Sadly, it’s not all that uncommon a sight. A man stands with his dog watching his son’s baseball game, his medium sized dog pressed against his leg glancing furtively in all directions. As people pass, the dog visibly cringes and moves to put the man between him and the stranger. Occasionally, a friendly stranger will bend down to pet the dog but there is a low growl. Momentarily distracted from his baseball game, the man utters a sharp, “HEY!” and gives a yank on the leash to reprimand his dog and then goes back to watching the ball game. And all I can think is, “Why is that dog even here?”
Clearly this dog is not enjoying being here. There are strangers around, new sounds and smells that are unfamiliar, and it seems that even trying to tell strangers that he is uncomfortable when they approach results in a scolding. The owner seems only vaguely aware that the dog is even with him. The occasional tug on the leash or verbal signal when the dog is misbehaving are the only signs that he knows the dog is there. I know that we all enjoy having and spending time with our dogs for many different reasons. But wouldn’t this particular dog have been happier waiting in the car or staying at home?
The rationalization
I’m sure that if I approached that man and asked him why he brought his dog here, he would have a hundred reasons. And if I asked him if he thought his dog was uncomfortable, he would say something like “Oh, he’s fine.” But this dog is not fine. It is frightened, unsure, defensive, and I’m sure it feels very much on its own. That could be a recipe for trouble.
Perhaps this man thought that the dog would enjoy coming to see his “best friend”, his son, at his baseball game. Maybe the man was not comfortable leaving the dog in the car because he barks and howls when left alone. It could be because the man’s wife told him to take the dog with him. Whatever the reason, “because the dog enjoys it” could not possibly be it.
We have our own reasons for where and when we bring our dogs with us. It’s clear to me that not every dog owner considers whether or not their dog is capable of handling all of the situations to which we subject our dogs. The dog is just expected to deal with it. To cope with whatever situation that they find themselves in because we wanted them to be there. Because we wanted it. Not them. And we get what we want.
Begin at the beginning
I don’t mean to suggest that there are hordes of terrified dogs out there who could lose their cool at any moment and savage the nearest stranger or child. Yes, there are some. You read about them in the paper or see them on the TV news occasionally. But by and large, most dogs manage to tough it out and learn how to cope in spite of their owners and not because they were taught how to deal with these situations. Call it a kind of “school of hard knocks” where you get corrected enough times and you figure out a way to manage.
But that’s not the only way dogs can learn to cope with being out in our human world. The best way is to start early. Puppies are extremely impressionable, particularly between the ages of about 7 and 15 weeks. Putting them in a variety of situations and making them fun instead of overwhelming and scary for them will go a long way to them being happy and confident adult dogs. But the opposite is also true. Let your puppy become frightened or panicked in a situation because you weren’t paying attention and that puppy may grow into a dog that will not deal well with those environments when they grow up.
A deluge of remedies
Unfortunately, there are a lot of dogs that grow up with fear issues in various situations. There are a number of different training options out there that aim to help you with your fearful dog to teach them to cope with the world around them. Whether the dog is reactive to strangers, sounds, certain places, or even other dogs, there seems to be a training approach or method designed to get your dog over it. They range from the near barbaric kind that attempt to overwhelm the dog until they just accept things to the ultra-sophisticated kind that employ complex interaction strategies coupled with behaviour modification techniques.
Finding a method that works for you and your fearful dog can be a complex process. But the first step is learning to recognize when your dog is overwhelmed. It’s not always as easy as the dog just barking its head off and looking bug-eyed scared. Many dogs stand in quiet desperation hoping it will be over soon. So it’s important to recognize signs of stress in your dog and to be able to see when it it too much for them. Working with a trainer or training method that is compatible with your own skills as a trainer is also important. The best method in the world will fail if you can’t execute it correctly. Beware of methods that promise a fast solution. Fear is not a behaviour, it is an emotion and it goes much deeper than whether or not your dog will sit for you when you ask. Be careful that you don’t just train your dog to ACT okay when they are really not.
It comes down to you
Regardless of which approach you decide to take in treating a dog that is fearful or anxious in social situations, one fact should remain above all else – You could make it worse. With all the talk of positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, desensitization, counter-conditioning, calm-assertive energy and so on, it is still the dog owner that puts the dog in these situations. Most of the time we do it because we want to have our dog with us, whatever the reason. Sometimes we can be pretty selfish and find a way to rationalize that our dog will “be just fine” even though the are telling us they are not.
The bottom line is that I am responsible for my dog. She did not choose to live with me. But since I have taken her in, I now have an obligation to show her how to live comfortably in my world. Sometimes that means leaving her behind. Sometimes that means taking her with me. And sometimes it means that I will have to make the time and effort to train her to handle new or different situations before just expecting her to “deal with it” when we get there.
For some dog owners, the first time they recognize that their dog is afraid or uncomfortable is when it bites or nips a stranger. That’s too late. It doesn’t seem fair to just push our dogs into uncomfortable situations just because we want them to be there. We should have some responsibility for teaching them how to deal with it.
Perhaps the first step is management. We should all be paying attention to our dogs when we are out in public. We should recognize when they are becoming stressed or afraid. Most importantly, we need to make sure we don’t overwhelm them. No dog can learn when they are overwhelmed regardless of the training method you use to get them over their fear.
It’s nice to have my dog with me when I go places but I also need to make the effort to be with her when we are out and about too. I am supposed to be there to protect her, to teach her, to keep her safe, and to manage things for her. It seems like a very small price to pay.
Until next time, have fun with your dogs.
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Petra Wingate copyright 2012
Thank you Brad!! I see it all the time and it breaks my heart and enrages me at the same time. I agree with comments above ragarding the “quiet desperation”. I will share this on our facebook page and only hope that those that need to read it will!
Hi Eric, Thanks for this thoughtful, insightful blog. I had been having an internal argument with myself over leaving my dog at home while I went to play a music festival. I leave him with a woman who loves him and has two dogs his size he enjoys playing with. He’ll have a yard to run in and good healthy food and his own bed to sleep in, so it’s not him that dreads “dog vacation”, it’s me. I feel like the life of a dog is so short and I hate to miss any of it. I see other people traveling with their dogs and wonder if I’m being selfish by not having him with me. Your article gave me another perspective. Would my dog like being at a music festival with strangers? Would it make him uncomfortable or over protective when many of those strangers come up and talk to me? Would he enjoy the change of scenery, traveling many hours in the van, staying in a strange place just to be with me? Thank you for showing me probably not. Keep up the rants, we’re listening. Thanks to Arlyn Sigetti who shared your link with me.
AMEN!
Hear hear! <>
Thanks SO much for this article! I’ll be sharing with my FB group and my clients. You comment that “Many dogs stand in quiet desperation hoping it will be over soon…. Be careful that you don’t just train your dog to ACT okay when they are really not.” I spend so much time trying to explain to people that there is a HUGE difference between a “calm” dog and one that is subdued and frightened. Your description of “quiet desperation” is perfect, and I may quote you the next time I’m trying to explain it to a client, if that’ s OK with you. 🙂
Eric this is a great article, but I know so many people, Belgian owners included who read your articles, attend seminars, go to classes and can not for some reason apply to help their dogs. There are some people, for whatever reason, can just not GET IT, I do not doubt they love their dogs, they just can not stick to the training to help them. I get one or two students a year, no matter how I explain things, send articles, watch them and try my hardest, they just can not apply it. They just can not learn to watch and pay attention to their dog.