11/05/2024
Spot on 🐾🐾
It's (almost) never just one thing.
When people seek help with their dog's behaviour it's rare that there is one single, magical 'fix'. Because behaviour is complex. It's a result of the dog's previous experiences, their breed, their breeding, their lifestyle and their environment. So we often have to make multiple changes, some of which might seem only tenuously related to the original problem, in order to achieve effective, long term change.
Buddy is an overseas rescue and, in common with many of his kind, isn't keen on visitors coming into his home. He's also often on 'high alert' for activity around his home...car doors opening, people walking past his house, voices outside etc.
A narrow view would simply focus on stopping him barking. Taking a wider view and tackling the problem on a number of different fronts means he's less likely to feel the need to bark in the first place...and that's what results in long term change. The changes we've begun to implement -
• adding more low arousal enrichment into Buddy's routine to help him settle & relax
• removing access to vantage points where he would remain 'on patrol'
• reducing the intensity of stimuli coming into the home by muffling sounds and removing visual access
• creating a predictable routine when visitors come to the home
• changing the human behaviour to make it easier for Buddy to make good choices (because we can't expect him to make all the running...if we want our dogs' behaviour to change we need to be willing to change our behaviour)
• making the behaviour we don't want less likely using management options like keeping Buddy on lead until he has settled
• more clearly communicating to Buddy which behaviours we 𝘥𝘰 like
• thinking about the layout of the room to identify where Buddy is likely to feel most comfortable when visitors are in the home
Effective, ethical, long term change requires a commitment to being open to make (perhaps numerous) changes. Because lots of smaller changes can, in combination, have a big impact.
