Episode 2: We Don't Talk about Fido

Do you ever feel like you and your dog aren’t on the same wavelength? You can’t understand why they KNOW what to do and choose not to. You’re trying to help them and they don’t seem responsive.  What are you missing? In Episode 2: We Don’t Talk About Fido, you’ll learn how to better understand your dog’s behavior so you can be effective advocate for your dog.

Resources mentioned in podcast:

Dog Body Language course from Renée Erdman with Bravo Dog Training; dogknowledge.thinkific.com

Doggie Language: A Dog Lover's Guide to Understanding Your Best Friend by Lili Chin

Canine Behavior: A Photo Illustrated Handbook by Barbara Handelman

If you’ve got your hands full with a little more dog than you imagined and a little less time than you thought, the Hands Full Dog Training podcast has  got you covered.  Every week, we’ll give you three actionable ways to help you and your dog live in harmony - and all in 10 minutes. 

Want to learn more about how to live in harmony with your dog? Check out Hands Full Dog Training Online at learn.handsfulldogtraining.com 

In Family Dog Manners School online, you can receive one on one coaching from our kind and credentialed trainers while working through a professionally developed curriculum designed to solve the most common canine manners dilemmas.

Transcript

Hands Full Dog Training

Episode 2: We Don’t Talk About Fido

Intro

Hi everyone! I’m Kathrine, a professional dog trainer, mom of 4, and CDBC with the IAABC. If you’ve got your hands full with a little more dog than you imagined and a little less time than you thought, I’ve got you covered.  Every week, I’ll give you three actionable ways to help you and your dog live in harmony, condensed into short 10-minute bites you can chew on your way to the grocery store, out jogging, or working through that lurking pile of laundry.

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Episode Intro

In Episode 2: We Don’t Talk About Fido, you’ll learn how to better understand your dog’s behavior so you can be effective advocate for your dog.

Do you ever feel like you and your dog aren’t on the same wavelength? You can’t understand why they KNOW what to do and choose not to. You’re trying to help them and they don’t seem responsive.  What are you missing

In my experience as a professional trainer, most problems stem from a lack of communication and understanding, not a lack of care and concern. In fact, the care and concern is why clients call me in the first place! I know that you love your dog and want what’s best for them. So today I’ll share two key insights into where things may have gone off the rails, and as promised, three action items to get you on track.

The first insight is about our dogs’ communication. As a companion dog advocate, knowing what your dog is trying to communicate to you is critical for your ability to stand up for their needs. I am deeply moved by the depth of compassion my clients hold for their dogs as they accurately identify their dog’s fear or anxiety as the root of what we call a behavior “problem.” Many signs of fear are similar across species – human and dog – and so they are easy to recognize. When your dog is hiding under the bed, avoiding strangers, shaking, whining, and tense, it’s obvious that something is wrong!

What can get more difficult to recognize are the less obvious signs. As I moved from an amateur to a professional in my own journey, I was horrified at things I had been missing. I had old pictures of my heart dog with my children that I cherished, and looking back, I saw signs that my dog was stressed instead of serene. She wasn’t avoidant or tense, but she was lifting a paw gently, turning her head away, licking her lips. How did I miss this? The reason why is simple – just like doing taxes, we don’t teach dog body language in school! This is where the We Don’t Talk About Fido title comes from, by the way. Unless you proactively go in search of this knowledge – like you are right now! – you may miss out. 

There’s another reason that is slightly more insidious. In many ways, dogs have been publicly maligned and actively misinterpreted by the dog training industry itself. This is a serious problem, and as a companion dog advocate, you may have fallen victim to misinformation about what dog communication means.

For example, have you ever heard that a dog who is ignoring you is disobedient? When I was growing up, if you were training your dog and it looked away or sniffed, you were supposed to “correct” it, a euphemism for jerking on its neck with a constricting collar. Guess what I learned two decades later as a professional? Sniffing and avoiding eye contact are signs of stress. My dog was uncomfortable, and I tried to solve it by making her MORE uncomfortable. Guess how well that worked?

An even more serious example involves aggression. Have you heard that a dog who growls must be “dominant?” This is another label that turns communication – a dog saying “I can’t handle this, I am very stressed, and I need you to get away!” into a character flaw. And unfortunately, this industry is full of trainers who make a living selling this misunderstanding for profit. We need so many more companion dog advocates who are willing to voice their concern about this problem.

There are many ways that misunderstanding our dogs’ communication can harm our goal of being a successful advocate. But don’t worry, I’ll share some ways you can avoid this in a moment.

The second insight is a mirror of the first. Next, let’s talk about how well your dog understands YOU! 

My heart warms and then hurts when I see so many good intentions by dog owners turn into frustrations. Someone tries to have a visitor give their fearful dog treats – and the dog bites the visitor instead. Someone calls their dog, then leans over them and pets them vigorously as a reward. The dog won’t come within 6 feet of them the next time. Why isn’t what I am doing WORKING when I’m trying to do it right

The problem is that dogs don’t know our intentions. They only know what’s happening to them and how they feel in that instant. In the first scenario, you’re thinking “my dog will learn that visitors bring food!” but what your dog is seeing is the object of their fear getting closer… and closer… staring at them… now it’s making NOISES… and its arm is COMING FOR ME!! Do you see how that experience may create more fear than pleasure? In the second scenario, imagine going over to a family picnic and an uncle grabs your head and gives you a noogie, grinding his knuckles into your head. He means it affectionately… but you avoid him the rest of the day.

That’s why it’s important that as a companion dog advocate, you translate your intentions into species-appropriate actions. Understand that in the world of dogs, the first and most important decision they have to make is whether something is safe or dangerous. All of these things indicate a potential threat to their life, and dog are biologically prepared to avoid them:

·       Being restrained, and especially having feet restrained – this is why nail trims are hard for many dogs

·       Being approached by an unfamiliar animal, especially if it gets into their flight zone, which is the distance they need to be able to react and escape in time if things go south

·       A hard stare – direct, unflinching eye contact

·       A large animal looming or leaning over them

·       Loud, sharp noises – which is why yelling can be counter-productive; it turns you into a potential threat instead of providing instruction, like we hope

·       Being chased, especially if they are holding something valuable

·       Having their neck grabbed

·       Physical confrontation

·       Actions that cause pain – even if it’s for a good cause, like receiving an immunization

·       Any of the above when they are in a physical location that makes it hard to escape – this includes places that SEEM cozy or safe, like couches!

Now think through your past experiences with your dog. Many people have done some of the above and most often, it wasn’t intended to be harmful. But dogs don’t know that we just want our socks back – all they know is that some things humans do are scary. A lot of miscommunications between humans and dogs are because we expect them to know what we MEAN in our human brains, when they’re using their dog brains to focus on what we DO

Now you know that a lot of misunderstandings stem from not being born into this world an expert on inter-species communication, and from viewing our dogs from a human perspective and assigning them character traits and internal agendas instead of accepting that they are translating external stimuli through their little doggy brains and trying to figure out what’s safe and dangerous in the world. And of course… what’s edible. Like the pizza you left on the counter. Yes, they eat that because dogs have been professionally scavenging from humans for 30,000 years, so it’s basically part of their DNA at this point… not because they are naughty. 

Anyway, the good news is that there are SO many resources available to better understand our dogs’ communication and how we can act and react in ways that make them feel safe instead of ways that create conflict. It’s actually hard to narrow it down! But I will, because doing three things is a LOT more likely to happen than doing 87.

Your three action items are as follows:

Number 1. I highly recommend you take the FREE Dog Body Language course from my colleague Renee Erdman of Bravo Dog Training. This course is concise but thorough, with pictures, videos, and a professional explanation of everything that you’re watching. You can access the course at dogknowledge.thinkific.com, or check out the show notes for a link.

Number 2. how about having a written guide to refer to? Get a Kindle or print copy of Doggie Language: A Dog Lover's Guide to Understanding Your Best Friend by dog trainer, author and illustrator Lili Chin. This book is accessible to amateurs, dog loving kids, first time dog owners and any other companion dog advocate who’d like to get to know their pet better. And you can get it for 10 bucks. What’s stopping you? 

Sidebar: If you’re deeply invested in understanding your dog’s behavior and want more than just an overview, the book “Canine Behavior: A Photo Illustrated Handbook” by Barbara Handelman has over 300 pages of pictures and quality information to dive into.

Number 3. Last, an action item to do with your dog. Today, start observing your dog. Look at their ears, eyes, face, and body posture as they go about their day, and index these against what the dog was experiencing at the time. Watch how they react to you and your family members. Watch how they react to external events. And instead of viewing their behavior through the lens of whether you like it or not, try to analyze it in terms of “is this dog feeling safe or threatened?” “does he want more of what’s happening or less of what’s happening?” Now it will be easy to see which types of behavior solutions make sense and which do not. Starting to understand your dog better will help you choose the right intervention and advocate for their needs so that yours can be met too. Behavior change isn’t a power struggle, it’s a partnership.

Denouement

Are you ready to Talk About Fido? I encourage you to share this podcast with your friends who have dogs. TALK to your family members about what your dog is experiencing and feeling. Emphasize that disobedience and miscommunication are two VERY different things. Be a companion dog advocate right in your own home.

Next week, we’re going to dig further into tactical advice you can use to improve your dog’s behavior. We’ll talk about three actions you can take to build a reliable, enthusiastic come when called, one of the big ticket items on most dog owners’ lists, and how to avoid miscommunicating with your dog and hijacking yourself. I hope you join me!