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.

BONUS: having trouble knowing the right way to teach your dog to come when called? My friend Sarah Wilson wrote an entire e-book about it! You cannot go wrong with her advice. It's worth every penny.

Click the link below to learn more, and purchase. Happy training!

My Smart Puppy Guide: How to Teach your Dog to Come

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.

The Law of (Un)Intended Benefits

Everyone has heard of unintended consequences. You perform an action for a particular purpose, but you gain something that you did not expect, and possibly do not want. For example, recently in the news was a story about a Texas woman who put a large sticker on her car disparaging the President. The wording on the sticker was quite profane. A sheriff noticed it, took a photo, and posted it on Facebook, where it went viral. Due to the notoriety of the viral photo, the owner of the car was soon being sought by the police…but not for the sticker. It turns out that she had a standing warrant for her arrest on different (non-violent) charges, and now that she was in the spotlight, she was soon taken into custody for that warrant.

The sticker in question, profanity redacted.

She wanted to draw attention to herself with the sticker, I’m sure. But I doubt she wanted that particular type of attention. That is an example of unintended consequences.

Pet owners experience the Law of Unintended Consequences quite a bit, mostly because pet training is something the average owner only takes partly seriously, but the pets take quite literally. You give your dog a bite of food from your fork when he barks at you during dinner. You think, “Just this once won’t hurt.” But “just this once” is not a concept dogs understand—at all. And unless you never, ever repeat your error, the dog will bark at you and expect the food at every meal for quite a while before he gives up. The chances are pretty good that you, or someone with whom you live, will give the dog a bite from the table (or will reward him in some other way for barking during a meal) at some point before he stops trying. That 2^nd time will seal the deal for the dog, and now you have an obnoxious behavior that you created and have to fix (humanely, please—it’s not his fault you made a mistake).

The flip side of the Law of Unintended Consequences is that it works in positive ways, too. The unintended consequence can often be beneficial to the recipient in ways they never expected.

Let’s take the “heel” command, for example. “Heel” is a command that tells the dog where to walk in relation to you, on or off leash. It typically requires the dog to be on  the handler’s left side, with his shoulder even with the handler’s knee, and the leash must be loose. It’s a useful command for a number of reasons, one of which is that it eliminates pulling on leash because a dog cannot be heeling and pulling simultaneously.

NOTE: pulling on a tight leash is natural and normal for most dogs. Additionally, humans often make the problem worse by rewarding it! Heeling is not natural or normal to dogs, so it must be taught. Teaching a solid heel is not the only way to control pulling on leash, but it is an incredibly effective way.

But “heel” has a lot of unintended* benefits. In addition to stopping the pulling, it:

• Teaches the dog to allow the handler to be in control during the walk; human in control = safety
• Teaches the dog to withstand frustration (walking in a line at a human’s pace is boring for most dogs)
• Teaches the human better leash handling skills so as not to confuse the dog
• Delivers mental stimulation, which many dogs lack, because it takes a lot of mental energy to perform at first, and requires the dog to think
• Amplifies the bond between dog and handler; and, most importantly,
• Teaches the dog to pay better attention to the handler during an activity where most dogs want to pay attention to everything BUT the handler

A dog at heel is safer around cars

Think about it: during a typical walk, how much of your dog’s attention is focused on you? Zero? That sounds about right. There’s so much to see and do and explore! The dog has very little need to pay attention to his handler, who is basically a dead weight at the other end of the leash.

Wouldn’t it be amazing if your dog paid more attention to you than anything else when you asked him to? It would solve pretty much every problem that leashes create (pulling, barking, lunging, dragging, tripping you, eating trash on the path, going after other dogs, etc.). The dog would get more walks, which would benefit you both. Both of you would enjoy your walks. Believe it or not, all of this is still true even if, after the dog is trained to heel, you don’t even use the heel command for most of the walk!

In short, teaching a solid heel teaches your dog to pay more attention to you. That’s its actual purpose. The unintended benefits are better leash manners, no more pulling/dragging/tripping/etc, and happier walks. But the fact that the dog now pays more attention to you when on walks supplies even more benefits. It deepens your bond. It improves the recall (“come”) command. It prevents accidents. It improves the dog’s (and your) confidence. Controlled walks are also less annoying to people you might pass on the street, and a dog in a nice heel helps onlookers who might be nervous around dogs to relax. (Yes, there are plenty of people who are afraid of dogs, even your sweet one. They deserve to walk down the street, or work in their yards, and not worry that they'll be molested by dogs walking their people.)

Heel may seem like a lot of work to get your dog to walk nicely on leash, and indeed there are other ways of creating a loose leash without it. But most of those ways will not give you the attention that “heel” does. And when you look at all the (un)intended benefits of this command, it makes it infinitely more appealing and worth your time.

Now, at this point, you may be saying, “but I don’t care if my dog pays attention to me on a walk. I want him to enjoy the walk!”

A good "heel" would have prevented this tragedy

Well, of course! Sniffing and exploring and engaging with the environment are all part of the pleasure of walks, and they should be allowed. But they should be allowed on your terms, not the dog’s. When the dog gets to decide where to go and how fast to get there, your arm gets ripped out of the socket and it’s no fun to walk the dog. And if your dog has negative reactions to stimuli such as squirrels, cats, or other dogs on a walk, teaching him to attend to you when he spots a distraction not only solves your problem but lowers his stress faster.

Do you really want to be a human sled? No? Then teach the dog to allow you to control the walk, and his reward will be lots of time to explore and sniff. Arms stay the same length, and everyone wins.

The same is true of the “stay” command.

I read somewhere recently that a training outfit did a survey of dog training clients to ask them what commands they used most often at home. The training outfit was trying to decide what commands were most important to include in their training classes, given the short time frame. They were a bit surprised to learn that “stay,” one of the mainstay commands they’d been teaching forever, didn’t make the top 6. According to those polled, “stay” was not a command many pet owners used at home regularly.

I admit that I was as surprised by this result as they were. I’ve been training people to train their dogs for over 2 decades, and “stay” is part of my top 6. Its usefulness is blindingly apparent to me and many of my seasoned colleagues. Perhaps the dog owners who answered the poll found it difficult to teach. Perhaps they thought it was boring or unnecessarily stressful for the dogs. Maybe they thought it was fine that their dogs were always stuck to them like needy shadows, and constantly underfoot (there are definitely people who inexplicably enjoy this annoying trait in their dogs and would feel hurt if their dogs stopped doing it.) Maybe there was a different command that worked better than “stay.” Or perhaps they simply didn’t understand all the benefits of the “stay” command. I’ll never know, because I was not involved in that poll and I didn’t get to ask any questions about it.

But I remember wondering for a few seconds after reading those results if I was putting too much emphasis on the “stay” command in my own classes and lessons. I teach it in my Basic classes, and we really put it to the test in my Intermediate classes, introducing serious, “real-world distractions” in different environments. Was it a waste of time? Were my students even going to use it?

Luckily, it only took me a few seconds to answer my own questions. Students may wonder why they need to teach "stay," but once you begin to implement the command, its usefulness is obvious.

“Stay” tells the dog to remain in one position until released by his handler. It’s pretty precise. And while there are several ways to teach it, it is designed to be the “parking brake” for a dog.

In their natural state, dogs like to move, to rove, to cover ground, to explore. Sure, they relax, stop moving, and even sleep on their own, but they rarely do so consciously when they would rather be doing something else.

“Stay” requires the dog to stop and hold a position, regardless of time, distractions, or where the handler goes. The point is to park the dog, which is often a necessity. But it has some unintended benefits, as well.

• It teaches frustration tolerance.
• It teaches relaxation.
• It teaches attention to the handler over other stimuli.
• It teaches that the handler is consistent, and will return, which helps with separation distress.
• But most importantly, since it is not a natural thing for a human-centric dog to do (dogs are hardwired to follow us around, and they generally get rewarded for this), it requires a decent amount of mental strain to perform. It can even be a bit stressful, depending on the distractions or the distance.

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It's a simultaneous stay and heel!

Since some stress is required for a being to learn, the stress of being told to “park it” near distractions and when the handler moves away helps teach the dog to cope in a world full of distraction and potential danger. It teaches discipline to a task that dogs do not purposefully perform in their untrained state.

The benefits of “stay” are numerous. I hope that the training outfit who ran the poll figured out that they just needed to explain these benefits better to their students, rather than move away from teaching “stay” at all.

These are just two of many examples of commands or exercises we teach that have multiple benefits to dogs and owners.

We trainers explain lots of things to our clients. Due to time constraints and other factors, we rarely have time to go as deeply into explanation as I did in this post, so I hope it has helped you to understand why you should listen to your trainer, first off, and how to find the value in training exercises you might be inclined to put aside when training class has ended.

If your dog improved because of the exercises, then he needs you to continue doing them. And here’s some other great news: he wasn’t the only one in your relationship who was improved.

*In reality, dog trainers are completely aware of the benefits I've listed here, and, for us, they are intended. But dog owners may be blind to the added benefits. So the term I really should be using is "unanticipated-by-the-end-user benefits." But that doesn't roll off the tongue, does it?

Leave the Dog Alone

Honor your dog's "dogness."

Dogs, like humans, are social creatures. This is one of the reasons they make such great pets and companions. Domestication and breeding have cleaved our species together in ways that benefit us both, for better or worse. Our dogs want to be around us, and we want to be with them. And we are not shy in showing them so with touch, talk, and eye contact—sometimes in overpowering amounts.

Dogs enjoy being part of our family, and being close to us, yes, but they are also individuals who sometimes want time to themselves, despite what we might think. They seek us out for attention, but they also learn, when given the chance, that closeness can exist without affection being given 24/7.

Humans often misinterpret dog behavior in ways that, at best, confuse the dogs we love, and at worst, drive them to send us messages we don’t tend to welcome. Because they are so forgiving and desiring of affiliation with us, our dogs continue to try to communicate with us in the only way they know how.

And often, we can’t see, don’t see, don’t want to see, don’t want to believe. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

I have a simple message that can help you to interact with dogs much more effectively and safely. It costs you nothing, but may save you, or someone else, from being bitten. It will honor the dog's "dogness," too. You won’t like it, necessarily, and you may have a difficult time carrying it out. But it’s something that we humans owe to the dogs in our lives.

Leave the Dog Alone

Why do people seek out dogs as pets? There are lots of reasons, but in my experience I’ve found two reasons that transcend age, gender, class, financial status, and personality: we want a being that will love us unconditionally, and we want to be able to touch and stroke that being pretty much at will.

Luckily for both our species, dogs tend to enjoy touch and other forms of attention from us, but most humans don’t know when to stop—or why they need to! There is definitely such a thing as too much “love” when it comes to dogs.

Passive bonding

When you are hanging out with your dog, touching, stroking, talking silly, kissing him, picking him up, or playing with him, you are bonding actively with him. In and of itself, active bonding is a good thing, and we both benefit. But both dogs and people also need the absence of active bonding, too. Passive bonding is often overlooked in our relationships with our dogs because we don’t realize that they need it. Passive bonding is “the space between the notes,” the closeness without touch, the proximity to each other without any requirements or need. Are you allowing passive bonding in your relationship? Your dog needs it, and so do you.

Leave the dog alone so that he can rest, sleep, settle, and learn that touch should be earned in some way—it’s not freely abundant. Leave the dog alone so that you develop some self-control around your dog. Just because your dog “doesn’t seem to mind” you constantly petting him, or even seems to want it 24/7 does not mean you must comply with his requests. Just because your dog is close enough to touch doesn't mean you have to do it so much.

Show your love to your dog by actually meeting his needs—not just yours. Here’s a blog post on the things your dog really needs, with more on passive bonding.

Leave the Dog Home Alone 

Dogs don’t understand the concept of temporary separation until they’ve been taught, so every time you leave the house, the dog isn’t sure you will be back. There is no way to convince him that you will return except by always returning. So yes, dogs feel stress when we leave them, but we cannot ameliorate this stress by staying with them more or carting them everywhere with us. We must teach them how to deal with the stress of being left alone by actually leaving them a fair amount, and by not allowing our emotions to get the better of us. The best way to inoculate the puppy against separation anxiety is to leave and return, and to mix up departure and arrival times, length of time away, and actions that precede and follow an absence.

The dog needs to be left safely, of course, which may involve the use of a crate or other confinement. Don’t get all emotional about that part of it—dogs don’t generally perceive confinement like we do, and it helps greatly with structure.

Here’s an article I wrote on crating.

You needn’t make a big deal out of your comings and goings, even though you think that’s necessary. Your dog will still love you just as much if you come in calmly, take him out calmly (or send him if he’s trained) to his potty area, and then engage with him calmly. All the high-pitched voices and exclamations are your attempt to meet your own needs, and they can confuse the dog. Keep things simple, and on a schedule as much as possible. The dog will adjust.

Many people tell me that their dog has “separation anxiety,” and usually, they are wrong. They themselves have separation anxiety. Sitting at a restaurant or movie theater and worrying about the healthy dog you left an hour ago is pointless, and likely not reciprocal—he’s probably napping by now.

Most dogs don’t have separation anxiety, but many do fall somewhere on a continuum of separation distress. Mitigate that stress by keeping your emotions in check, making your farewells and arrivals calm and consistent. (And if your dog really does have diagnosed Separation Anxiety, work with a professional, please.)

Make sure your dog is getting the proper amount of exercise, mental stimulation (including training), and having his primary needs met, and then go away. Don’t go away mad, just go away.

After all, how can he learn that you will always return if you never go away?

Leave the family dog alone, kids

Dog bite statistics can be alarming when you first hear them: 4.7 million dog bites occur yearly according to the CDC, with over half of those occurring to children. Actual fatalities are rare (fewer than 100 per year), and many other things kill us with more regularity. But when dogs kill, it hits us right in the gut, doesn't it?

Everyone has heard news stories of children being mauled and even killed by dogs, often by dogs that are well-known to them. Most bites to children come from their own family dogs. Why is this? Often, it’s because the adults assume too much from both the dog and the child. The family dog should not have to endure children bothering him endlessly—even when they are "being kind" to him.

We know it’s wrong to hit, grab, tease and badger dogs--and responsible parents drum this into kids' heads constantly. But even when kids are taught to refrain from these actions, their attentions to the dog may still cross the line. It’s also wrong to allow your child, or any child, to ride your dog, lie on top of him, climb on him, move into his space quickly, grab toys or food from him, wake him from sleep, pet him endlessly, or pick him up when it’s not absolutely necessary. You might think it’s cute, and you might presume that the dog is OK with these behaviors because he hasn’t growled or bitten, or walked away.

But you’d likely be wrong. It’s to dogs’ credit that they tolerate a lot of crap from us, but not all dogs have the same amount of fuse. If pestered, badgered, climbed upon, picked up, laid upon, or grabbed enough, any dog can bite—even your beloved family pet. And when it happens, you don’t get to blame the dog. He was, in all likelihood, sending signal after signal and was thoroughly ignored.

In short, do not allow anyone—child or adult—to treat your dog in a manner you’d not allow towards another human. Know your dog, and protect him.

Leave the public dog alone

Everyone knows dogs who “love the world,” and pert near everything in it. These canines seem to have a permanent grin on their faces, constantly wagging tails, and the perfect acceptance of any touch we seem inclined to bestow upon them. If you don’t own one of these dogs, you have friends or acquaintances who do, and you see people at the park, on the street, in every city who do. I like to call these guys Ambassadors, because they embody so many of the qualities we seek in our pets: friendliness, joy, laid-back acceptance regardless of our faults and flaws, a desire to avoid unnecessary conflict, and a joie de vivre that we covet but cannot ever seem to clear our thoughts enough to reach.

Luckily for us, most of the millions of dogs living in homes, riding in cars, and going for walks in the community are Ambassadors in full or in part. We trust them, and they trust us. We relax with them because we value what they embody, especially the desire to avoid conflict. People call them angels, heroes, furkids. They claim, "I didn't rescue my dog--he rescued me."

Just as people differ in our personalities, dogs come sometimes with personalities that aren’t as easy to accept. Not all dogs are ambassadors, and that’s actually perfectly fine. Dogs were bred to perform tasks, and sometimes the ambassador qualities don’t fit with those tasks (guarding, for instance). Some dogs do not want to interact with people they do not know, and this is their right. Whether it's because of genetics, personal temperament, a lack of socialization as a pup, or some other factor, the dog is simply how he is, and while training and proper socialization can help pretty much every dog on the planet fit more within our parameters as constituting a good pet, training cannot erase genetics. With dogs, it’s nature AND nurture, always.

The thing is, many humans assume that every dog they encounter is naturally an Ambassador, and this can be a big problem. Assumptions about dogs and their behavior gets us into trouble sometimes. You are not entitled to interact with every dog you meet in public, regardless of your desires. In public spaces, in friends’ homes, in situations where a dog or dogs happen to be, leave the dog alone by default.

Yes, of course there are situations where it is OK to pet or interact with dogs that do not belong to you. Always ask permission from both the owner, and the dog—and listen to the answers they both provide before touching. No matter what the owner says, if the dog says "no," do not touch.

How do dogs say "no"? Some people assume that if the dog isn't snarling or trying to bite them, he likes it. But dogs are appeasers, and may try lots of things before they get to this point. These include hiding behind the owner, blatantly avoiding you; ducking the head, pulling away from you, averting their eyes and licking their lips, tucking tail, or taking a submissive, low posture. If you stop, crouch down, and wait for the dog to enter your space, and he does not come into it, leave him alone.

NOTE to the owners/caretakers of Dogs Who Prefer to Be Ignored By Strangers: You have a responsibility to your dog to keep him safe. This includes not just actual, physical safety, but also his perception of safety. This means that even though *you* don't perceive the "nice" man who is trying to pet him as a threat, the dog might--and it's HIS perception of the situation, not yours, not the stranger's--that matters. I know you don't want to appear unkind to people, but your dog depends on you. If you allow, or worse, encourage touch from people when your dog is sending clear signals that he is not comfortable, you are throwing your dog under the proverbial bus. How can he trust you? And at what point does he proceed from hiding behind you to biting? This can be prevented. Listen to your dog.

Building your dog's confidence is essential, and part of your job. Allowing or encouraging unwanted touch does not build confidence--it erodes it. Contact a trainer who works with dogs like this and uses an inclusive approach (lots of tools in the toolbox, several ways to tackle the problem) to help you.

And stop worrying more about what strangers will think of you or your dog, and focus on helping your dog. No one is entitled to touch your dog. It's OK, and often better, to Just Say No, smile, and walk away.

Here's a blog post I wrote about interacting with other people's dogs.

Children Are the Most at Risk When Things Go South

Read the above section again and apply it to your kids. Most dog and child interactions are perfectly safe as long as a watchful adult is present. Teach your kids to Leave the Dog Alone when:

• The dog is unfamiliar to them
• The dog is loose or itself unsupervised
• The dog is sending signals that it wants to be left alone
• By default

If you teach children that their default behavior when they encounter a dog that meets the above criteria is to Leave the Dog Alone, they will be safer.

Yes, there are situations where children are allowed, maybe even encouraged, to interact with dogs that do not live with them. But these interactions should never be assumed, and must always be permitted by an adult who knows the dog. Never assume, even if the dog is displaying “friendliness,” because most people who are not canine professionals misinterpret signals of stress or excitement for friendliness.

Look, we love dogs, and they love us. Dogs are pretty adept at showing affection for us, and we think we are adept at showing them we love them--but often, we are wrong. We give them too much affection and not enough structure, in general. We want to meet their needs, but we often only meet our own needs and confuse ours with theirs. We can do better, and we must.

"Do you love your dog? Or do you love loving your dog? If it's the former, you will make sure to provide your dog with what he truly needs. If it is the latter, you will do what you want and then complain about him." ~Sarah Wilson

Leaving the Dog Alone, like obedience/manners training, helps dogs deal with our often confusing world. It isn't mean, or cruel, except sometimes to our own sensibilities. It's safer for us, and ultimately for them. It honors them. Make it your default behavior until you are invited to interact, either by the owners of the dog, or the dog himself.

Enjoy the dogs in your world, definitely, but do it consciously and while meeting their needs, not just yours. They will pay you back a hundred-fold.

Fences make good neighbors…and can frustrate some dogs

Part of dog ownership is making sure your pooch gets the right amount of exercise for his age, breed, size, and temperament. Walks are necessary, and a great activity for dogs, but walks alone won’t meet most large, boisterous dogs’ needs for exercise. Since the days of opening the door and letting Rover run the neighborhood all day are over (thankfully), having a securely fenced yard can be extremely helpful for dog owners, especially when you have large (or multiple) dogs.

A fenced yard allows for dogs to move about more freely, play exuberantly, chase each other or play fetch with you, explore freely with their senses, and generally expend larger amounts of stored energy. Unlike dog parks, which harbor lots of unknown variables, your own fenced yard tends to be a safe place to run your pooch. If your dog isn’t wild about other dogs, but has lots of energy, having your own secure yard will really help you meet his needs. (I don’t care for dog parks, and here’s why.)

A secure fence also keeps other dogs, kids, and some other animals out. It can add privacy, as well as a layer of home security, too.

But many dog owners don’t understand that fenced yards have some drawbacks, and even hazards. Let’s look at a few aspects of private yards that you may not have considered.

Dogs are moving animals, for the most part. In the wild, when they are not denned up, canids move across large tracts of land regularly, hunting, scavenging, exploring. Leashes, and by extension, fences, keep dogs from moving in as large an area as they would often prefer. Since leashes and fences keep dogs and people safe, and make dog ownership available to more people, they are a necessity—so domestic dogs must learn to live less nomadic lives. And they easily can. Once they bond to us, they don’t want to be far from us, so they accept confinement as a trade-off.

Fences create barrier frustration

But barriers like fences and leashes can cause frustration in dogs who have not yet acclimated to them. Barrier frustration is common in domestic dogs, and it can cause mild to serious problems. We’ve all seen dogs who are being walked on leashes who lunge, growl, bark, snarl, and look like Cujo when they pass other dogs on a walk. This leash aggression (or leash reactivity) is (at least partly) the result of pent-up frustration at being restrained. A dog on the other side of a fence, especially if it is also agitated, can create the same response.

If your dog and your neighbor’s dog “run the fence” a lot, barking and getting agitated with each other, you should not sit on your patio and think, “That’s good—they are both getting exercise.” It isn’t good. Pressure is building, and that, coupled with the dog’s natural territorial tendencies, could be a recipe for disaster.

Just this week, I learned of two separate incidents from two separate dog training colleagues that happened through fences, involved serious injury, and both chilled me. In both cases, neither of the perpetrator dogs had ever had problems with other dogs besides the dogs they shared a fence with. Both were fine with people and dogs in open settings. The problem was localized to the barrier frustration, and the arousal and stress that comes with it. If you want to read about the incidents, you may do so at the end of this post*.

Just yesterday, a client whose dog I worked with years ago told me that her 2 dogs got into a pretty nasty fight while out in the yard. These are dogs who have always gotten along just fine. But they both got to chasing and barking at the neighbor’s dog on the other side of the fence, and then the larger dog turned on the smaller. This is called redirected aggression and it can be serious.

Fenced yards aren’t babysitters

I tell my students all the time: don’t leave your dogs unattended, even in your own fenced yards. My dogs are never out in the yard when we are not home, and when we are home, they are not out for more than a few minutes without my wife or me being with them. The fence is currently secure, and none of them can get out, or want to, so why am I so cautious?

My dogs are small, so I worry about snakes, coyotes (who will jump a fence and grab small dogs and cats), and birds of prey, mostly. I also worry about my neighbor’s cats, who love to jump over the 6-foot wooden fence and come into my yard. I don’t mind cats, but my dogs do. If they were to catch a cat, or a squirrel, or a possum, they will not leave it alone if I am not there to make them. So we watch them carefully, especially after dark. Our dogs tend to be noisy when excited, as well, and no one wants to hear a dog yapping for more than a minute or so.

If I’m there, I can call them away and keep them quieter and calmer.

Dogs left alone in yards can also be subject to kids sticking fingers through the fence to agitate them. They can ingest sticks or other items that are harmful. They can bark for hours on end. They can destroy a wooden deck, a lovely garden, a gutter system, or other property out of boredom. They may go after a meter reader or landscaper, or escape the yard when he or she enters. They can ingest items that shouldn’t be ingested—including poisoned meat that your nasty neighbor throws over the fence (yes, this happens). Dogs often need more supervision that you’d expect—especially when they are younger or are new to you. Just because the neighbors aren’t complaining doesn’t mean you are in the clear, either.

When asked where dogs should be left when no one is home, my answer is “in a crate, until they can be safely weaned out to be left alone in the house without being destructive—at a year of age or later.” There are some exceptions to this rule, but not many.

Yards don’t exercise dogs

Your dog needs exercise, but he doesn’t necessarily know how to use his time wisely. Often, he needs his human to help him exercise properly. Playing fetch, playing tug, playing with other dogs (when appropriate), and playing in ways that work the dogs muscles and heart are all positive ways to fulfill his exercise needs. He needs you to help him work off that energy in positive ways, instead of neurotic ones. Use the yard together for best results.

Also, your yard may be a great outdoor place for your dog, but it doesn’t offer much in the way of novelty, which is necessary for mental stimulation. Walks can be great for this, especially walks where you work on some training as well as allow him to explore a bit.

Yards don’t train dogs

I can’t tell you how often a dog owner tells me that they don’t need to worry about housebreaking because Rover spends most of his time in their yard. Not only does being in the yard most of the time not teach the dog how to be clean indoors, it also doesn’t teach him how to be calm indoors, or around kids, or how to behave in ways that make him a treasured family member and not a nuisance. 

Your yard doesn’t give your dog any guidance. It doesn’t make him a better companion. It doesn’t teach him right from wrong. And unless you and your family spend most of your waking hours in that yard too, it works against you because your dog will do best when he is fully integrated into the household and near his humans most of the time. If he’s never allowed to be involved in your activities, how will he learn? If you don’t want to spend all your time with the dog yelling at him to stop jumping on the kids or chewing things, train him. And training requires proximity. Don’t like dogs in the house? That's a perfectly fine desire if you don't own a pet dog. 

Yards can make dog owners complacent

It’s easy to become complacent when you have a nice fenced yard. If you don’t have to take Rover for a walk every day out of necessity, how often will you actually do it? Too many people with fenced yards don’t walk their dogs enough, and may not be meeting the dog’s needs. It’s easy to think that Rover is getting enough of what he needs, when he may not be. He also may be getting into trouble that you may not notice right away. Walks give your dog much-needed mental stimulation. Don’t neglect them.

Is your dog hell on the leash? Training can fix that. It’s worth the time and effort, believe me. You and your dog will be much happier when he can walk nicely on a leash.

Doggy doors can make complacency even worse. Having access to a doggy door will not housebreak most dogs—they need to be taken out and shown where to go. After housebreaking, they may still have accidents even if they have access to the yard, especially in a large house. And for dogs who run the fence, antagonize the neighbors’ dogs, or bark for the sheer fun of it, having access to do this incredibly stimulating-but-harmful-for-everyone activity any time they want is a recipe for disaster.

Why are you such a buzzkill? Isn’t having a yard better than chaining my dog?

Absolutely! I’m just trying to offer advice that you may not have considered. There are a lot of upsides to a securely-fenced yard—more positives than negatives, if you ask me. Use your fenced yard well, and enjoy it as a tool to help you have a happy, balanced dog. Just be aware of the dangers, that’s all.

Thanks for reading.

*(WARNING: graphic descriptions ahead.) One of my colleagues received an email from a client who reported that her neighbor’s smaller dog managed to stick its nose through the fence separating their yards, and her dog, a large mix, tore the other dog’s nose clean off (the victim had to be euthanized). Apparently, the dogs had spent years at odds with each other through the fence, and the frustration built to a fever pitch.

The other colleague reported that a client of his had to euthanize his own dog because it pushed its head through a broken fence slat, and it got stuck. It began to scream in panic, and the dog on the other side ended up ripping its ears off. (This sounds crazy, but dogs in a panicked state often invite aggression from other dogs. Why? Perhaps it’s because high-pitched screaming sounds like prey. Maybe because despite what we want to believe, animals don’t have morals and whether they can feel compassion for other creatures who are suffering is still in doubt. What is not in question is that a panicked animal can easily become a victim.) The victim here was elderly and had lost too much blood to be saved.

ONE LAST NOTE: anecdotes are not data, firstly. Agreed! And there’s a difference between possibility and probability. But downplaying the latter can easily slide into blocking out the former, so just be aware.

One-Trial Learning

Remember, if you can, learning how to ride a bike, or use roller skates, ride a skateboard, throw or hit a ball, or dance a routine as a young child.

If you grew up in the age before video, you were shown what to do by someone who had already mastered the skill. Patiently or not, that person gave you the steps to follow, and then allowed you to try. Maybe they moved your arms and legs, or maybe they just talked you through it.

You failed at first, didn’t you? You fell. The ball wobbled and landed nowhere near where you were trying to throw it. You struck out—a lot. You got the dance steps wrong, and out of sequence.

Your teacher showed you again. And you failed again. This process repeated itself, for hours, days, or weeks, leaving you frustrated and feeling as if you’d never “get it.”

Then one day as you were practicing, after a number of repetitions over the days or weeks, the activity fell into place as if you’d always known how. Once you knew it, you could never again not know it. A feeling of euphoria washed over you. Your teacher celebrated with you. Maybe you even skipped off to teach someone else.

The next time you went to learn a new skill, you knew it might take some time. You instinctively knew that you would need to practice to get better, and this knowledge boosted your self-confidence. Because what you wanted, now, more than anything, was that euphoria of getting it right. 

Now think about, at around that same age, how you learned not to touch a hot stove.

Was there any practice involved in learning this important lesson? Not only did no one demonstrate how to avoid the stove, you were actively warned against practice for this task.

How quickly did the learning occur? If you are like most people, you only needed one repetition—just one—for this lesson to sink in.

That is what is known as “one-trial learning.” It’s behavior change that takes place extremely quickly, typically because the consequences are painful, scary, harmful, dire—or all of these.

What does this have to do with dogs?

Dogs, like most social beings, learn in many of the same ways we do: by practice, and repetition, and by consequence (reward or punishment). Every behavior has a consequence, and how the animal perceives that consequence determines whether the animal will repeat (practice) the behavior. If the consequence pleases the dog, he will practice more, and gradually improve to mastery. If the consequence is displeasing, he might attempt the behavior a few more times, then give up. If the consequence is scary, painful, or dire, he will cease the behavior—usually after one trial.

So what does that mean for us, as dog owners and teachers?

Why, when teaching their dogs new behaviors, do so many owners assume that the dog should know what to do after only one, three, or five successful repetitions? They weren’t riding a bike as well as Lance Armstrong after one attempt, but they feel like Fluffy should “get it” immediately. Or, even worse, they assume Fluffy “knows” it and is just disobeying to spite them! (This is definitely incorrect. Owners often assume knowledge on the dog's part where it does not exist. Do not fall into this trap.)

Maybe this expectation stems from our “want it now, get it now” culture.  We are an impatient species these days, and we suffer for it.

Wherever it comes from, it’s not helpful.

It took the owners of these recent Intermediate Class graduates months to get them to a place where they could "stay" this close to other dogs and be calm. It doesn't happen by accident--it takes practice.

No good training uses dire (scary, harmful, painful) consequences to teach new behaviors like sitting, coming when called, or lying down. When we want a behavior to continue, we use pleasant consequences after it occurs (or we help it to occur). Since we are not using dire consequences, we will need multiple repetitions to get the dog to a place of mastery. These multiple repetitions should happen over a period of days, weeks, even months. There is no humane way to get “one-trial learning” of a positive behavior like “come.” It takes the time it takes, with multiple reps in “easy” locations, then in different locations under different conditions, so that the dog understands.

Also: your dog enjoys those euphoria moments, too! When he gets it right and you rejoice in his success, your bond grows.

This is textbook learning theory, and there aren’t any shortcuts that work. Dog training takes patience, just like learning to throw a ball. Practice daily, reward small successes, and give it time to work, just like your parents, teachers, coaches and friends did with you.

The relationship that blossoms with your dog may surprise you.

A Tired Dog is a Good Dog

A while back, I was on a dog-related forum and a member was talking about how she is taking her dog to a training class for the first time.  

She remarked, "It's amazing how the mental workout exhausts her."

This is something many dog owners don't realize. Mental stimulation provides a more lasting calm than physical exercise, especially for physical dogs.

Does that seem odd?

Physical exercise is, of course, necessary on a daily basis for all dogs. But there is a huge difference between allowing the dog to run pell-mell for an hour at the dog park and stimulating it mentally for as little as 20 minutes. The former often serves to ramp the dog up, while the latter helps him calm down.

Exercise is important, but it should be the right kind of exercise, and include a mental component. This can be obedience work, nosework, exploring new places on a walk (with structure--especially the "heel" command), or games like "find it" inside the house.

More exercise just creates a more physically fit dog, and one that requires even more exercise to tire. Ever started an exercise regimen? If you are out of shape, it doesn't take much to tire you. But keep at it, day after day, and soon you can walk or run or work out longer and farther without tiring. You hit a fat-burning plateau, and now you have to really bust your butt to keep losing weight or build muscle.

Over-exercise a dog, and you get a very fit dog who now requires 2 hours of running to tire instead of one. (This is especially true of the muscular breeds like pits, boxers, and other “bully”-type dogs.) I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had owners tell me “I run my dog 5 miles a day, and he is never tired!” No wonder—he’s the canine equivalent of an endurance runner.

The nice thing about mental stimulation, on the other hand, is that is has no fitness plateau. 

Think about the last time you spent an hour or more studying for an exam, or muddling over a thorny mental conundrum. I’ll bet it made your brain tired. Did you sleep well after that, especially if you figured out the problem? 

(Sometimes, going to bed before you figure out the answer, and sleeping on it, will help you solve the problem—see the link at the bottom of this post.)

Having your dog complete obedience tasks every single day, and changing those up a bit, is one way to provide mental stimulation that benefits your dog in ways beyond your relationship. Do you walk your dog every day? You should—even if he has a yard to play in. Walks are mental stimulation, even if you take the same route every day.

Philosopher Heraclitus said, “No man steps in the same river twice.” The smells and sights and sounds of a walk are always different for your dog, and that’s what counts (though mixing the route up and exploring new walking places is even more fun, so try it!). Throw in some sits, stays, downs, heeling, and recalls on a walk, and you are giving your dog some nice challenges.

Do you enjoy teaching your dog tricks? It's fun for both of you, and yes, it is mentally challenging. Capitalize on the things your dog already likes to do, name them, and reward them. Voila!

For instance, if your dog likes to roll over on his back and throw his legs in the air, he is already doing "play dead." Name it and reward it! Use a treat to get him to roll all the way over, and, you guessed it: you have "roll over." Does he like to stand on his hind legs and dance? Hold a treat just slightly over his mouth and tell him "dance." Now you have a new trick! One of my dogs likes to bury her face in your armpit. Call that "are you embarrassed?" and reward it when she does it. Now you have a cute parlor trick.

These things are also fun on rainy days, or when you can't get the dog out and about for regular exercise.

One final note. After a round of mentally-challenging tasks, put your dog away (in a crate, for instance) for an hour or two, with no stimulation. This allows him to "think" about what he has learned. I call it "gestating." It's good for dogs and people. 

Make the most of your day, and your dog.