Lessons from Our Dogs – Forgiveness

Human Failings

It was a cold day in February. It had been drizzling all day and the school field was wet and muddy. That didn’t seem to matter to our dogs. They were happily dashing, chasing and splashing around with balls in their mouths, having a grand old time in the mud. My wife was contentedly throwing the ball for our older dog, Vince, who was being chased by our younger dog, Tira, who was clearly NOT interested in me throwing a ball for her.

As I stood there with soggy feet, hands in pockets, and getting colder by the minute, I slowly simmered with frustration. Tira would simply NOT bring the ball back to me. She would run around us in great looping circles, something Belgian Shepherds do because they were bred to be herding dogs. And those looping runs made something else difficult – leaving the field. She wouldn’t come back to me for any reason while she had her ball.

And so, cold and wet, I had to devise a way to trick her into coming close enough to grab her and clip a leash on. By the time I managed that, I was angry. We marched back to van where I flung open her crate and unceremoniously put her in, slamming the door behind her. No treats after that performance!

By the Grace of a Dog

As we drove home I reflected on the incident. I felt bad about it. What had failed out on that field was all of the training I should have done with my dog. Clearly it was more rewarding for Tira to run in circles than to interact with me.

My dog was not “being bad” and playing “keep away” with me – she was just out having fun. It wasn’t her fault that I was less fun than what she was doing. I had to wear that all by myself. By the time we got home, I was feeling pretty ashamed of myself for my angry outburst.

As I opened the back of the van, I kept thinking about all of those “I’m sorry” things we say and do for our loved ones when we know we’ve messed up. I opened Tira’s crate. To my amazement she came bounding out, throwing her front paws on my shoulders and licking my face as if I had been gone for weeks. All I could do was laugh and enjoy the moment.

For all my worry about having treated Tira unfairly, she was clearly delighted to see me and she had brought me an unexpected gift – forgiveness.

Different Brain, Different Perspective

Something I never took the time to consider is that dogs don’t hang on to things the way we humans do. In her book Inside of a Dog, veterinarian and animal behaviorist Alexandra Horowitz talks about the structure of a dog’s brain and cognitive abilities. It turns out the cerebral cortex in a dog’s brain, the part responsible for higher-order thought functions and language, is not sufficiently developed to support human-like conceptual thinking. The same anatomical feature which makes our dogs incapable of feeling guilt also allows them to forgive easily because they don’t have the framework of language to help them structure and retrieve memories in any detail.

Something that could, at first glance, appear to be an impediment in our dogs actually turns out to be one of their greatest gifts to us – the ability to let go of past wrongs. They forgive us and come back to us again and again despite our human failings. It isn’t that my dog Tira didn’t REMEMBER what had happened, she just didn’t hold on to it the way a human might. She simply moved on.

Dogs do have excellent memories. Anyone who has taken their dog regularly to a favourite park or activity knows this. They begin to squeak and whine and pace with excitement as you turn onto the right road.

But dogs work in large, general trends and recall most prominently those things which tend to be repeated. The more clear and prominent the situation or consequence of their actions, the more easily associated and easily learned that particular memory becomes.

A Dog’s Eye View of Life

All of this thinking about how dogs think led me to a couple of very interesting conclusions. First, because dogs don’t indulge in complex conceptual thought, they have very little time or inclination to ruminate over things that have happened. My Tira didn’t sit in her kennel all the way home from the park brooding over my sudden, rude behavior toward her. She didn’t consider the moral implications of either her actions or mine. How wonderful for her to be relieved of such unpleasant feelings!

Perhaps more important is the fact that things that are out of the ordinary and not frequently repeated will likely be disregarded or forgotten. Unless I make a habit of my rough treatment toward Tira, there’s every chance that all will be forgiven and forgotten in a very short span of time.

The key here is that I don’t allow the same circumstances to bring out the same, repeated bad behaviour in ME so that she learns to expect it. That repetition would create the opportunity for her to make an association between her unpleasant experiences and me.

A Clash of Cultures

In other words, our dogs are very good at giving us a “do over” when little slip-ups occur. Unfortunately, we are all too human and perhaps not enough like dogs. Thus, we tend to hang on to things for much longer than dogs do and beat ourselves up unnecessarily when things go wrong between us and our dogs.

But the real disconnect happens when we wrongly assume our dogs hang on to such things as well. Sometimes we may get upset with our dogs over something and remain angry with them long after the moment has past. This can be very confusing to dogs because they are very much creatures of the moment. For instance, once we have corrected a dog for getting into the garbage can, the dog has likely filed that away and moved on. How puzzling our behavior must look to them as we continue to stalk around and scowl at them for the next hour muttering “bad dog!” over and over.

Living in the Moment

The plus side to this “live in the moment” world our dogs seem to inhabit is that they are wonderfully forgiving. Past wrongs are quickly forgotten; relationships are almost instantly restored. In training, it gives us incredible freedom to communicate incorrectly or badly on occasion and still have our dogs want to come back and play that training game some more.

Sometimes having the big brain in this relationship with our dogs is more of a burden than a blessing. Sometimes we can get in our own way and hinder our relationships with our dogs unnecessarily. We might do well to take a page out of their book.

And sometimes, particularly in dealing with our dogs, it might be best to let it go and move on. Better to forgive ourselves or our dogs and just get on with things. I’m thankful for everything my dogs have taught me but this marvelous capacity for forgiveness stands out as one of the great gifts they have given me.

For more articles about dog behavior and training, please see Eric Brad’s Author page at Life As A Human.

Photo Credits

“Forebearance” Gregor_y @  Flickr.com
“Forgiveness”  Fazen @  Flickr.com
“Excellent Teachers”  bah444 @ Flickr.com

Recent Eric Brad CPDT-KA Articles:

• The Dog That Changed My Life
• Keeping Your Dog Informed
• Teaching Your Dog to Not-Behave
• The Simple Complexity of Dog Training
• What The Dog Wants