The Rural We: Becky Stowe
The certified professional dog trainer will present a program, "How to Speak Dog," at the Claverack Library.
"My goal is for people to be able to read their dogs better,” says Becky Stowe, a certified professional dog trainer and owner of Second Act Dog Training in the Hudson Valley. In her “previous” life, she wrote novels and short fiction and taught writing in New York City. "I feel so fortunate in my life that I got to fulfill two dreams," she says. Stowe will be presenting a talk, “How To Speak Dog,” a program for dog lovers and owners, at the Claverack Free Library on Sunday, Oct. 23 at 4 p.m.
I spent 14 years in the city, where my writing career was. I got a puppy, but we lived on the top floor of a seven-story walkup, which was really hard with a dog. I decided that I wanted to move out of the city, have a yard, and be in nature with a dog.
It took a long time before I got involved in dog training — I was still commuting to the city to teach until 2010. I got interested in the dog world when I started training one of my dogs. I had three springer spaniels and trained one as a therapy dog. While I was doing the training, I was asked if I wanted to be an assistant trainer. I knew little about it, but I noticed that in classes there were often people who wanted to do therapy work, but their dogs weren’t all that keen on it. People didn’t seem to be aware of that.
I decided to start studying dog behavior at the University of Denver Graduate School of Social Work, a six-month, primarily distance learning program on animals and human health. I also enrolled in Hunter College’s graduate program in animal behavior and conservation, where my thesis was the effect of therapy dog work on the dog. I moved to Vermont for a year and developed a training program to do behavior modification with dogs who were struggling, to get them into homes faster. That’s when I became hooked on training and became certified.
Back in the Hudson Valley, I started Second Act Dog Training, and at the same time worked with the ASPCA Behavioral Sciences Team. We were deployed at an undisclosed location where dogs that had been rescued from hoarding, puppy mill and dog fighting cases were brought to a central location. We helped to get those dogs stabilized. I ended up working with shy and fearful dogs, and now I’m focusing my business on shy and fearful dogs.
At the talk in Claverack, I will be using video and photographs to illustrate how dogs use their bodies to speak to us. It’s like learning a language, but once you learn some of it, it can help your relationship with your dog. Dogs show their emotions through their bodies. For instance, a wagging tail does not necessarily mean a friendly dog. I’ll be using a lot of examples of actions people assume the dog likes, but once you learn the distress signals, it’s clear they’re not enjoying it. We think we understand them, but they understand us better. It just shows how tolerant, loving, and amazing dogs are.
