Briarwood Resident Teaches Communication With Dogs

   Briarwood resident Christina Shusterich has a gift for communicating with animals. Rescue groups in Queens and pet owners say so, and it is likely that the many dogs she has trained during the past decade would as well, if they were able to.
   She is not just an animal trainer. Rather, Shusterich is a certified animal behavior specialist and canine behavior counselor, who has devoted herself to helping people communicate with their animals.

   “I’ve always been able to just connect with animals very easily,” said Shusterich, who has appeared as a dog behavior expert on the television show “Inside Edition.” “I’ve never met a dog that I couldn’t train and I’ve never met a dog that I couldn’t improve in terms of behavior problems.”
   Last Friday, she was working with Janice McQuaid of Floral Park and her one-and-a-half-year-old boxer, Bruiser, who was adopted from an animal rescue shelter and had been severely abused.
   “For the past six days in a row he’s woken us up, barking,” said McQuaid, who initially hired Shusterich to assess whether he presented any danger to her 6-year-old twins since he was so frisky when the family adopted him.
   After asking a series of questions, Shusterich determined that the likely cause of the barking was separation anxiety, and that Bruiser needed to be taught how to be quiet when he was alone.
   To achieve this, Shusterich had a visitor ring the doorbell a number of times to trigger barking. She then held a treat to his nose and said “quiet” after two barks. Bruiser was rewarded only after a count of five.
   This was just one of the behavior modification techniques that Shusterich has taught the family during their five training sessions. Bruiser has done so well that he recently was able to sit quietly while passing a rambunctious dog on a walk.
   “I feel confident enough to deal with the problems now,” McQuaid said. “Does he need work? Yes. But Christina has given me the confidence that if I do the work and follow through, this will be an ideal dog.”
   Others she has worked with offered even more effusive praise. “My black Labrador/chow mix was like the Tasmanian devil before Christina began working with her,” former client Brad Mitchell wrote in a post-training testimonial. “I don’t know how she does it, but she is able to connect with my dog on a level I’ve never seen before.”
   The president of For Our Friends, a small, no-kill rescue group in Bayside, said that before Shusterich joined the group almost half of their dogs were returned due to behavioral problems. In the past year, only one had to be returned.
   The gift to communicate with animals is something Shusterich said she was born with, but her skills were honed when she adopted her first dog as a child. Since her parents didn’t want the animal, she was entirely responsible for taking care of it and the experience taught her a tremendous amount. She also rode horses which, she said, trained her to read the body language of animals.
   As for dogs, who often communicate with each other nonverbally, body language is extremely important as well. Humans can learn to use physical cues with them that are nonthreatening. For example, petting dogs under the chin is better than petting them on the top of their heads, while sitting to their side is less intimidating than standing over them.
   When owners learn to communicate with body language and commands, they no longer need to use force, punishements or shouting. Shusterich teaches her clients to use positive reinforcements instead, like praise and treats.
   “The dog understands what the client wants them to do and the client feels better because they know the dog understands them,” Shusterich said.
   All of the training she uses is based on behavior modification techniques and psychology, which she studied at Queens College. The training has come in useful, she said, since psychological conditions like obsessive compulsive disorder and separation anxiety are found in dogs and humans. Some of the same techniques, like desensitization, can be used for both. For a dog that barks at a doorbell, desensitization would mean ringing it randomly to teach the dog not to bark each time.
   Part of the reason Shusterich loves her job so much is that it is both intellectual and creative, requiring her to constantly learn and teach new things. But, even more important, is the impact she makes helping families and keeping dogs out of shelters. “It’s a tremendous amount of happiness to be able to make a difference in so many lives,” Shusterich said. “That’s the most important contribution I can make.”
   For more information about Christina Shusterich and the services she offers, log on to www.nycleverk9.com, e-mail info@nycleverk9.com or call 917-589-6296