Zen and the Art of Dog Training -- To Be Continued...

Zen and the Art of Dog Training
As The Way We View Our Pets Changes, New School and Old School
Clash Over Approaches To Dog Training

Editor's Note:This is an ongoing investigation; as new, verifiable information becomes available it will be added.

Let yourself linger near 70th Street and Central Park West, right before you enter “The Mall”, a wide path leading to the Bandshell. Look down at the mosaic compass and the shiny, honeycomb bricks surrounding it. Each brick commemorates a tree planted in the park in celebration or memory of someone dear.

Then, look up.

Don’t be surprised if a living, breathing, 80-legged icon of the city is walking toward you; an urban Iditarod, if you will. Twenty dogs, walking in near-perfect formation, trot briskly and politely by. They may not be pulling a sled behind them, but one of the ‘drivers’, dog walker and trainer Tibor Feigel, may be on rollerblades. He and his fellow walkers all wear stylish matching windbreakers with the words “Zen-K9” (http://www.zen-k9.com) the name of Mr. Feigel’s company, emblazoned across the back.

Mr. Feigel, a tall, athletic man with dark hair, an Eastern European accent and just a hint of a swagger, walks the pack in close-knit groups of three to five dogs with several other men. The dogs themselves are a melting pot of the canine kingdom, from a large, French Mastiff with an endearing slobber to two well-dressed Italian Greyhounds with spindly, doe-like legs that shiver in the cold. On a recent day, the herd stopped for a break a few turns into the park. Some sat, some stood, some laid down. One black dog, looking particularly tired, belly-flopped to the ground before rolling onto his side.

A bottle of water was passed around to each dog’s eager mouth. “Drugs,” Mr. Feigel quips when a passer-by asks how he keeps such a large pack under control. With a chuckle he quickly gives another answer: “Consistency.”

Behind him, the black dog that flopped on his belly has rolled onto his back, playing a gentle game of push-paws with his handler. Behind him, one of the Italian Greyhounds yelps as another handler gives his leash a quick downward jerk. As for Mr. Feigel, he is holding the leash of a friendly mid-sized dog. When the dog jumps on a visitor or looks at the carriage horse clip-clopping behind him he receives a quick poke behind the ear from Mr. Feigel’s fingers. The dog responds by turning his head away from the distraction.

To his loyal clients, Mr. Feigel is nothing short of a miracle worker who has transformed misbehaving mutts into polite pups.

To others, he is a bully.

Dog Whisperer Or Drill Sergeant?
No one is quite sure who started an ubiquitous email warning city dog owners to keep their four-footed companions away from Mr. Feigel. Nor has the original writer come forward. “I know who it is,” he says. “It’s sad. They just can’t take the competition.” Mr. Feigel, who has since obtained legal counsel, firmly believes the email was started by a ‘rival dog walker’, whom he declines to name.

Whoever it is may just be the next whiz in viral marketing—or in this case viral warning. The wording of the now-infamous email is severe and specific and reads, in part:

“Please forward this email to all, anyone you know living on the Upper West Side NYC. A pack walking company named Zen-K9 is using force to train and walk the dogs. They have been seen punching, kicking, hanging and 2 dogs died running in traffic [sic] as the head trainer was loading his van. This is a group of Romanian Pack Walkers instilling such fear in the dogs they come home well behaved and owners actually impressed [sic] as their dogs are so submissive. The means to this end is horrible, they are punched, kicked, heads bashed into sidewalk, yelled at for even lifting their heads up from sidewalk sit stays for 1/2 hour interval photo shoots and more. Many have called the police and ASPCA, locals are enraged, owners of dogs do not know this is occurring. [sic].

First Stop—Craig’s List, Next Stop—The World
The warning, reportedly first seen on Craig’s List, goes on to name Mr. Feigel and ‘four other Romanians as cruel as he is’ as the perpetrators, directing readers to forward the warning far and wide. Upper West Side residents are urged to “find themselves a walker or trainer that will not BEAT their pets into submission.” From Craig’s List, the email landed in a popular New York-based dog chat room, where the the fur began to fly. In a city where some dogs sport $200.00 winter boots and attend “Doga” (yoga) classes with their doting human caretakers, the response was swift and scalding.

Many posters said they’d heard about Mr. Feigel, had personally witnessed him manhandling dogs, or had a neighbor who told them they saw Mr. Feigel do so. Others posted how they’d seen the Zen-K9 dogs being forcibly dragged out of SUVs by their necks on short chains, dogs being made to endure extremes of temperature, and dogs tied unattended to street poles by inattentive handlers. An all-out flame war against Mr. Feigel and Zen-K9 quickly ensued.

An independent investigation revealed several professional dog behaviorists were also disturbed by what they had seen of the Zen-K9 crew. One said they had come across Mr. Feigel and his colleagues near Wollman Rink in Central Park during a public demonstration of their technique. According to the observer, dogs were allegedly choked and jerked on chains and poked in the ribs if they tried to stand from a down position. The force of the finger pokes, the observer says, were the same for Chihuahuas and pitbulls alike. “I watched this technique done to a small beagle who was displaying such fear signals—ears back, slinking to the ground, tail tuck, lip tuck,” the observer says. “It was absolutely horrid to see such physical force used on these dogs.”

Another story about Mr. Feigel came from a former employee of an Upper West Side ‘doggie daycare’ facility who would only speak if neither they nor their former place of employment were named. (They deny being the ‘rival dog walker’ Mr. Feigel accuses of circulating the stories about him.)

The owners of a small dog in the facility’s care, according to the source, asked Mr. Feigel to come by and work with the dog. “He came in like gangbusters,” the source says. “He hit the dog with the back of his hand so hard that he knocked him across the floor.” Mr. Feigel allegedly went on to demonstrate his training ‘technique’ on other dogs at the facility—dogs who, unlike the owner of the original dog, had no idea Mr. Feigel would be using them in his ‘demonstration’.

“He held one dog down so hard by the front of the neck that I was afraid it would pass out,” the source says. “I pleaded with him to stop, but the owner of the facility said no.”

Mr. Feigel, who commutes from Connecticut to Manhattan on most days, emphatically and categorically denies hurting any dog, anywhere, anytime. “Absolutely not,” he says when directly asked if the allegations in the now-infamous email and from other sources are true. “We believe in giving the dogs a mental workout—we drain the energy out, perhaps walking a good five miles out with the dogs or rollerblading with them. People may not see the dogs looking very happy, but that’s because we’re doing a different kind of power-energy walk with them.”

The result, he says, is getting a troubled dog into a ‘Zen’ state of mind, making them more receptive to training. Indeed, on a recent segment of Fox 5 News, a reporter joined Mr. Feigel on one of his ‘pack walks’ and described the dogs as ‘meditating’ as they lay beside each other after a long exercise session.

“People in this country, they like to think they know everything better than us,” Mr. Feigel says, adding that people often need to be ‘trained’ right along with their dogs for his methods to work.

A Not-So-Golden Goldendoodle and a Terrorizing Terrier
Mr. Feigel’s many supporters, unlike the majority of his detractors, loudly and proudly identified themselves when coming to his defense. [Editor’s Note: they are not identified here due to the sensitive nature of this debate.] They rallied to his defense with speed and ferocity, some saying they were “outraged” about the allegations of dog abuse leveled against Mr. Feigel. Close to 20 phone calls and emails from his supporters poured in within a matter of hours after a reporter’s inquiry, proclaiming how Mr. Feigel and his training methods changed their lives and the lives of their dogs. One supporter, a well-respected, elder delegate of the American Kennel Club, even suggested criminal charges be filed against “the person or person who wrote this garbage,” referring to the email that lit the match of the flame war.

Several of Mr. Feigel’s supporters did not deny knowledge of some of his more controversial methods, including ‘downing’ -- the process of grabbing a dog by the scruff of the neck and pushing the head to the ground, chin flat to the surface. Such a move, according to behaviorists, is generally done to teach a dog to ‘submit’ to the ‘pack leader’, i.e., the human.

“Anyone seeing this training might assume we were abusing our dog,” the owner of a once-fearsome German Shepherd named Ajax says. “Nothing could be further from the truth. We love our dog, we love his high energy and we want him to be calm, submissive, and channel his energy in a positive way.”

Many of Mr. Feigel’s supporters say they'd tried other trainers who used what is considered more ‘modern’ training methods before coming to him. These more ‘modern’ methods of dog training tend to emphasize ‘encouragement and reward”: desired behavior is rewarded with a food treat and lavish praise while undesirable behavior (inappropriate barking, lunging, biting) is ignored or corrected with firm verbal commands.

Some of Mr. Feigel’s devotees describe dogs who made their homes into places of fear, stress and destruction. At least one admitted they considered returning their dog to the shelter from where it came. Troublesome, uncontrollable dogs like those are sometimes called “red-zone cases.” They are often the first to be euthanized to make room in chronically overcrowded shelters so that dogs more likely to be adopted can be seen.

One of Mr. Feigel’s tougher pupils was ‘Skye’, a ‘Goldendoodle’ (a cross between a Golden Retriever and a Poodle) adopted from a city shelter, On the first night home, according to Skye’s owner, the dog “grabbed the remote control in her mouth, came right up to me, and growled like she wanted to kill me.”

It was not just the first-night jitters. “The second day she got a sponge,” Skye’s owner says. “I tried to take it from her and she bit me.” Skye’s owner later discovered the dog had been returned to the shelter at least once before. She admits she was on the brink of doing the same. Then she turned to Mr. Feigel.

“If it were not for him, I could not have kept Skye,” the now-happy owner says. “Tibor [Mr. Feigel] saved Skye’s life.”

Another of Mr. Feigel’s devotees describes a Yorkie who once “ruled the house and me.” She initially tried a ‘Yorkie specialist’ to change the small dog’s ways but says the trainer did ‘absolutely nothing’ to help turn her tiny terrier, named ‘Tiger Lily Woods’ into a calmer dog. A few sessions with Mr. Feigel, the Yorkie’s owner says, turned ‘Tiger’ into a pussycat.

“Tibor has helped me with my one and a half year-old toy poodle, Peanut, with great results,” yet another of Mr. Feigel’s satisfied clients says. “I assume that whomever is [saying] otherwise is a jealous competitor that cannot offer his/her clients the same level of care or service. Make them prove it.”

Rendering Onto Cesar
Several of Mr. Feigel’s supporters compare him to Cesar Millan, a rock star in the dog training world, whose cult-like following has garnered him a hit show on the National Geographic Channel (“The Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan”), numerous books, training DVDs, and a whole line of of ‘Dog Whisperer’ brand foods, treats, collars, and other products. Mr. Feigel relishes in the comparison. Where Mr. Feigel’s philosophy (and website) proclaim “Exercise, Discipline, Correction and Affection”, Mr. Millan’s training materials similarly proclaim “Exercise, Discipline and Affection” as the “three ingredients for creating a happy, balanced dog.” Like his role model, Mr. Feigel is either hailed as the saint of lost canines or the menace of misbehaving mutts.

But are Mr. Feigel’s and Mr. Millan’s methods abusive, as many have alleged? Victoria Wells, a certified animal behavior specialist and head of New York-based Wells Animal Services, says it’s a fine line.

“I wouldn’t necessarily call the methods [Mr. Feigel] uses abusive,” she says, “but they are methods that most pet owners and trainers choose not to use these days.”

Ms. Wells admits she has not personally observed Mr. Feigel in action, but says the descriptions of his methods—and his motto of “Exercise, Discipline, Correction and Affection” – implies his approach leans heavily on “leash correction” and a “more traditional, old-school” method of dog training. Most of today’s dog trainers, she says, have left these ways behind for “scientifically-based” methods rooted in the positive reinforcement school of thought.

But even Ms. Wells, who regularly works with ‘red zone’ animals, says not every dog will respond to cookies and cheers.

“Punishment-related techniques can work with severe behavior cases,” she says, “but these are not appropriate for every dog.” In severe cases, for example, Ms. Wells may use a citronella collar—a collar which sprays a quick mist of citrus under a dog’s chin when he or she barks, lunges, or does something which needs correction. “This way, the dog associates the undesirable behavior with the action, not the person training him or her.”

No Means No
Behaviorists generally agree on universal warning signs all dog owners, whether believers in the ‘encouragement/reward’ or the ‘discipline/correction’ school of dog training, should watch for. Cringing or cowering at the sight of upraised hands or leashes, or a new fear of humans of the opposite sex, can be warning signs of a trainer or walker who is being over-zealous in their lessons. “Fear signals”, like a tail tucked under the body, or ears flat against the head upon seeing the trainer or walker, can also be potential red flags. A reputable trainer or walker will always welcome a potential client to come on a dog walk with them or observe a training session them before they are employed. Often this is the only way to discover if both dog and owner are more comfortable with the ‘old school’ or ‘new school’ of dog training, and which methods are right for their needs and the needs of their dogs.

In other words, according to the experts, follow your nose.

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