The more I learn, the less I know

There is one thing I have been seeing a lot online recently – people being defensive of the way that they handle their dogs, train their dogs and any decisions that they make for them. To an extent, I can understand the feeling. Nobody ever likes to find out that they may have been wrong about something, made the wrong decision or handled something the wrong way.

Understanding it does not mean that I accept it.

I regret many things about the way that I handled or trained my dogs in the past. In the beginning of my dog handling life, science was a long way behind where it is now when it comes to canine psychology. I grew up in the era of the Barbara Woodhouse methods. For those of us in the UK above a certain age, we will all remember standing there in front of our dogs, clearly enunciating the word ‘Sit!’ accompanied by a rapid hand movement upwards. Followed of course by a ‘correction’ on a choke chain if the command was not obeyed quickly enough. I have never been a cruel person by nature, and many have treated dogs far, far worse than I would ever dream of, even back then, but this was a nationally recognised and respected trainer on the television regularly, so she must be doing it right, it must be the right way to train dogs. (I know, believe me I know!)

Over time, science moved on but, to my shame, I did not for some time. Cognitive dissonance began to set in as I could not deny that things were not as they should be, that jarring feeling of mental discord as two opposing ideas war in the mind and there is a fight to avoid letting go of the way that things have always been. Deep down I knew better, but this was the way things had always been done and why should that change? After all, why should I bribe my dogs to do things? I put the roof over their heads; they should obey me through respect for me. I am happy to say that I never subscribed to the dominance theory, and there has always been an element of positive reinforcement in my training, so there is that at least that I can look back on with slightly less shame.

Then along came Finn. Scared of everything outside of a very small, safe bubble of space, even I realised that the methods I had always used would not work with him. Lacking so much confidence as he was and then developing reactivity meant that any kind of authoritative approach would only make things worse. The act of researching reactivity, and how to tackle the problem brought me to the concept of counter conditioning. At this point, I viewed Finn’s ‘aggression’ as a problem because I had yet to realise that Finn was not being difficult for the sake of it, but rather that he was finding aspects of his life difficult to cope with. I knew nothing about conditioning, save for a faint recognition of the concept of Pavlov’s dogs. I started reading about using high value food rewards as a way to change emotional connections to things. Despite thinking that I could tell without doubt if my dogs were happy or unhappy, I had never really thought about dogs having emotions to quite the extent that I now know they do. (And I also know that I could not tell how my dogs were feeling anywhere near as much as I thought I could!)

This is his 'you have treats hidden!' face

Seeing how Finn started to react to counter conditioning prompted me to start trying the (for me) novel idea of using treats for training along with the fuss and attention that had always played a part in my training methodology. Then I started wanting to know more about how I could help my scaredy-cat boy so I started studying. Then I discovered how to use a clicker. The rest, as the saying goes, is history. I have moved to a positive outlook. Do I have days when I get really annoyed because things are not going the way I want them to when working with my dog? Of course I do, I am human. On those days, we put the training plan away, hang out, and have fun instead. I am not perfect, by definition as a human being I cannot be. Neither is my dog. To be honest, I would not want him to be ‘perfect’ – there are things I would love to be easier about him, but then if they were, I would not be doing what I do now, and I really love the path my life is taking.

So no, I will not accept defensiveness when it comes to any decisions people have made when it comes to their dogs. If they are in the past, decisions cannot be changed and were hopefully made for the best of reasons. Keep up with the science, read the latest developments when it comes to anything to do with your dogs. Make sure you are as educated as you can possibly be, and then make each decision based on science, knowledge and good common sense, not because it is the way you have always done things. If that means that decisions made in the past have proved to be wrong, learn from it and do not make those mistakes again. There is honestly no shame from having done the wrong thing for what at the time were thought to be the right reasons. We can all only ever do the very best that we are capable of. We are beholden however to make sure we are capable of making the best decisions possible.

The title of this blog sums up my attitude to the subject of dogs now. There is so much more to educate myself about and develop my skills in. Learn to develop and change as the scope of human knowledge regarding canine psychology, health, coaching and all-round well-being continues to grow. Your dogs deserve nothing less.

Accentuate the positive

Some of the comments and messages I have received on the last post have brought this subject to mind. Some commenters have observed that I appear to concentrate on the negative aspects of my walks with my reactive dog. In reality that fact is not true, but I do tend to concentrate on relating them here. In trying to relate to others with fearful dogs that struggle, I am guilty of not detailing all of our successes.

As all of us living with reactive dogs know, it can be incredibly mentally and emotionally draining. Dreading the prospect of the daily walk, being on high alert the entire time for any potential triggers, and that toe-curling, cringing embarrassment that follows 'that' look from other people if your dog reacts towards them will all drag you down if they continue without respite. Fortunately, there are things that you can do to lift your mood very soon after putting any plan to help your fearful dog into action.

Zero steps forward, two steps back?

Two blogs three days apart rarely happens these days, but I want to relate what happened this morning and analyse it a little, to show why setbacks should not be allowed to get you down.

For various health reasons, I have not been able to walk Finn regularly for a while. In fact for the last month, my husband has been responsible for the walking duties, supplemented with enrichment at home with me to help make up for the shortfall. I am much better and so back in the saddle, so to speak, and took him out this morning.

As our regular walks do, we went out a little after 4.30 a.m. while it was still very dark and cold. I was expecting Finn to be keen and maybe forget some of his loose lead walking manners as it had been a while. Yes, we did head out of our gate at home at a fair speed, but he settled down to walk beautifully within seconds, having a lovely time stopping here and there for a sniff and to catch up on what is going on in the local canine community via the 'noticeboard' (lamp post 😄). There was one incident of lunging a few minutes in as a cat ran across the road in the light from one of the street lamps and Finn got a bit excitable and tried to take off, but he was easily distracted by crossing the road in the opposite direction and a few tasty liver treats.

Be kind to yourself

Following the recent theme of focusing on the wellbeing of the reactive dog guardian, given how much information is available to help us help our fearful dog, I want to use a short entry to make an important point.

So much of the literature that focuses on reactive dogs and improving their thresholds etc discusses the biological processes of stress and what it does inside and outside of the dog. There are countless books and websites that tell us about the stress hormones and how they affect dogs on both a short and long term basis, with the associated mental, physical and emotional health risks that come to a dog that is living with long term, constant stress.

What just happened? What do I do now?

It seems my last entry on here struck a chord with a lot of people who are or have been where I have been with Finn. I’ve had messages from people all over telling me that it made them cry as they recognised someone else going through the same thing, or in some cases realised that they aren’t actually alone. It can feel so very lonely at the other end of that lead, I know, and I’m so glad that I have been able to reach people and let them know that it’s ok, there are more of us out here than you realise and, most importantly, there is help and support for your dogs and, every bit as important, for YOU.

Following the response to that last blog, I want to spend a little time just talking about the support available, how to find it and some things to avoid. Where you should turn when you’ve got home from one of those difficult walks and you don’t know what on earth to do. That’s what this blog title relates to – not the reaction to the last entry, but that confused, lost feeling when your dog reacts to something for the first time.

When he looks at me like this, I can forgive everything 😍

The emotional toll of reactivity

Get a dog, they said. It'll be fun, they said. Think of all those great, social dog walks, they said.

So why am I stumbling around a field at 4.30 in the morning?

I've had a number of dogs over the years. All have had their distinct personalities, but all were fairly easy going, and liked meeting people and going to places. Owning a dog meant that people would sometimes smile as we walked past them in the street, children would come up and ask if they could fuss them, and our dogs loved all of the attention.

And then along came Finn.

Crash, boom, bang!

One of the things that I find hard about having dogs is the fact that there are so many potentially scary or upsetting situations that our dogs can encounter and we have no easy way of explaining to them that they are safe, as we could with another human.

It's that time of year again in the UK. I come from near a town in the south east of England called Lewes, and Bonfire Night is a HUGE deal around here. Bonfire season starts in my local area on the last weekend in September and goes on until the weekend or so after Bonfire Night itself on 5th November. With bonfires come the real potential issue - fireworks.