Frustration and Punishment: Unintended Consequences

Who among us hasn’t been frustrated by a dog at some point? It’s normal to experience feelings of frustration and anger because of a dog’s behavior.

But how the pet owner responds to the behavior and how he/she processes his/her feelings matters a lot to the dog AND to the relationship.

We, being human, only know how to process experiences through a human filter. We’ve never been dogs, and we cannot ever know how it feels to be them. Naturally, when they misbehave, we jump to the conclusion that they are being spiteful, jealous, dominant, guilty—because humans often are this way. But dogs are not humans, and when we jump to these conclusions, we almost always get it wrong. That demeans the dog, and it hampers our relationship with him.

What if the dog really has no idea what you expect of him in a given situation? You may think he does, but how do you know? What if he just doesn’t?

Punishing a dog for his behavior when he truly doesn’t know what he is supposed to be doing is wrong. It’s frightening and can be damaging because the dog has no idea why it is happening. It’s never fair to punish before you have taught, and even then, you must be careful how you do it.

Here’s one area in which punishment backfires almost every time.

You take Fido out to a park and let him off the leash. When it’s time to leave, you call him, and he ignores you. You keep calling, becoming more and more frustrated, and he doesn’t seem to care one bit. If you attempt to go get him to leash him up, he runs away from you. He thinks you are playing a game, or he is avoiding you because you are angry. You stand there — fuming.

A neighbor you know suddenly walks over and starts talking to you about your kids’ teacher, and you forget about the dog for a few seconds as you turn to speak with her. In that time period, your dog comes over to you, finally, in no hurry at all. You are flustered and angry that he has been ignoring you, and as soon as he’s within reach, you grab his collar angrily, shake him a few times for “taking his sweet time,” and pop him on the butt. He tries to pull away from you, but you snap the leash on, triumphant, and head to the car.

In your mind, you “showed him” by punishing his defiance. Yet, the next time this happens, he is worse, and you can only catch him when another person in the park happens to grab his collar in a timely way after he’s ignored you for 10 minutes.

In your mind, he deserved to be punished for ignoring your call. In his mind, you are a crazy witch who cannot be trusted.

You only see it from your perspective, but look at the dog’s perspective: why go to the human, especially when he/she is angry? Going to the human will get you punished. Can humans really be trusted?

Your punishment was poorly timed*, and because of this, the dog is confused. Do the humans want you to come, or don’t they?

Coming to you should always be something that ends in a reward for the dog, even if he chose to take his sweet time**. Make coming to you rewarding instead of punishing, and the dog will come more quickly, and more reliably.

If you are angry and frustrated in this scenario, you only have yourself to blame.

You allowed your dog freedom he had not earned. You allowed him to ignore your command. You punished him for actually obeying your command. Think about that: you punished your dog for obeying you!

The dog in the above scenario should never have been put in that situation to begin with. He needed more training to know how he should have behaved, and he needed an owner who understands that most everything a dog does wrong before he’s been properly trained is the human’s fault–not the dog’s.

Be proactive, and show the dog what you want before testing him and making him fail. Forgive yourself for being confusing (hey, you are human, after all!) and start fresh. Your relationship will grow by leaps and bounds.

*The only way in which punishment would work in this scenario is if you could have applied it the second he ignored you, which you could not. Therefore, since in a real-world scenario you cannot effectively punish a dog for not coming when called, make sure you never need to.

**A dog who takes his time should still be rewarded, at the very least with a happy human who pets him as the leash is clipped on, because he came. If he took his time, it means you need to be thinking about how you can speed him up which involves more training. If this happens to you, take the lesson you have learned and reduce his freedom options until you can train him better.

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Pressing Matters

I had just settled in my comfy chair for a moment. It was still early-ish on a Sunday morning and the day stretched before me without anything in particular scripted, but much that was necessary looming. I always have chores, and I am currently working my way through about 7 library books with varying due dates (none of which happened to be in reach at that moment), but my plan was to only be there for a beat or two in order to put some sort of loose plan in place for the day.

I watched Yukon Cornelius, my confident-yet-interestingly-sensitive Chihuahua sort of slink into the room and head my way, despite the fact that there are dozens of warm sleeping spots he likes strewn throughout the house. I leaned back so he could come up into my lap, because I could sense that he Wasn’t Quite Right. He shivered more than usual* and gave off a puny vibe that isn’t typical for him on the regular. Usually when he comes to me in this state, we are outside and he’s been bitten by a snake or hurt his leg chasing something. I couldn’t imagine what had caused this, but no matter. He trembled in my lap and looked piteously at me. I touched him all over, performing a Snout-to Tail assessment like I’d been taught so many years ago in my Pet First Aid class. Nothing seemed physically wrong.

Even though I’d been about 30 seconds away from rising and moving on with my day, I pushed myself back in my recliner and gathered the nearest blanket around his 7-lb body. He nestled into that space in my lap where he fits like a puzzle piece, glancing (gratefully?) at me, and his shivering began to lose some intensity. My hand massaged his pencil neck right behind his ears and his eyelids began to get very, very heavy. A large exhale finally flowed out of him, he laid his tiny head down on my other hand, shivering gone. I abandoned my plan to rise. I mean, I’m not a monster! This otherworldly being had sought me out and entrusted his pitiful self to my care, completely ignorant to what I was “supposed” to be getting done right then.

Look, I’m sentimental about my dogs, of course. My career and experience didn’t spring out of thin air. And I often sit in contemplation, with or without my dogs. But that was not my intention when I sat down this morning—not right then. What was intended to be a pause to collect my thoughts and glance at the weather app on my phone to plan housework/yardwork/electronic work duties on my day off morphed into 90 minutes of succor to A Very Good Boy because that is, apparently, what we both needed in that moment.

“My dog is usually pleased with what I do, because she isn’t infected with the concept of what I ‘should’ be doing.” ~Lonzo Idolswine

I know this scenario is familiar to anyone who might chance upon this essay. When your pet settles in your lap, he has zero concept of What You Were Thinking of Doing, much less a reason why it needed doing. And, if you are like me, it is often necessary to gently remove her so you can attend to Something That Definitely Needs Doing, as much as it pains you. (Stable, fulfilled, social pets do not hold grudges when we must make our laps disappear. They adjust and are happy to seek our laps whenever they appear.)

But sometimes, there is nothing that needs doing except what is happening in that very moment, as pets are excellent at teaching us. The moment is all they care about, as the hands of the clock move, unperturbed, inexorably forward, whether or not the chores get done, whether or not the plans unfold as scripted, regardless of the tasks required. We spend so much time *doing* that we often forget that the moments we crave pass us by, never to return. If we seek to grasp them, we fail, surprised at their ephemerality. What does it feel like to stop and listen, ignoring all else? What does it feel like to resist the urge to grasp and simply to *be*? What does it feel like when we abandon What Needs to Get Done for What Needs to Be Left Undone? What are we creating in these unscripted moments of both tactile and numinous connection with these wild creatures who inhabit our lives?

The little dog dozing in my lap knows, and I’ll bet the one in yours does, too. Make sure you are listening, so you don't miss it.

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*my professional doggy colleagues (who own large breed dogs) are already giggling and rolling their eyes..."don't all chihuahuas shiver constantly?" No, actually. Not constantly, but have your laugh.