Don't walk the dog!

I know, the title of this article looks wrong. One of the first things we all know about dogs is that they need to be walked. Every day. Sometimes multiple times a day. By and large, that fact holds true.

Until it doesn't.

As anyone that's read my writings before knows, my area of interest is fearful and reactive dogs. The dogs that are scared of things they may encounter in the outside world and react by trying to create distance from them. Either by running away or by the use of displays of fear aggression in an attempt to make the scary thing itself move away.

The good, the bad and the ugly of behaviour modification

Those of us sharing our lives with reactive dogs have a number of things in common. A love of routes off the beaten path where few people go. The ability to spin through 180 degrees and powerwalk in the opposite direction, chanting ‘Let’s go, this way!’ in a cheery voice despite our stomach plunging to our boots. A neck that turns further than seems biologically possible through much practice at scanning the horizon in all possible directions for triggers appearing. One thing we definitely all want is access to ways in which we can help our dogs’ relationship with the world.

Many of us would love to see our dogs able to do something like this

Behaviour modification sounds scary. To someone that has a sometime love of schlocky horror movies, it conjures up images of haunted mental hospitals and straightjackets, with terrifying things being done with huge syringes. I fully admit to having a thoroughly overactive imagination though! Behaviour modification can be done in harmful ways. To break it down, behaviour modification involves modifying behaviour. Usually when discussing behaviours that guardians want changed, we are looking at behaviours they want to decrease. This leads us to look at how we can affect whether a dog repeats a behaviour or not. I wrote on this in a previous entry which can be found here, with a funky diagram from Foul Mouthed Fido that demonstrates it nicely. The technical explanation in that post goes as follows:

'There's no such thing as a bad dog.' Who's to blame?

Someone must be to blame, right? There must be a fault somewhere for a dog to be snarling and lunging at anything. A lack of training, not enough discipline, just a downright nasty temperament? One of these things has to be true for a dog to be 'reactive' (which is, of course, just another name for aggressive!)

No, I haven't gone rogue or lost the last remaining traces of my sanity. This is something that grinds my gears when I see it - blaming. Blaming the dog or blaming the guardian for some supposed 'thing' that they either have or have not done that has turned the dog into this problem.

I have a number of issues with this concept. I refuse to call Finn's reactivity a problem. It can be an issue, in certain circumstances, and it is something that we, his family, have to think about and consider in just about any situation that might come up, but it is not a problem. Finn has difficulties dealing with certain factors in the world. That is not a problem, it is a particular and special need that he has for our understanding and consideration. Yes, it can make our lives complicated and difficult at times, but that is definitely not Finn's fault. He never asked to live in a world he finds scary. There are things that I didn't get quite right in trying to equip Finn to deal with the world, I acknowledge that fact. There were also things that I had no control over that contributed to his fear and lack of confidence.

Less obvious consequences of reactivity

As anyone that has read articles on this blog knows, my young dog Finn is reactive, to both dogs and people.

I do miss that pink nose!

These words keep cropping up – reactive, reactivity. I have written a number of articles myself concerning the subject, and there are many, many more out there in the world. Yet it still seems the message does not reach those in the ‘normal’ dog world. I question whether it might be more constructive for those of us trying to get the point of view from our side of the terrified hound to use different language. Fearful is a word I often use, although again, whether this gets the extent of the mental trauma these scared dogs can go through is questionable.

Why flooding is a bad idea

One unpleasant little gem sometimes seen as advice for those with a fearful dog is to make them face their fears and ‘get over it’ that way. This is, in my opinion, one of the worst pieces of ‘wisdom’ in existence.

As anyone that has read more than a couple of posts on this blog will have realised, the subject of fearful and reactive dogs is one that is particularly close to my heart, and one that I have put a lot of hours of thought and study into. All dogs deserve treatment with kindness, respect and with thought given to their emotional state. This is particularly important when it comes to our scared furry friends.

The concept of putting a dog into a situation and making them remain there and ‘face their fears’ is known in technical terms as flooding. It is an outdated and frankly cruel technique. The supposed theory is that at some point the dog will have to realise that no harm is coming to them from being in the situation and so learns to accept whatever is happening. Of course, this is not what is actually happening. A dog forced to remain close to the things they find stressful with no hope of escape will shut down, and give up all hope. There is no escape for them from the cause of the fear and so they stop trying. This is not the action of an animal that has ‘got over’ their fear. This animal has utterly given up on any chance of escape and has shut down.