Thursday training tip: Au contraire!

It seems to me that we should have figured out our dogs by now. It’s not like we’re not trying to understand them. If you search “dog” in the Amazon book section, you come up with over 80,000 titles. Oh, but that includes books like “Lassie” and “Old Yeller,” you say. Reading inspiring novels about dogs saving Timmy from the well doesn’t really help with our little stinkers’ challenges, you explain. Okay, let’s search for “dog training books.” There are 20,000 results! And yet we still haven’t solved the mysteries of dog behavior.

I think I’ve found one answer. Perhaps we need to be a little more contrarian. Maybe if we say “on the contrary…” to some of the accepted maxims, we’ll be better able to discover the solutions that work best for our individual dogs.

This really hit home with me last week when I took Peaches to her cardiac exam. I found out how dire her heart defects are, and how high her risk is for sudden death. All of the articles I had read about subaortic stenosis stressed that the dog shouldn’t get excited. Ummm, Peaches is a Westie. And she’s a puppy. How in the world am I supposed to control her excitement?! Au contraire, the cardiologist explained. He and I have agreed that our goal is to let Peaches live a happy life, for as long as she has. Thus, his recommendation: “Please allow Peaches to set her own activity limits.” And she does!

Peaches lets me know that she tires easily on walks, so we use a stroller. Here, she makes a "rest stop" where she happily explores lots of doggie smells!

That got me thinking about other times I tried -- and failed -- to follow the accepted practices for controlling dog behavior. For instance, for the first five years of her life, my collie Rosie has barked at the mailman every single day we get mail. And Rosie knew she was doing her job; never once did that mailman succeed at burglarizing our house! At every obedience class, and at every dog behavior workshop, I’d ask how to stop Rosie from barking at the mailman, and the answers were the same as I had read in dog training books: 1) ignore her; 2) give her a “time out” isolated in another room; 3) install some blinds and make sure Rosie doesn’t see the mailman; and/or 4) keep music on to drown out the sound of the mailman. But especially #1 -- don’t “reward” her with any attention when she barks! (You will note that I never considered any correction that was painful, harsh, or scary. We can talk about some of those “alpha” techniques in another blogpost.)

After five years of Rosie barking at the mailman, I decided to go with my contrarian premise. I went against all accepted wisdom that had been passed to me. When Rosie barked, I went to the front door, looked out the door’s window, and said “Thanks Rosie, it’s okay now.” And she stopped barking. All these years, she was trying to get me to acknowledge the threat at our door. All these years, she must have been so aggravated that I never understood that she was trying to warn me. Now – you may not believe this, but it’s true, I swear – Rosie rarely barks at the mailman. She knows I have it covered.

Peaches and Rosie have a lot to teach me.

Dog trainers, behaviorists, and veterinarians all have a wealth of information that we need to pay attention to. We should remember, however, that our dogs also have a wealth of information, if only we listen to them.

❤❤❤