Alot of people tell me I’m chasing a scared dog around the back yard. It’s not so, we are having a conversation. That conversation likely started as soon as I got out of the vehicle. It’s not hard to tell an insecure bark. I don’t care that a dog is showing aggression or reactivity, I need to understand why. Aggression and reactivity are only various levels of excited states of mind, they are symptoms, the outcome of a problem. Can’t fix symptoms – but you can “control and manage” them. No?
If a dog is truly in a state that’s causing a severe level of aggression, I’m not getting anywhere near the fence, let alone open the door. I already know from the sound of the bark if a dog is scared – how scared is the real question. A dog that wouldn’t let me near the fence a different kind of bark and it’s a sound that will bring the hackles up on my neck. Needs to be tackled differently.
Others have told me I should join the owner on a walk for the first meet. Heck no. I know what he’s like “in the wild”, and I don’t want to toss that added stress on the dog. Especially in protection of owner. It’s easy to get a dog to show aggression, getting the real story takes a little more sass. I want to meet the dog one on one. I want to meet the real dog. If the owner is in the back yard, I’d expect the dog to flip shit. So why should I create that situation, that’s setting the dog up to fail. I’m removing everything that the dog would feel the need to protect and show aggression over.
When I open that gate, I’m telling the dog my intention – I’m coming into the back yard. What’s your intention – what are you going to do about it? And it doesn’t take long for them to choose. That is the moment the dog plays its only card – they always run. The teeth and slobber and growling over the fence is all bluff. Now I know I’m dealing with a scared dog. The dog doesn’t want to bite me, it’s already told me that. I’m not pushing the dog, I’m calm in the back yard. Some dogs make me nervous, I’ll freely admit that. But if you show fear it means you’re not understanding – and you’re done…
Understand something very important. I’m respecting the dogs space, I’m not invading their personal space. All I want the dog to do is calm down and make the choice to calmly invade my space. That is the first step to earning a dogs trust. Am I going to reach out and pet the dog just because they come to me? No. Do not invade their space. They will tell you when they want affection through body language.
More importantly, I’m respecting the dog. I’m squatting down, I am showing them that I am not scared of them, that I’m not a threat to them. I make myself vulnerable by squatting down, I trust the dog not to come at me. If you watch the video of Josie in the back yard – at the 6:30 mark, I’m stood up but bent over. She doesn’t want that. Squat down to her level, and she comes right in.
I will go to the extreme of laying on the ground, make myself as vulnerable as needed. That’s when truly scared dogs come to check you out.
I’m just being calm in the back yard – and I’m waiting for them to calm down – to choose to join me in calm. A dog barking it out on you isn’t thinking, and you can’t teach them anything but fear when they are in that state. A dog in this state is also running hot on cortisol – the stress hormone. Cortisol will increase heart rate and blood pressure, and this will cause blood shot eyes, another indicator of stress levels. Cortisol takes a minimum of 20 minutes to even start dissipating after the dog relaxes. There is no sense trying to work with a dog running hot on cortisol. All I want the dog to do is calm down. I know they are still going to be scared. I just want the dog to calm and engage the brain again, I need the dog to start thinking.
And that’s the Achilles heel for much of dog training. They take the brain away, take away free will, and replace it with food, protocols and other tools that inflict pain and punishment. “As long as the dog thinks it’s making a choice, then it is”. This is what Skinner called “free will is an illusion”. And you are told to reward and punish the dog for a choice it never got to make? And we wonder why it takes months, years and an empty wallet to find out it didn’t work?
I’m not focused on the environment, don’t need to distract the dog from anything, I now have the dogs full attention. I’m listening to the dog. I’m reading the dog, learning the idiosyncrasies that is the dog. Are the eyes bloodshot, where are the ears? The tail? Even stance says alot, what are the hackles doing? Every bark has a different sound. Insecurity has it’s own sound. Some dogs get a confused bark because they can’t drive me away. Why isn’t my barking working on him, this is all they know to do. And at this moment, they don’t know what to do.
When the dog finally calms down, now we are going to start working purely on trust. Why? Because the dog has no reason to trust me – and no reason to follow me, no reason to work with me. Would you follow someone you don’t trust? Would you put your life in their hands? What if you were forced to? Now look at your “aggressive” dog.
In meeting Little Bear, she was relentless. Bark, bark, bark. But then she calmed down, and came to me, and there were times I was playing with her tongue. She’s not this “aggressive” dog because now I see her when she’s in a calm state. Mind you, if I moved she would start again, triggered. Now bear in mind, I’m squat down, we have an agreement – and I am allowing this “aggressive dog” to invade my space to simply check me out while calm. I’m not giving her a reason to react negatively.
I need to show trust in order to gain trust. To work with dogs in this capacity, you better understand the animal that you’re working with. And that’s a huge problem today. People fear what they do not understand – if they can’t control it, they destroy it. There is a reason so many dogs with bad behaviours are being killed every year. There are many trainers out there that are scared of dogs – that’s why they use tools of control, the dog has become a liability. Call around, tell them you have an aggressive pit and see how man beat a path to your door? Treats, toys, prongs, ecollars, crates, and whatever else is out there – these have become multi-billion dollar industries. Trainers are driving that bus – and society has normalized all this. People reach for tools out of pure frustration because nothing they are trying is working – and worse yet, we are justifying it. Put that ecollar on your cat, stand in front of it and shock it. You know what result of that would be, no amount of treats is getting you out of that dog house. But, the dog.
Today it’s the Pitbull. The Doberman had its day, so did the Rottweiler. But it’s depressing reading breed specific groups. It seems like every breed has issues of some sort now, it’s just the way they are. And owners are normalizing all this. Join Miniature Pinscher groups if you don’t believe me.
How does one change peoples minds? How does one change the way people view their dogs?
I’ll tell you something, you can control a dog through fear and punishment – but there will always be that which scares the dog more than you ever will. Dogs that live in fear, and are trained with fear are unpredictable, this is the very reason tools like e-collars are for the life of the dog. “Oh, why take it off”. Yeah, why take that chance?? Was the dog ever given reasons to trust? Trust is universal to all animals – including humans. Where there is no trust, there is no relationship – if you don’t trust your spouse, the relationship is already toxic. So why are some trainers telling people that they don’t need to trust your dog? They are telling you to destroy your relationship – it’s tossing “mans best friend” in the garbage and replacing it with tools and protocols. And we wonder why so many dogs are a mess today?
If you want to understand the dog, go take a long hard look in the mirror at the animal that is staring back at you. B.F Skinner was blamed for all this dog training crap – but human behaviour was Skinners target – not the dog. Skinner shocked dogs in a lab to understand what it would do to you, he shocked the dog – he wouldn’t shock you. The man was a human psychologist, not a dog trainer. But trainers have you doing the same damned experiments on your dog that Skinner wouldn’t do to the human animal. Chew on that for a while. Now look at your dog.
Your dog is your mirror, a reflection of you – a reflection of the animal that you are. Be the change you want in your dog. Be calm, be respectful. You can’t control the environment – it is what it is. But you can focus on earning your dogs trust in this environment – but you need to ask, not command. When a dog trusts you and feels secure around you, the environment won’t be a concern anymore.
Kind of sounds like working with children doesn’t it? If you adopted a child that was abused and living in fear, you wouldn’t throw food at the child. You wouldn’t lock the child up in their room. No, you would focus on earning the childs trust – and pass that trust onto the rest of the world. Do that to your dog, and you won’t need a trainer to help you.
But the dog…
“When an animal finds peace in your presence, they will come to trust you”. James French – #TrustTechnique.