Things seem to come in threes, even in dog training. Over the past few weeks I’ve encountered three situations where people wanted their dogs to do something specific and the dog was resistant. In two of the situations the “something” was swimming. These owners really wanted to be able to exercise their dogs with low-impact exercise and also simply wanted them to enjoy the experience of swimming. In the third situation, the dog was resistant to both husbandry/handling and walking on a leash, which is not only a necessary life skill for an urban dog, but in this case was also part of his rehab program. In the latter case, the dog had gone so far as to thrash at the vet to the point of inhibiting the rehab process, had thrown himself on the ground in the street refusing to budge, and had bitten the owner for trying to grab his collar.
In all three cases I was faced with training the dog to go along with the program. The thing is, dogs are sentient beings with minds of their own, and training isn’t magic. The only way to get a dog to do something she doesn’t want to do is to motivate her, or rather, to convince her to change her mind.
Motivation can be a positive or negative thing; it’s possible in some cases to motivate with punishment and force an animal to tolerate something she doesn’t want to do, but honestly, why would anyone want to do so? Especially in the first two cases where, while the owners desired swimming dogs, their becoming avid swimmers was not a life or death situation; the dogs instinctively knew how to swim; they just didn’t enjoy it or do it voluntarily. These dogs were merely expressing their feelings about being in water, and according to their reluctant behavior and body language, those feelings were not pleasant. I like when dogs give clear signals. It helps me know where I stand. Forcing the dogs to swim would do nothing to make them like it any better. In fact, if anything, it may well do the opposite. My goal was to change their emotional responses to water-based activities. My goal was to get them to jump in to the wet stuff with glee.
As for the pup who wasn’t into walking or restrictive handling at the vet or for grooming, with a little bit of owner interrogation, I was able to discern that the poor dude had had more than his share of aches and pains in his young life due to some structural issues and poor skin conditions. It actually hurt him to walk for too long, and hands reaching for his legs or ears frightened him; he anticipated pain. Furthermore, his owner had been forcing him to move and walk by grabbing his collar and tugging on him, or physically manipulating him to get him to get up or keep going when he “didn’t want to,” which really was when “he really barely could.” This otherwise good-natured guy had a ton of negative associations attached to daily walks and all sorts of regular handling. His lying down, collapsing, wriggling, and thrashing away were his only way of communicating just how difficult movement and physical touch had become for him. And yet, his pleas went unheeded as his well-meaning but misguided owner thought him stubborn and continued to push the subjects and eventually caused a low-level bite. In this case my goal was to teach the pup that human hands are not scary or dangerous and do not inflict pain, most of the time. My goal was to create a dog who could relax completely and melt into human touch and who could once again enjoy walking by his owner’s side. (His physical ailments were being treated, so we knew he’d feel better soon. However, negative associations take longer to heal than broken bones and skin infections. We’d still have work to do post-veterinary treatment.)
In two of the three cases, the owners had been forcing the issue and had definitely lost trust and relationship as well as made the problem worse. My first step in these situations was to help the owners better read their dogs’ body language and behavior and then to listen to what their dogs were saying with a bit of respect, patience, and compassion. These dogs were not jerks. These dogs were not simply being bullheaded or dominant. Not at all; these dogs were dealing with fear and discomfort and really needed their caretakers and best friends to be in their corners. These dogs needed teammates, not adversaries. Once we established teamwork and proper motivators everything was smooth sailing.
In the third case, one of the swimmers, the dog had not had any negative experiences with water, but rather was simply insecure and not naturally inclined. In this case all we had to do was introduce the idea of swimming slowly and in a very fun fashion while figuring out what in life motivated him (in this case competing with another dog for his beloved ball), and he came along quite quickly.
In all three instances, the dogs needed advocates and to feel a sense of empowerment, not tough love or a firm hand. Your dog is your partner, not your slave. Give a dog a voice and some control of her environment. When you do, rather than fight your wishes, she’ll meet your efforts with all of her heart.
Kelly Gorman Dunbar is Director of the Center for Applied Animal Behavior, where she recruits and trains the instructors for the Dunbar family business, SIRIUS® Puppy & Dog Training. She is the creator of the SIRIUS Sniffers scent-detection program. Gorman Dunbar is also founder and president of Open Paw and consults on various matters.
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