Weekly Tidbits - August 4, 2021
On my mind this week and random things from around the web on dogs, behaviour and training.
You Should Read…
Summer is a great time to catch up on reading those books I’ve been promising myself. There are lots of great books that are often recommended about canine behaviour and training but there are some important titles that seem to get left off of many “suggested reading” lists. Here are four recommendations that might broaden your understanding of dogs and our lives with them!
[Note: All of these book links are to Goodreads. Check your favourite bookseller for these titles!]
Jean Donaldson is the author behind one of the most important books in modern dog training, “The Culture Clash”, but she has also written many other books on dogs and behaviour. “Oh Behave” is a collection of short essays that cover a broad range of topics from behaviour and training to aggression and evolution. The essays start with questions from dog owners. These “Dear Jean” introductions lead to some fascinating and useful explorations of common issues like potty training, fearful dogs, aggression and biting, and how to effectively use prompting in training. Other sections explore canine cognition, genetics and evolution, and how owners impact the development of their dogs. I found this book a treasure trove of interesting and important facts and perspectives. It helped me understand my dogs better and put many of the behaviours I see in other dogs into a more understandable context. It is well laid out and makes for an easy read!
Inside of a Dog by Alexandra Horowitz
Alexandra Horowitz is a psychology professor at Barnard College in New York with a particular focus on dogs. This book takes an in-depth look at many of the common ideas we have about dogs and our relationship with them. It is a deep dive across a range of topics from canine senses like sight, hearing, etc. and how they work with a dog’s perception of their world. Horowitz then presents a wealth of information about how these perceptions affect how our dogs view their environment and relationships with others - other dogs, humans, and other species. For me, this book provided some valuable insight into how a different species (my dogs) might see and understand the world differently than I do. It changed the way I view my dogs’ behaviour and also the way I live and work with them!
Coercion and Its Fallout by Murray Sidman
Dr. Murray Sidman was a respected professor of behavioural psychology over his 50+ year career. This book is not about dogs specifically but about the psychology and ethics of coercion and how we use it in our everyday interactions. While the book examines human interactions, it is very easy to see the parallels in our relationships with our dogs. This book helped me understand the unintended negative effects of my use of forceful methods with my own dogs. Sidman not only explains the effects of coercion but the reasons we find it so easy to default to forceful methods to get others to do what we want. It’s a fascinating read but can be difficult to find. It’s well worth your efforts to find a copy!
These titles are a bit “off the beaten path” when it comes to commonly recommended books but each one provided valuable insights for me. They helped to shape my perceptions of my dogs and why they do what they do. I hope you find them as useful as I did!
Puppy Paranoia
Continuing with the theme of puppies, since so many of my local friends have just added to their families, I wanted to talk about the fears. Oh, not the puppy’s fears. The human’s fears. It all seems so magical when we are waiting for that wonderful new life to arrive in our home and then there is that moment. The one where all of that responsibility drops on you like a lead weight and you think “I hope I don’t ruin this dog!”
It can be hard to find a balance between being careful enough to steer your new puppy in the right direction and being too careful and creating problems later on. For some people, this leads to a kind of paralysis where they just put off dealing with a behaviour issue in hopes it will resolve itself or just go away. What I’ve found in raising my dogs is simply this - It takes months to build a dog and it takes months to ruin a dog.
Having said that, there is a time in a puppy’s life between approximately 8 weeks old and 13 weeks old that researchers call the “Sensitive Period.” It is a time when puppies are very impressionable and the lessons they learn will stick with them for life. In our home, it is a time when we carefully structure our puppy’s activities. We are careful not to put them in situations where scary or dangerous things can happen. All socialization with other dogs and humans is carefully structured and monitored to be as positive an experience as possible. Once we get beyond this “Sensitive Period”, we can relax some of our management because events, good or bad, will not imprint so deeply on the dog and we can modify their behaviours and outlook later on.
Young dogs need lots of exposure to lots of things - sights, sounds, smells, other dogs, people, and environments. But those experiences work best if they are never too exciting or too scary for the puppy. We never push our young dogs past their comfort zone. There will be another time to help them acclimate to something and learning about the world is a long process.
In my experience, dogs learn my patterns rather than events except the special case of the “Sensitive Period”. By and large they are watching and learning to see how things work by looking for consistency. That means the more consistent we can be with our young dogs, the easier it will be for them to figure out their world. We try to think in terms of creating routines not just for our puppy but for ourselves. Are we using cues consistently? Are we rewarding the behaviours we want to see? Are we keeping to the schedules we want to set for our dog?
None of this is carved in stone. Patterns can and should change over time. But we try to make these changes in small steps so that it is easy for our young dogs to see what is happening and adapt accordingly. We don’t worry that one or two slip ups will cause a lasting issue with our dogs. We just get back on track and make sure that our dogs see that those slip ups were the exception and not the general pattern of our life together.
It’s a process. Our dogs will learn from what is most likely to happen. That means doing the right thing MOST of the time. We don’t have to be perfect!
Such a Good Dog!
Did you ever have someone tell you that “you are so lucky to have such a good dog”? I just smile and say “Thank you.”
Have a great week and have fun with your dogs!