When Fido or Felix is misbehaving, it is sagacity, rather than sternness, that is required, an expert advises

We are in a theater in downtown Beijing packed to the rafters with an audience whose members are transfixed by what is going on before them. The attentive, respectful silence is at times broken by gales of raucous laughter.

But this is a stage show unlike any other, for there are no acrobats, no actors, no dancers, no singers and in fact, no performers to admire at all.

Instead, audience members are like the flies on the wall of a giant consulting room in which a group therapy session is taking place, the patients being of a lower order: cats and dogs.

At center stage, sitting on a sofa, owners of the animals engage in conversation with a man, dissecting their pet's behavior from head to tail, and looking for solutions to the problems they have.

As the pets sit, lie or stand with their owners taking all this in, the audience is given the lowdown on pet foibles, misdemeanors and proclivities that include barking at passers-by, urinating in unfortunate places and being picky about food.

On stage, whenever one of the pets starts acting up and is beyond the control of the owner, the host rises like a latter-day St. Francis of Assisi and restores the peace with a few caresses and a bit of cajolery, as if by miracle.

The St. Francis in question is Penny Tai, who does not need a live audience to make an impact, having been a hit on television in China, including in a talk show called Kangxi Arrives.

"The wellspring of all pets' problems is their owners' problems," Tai sagely tells the audience, bringing a long round of laughter and applause.

Mars Petcare Academy, the organizer of the pet raising and care consulting event in Beijing on Aug 1, reckons Tai, a pet behaviorist and caregiver in Taiwan, is the first of his ilk in China.

Tai says his approach is different to that of many so-called pet trainers who rely on punishment rather than scientific theories to resolve animals' behavioral problems.

"If a dog or a cat misbehaves, in most cases the owner is to blame for wrong conceptions about the pet and unreasonable expectations of it," he says.

"They simply do not understand that their pets are not human beings, but a different species."

For example, some dog owners give their pets food that they regard as healthy, such as fruit or vegetables, he says. When the dog does not eat the food the owner considers it "naughty", forgetting that dogs' nutritional demands are different to those of humans.

For genuine behavioral problems such as separation anxiety, pet owners should turn to scientific knowledge to understand why and how such problems occur, Tai says, and how to deal with them, instead of simply resorting to scolding and punishment, which often only makes matters worse.

"A pet is like a young child, and you cannot scold it to change it toward what you expect. Instead, you need to use incentives-based training."

Tai, 50, says his love of animals reflects a childhood in which he suffered from losing two pet dogs. One died because a doctor misdiagnosed what was wrong with it, and he resolved to become a veterinarian to cure and save pets suffering from disease.

He fulfilled that dream, graduating in veterinarian medicine at National Chung Tsing University in Taichung, and opened his veterinary practice 24 years ago.

He built a solid reputation with his work, during which many pet owners sought his help regarding disturbing behavior their pets displayed, he says, but he increasingly felt that he lacked the knowledge to understand what lay behind it.

He read everything he could find to increase his understanding, he says, but at the time there was little literature on animal psychology available in Taiwan. His curiosity grew when he commanded one of his dogs, a giant schnauzer, to smile, and almost instantly it would seem to do exactly that.

"I knew a dog could not smile, but I didn't know why it put on such a look when I said the word."

He then applied to do a two-year course at the Animal Behavior Center of New York, and it was there that the window on a new world opened to him thanks to the center's director, Robert Defranco, a pioneer in animal emotions research.

Mostly using quantitative research methods, Tai designed and carried out experiments and collected data for analysis in an effort to determine what goes on in an animal's brain when it is behaving in a particular way.

The experiments taught him that the best way to train a pet is to reward it with encouragement and incentives when it shows improvement, he says, not simply to scold it or beat it if for disobeying.

At the time, many animal owners in Taiwan frequently punished their pets, and it was common to see a dog owner hold a stick while walking, ready to use if the dog disobeyed, Tai says.

After graduating in New York, he returned to Taiwan and resumed his position in the pet hospital. When pet owners complained to him about their disobedient pets, he would ask for details, analyze the behavior and give suggestions.

The main advice was to love, care and reward the pets, and he helped many owners solve their problems, gradually gaining a reputation for being able to "read pets' minds".

Tai saw a common thread in many of the problems pet owners faced, and in 1997, in the earlier years of the Internet, he became somewhat of a pioneer by setting up a website offering free consulting on how to raise pets correctly.

In 2001 he published a book, Dog's Wonderful World and that exposure led to numerous radio and television appearances.

Tai says he has delivered many speeches and given free training to pet owners and college students free over the years, and he is particularly proud of having set up the Taiwan Animal Behavior Resource Center in 2012, which helps owners train pets and sets down standards for professional trainers.

The center's certification program follows internationally recognized standards, and trainers need to go through strict theory and practical examinations to obtain certificates, Tai says.

Xiao Qi, 28, who has a poodle and turned up early for the event in Beijing, says she has been a follower of Tai's Sina Weibo for a while and appreciates his clarity and humor in teaching pet owners.

Contact the writer at liuzhihua@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily USA 09/01/2015 page10)