Be Your Dog's Best Friend
Module 1 - Section 5
Module 1 - Section 5
HUMAN/CANINE COMMUNICATION
- How humans can misunderstand dog’s behaviour
- How misconceptions could have arisen
1.How humans can misunderstand dog’s behaviour
Another point we need to be very aware of is the body language and signals that we use when working with our dogs (and we will do more work on this when it comes to Lure and Reward Training). A dog is likely to pay more attention to our body language and signals, than to our spoken word.
Dogs pick up our own body signals and respond accordingly. They hear our heart rate which can determine how stressed we are, smell our pheromones which gives them further information on our state of mind, gauge how tight our muscles are (tight muscles indicate tension) and they even interpret our tone of voice and react accordingly. Our dogs may know more about our state of mind than our own family does – we may be able to hide our emotions from our friends and family, but not from our dogs, they are masters of the art of understanding, and analysing body language.
Based on some understanding of what a dog’s body language can actually mean; let’s look at a few examples of how we humans so often get it wrong.
2.How misconceptions of a dog’s behaviour could have arisen.
Misconception - “A formal word meaning not properly or carefully thought through”
“A mistaken belief” - (Word Power Dictionary)
Misconception - “Have a wrong idea of, misunderstood” – (Oxford Dictionary)
Human misconceptions of canine behaviour stem from the difference between the two species, but we believe primarily for the tendency we have to attribute human qualities to them. Let’s look at a few things to be mindful of, which could also explain why misconceptions arise:
In addition to above, our views on why we so often attribute human qualities to our dogs goes a bit further than just believing that films akin to Lassie, and programs such as ‘The World’s Funniest Animals” were contributing factors towards these views.
It could be that part of our anthropomorphic view (attributing human qualities to animals) stems from how adorable they are as puppies. We have yet to see a loving owner who doesn’t exhibit ‘baby language’ when talking to a puppy, “Oh you are just so cute/clever/sweet etc’ and then more often than not tells the puppy to come to ‘Mummy and Daddy’, often using a ‘squeaky’ high pitched voice. These gorgeous little balls of fluff hang onto our every word, follow us around, come to us when they need love and attention, look at us with their appealing little faces as if we ourselves are God! No wonder we attribute human qualities to them.
Let’s explore this situation a bit further. The adorable little puppy then becomes an adolescent and we, their owners, stop becoming the be-all and end-all of their worlds. How do we often feel? Betrayed, confused, hurt, even though this may not be conscious – rather we may say something like “I have no idea what has gotten into this dog, it’s just not the same”. How would underlying feelings such as these affect our response when our dogs behave in a way that is unacceptable to us? This may explain, in part, why many people have a particularly strong reaction and battle to cope with their own children growing up and becoming independent, there could well be a connection. We have heard so many parents saying of their child “I just don’t know what the problem is; he wasn’t like that when he was small’. Then again, we have heard owners saying exactly the same thing about their dogs! To a certain degree, we lose ‘complete control’ of both our children and dogs as they approach adolescence, due to them not being as dependent on us and they once were. This could further enhance any feelings of helplessness, frustration or failure that an owner may have and cause deterioration in the relationship. In our questionnaire to clients, one of the questions we will ask is “How do you feel about the current behaviour?”, and you have no idea how many times owners will reply “helpless, frustrated!”
If we further explore the anthropomorphic relationship from the point of view that in our modern world, life is very much hustle and bustle and less and less time is spent with family and friends. It is no wonder that there are so many people around who treat their animals as family, and attribute human characteristics to them, totally forgetting that they are a different species and therefore need to be treated as such.
We as behaviourists and trainers perpetuate the anthropomorphic view! Think of it, those of us who use the clicker method and teach various tricks and trains such as – shake hands – dancing – putting toys back in toy box etc, we are, inadvertently, reinforcing the view of dogs having human qualities!
Let’s look a bit further….
An owner may have the misconception that a dog is aggressive because it tried to bite somebody (often said that the behaviour came out of the blue!), but what about all the signs the dog was exhibiting prior to the attack? Signalling its intent by body language, vocalization or moving away, to avoid the conflict. The final act of the behaviour is the only one that is noticed, that of actual aggression and more often than not, it got to this stage simply because the humans did not recognize what the dog was trying to tell us!
We fail to realize that aggressive behaviour is based on a range of chemical and emotional changes within the body. If we humans become aggressive, we attribute it to emotions such as fear, anger or frustration. Then why do we fail to recognize the same in dogs? Simple we just don’t think about the underlying cause in dogs or the signals they give us, we just react to the behaviour.
We think that one of the saddest misconceptions is that of a dog owner who had had a breed of dog, which when it dies, replaced it with another of the same breed expecting the same personality and behaviour. The dog (understandably) may not measure up and will spend its life being compared to the previous dog, disappoint the owner, and may well end up being re-homed. We do not expect our children to be the same even though they may have the same Mother and Father; we consider different personalities.
Misconceptions as to how and why dogs behave the way they do so very often ends up with miscommunication and behavioural problems. When we give people the tools to understand why their dogs are acting in a manner we give them the ability to be able to understand and take steps to change the behaviour, and then the whole process becomes so much easier, as the owner has the understanding as to why the behaviour occurred and often, why they, inadvertently, caused the behaviour to be reinforced.
Another point we need to be very aware of is the body language and signals that we use when working with our dogs (and we will do more work on this when it comes to Lure and Reward Training). A dog is likely to pay more attention to our body language and signals, than to our spoken word.
Dogs pick up our own body signals and respond accordingly. They hear our heart rate which can determine how stressed we are, smell our pheromones which gives them further information on our state of mind, gauge how tight our muscles are (tight muscles indicate tension) and they even interpret our tone of voice and react accordingly. Our dogs may know more about our state of mind than our own family does – we may be able to hide our emotions from our friends and family, but not from our dogs, they are masters of the art of understanding, and analysing body language.
Based on some understanding of what a dog’s body language can actually mean; let’s look at a few examples of how we humans so often get it wrong.
- Owner comes home to find that once again the dog has urinated in the house. She is absolutely livid as she ‘knows’ that the dog is aware that he was done wrong – the dog is acting in a ‘guilty’ fashion. What makes her think this?
- The dog’s body language is submissive – it may cower as it comes towards her, the ears may be held against the head, the tail may be tucked between the legs, it may be licking its lips to calm her down, it may be moving slower than usual. The dog is reacting to the change in the owner’s normal greeting and is attempting to calm her down! This is so often read as the dog appearing ‘guilty’.
- Same situation as above, but now the dog has learnt that when owner comes home, and her body language has changed and appears angry, therefore, it is not a good thing to approach her as the dog may have been smacked previously. The owner now thinks of the dog as being “stubborn, wilful or/and disobedient).
- On being called now (often in an angry tone of voice), the dog may behave in several ways;
- Refusing to come back at all, simply ignoring the owner and instead sniffing and investigating the area around him and taking even longer to come back.
- In addition to ignoring the owner, the dog may pick up and start playing with a toy and continue to ignore the owner.
- Or, eventually coming back, even slower this time, and engaging in the same behaviour as the point above.
- Or, would come back and then sit some distance away from the owner (you will learn in other sections that when you come across a dog that refuses to sit close to you, the dog may well have been smacked previously and/or is fearful of people).
- May start to go into very submissive behaviour and ‘crawl’ towards owner, even urinating.
2.How misconceptions of a dog’s behaviour could have arisen.
Misconception - “A formal word meaning not properly or carefully thought through”
“A mistaken belief” - (Word Power Dictionary)
Misconception - “Have a wrong idea of, misunderstood” – (Oxford Dictionary)
Human misconceptions of canine behaviour stem from the difference between the two species, but we believe primarily for the tendency we have to attribute human qualities to them. Let’s look at a few things to be mindful of, which could also explain why misconceptions arise:
- Animals have emotions, and feel love, fear, anger, etc. although they tend to be ‘simplex’ rather than complex emotions, unlike like us humans.
- Animals have moods; they can play, have silly time, have times when they don’t want to interact.
- Animals dream (is this the best evidence of all for animals having
- consciousness?)
- There are certainly different levels of intelligence within the same
- Animals can communicate in intelligent ways; with each other and
- Animals have social hierarchies, as do humans.
In addition to above, our views on why we so often attribute human qualities to our dogs goes a bit further than just believing that films akin to Lassie, and programs such as ‘The World’s Funniest Animals” were contributing factors towards these views.
It could be that part of our anthropomorphic view (attributing human qualities to animals) stems from how adorable they are as puppies. We have yet to see a loving owner who doesn’t exhibit ‘baby language’ when talking to a puppy, “Oh you are just so cute/clever/sweet etc’ and then more often than not tells the puppy to come to ‘Mummy and Daddy’, often using a ‘squeaky’ high pitched voice. These gorgeous little balls of fluff hang onto our every word, follow us around, come to us when they need love and attention, look at us with their appealing little faces as if we ourselves are God! No wonder we attribute human qualities to them.
Let’s explore this situation a bit further. The adorable little puppy then becomes an adolescent and we, their owners, stop becoming the be-all and end-all of their worlds. How do we often feel? Betrayed, confused, hurt, even though this may not be conscious – rather we may say something like “I have no idea what has gotten into this dog, it’s just not the same”. How would underlying feelings such as these affect our response when our dogs behave in a way that is unacceptable to us? This may explain, in part, why many people have a particularly strong reaction and battle to cope with their own children growing up and becoming independent, there could well be a connection. We have heard so many parents saying of their child “I just don’t know what the problem is; he wasn’t like that when he was small’. Then again, we have heard owners saying exactly the same thing about their dogs! To a certain degree, we lose ‘complete control’ of both our children and dogs as they approach adolescence, due to them not being as dependent on us and they once were. This could further enhance any feelings of helplessness, frustration or failure that an owner may have and cause deterioration in the relationship. In our questionnaire to clients, one of the questions we will ask is “How do you feel about the current behaviour?”, and you have no idea how many times owners will reply “helpless, frustrated!”
If we further explore the anthropomorphic relationship from the point of view that in our modern world, life is very much hustle and bustle and less and less time is spent with family and friends. It is no wonder that there are so many people around who treat their animals as family, and attribute human characteristics to them, totally forgetting that they are a different species and therefore need to be treated as such.
We as behaviourists and trainers perpetuate the anthropomorphic view! Think of it, those of us who use the clicker method and teach various tricks and trains such as – shake hands – dancing – putting toys back in toy box etc, we are, inadvertently, reinforcing the view of dogs having human qualities!
Let’s look a bit further….
An owner may have the misconception that a dog is aggressive because it tried to bite somebody (often said that the behaviour came out of the blue!), but what about all the signs the dog was exhibiting prior to the attack? Signalling its intent by body language, vocalization or moving away, to avoid the conflict. The final act of the behaviour is the only one that is noticed, that of actual aggression and more often than not, it got to this stage simply because the humans did not recognize what the dog was trying to tell us!
We fail to realize that aggressive behaviour is based on a range of chemical and emotional changes within the body. If we humans become aggressive, we attribute it to emotions such as fear, anger or frustration. Then why do we fail to recognize the same in dogs? Simple we just don’t think about the underlying cause in dogs or the signals they give us, we just react to the behaviour.
We think that one of the saddest misconceptions is that of a dog owner who had had a breed of dog, which when it dies, replaced it with another of the same breed expecting the same personality and behaviour. The dog (understandably) may not measure up and will spend its life being compared to the previous dog, disappoint the owner, and may well end up being re-homed. We do not expect our children to be the same even though they may have the same Mother and Father; we consider different personalities.
Misconceptions as to how and why dogs behave the way they do so very often ends up with miscommunication and behavioural problems. When we give people the tools to understand why their dogs are acting in a manner we give them the ability to be able to understand and take steps to change the behaviour, and then the whole process becomes so much easier, as the owner has the understanding as to why the behaviour occurred and often, why they, inadvertently, caused the behaviour to be reinforced.
