Many pet owners and many who work with dogs
use words such as Dominance, Stubborn and Hate when explaining dog behaviour. Most trainers who consider themselves to be
following what’s termed ‘modern methods’, become intensely frustrated with the
persistence of such terms. Why is there such exasperation?
Well, along with some colleagues, I’ve been
working on a new free e-book. The debate has been interesting and essentially,
the problem appears to be terminology. Traditional beliefs consider dogs to be
dominant when they pull on the lead or lie on the couch. Science proves this untrue. Some arguments
provide examples of such stealing toys to prove that dominance does exist. The
book addresses the conundrum and provides practical training and behaviour
advice.
Here’s a little insight into the book with
regard to Hate.
We use the term Hate to describe our feelings for a plethora of scenarios. We may
hate potholes. We may hate doughnuts. We may hate spiders. We may hate a
person. But what do we actually mean? We feel frustrated that the potholes may
damage our car. We don’t like the taste of doughnuts. We may well suffer from
arachnophobia. We may feel very angry with a person. All quiet different. But,
do we feel helpless to resolve these situations? Is it that frustration that we
are trying to convey? And, do we then consider that we can’t help our dogs when
they Hate something?
Well, the good news is, that for most
scenarios, hate isn’t what’s
happening in our dog’s world. They don’t (so far as we know) ruminate over what
they may do in a given hateful situation. They don’t plan out ideas in their
minds; they don’t think and play out options, which, for us, tends to intensify
our feelings.
And that’s good because it means we can
usually fairly easily help our dogs to feel calmer, more relaxed and behave
more appropriately.
Let’s then consider some situations.
A common complaint is that a dog hates the posty. They may bark and growl
and rip up the post or worse. When this all starts, the dog was probably simply
scared of some potential intruder. Perhaps as he continues to ‘bark the posty
away ‘ he becomes more and more frustrated. Perhaps he ends up feeling
completely enraged. Perhaps this is hate,
but, he probably isn’t planning revenge.
A second commonly used phrase is that a dog
hates cats. For most situations, it
would be valid to think that actually dogs love cats. They love the thrill and
fun of the chase and just may end up in a successful catch. (We hope not of
course!)
And our final example here, is when a dog
attacks a hoover, we tend to say he hates
the hoover. In fact, he is most likely scared of it although this may well escalate
to anger.
So what can be done? Essentially there are
2 simple steps. We need to firstly, break the continuance of the habit and
secondly, teach the dog how to behave differently; supporting them with a
effective learning environment.
Of course, this is an over simplification.
There’s no space to add any detail here and indeed, there may be much more
going on in the dog’s life. But, if the behaviour’s not too bad, we really
don’t need to just live with it; the solution may well be quite simple. For
more intense and complex problems, please do seek out help from a good
behaviourist.
And for more help, hints and tips please visit - www.PawsAbility.co.uk. To
sign up for the free ebook please visit Dogz Thinkz Differentz