Last week in New York City a white woman called the cops on a black man, saying he was threatening her life. Really, he just wanted her to obey Central Park's leash laws. In this episode, Annie attempts to dissect the altercation from a dog trainer's point of view, talking about everything from how we should use leashes, to how the man used an interesting combination of treats and negative reinforcement to get the woman to leash the dog.  Through the lens of dog behavior and training, we can also spot how fear, caused by ignorance or wrong associations or both, can lead to awful actions. Annie also talks about the animal-training concepts of "trigger stacking," her own "learned helplessness" when it comes to affecting change by voting, and her ongoing efforts to take a stance, one poop bag at a time.   

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Notes:  The Amy Cooper/Christian Cooper video  

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/05/29/amy-cooper-white-woman/ 

Mendota Leashes https://storeforthedogs.com/products/braided-leash

 Found My Animal leashes  https://storeforthedogs.com/collections/found-my-animal/products/found-my-animal-leash-1 Coercion And Its Fallout by Murray Sidman  https://behavior.org/product/coercion-and-its-fallout-2/ Donald Trump Poop Bags https://storeforthedogs.com/products/copy-of-irreverent-poopbags-assorted-selection --- Partial Transcript: Annie: Hey everyone. I recorded this episode over a week ago, before riots broke out all around the country. The episode is about the incident that happened just before George Floyd was killed in another part of the country in New York City. It felt to me, you know, I'm in New York, it felt like a local incident took place more or less than in School for the Dog's backyard. And I didn't expect it to go viral, but it did because it's about race and racism and white privilege. And then George Floyd's killing suddenly made this New York City incident seem all the more sinister and terrible. This isn't a podcast about race. But the reason I felt like I wanted to say something about the New York incident is because in the middle of these two people, one of whom was black, one of whom was white, there was literally a dog and no one else is talking that much about the dog, which makes sense. There's a lot to unpack here that has nothing to do with the dog, but this is a podcast about dogs and about dog training. And so I felt I wanted to talk about the dog and to do so without so much touching on the much larger issues going on because I'm not a political commentator or an activist. I am a white woman who owns a small business. I think Black Lives Matter and I'm depressed and frightened to be living in a world where we even need to point out that black lives matter. All weekend, I lay in bed, holding my daughter and listening to helicopters and sirens overhead. And I just felt helpless. And if you've listened to this podcast before you obviously know that I like to try and spot the dog training lessons in the world we live in because so much of our lives is about changing our own behavior or trying to change other people's behavior. 

Full Transcript available at SchoolfortheDogs.com/Podcasts/

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