Riley the Weimaraner, with his short steel-gray coat and floppy ears, made national headlines when he joined the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in 2018.
He was just a few weeks old then, embarking on a new job: learning to sniff out pests that could be destructive to the priceless artwork that comes in and out of the museum.
And he was a hit from the moment he stepped before cameras for his first press conference. The little puppy saving artwork from little critters was like a story out of a children's book.
But the story of what happened next, after the MFA hired Riley, is less the story of a children's book and more like a study that you might find published in a veterinary science journal.
“I already had a Weimaraner once. I like Weims,” said Nicki Luongo, the MFA’s director of protective services — and Riley’s full-time human. “They are a lot of work, but I love Weims. They’re high energy. And with kindness, they are one of the most loving and hardworking and loyal dogs I think I've ever had.”
It was her idea to train Riley as a pest-detection dog.
“I had worked, years and years ago, doing bloodhound search and rescue,” she said. “So I had some experience and training.”
Behind the scenes, the museum is always buzzing with activity, she said, with works of art coming in and out of the building. And some come with unexpected and unwelcome travel companions, like bugs or critters.
Pests like moths are a big problem for museums. And Luongo realized she might have a perfect solution.
“And I was talking to the chair of conservation at the time, and I’m like, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if we just trained the puppy?’ And he was like, ‘Let’s do it,’” she said.
But having an idea straight out of a children’s book is one thing. Putting it into reality is another. Luongo took on the task of training Riley with two members of her team: Chris Hartzell, investigator in protective services, and Jeremy Lehane, a system engineer.
They were nervous at first — despite the enthusiasm, Luongo said there were some naysayers skeptical of whether Riley could do the job effectively and gently enough not to harm the art.
They hit a few roadblocks: right away, they figured out the traditional way of training a work dog like Riley just wasn’t right for them.
“Traditional training often is based on punishment: Prong collars, shock collars, e-collars, pinched collars,” said Dr. Brian Bourquin, owner of Boston Veterinary Clinic and Riley’s veterinarian. “They'll use all sorts of cute names now, but essentially you're hurting the dog, or cat or horse or whatever the case may be, to get the behavior you want.”
So Luongo and her team worked with Bourquin to develop a different training method.
“We just couldn't get past the choke collar,” she said. “We were having a really hard time. It was actually stressing us out. Most people thought when [Riley] was standing there closing his eyes, that he was tired from working. He was stressed out. He didn’t like it. He didn’t like how it felt.”
Instead of that negative reinforcement — hurting Riley when he did something his handlers did not want him to do — the team switched to positive reinforcement, rewarding good behavior with treats, toys, a clicker and praise.
“You’re trying to change behavior by rewarding versus punishing,” Bourquin said. “And studies have now shown us that negative [reinforcement] or punishment doesn’t work. When you put a prong color on a dog, sure, maybe it’ll do what it’s supposed to do when that prong collar is on. But put a regular collar on and that dog’s going to drag you in the road or run away.”
Despite the long history of training dogs for jobs, training dogs to protect artwork had never been done before, so Bourquin brought in another expert for help.
Vivian Zottola, an anthrozoologist, behavioral consultant and training specialist, has a long history with training. And that experience was invaluable in coming up with Riley's training regimen.
“With training Riley, it was really about training the humans as well as the dog,” Zottola said. “Initially the framework was really teaching them about body language: about stress signals, about understanding that the dog has agency. That they can make a choice, just like a non-verbal child.”
The initial focus was on resiliency and managing stressful situations.
And it worked. They rewarded Riley for finding pests with treats — and since he’s undergone his yearlong training, Riley’s already sniffed out some saves.
“We had a carpet in storage that they were going to put in a gallery. And they said, ‘Can you just have him check it out?’” Luongo said. “So we took him down and we checked the carpet out and it was infested. It was rolled up, so on the outside you can’t see it. But once you start unrolling, he kept hitting on it, and we were like, ‘I don’t see anything here.’ Now we’re starting to doubt ourselves. And he’s going, ‘Hey guys, it’s right here.’ He’s like, ‘Come on, like, what’s wrong with you? Give me my treats.’”
Riley has become an invaluable member of the museum family. In fact, during COVID lockdowns, he was a guardian of the MFA, along with Luongo. They lived inside of the museum to make sure no catastrophes struck — like break-ins or water main breaks — while it was closed to the public.
Now, in training sessions, Riley’s team cheers him on, treating him with respect and with treats, showing that good owners are what make a good boy and a good worker.
Riley doesn’t do his work while people are touring the museum. He works in the background, so visitors probably won’t be able to spot him. But while you’re taking in the beauty of the artwork, you can know that Riley and his team are part of the reason that artwork is still there.
