A Good Use of His Animal Instincts

When Larry Lachman could not bear to see another battered child, he left his job as a child abuse social worker in Los Angeles and turned his attention to animals.

But he soon discovered that pets are also victims of abuse, and they have far less protection.

“Legalistically, animals are still considered property, just like children and women were in the olden days,” said Lachman, a 38-year-old Laguna Hills consultant on animal behavior. “One of the standard claims from heavy-handed dog trainers is that if you choke or jerk or hang a dog, they don’t really feel pain.

“The rationalization is, these are just objects, they’re not like humans, you’re not really hurting them--and all this stuff. That’s a bunch of garbage. They still have nerve endings going up and down the spinal cord. They feel pain and they cry out.”

Lachman has spent the last decade developing “nonviolent” methods to change the behavior of troubled pets who might otherwise be euthanized. He is sometimes called in to undo the damage caused by a trainer. He says abusive techniques are used “to some extent” by a majority of dog trainers.

“And what are these techniques? Kneeing the dog in the chest for jumping up; stepping on or crushing their rear feet for jumping up; sticking their head in water until they’re almost unconscious to get them to stop digging; surgically removing their vocal cords for nuisance barking,” Lachman said.

“I can go on and on.”

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Lachman believes most people can effectively communicate with their dogs and cats. He often greets his canine students with a friendly bark.

“I’ve taken the modern psychological concepts of dealing with behavior in people and applied them to behavior disorders with dogs and cats, and in developing nonviolent training methods,” said Lachman, who founded Family Animal in 1986 and is planning publication of his first book, “Dogs on the Couch.”

He cites the case of a bearded collie, a gentle dog, but untrained. The trainer hired by the owners choked the dog with a choke chain and swung the collie around in a circle when the dog would not obey a command.

“The dog was crying and bleeding and the owners said, ‘Stop! Get out of our house.’ After that time, the dog would not let the owners approach it without snapping at them in defense, because it was afraid it was going to get traumatized again. It would not come to them.”

Lachman worked with the dog in the home, using a “behavioral desensitization program” based on the same methods used to help people free themselves from phobias.

The dog was “head defensive,” Lachman said, and would involuntarily gag if touched on the neck. He began a gradual process of giving the dog a treat while simultaneously moving his other hand up and down near the dog’s face.

“Initially, the dog spooked back. But after about 20 times of doing that and the dog saw that nothing bad would happen, it started becoming desensitized, paired with the positive association of the food treats. He started to eat out of my hand, and I was able to move my hand quicker and quicker. For the next step, I took my hand and moved it slowly, all around the dog’s head without touching it, until it stood there and would eat the treats.”

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Eventually, he began contact with the dog by petting it on the chest, then gently tugging on the collar while giving it treats.

“I got to the point where I could put the leash on and take it off while giving treats, without the dog snapping or involuntarily gagging.”

The dog recovered in about eight weeks, and the owners were able to continue training using an “anti-pull collar” and techniques such as squirting a small jet of water in the dog’s face to punish bad behavior. Lachman calls his basic approach, “startle, redirect and reward.”

Lachman says cats can also be trained with the water-squirting technique, which often works in teaching them not to eat indoor plants. He has also been called in to mediate when house cats do not get along, using positive reinforcements to slowly bond the felines together in friendship, one at a time.

He believes the underlying causes of bad pet behavior can often be traced to the lack of a meaningful relationship between pet and owner.

“If there’s not enough emotional involvement with the owner and animal, then we see anxiety symptoms in dogs and cats. A dog’s separation or isolation can induce anxiety where they bark all day and they dig. A cat may start making messes around the house, destroying furniture or doing excessive grooming because there’s too much of a rigid detachment between the owner and the cat emotionally--it’s too distant.

“When you have one kid or one animal that has a behavior problem, it’s a symptom of something larger going on in the whole family system.”

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Profile: Larry Lachman

Age: 38

Hometown: Millburn, N.J.

Residence: Laguna Hills

Family: Single

Education: Bachelor’s degree in psychology, University of La Verne; master’s degree in counseling psychology, Cal State Fullerton; master’s degree and doctoral candidate in clinical psychology, California School of Professional Psychology (Los Angeles)

Background: Hospice counselor at Everhealth Hospice, Whittier; lupus patient support group leader at Queen of the Valley Hospital, West Covina; dependency court investigator and emergency response counselor with Los Angeles County Department of Children’s Services; therapist, Aids Foundation of Orange County; part-time psychology instructor, University of La Verne

Currently: Founded Family Animal in 1986, a humane pet training and behavior modification business; conducts therapy and biofeedback sessions for Orange Coast College Mental Health Team

On changing an animal’s bad habits: “The only way you’re going to change the animal’s behavior is by changing the owner’s behavior. The hardest component in all of this is getting the human to change.”

Source: Larry Lachman; Researched by RUSS LOAR / For The Times