07/20/2022
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I am not sure if this is a controversial topic or not, but it is something that has been niggling at me for a while, after regularly seeing posts along these lines in the positive reinforcement dog training community: “I don’t allow my dog to interact with other people and dogs, because I want to be the most reinforcing/fun/important thing in their lives”.
While I do completely understand the value in having a dog that wants to be with you more than anyone or anything else and that is certainly something I work towards with my own dogs, it is the idea of achieving this through the denial of other social contact that I find a little troubling.
The reason that this concept does not sit well for me, is that is reminds me very much of a couple of other trends in the dog training world, even the positive reinforcement community, which have generally been discarded and are now actually frowned upon. Have you ever heard the following:
Starve your dog before training to make sure he is food motivated
Crate your dog between training sessions so that training is the most fun he has all day
Yes, those used to be common practises in the dog training world before we switched to a more emotions and needs-based approach to working with dogs. I can’t help but feel that denying a dog access to other dogs and people in order to make them like us more, is very much the same kind of thing.
Of course, there are practical and safety reasons for not allowing our dogs to run up to every person and dog that they meet:
• Not all people want to interact with dogs
• Not all dogs want to interact with other dogs
• Dogs that are used to approaching every single dog or person they encounter may become frustrated if they are not able to approach, leading to reactivity
• The environment may not always be safe for your dog to run off to every person or dog
However, denying your dog social contact so that he only ever has fun or enjoyment with you, is in my mind a type of social deprivation for the sake of making our lives easier. While dogs are not human beings, I can’t help but think it would be similar to stopping a teenager from having friends so that they could not be influenced by them to go against your will or stopping your partner from having any social life outside of your home, just in case they met someone else they liked better than you!
If we want our dogs to be closely bonded with us and to choose to be with us, surely we can do this by putting more time, effort and thought into our interactions and relationship with them, rather than denying them any other social connections and interactions? Perhaps it means we will have to work harder to make ourselves more fun, to play more, to make ourselves more available, to deposit lots and lots of great experiences into our relationship bank account and of course to TRAIN for the specific cues we would like them to respond to – but isn’t our aim to enrich their lives and fulfil their needs as much as possible, not to find ways to exert as little effort as possible in order to satisfy our requirements?
Of course it is important to teach dogs to come willingly away from distractions and to cope with not always being able to get what they want when it may not be safe for them to do so, but does this really mean that our dogs cannot enjoy the company of other dogs, that they cannot ever play with other dogs, that they may never engage in greeting rituals with other dogs and that they can never be allowed to interact with willing people and receive attention and affection from them, IF this is something they enjoy?
(Of course, this should be the dog’s choice and some dogs may not want this at all and that is fine.)
Surely, we can find a way to allow our dogs to find enjoyment outside of ourselves, while still being the most fun and reinforcing thing to be around? Surely, we can be secure enough in our relationships with them to allow them to have a life that is rich in many ways and not only in our interactions?
