Obedience for the Robot dog

Often, I get asked a question that sparks a blog post. Here is another.

When we bring home our dog from the breeder, we have these ideas in our minds about obedience and what we’re going to accomplish with this dog. We work so hard, putting our blood, sweat and tears into training our dogs and sometimes we get so caught up in the process that we don’t enjoy the dog. We forget that our dogs are still dogs and while we’re busy teaching them cues and behaviours, they’re being so accommodating and compliant but sometimes they just don’t want to do it.

A couple of years ago, my marketing was covered in the word “Obedience” and every client that came to me said “I want my dog to be more obedient”. It never sat well with me as it triggered flashbacks of my early days of forceful dog training (corrections and the like). One day I woke up and decided that the word would no longer be in my dictionary. I would replace “obedience” with “training” or “teaching”, and “command” with “cue” or “signal”. I would not treat my dog as a slave who must obey me, rather a companion that has free will but has been taught appropriate behaviours and my language so that he can understand when it is imperative that he listen to me (for safety or simply for reward).

It changed everything, having those words replaced. It felt so much better and suddenly my relationship with my own dogs was different.

A common question I get as a trainer is about loose-leash walking. I always laugh because Parker doesn’t really walk loose-leash. If you’ve ever seen me with my dog, he’s rarely in a perfect heel and the leash is rarely draped in a lovely U from his collar/harness to my hip. He has three legs and needs momentum. This means, I’m the sled that he pulls around the city for the most part. I’m okay with this. He’ll heel if I need him to and he’ll walk nicely if I ask…but frankly…I rarely ask. He does everything else so beautifully and this is the one thing I don’t really care about with him.

The common question is “how can I get my dog to walk loose-leash on the first walk of the day? He drags me around until he finds a spot to “go”and ignores all of my requests and even the treats that I offer!” Here is my response:

As for the first walk of the day, I never ever make my dog heel or even walk nicely in that situation, to be honest. They’re so desperate that it’s all they can think about and frankly, it’s one time where I personally don’t care about training. Dogs have to be dogs sometimes and if that’s the only time he pulls, I don’t see it as a problem. I let my boys pull me (not literally) down the street when they’ve got to ‘go’ – I run with them so that they can get there faster. Once that business is done, both my dogs are so much more receptive and appreciative. Look at it this way: when I have to go to the bathroom first thing in the morning, I don’t stop and offer 10 minutes of niceties to my partner – I just get from bed to bathroom and when I’m finished, then we can have a conversation. Business is business.  Too much information. I know.

My theory (even as a trainer) is that dogs cannot be expected to be “robots” and to be completely obedient (oh how I hate that word) all the time. There are times where I need my dog to defer to me and to respect my wishes, but there are also times where I need to let him be a dog and do what he wants (when it is safe). If my dog doesn’t listen to me in a situation, I simply take note and file it for later so that I can figure out why the motivation wasn’t strong enough, what his reinforcer was and why it was so strong, or if he simply *really didn’t want to do what I was asking of him* because of another factor that I wasn’t aware of at the time. I’ve learned to watch him carefully and assess the situation first. If I have any doubt about him responding to my next cue 100%, I don’t ask for it. I wait for an appropriate time, or if it’s an emergency, I go into management mode.

We can’t read their minds, but sometimes they’re too nervous to sit, too tired to do a perfect heel, too emotionally taxed to offer a hand target or a complicated behaviour chain. Most of the time they do it because we’ve spent so much time “programming” it into them, but they just want to be dogs and they work so hard to please us and our silly requests that they deserve it. You can “be the cookie” all you want, but sometimes they just want to “be”.

I went to a Christmas party a few weeks ago and when I was introduced to people as “that dog trainer I was telling you about”, I wanted to curl up under a table somewhere. I’m proud of what I do and I love it…but sometimes I want to be “Caryn” and not “Dog Trainer Caryn”. As soon as I heard the first person say “Maybe you can answer this question…I have a dog who…” I cut them off and said that I’d rather not “talk shop” but they can call me after Jan.2 and here’s my card. I realized then how important it is for Parker and Buster to have time where they don’t have to be “obedient” because if I had to be “on” all the time I’d likely lose my mind or start hating people in general.

Are there things that your dog does that are considered “disobedient” but you don’t care? Let’s have it. Put it on the table – I’d love to hear about it

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