My entry today is about self realization. That sinking feeling when you realize you have been doing something completely wrong, for awhile now. Our dog has an issue that we are trying to work through and, even with the best of intentions, we manage to communicate a completely different message than we intended. We all find ourselves there at one point or another and I wanted to share one of my "moments" with you.
It was with my corgi "Tru". Being a corgi, she has always had the tendencies to be reactive to things going on in her environment. Certain breeds do have the genetic makeup to be a certain way, but I believe training can steer them away from that path. So I have worked with Tru since she was a little puppy, getting her to the point where she can control her reactions to stimuli (which can be anything from a person walking by, to a cat 3 blocks away). Don't get me wrong, she isn't aggressive towards these stimulants, just vocal. It has been my experience with the breed that most of them are this way. It is, I believe, a form of over compensation for being so small in stature (they were bred to work cattle, I think that would be quite intimidating at their height!). They seem to feel like they need to be on top of every situation in the event that something could go wrong (a little paranoid dare I say). I don't say this to make excuses for them, I say this because it is important to know why a dog exhibits a behavior in order to get rid of it.
So my self realization awhile back was that, instead of helping her through her issue, I had only managed to suppress her reactions these stimuli. To make matters worse, I had inadvertently reinforced her anxiety about those stimulants at the same time. In other words, I had not lowered her anxiety about these stimuli, I only managed to tell her I didn't care to hear about it. That wasn't very considerate of me was it?
Here is what I found myself guilty of doing: She would react to a stimuli, then I would either: make her come closer to me so I could control her better or put her in her crate. Soon I found that I didn’t even have to make her come to me when a stimulus appeared, she did it automatically. Wow, progress, I thought. However, there was a point I reached a plateau in our training. A point where I realized that I had successfully suppressed her reactions but no matter how long we worked on it, they weren't going away completely. What I then realized was that I was not doing anything to remove her anxiety, everything I was doing naturally was simply suppressing her reactions.
The other realization I came to was that, in my effort to control her, I was actually sending her the message that she was justified in feeling anxiety in the presence of these stimulants. When I called her to me, she felt I was protecting her from the situation and when I would put her in her crate, she felt I was putting her in her "safe place" until the stimulus was gone. Therefore reinforcing her feelings of doubt in these situations.
The final realization that I had was this: when she would react, I would raise my voice to get on to her. However, when really studying the situation, I thought about the fact that dogs translate tone over content. In other words, she didn’t hear the words I was saying, only my tone. She only heard me raise my voice when the stimulus appeared (not unlike her own reaction). She took this to mean we were both bothered by the object in question.
So I completely changed my approach and we have made improvements past that looming plateau we had hit. She will always be a corgi, that will never change, but her behavior can!
The moral of this story is that even the best of us can get caught off guard by a dog that does not translate our actions as we had intended. Our first instinct on what to do in a situation might not be the best way to communicate the message to our furry friends. Dogs have different learning styles just like people and we must find a way to adapt our training to our dog. This is where someone with a well trained eye can help you see these situations and offer solution that will work for you and your dog! So next time you hit a training plateau with your dog, consider the possibility that your message could have gotten lost in translation somewhere along the way.
It was with my corgi "Tru". Being a corgi, she has always had the tendencies to be reactive to things going on in her environment. Certain breeds do have the genetic makeup to be a certain way, but I believe training can steer them away from that path. So I have worked with Tru since she was a little puppy, getting her to the point where she can control her reactions to stimuli (which can be anything from a person walking by, to a cat 3 blocks away). Don't get me wrong, she isn't aggressive towards these stimulants, just vocal. It has been my experience with the breed that most of them are this way. It is, I believe, a form of over compensation for being so small in stature (they were bred to work cattle, I think that would be quite intimidating at their height!). They seem to feel like they need to be on top of every situation in the event that something could go wrong (a little paranoid dare I say). I don't say this to make excuses for them, I say this because it is important to know why a dog exhibits a behavior in order to get rid of it.
So my self realization awhile back was that, instead of helping her through her issue, I had only managed to suppress her reactions these stimuli. To make matters worse, I had inadvertently reinforced her anxiety about those stimulants at the same time. In other words, I had not lowered her anxiety about these stimuli, I only managed to tell her I didn't care to hear about it. That wasn't very considerate of me was it?
Here is what I found myself guilty of doing: She would react to a stimuli, then I would either: make her come closer to me so I could control her better or put her in her crate. Soon I found that I didn’t even have to make her come to me when a stimulus appeared, she did it automatically. Wow, progress, I thought. However, there was a point I reached a plateau in our training. A point where I realized that I had successfully suppressed her reactions but no matter how long we worked on it, they weren't going away completely. What I then realized was that I was not doing anything to remove her anxiety, everything I was doing naturally was simply suppressing her reactions.
The other realization I came to was that, in my effort to control her, I was actually sending her the message that she was justified in feeling anxiety in the presence of these stimulants. When I called her to me, she felt I was protecting her from the situation and when I would put her in her crate, she felt I was putting her in her "safe place" until the stimulus was gone. Therefore reinforcing her feelings of doubt in these situations.
The final realization that I had was this: when she would react, I would raise my voice to get on to her. However, when really studying the situation, I thought about the fact that dogs translate tone over content. In other words, she didn’t hear the words I was saying, only my tone. She only heard me raise my voice when the stimulus appeared (not unlike her own reaction). She took this to mean we were both bothered by the object in question.
So I completely changed my approach and we have made improvements past that looming plateau we had hit. She will always be a corgi, that will never change, but her behavior can!
The moral of this story is that even the best of us can get caught off guard by a dog that does not translate our actions as we had intended. Our first instinct on what to do in a situation might not be the best way to communicate the message to our furry friends. Dogs have different learning styles just like people and we must find a way to adapt our training to our dog. This is where someone with a well trained eye can help you see these situations and offer solution that will work for you and your dog! So next time you hit a training plateau with your dog, consider the possibility that your message could have gotten lost in translation somewhere along the way.
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