Why understanding is critical

I often talk about how important understanding body language is, to all levels of people that may be around dogs or interact with them in any way, as a canine professional, rescue volunteer, fosterer or dog owner/guardian. It has become something I no longer really think about saying but just add in to posts and articles, because it is such an obvious part of helping people help dogs, showing them that they need understanding before anything can change or progress. A few evenings ago though, the importance was brought back to me sharply, in a very personal way.

I am currently working my way through a level 5 course in canine behaviour. The course is, as so many of the courses I talk about, from Canine Principles and can be found HERE. The particular module I have just completed is called ‘Personality and People’ and discusses the subjects of canine personality, emotional responses, the canine-human bond, and moves on to the subject of pet loss and bereavement. This is still a subject I find hard a lot of the time, despite well over a year since losing my best old boy.

Then it came to the external research assessment topic, on behavioural euthanasia. This is a huge topic in many ways, and not one I am going to get into talking about here, other than the effects that researching and writing the assessment had on me and my thought processes.

The first step I needed to take was to pick a particular behaviour that may lead to behavioural euthanasia to talk about. I picked aggression towards humans because it is something I have done some reading about before, and it is probably the most obvious contender for a behaviour that can have this end result, and meant I could concentrate on gathering all of the information needed to discuss the subject objectively. I found some personal accounts from those who have been through losing a dog to behavioural euthanasia, and the thinking processes and steps they have gone through to reach that final destination. It was not easy reading by any means – the ending of a life is never an easy topic, no matter what the reason for it – but educational and thought provoking.

Then I caught sight of my own dog, Finn, out of the corner of my eye.

Those that have visited this blog before are doubtless familiar with Finn. He is my now 3-year-old merle Border collie. He is fear reactive to dogs and people he does not know. His default in a sudden encounter is to bark and snarl at people from a minimum of 6 feet away, and, in earlier days, he would lunge and do a pretty good impersonation of the Hound of the Baskervilles. With a lot of work, he rarely lunges now, will still startle and bark in a sudden encounter round a corner for example, but is getting much better with seeing people out and about from ever decreasing distances.

Working on being around people in a local park 😊

It hit me suddenly. What if he had not come to live with us? What if, instead of being worried about his behaviour and trying to find out what was going on with him (and setting myself on the path to where I am now) I had decided to punish him for the barking and lunging? Or handed him over to someone else as their problem to deal with without researching what he needed to help him fit better into the world? (Please note I am NOT knocking rehoming at all, just pointing out that, at that point, I would have had little to no clue what to look for in a good place to take him for a better chance at life.) What if he had never encountered someone like me, as I am now, educated and understanding far more than I ever did before? He has a far better chance of a happy life with someone more educated than I was in the beginning, despite 30 years and more around dogs and this breed in particular. My knowledge lacked a huge element – understanding.

Understanding what drives behaviour, the physical and psychological processes occurring in the dog at any time. Learning what different postures and movements mean in canine body language. How to tell when a dog is feeling happy, nervous, stressed, scared. I have so much more idea than I did then. If I had not taken the time to learn and understand, there is a real risk that Finn would have kept getting more and more scared, showing heightened and increasing fear aggression displays. Dogs do what works and so when they move up the rungs to a higher level of aggressive display, they may start to skip lower levels of signal and warning. If nothing changes, eventually the dog is left with a single option – to bite. This is a dire situation for a dog as a history of biting may well be the end of them. This has the potential to be the fate that might have awaited my funny cuddly fluff ball (currently huffing at me from his bed near the desk because apparently working is cutting into play time!) if I had not taken those steps to educate myself.

Many factors can affect aggression in dogs. Past experience, health, medications, all play a part. Some things we can affect and change, some we cannot. The first and most fundamental thing we need to do for the dogs in our world is to understand them, why they do what they do and what they are trying to tell us by doing so.

If you are looking to broaden your understanding of dogs but do not feel the need to study an intensive behaviour course, check out their site for their full course list.