Teaching dogs to be content when they have no choices

Life, for everyone, whether human or dog, is made up of times when we are doing fun and interesting things, times when we have to do mundane repetitive tasks, times when we are waiting to do fun and interesting things, and times when we have to do things that we don’t really want to do.

As it turns out, the majority of life is not doing the fun and interesting things because it takes a lot of mundane things, boring things and waiting, to produce those fun and interesting things.  I think that the people and dogs who enjoy life the most are the ones who have learned to be content where they are, on the way to where they want to be.

Being content with what is happening now doesn’t mean that you don’t want to do other things, but it does mean that you are not stressing about things that you cannot change and you can focus on the task at hand without getting frustrated.

For example, I went on a trip to Wales.  It should have taken me 4 hrs and in the end, it took me over 6 hrs.  When I saw the back of the queue of traffic, I could have started to get stressed and angry, fretting over the fact that my long journey was getting longer by the minute.  Instead, I chose to enjoy the talking book that I had with me and the fact that it was a lovely day and I was on my way to a lovely place, all be it slowly.  I had entertainment, food, and snacks so the wait wouldn’t be too arduous.

For me the key to contentment is planning for the unexpected and learning not to hold onto my plans for the day too rigidly.  This has been a hard lesson for me to learn as I am a bit of a perfectionist and hate being late for anything.  Naturally I get worried and stressed about things that I can’t control but I have learned that my life is so much better if I accept what is happening when it is out of my control and to go with the flow a bit more.  It doesn’t mean that I never want things to change or that I have stopped working towards changing things, but I am much happier whilst I am getting there.  I have learned to enjoy the journey as they say 😊

So, what has all this got to do with dogs?

Most dogs who enjoy training, working, competing, and even those who are just so excited to go for their daily walk, need to be taught how to be content on the way to getting their ‘most fun thing’.  Being content on the way to where you are going is a Life Skill that needs to be learned.

Erik, my noisy working cocker spaniel, was the one who helped me to understand more about how teaching a dog to be in the right emotional state helped them to learn and cope with life better.  It was very obvious when Erik was in an emotional state that he couldn’t enjoy – he got very vocal.  He had a large repertoire, from quiet whining to full volume screaming when he couldn’t cope.  Needless to say, that focused my mind very quickly on helping him to cope with life better.  Our training journey is covered in detail in his blog The Diary of a Squeaky Gundog.

One thing that has come out of all of this, is that we need to help dogs to learn how to be content when they have no choice. A lot of my training involves giving dogs a choice so that they can learn without being forced to do anything.  However, there are some times when it would be dangerous or unhelpful to give the dog a choice.  An example, I wouldn’t give a dog the choice to chase a squirrel out onto a busy road, he may want to and even initially get frustrated that I had stopped him, but there is a high probability that he would be injured so the frustration is the lesser problem.

So, my focus now becomes, how do I teach the dog not to get frustrated about being prevented from chasing the squirrel?  How do I teach the dog to be content watching the squirrel run away?  How do I teach the dog to be content with physical restraint?  How do I teach the dog to be content not being able to do the thing that he wants to do immediately he wants to do it?

Modern training has a big emphasis on not physically coercing our dogs during training which is great.  However, if we then don’t make a point of teaching dogs to tolerate and understand physical restraint, we leave a big gap in their learning which can cause fear and frustration when, in real life they have to be physically restrained.  The restraint may be imposed by a human or it may be due to circumstances.

For example, one of my dogs managed to get the feathers on his tail wrapped around a strand of barbed wire.  He tried to carry on, but once he realised he couldn’t, he just stood and waited for me to come over to him and free his tail.  If he wasn’t used to being restrained in crazy ways – yes, I do teach my dogs that sometimes I will hold onto them by the tail – he might have panicked and struggled and injured himself.  As it was, it turned out to be a minor inconvenience to both of us and we got on with our day without a trip to the vet.

I teach all of my pups that struggling when physically restrained doesn’t work and that relaxing is the way to get me to release them.  If they have been picked up and start wriggling to get down I just gently but firmly hold on until they relax, and then they get a reward and put down.  Very quickly they learn to relax until I put them down.  This happens gradually and at a pace that is appropriate to the individual pup.

All my pups are taught about boundaries both physical and invisible, from an early age.  I work through Susan Garrett’s Crate Games which is a brilliant way to add value to self-control, self-management and impulse control for any dog, not just pups.  My pups learn that it is valuable to disengage from interesting things that are happening outside their boundary, even if they would like to get involved, they are content to watch and wait.  This then helps them to be able to accept the boundary of a lead.

I teach a pup to be restrained on a lead and harness and to move with the pressure of the lead.  Later I will introduce them to wearing a headcollar, lots of positive things happen when they put it on.  I also teach them to move with the pressure of the headcollar so that they learn that it is not scary and that good things happen when you work with the headcollar.  When introduced like this then I find that the headcollar is just the next small step and the dogs accept the control and learn to be content with not being able to get to things that are interesting.  I have also found that the vast majority of dogs are happy to wear a headcollar when it is introduced correctly, and they only object when they find that the headcollar prevents them from doing something that they want to do, going to a scent, greeting a person or dog etc.  This is why it is so important to teach the dogs about being content with not being able to do what they want to do.

When we train using positive methods a major element of this is preventing a dog self-reinforcing doing behaviours which come more naturally to them that may be inappropriate or unwanted in those circumstances.  In order to prevent this self-reinforcement during the initial stages of training physical restraint in the form of leads, crates and other barriers need to be used.  Over time when we have added lots of value to the behaviour which is the one we want the dog to do, we can slowly remove the physical restraint.

An example.  If we want to teach a pup not to jump up on visitors that come into the house, I would first pop the pup in a crate with the door shut before I welcomed visitors into the house.  Once the pup has calmed down then he would be allowed to greet the visitors.  When pups aren’t excited, they don’t tend to jump up during greeting.  Over time as he learned to manage himself in the crate with the door open, I would use this set up when visitors arrived.  As training progresses and the pup has lots of value in staying on his bed then he will remain calm and content on his bed as visitors arrive, knowing that he will be able to greet them at some point when you are ready for him to come over.

In my experience, teaching dogs to be content with physical and training boundaries, facilitates them having much more freedom in the long run.  My dogs have the run of the house, they are allowed on the furniture and sometimes up on my bed.  This is because if I need them not to, and ask them to do something else, they have the skills to be content and happy with the situation.  For example, if they are wet or muddy, then I ask them to go on their own beds until they are dry.  They don’t get upset or frustrated about it; they just are content to lie there until they are allowed back up on the furniture.

My dogs get a huge amount of time off lead to run and explore to their hearts content, because they understand the training boundaries of recall and self-management to check in regularly and not to go too far away.

My dogs come everywhere with me because they understand the boundaries of leads and crates and how to just hang out when we are not doing anything in particular.

They are not perfect and I am still working on contentment in very exciting working situations so my learning journey is not complete in this area.  However, I hope that me sharing my thoughts on this subject may have helped you to think about boundaries in a different way.  That teaching your dog to be content when they have no choices is not a negative for your dog, but a valuable life skill that facilitates freedom.