10/03/2022
Welcome to part 2 of " What to do if your dog reacts on a walk": What NOT to do.
Firstly, I would like to clarify that this is aimed at dogs who are afraid as opposed to over excited or frustrated and actually want to see the thing they are barking at.
When a dog or a human feels fear, our bodies and brains do pretty much the same things. In that respect we are very similar to our dogs; imagining how we might feel when in a life-threatening situation helps us to understand how our dogs are feeling too.
If we are suddenly faced with a knife-wielding maniac, our brain has already processed the danger and triggered the mechanisms in our bodies that help us flee or fight before we have even consciously registered it. Adrenaline is released to help us run faster or fight harder and the ancient part of our brain takes over, putting the more rational, thinking part to sleep, for want of a better description.
The exact same process happens to our dogs. The thing that is scaring them, whether it's another dog, a human or something else, is their equivalent of our knife-wielding maniac. They fear for their lives and their primitive brain has taken over. Rational thought and the ability to learn have been set aside.
So, for a minute, imagine you are faced with that knife. You pick up whatever is to hand to fend them off but every time you attempt to make the person attacking you go away, you are hit by your friend with a bat. It makes no sense. Now, you're not only afraid of the person with the knife, but you're afraid of being hit with the bat by the person you thought was there to help. You may stop trying to keep the person with the knife away to avoid being hit by the bat, but you won't be any less afraid of it, just more afraid of the bat as it actually hit you. That is how corrections and punishment work, they don't help the dog to cope with the scary thing at all. They simply stop the dog from showing the behaviour out of fear of "being hit with the bat".
Now, put yourself in front of that maniac with a knife again. This time, your friend doesn't hit you (phew!) but makes you sit on the floor with your back to the person with the knife and stare at them. If you look away, they are clearly not happy but it's not easy knowing there's someone with a knife behind you that might attack at any given moment. If you keep up the position and don't look away, you get a bar of chocolate. The chocolate is great under normal circumstances, but with a knife-wielding maniac behind you, enjoying a snack is the last thing on your mind! All you want is to be able to keep an eye on the knife and keep it away from you in any way possible.
Neither punishment nor distraction are going to change how anyone or any animal actually feels about something that scares them. Distraction or being trained to perform certain behaviours when faced with a scary thing may change the way they show their fear but they will still feel that fear.
Punishment and corrections have the potential for much worse fallout and is likely to cause them to escalate their attempts to keep the scary thing away.
If your dog is at the point of reacting, they are unable to learn in that moment. They are not actively choosing to react, their body and brain are simply fighting for survival. Just like we would if faced with that knife-wielding maniac. Just because your dog is reacting to something you know isn't dangerous, it doesn't make the fear they are experiencing any less valid. Your friend who was with you may well have known that the knife was made of rubber but as far as you were concerned it was real.
