Improve Your Capabilities If You Want Your Dog To Behave Better

Elevating our own handler skills and knowledge is the fastest way to improve outcomes for dogs and the people who love them.

In all of my roles as a professional, dog trainer, behavior consultant, father, and adjunct professor at the University, I find the fastest way to improve the lives of non-human animals is to raise human capabilities and perception. In other words, the approach is often to teach the human, not to train the dog. 

Most days consist of having conversations about unwanted dog behavior, people tell me that the dog is aggressive, or the dog is a resource guarder, internalizing behaviors that the animal does as personality traits with no mention of the human role in the dynamic relationship. It’s a bit like the couple that goes to therapy hoping to have the therapist fix the other person without any internal reflection or responsibility. 

There is no such thing as good dog behavior and bad dog behavior. It’s all just behavior for the animals. Behavior serves a function, behavior is expensive, and often it comes with great stress which takes time for the emotional state and the body to reset. Think about the last time you were in traffic, and somebody did something dangerous or idiotic in front of you and you felt that rash of chemicals washed through your body. They drive away, but for the next, however, many minutes you are sat there, vibrating from the encounter. We might call this road rage, a temporary but fleeting madness. We would not say that you are an aggressive driver, or that you resource guard the lane of traffic, it’s a relational moment in time that causes you to swear, scream, and behave in an aggressive manner. For some people that adrenaline will stay with them for a long time, some others are able to bring awareness and come back to baseline quickly. You see, your behavior response while it is yours, comes from a relation to the pressures of the outside world. You are very capable of having a relaxing drive in the countryside, but you are also able to be on edge white-knuckling it through rush hour traffic. Both of these things are true. 

Use this model when thinking about how your dog might feel every time they walk past another dog on the leash. Some dogs can do this perfectly fine, and they are very comfortable no matter what the response from the other dog they encounter might be. But a lot of the dogs who I treat have a reaction. It could be mild like they quicken their pace, their ears move forward, their tail goes higher, the hairs on their back stick up. This could be excitement, hopeful intent to interact, which is followed by disappointment, which is still an emotional response. Many of the dogs I’ve worked with over the years have severe reactions to simply encountering another dog on a walk. Most of the dogs who become extremely outwardly aggressive, barking, lunging, and snapping on the leash are actually fearful and extremely insecure. Not unlike our over-compensating humans behind the wheel. 

I hold a discussion with my clients about how dogs interact when they’re not inhibited by the leash, how they use body language to communicate, and coping skills they adapt, and then the easiest solution is to get training. Training the dog is simple, it’s training the human that takes the work. 

One of the first skills I like to teach people is to create space, it’s amazing how often a little bit of room prevents the behavior response from escalating and there are lots of ways to do this. The most simple is to move off the path where it’s safe to do so and have the dog sit, bonus points for feeding them and rewarding them for this quiet and calm behavior, while the dog passes by then release them and keep walking past. I call this exercise, “OUT, SIT, WAIT”. This puts the human between the oncoming distraction, the dog, and their own. This can easily increase the perception of safety for your animals and is a wonderful form of social support. 

For dogs who can walk past other dogs for the most part, it might be a simple train exercise like switching which side of your body they are walking next to. My dog typically walks on the left, but on our walk, when we saw two big Labrador retrievers walking right toward us out in front of their person on the left side on a collision course with my dog, both labs connected to the human with the dreaded retractable leash, I just asked my dog to “switch sides “now he’s on my right I’m in the middle of the path and the dogs walked past me acting as a buffer for my dog. I noticed my dog who is 11 and just doesn’t need to interact with every passing dog was physically softer when I asked him to switch. That rigid and attentive body had loosened as he was prompted to walk “on by” which is our cue for passing stimuli on our walks.

These are both such simple exercises to teach both humans and dogs, however, they are rarely done proactively. People only do these kinds of things after a couple, of unwanted encounters or advice from a professional dog trainer.

If we blame and shame our animals for not being perfectly prepared for our human environment we are really showing our own ignorance and shortcomings.

So much of this comes from cultural norms. Humans have really unrealistic expectations of the animals we choose to share our lives with. We treat animals as pets first. Pets “should be able to walk past another unknown animal without making eye contact, without interaction, without feeling anything… It’s absurd really.

When I’m teaching people about social support for their animals, it’s like watching a lightbulb get turned on, I just love it. They realize how many places they could consider the needs of the animals or better prepare them for what’s happening in their environment. 

If we blame and shame our animals for not being perfectly prepared for our human environment we are really showing our own ignorance and shortcoming. I can’t tell you the number of times a client will tell me about their dog’s behavior and then follow up by saying “I just can’t have that. “. Remember, we choose to bring these animals into our lives, they are powerless in this exchange. The human-animal bond is a wonderful thing, but you have to acknowledge they often don’t have a voice in this complex relationship dynamic.

The greatest way to provide equity and strengthen the relationship is simply getting curious. Learn about dogs, read a book, make fewer assumptions about what your dog should be, and start asking questions. I wonder why he does that? I wonder how she feels when she experiences that? Curiosity is the key. And remember, when you can’t figure out, the why behind the behavior, just focus on what you would rather have. Si if you know you don’t want your dog barking and lunging on the leash with the other dogs, teach him how to walk past dogs on a leash. First, can he walk on a loose leash without distractions? OK, now can he walk past low-level distractions at relatively close proximity? Now as the behavior of loose leash walking past distractions becomes more fluent, what are the hardest distractions? Maybe she can walk past a person jogging at 3 feet away but she needs 8 to 9 feet to walk past a barking or excitable dog. 

As your human capabilities increase, you become a more proactive and responsive handler advocating for your dog and really understanding what they need to be successful. When we learn better, we do better.