Do you and your dog resonate?

Humans and dogs give and take. Sometimes this giving and taking is in sync, it is resonant. The two parties, you and your dog, are part of a moving, fluid giving and taking. You move, act, feel together. Neither of you is really leading the walk or activity, but you both get where you are going. Neither of you is making conscious decisions-the resulting arrival is cooperative and seemingly the natural consequence of just being.

Dissonance is just the opposite. You zig when you dog zags. You stop and he goes. You don't quite get in step, and despite a lot of effort, you never get anywhere.

In dogs, dissonance builds walls. Walls between them and other dogs, between them and humans, between the self that they show and the self they wish to be. Aggression and fear are symptoms of dissonance.

Dogs are social creatures, and for the most part they want positive input and social connection with both other dogs and with humans. After all, with a history of somewhere over 15,000 years together, there are social ties that keep them from avoiding us, even when perhaps they should. The desire for constructive, positive social contact can help balance whatever dissonance has driven them into building a wall between themselves and the “outside” world.

 Developing a relationship with a dog, particularly a dog that has built a wall of aggression or fear, means I have to build resonance. I have to establish a reciprocal interaction with the dog. Working with a seriously aggressive or fearful dog takes clear and complex give and take. I have to safely let the dog know that I am not a threat, and not a danger. I also have to let them know, without frightening or “dominating” them, that they cannot make me go away. They cannot frighten me. The worst they will get from me is a removal of my attention.

I have at times referred to this process as “push-pull”. The germ of it began when, years ago, I saw Monty Roberts at an early exhibition working with horses. He had/has a technique that he called “join up”. In his world, “join-up” was a process by which he drove the subject horse away from him by using body position and motion to appear threatening. He then changed his position and motion in a way that the horse interpreted as soliciting contact. By alternately appearing as a potential threat, followed by welcoming the horse, the horse appeared to become more accepting of Roberts. Finally the horse, who started the demonstration shying away from Roberts but was unable to flee due to the round pen they were in, appeared to develop a relationship with Roberts that let him approach, interact, and guide the horse.

My reaction to this was two fold. First, it dawned on me (slow that I am) that dogs, like horses, have clear and usable language, but that the language is based on body position and visual cues, not verbalization. Second, although horses are prey and dogs are opportunistic predators and scavengers, in both cases social contact can be used to develop a relationship. Relationships did, of course, already exist: but in both cases, trainers of old used force and fear and physical punishment to develop relationships based on dominance and submission. Both schools of trainers made the trainees subservient, too often complying because they feared the consequences of non-compliance.

Roberts seemed to be more involved in developing trust. Although this was not 100% benign (he did “send away” the horses first) he sent the horse a message that said “I am not going away-you have to deal with me. When you do I will make it worth your while.”

That made sense. Run away from me and nothing good happens. Be my friend and not only do you get my positive attention, but other good things happen. Yeah. That sounded good.

But as I said, horses and dogs do have differences. Horses are herd animals that want to be part of a social group. They will accept humans as part of that, but ultimately they are prey, and are always just a little worried that they will be lunch. Dogs, on the other hand, can function as predators. They have teeth: they are packing. Even the smallest of them can pull their blades and try and shred something that is scary enough. And when scary enough kicks in, social niceties go goodbye. Stress kicks in, higher learning goes out the window. Frankly, if you are dealing with an 80 pound dog in full predatory or defense mode, I don’t care how big you are: he/she will kick your butt. You are gonna bleed, and you are getting serious damage.

So the idea of trying to apply force, even at the merely social level that Roberts operated, wasn’t the total answer with dogs. A dog wants social contact, but is not a herd animal. If they are safe, or feel like they need room to feel safe, pushing them away is just silly. They can do just fine without you. They are not living a life worried about being lunch.

After all the centuries among us two leggers, dogs do want social contact. And we have COOKIES. That is a key we can use to unlock behavior we want. Positive social contact is not achieved by force. You can’t threaten anything into loving you. After all, we talked about learned helplessness last time, and we discussed how it doesn’t lead to a positive relationship. It leads to dependency, more fear, and less trust.

Over time I refined my interactions and observed-a lot. One thing I learned was that a fearful dog, or a dog that seemed to be aggressive, was often receptive if they were helped to see that their old behavior (fear or aggression) was not effective. Showing that behavior didn’t cause any pain or discomfort, but it didn’t succeed. Whatever they were afraid of, whatever they were protecting themselves against, didn’t have to be a threat. It could be neutral, or it could actually be friendly, especially if it was a human.

That process of give and take, the back and forth of signals, mutually understood and accepted, that is what develops resonance between me and a dog. We begin to operate in concert. No, our “energies” do not somehow become synchronized. (Let’s see someone show up in court and show their “energy detector”. Or publish it in a peer reviewed journal. Not going to happen.). But there is resonance, a give and take that becomes a habit. This is similar tot he resonance that develops between long time friends, or life partners, those people that finish each others’ sentences. The quiet moments of communication that two people share without even talking. This is what I aim for when interacting with a dog that ha problems. This is how I can, at times, deal with dogs that others can’t. This is the most rewarding of things that happen in a training or therapeutic situation, the connection, even for a short time, where trust exists and movement and intention become connected.

I’m not special in doing this. I have seen it in other trainers, the good ones. We all have the ability to establish resonance, especially with our own pets. The animals that we spend day in and day out with, the animals that share our lives, we can and should develop resonance with them.

Is this whispering? Is there some secret language that only the select can speak, that only the particularly gifted can parse and comprehend, passed secretly from generation to generation?No. There is no whispering. When a dog and I exchange information, when we share, it is all right out there. Anyone can learn to speak dog, and anyone can learn to receive the messages sent. To do so we need to do one thing above all else: listen. The character of Piglet in the Winnie the Pooh stories said it once: “Lots of people talk to animals: very few listen.” We need to listen, to observe, to connect.

Is it magic? No. There is no magic. Unless of course you consider two organisms working collectively in a positive, mutually respectful and resonant way to be magical. That I can buy-yes, the collective development of trust, seeing that light come on behind their eyes, feeling the connection and seeing a once fearful or aggressive dog drop their defenses, cross that once uncrossable gulf and let you in-that is magic.

Learned helpless: PLEASE DON'T KILL ME!

I’m certain you have seen it - the dog that immediately cowers in front of anyone and anything. He seems to be calling out “I’m pitiful-pet me!” This is often accompanied by urinating a little and behavior that, in a human, we would see as clear groveling. Many people see this and think “Oh my, he is such a submissive dog!” and assume that this poor beast is going to be easy to deal with.

Others see this as a dog that lacks spine and they get forceful, trying to “toughen up” this pup.

Both sets of responses are wrong.

Sure, the dog is giving signals that add up to the picture that in some heads screams “submissive”. If the groveling got any worse we would be embarrassed. These postures are associated with dog to dog signaling that one dog has surrendered to another dog. Some trainers tell us that this is a good thing, and that we have successfully become the “alpha” in the relationship, that we have accomplished something good, something our relationship should be based on.

Me? I say look to science, and science says “WHOA! NOT QUITE!”

Science tells us that this may not be “submission” (and that is a whole ‘nother discussion), but something very different. There is a term for this. It’s called LEARNED HELPLESSNESS.

We see it in people. Victims of domestic violence, child abuse,  sexual abuse. This behavior may be a symptom of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. A dog acting this way does not mean we have achieved training success.

Human victims can learn that no matter what they do they can’t win. They will be beaten down and hurt. As a result of this repeated beating down, they learn to give up before things escalate to try and minimize the damage. They suffer and quit to survive. Dogs can do the same.

How does this happen in dogs? Fantasy fiction novelist Elizabeth Bear, in a little different context, put it succinctly. “If you really want to screw up an animal, sometimes reward it and sometimes punish it for the same behavior. Or keep increasing what it has to do to get a reward. You get real basket cases that way!”

A dog that, when approached, immediately rolls over, exposes his belly, urinates, and whimpers may not be saying “Hi there! You are the boss and I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!”. Nope. That dog is more likely saying “There is no point in defending myself from you, big scary thing—just kill me now!”

The most common factor I have seen in animals that show learned helplessness is fear caused by force. Force that was applied excessively, inconsistently, and with poor timing. It is true that scientists have shown that punishment “works”. After all, an animal that experiences pain and violence after they do something will try and stop the pain. If that pain is closely linked with a specific circumstance of action the animal will learn to avoid that particular set of circumstances, and may learn to generalize and associate the pain with similar situations. This creates problems as they travel down this road.

First off, why do we want an animal performing a behavior out of fear of pain? Do we need to "prove" something? I don’t want that relationship with my own dogs. Having a dog look over their shoulder all of the time waiting for pain is not the way I want my dog to view me, or our relationship. A dog acting from fear, if given the opportunity, may finally decide she has had enough and head for the hills. To reliably avoid pain they simply avoid the entire surrounding environment. That makes sense from their point of view.

Also sensible to them may be a “last stand” to either survive or die. This is seen in humans with victims who finally, after years of abuse, react massively toward the abuser. Dogs don’t usually have guns, so in a dog’s case this may be with a bite. If their abuser or “trainer” has responded to lower level warnings and attempts at defense with more force and more fear, then the bite may be serious and, to those on the outside, out of proportion to the perceived provocation.

For trainers, even those who are not using force or fear, part of the equation are the twin issues of timing and consistency. Timing in dogs is critical. Dogs associate good or bad with the actions that occurred immediately before the good or bad thing happened. If punishment is presented, the administration of the aversive, the punisher, has to be dead on with the unwanted behavior to be effective and clear. If Fred the Beagle, for instance, poops on the floor at 10 am, but the owner punishes him at 12:30 when he gets home from the store, Fred is getting an unclear message. He is more likely to associate the punishment with whatever he did just before the punishment. So if Dad called him over and then punished him for pooping on the floor, poor Fred the Beagle is confused: was he punished for coming to Dad? What was the whole deal about the poop? What poop?

Consistency is the other twin, the flip to timing’s flop. For instance: this morning you are in your sweats before you get dressed, take Fred out for his walk, and love him as he jumps up and plays with you. Forty five minutes later though, after showering and getting dressed for work, Fred gets smacked for doing the same exact thing. Fred’s fashion sense is limited: he may not see your sweats and your work clothes as that different. Context seems the same to Fred, so now he has been rewarded and punished for the same behavior.

Instead of using force, punishment, and risking the utter confusion of a dog that may lead down the bumpy road to learning they can never do anything right, how about we try another idea? Let’s show our dogs what we want, mark those desirable behaviors, and then reinforce them. Instead of teaching learned helplessness, how about we teach learned confidence?

In my years competing with field dogs, I saw plenty of animals that had developed highly trained learned helplessness. When the handler sent them out they constantly looked back, head down and tail tucked, waiting for the zap of electricity that told them WRONG! When they came into a new environment, with novel challenges, they were a sorry sight to see. Fear dripped off them, and although they followed directions, there was no joy in Mudville. They had no confidence of their own and no confidence in their handler.

Somehow I accidentally learned a different (I think better) way. My dogs needed to be secure, confident, and able to make choices. This took a lot of training and repetition and patience and holding back from assessing the trainee as stupid or obtuse, but my dogs finally taught me. I learned the lessons from them. They resisted learning helplessness and I learned to be consistent, clear, and that fear bred only more fear. I owe that lesson to my dogs, and I own that lesson now.

For others, I can simply let my experience be a guide, a suggestion. Learned helplessness and canine PTSD are not the marks of a submissive dog. They are not goals to achieve. They are signs of a dogs that has been pushed too far, too often, with the wrong methods, and is simply trying not to be killed. Please, don’t put your dogs in that space. Instead of imprisoning them in fear, teach them confidence and the ability to make choices. Give them the keys to success. Then sit back and enjoy the ride.

Predicting/preventing the future.

 I love to look outside the four walls of dog training and behavior to see what else is happening in the world. I was listening to a podcast that featured an interview with Marina Abramovic, a performance artist, and she made the following comment that really caught my ear:

"One of the artist's jobs is to go to see what (the) future could look like and prevent it…or ask (the) right questions. We don't always have answers but we have to try, to give some possibilities for people to experience anon."

Let’s see if we can apply this idea to dog training as it is right now, and use it to sketch out what our training could become.

Our current strategies are focussed on setting a foundation of manners and hoping nothing really ever goes wrong.  We teach basics like sit and come, and then, well, we kind of stand back and hope. We hope the client does a little more work. We hope that the client doesn’t let the work that we have already done fall by the wayside. We hope nothing serious ever happens.

But when the future doesn’t arrive as hoped, we are called on to fix the unexpected future. We respond and react. Despite outreach and talks about prevention we are trapped waiting until something breaks, and then we try to patch it.

I want to suggest another path. Morag Myerscough, a designer in the UK, said in a presentation to the British Design Council: “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”

Do you hear an echo here? Doesn’t this sound akin to Marina Abramovic? The future doesn’t just have to happen. Abramovic asks designers to prevent the future, and Myerscough places the onus upon us to invent the future. Neither one takes the position that the future happens to us: we happen to the future.

With this mindset, instead of waiting passively for the future to happen, we take the responsibility to design our future, and the futures of our clients. We become active.

Although these statements come from the fields of art and design, we can translate the concepts to dog training and behavior. With our canine companions this means we take the initiative to build and direct positive, desirable behavior and habits instead of waiting and hoping that bad behavior doesn’t arise. We are not forcing square George into a round Fido box. Instead, we develop an environment that fosters the squareness that is George and sets George up to be the best George he can be. We recognize George’s abilities and strengths and we invent George’s future. Instead of trying to prevent the bad, we create the good and reliable.

How do we do this? First, we learn and recognize our individual clients and their strengths and potential weaknesses. We plan our training and stress those areas where we know, after a bazillion dogs, problems are going to come up. We know they are going to chew. We know they will pee on the floor. We know they will bark. We know that lots of dogs will dash for the door given half a chance. And we know that, under certain circumstances, even the most forgiving dog will likely bite you or your child. After all, they are dogs.

Plan your training to be proactive and, honestly, creative. Introduce things like skateboards, and running screaming kids, and high value food bowls, into your basic classes. With close supervision-and plentiful ability to provide positive feedback the moment the dog succeeds-provide exposure to potential problem situations. Ease your clients, two and four legged, down challenging paths while you are there as a steady, calming guide. This might require extending your training protocol a little bit, and might just make your hour to dollar return a tiny bit lower by extending the hours in a series of sessions, but look at the long term benefits. Your clients will be less likely to call in a panic-or, even worse, run to a shelter (or worse) and dump their buddy when the ugly possibility of a challenge appears. Do your best to bulletproof your clients. I know that many of you already do this, but look at your program and see how much else you can incorporate.

Stop reacting. Invent the future. Carve a new path.

Police shootings, emotional damages, and the value of our companions.

I am looking forward to the progress of this trial in Michigan, encouraged by the ruling so far. US District Court Judge Gershwin Drain has ruled that the owners of a dog named Clohe, shot in Flint, can recover emotional suffering damages in their Federal Court fight.

Clohe was a 15 year old mixed breed dog. Flint and other Law Enforcement Officers were attempting to serve a warrant...at the wrong address. Clohe, who lived next door to the target address, emerged from her doggie door to see what was happening in her neighbor's yard and was shot in the face by police.

So dear Clohe, 15 years old, in her own yard, minding her own business, was shot by police looking for a fugitive in the wrong house.

In the past the value of a companion pet has been established as the cost of going to the pound and just "replacing" the dog. This has, in the past, ignored the suffering of the owners and the value of the years of companionship and memories as if they could just be "replaced".

In the case of Criscuolo v. Moses Lake Washington we got a first start at building value for a companion animal beyond "replacement" or "market value". This has continued with our decision in Branson v. Commerce City, CO where another Chloe was shot and the settlement was $262,500.00. Hopefully this trend will continue, placing adequate value on Clohe in Michigan that recognizes the emotional stress these incidents place on owners and the true value of the years of memories and companionship that constitute our bond with our companion animals. I know personally that dogs I have had have been far more than competitors or "property". There were days where my furry buddy was essential to getting through challenges that I faced.

It is time we recognized legally these bonds and values. This case in Michigan will hopefully help keep the momentum.

Here is a section of the article from Great Lakes Echo, by Eric Freeman, posted by Capital News Service on February 3rd, 2016. The full original can be accessed on the web HERE.

Owner can sue for emotional damages over shot dog

February 3, 2016

By Eric Freedman

Capital News Service

The owners of a dog shot and seriously wounded by a Michigan Corrections Department investigator can sue the state for emotional distress and mental anguish damages under federal civil rights law, a judge has ruled.

U.S. District Judge Gershwin Drain rejected the state’s argument that the owners, Erica Moreno and Katti Putman, would be entitled only to economic damages if they prove that the investigator acted unconstitutionally.

The investigator, Ronald Hughes, several state troopers and a Flint police officer on a multiagency team went to the wrong house in Flint while searching for a fugitive in June 2014, according to court documents. They had an arrest warrant for the fugitive.
Hughes mistakenly went into the backyard of the fugitive’s next-door neighbors, where he saw 58-pound Clohe, a 15-year-old pit bull mix, coming out the door and shot her in the face, the decision said.

Clohe is “a friendly family dog who gets along with her neighbors and never has attacked or bitten anyone,” the suit contends.

Trial is scheduled to begin Feb. 16 in federal court in Detroit.

In his decision, Drain said, “Clohe lost a portion of her tongue and a tooth and endured three surgeries to repair damage suffered as a result.”

The state denies any wrongdoing and counters that Hughes shot the dog in self-defense.

The internal affairs division of the Corrections Department reviewed the incident but the results of the inquiry are confidential, according to department public information officer Chris Gautz.

Clohe’s owners, Erica Moreno and Katti Putnam, filed a civil rights suit, claiming Hughes violated the 4th Amendment constitutional guarantee against “unreasonable searches and seizures.”

Shooting Clohe was an illegal “seizure” of their dog, the suit contends. “In sum, Hughes went to the wrong house to execute an arrest warrant and shot the dog without any reasonable basis for doing so.”

Shooting the dog “was objectively unreasonable because Clohe was not barking or making any threatening gesture towards Hughes,” it said.

The attorney general’s office asked Drain to disallow so-called “noneconomic damages” and limit any jury award to the difference between what Clohe is worth now and what she would have been worth if she hadn’t been shot.

Christopher Olson, a Royal Oak lawyer representing Moreno and Putnam, said the state argued that it’s a property damage case but, in fact, it’s a constitutional violation case.

Emotional distress damages “naturally flow in any case in which a cop shoots your dog in the face,” Olson said. “Most people who’ve ever owned a dog treat it as a family member.”

Rejecting the state’s argument, Drain noted that courts recognize that some people “think of dogs solely in terms of an emotional relationship, rather than a property relationship” and that “the bond between a dog owner and his pet can be strong and enduring.”

Drain said, “Prohibiting recovery for emotional damages stemming from the loss of, or harm to, an animal caused by a constitutional violation would conflict with the compensatory and deterrence aims” of federal civil rights law."

Drain also ruled that the jury can award Moreno and Putman punitive damages if they prove at trial that Hughes acted unconstitutionally.

The Chloe case, Commerce City, CO, final chapter.

Seriously. I am so proud of our lead attorney Jennifer Edwards of the Animal Law Center in Denver, Colorado, for hanging tough and getting justice for Chloe. We can't bring her back, but we did what we could, and I call that a win.

This is a special win since the settlement is the largest ever for such a case involving a companion animal in Colorado, helping set the standard that companion animals are worth FAR MORE than just "replacement" costs. After all, how can you "replace" years of companionship, shared memories, and affection? Is there a price on that?

Chloe can now rest easier knowing that responsibility has been assessed. We will continue to battle on for others that have suffered the same fate: Bullet, Broli, Cali, Lucy, and a host of others.

Here is the news story on Chloe from Fox 31, Denver, Colorado, today.

Settlement reached in police killing of dog; May be largest in Colorado history

POSTED 12:46 PM, JANUARY 25, 2016, BY CHRIS HALSNE, UPDATED AT 01:41PM, JANUARY 25, 2016

COMMERCE CITY, Colo. — The city of  Commerce City has paid what appears to be one of the largest financial settlement in Colorado history for the death of someone’s pet.

FOX31 Denver has confirmed the city recently paid $262,500 to the family of a chocolate lab-mix named Chloe, shot and killed by police. The payment was part of a settlement to avoid a federal civil court trial scheduled later this month.

In November 2012, officers responded to a report of a dog running in a neighborhood. After capturing Chloe with a catch pole and shooting it with a stun gun,  Officer Robert Price fired five shots at the dog, killing it.

Video of the event was captured by a neighbor.

Price was charged with aggravated animal cruelty but was acquitted by an Adams County jury. Commerce City police documents, obtained by FOX31, show internal affairs ruled Price was “within policy” when he killed the dog.

Using the Colorado Open Records Act, FOX31 Denver learned that in addition to the settlement, Commerce City spent $125,227.38 in legal fees, with the city’s out-of-pocket expense being a $50,000 deductible.

Colorado civil law does not allow pet owners to recover losses for a pet that exceed its face value, but recent federal court cases citing violations of the Fourth Amendment, loss of property, have changed the landscape in pet law.

What impact do you have?

Author Simon Tyler’s latest book "The Impact Code" discusses the idea of impact; the impact we have in the world, in other people’s lives, and the impact we have on our own lives.

He defined impact as having five facets, or focuses. Those are, in his definition:

Visual
Presence
Connection
Verbal/written
Footprint

I was thinking about this as I drove and the way it might fit in with my work and life with animals. I realized that, when we train dogs, we use the same five factors to make an impact, a difference in the life of the dog and hopefully their owners.

First is visual. We, as trainers, are knowledgable in signaling and the effects of body language. We understand, and try to teach owners, about he mass of information transferred back and forth by body positioning, facial expression, and so forth. We use our body language to communicate with the dog, and we read their body language to help learn the root of their problems. They are trying to communicate: it is up to us to listen.

Our visual impact also includes the way we present ourselves to the client. If we show up unwashed and ragged our impact is not that of an expert that can be depended on. The dog we are there to work with needs us, or the owner would not have reached out. It can be critical that the owner takes us seriously and respects our experience and skills. If we don’t earn that respect the likelihood of them following our lead is slim.

Intimately involved in visual impact is presence, both for owner and dog. If your presence is calm, relaxed and confident (but not cocky or know-it-all) both dog and owner take your cues and relax. Tension, fear and worry tend to back off a bit. Both human and dog respond to the cues you give.

There is no spooky “energy” thing going on here. You are acting like a professional. There are plenty of times that I find myself in a situation that could potentially go very wrong. A professional and calm demeanor usually helps establish a similar response. It may be a case where I am truly concerned about getting bitten, but the professional in me is out front. I am not careless or reckless. I observe, make plans for what may go wrong, and keep the exit in mind, but you can do all that and keep a calm, professional bearing.

That calm, professional bearing, coupled with empathy and compassion, helps build connection. There are plenty of dogs out there that can kick my aging self all over the map. They have teeth and strength and are far faster than I. It is physically impossible - and foolish - for me to try and apply force to a dog that has size, speed, and has killed a human before I met them.

Instead I go the other way. I establish a connection, an agreement if you will, with the dog. They don’t hurt me and nothing bad happens…but they can’t drive me away either. I won’t  hurt them either, and when they give me acceptance signals I return them. We communicate. We build a working relationship, even if for just a short time.

This does not always work. Some dogs are too damaged to build such a relationship. Some take a long time and I have to be patient. I am not there to prove anything. I am there to assess or to help.

Likewise, I am not going to get compliance from an owner if we do not connect. Hearing and seeing what I have to say is not enough. They have to process the information, to take it in. They have to see how the answer fits into their lives, and my job is to help them see that. That requires a connection. Hopefully, once we connect and they start to see results I will have opened their minds enough for them to reconnect with their dog so they can solve problems together.

We, as trainers and behavior consultants, have to be masters of  communication. We have to have the owner take in and process the information we give them. We have to explain some pretty complicated concepts succinctly and clearly without being condescending. It is fine for us to sit around a table with a few beverages and debate +P, -R, classical conditioning and response time, but owners just tend to glaze over. They aren’t looking for a degree: they want Fritzi to stop pooping on the rug.

We may write blogs, or give handouts or book recommendations, but we must get the essence of our training to owners in quick, short and digestible chunks. We must use verbal and written communication skills to get through the haze.

Finally we have to consider our footprint. Not the ones that our boots make on the carpet (although avoiding those is part of being a professional), but our footprint as shown by the track of dogs behind us. Have we made a difference for the dogs? Have we made a difference to the owners? Did we leave a gentle trail that dog and owner could follow? Did we impact their mental surfaces with respect and kindness? Or did we kick a door in, stomp around, knock over the furniture, and leave chaos in our wake?

Impact is a better assessment of our abilities and our success than money or fame. As trainers we need to be mindful of our impact. We have the ability to make a big one. Make the best of your opportunity for impact.

How animals assess their world: Is it safe to go outside?

Two posts back we talked about perception and a dog’s response to a perceived threat. I want to go into that a bit more this week and talk about the steps that a dog goes through when assessing their surroundings and the objects or people in them.

As I said before, a dog, in fact any animal, makes an assessment that starts with safe vs not safe. This assessment is made based on hardwired survival behavior, physical and other cues, experience, and training.

The best outcome for an animal is that a situation is safe. Just determining that a situation is safe is not all that happens though. From basic safe the animal decides whether to stay in place or approach. If they approach, the long term decision for approach may be determined by whether the approach is reinforced. Is there a reward that makes it worthwhile to pursue this behavior in the future? Is a need fulfilled? If so, the approach is reinforced and becomes more likely to occur in the future.

This is what we strive for. We want our companions to be reinforced by approaching us, and we fulfill their needs when they do. Fortunately for us dogs are social beings and want our interaction. They have a need for social contact, and we can fulfill that need in a positive manner. We can also provide the physical bits that aid in their survival, like food and shelter.

On the other hand, when an animal evaluates a situation as not safe they are presented with three basic responses: Freeze, Flight, or Fight. Everything that happens in a not safe circumstance is a modification of these three choices.

First let’s talk about freeze. This response is the bunny rabbit response: stay really still, try to blend in, and maybe the scary thing will overlook you and go away. For rabbits and other animals that blend in (the technical term is protective or cryptic coloration-we call it camouflage) this is a common response. They stay still because many predators react to movement. If you aren’t obvious and don’t move, you may not attract attention. In the wild, if you are potential prey, attention is bad.

For dogs this is less, er, useful. A 98 pound harlequin Great Dane is really tough to miss, regardless of the background. Staying still is not a real option most of the time. Dogs that freeze are, in my experience, usually not trying to blend in-they are, instead, so fearful that they can’t decide whether to run or fight as they perceive that both options are equally dangerous. Dogs that show serious freezing may have been abused, or suffered from making either choice in the past. The have acquired learned helplessness, which we will talk about another time.

With freezing off the table in many cases, we are presented with the age old dilemma: fight or flight. Of the two, flight is usually the safer, and most common choice.

Flight is easy to understand. You see something scary? RUN AWAY! Live to eat another day. This makes sense. If you are paying attention to your surroundings, you can even see the scary thing before it sees you and, by fleeing, you may avoid the confrontation completely. Avoidance by flight is really safe and, if you successfully stay under the bad thing’s radar, you can continue your life unmolested. To do this you require an escape route, for which animals are scouting all the time. If you are pursued, you may have to make the decision again to keep running or turn and fight, but running is still the best option if you can.

Fight is the least attractive option. Someone is getting hurt. Getting hurt is always a less attractive option if you are trying to survive. Getting hurt as an option means that you either have nowhere to run or you have to protect something worth possibly dying for.

The first step to fighting is to try and become scary yourself. Get big, get loud, get fierce. Make the other guy think that you are bigger and badder than they are. Maybe they will decide to take the flight option. This is behavior we see in a dog that is frightened and feels that flight options are limited. This can be backed into a corner, or even more insidious, being chained in a small area (which is another topic coming up in the future). They growl, snarl, lunge, bare their teeth, and try to look as intimidating and dangerous as they can. This looks, and is, frightening and dangerous. The good news is that, in most cases, if you give an animal in this situation an exit, they will turn fight into flight. Give them an out. They will mostly take it.

In canine conflicts, if bluster doesn’t work, then the two in conflict may proceed to what is essentially ritualized combat. This is your typical dog fight. The two dogs come into physical conflict, but are mostly pulling their punches. Neither really wants to get hurt, so they show inhibition and control of their biting. There is a lot of spit, sound, and fur flying. There may be punctures and torn ears. No one, however, really gets injured. One or the other decides that enough is enough and retreats or surrenders. Case closed for the day and survival is achieved.

If this doesn’t work, the the situation escalates into full-on high stakes combat. Someone isn’t going home today. This is the final option. In the overall scheme of things, this is the least attractive option because one animal is likely killed and the other may be mortally wounded. If your strategy is for the species to survive this is not good, as you may be reducing the healthy population and limiting your survival chances. Remember: if your goal is to keep your species alive and reproducing, you try and stay alive to spread your genetic material far and wide. Killing off too many of your cohorts limits this ability. This is something that we as humans seem to have forgotten, but then that is partly why I now deal with dogs after doing my years dealing with nasty people. Dogs have better sense.

Ultimately the conflict must be defused or resolved. Either way the animal is seeking to return to a state of safe. That is the root. They aren't plotting beyond that. There is no desire to establish an empire and exploit the local weaklings. That is human. As long as animals can provide for their basic needs conflict is unnecessary. Fulfilling needs and reducing conflict makes the world safe and allows the propagation of the species, which is really the bottom line for any organism. Make more of yourself and keep them all healthy.

How does this apply to us and our interactions with our dogs? They need to identify safe vs not safe, and need guidance to figure out what things are real threats and what are not.

Our dogs take major cues from our behavior. If we are tense or nervous, that information is quickly picked up by our dogs. If we are relaxed and receptive, generally so are our dogs. They do make their own decisions apart from our cues though, based on the input we have already discussed: scent, vision, hearing, and as associated with their own experience. Our job is to equip them, through socialization and positive experience, with familiarity with enough novel situations that they more accurately assess situations. Dr. Ian Dunbar says that all our puppies should meet 100 new people before they are eight weeks old, and another 100 people between 8 and 12 weeks. I personally have seen the result of this. When I was doing a lot of dog demonstration events I took litters of pups to expos where, over three or four days, my pups met up to 30 or 40,000 people. These became bulletproof pups.

Those particular opportunities are not available for everyone, but the principle is the same. Lots of exposure, lots of positive.

This also applies to adult dogs, even those who have had bad experiences. It does take a little longer. Your dog, even with a bumpy road behind them, can learn to be accepting and secure. They can expand their world of safe, and you can make your companion's life more relaxed, more enjoyable, and safer for you, them, and everyone else.

But if your dog insists that something, or someone, is not safe: don't force them. That will make things worse. Maybe, your dog sees something you don't. Look and listen and respect your dog's opinion. They may be right.