Rainier (sometimes) visible in the distance. This was a great environment to learn in with breaks in the morning and afternoon for live animal demos and hands on animal training practice. Lunch, snacks and drinks were also served every day, with dinner three of the five nights, as well. Considering everything that is included in this course and the sheer breadth and depth of the learning it was well worth the $1200 price tag for the 5 day course. And the entire course and trip is a tax deductible business expense!

On the way out to the barn for our first animal sessions we were greeted by the Alpacas and Llama. While they don't like to be touched they are very curious and came up quite close to get a look at the new students!

Our first live animal demo was a Goat Training Demo given by Ken Ramirez, starring Kelpie.

Monday afternoon we had our first try at Goat Training. I was assigned Corgi, a Nigerian Dwarf wether who is very smart and was usually waiting for me on his training pedestal when I arrived. Corgi already knows a lot of skills but I quickly discovered that I needed to keep moving at a fast pace and keep things interesting so he wouldn't decide to wander off!

The first day ended around 6 or 6:30 PM. It was a long day but we covered a lot of ground and learned a lot. By the time we got back to the hotel we were ready to crash!

I have just spent the last week (August 8-12, 2022) enjoying a "working vacation" (tax deduction, yay!) at the Karen Pryor Academy National Training Center (The Ranch) in Washington State, where I attended the Training for Professionals: Across Species course with my good friend, Cindy Benson, of Benson Maremmas Training, and 11 other students. It was a wonderful week filled with hands on training sessions and live demos with various types of animals, in class lectures, videos and much more. I myself worked with goats, mini donkeys and alpacas and saw demos with those animals as well as dogs.

There were students from as far away as Colombia and Hawaii. Among the students were dog trainers and breeders and trainers that work with marine mammals, zoo animals and even chickens! Besides the coursework itself it was very educational just talking with all the students about what it's like working with these various species. It was also a very positive, encouraging and uplifting environment for humans with everyone supporting and inspiring each other to learn and grow in their skills so we can all go out and make a better world for animals and humans.

Before I was even halfway through the course my wheels were spinning with ideas I could implement at home, especially with my goats, which I had always wanted to clicker train but hadn't tried. While working with my training partner, Corgi, a Nigerian Dwarf wether, I quickly saw the value of using dog training platforms to train goats and I went back to my hotel and ordered 6 of them from Blue-9 Training to use with my goats and Maremma puppies. They arrived before I even got home so I will be setting them up and trying them out ASAP. 

Previously to going to this course I had never been north of California so being able to visit Washington as well as Oregon was a wonderful experience, especially in August when the California Central Valley, where I live, is an oven!

Finally, someone gets it. I have absolutely no idea who this person is but she said every single thing I have been trying to say for months. She did get a couple of minor details wrong (the ages) but overall, she is spot on. I absolutely love this woman. She’s right. She is a professional trainer and breeder and very intelligent woman and she said everything I have been begging people to listen to.

“Bad Dog” “My guard dog killed a chicken” “badly bred” “disappointment” “enemy’ “my guard dog hates my white chicken” “failure”

Those are all words that have been used to describe a young female Maremma sheepdog puppy in the last two months or so. The puppy is now NINE MONTHS old. The person calling this PUPPY those horrible names is her owner, a prominent social media figure, with over half a million followers. I am the breeder of that puppy and I can assure you she is none of those things. Her parents are Livestock Guardian dogs on my farm, successfully guarding all of my livestock, including baby goats and poultry. She has siblings on farms all over the USA, also successfully guarding livestock. The puppy was born on my farm and properly socialized with goats, horses, chickens, ducks, geese, barn cats and other dogs from the day she was born. She lived with these animals, her siblings and with my other Maremmas 24/7, since she was born. She was mentored by several adult Maremmas, in addition to her parents, and by my dairy goats and other livestock, who are more experienced at training puppies than her new owner is. She was trained only with positive reinforcement training methods, including Puppy Culture and KPA Clicker Training. She was not yelled at or “corrected” for her normal puppy antics. Instead she was encouraged to make the right choices and rewarded when she did. She is a normal, healthy LGD puppy, who is behaving in a perfectly normal way for her age, and for how she is being managed and “trained”. (My definition of training is apparently different than Abby's owner's.)

​Now before I say more about the puppy and her owner I will address the elephant in the room. I’ll try to be brief because that’s not the focus of this post. It’s no secret that the puppy’s owner is very unhappy with me. He has been making derogatory videos of me for a few months now. Whereas his first videos of me were glowing with praise and calling me an ethical breeder, his latest videos have devolved into calling me a puppy mill. I'll just say there are a lot of facts he's leaving out of his videos and you can read about those in this post:

The True Story of Abby

​This post is not about how Abby came to be on a farm in Vermont or about hernias and breeding rights and such things. This is about how "entertainment" can have impacts that the producer may not have even thought about, and why that matters.

​Obviously Abby's owner is frustrated with her. He spends a lot of time comparing her to his first dog, who was "so easy" to train. I've been there myself. My first several Maremmas were very easy to train and it wasn't until I had been in the breed several years and both bred and trained several of my own puppies and bought dogs from several different breeders that I encountered dogs that frustrated me the way Abby seems to frustrate her owner. A lot of the problems I had with these dogs had to do with how they were socialized (or not) and trained by their owners as puppies. Some of those dogs were so difficult that I will never again buy a puppy unless I'm absolutely sure the breeder raises their puppies the way I do mine, nor will I stud out my dogs to someone who doesn't share my training style. But I discovered that even dogs from breeders who do everything "right" can be a challenge occasionally. They're not bad dogs. Just a bit too full of energy for their own good sometimes. A little too much tendency for the zoomies. But I know that these kinds of dogs often mature into the best LGD's, so it's worth being patient with them. Every dog has its strengths, if you're willing to look for them. Abby's groomer saw it when she remarked at how much more affectionate Abby is than her predecessor. (Of course her upbringing here had a lot to do with that, as did her breeding, which apparently isn't so bad, after all.)

​I have really learned a lot from working with all these different dogs from different breeders and backgrounds. I have a strong commitment to always keep my dogs and puppies with livestock and with a working dog partner, every minute of the day, but some of these dogs were very challenging. This one chases horses, that one harasses goats, the other one eats chickens (eats them!) and a couple of them fought with almost every dog I had. One would pick fights with adult dogs twice her size! There were a couple of dogs in particular from the same breeder that were so difficult I almost placed them in pet homes, but yet I couldn't just give up on them. I couldn't sell them as they were because that would just cause more problems for them and their owners, so I just had to weather the storm. So I just persisted, trying them with this dog or that, this stock or the other, bit by bit moving to more challenging (flightier) stock. And over time these dogs have made progress, mellowed and matured. They aren't ready to guard baby goats and they may never be, but they are getting better every day.

What I didn't do and would never do, is go out and make a video labelling these dogs as "failures", "disappointments", "bad dogs" or even "chicken killers", even though some of them did kill a lot of chickens. They aren't bad dogs. They aren't failures. Some are dogs who didn't get the kind of start I consider "proper" from their breeders. Some are dogs that got a great start but, like some children, just have more energy and a wicked sense of humor. (One dog used to love chasing my ducks until they flew around the pasture, but yet she matured into a dog that would literally nurse a baby goat.) It would be highly unfair of me to compare one of them to my easy "perfect" Polar. Polar is a dog I bred and trained and she has literally never so much as chased a chicken, even as a puppy. She is my most trusted LGD, even above her parents, who are great LGD's. Of course I wish the other dogs were more like her, but they aren't her. They have their own strengths and I try to find and appreciate those.

Abby's owner has not learned to do this, or doesn't see why it matters. More and more in his videos, as his frustration with Abby grows, he compares her to his "perfect" first dog, who was "so easy to train". He's gone from saying Abby is "full of energy" to "she has a bad temperament". But she does NOT have a bad temperament! In fact, she was the most mellow, most biddable puppy in her litter and even the owners of the more rambunctious or headstrong puppies in the litter have never complained about them. (There were 8 pups in the litter.) Of course, here on my farm Abby spent her time running free with other dogs and puppies, as well as goats and horses and (under supervision) poultry. At her new home she's locked up by herself in a small kennel most of the time. At my farm she was trained only with positive training methods. Her new owner seems to prefer electric fences and lots of yelling, from what I've seen, though there may be other things going on off camera that I don't see. The truth is that Abby's owner simply doesn't have the skills or experience to handle an "average" LGD puppy, like Abby. He needed a really easy puppy, like Polar, or one of her puppies. But I didn't realize that and trusted that he would either know how to train any dog, or would seek help and advice from me, since I give lifetime support to my puppy owners. He did not. Not once.

​What I see in the videos (when I can bring myself to watch them, but I feel I owe it to Abby to keep tabs on her) is an owner that's becoming more and more frustrated and seems to be taking it out on Abby, and on me. His videos get meaner and more negative each time. He says he's going to keep Abby, even though she's a "failure". I'm not sure why someone would keep a dog they deem a failure other than for two reasons. They really, really love the dog, or they are making a lot of money off of her, selling "bad dog" videos. And since I can't fathom making such a video about any of my dogs well....

When Abby's owner posted the first negative video about her I immediately contacted him and offered to buy her back, plus reimburse him for all expenses and pay all expenses to ship her back to me. It was easily a $10,000 offer. He told me he was going to keep her but I could pay him $4000. I'm not sure why he thought I owed him $4000 or how he thought me paying him would help him or Abby, but I declined. Now in two months he's gone from calling her a "disappointment" to a "failure". What will he call her next, and when will he finally say enough? I would like to state, for the record, that my offer to buy Abby back still stands, and will stand for the rest of her life. Maybe if he gets frustrated enough he will send her home and he can buy a new, easier dog. Hopefully it will be before it's too late for Abby. But if he truly loves her and wants to keep her for that reason then I can respect that. I just wish he would do two things. Hire a PROFESSIONAL LGD trainer like Cindy Benson, KPA CTP, to help train Abby. Cindy offers Zoom training so she could work with Abby and her owner remotely. It would make a huge difference for both of them, I'm sure, and would make everyone happy.

​And I wish he would stop painting Abby, this wonderful 9 month old puppy, as a failure. Not just because Abby deserves an owner who loves and cherishes her enough that he would only speak respectfully and lovingly of her, but because of the impact these videos will have - are having - on other puppies and dogs just like Abby. Perfectly normal, high energy, rambunctious puppies, teenaged LGD's. Ones who sometimes chase goats and maybe occasionally kill a chicken or two (it really doesn't doom a dog), and who frustrate their owners with their antics. What Abby's owner doesn't realize is that a lot of people consider him a "expert" in LGD's, even though he's only trained one very pliable and easygoing LGD before getting Abby. Some of his fans even seem to consider him a god. And when their god says his perfectly normal 9 month old LGD puppy is a "failure" a lot of them are going to look at their own perfectly normal puppies and dogs and decide the same thing. Only maybe they can't afford to keep a "failed" LGD as a pet. So instead they will cut their losses and get rid of their dog so they can start over with a "better" one. They'll dump their puppy at the pound, on the street or sell it to the highest bidder on Craigslist. And we all know where fates like those lead. You mark my words, if Abby's owner continues to paint her as a failure rescues will overflow and innocent dogs and puppies will die.

Before I ever sold Abby to her owner I was warned by the head of the largest Maremma rescue in America that her owner could adversely affect the breed. Here is what she told me: "This dude is an unknown with an unregistered dog and half a million followers.... This is a time bomb to me after all of these years of educating folks on the rescue page. I had 70 people ask to join the rescue today. (After his first video of Abby came out.) Also remember - this is his first Maremma." and then she added, "And the information he disseminates can really help us or mislead people - you know how vital experience and knowledge is. These dogs are not for everyone."

At the time I thought she was wrong and was harshly judging Abby's owner. Now I wish I had paid more attention to her words. She knew what I didn't understand. That a man with a following like his truly could hold lives in his hands. That is a responsibility that even he may not realize. Maybe it really hasn't occurred to him how his videos about Abby could affect dogs like her. My hope is that he will come to realize it and will change his message. Will use his talents to truly educate people and advocate for Abby and dogs like her. That he will realize that Social Media Figures, no matter how big or small, have a great responsibility to those they serve. And they do serve others, after all. These people are giving their time to their favorite YouTubers, TikTokers or whatever. Those social media figures need to be held accountable.

And that's the other side of the coin. If your "god" says or does something you don't feel is right, such as calling a puppy a "failure" then hold them accountable! Challenge them, question them, tell them how you feel. Tell them the impact their words and videos are having and if you're not ok with it let them know. If they are deserving of your time and attention they will listen and do what's right. And if they are not, there's a simple solution. Unsubscribe, unfollow, unlike. You do not owe your celebrity anything. They owe you everything. You made them and you can unmake them, and don't ever let them forget it.

NOTE: I am no longer taking comments on this post or defending my position. Since the “Spilling the Tea” video Abby’s owner put out I have been inundated with hundreds of comments to my blog and social media as well as by phone and email. Many were kind and supportive but many most definitely were not. I have been called every name in the book and even been told to kill myself. I have been threatened and harassed relentlessly. I have also had countless people try to argue with me and convince me that I am wrong or must not have watched the videos. In fact I did watch them several times, and I know a lot of background information that the viewers don’t know and I can’t share for legal reasons or because I’m protecting the privacy of certain people.

I also know perfectly well how to use quotation marks but was trying to put emphasis on certain important points. More like “air quotes”. But since that bothered a lot of you I fixed that. The ones I left are actual quotes.

Another thing the fans keep insisting is that I started all this. That is 100% false. This was started by Abby’s owner with the “Our Puppy Had Surgery” and it progressed from there. Go read the comments in that video if you don’t believe me. The fans had some really choice things to say about me and their leader let them do it. That was the point of the video and with each video after that he continued to push his narrative that I had somehow cheated him and that Abby was badly bred. (An insult to any breeder.) I truly tried to ignore it and wait for things to settle down but there came a point when I could no longer do that. That point was the video in which Abby’s owner called me a puppy mill and placed “Failure” next to her photo. I know it was clickbait, but it was not ok with me for him to do that, and I spoke up.

The fans keep insisting that Abby’s owner has a right to his opinion and a right to share his opinion, while simultaneously saying I do not have the same right. That double standard is ridiculous. I have the same right to free speech that Abby’s owner does. Just because some people don’t like what I have to say that doesn’t mean I should not say what I feel needs to be said.

I have spent a lot of time defending myself to his fans, trying to explain my position to the people who disagree with me and want to defend their star. Obviously I’m not going to change anyone’s mind and I am done trying to do so. People just keep asking me questions I’ve already answered and arguing the same arguments over and over. It’s not helping anyone: not me, not Abby, not her owner and not her fans. It’s pointless and we all have better things to do with our time. At least I do. So as of now we will just have to agree to disagree. If you have kind or constructive things to say you’re welcome to contact me privately. I’ll be happy to discuss the matter with polite people. But if you just want to argue or be nasty I will delete your comments and block you. I’m done letting hateful people ruin things for everyone else.

When you breed a breed of dog that only comes in one color (white) and one basic coat length (fluffy) telling the puppies apart can be a real challenge. However, being able to do so is important for several reasons. First of all, you need to be able to track the health and weights of the puppies as they grow. Secondly, tracking the temperaments and behavior of the pups is extremely important in making placements, especially in LGD puppies. The puppy that constantly chases chickens might not be the best fit for a farm with poultry. Two puppies that constantly fight should not be placed together and a very timid puppy will need a home that won't overwhelm or stress her out. Being able to tell the puppies apart from an early age, at a glance and from far away is really useful, but how do you do it?

Over the years I have tried a variety of methods with varying degrees of success. First I tried several different types of whelping collars, made of velcro, nylon webbing or paracord. The collars either came off too easily and got lost, or didn't come off easily and presented a strangulation hazard. They got tangled in the long fur too easily and most of them were quickly outgrown. And since they couldn't easily be seen under all the fur they were pretty useless for identifying puppies from even a few feet away. 

Next I tried human spray-in hair dye, sold at Halloween time. This worked pretty well but was hard to find most of the year. I tried human hair chalk, sharpies, pet dye and a variety of other things - none really showed up or lasted on the thick Maremma fur, or they were too messy or too expensive. Then somewhere I found some sheep marking dye, available in sticks (like big crayons) or spray. The sticks were useless but the spray worked ok. The only problem was the ones we initially found either didn't last more than a couple of days or didn't come in more than a couple of colors. Foiled again!

Then one day while perusing one of my favorite livestock supply websites I saw a product called Sprayline sheep marking spray. It comes in 6 colors in big cans and wasn't too expensive. I ordered a couple of cans and tried it. It worked great! It was bright, crisp and clear and it lasted at least a week. This was it! I found that by combining colors or marking different locations (head, shoulders, tail) I could mark even Gianna's litter of 13 and easily tell the puppies apart. I simply reapply the paint as it starts to fade and it works great. I even occasionally use it to mark older dogs so we can tell who they are from far away, or to mark our dairy goat kids. 

In February 2021 we had two litters born about 2 weeks apart, so I carefully kept them separate so as to not mix up the puppies. But this year (2022) I ended up with two litters that are two DAYS apart, and each litter has exactly 5 males and three females. One litter belongs to Marisa (sired by Simba) and one to Polar (sired by Sevro) and while the puppies do look very different (Marisa's puppies have Simba's fluffier coats while Polar's have slightly "plusher" coats) I didn't want to risk mixing the puppies up. And since female dogs sometimes fight or may hurt another dog's pups I kept them apart for safety, anyway, for the first 9 weeks.

But the puppies were getting bigger and I knew that eventually combining the litters would make training and management a lot easier. And having 16 fluffy white puppies all sharing one space would be a lot of fun! As Polar and Marisa were getting closer to being ready to wean their pups I knew it was about time to turn them over to Genevieve, my amazing puppy mentor, who's raised 4 litters of her own (including the litter Polar came from) as well as helped train many other dogs' puppies. But how would I tell the puppies apart? Well, I had a plan!

And what I did is this. Each litter got the same 8 colors or color combinations (Blue, green, orange, pink, purple, blue/green, blue/orange, pink/purple) of Sprayline but Marisa's puppies (the older litter) got marked on their shoulders while Polar's litter got marked on their tail ends! And to be extra sure I don't mix up the puppies I microchipped them all with the Datamars/Petlink microchips we always use, but did so before putting the pups together, noting the color and litter for each chip number in my Breeder Cloud Pro software. Then Polar and Marisa went back to work (they can come visit the puppies if they want) and Genevieve took over. And oh boy, was it ever an exciting event! The brightly painted puppies had a grand time running around, meeting the pups that until now they had only interacted with through the fence, barking at Genevieve, playing in the mud, and in general having a blast. Genny looked at as if I had truly lost my mind giving her this many puppies to care for, but she took it all with her usual placid attitude and good nature. The puppies played themselves out and crashed all together in the Puppy Parlor yard, while Genny watches over them like the great puppy mentor she is. This is going to be a fun adventure, for me and Genny!

As a Maremma Sheepdog breeder and trainer and Admin or contributor on multiple Maremma Facebook groups, information pages or websites, as well and other dog groups, I often hear people asking how they can teach their puppies not to bite. The first thing people need to know is that biting is a normal developmental stage in puppies. They aren't being "bad", they are just being puppies!

The second thing to understand is that puppies need to learn Bite Inhibition. They first learn this from their mom, siblings and other dogs they are raised with (mentor dogs), and this lesson is NOT best learned through aggression. (Never let an adult dog act aggressively towards a puppy. That's NOT how puppies learn to be gentle and stable LGD's or pets!) Instead, if a puppy gets too rough in their play the other puppies or dogs usually just walk away, thus ending the game. Eventually the puppy learns that if they want to continue playing they need to be gentle. This is one reason why your shouldn't get a puppy that's too young. They need time to learn this and other valuable lessons from their parents, siblings and mentor dogs. Below are two examples of this in action:

In this first video notice how the puppy with the pink tail is happily playing with the green tail pup. But after a bit Pink Tail decides that her brother's biting is getting too rough, so she leaves. Game over. Little Green Tail will remember that and may not play so rough next time, though it will probably take several experiences like this before the lesson fully sinks in!

In the next video I only caught the tail end of the interaction between Gianna and her puppies on video. Before I started filming I watched her patiently and sweetly interact with several of the pups for quite a while, as evidenced by the photos below. Gianna was enjoying a relaxing spring day while I watched as first one puppy and then more and more of them came to see what she was doing. Eventually it was several puppies, all of whom thought mommy made a fine jungle gym and chew toy. Finally Gianna decided she had had enough of these baby sharks and she left! Game over. Gianna felt no need to "reprimand" her puppies, she just left.

What I love about both of these interactions is that none of the dogs got aggressive in order to stop the biting. They simply left, putting an end to the fun but annoying game. That’s not to say some adult dogs don't get aggressive with puppies or that puppies never fight. They do, but that's not  what I want to see in a mama dog or my mentor dogs. A mama dog should always have a way to get away from her puppies so she doesn't resort to aggressive behavior with them. If I have a mom who's getting impatient and snappy with her puppies I let her go back to work and bring in one of my patient, gentle mentor dogs. These dogs rarely "correct" puppies. Instead they teach by example and by rewarding the puppies' polite behavior with their attention and affection. That's what I try to model myself in teaching puppies. Aversive training methods are not helpful for training puppies or adult dogs! They just teach them to be either fearful or aggressive or both. That’s not what I want in a LGD who will be interacting with my livestock and my grandchildren!

One of the first things to teach a puppy with Clicker Training is Manding. The puppies catch on very quickly to this fun new game and soon discover that they can “train” you by offering this polite behavior. And a puppy that’s sitting politely (Manding) waiting for a reward is less likely to be jumping all over you or biting you. (Manding isn't sitting on command so read below for more details.)

Below are photos and videos of puppies manding and more information on what Manding is, why it's such a valuable tool, and how to teach it.

Cindy Benson, KPA CTP, of Benson Maremmas Training, works with my 9 week old litter of Maremma puppies, which were born in February 2022 to Celeste and Sevro. This was the first time these pups ever met Cindy but they quickly found her to be fascinating. Notice how well behaved and polite these 8 wiggly puppies are. Notice they are not biting or jumping up on Cindy and they have her rapt attention despite all the barking dogs, goats walking by and other farm activity going on.

And here my friend’s 12 and 4 year daughters also work with the same litter, a few days later. Again, no jumping or biting; just attentive, engaged puppies.

Now that's not to say that if you teach a puppy to mand he will never try to use you as a chew toy, or that Clicker Training alone is the cure. But both are powerful tools to help you communicate withy your puppy so that he learns what you DO want him to do, instead of what you DON'T want him to do! Below are some great resources to help you learn more about how to survive the Velociraptor stage! 

For more information on Training Maremmas go to our Training Maremmas Page or our How We Raise and Train our Puppies page. Thank you!