The Puppy Diaries: Raising a Dog Named Scout by Jill Abramson Page B

that she thought the classes would help us handle Scout in the city. Henry, bless him, declared that he was willing to arrange his schedule around the puppy class. Instead of returning to the city on Sunday, he would work from Connecticut the first two days of the week and then drive to New York with Scout after Diane’s class on Tuesday night.
    Before she left, Diane gave Scout some hearty farewell pats and the two of us a clicker. Our separate cries for help had been answered.
     
     
    I didn’t want to miss Scout’s first day of school, so the following Tuesday I left work early and took the train to Connecticut. Diane had promised that the class would be fun, and it was impossible not to trust someone who signed her e-mails, “Warmest wags, Diane.” But it had been eighteen years since our younger child piled onto the school bus for the first day of kindergarten, and I felt the same mixture of anxiety and hopeful pride as we drove with Scout to the town where Diane taught her classes.
    What we didn’t know then was that by showing us how to use a clicker during her home consultation, Diane had introduced us to a dog-training method known as positive training. Later, I learned of the battle that rages between trainers who favor a more coercive, pack-leader approach and those who prefer a positive reinforcement technique that usually uses a clicker or a familiar sound to mark desired behavior in dogs.
    Cesar Millan, whose television show on the National Geographic channel is one of the most popular shows on cable, is the avatar of pack leaders. Another cable personality, Victoria Stilwell, is a persuasive advocate of positive training. Others are also gaining national reputations for their ability to teach positive training; among them is Karen Pryor, the author of several popular dog-training manuals, under whom Diane had studied.
    As with child-rearing, dog-training experts sometimes make convincing cases for completely opposing points of view. On the pack leader versus positive training issue, I had no idea which side was right; confusing the matter, the monks’ books, which had served as our primary source for puppy advice, combine some of both approaches. When I found time to do a bit of research of my own, one of the experts I consulted was Shawn Stewart, who has worked with all kinds of dogs, including homeland security canine defense units. Stewart told me that the right method depends on individual considerations about the dog, the owner, and the environment. As he put it, “No one out there can say that any one method will fit any dog or any owner.” In the face of conflicting advice, this seemed like a very sensible conclusion.
    Instinctively, Henry and I leaned toward positive training. Our preferred parenting method had been to use encouragement, not punishment, to teach our children good behavior. And since Scout seemed eager to learn and responsive to instruction, we were happy to try out Diane’s clicker training. Besides, if Scout attended all the puppy classes and passed the course, she would earn a basic manners certificate from the American Kennel Club, the organization that sponsors the Westminster Dog Show at Madison Square Garden each year. She would officially be a Good Dog.
    It took about twenty minutes to drive to Durham, a town just to the north of us. Diane’s class met next to a veterinary clinic in a large commercial garage with high ceilings and roll-up doors. There were six other puppies in the class. At forty pounds, Scout was the largest pupil by far. Diane had the humans —she preferred this word to owners —and the leashed pups introduce themselves on the lawn outside the classroom. Because Scout had become well socialized with other dogs at Marian’s pool parties and at the farm, she pulled eagerly toward her classmates.
    Scout was especially smitten with a tiny Chihuahua named Petunia, who cowered each time Scout approached. Once inside the classroom, which had