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.
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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