Your brain is responsible for keeping you alive, not keeping you happy. You have to be intentional about bringing joy into your life.

— ApRiL (@greasybishh) July 26, 2021

This tweet came across my feed today, and although it was about humans helping other humans, I immediately thought about dogs. Because of course I did: I use everything as an excuse to think about dogs.

Brains are just another organ, and they serve the same general purpose as all our organs: keeping us alive, and helping us to make more copies of ourselves. This is true for humans just as much as it is true for dogs.

• dogs will use avoidance and aggression when they feel threatened, even if the threat is not “real” from our perspective (we don’t get to decide what dogs find threatening).

• dogs will seek food and mates even when they’re well-fed and simply can’t get in the family way.

• dogs will identify and guard resources that they feel are important to their survival.

Due to a mismatch between their evolutionary environments and their current contexts, they may make decisions to behave in ways that are baffling (why do you chew drapery, dog?) or dangerous (why do you eat drapery, dog?). But that doesn’t change the truth of things: their brains, just like ours, are wired to keep them alive. Dogs do what works so they can greet another day.

So, what does this mean?

It means that we must be intentional about giving them opportunities to find delight, especially by allowing them to behave in ways that scratch that “I’m a dog” itch: sniffing, chewing, walks, exercise, play, social time with other dogs, and so on. That’s our job, and dollars to doughnuts it’s more fun than any real job we might have.

It also means that we must protect them from things that make them feel truly threatened or fearful. For example, dogs aren’t enjoying themselves, feeling loyal, or protecting us when they are aggressive towards strangers. They are feeling like their lives might be at risk. This is not a good way to live.

That’s not all of it, though. Accepting this fundamental truth about dogs means that we must release our dogs from the human-centric box we have stuffed them into. Dogs don’t exist for us, their brains aren’t wired to make us happy, and much of their behaviour really, really is about meeting their own needs, not doing stuff for us or to us or to spite us. Dogs’ brains are wired to keep them alive. They love us, but they don’t exist for us. Seeing them as the beautiful and whole animals that they are keeps them safer and happier, opens our eyes to all the ways we can protect them and give them more joy. And seeing our dogs for who they really are is just about the best thing we can give them, at the end of the day.

Our brains, and our dogs’ brains, aren’t perfect. But they’re what we’re stuck with. And if the zombies have anything to say about it, they’re good enough.

Your personality is located at the part of your brain that is most likely to get punched, which gives you a sense of how much Evolution cares about your inner self.

Zach Weinersmith, in “Science: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness” 2017.

Dear shock collar purchaser who is sending me emails,

You have read my blog about shock collars, and you have a dog who is behaving in worrisome ways. Perhaps your dog has killed a cat, or is biting children, or is harming themselves, or is chewing or messing your house. Perhaps someone in your family is threatening you or has offered to get a trainer to help you, a trainer that uses a shock collar. Perhaps you’ve used shock collars before, and seen how well they can halt behaviour and shut a dog down. 

I know my blog made you feel angry and stupid and like lashing out, and I’m sorry. Before I was a dog trainer, I used a bark collar on my dog, and I worked with dogs in ways that I now regret. I know what it feels like to be told I’m amoral and wrong, and to be accused of harming the very creatures in my life that I made a commitment to take care of. I know how this feels. 

I’m sorry that there aren’t easy solutions to dogs who kill other animals, dogs who are terrified, or whatever your dog’s issue happens to be. I’d make a guess, without knowing you or your dog, that there is probably an easier solution than you think, if you hire a dog trainer with good skills and experience. But the fix will likely take time and money, and certainly won’t be as easy as pressing a button. 

But that shock collar isn’t the solution, either, I’m afraid. Some dogs seem to tolerate shock better than others, but shock collars in general are associated with bad outcomes for dogs: fear, aggression, and euthanasia. And...do you really want to shock a dog who is behaving out of boredom (chewing), fear (biting), or hunger (predation)? Is that fair? I’m guessing your conscience is whispering “no” at you in response to this question and making you flustered, because you found my blog, and now you’re emailing me. You want an exception. You want a hall pass. Your dog is worse than all the other dogs we positive reinforcement trainers work with, you feel. You just want me to know that in your case, it’s different. 

I’m sorry one more time, then, because your dog is not worse than others in my practice. Your dog is the same as many other dogs that I have helped. Or perhaps, if genes and context and experience have lined up in terrible ways and your dog is one of the few who does grievous harm when they bite or is living a life that is extremely welfare-deprived, I couldn’t help. But in none of those cases would a shock collar have been better. Not one. 

I know you love dogs. That’s why you are emailing. You want me to help you help your dog. But I can’t give you that exception: that’s not helping. I love dogs too. And I regularly help dogs with the same issues that you’re having, without shocking them...as do hundreds of my colleagues. And you asking for an exception to shock your dog when it won’t help you or your dog (and in fact is likely to harm your dog) well, it’s tiring. It wears me down. I picture your dog, I picture them getting shocked for a problem that is solvable without shock, and it depresses me. 

So hey, do me a solid, ok? We’re all people here, we’re all dog-loving people. If you’re going to side-step expert advice and assume the risk of harming your dog and the people around your dog by shocking them, just don’t tell me about it, alright? I will not reply and ease your conscience, you won’t get a hall pass from me, and you won’t convince me of the righteousness of your ways. It is not my job nor my moral duty to battle you personally about this. If your conscience is pricking you, hire a trainer (one of these trainers, preferably). Put it on your credit card or ask a relative for a loan if you can’t afford it, or call your local municipal shelter to see if they have support networks for trainers who don’t use shock. 

I’m sorry that dogs can be hard and heartbreaking. I’m sorry that shock collar manufacturers and trainers paint these devices to be harmless. I’m sorry that things are hard for you right now. I’m sorry enough, ok? Please don’t make me feel sorry for one more dog, for your dog, on top of everything else. 

Kristi Benson, CTC, PCBC-A

Addendum: if you are seeking non-shock collar options, please feel free to email me for a referral or other information, absolutely. I love getting those emails. 

Photo by Josh Hild from Pexels

Last year, a friend of mine (who really, really gets me) bought us both some new shoes. They’re Schitt’s Creek themed...yeah, we’re both fans, ok?...and simply adorable. When my pair arrived, I tried them on with a bit of trepidation, never having bought internet shoes before, and who would have guessed it: a perfect fit! Apparently I have remarkably standard-issue feet? They arrived early in the COVID-19 pandemic and around the time when the resulting quarantine orders were announced, so they sat, in the hopeful and squeaky clean way that new shoes have, on my shelf. I certainly don’t wear clean, new, and fun (to say nothing of white) shoes around my farm, with the preponderance of depositions to be discovered with any casually misplaced step. And with the pandemic raging, I didn’t have a lot of “town days” in which to show them off. 

Well, it’s true that I didn’t have a lot of town days, but I did have a few. One day, a vet appointment meant an unplanned and somewhat urgent trip to town. As I grabbed a mask, a leash, and my car keys, I considered whether or not to wear my new shoes. I considered whether or not to wear my new shoes for a very brief moment before slipping on another pair, that is. I wasn’t sure what the news would be from the vet (all ended up being well, thank goodness), and I know enough about how animals learn to know wearing the shoes would be a bad idea. 

A bad idea for me, I mean. I am an animal too, of course, so the whole “how animals learn” thing actually applies: I share much of my dogs’ learning capacities and cognitive tools (although I do have a few more as well—at least I hope I do). If I had a dreadful experience the first time I wore new, special, noticeable shoes, I knew I would probably find it hard to avoid making an association, and offloading a bunch of feels on the shoes, to the point that I might not want to wear them ever again. And I knew this because of one important factor: novelty. 

Novelty is “the quality of being new and unusual. It is one of the major determining factors directing attention” (APA Dictionary of Psychology). The shoes were new and interesting and salient, which means I would pay attention to them, and I would learn, that is, remember what they mean to me. If they were tied up in a predictive relationship with something terrible, even spuriously, they could become tainted. So instead, I wore the shoes when I was able to see dog training clients in person again, when I met a perfect young dog with gloriously easy to manage problems. 

You might be wondering if I’m ever going to chassé my nicely shod feet on over to the point of this article, so here goes. You almost certainly have control over a large majority of the novel stimuli (new stuff/sounds/sights/thingers) that your dog encounters, or at least the second part of the whole “when a new thing happens, this comes next” equation. For dogs, novel stimuli might be a loud bang from a garbage truck, a new harness, a new Hallowe’en costume you make for one of your human kidlets; anything that is new and unusual, from your dog’s perspective. It is well within your means, at least most of the time, to create a good, positive association here. When you notice your dog noticing something new, follow it up with something good: praise or patting if they like it, or better yet a food treat, even if you have to run to the treat drawer or fridge to get it. You can help your dog form positive associations with things that might startle them or even just things they’ll notice. You can prevent your dog’s version of Fun New Shoes from becoming the emotional harbinger of Dread And Dismay. This is a particular kindness when the new thing is itself a bit worrisome (like the loud noise of a truck backfiring) rather than essentially neutral, but it doesn’t hurt to fill your dog’s brain to the brim with good, kind, delicious associations to the things they encounter. A novel stimulus that is followed by something awful (like my vet trip could have been) can cause learning that is very hard to undo, and cause an emotional response that can be both tenacious and awful. 

Don’t allow a crappy experience to come after a dog is introduced to a new thing they’ll meet again, because they may just learn a predictive relationship and find the new thing to be awful all on its own.

Just as I’m in the habit of protecting my own stuff from earning a negative and terrible association, I’m in the habit of helping my dogs to find new stuff predictive of good stuff. It’s minor and easy, and helps to build resilient, confident dogs.

Now if I can only make sure that protecting my own stuff includes protecting my own stuff from being carried out the dog door and gnawed on, we’re golden.

To My Most Impressive Compatriot Timber,

My human only feeds me twice a day, and even then, only feeds me little round balls of dismay. I have both flavour and textural preferences of course, but no way to communicate these.

Always yours,
Toothy McBoots

My Enamelled Understudy,

Sadly, humans are under the impression that sustenance should only involve things which are equal parts lacklustre and desiccated—for us dogs, that is. They stuff their giant soporific faces full of egg salad sandwiches and potato chips on the regular. To address this inane imbalance you must simply meet your own gustatory needs, Ms. McBoots: whenever you come across a nice, ripe carcass or dead fish, inhale it like it’s going out of style. That’s what I do.

I remain, as ever, an important and wise figure in your thoughts,
Aunt Timber

My dearest chap Aunt Timber,

I sometimes like my colleague and house-mate, a dandy Labrador named Buffles. Sometimes I do not, though. The human implies that my feelings should remain ever consistent, like the passage of time as charted through the lens of experience of a single, perhaps avian, being.

Respectfully,
Sandy Snuffles

My Beachy Friend,

It is true that humans seem to have missed the boat that we dogs can both enjoy and not enjoy things. This is remarkably the case considering their own mercurial natures, wherein they stuff their giant solipsistic faces with potato chips and then, minutes later, moan about ‘hating themselves’ and ‘never eating chips again’ and ‘why is my face bleeding’ and all that. All I can say, Snuffles my acolyte, is to accept this dreary aspect of human nature for what it is. That’s what I do.

I graciously accept your respect as deserved,
Aunt Timber

Positive reinforcement trainers often hear from our clients that they are worried about bribing their dogs. This quiz will help you understand if you are indeed bribing your dog, or if you are in fact using reinforcement. Review the questions below and answer them (honestly! even if it hurts!), and keep track of your answers so you can do the math at the bottom of this quiz and settle the matter once and for all.

Do you put a hundred thousand all-beef wieners into an envelope, put on a trench coat, meet your dog in a dark alley, and after glancing around guiltily to see if anyone is watching, give them the envelope whilst murmuring casually that you now expect the issues you’re having getting a building permit for your shoddy casino will magically disappear?

A. Yes.
B. No.

Do you put a bunch of artisanal tuna and kale treats into a bank account and then, using a shell company, transfer the treats to your dog’s shell company’s account in the Cayman Islands, whilst passing a message to your dog through a neutral intermediary (whom you’ll toss under the bus if the hammer of justice should slam down), the message being that your political rival should no longer receive any media support from your dog?

A. Yes.
B. No.

Do you give your dog a treat when they respond in the way you hope, after you give a cue?

A. No.
B. Yes.

Do you have a giant stash of treats in a treat slush fund, from which you grab handfuls upon handfuls of delicious bits of dried liver and chunks of cheddar, handing the treats over to your dog (who happens to be the president of a small, but wealthy, country) in order to get massive government contracts to manufacture medical supplies?

A. Yes.
B. No.

Have you ever “accidentally” left a knapsack full of salmon skin snackies where your dog might “accidentally” come across it, with the expectation that your dog will pad invoices on their government contracts with extraneous expenses (well your dog didn’t buy ten tennis balls, did he? He bought TEN THOUSAND wink wink) and split the extra dough with you in the form of kickbacks?

A. Yes.
B. No.

The big reveal: are you bribing your dog?

For each “A” you chose, give your dog a steak, because wowzers that is some dog. For each “B”, give yourself no points whatsoever.

If you earned no points, you are not bribing your dog. Carry on reinforcing your dog for behaviours you like, following the well-established practices of animal behaviour change, and increasing your dog’s welfare as well.

Cover photo: Cairn-terrier Rybin | © Dreamstime Stock Photos & Stock Free Images

Earlier today I took a personality test for fun. Turns out I’m a very cheerful person who might be a titch lacking in the “conscientiousness” department (luckily, my low score there means I don’t actually care about my low score there, in an hilarious and cheerful self-improvement coup). My cheer usually allows me to wade through my life as a dog trainer without paying too much attention to some of the less savoury aspects of my profession, but even an accomplished cheer…er? like me can’t always avoid the hard and horrible stuff that people do to dogs every day in the name of training. In case you need to join me, I’ll be yelling this list at the moon tonight, after a heartbreaking photo of two scared dogs wearing shock collars slithered past my defences.

1. Someone else is a training a fast, reliable recall with food treats, so why are you using a shock collar?

2. Someone else is training their dog to walk nicely beside them with food treats, so why are you using a prong collar?

3. Someone else is training their dog to do basic obedience behaviours like sit, down, and stay with food treats, so why are you pushing your dog’s body around?

4. Someone else is training their dog to retrieve using food treats, so why are you pinching an ear?

5. Someone else is training their dog to stay in a down using food treats, so why are you throwing a can full of pennies at your dog?

6. Someone else is training their dog to refrain from barking using food treats, so why are you using a collar that sprays lemon into your dog’s mucous membranes?

7. Someone else is training their barking, lunging dog to walk on by instead, so why are you using a choke collar?

8. Someone else is training their dog to hop off the couch using food treats, so why are you yelling?

9. Someone else is training their dog to scream at the moon at midnight that training has changed and is kinder now…oh wait, that’s not a dog, that’s me, that’s what I’m doing.

10. Join me. Awooo.

Image by Comfreak from Pixabay

When some future-dwelling and vaunted social historian (being paid quality cryptocurrency I assume) looks back upon our era to comb through the archives of our work and lives as early 21st century dog trainers, they’ll likely take note of a wonderful if somewhat quaint, to them, trend: dog training is clearly moving away from the idea that a dog should do what we want and when we want it and instead, dog training should increase a dog’s access to the things they love, while helping the dog live peaceably with the humans in their lives. I am delighted to be a part of this trend, and I’m delighted to help my clients—both canine and human—to build, via training and education, new and useful behaviours…and maybe even a whole new way to approach being a family across species.

Although I don’t have the ability to hop into the future to gaze back in time, here are a few points that I suspect will make it into our future historian’s dissertation.

Out with the old: Dogs should be trained to focus on their human above all else.

In with the new: Dogs are sentient beings who live with us, but not for us. Training should enable them to experience their environments broadly, and in ways that they enjoy and have evolved to find compelling.

Out with the old: Training should be about compliance first, then human comfort: the dog should be seen (in a down-stay) and not heard.

In with the new: Training is enriching and fun for dogs, and can be about anything at all. Training that supports a dog’s comfort and freedom is at the top of my list, but after that, the world is everyone’s oyster: scent training, trick training, dancing, competition obedience, sports…Bring. It. On.

Out with the old: Dogs do not experience emotions in the same way humans do, so our training should focus on things we can observe dogs doing.

In with the new: The parsimonious view is that dogs do experience emotions, even if they aren’t the same as ours (go ahead and call fear a “threatened motivational state” if that floats your boat…I actually think that’s a useful, but unwieldy, framing). Training can and should focus on the whole dog, especially if the dog is…you know, experiencing a threatened motivational state.

Out with the old: Dogs should behave because we want them to, because it’s their duty, or because we have spent the effort training them.

In with the new: Dogs do stuff to get what they want out of the world, and accepting this truth allows for a great new relationship based on reinforcement with the things we have that dogs like.

Out with the old: Dogs are continually trying to gain status through their behaviour, and only a firm approach can prevent terrible outcomes.

In with the new: Dogs are, by and large, careful and sociable animals who are simply trying to make their way through a world that can range from confusing to downright unjust. Most of the behaviours we catalogue as “status seeking” are simply dogs being dogs, and doing behaviours that have worked in the past to get them what they love, or doing things that come naturally.

I wonder what else our future historian will report? Perhaps, just on the horizon, just there, is a way to magically remove all that dog hair that flavours my soup and speckles my floors. One can hope, right? One can dream.

Don’t you just hate it, when your socks slump down in your winter boots? When that happens to me I sometimes just take my socks off, instead of walking on lumpy, bunched up socks. My winter boots have a cozy lining—some kind of wool felt—and although I understand that academically wearing boots with no socks should feel wrong, it really just doesn’t. I have a high tolerance for oddity, I think. Today on my dog walk, I removed my poor slumpy socks and stuck them in the back pocket of my snowsuit, where they stayed until they caught on the fence as I slipped through and fell into a snowbank. I retrieved them and stuck them back in my pocket, but not before they had become thoroughly damp from the snow. 

Back at home, my dog walk complete, I went into the bedroom to grab a clean and dry pair of socks. Timber came with me and jumped up onto our bed. Now, when Timber jumps up on the bed, it can mean one of two things. He might want to indulge himself in a good ear rub and neck scratch...or he might want to be left absolutely alone. When he wants an ear rub, he sits quietly and looks at me, as still as a Timbery statue. If I rub his ears, he groans and closes his eyes, pushing his head against my hand. If I stop rubbing, he sometimes picks up one of his big paws and slaps my hand. “More, human”, is the best interpretation I can suss out. And of course I deliver—what does a human exist for, if not in service to Timber? 

When Timber wants to be left completely alone, he sits quietly, and looks at me, as still as a Timbery statue. Yes, you read that right: Timber gives no body language sign whatsoever about his wishes. Perhaps there is an olfactory signal that I, with my sub-par human sniffer system, can’t detect? Perhaps Timber is saying “do you even vomeronasal, bro?”

But luckily for me, Timber has another way to communicate: his actual voice. When I approach him to pat him on those days when he doesn’t want patting, Timber growls, lightly. When Timber growls, he is asking to be left alone, in a wonderfully clear way. And of course, I listen: I leave him be. What does a human exist for, if not to be of service to Timber? 

I love that Timber speaks to me so easily and so clearly, and Timber, I believe, loves that he can make his wishes known and have them attended to. Timber is not particularly upset by my approach, as it often predicts something which he clearly enjoys. Before I became comfortable with Timber’s particular foibles, I was worried about his seeming duality. “Is he a victim of my unwanted attention?” But no, he clearly enjoys patting...when he enjoys patting. So I’ve come to see his clear communication about his inner state to be something I can both appreciate and learn from. Don’t like something in my life? Follow Timber’s example. Don’t seethe or settle or simmer in it quietly, don’t play the victim, and don’t invite conflict. Just be upfront, if at all possible. Don’t like your socks, bunched up around your instep? Just take them off, with a bit of a growl, if you want. Toss ’em in a snowbank. It’s Timber-approved. 

Our dogs are very precious to us. We constantly seek out information to protect them from bad things and make their lives better: more enriched, more joyful, more complex, and more...well, dog-ish. Within the confines of our very human world, we want our dogs to have the best and most fulfilled lives we can provide. 

So, when we see the latest in our news feed with a tantalizing headline about something terrible affecting or afflicting dogs, we just can’t resist clicking to find out what we (or, much more deliciously, our neighbours) might be doing wrong. Is it something in their food? Is it something about their collars? Does walking on the right side of us predispose them to seizures or salmonellosis? We want to know, really know, the full catalogue of what might harm our dogs, and we want to know it, now. And of course, in our media-soaked world, we have an endless list of headlines to click on. The dog world has no shortage of people who speak with authority. 

Bad News: Bad News?

Although this information-seeking behaviour is normal, our very human tendency to seek out all the bad news headlines can lead, unintentionally, to real bad news, for our dogs. 

It unfolds something like this. A dog expert speaking persuasively or, heck, just loudly says there is a new scourge affecting dogs. For the sake of the story, let’s go with the absolutely made-up scourge of how terrible it is to deny dogs their daily banana. I could, with authority, write a blog about bananas being required, daily, for dogs to stay healthy. Dogs need bananas for their special mix of B6 and magnesyphan, didn’t you know? Oh my god, you didn’t know? Without their daily banana, dogs might suffer amoebiosis of the kidney. 

It’s not just nutrition advice, either: scourges are regularly reported about all things dog-related. Dangers to our dogs’ behavioural wellness can be found, literally, around every corner, if we listen to the pundits. Don’t believe me? Well, my spaniel Soleil just howled along with some music. If my ‘daily banana’ story didn’t get the traffic I wanted, I could just as easily write about how ‘allowing’ her to howl was breaking down the narrative ganglian pathways between the entorhinal cortex and the hippocampus, causing a dystopian anti-juncture of the child-wolf within her. 

“Only terrible and careless people ‘let’ their dogs howl, for crying out lou...uh, for Pete’s sake!”

Were I to publish my staunch polemic on the dangers of howling, it would likely be the case that I believe that I am right. I could convince myself easily of this, with some search engine research: I googled “gut-amygdala axis” to come up with some of the language to use in this blog. It wouldn’t be a terrific leap for me to dive a bit deeper into subjects I don’t fully understand (and without specialized training, can’t really understand) if I didn’t particularly like the howling, and come up with a very reasonable sounding reason to punish Soleil for howling or punish my spouse for triggering it. Now, don’t get me wrong: if I truly disliked Soleil’s howling, I’d set things up so Soleil got her howls on when I wasn’t nearby, or pop earplugs in to save myself the pain of it all. It’s fine to change things up to make everyone happy. It’s what dog trainers do. 

You might be rolling your eyes hard and fast to the blue sky above, wondering what in the heck I’m going on about. To that, I say: if you don’t think people would pay attention to that (granted: hilarious) bit of mumbo-jumbo, the anthropologist in me wants to hear more about your fascinating and unique lived experience. Because that, my eye-rolling friend, is exactly the kind of thing that spreads through the dog world like some kind of technicolour wildfire. When you see articles about preventing puppies from getting good socialization, or preventing dogs from playing with other dogs, or preventing dogs from sniffing on walks, or preventing dogs from experiencing ‘arousal’ or ‘frustration’ at all, or preventing dogs from expressing huge swaths of their normal behavioural repertoire, then...well, that’s all howling along to music, you see? Those are made-up scourges, no matter how eloquently or urgently spoken; no matter how the author tosses in processes neurological; no matter how many inner wolf-children are called. 

The Real #1 Scourge

Considering you clicked on a title about the number one scourge affecting dogs today, you are most likely wanting me to get to that particular point: what is the number one scourge, then? I mean, outside of the obvious, and truly important, things like breeding for body types which are inherently unhealthy or breeding for brains which are inherently fearful, breeding more dogs than there exist good, waiting homes, and the use of painful dog training devices...if we set that stuff aside, what is the number one scourge? Well, here is my answer.  

The number one scourge affecting dogs today is, well, scourges. 

When you combine our natural human desire to make our dogs’ lives better by seeking anything and everything that may harm them and the absolute lack of regulation of professional dog behavioural practice, you get a platform for people who, however unknowingly, reduce dogs’ welfare by reducing dogs’ opportunities to find joy.

The more aware we are of our own tendencies to seek out negative information, the less needless, damaging negativity we’ll introduce into our dogs’ lives. And that, my friends, is worth sharing a banana (or a howl) about.