08/13/2024
I want to address a common issue in dog ownership. I hear almost every day someone saying something that attributes human emotions or motivations to dogs. I and those who work in the field of behavior don't agree simply because dogs are NOT people. They are uniquely and wonderfully dogs, and the differences are beautiful.
Let me give a common scenario. Let's say you have a 1 yr old dog as a house dog pet. You get up, go to work and while you are gone, your dog gets into the trash, and hour after you leave. He spends the rest of the day doing other things, you come home, see the trash and yell at him. You may even take him to the trash on the floor and scold him.
The next day you go to work, he finds a shoe and chews on it. Spends the rest of the day doing other things. You come home from work, see the shoe and scold him, telling him how bad he is. You may even show him the shoe and tell him how bad he is, doesn't he know this is one of your favorite pairs of shoes and was very expensive?
The third day you go to work, leave your dog in the house. There was a lot of activity out front, he was very stressed by all the chaos of men working, kids running up and down the side walk, and worst of all, a loose dog came right up the house! Your dog barked and barked but couldn't do anything about it. He was so agitated it made him have to go potty and he couldn't hold it, so went inside. You come home and saw it, and really let him have it! Some people may even rub the dog's nose in it!
By this time he's started to associate your arrival with being scolded, you sure are an angry person when you come home. He may start to offer appeasement behaviors as soon as you walk in the door, and to a human these may look like "guilt" because he will cower, avoid eye contact, lick his lips, raise his paw, turn his head away, or even hide. So you say he is acting guilty as if he knows he was "bad" during the day. You are convinced he is doing this "out of spite" because you leave him to go to work, and are even more angry in the future when he does "bad" things because he "should know better by now."
So the fourth day, you kick him into the back yard because he "can't behave" in the house. It's a hot day, and he's on high alert since he can hear and see more than he can in the house.After running around and barking at all the noises he hears, he digs a hole in a shady corner and lays down in the cool dirt. It feels good on his belly. He chews on some plants and patio furniture, another way to pass the time and relieve some stress. When you get home, you guessed it, you see the chewed things and the hole he dug, and really scold him again! This poor dog is going to be anxious every time you come home because you set him up to fail, and punish him when he does. All of this is a lack of understanding on YOUR part, your dog is normal and doing totally normal, acceptable dog behavior.
Now let's look at this scenario from the dog's point of view. He is a 1 yr old puppy, and he loves being around his people. Dogs are social creatures as we all know, and being left alone is not always a comfortable thing. And being a young dog he needs to keep his brain and body stimulated. So what does he do? He does dog things, foraging, chewing, digging and so on. It is a NATURAL and NORMAL thing for dogs to consider trash fair game. Think about it, dogs are scavengers (from a biological point of view) and getting into trash is a survival instinct, there could be edibles in it. If you don't want him in the trash, block his access to it. Use a crate and crate train, or put it under the counter. And most of all, UNDERSTAND him and you will be able to react with compassion rather than judgement. You will be able to help him better if you understand how he feels and why he's doing what he does.
When dogs are stressed, chewing relieves that, and it passes time and even releases happy hormones which give them feelings of peace and contentment. If a dog picks your shoe to chew, it may be a compliment because he wants something that smells like the person he loves. Chewing is NOT bad to a dog, it's normal and necessary. Same with anything they chew. Dogs need to chew, it's up to us to manage their environment in such a way as to prevent access to things we don't want them to chew, while giving them acceptable and safe options.
Digging can be to find cool dirt to lay in, it can be going after an interesting smell, or even a way to burn energy for an under exercised, under stimulated dog. It is NOT bad to the dog, it is normal and acceptable. For some breeds like terriers, they were bred to dig!
It's just that humans don't like a lot of normal dog behavior so they label it "bad" and even though most don't understand dog behavior, how to read it, and why dogs do what they do, they think the dog is "bad", "naughty" or even "defiant or dominant." So instead of being able to set the dog up to succeed by how they manage the routine, they have judged the dog unfairly and often get more and more frustrated and angry at the poor dog just for being a DOG! They punish and scold and when the stressed dogs offers normal appeasement gestures, they are sure the dog is "acting guilty" and feel justified in their use of punishment. All this is due to a gross lack of understanding dogs though. I really want to teach people to understand dog behavior and how they are not human. They don't share our values or motivations, though some overlap as they do feel many of the same emotions. Because what dogs do is normal and feels good to them, for us to label it bad does such an injustice to this animal we chose to live in our homes and share their lives with us. Dogs don't know that some things are expensive or emotionally valuable to you, they don't understand that digging up your favorite flower bush in the yard is going to make you mad (it's just a bush to them.) And maybe instead of thinking of some behaviors as "bad" we can think of them as "unwanted" by us. So we can train the dog and manage the routine to set the dog up to be rewarded to do behaviors we DO want, and have less access to do the ones we don't want. Dogs NEED to chew, dig, sniff, explore and be dogs. We can set it up so they do so in ways we can live with.
And if all we do is thwart all their normal dog behavior, we end up having stressed, neurotic dogs. We need to give them acceptable ways to BE dogs. After all, we chose to get dogs didn't we? We didn't get stuffed toys or robots! Just try to see the world as your dog does and it will deepen your relationship with him and his with you. After all, isn't that what we all want?
(By the way, in the photo, Dori is giving a bit of an appeasement gesture by ducking her head, not because I scolded her but because I made her do a sit stay for the photo! LOL!)
Permission to share granted as long as you credit Jill Porter/Faithwalk Aussies.
