Expectations - keeping it real

I was asked by Bridgwater College this week to be a guest speaker for one of their City & Guilds groups at the Animal Management centre.  I am a guest lecturer for their adult short courses on Canine Behaviour but being asked to speak in front of teenagers to me was quite another request!  I was really quite nervous and worried that I wouldn’t get any engagement during my lesson.  Well, the good news is that they were a wonderful group and were very happy to engage with me and play some fun clicker games (well I did pay with Smarties!!).

One of the tasks I asked them to complete was to think of all the activities a dog would like to do.  If they were given choice, no barriers such as doors or locations, what do you think your dog would choose to do?  Running? Chasing? Swimming? Sunbathing? Chewing? Eating? Sleeping?  It’s actually something I often ask my behaviour clients to consider as it gives us a real insight into your dog’s personality. 

I then asked them to write a list of things we want our dogs to do.  Suggestions were: come back when called, walk nicely on the lead, don’t roll in fox poo, don’t chew the furniture, don’t steal the cake off the counter!  We then put both the lists together and it quickly dawned on them that they don’t match; they don’t match at all! 

Now this doesn’t mean our dogs cannot be trained to have skills that we need for them to be safe and a lovely member of society, but it’s important to know that most of what we want our dogs to do aren’t actually what they would choose to do.

Come back when called or chase a rabbit. Ignore the food left out on the counter or grabbing a quick bite.  Walk really slowly, at human pace, rather than get to the fields as quickly as possible.  Can you see why some skills we need from our dogs will take time to teach them. 

Most of you know we have a new member to our household – Bramley will be 6 months next week and he is still very much learning all the skills we need from him.  A lot of what we are still doing is management, so that he cannot rehearse unwanted behaviour.  For example, when we walk in areas where other dogs are around, he is mostly on his long line, because I know he will want to go and say hello to all of them.  I don’t want him to learn that it’s ok to go up to every dog that we come across.  That is not good dog manners as lots of dogs won’t want to interact with him.  So to keep him safe and be respectful of others, we have to manage him as his recall isn’t strong enough yet to trust that it will work.  This week he has decided that the rug in our lounge is something he wants to chew, so we have removed the rug.   He is teething at the moment, and he is looking for lots of things to chew, so we are giving him lots of appropriate chew toys, but also still managing his environment so he doesn’t get it wrong. 

The expectations we have on our dogs that they should just know and understand is usually too high.   Think back to what they would choose to do and what we need from them.  I want to encourage you that all those skills are very possible to teach.  Through fun, play, rewards and setting them up for success, you really can enjoy the journey along the way until they can be given more freedom and be trusted to have learnt the ‘rules’ that we need from them.   

If you want help with any training or behaviour issues, don’t hesitate to get in touch.
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Jo x