Friday, April 9, 2021 | Seaside Signal | SeasideSignal.com • A5
With training, it’s worth waiting to get it right
W
hen we are frustrated,
we are much more easily
reeled-in by fl ashy mar-
keting, charismatic personalities,
and promises of quick fi xes, even
if what’s being off ered is subpar.
That’s because frustration breeds
desperation. Many salespeople
and marketers seek out and lever-
age that desperation. They call this
approach hitting the “pain points.”
Pain points are the negative things
in your life that marketers make
you feel even more deeply, in order
to sell you something. By leverag-
ing your suff ering, they drive pain
point based sales. This is why a ton
of money may be easily raised by,
for example, dog rescues who show
you sad photos and tell you sad sto-
ries about suff ering dogs.
And it’s why animal protection
charities who achieve their mission
through education and prevention
— working to avoid the situations
that lead a need for rescuing — tend
to have a harder time raising funds:
It is exponentially harder to fund
an organization that off ers ways to
CANINE
CORNER
RAIN JORDAN
& DAHLIA
avoid pain points than it is to fund
one that focuses you on the pain not
avoided.
It’s important to be crystal clear
about what constitutes a worthy
product or reliable service because
when we feel desperate, we’re not
in an analytical, reasoning state of
mind.
Our “pain points” instead can
lead us to make emotional deci-
sions. Decisions based on negative
emotions often turn out to be bad
decisions. (This is true for humans
just as it is true for our dogs, and
it’s one of the reasons we work to
change a dog’s emotions in order to
address behavior concerns.)
It is human nature to fall prey to
promises of easy solutions when we
are suff ering. Emotions draw us to
fantasy, whereas reasoning draws us
to reality.
So what constitutes worth or
reliability? Consider a huge mon-
ey-making industry: weight loss.
We might be drawn to purchase a
weight loss product or service if we
are told it works fast and is easy.
Before and after pictures—which of
course only depict the most fantas-
tic successes — further drive peo-
ple to buy. Yet only about 10% to
20% of those losing notable weight
maintain that success for a year. As
if a year were suffi cient! The oth-
ers gain it all back, and often more.
Would you consider this a worthy,
reliable product or service, then? I
would not. Especially since in many
cases, over the long term, we see a
worsening of the original problem,
rather than a reliable, lasting reso-
lution that would make it worthy of
our money and eff orts.
The principle holds in other
industries too, including the dog
training and behavior modifi cation
industry.
It is why some people decide
to leave their beloved dogs in the
hands of big-talking strangers run-
ning quick-fi x training businesses,
“boot camps,” or other stay-train-
ing services. These off erings often
rely heavily on aversives — shock,
choke, force, intimidation, coercion,
or fear-leveraging practices — to
get your dog to behave as desired.
Why? Because the only way to
change serious behavior problems
quickly is by briefl y suppressing the
behavior rather than resolving it.
Suppression is unhealthy. Imag-
ine suppression as a sort of hiding
the behavior, burying it, but leav-
ing it with claws so that it digs back
up. Suppression can happen in an
instant or a short time, like hide-
and-seek. Resolution, like red-light,
green-light, happens incremen-
tally. Resolution requires expertise,
patience, and care.
Quick-fi x dog training services
appear magical but in reality are
incomplete because suppression is
temporary.
Just as many weight loss off er-
ings work by temporarily suppress-
ing behavior rather than resolv-
ing the core cause of the behavior
— whether that core is emotional,
medical, socioeconomic, genetic,
or something else — quick-fi x
dog training products that priori-
tize speed and easiness — while
rejecting slow, careful, methodical,
anti-aversive processes — merely
suppress, not resolve, undesired
behavior. This is why undesired
behavior, like the weight, will
eventually return after using those
products.
As Steve Jobs says, “Details
matter; it’s worth waiting to get it
right.”
We must commit ourselves to
the details of time, care, patience,
and methodical anti-aversive pro-
cesses proven eff ective and reliable
in lasting behavior modifi cation, so
that we don’t have to fi nd another
program all over again down the
road, our dogs and we having suf-
fered for nothing.
Rain Jordan is a certifi ed canine
behavior consultant and dog
trainer. Visit her at www.ExpertCa-
nine.com.
Easter: The Easter Bunny made the rounds
Continued from Page A1
Throughout the event,
the Easter Bunny made the
rounds, greeting the fami-
lies in attendance and taking
photos.
In lieu of the aquatic trea-
sure drive — which is tradi-
tionally hosted as an oppor-
tunity for older children to
collect their own goodies —
the park district held a drive-
thru event after the egg hunt.
They distributed bags with
candy-stuff ed eggs for chil-
dren 7 and older to do an
egg hunt at home with their
families.
Ousley said she was
pleased with the number of
people who preregistered for
the event, as well as those
who came the day-of to par-
ticipate. She projected it was
a mixture of both families
from Seaside and the sur-
rounding communities, as
well as people visiting for the
weekend.
“Hopefully we brought
some tourists to town,” she
said.
The event was run primar-
ily by park district staff , with
help from board members
Mike Hinton and Sue Cod-
dington and numerous volun-
teers, including four students
from Seaside High School’s
Key Club. TLC Fibre Fed-
Photos by Katherine Lacaze
ABOVE: Children line up at Broadway Field for the annual
community egg hunt at Broadway Field. BELOW: Bailey
Roberts and Deb Dixon with TLC Fibre Federal Credit Union
helped with registration.
Jeff Ter Har
ABOVE: These children fi nd
working together brings
good results. LEFT: The Easter
Bunny made an appearance
at the annual community egg
hunt.
Katherine Lacaze
eral Credit Union and Prov-
idence Seaside Hospital also
sponsored the egg hunt.
Bailey Roberts and Deb
Dixon, community engage-
ment and fi nancial education
coordinators with the credit
union, oversaw the check-in
table, where they assisted in
COVID-19 contract tracing,
making sure there weren’t
too many people on the fi eld
at one time and helping the
event run smoothly.
According to Roberts,
community partnerships and
fundraising are an integral
component of Fibre Feder-
al’s mission as a credit union.
“This is what we do,” she
said, adding as the pandemic
runs its course and more
community events return for
2021, “we’re starting to see
some movement, and we’re
here for it.”
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on the
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E
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Seaside Signal
Columbia Pacifi c Coor-
dinated Care Organization
announced a partnership
with Oregon Health & Sci-
ence University’s primary
care clinic in Scappoose
and Columbia County Pub-
lic Health to expand access
to COVID-19 vaccinations
in the region. Eff orts aim to
remove barriers that could
prevent residents from
accessing this life saving
vaccine.
Columbia Pacifi c’s par-
ent company, CareOregon,
is contributing resources
to bolster eff orts. This
includes providing staff
time to analyze data and
funding to support deploy-
ment eff orts to help reach
more residents.
Columbia Pacifi c will
Necanicum Watershed Council
Osprey nesting at Broadway Park.
continue to help partner
in this work to vaccinate
Columbia County resi-
dents through convening
and supporting clinical
and community partners.
This includes data sharing
to identify opportunities to
address barriers that could
negatively impact people’s
ability to get the vaccine,
like transportation. Low-
ering barriers to accessing
the vaccine, which include
looking at ways to over-
come disparity issues such
as access to transporta-
tion, prioritizing those dis-
proportionately impacted
by COVID-19, language
access and vaccine hesi-
tancy are essential to a suc-
cessful rollout.
Watershed council
at Art in the Park
Seaside Signal
Necanicum
Watershed
Council will be among par-
ticipants at the Art in the Park
event on April 17 from 1 to 4
p.m. Volunteers at Broadway
Park will share information
about the watershed council,
the Americans with Disabil-
ities Act-accessible kayak
launch and the osprey that
nest in Broadway Park.
The watershed council
operates a live nest camera
located above the nest in the
park. The camera has been
watching these fascinating
birds every year since 2013,
with the exception of last
year. The osprey returned on
March 25 and they are busy
remodeling the nest and pre-
paring for another clutch of
young. View the live feed
and follow the action at
www.seasideosprey.org or at
www.necanicumwatershed.
org.
Park your phone, avoid distracted driving
Seaside Signal
April is National Dis-
tracted Driving Awareness
Month, and the Seaside
Police Department is team-
ing up with agencies from
across Oregon and nation-
wide to increase enforcement
eff orts that help curb unnec-
essary accidents and fatali-
ties that are the direct result
of distracted driving. Tar-
geted enforcement specifi -
cally designed at all types of
distracted driving will take
place for the next four weeks
throughout Seaside.
Distracted driving con-
tributed to the deaths of 137
people in Oregon between
2014-18, including the dis-
tractions caused by the use of
a cell phone.
Targeted
enforcement
will be directed at the prohib-
ited use of cell phones while
driving. Doing so is illegal in
Oregon and has been since
the cell phone law went into
eff ect in 2017. A fi rst-time
off ense, that doesn’t contrib-
ute to a crash, is a class B
violation and carries a maxi-
mum fi ne of $1,000. The vio-
lation and fi nes can increase
for repeat off enders and may
include subsequent jail time.
Distraction occurs when
a driver voluntarily diverts
attention to something not
related to driving that uses
the driver’s eyes, ears, hands
and mind. Most distractions
involve more than one of
these types, with both a sen-
sory — eyes, ears, or touch
— and a mental component,
mind.
Learn more about dis-
tracted driving, including
how to order free educational
brochures, posters and more
on the Oregon Department of
Transportation’s website.
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