By Lisa Ellman
In my last column I discussed things that dog owners say and do that may be, and most likely are, confusing their dog. People tend to transfer and project human thought processes onto their dog without realizing just how differently the canine brain works. Addressing canine behavior as they would human behavior, thus producing much confusion for the dog and the result often being ineffective training and inefficient responses to the behavior you’re attempting to teach and or change. I would like to clarify several points that I failed to make clear and didn’t directly correspond to the topic. Context is something that humans understand when people are using the same word for different behaviors. Dogs, not so much. That’s not how their brains are wired. It’s essential to understand the differences to understand why your dog behaves, or misbehaves, in certain situations.
Play – Styles differ from dog to dog. Some dogs are exuberant and rough; others are more docile followers. I’ve often heard owners tell their dog to “be nice.” Unfortunately, your dog has no idea what this means, because that’s human brain. Those words might as well be “go shopping.” The reason is, they have no context to apply those words to. Have you trained them to “be nice” to other dogs when playing? The word “nice” is meaningless to the dog in that situation; it’s not a behavior they can translate. Playing with your dog when the dog is biting your hand and you say, “no bite!” is another example of human brain. The dog doesn’t understand the context. You can see it if I use some punctuation, “No, bite!” If the pup bites your hand instead of the toy, end the game for 30 seconds, then go back and try again. You want the puppy to learn that only the toy goes in its mouth. You can also teach the dog “leave it.”
Vocabulary, rules and boundaries – Everyone in the home should be using the same vocabulary for training purposes. If one person says down for lying, and another person uses it for jumping, that’s confusing. Human brains understand the different contexts of the word, dogs don’t. Decide what word is going to be used for specific behaviors. The word “No” is NOT a behavior. It’s more productive, and easier, to teach the dog the behavior you want, rather than what you don’t want. Rules are something that should also be consistent. Make them and enforce them. It doesn’t matter what kind of rules you want to make, if they are fair, and enforced by all. If you decide it’s ok for the dog to jump on people, great! If you decide the dog is not allowed to jump on people, then it is enforced by everyone. No one gets jumped on, not even when playing. This is because dogs don’t have a gray area, their world is black or white; it’s either allowed or it isn’t.
Reinforcing fear and/or anxiety – This is a common thing. Again, because people assume that dogs think like humans, they use positive reinforcement to help the dog relax. If, for example, your dog is showing fear toward something; a dog, a person, a pillow, most people will try to calm the dog by saying, “it’s ok, good girl”, and stroking her gently. In the dog’s brain what’s happening is that the calming soothing words are reinforcing whatever headspace the dog is in at that exact moment. You are telling her it’s ok to be fearful, she’s hearing praise for what she is doing in that moment. Small dogs especially, when they’re afraid, often get picked up and soothed, thus reinforcing the fear/anxiety state of mind.
I hope this information clarifies what I was trying to convey. There are many good books on dog psychology, and how dog’s think, that I encourage owners to read. I especially recommend “The Dog’s Mind” by Bruce Fogle, DVM. Once you understand how dogs think and learn, training becomes uncomplicated and even fun!
Good Dogma has been training humans and their dogs since 1996 and is currently taking new clients. Contact information for all offered services can be found on our website www.GoodDogma.net. Readers are invited to submit questions to gooddogma@hotmail.com.
