Agenda

I was called in to help a couple whose two dogs had started becoming aggressive. These people had done everything they could to try and help their dogs. They had hired four other trainers to try and make life better for their family. The trainers had all employed methods that qualify as fear and force free, but nothing was working.

I met with the couple and their dogs in their home to try and determine if I could help. The Wife operated an early childhood preschool out of her home. The Husband worked out of the home, but was going to be starting a job away from home soon. They described how one of the dogs had started growling when others came near, and sometimes even nipping people. In order to keep everyone safe, they kept the dogs with the Husband while he worked, yet since he was going to be working away from home, they were seriously worried about how things would go. One of the dogs was also resource guarding the Wife, even against the Husband, which scared them somewhat. They felt completely stuck.

A couple of the prior trainers had helped them with management. The others had offered some tools to try and train the dogs to do what they wanted. One was certain that the dogs just lacked enrichment, and sought to add new activities to their daily routine. None had investigated why the dogs were acting the way they were. In spite of using non-aversive tools, the dogs were still growling and nipping, and the situation was growing worse. One of them had even tried to bite the most recent trainer.

After gathering their historical information, and giving them some tools to identify when the dogs were presenting evidence of stress before their actions became out of hand or scary, within an hour both dogs were calmly lying in the room where we were gathered and talking. The Wife said it had been a very long time since they had been able to do this. They were curious why it was the dogs weren’t reacting to me as they had with the other trainers. What was I doing different from the other trainers whose methods I endorse in certain circumstances?

Ultimately, I concluded that the biggest difference was that when I came into their home and met these dogs, I had no agenda. I was simply gathering information. I helped their people to understand what their physical manifestations were communicating, and how to respond to that. I observed the dogs as they were, but I had no goal to try and do anything to them or to force them to act in any certain way.

I have given this a lot of thought since this situation, and it is tied to the concept of “training” and all this brings with it. I have felt for some time that training is a loaded concept. Inherent in training is the idea that one is going to give instruction to another and that other is going to do the thing that the trainer wants. The problem with this is that even when it is done without aversive methods, it doesn’t allow for autonomy in the individual being trained.

It isn’t being anthropomorphic to consider a similar scenario from a human perspective. Imagine you are having an incredibly stressful day. Your child is sick and you don’t have a sitter. Your boss expects you to come in anyway and you can’t afford to take the day off or pay for someone else to watch your sick child. You discover that your only pair of work pants has a stain on them and you’re supposed to be giving a big presentation that afternoon, even though you still don’t know who is going to watch your child. You go to the bathroom and accidentally drop your mobile phone in the toilet. During all of this, a kindly neighbor rings your doorbell and offers a basket of muffins while trying to get you to vote for another neighbor in your town’s mayoral race. She lets you know that the other candidate is planning to make further cuts to the after school program your child loves.

In that moment, it doesn’t matter that your neighbor brought you muffins and is being friendly. You’re already feeling so much pressure, you don’t care who is running for mayor and you certainly don’t want to discuss it right then, even if the person she is trying to get you to support is likely the better candidate. If she had just come over and offered some muffins, it may have helped you to relax, but in that moment, her agenda is creating more stress for you.

In the case of these dogs, the pressure of being expected to perform a certain way created enough apprehension on top of the anxiety that they were already feeling, which led to more of the behaviors they were exhibiting as a result of that overall stress. Even when someone is using L.I.M.A. methods and avoiding aversives, it can still be aversive to a dog when we have an agenda in determining how the dog is supposed to behave.

The person who felt the dogs simply needed enrichment also failed to take into account the stress these dogs were feeling. Enrichment isn’t likely to have a useful effect if a dog isn’t relaxed first. The core concept of enrichment is to add new and rewarding activities into our dogs’ lives in order to add meaning and to improve the quality of their lives. yet if you’re feeling stressed, adding a new activity is likely to add further pressure and the behaviors that reflect this. Adding enrichment with the goal of getting dogs to act a certain way is just another agenda.

The concept of having an agenda when we interact with dogs is something I think we as “trainers” should strongly consider. Are we inadvertently creating behaviors we don’t want when we have an agenda about what we do? Are we setting dogs up for stress and anxiety when we decide that they must perform, even if we do so using non-aversive methods? It is something to think about.

There has been a huge improvement in the reactivity and resource guarding with these two dogs. They are learning that they are able to calm themselves. They are learning to spend time apart so they can figure some of this stuff out on their own. Best of all, because their pet parents are interacting with them without an agenda, they are successfully navigating the world on their own and making choices that are successful. They are starting to enjoy some enrichment activities. In not forcing an agenda and “training” them, they are behaving in a way that works for the whole family.