24/02/2024
What do we expect of our dogs?
What expectations do we have for their behaviour?
Under what conditions should they be able to do those behaviours?
What are our expectations about timescale? How long should it take?
It takes a human child around 4 years of practice to become really proficient at walking. Yet we expect our puppies to be able to walk perfectly on lead after a few weeks while very little tuition. What about when they need the toilet and pull until they find a suitable place to go? Do we allow that? Or insist they walk with us perfectly?
Does your three year old, 4 year old or 14 tear old do exactly what you ask or tell them every single time? Does your teenager ever break curfew or take a few seconds/minutes to finish their computer game before coming down for dinner? Yet we expect our dog to come back first time, every time, at speed the second we give an ambiguous and often arbitrary signal to come back with very little meaningful training built on a poor level of reinforcement (no, praise is often not meaningful enough).
Do you jump to it when you are on your lunch break when your boss asks you to do a task? Yet we repeat "sit, sit, sit, SIT!" if our dog doesn't immediately respond.
Can a human child, or adult for that matter, regulate themselves emotionally under any or all circumstances? I regularly get adults, with decades of practice, unable to control themselves emotionally and object to my content or project things which are not there, where scrolling past would be a more peaceful, and I dare say, productive, course of action. Yet we expect our dogs to never have a bad day, never be allowed to say "no, I don't want to do that," always be friendly to every dig and person they meet, never need a moment to assess safety etc.
It takes years, if not decades of active work, learning and teaching for a human to do all of these things in a human world. Unfortunately we don't have our dogs for decades, so let's try to take it easy on them, take the pressure of expectations (and maybe examine why we have them) off them and enjoy them while they are with us.
As I write this, Logan is lying on the bed with me under his blanket. He's around 10 now, he has likely more years behind him than in front of him. I let him up and arrange his blankets when he asks in the morning. I'll never look back on these times in years to come and think, "I wish I'd let him up on the bed with me less."
Cherish, teach, honour our dogs.
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P.s. thank you for whoever submitted the photo for use, I'll credit you if you let me know.