21/02/2024
A thought provoking piece by Lesley Harris
Old school or no force
There is so much angst between ‘old school’ and ‘no force’ trainers. If only there could be a happy medium – but hang on, actually why not?
Take a look at the evidence. There really should not be a doubt in this enlightened age that training by force and fear is an outdated and abusive regime. So, ‘no force’ is the way to go isn’t it? Weeell... again take a look at the evidence of this regime being applied to both children and puppies.
Children and puppies need boundaries, so how to go about this? The current trend is to ‘understand’ everything, to empathise and NEVER introduce a negative into their upbringing.
Sounds good, but children and puppies have not yet even begun to understand cooperation, social skills, how to fit comfortably into the society in which they will live, so by allowing them to consider that anything at all they do will be ‘understood’ that nothing they do is wrong, are you doing them any favours?
Social skills have to be taught. In children empathy and consideration for others also has to be taught. For puppies the ability to cooperate and to fit into their society is taught effortlessly by their parents, siblings, and often other family members if they are living in a family group, or by unrelated members of a loose social group if not.
We take a puppy from its mother many months, in fact years, before it would naturally leave, so we have to be the educator
Watch a mother with her pups. She allows a great deal of leeway, but when they cross a boundary reprisal is swift and quite aggressive. This is followed by the mother ignoring the puppy doing all it can to appease, then (very shortly afterwards) the mother accepting this and often giving him/her a good grooming – a great way to show all is forgiven. The puppy has learned a short sharp lesson in canine etiquette, and understands perfectly.
So can we replicate this?
Not really. How can we know when and at what level to issue this kind of aggressive reprimand? We are human, they are dogs, and we can never fully understand and replicate the body language and appropriate reprimand that a mother of the same non verbal species gives so easily.
With children we can increasingly use language to reinforce the body language we use when the child does not understand speech, and most importantly we are both human, and the adult understands what the child needs to learn to become a fully functioning member of human society – or this used to be the case before the trend never to reprimand or check ‘natural’ behaviour has resulted in an awful lot of ill-mannered and socially inept children.
The tide will inevitably turn – but only after this trend has failed a whole generation of children who go out into the world to find that they suddenly DO have to obey rules, they are not allowed to do anything they want, that their efforts are not always ‘wonderful’, in fact they need to ‘do better’, that their desires are not actually the most important things in the world to be pandered to at all costs, and that shockingly, the world does not revolve around their needs. That is a hard and cruel lesson to learn, far too late in their lives.
We can never do this with dogs anyway, but the same principle applies.
All young creatures need guidance and boundaries. To do this with dogs I believe we need to tap into their instincts.
The most important thing for dogs is to survive, thrive, and procreate (although this of course is something we often deny them of necessity and has to be dealt with separately). In order to do this they need to fit into their canine society. This is not so they can become the most popular kid in school, but because their survival depends on it.
If they are to find a mate, to eat, to interact (and as social creatures they do seek the company of other dogs) they need to fit in. Because of this they take the lessons learned from mother and siblings, use them, and then increase their awareness by observation and lessons taught by their peers, of what it takes to thrive in their society.
Nothing pink and fluffy about it, they do it because this is what is best for them – nothing more. Dogs are not humans with elaborate thinking processes, a conscience, and complicated feelings of right and wrong, they are survivors.
So, how do we apply this to our domestic dogs?
Dogs are hugely adaptable, and they take their instinctive need to fit in, with them into our human lives.
They want to please; they need to be accepted, so they will do what it takes to achieve this – if they understand what it is that we want from them.
That is where most of the issues arise.
We see a puppy which has wrecked the furniture while left unattended, we get angry, the puppy goes into appeasing mode, and often the human says ‘Look how guilty he is, he knows what he has done is wrong’
No he doesn’t! He sees your angry body language and tries to appease. He doesn’t connect the wrecked room with your anger – that is in the past and he only did it because he was bored or stressed or teething - or just because it was enjoyable! He doesn’t ‘know he has done wrong’, but he knows he has lost your approval and that is something he instinctively knows is necessary for his wellbeing, so he tries to appease without understanding why.
The human then feels justified and accepts the ‘apology’ until the next time it happens and he is outraged ‘Why did he do it again when he knows it is wrong?’.... and so the beat goes on with neither side understanding the other. Other behaviours get the same treatment, and before you know it you have a human who says ‘The dog is impossible – I’ve tried everything. Nothing works’.
Yes, ‘everything’ except actually understanding what you dog needs from you and giving the guidance he understands to achieve that.
So what do you do?
Start by working WITH not against your dog’s natural instincts.
So what happens with bite inhibition with his siblings? One puppy bites, the other either bites back harder then refuses to interact, or just walks away and refuses to interact.
Either way the puppy that instigated the biting has not got the result he desires, so he learns not to bite if he doesn’t want to lose interaction. He also instinctively understands that a dog which is ostracised by his family will be cast out, and being an outcast means a threat to his survival, so he learns canine etiquette quickly – not for human reasons of popularity, but for good canine reasons of survival.
This is why the mother reprimands. Each reprimand will be for a specific behaviour, but of course the lessons are cut short almost before they have begun, so now it’s down to you.
Puppies are fairly easy because they are looking to you constantly for guidance, they need the security of being with you, so distraction, moving them away from an undesirable behaviour, showing them a better one, all work well at this stage, and if you really work hard at this point, their future education will be so much easier, but as puppies are cute and engaging, and often small enough to pick up if they are getting into something they shouldn’t rather than engaging them to make a good choice for themselves, and the attitude of ‘Bless them they are only babies they will learn’ is often the top of a very slippery downhill slope just at the time when early guidance is key. They won’t ‘learn to be good’ unless you help them to understand what ‘good’ is - and this should start very early in their lives. Then comes adolescence when even if you have done your puppy work diligently and your teenager may pretty well know what is required of him, they often decide not to do it!
If you haven’t put in the early work, they haven’t a clue what you want anyway, and the teenage angst is multiplied exponentially!
Dogs understand that we are verbal creatures, so a sharp ‘No’ followed by withdrawal of approval, and if necessary, presence when addressing a behaviour WHICH IS HAPPENING not after, works far better than the pure body language dogs do so well – but that we don’t.
As always dogs will do what serves them best, so the equivalent of a maternal canine snap, followed by withdrawal of interaction, will be fully understood by them and this will stick with them, so next time (or maybe it will take a few times for the lesson to be learned) they will remember and do what they think you want. Huge praise and loving interaction from you if they ‘get it right’ will cement this, and a lesson has been learned without force or fear – and also with the dog thinking independently and choosing for himself, not just following a command.
Trust in your ability to make good choices for them follows as they mature. Choosing to make good decisions for themselves in the atmosphere of respect and trust you have created and built upon during their ‘time of learning’ makes for a great relationship of mutual respect.
In our human world you will always have to be the safe person to look to when they are confused, but apart from that you can be an independently functioning team, not master and slave.
So. No fear and force? Yes. No carefully thought out and effective consequences of unacceptable behaviour? No.
Balance in all things!
Lesley Harris
2014
