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.

·   

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?

Small Wins Create Big Change

Would you say your dog is smart, or dumb?

Most of you will likely answer that he is smart, and you will beam with pride when doing so. You may be correct—he may be smart, or at least smart enough. On the other hand, he may be as dumb as a box of rocks, and you might not have any trouble admitting this truth. You love him either way, right? I mean, it’s not like he needs to graduate from college or anything. Does it really matter?

Well, as far as this blog post is concerned, only in the sense of how much patience you have to train him. Training doesn’t have to be difficult or time-consuming, but it can definitely be frustrating sometimes to try and communicate with an entirely different species who has zero problems cleaning the most taboo parts of his anatomy with the same tongue with which he licks your face each morning. It’s our job to communicate with them, not their job to figure us out.

So when we get to the work of training, we are likely to get a bit frustrated and impatient at times, even with a normally smart dog. Sometimes, things will go smoothly, and they will be fun. Other times, it will seem like your dog is Dory from the movie “Finding Nemo”: a flighty fish with zero short-term memory skills. So, what do you focus on? Class is in 2 days! The teacher and the other students will judge you, and assume you haven’t even tried to do your homework (probably all in your head, but it’s a story that works for you right now).

You can't expect a dog to be able to "stay" while you walk
away (and there are distractions) if he can't even do it with
you standing in front of him. Start with small
steps and get big success.

You feel as if you need to hurry, to do more in less time, so that you can catch up to where you need to be. But the opposite may actually be true.

In their most excellent book Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard, authors Chip and Dan Heath suggest breaking tasks down, especially tasks that involve helping people change their minds (though it works with dogs), into doable chunks. They call it “shrinking the change.” Author Charles DuHigg also touts the importance of small wins in his book The Power of Habit. “Small wins fuel transformative changes by leveraging tiny advantages into patterns that convince people that bigger achievements are possible.”

What does this mean for you, in this moment, as you struggle with your hapless hound?

Incorporate small wins into your training. Slow down, and do less. Stop sooner. End with success. Are you training your dog in 30-minute sessions? Why? Dogs can have short attention spans, too. Do several 3-5 minute sessions per day. This way, the dog gets to win at the game a lot!

Take the tiny advantages the dog is giving you and build patterns with them. Shrink the change, as it were. Cut bigger steps into smaller pieces to make it easier for you and the dog to get where you want to go. In training, we call it “successive approximation.” Want an example? 

Does your dog rush past you to get out the door first when you are headed out for a walk? You probably have no idea how to stop this besides holding him back with the leash. Certainly, doing this is better than yelling at him, or allowing him to bowl you over, but it’s not teaching him to wait.

Your dog may not be able to not rush out the door right now, but can he sit for 5 seconds? Yes? Then you can fix this problem. Put him on leash. Tell him to sit, and stand between him and the door. Open the door a crack. Does he rise? Shut the door and make him sit again. Repeat this a few times until he figures out that the door ain’t opening wide enough for him to get through unless his bottom is on the ground. The next time you open the door a crack and he doesn’t break the sit, reward heavily, and go out the door. Start asking him to hold it longer and longer over time, and eventually to look at you when it opens, and eventually to remain inside until you walk out and call him. Voila! You have taken something the dog knows (a 5-second sit) and used it to teach him to wait at thresholds until invited out.

 

Want to teach your dog how to fetch? Great idea!
But if he isn't really interested in balls or toys,
you will need to create value in some items (or at
least one) before he will bring them to you happily.

Marry your long-term goal with short-term critical moves. Building trust now by giving the dog easy wins will help you in the long run. Capturing the bits that work will give you something to build on. Think of it as building the foundation of the house, one board at a time.

Tweak the environment. When a situation changes, behavior changes. So change the situation. If you don’t seem to be making any progress, changing the environment can make all the difference. Switch from indoors to out, from a large room to a small one, from your regular training ground to someplace novel.

You can apply this to other areas of life, too. Any task that seems formidable can be made easier if broken into chunks. Changing the environment can change your perspective.

What if you are not trying to change your dog’s behavior, but people’s behavior? Does your work involve motivating other people to do their jobs better? Well, take Heath’s and Duhigg’s words to heart. Of course the same rules apply. And here’s one more that can help you to know:

People find it more motivating to be partly finished with a longer journey than at the starting gate of a shorter one. If your colleagues, or children, are having problems getting from point A to point B, showing them how far they’ve come already can help them feel better about the ultimate goal.

Training is a process that requires measured steps. Rushing will not yield the results you seek. Shoot for small wins, and enjoy the journey.

The Value of Preparation

When we decide to acquire a dog, we know that we will need to have certain tools and supplies in place before the dog arrives. Those who have owned dogs previously wouldn’t even think of bringing a puppy or dog home without the essentials of crate, gates, a knowledge of where the pup will be confined, and a plan for housebreaking and obedience training. Even newbie dog owners know that bowls, food, bed, collar and leash are going to be needed. We may elect to procure these items at the same time as we get the dog, if not before, but we certainly don’t (or shouldn’t) think we can bring a dog or puppy home and go for days or weeks without the proper equipment.

Preparation saves a lot of headaches later on. It tends to make things like having a picnic, buying a car, going on a vacation, and bringing home a new baby much easier, doesn’t it?
Well, the same is true for dogs, but not just for the first night home.

Preparation regarding training is also quite helpful.

I’m not talking about knowing the best method for training, per se. There are many paths to a well-trained dog, including hiring a professional, or reading books and articles and watching videos in a “DIY” manner. Some people try it on their own first, then hire a pro. Most dog owners do not hire professional trainers, though. They either make it work with DIY, or they just live with the dog’s behavior. Or, they get rid of the dog.

What method you use isn’t really the point here. It can matter, for sure, but you probably already knew that.

What I’m talking about is preparing the dog for his life ahead, or the training itself as a preparation.

Pretrain your dog to lie in her bed while you answer
 the door, instead of mauling your visitors.

If your dog jumps up on people when they enter your house, waiting until people come over and yelling “DOWN!” at the dog (or yanking him down, or something worse) when he jumps is not training.

If your dog chases the cat, waiting for him to start chasing and then yelling at him or throwing things at him is not going to fix that problem.

If he jumps up on counters, pulls on the leash incessantly, barks obnoxiously at passerby, chews your belongings, or tries to bite you when you walk past him while he is eating, your responses during those situations do not constitute meaningful training.

Oh, learning is occurring, but it isn’t the type of learning that is going to help you.

So, you say, “When IS the time for meaningful training to begin for the dog who jumps on guests, chases the cat, jumps up on counters, pulls on the leash incessantly, barks obnoxiously at passerby, chews my belongings, or tries to bite me when you walk past him while he is eating?”

The answer, of course, is “before he started to exhibit those behaviors.”

And you are saying, “But I didn’t know I needed help with those things until he started doing them!”

That’s where you should have prepared a bit better.

See, you don’t try to train a dog not to do something when he is in the middle of doing it. And you don’t try to train him to do something when he is in the middle of doing something else. You train him to do the behaviors you want before you need him to do those behaviors, so that when the time comes and the need arises, he already knows what you require and either 1.Waits for you to remind him what to do, and then remembers and does it, or 2. Does it automatically.

(2. comes after a certain amount of teaching. 1. constitutes a trained dog, but 2. is even better.)

Dogs jump, pull on leash, eat what smells good, chase moving objects, make noise, and chew things naturally. These are default behaviors to most dogs, and one can pretty well assume most dogs will do them if not taught not to. In fact, you should absolutely assume they will.

Pretrain your dog to sit quietly when
you want to stop and chat with a neighbor.

So, you pretrain the dog to sit for greetings, keep four feet on the floor in the kitchen, walk nicely next to you on leash, chew their own toys and bones exclusively, refrain from chasing the cat, and allow you to control their resources without complaining. You train in advance of these things so that the dog can fully concentrate on what needs to be done when the behavior is needed. You pretrain because while he is learning the new behaviors, you need to be able to control the dog’s attention and give him lots of small successes, and this is unlikely to be successful when things are already hectic.

In short, you don’t train when you need the behavior—you train before you need it. That way, it’s already instilled in the dog, and all he needs to do when told to sit, or stop, or get off, or move away, or be quiet is remember what he already knows.

Because if you haven't taught him these things, he doesn't know them.

Think of it like taking a test. You don’t try to take a test without having studied. You learn when the test will happen, and you prepare for it by learning the material. Then, on test day, you walk in, sit down, and wrack your brain to remember what you just stuffed into it. There is no learning happening at that moment—it’s all recall.

Good dog training imparts the lessons before they are needed, so that when they are needed, all the dog need do is remember.


Prepare your dog to exhibit good behaviors in stressful or hectic situations by pretraining him. It’s much more kind and effective, and a lot less frustrating, than reacting in the moment.

It Works When You Work It

Do you ever wonder why your dog trainer tells you to do certain things?

When we tell you to crate train your dog, to practice leash work, to teach your dog how to be physically handled, to socialize your dog properly, to leave him alone sometimes, to forge a good relationship with a vet you can trust, and to obedience train to a “holy-cow-the-leash-just-broke” standard, why do we bother?

Are we motivated by money to tell you these things?

Believe it or not, we actually make more money off untrained dogs. Trainers who do board-and-train programs can charge more for dogs who have never been crate trained or socialized. Trainers who give private lessons can make more money off of dogs who don’t have any type of head start because it will take more lessons to get them to a trained state. Trainers who work with aggressive dogs can definitely charge more for their services because they are taking on higher risk (vets can charge more for aggressive dogs for this reason, too).

In short, untrained dogs will cost you more to own, and your trainer could benefit financially from your unpreparedness. (So can your vet, your insurance company, and your landlord, but that’s another post.)

But putting some simple rules in place when you first acquire your dog can save you money and time and frustration later. So why would a dog trainer tout these things if they might “cheat” us out of cash? If the trainer has no connection to your vet, why would we care if you have a good relationship with one?

Most of us have sources we like to share, such as books or articles or videos about dog training, which we will happily point you towards. Why would trainers recommend books and videos that can teach you how to train your dog yourself? Some of us spend hours (typically without pay) on emails or phone calls with our clients to keep them going, to keep them practicing. But we make more money when you don’t practice, actually.

Maybe it’s not about the money? Well, we need to pay our bills, too. We’ve spent years and our own cash, often earned at mindless jobs to get us through, learning how to be best at our craft, and we deserve remuneration for that. You are paying for expertise and we are no different from other service providers in that regard.

But that’s not the sole reason, or even necessarily a reason that is more important than others.

If it’s not about money, is it about exerting authority, or making you feel dumb? No. We don’t get into dog training because we hate people, or want to feel superior. We don’t study long hours, get our hands on thousands of dogs (sometimes at risk to our body parts and often at risk to our emotions), and attend seminars all across the country because we want to lord something over you. We really don’t have much control over you, anyway. You are free do as you please when it comes to your dog; we just hope you take the advice you are paying us for. (Good trainers know that the dog doesn’t have any money to pay us, but his owners might.) Many of us like people just fine, believe it or not. And the ones who don’t care for people much (but are often excellent at their craft) get good at hiding it. Treat your dog well and commit to the training, and even those trainers will sing your praises.

If it’s not money, or making people feel dumb, then what? You are probably saying, “Well, it’s a love of dogs.”

Sure, 99% of trainers love dogs. It’s pretty much a given. But loving dogs doesn’t a career make. Anyone can love dogs, and millions of people do. It’s not difficult, for goodness’ sake. Dogs are ridiculously easy to love, even when they are misbehaving. People put up with a lot of crap from their dogs in spite of misbehavior because they love them. Loving dogs is as easy as falling off a log.

So, it’s not about money, really, and it’s not because we want to feel superior, or that we “just love dogs.”

Your trainer suggests crate training, physical handling practice, leash training (and other obedience) practice, socialization, passive bonding, and having a good veterinary partnership because we want what is best for dogs.

The fact that crate training, physical handling practice, leash training (and other obedience) practice, socialization, passive bonding, and having a good veterinary partnership saves you time and money and frustration isn’t what drives us. It’s a lovely benefit, and that’s always a positive.

But we suggest these things because dogs need them. We recommend them because dogs thrive with them. We beg, plead, cajole and encourage you to provide these things because they are important to the well-being of the dogs. We want you to meet your dog’s needs, because when you do, everyone wins.

Your dog wins because he is safer, less stressed, more comfortable, and calmer. He knows what is expected. Therefore, he gets more freedom, more walks, more things he enjoys. He lives longer, and in better health. He gets to go places with you, explore, and be a dog. He thrives.

You win because when your dog’s needs are met, and he is safer, less stressed, more comfortable, and calmer, you get to enjoy him more instead of being frustrated. He lives longer, and in better health. He gets to go places with you, explore, and be a dog. He thrives. Is that not what you wanted in the first place?

And when your dog wins and you win, we win. The fewer dogs who live lives of frustration, pain, and suffering because their needs aren’t being met, the happier we are, and the more we feel as if what we do matters. The better dogs are cared for, and the more their needs are met, the fewer end up deprived, or homeless. This is what drives most of us. More than anything, we want what’s best for the dogs, and by extension, their people will benefit.

There are no magic wands in dog training. It's work, but it's gratifying work because it forges a communion that cannot exist without it. You may love your dog, and he may love you, but without clear expectations and practice, you will never have true, honest relationship.

Help us help you, and your dog. He’s so worth 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.