There is a video clip floating around on the Internet right now of a woman who has an unfortunate encounter with a wild bear while on a kayaking trip in Alaska. In the clip the woman sprays the bear in the face with pepper spray for approaching her cabin. The bear, of course, retreats and then redirects its attention to the woman’s kayak on the shore. The woman then proceeds to bargain with, berate, and plead with the bear from the safety of her cabin deck while the bear proceeds to explore her kayak, probably damaging it in the process.
It does not appear, from the video, that the woman is ever in danger. Even at the point when she sprays the bear it appears as though she has voluntarily stepped out of the cabin, perhaps to chastise the bear from bothering her kayak in the first place. I can only assume that if she felt she was in danger, she would stop filming.
In the clip, after pepper spraying the bear, this woman is very upset that the bear’s alternate behavior to approaching her is to go back to investigating her kayak. So what does she do? She calls the bear back over to her. Presumably so she can pepper spray it again.
Yes, you read that right. She tried to call a wild bear. Silly, eh?
Yet it is no more silly than prattling on to your dog as a method of control or communication. As absurd as this entire scenario is, it is extremely familiar to dog trainers.
I see, or rather hear, people in class and at the park running endless commentary at their dog all of the time; and, just as with the bear, to no avail. Animals do not understand human vocabulary, and yet we are so darn wordy. Animals need action in order to understand what we want them to do. If your dog is not listening to you at the park, the solution is not to speak louder, or in a sterner tone, or even to politely add “please” or explain yourself. If your dog is not heeding your wishes, nine times out of 10 its because she has no clue what you are asking her to do. The 10th time it might be because you are boring, not dynamic enough, or chatter too much, and she has learned to tune you out.
If your dog doesn’t “listen” to you, it’s likely you have not trained her to the level you think you have and are asking too much. Relying on the words you are saying rather than the context of your actions or prompts is unlikely to get the results you want. We humans tend to think that dogs do “know” the meaning of our words and can heed them in all sorts of a variety of circumstances. I am here to tell you it just isn’t so. Fluid communication with your dog takes carefully considered training and a basic understanding of how dogs learn. And practice. Lots of practice.
If you’d like to sharpen up your dog’s obedience I strongly recommend taking a class or hiring a professional dog trainer to coach you in a few sessions, because words are not enough.
In the meantime the woman vs. bear video demonstrates another excellent dog training truism. Punishing an animal and then trying to call him back to you afterwards is a terrible training strategy. It teaches the animal that you are not fun, perhaps even dangerous and a threat to be avoided. The woman in the video just taught that bear that approaching her is unpleasant, while alternately, wrecking her kayak is a lot of fun. This scenario is sadly all too familiar at the dog park. Now the woman didn’t really want the bear to approach her again, even though she did plead to save her kayak. Therefore, her punishment was effective and produced some of the desired results.
However, who does not want our dog to come reliably and enthusiastically when we call? Never punish a dog for approaching you, not if you want them to return. The best way to get your off-leash dog to come when called is to build trust and a strong relationship, lest you end up with an unruly bear of a dog!
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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