Dominant Dog or Compassionate Person - Who are you?

I don't believe in the "pack theory", the "alpha theory" or the "dominance theory". I make it quite clear too that I don't. But I am not always very articulate when it comes to expressing why I just don't buy this theory. Of late there are more and more articles appearing that explain the flaws in this theory and this is one of the good article. It's written by Winkie Spires, a behaviourist from England and the Chairman of PDTE. This is an excerpt from her article in the PDTE Newsletter.

Firstly, what does "Dominant" mean? Controlling, commanding, prevailing over all others, very important, powerful, successful. For years, the word "dominant" has been used to describe dog behaviour. It seems to be used as a nice tidy blanket term to diagnose a large number of behaviours or actions that are deemed to be undesirable to the human. Once a "dominant" diagnosis has been made, it can, in some cases, lead to justification for harsh, inappropriate, cruel, ignorant, dangerous, painful and confusing training techniques being practiced on the dog. 

I really believe that dogs are wrongly diagnosed as dominant and that more needs to be done by professionals and owners to understand the true motivation for the unwanted behaviour. The only truly dominant behaviour seems to be practised by humans and unfortunately for animals and the planet no-one has come up with a dominance reduction plan for us!!

Who originally came up with this term "dominant"? It may have orginated with studies done on wolf packs which may not be hugely relevant when we are actually dealing with domesticated dogs who have undergone 10-15,000 years of selective breeding.  Although dogs share many characteristics with wolves we will only really learn about domesticated dogs if we observe and learn about domesticated dogs. 

The fact is that many dogs now live in social isolation from their own kind and their humans, often for long periods of time, which will obviously have a bearing on their behaviours. 

This theory of hierarchy was popularized by David Mech. It was based on observing wolves in captivity and then extrapolating that behavior to dogs in our homes. That would be like observing apes in a concentration camp and generalizing that humans in normal lives behave the same way. Now finally after years of pushing the alpha theory, David Mech himself questions his own theory. It takes a lot of evidence, not to mention immense humility to debunk ones own theory.

But there it is...that theory is out dated. We really need to get past it, put it behind us and start looking deeper. Look for the real issues and not just shroud everything under the "be the alpha" approach. Pretending to be a furless 2-legged overbearing dog is not going to fix all of our problems. In fact it's not going to fix any. Instead of trying to be a dominant dog, perhaps being a compassionate human being, might just start fixing a few things. Wny not give that approach a try?

Sacrosanct Meal Times

I often get the question of what kind of "training" once needs to do when feeding a puppy. Some trainers recommend taking away a puppies food to teach a puppy not to guard. I believe that taking a food away from a dog actually teaches the dog to guard food. My teacher, Turid Rugaas, International Behaviourist and President of PDTE puts it quite articulately:

What we see is that at about the age of 4 - 6 weeks, puppies learn to respect teach other. In fact, they learn this so well that it sticks with them for the rest of their lives if we do not disrupt it. That's when we will see the mother leaves food for the puppy to take and she will never claim it back. That means that by the time you get your new puppy, he has already learnt that when he's got food, nobody will take it from him. Now you know why they get so scared and frustrated when people start grabbing their food. Never, ever, take a puppy's food away - or an adult dog's for that matter - because that is how you teach them to be food aggressive. 

When Tigger came home she had severe resource guarding - food guarding being one of them. When she was eating if any of us so much as looked in her direction, she growled visciously. We let her keep her food and stayed as far away as possible. We watched how Nishi dealt with her. Nishi did the same. She figured out the distance that Tigger was comfortable with and stayed at that distance at all times. As the days passed, this distance gradually reduced. Tigger tolerated more and more proximity. Nishi gradually approached, always mindful of respecting Tigger's need for space. Today the food guarding has disappeared. She no more sees the need to guard her food from Nishi or from us.

Often I hear clients say this to me. Many complain that their dogs are fussy eaters and take forever to finish their meal. But the fussiest of eaters polish off their meal when in the the company of other dogs. Why is that? Because the presence of another dog often poses a threat to the food. I have seen one thing common among all shelter dogs - they polish off their meal in a jiffy. No fussy dog whatsoever. So, what's going on here? The dog is stressed out and gobbles up the meal in an attempt to consume what she perceives to be her share.

The insecurity around food is the worst form of insecurity, is it not? I often wonder how it must feel for one to fear loss of food. Sounds terrible. And to inflict fear of such nature on another sounds barbaric, to say the least. I once read an article that rightly posed this question "Is it really too much for a dog to ask for some personal space and time each day to eat his meal in peace, away from other dogs, away from children, away from guests - in his own private corner?". 

So, I ask you this. Why not make that a little ritual. One little corner and a tiny slice of time dedicated for our companion's meal. I am sure it's not impossible to dedicate a spot on the balcony or kitchen or even an unused bathroom where a dog can go in, enjoy his meal and not have people or dogs walking around him and for us to guarantee that he will NOT be disturbed as long as he is eating. Of course, if my dogs chose to walk out, without finishing their meal, then I clear the food up, so that there are no literal bones of contention lying around. But as long as they are chowing down, I consider their meal time as sacrosanct as mine. I don't like to be disturbed and I don't like my plate to be taken away from me while I am eating. I am sure they don't like it. And I see no wisdom in doing it. Watching Nishi with Tigger told me that dogs don't believe in such rude behaviour either. So...how is meal time going to be?

Learning under duress

I distinctly remember that day. I was in 2nd grade. The new frock that had been sitting in the closet, that I had coveted for months had been pulled out and I was allowed to wear it to school to celebrate my birthday. I sat in class, shaking in my new frock, terrified out of my wits and asked my friend, "What do you think? Will she take it easy on me today because it's my birthday?". My teacher was known to be one of the toughest. She used metal rulers and hit us on our knuckles till they split open. "What if I threatened her that I would complain to the principal if she hits me on my birthday? Will she leave me alone?", I asked my friend. My friend looked at me like I had lost my mind. "Nooooo! Don't do that. She will get angry and hit you harder!", she said. Despite my friend's wisdom, when my teacher approached me, I snapped and screamed "If you hit me on my birthday I will complain. My father loves me and he will hit you back!". Oh boy....did I regret that!

But here is the thing. Today I deal with many many dogs. Dogs just as scared as I was that day. Dogs who have tried to tell us, in every way possible, that they are terrified. And dogs who eventually snap. They don't have anyone to complain to. So they defend themselves. Instead of recognizing the hopeless corner we push them into, we label them as aggressive or dominant and push them further and further. One fine day they give up, go into a shell. They become completely apathetic and then we claim to have "cured" the aggression. To my mind there really cannot be a solution unless one gets to the bottom of the problem and address that, instead of merely dealing with the symptoms. At the basis of canine aggression is fear. To fix aggression, one needs to understand fear and stress - there are no two ways about that!

To understand fear and stress, we need to understand where it comes from - the brain. Somewhere, a long time ago, in biology class, I learnt of two parts of the nervous systems - Voluntary and Involuntary. The Involuntary nervous system was something that had a mind of it's own and there was little I could do to control what that system did. This involuntary part of the brain has two modes of functioning - an emergency  mode that's turned on during times of stress and a regular mode. (For those who like technical terms, it's the Sympathetic nervous system and Parasympathetic nervous system respectively) When one mode is on, the other mode is off. And considering all of this is part of the involuntary nervous system, there is not much point in telling a dog "NO! Bad Boy! Sympathetic system off!". No amount of training, no amount of dog whispering, no amount of leadership is going to teach a dog to turn off his Stress Response or the emergency mode. The only way is for the Stressor itself to go away. But with us, hovering there, trying to be dominant leaders, we ourselves become the stressors, constantly keeping our dog in emergency mode. What does this do to our dogs?

The Parasympathetic system or the regular mode of the body focuses on long term projects of the body - digestion, storage of nutrients, growth, immunity, learning, memory etc...When a dog is stressed all of this is turned off. The emergency mode kicks in. This system's focus is survival. So it puts all senses on high alert and gets the muscles pumped up and primed for a mad dash. That means that all nutrients in the body, that were being stored for learning and growth are now being poured out for the mad dash. The heart is beating hard and fast to get all of this to the muscles. The muscles are sucking up oxygen which was meant for the brain. The senses are focusing on the entries, exits, defense tools etc...and don't really care about learning.

At this point, we have some trainers who come in and insist on training the dog. There is talk of "obedience training". There is talk of leadership. There is talk about "manners classes". I remember once when I was being punished badly for botching up history classes. Between sobs I was trying to learn the dates of the damned battle of Panipat and who fought who. Looking through my tears I could see the letters and numbers floating around and doing an obscene dance in front of me that made no sense at all. Nothing made sense. All I could think of was "please don't beat me any more with that metal ruler". I tried so hard to get those sentences to make sense, but the numbers and letters just sniggered and continued their insane dance. "What are the dates Sindhoor?". I heard the question but the question did not make sense. I repeated the question in my head a few times. I looked at the dance. Nothing made sense. I sobbed and blurted out "Please don't beat me!" and I bolted across the room. Continuing to recount this story is just going to be hard to read. When trainers recommend manners classes for such dogs I relive that day. I look at the dogs eyes and I see the same sentiment in the dogs eyes. The feeling of helplessness, fear and complete inability to comprehend anything. Trainers are not always tuned into their dogs. But good pet parents are. I sincerely hope that they look into the eyes of their dogs and see what the trainers are asking these poor dogs to do and rescue their dogs from this impossible misson.

Off late, I have been dealing with many dogs who are under severe chronic stress and are being subjected to additional stress in the attempt to train them. My mind is filled with all of this, to a point where, a few nights ago I had a night mare - I heard my little sister crying. She was being punished for not learning well. She was sobbing. I often look at my dog and my sister similarly. So in my dream, they both were the same. It was a little girl of about 5 or so, sometimes representing my sister, sometimes representing my dog and sometimes representing the 5yr old me, terrified, being yelled at, sobbing and trying to learn. I ran out, called out to this little girl. When she came to me, I hugged her, wiped off her tears. Told her that she was OK and there was nothing to be afraid of. I asked her to take a break and that she could learn later. I told her I would come play with her in a bit. I went looking for the person who had hurt her and ensured that there would be no more punishments. If we think about it, dealing with our dogs should not be very different. The concepts are the same - ensure it does not happen again, a reassurance, a break from learning and some help to feel better again. So for a dog, this is what we would do:

1. Remove the stressors. Stop the scolding. Stop the yelling. Stop being dominant. Just be a loving pet parent
2. Provide reassurance to the little one that there will be no more of that. For a dog being left alone, calm reassuring voice and stop changing scenes on a dog. If a dog is guarding resources due to fear of lack of resources - just flood the dog with resources so that the dog is confident that there is no reason for fear
3. Give the little one time to recover and cope. For chronic stress, like in the case of dogs, nutrition and sleep are critical in this. Consistency in the home a dog is absolutely critical. So don't move the dog around from foster home to foster home. Stay. Let the dog recover. 
4. Build confidence in the little one that she can indeed cope and learn. In the case of a stressed dog, work with a good behaviourist on confidence building measures. When faced with potential stressors, reassured the dog that the dog has the choice to walk away and avoid the stressors, thus helping gain more confidence.

During the worst of her days, Nishi sought comfort in her toys. 
She took them to bed with her. 
Back then, I could not take pictures of all of her. It was too horrifying. 
So I took pictures of the best part of her - her coping spirit!

Love, patience and nurture are critical in helping a stressed dog. Leadership, obedience and manners are futile, counter productive and almost cruel on a stressed dog. I can relate to this and for those of us who were brought up in a culture of punishment, we don't need to understand the Sympathetic and Parasympathetic Nervous Systems to know how all of this works. We just know what works and what does not. And if the voice inside us is not something we want to rely on, then understand the functioning of the brain. Either way, the answer is the same - remove stressors, reassurance, recovery & confidence building. 

The trainer under the big pink dog

I just saw a dog that looked a lot like an Naaty! So what's so special about that? Well, I am in the Frankfurt airport. That's what! I am sitting here, waiting for someone very very special to turn up in the next 30 minutes. She is my idol and has been my inspiration and crutch for the last 3 years and like most leaders, she is not even aware of how much she has done for me, Nishi and our family. She is Turid Rugaas - leading canine behaviourist at the cutting edge of understanding dog-dog communication and dog-human communication.

When Nishi met with an accident almost 3 years ago, we fought tooth and nail to keep her alive. As soon as we realized she was going to live, we were relieved. But along with the relief came an immediate realization that she was going to bear scars more than skin deep. She was goign to bear emotional scars that could prove far more damaging. I head heard of dogs being hit by a bicycle who had gotten so aggressive that they had drawn blood from owners. So I started searching frantically for answers. That's when Turid entered my life without her knowledge.

Of all the canine experts in the world, her approach was very compassionate and grounded in the well being of the animal in it's natural state. It doe not insist on getting dogs to do something by coercion or wit. It spoke of how to just communicate with dogs - plain and simple. How to understand what they were saying. How to tell them what we need. And how to reach an gentlemans agreement, if you will (well, in our case a "ladys agreement"?). In any case, this approach was so appealing to us. It felt natural. It felt holistic. It just felt right.

The lady in the light blue shirt under the big pink dog
Turid Rugaas
Anything but a martinet dog trainer

With no expectation of a response, I emailed her asking for help with socializing Nishi. We had some special conditions in India that I needed help to tackle. And lo and behold she responded! With her help, I have been working with Nishi and I am rather proud to say that Nishi has come around tremendously in the last 2 years. She is no more a scared scarred dog. She is as close to normal as I ever expected her to get and she still shows promise.

Then I started using the knowledge I had gained in the process to help others. It was working wonderfully for friends. I wished I could do more. I wished I could learn directly from Turid. As fate might have it, I entered a sabbatical in my job. One of those idle evenings, I started looking at Turids newly revamped website. Her course spanned 30 days, stretched over 1.5 years. It was only offered in Norway. Her fees were far too beyond my affordability. But how I wished...

They say the idle mind is the devils workshop. If that's really true, the devil is perhaps not as bad as he is made out to be. After staring at her website for days and days I drafted a letter out to her. I saved the mail. I read it every day for a month. I finally sent it out. I just put my cards straight out on the table. And the most unexpected happened. She replied, completely willing to help me out. She made a program just for me. She arranged for everything. I was faced with road blocks all along the way. The visa process was excruciating. The visa was issued 2 days before I was to depart and that too in Delhi. Thanks to a wonderful network of angels, one angel called in a favor to expedite the visa, one angel in Delhi picked up the visa and delivered it to Gurgaon 10 minutes before another lovely angel flew down from Delhi to Bangalore, bringing my passport on the day I was to depart. I call all these women angels because it really feels like there have been several angels on my shoulders making this happen. And of course, my husband, pushing me all along, pulling me up when I felt it might not happen...just making it happen!

Something about the universe conspiring to make things happens comes to mind at this point. The number of people who have come together to make this happen is mind blowing. I have a long list of questions that several dog lovers have sent in. I have poured over several books and DVDs and helped several dogs in Bangalore, to identify issues specific to India. Everything has lined up for this. For this moment. In the next 15 minutes she should be here. I cannot wait. I cannot wait to see how this month pans out. But I am sure I will treasure the experience for life.

A dog is a dog? Really?

Often times I hear non dog lovers suggest that we are reading far too much into a dogs love and loyalty. They suggest that it's all based on what we have to offer. They almost look down upon such loyalty that seems purely for selfish reasons. Suggest to them that a loyalty of a dog goes beyond food after a certain point and they laugh off at it. I have to admit that I did not fight that notion too much. While I did agree that dogs experienced some emotions. But I felt that those were ones that gave them evolutionary benefits and were limited to simple ones like joy, disappointment & fear - ones limited to the more primitive limbic system. I quite strongly believe secondary emotions or more complex ones were out of reach of dogs. Then, last night things changed for me.

I am currently reading a book called The Emotional Lives of Animals by Mark Bekoff. The book is changing the way I look at animals. I was struggling through the book till one particular story in the book that really stayed with me just changes things from me. I am devouring the book now at a rapid rate. Check this example out:

 

Nishi & her daddy share a very special bond

"Veterinarian Marty Becker gave his father a miniature schnauzer, Pepsi. The dog became his fathers best friend. For years they shared the same food, the same chair and the same bed. Then, when he was eighty years old, Marty's father committed suicide. Soon after family, friends and the police left his house, Pepsi ran downstairs to the spot in the basement where Marty's father had died and stood as rigid as a statue. When Marty picked Pepsi up, the dog went from rigid to limb in his arms and emitted a painful moan. Marty put him in his fathers bed and Pepsi immediately fell asleep. Marty later found out form his mother that Pepsi hadn't been in the basement for 10 years because he was afraid of steps. Had Pepsi overcome his fear in order to say good-bye to his lifelong friend? Pepsi never recovered from his companions death. Remaining weak and withdrawn, he slowly died. When Marty buried Pepsi, he was convinced that Pepsi had indeed died of a broken heart: he'd lost the will to live once the human to whom he was so closely bonded and devoted was no longer around. "

After reading this, I realized that I had a similar story locked away in my memory. The story of Ceasar and Bimbo, a GSD and a Spitz, my music teachers dogs. No prizes for guessing which dog was Ceasar and which one was Bimbo :) Both male dogs. Bimbo was a largely aloof dog who seemed not to care for anything or anyone in the world. The GSD was an intense guy, used to enjoy music. They did not seem particularly affectionate towards each other. Then one day, when Ceasar was 7, he died of renal failure. Bimbo stopped eating and a month later he died. I had music lessons thrice a week and every time I went I saw Bimbo deteriorate a bit at a time and I saw his humans completely dumb founded on what had changed over night. If Bimbo had not died of a heart-break, I don't know what it was.

Sure, we could explain loyalty, joy etc...as evolutionary emotions. But love, the kind of love that leads to such grief? Friends giving up their zest for life? What role does such love have in evolution and survival of the fittest? But that question can be put aside for discussion over wine and cheese, where we feel the need to boost our confidence with some intellectual conversation. For now, what jumps out at me is the relevance of this in the context of people abandoning dogs. 

Many owners who abandon their dogs somehow justify that it's in the dogs best interest. But what they seem to overlook is how attached a dog really gets to it's humans. That attachment could be so intense that the dog may never recover from the loss. But when I do a second pass at that though, I wonder if in situations where owners are willing to get rid of their dog, they perhaps never bonded enough with their dogs to start with? Perhaps it really is in the best interest of such dogs that they find owners who give the dog a chance to build such a bond? I don't know. But what I do know is that dogs are capable of intense bonds that can be potentially devastating for them. Dogs and potential pet owners might benefit greatly if potential pet parents were aware of this and opened their hearts to these bonds and experienced the pristine unadulterated love that is capable of emerging. When dogs and their humans "fall in love", then we perhaps have the least possibility of dogs being abandoned. Though, falling in love comes with the price tag of a possible heart break. And dogs do not deal too well with heart break. But what do they say about love? "It is better to have loved and lost than not to have loved at all"?