I love having all this information in one place. Now I can easily pull some sources when I’m trying to talk to people about this kind of thing. Also, this post deserves way more notes.
This is an awesome video demonstrating how to assess appropriate play between dogs! It explains things very well including video examples to display each concept. Just a really great dog behavior/body language resource.
And here is part 2, showing how you can tell for sure if you’re unsure about the play:
A great human called Ian Dunbar said that punishing a growl is like removing the tick from a time bomb.
Growls are our way to communicate. Humans don’t get punished for saying “stop that” when someone upsets them.
I was just talking about this the other day. Punishment for expressing discomfort just creates animals who will bite, maim, or otherwise escalate with absolutely no warning.
I came across a chap with his terrier type dog this morning whilst out with Ziggy. He proceeded to behave, somewhat, oddly with his dog.
As we approached, he turned away from us, shortened the dogs’ lead and made him sit, all the while blocking the dogs’ line of site to us. During our approach he was also constantly feeding his dog treats.
As we reached him, he continued to try to get between his dog and us. Of course, I asked him what he was doing. ‘Stopping my dog looking at your dog’ came the reply. Strange indeed.
He explained that his dog could be a little unpredictable. I asked him to relax and allow his dog to relax a little also - as the dog sat, calmly, I offered him and my dog a treat - duly taken by both dogs.
I have seen this type of behaviour replicated a number of times now. In my opinion, this is a disturbing trend in how to deal with ‘reactive’ dogs. In fact, it is counter-productive. Instead of dealing with a behavioural issue, owners are encouraged to take this, rather drastic, avoidance action. This doesn’t serve the dog well - in fact, this may prevent him from getting over his behaviour issue.
What should be happen is that the dog with reactive issues should be exposed to dogs in a controlled manner - at distance and then ever closer as the dog begins to calm when in proximity of other dogs - desensitisation.
There are always exceptions to the rule. Some dogs are extremely reactive and it can prove very difficult to help them modify their behaviour. These dogs need to be dealt with very carefully by experienced handlers.
However, the majority of dogs, can be helped with careful desensitisation to the issue that challenges them. Simply, stopping the dog from experiencing other dogs or situations naturally is a flawed approach.
So, think carefully before adopting the ’out of sight, out of mind’ approach too readily.
Okay, but can we stop ascribing complex emotions and actions that require human level cognition to dogs in our welfare posts? There was a rather good anecdotal account of how a person’s use of Cesar Millan’s tactics ruined their relationship with their first dog, and for the most part it was a good and enlightening read. However one line did kind of stick in my craw. I can’t find the post now but it was along the lines of:
“And then my dog started to deliberately disobey me on walks.”
And this is, unfortunately, a sign of potentially damaging anthropomorphism. Dogs are not capable of being vindictive or malicious, and assuming that the dog’s lack of response to commands was due to him bearing a grudge about the harshness of previous treatment is entirely the wrong interpretation to take away. It is true that the dog’s inability to properly carry out commands is due to the aversive training techniques, HOWEVER, it did not turn the dog into a petulant three year old human.
Most likely the dog is not able to understand that you want him to perform a task because until recently your behaviour towards him consisted of random jabs, hisses, and other uncomfortable stimuli, probably in tandem with commands. Cesar Millan’s techniques are not only unnecessarily harsh, they can serve to condition a dog to expect punishment no matter what it does. This is because Cesar Millan’s techniques operate on the INCREDIBLY misguided principle that we know every facet of canine behaviour and communication, and that the crux of a dog’s existence is dedicated to achieving a dominant role in its “pack”. When you enter into a relationship with a dog with the expectation that the animal’s main goal in life is to supplant you, then you have already gone a good way towards ensuring that your relationship is not going to be a trusting one.
When you start jabbing and alpha rolling a dog, (presumably for things that only you, a human, are capable of considering “bad/dominant behaviour”) the dog ceases to understand what you want from him. This is why rubbing your dog’s face in its urine when you come home from work and find that it dirtied the floor NEVER WORKS. The dog lacks the level of cognition required to connect the act of urination to the uncomfortable punishment. The dog just thinks you’re overly aggressive and the punishment will likely contribute to a reduction in trust. You are teaching the dog to be wary of you by default, because, from the dog’s perspective, you’re the massive aggressive animal that occasionally attacks it for no reason.
It is this lack of understanding of canine cognition and behaviour that makes dogs “act out” in ways that might be interpreted as “deliberate” or “malicious”, but I can assure you that if you look a little closer, you will find that that is never really the case.
At the risk of taking away from this actually pretty important post, dogs can absolutely be vindictive.
My dad had to put his dog in a doggy hotel/kennel for about a week because we went on a trip and couldn’t bring the dog with and had no one else to watch him. So, we get back from the trip, pick up Buddy (the dog), and go home. As soon as we open the door, Buddy bolts down the hall towards the bedrooms.
My dad walks follows him into his bedroom to find the dog shitting on his bed.
It wasn’t like Buddy wandered the house first and just couldn’t hold it long enough for someone to open the back door. No. He headed right for the bed with no hesitation. Any biologist or animal behavior specialist would tell you he knew exactly what he was doing. The fact that my dad claims Buddy made direct eye contact with him doesn’t help dissuade the idea, either.
If that’s not petty vindictiveness, I don’t know what is.
I can assure you that I am both a biologist and an animal behaviourist, and I am telling you that it was not vindictiveness. What you are describing is textbook example of what misinformed dog owners call “revenge defecation”, it stems from nothing more than a misunderstanding of the role feces and urine plays in the social and territorial behaviour of dogs.
It is a symptom of separation anxiety that was no doubt instilled in your dog due to the period in which he was kennelled. People choose to interpret it as “revenge” because people find feces and urine disgusting. Dogs do not share this opinion. For dogs, waste fluids and solids are merely their way of marking territory. When they are stressed enough to feel the need to reassure themselves that they are in fact in their territory, they sometimes forget their toilet training and mark their home in the only way they know how.
Interpreting this behaviour as “vindictive” is potentially extremely damaging to your dog, who is already in a vulnerable and stressed out state. By assuming that your dog did this out of spite you are making several remarkably ridiculous reaches in terms of how intelligent you think your dog is. Dogs do not plan ahead. They do not understand that humans take personal offense to the production of feces. Making eye contact with a human is not inherently a challenge, and could just as easily have been response to your father’s body language (I’m assuming he wasn’t exactly happy to see the dog defecating on the bed).
I mean you’re right in a sense, any animal behaviourist or biologist will tell you that the dog knew what he was doing. The problem here is that neither you nor your father knew what he was doing.
