Connection

Tags

agility, competition, connection, Dog Training, Dogs, obedience, perception, perspective, philosophical, thoughts

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Connection: the relationship of a person, thing or behavior to something or someone else.

Connection is an all the rage buzz word in the current world of dog training.  In years past the word instead was “Attention”.

Attention: the act of directing the mind to listen, see or understand; notice.

And somehow in the world of dog training both connection and attention have become one and the same with eye contact.

Eye contact: the act of looking in the eyes of another person as the person looks at you.

Lately I’ve listened to a number of webinars, podcasts and quotes from dog training professionals, handlers, competitors, trainers all about how eye contact is critical to connecting with our dogs.  The undertone being if you don’t train it, if you don’t have it, if you can’t do it, you’re doing things wrong and your relationship with your dog, training and competitive goals will suffer.

Here to tell, you that’s a load of baloney.

Is eye contact one means of connecting with our dogs?  Sure.  Maybe.  Depends.  On the dog.  On the person.

Is eye contact one means of ensuring we have the attention of our dogs?  Sure.  Maybe.  Depends.  On the dog.  On the person.

I’ve worked with many dogs over the years who I wouldn’t want to ever teach to purposefully make eye contact with humans with.  Why?  Because the fine line of that dog shifting into viewing such as a threat, challenge or escalation is too great.  Instead we worked to consciously teach those dogs when a person looks at you, look away!  Otherwise you had approximately .2 seconds before the dog went, “You lookin’ at me?!  YOU LOOKIN’ AT ME!!??!” and all manner of behaviors you don’t want a dog practicing would come out like a rain storm.  Or approximately .2 seconds before the dog went, “You’re looking at me!!!!!  Wheeee!!!  Let’s get this party started!!”  And all manner of frantic break your or their body excitement ensued.  Reinforcing those dogs instead to look away when looked at helped them stay sub threshold, and access other safer coping skills.   For some of those dogs, eventually once they trusted their ability to access safer coping skills and that those skills would work to meet their needs, we were then able to condition that eye contact can be made with humans without their world falling apart, but some of those dogs we never did.

I’ve worked with dogs over the years who could auto pilot anything.  They could be staring at their handler’s face and eyes making what seemed to be gorgeous attention and yet still their brains were elsewhere.  Was it eye contact?  Yes, sure.  Was it attention on the person they were looking at?  No.  Was it connection?  Well, sure, connected to what they wanted to think about but not with their handler!

I’ve worked with handlers over the years for whom eye contact wasn’t an option.  Myself included!  Years ago when it was drilled into me that eye contact with our dogs was a requirement, I trained it, but it was never easy or comfortable for me.  And once I trained it to ‘satisfaction’ quite frankly I found I then rarely if ever used it in real life or actual training.  After a time, I realized I’d stopped teaching an eye contact with humans cue to my dogs at all, (I do though often teach dogs to look at certain other things on cue, like ‘watch where the ball is being thrown so you can find it’, or ‘look forward in the direction my foot or hand is pointing so you know which direction I want you to run when I release you from your start line stay’) and I started to think about why.  Realizing, how unnecessary to my training and relationship with my dogs eye contact really is.  So I stopped actively teaching it in my lessons or classes, unless a client specifically asked for instruction on it, and noticed the lack of active teaching of eye contact between dog and handler didn’t cause any obvious detriments.  Connection and attention between dog and handler could still be clearly gained without eye contact.

Is eye contact a means for many folks and dogs to interact with each other?  Is it a part of many folks routines when training or competing with their dogs?  Sure.  But it isn’t the be all and end all.  It doesn’t have to be a component of a solid, healthy connected relationship or moment with our dogs.

Let’s go back to that definition of connection, shall we? “the relationship of a person, thing or behavior to something or someone else.”  and attention: “the act of directing the mind to listen, see or understand.”  Seeing is just one of many means of defining attention.  And connection makes no mention at all about the eyes or sight.

The keys of connecting with our dogs, of attending to our dogs are about understanding and relating.  About both parties, dog and human, building a relationship where each is willing to notice the other and direct the mind to understand.

So, just here to say, if you’re striving to build a connected, attentive relationship and training moment with your dog, but eye contact isn’t your or your dog’s thing for whatever reason?  It’s ok.  You’re not doing it wrong.  Your team isn’t lacking some huge key “if you can’t do this you might as well quit” eye contact element.  It’ll be ok.  There are many other ways to connect, be, attend to our working and personal relationships with our dogs, and for our dogs to connect, be and attend to us.  Eyes not required.

 

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“I don’t think my dog is very bright…”

Tags

behavior consulting, Dog Behavior, Dog Training, intelligence of the dog, James, making associations, Monty, Niche, perception

Oddly enough in my line of work as a behavior consultant, I’d hear that line from a new client during our initial consultation fairly often.  And it always puzzled me.  My canned response over the years became, “Oh no, I don’t see stupid dogs.  They don’t get themselves into enough trouble.”  The dogs who came through my doors were overall incredibly intelligent, incredibly good at modifying their human’s behavior, and at making associations, just more often than not in ways that the humans didn’t really appreciate.  The dogs who came through my doors overall often had their intelligence very underappreciated.  Which again I found rather puzzling.

I mean honestly.  Look at the amazing feats the canine species has accomplished over their evolution.  Here is a species that has developed a relationship with a host (humans) to where we humans literally take food out of our mouths, let me say that again We LITERALLY Take Food Out of Our Mouths to give it to them.  We let these predators into our homes.  They sleep in many of our beds here in the States.  They have 42 really sharp, strong teeth, they can crush bone with those teeth and jaws, yet they’ve got us fawning over them.  Sharing their cute puppy faces on social media.  I see more TV and internet ads about ‘we need to stop the abuse and save these poor animals’ than I ever do about children in poverty, or abuse, or homelessness.  How can these animals not be intelligent?!  They are little genius’!   And it’s so fantastically awesome to think about.

Monty the corgi in a green grass field sticking is tongue out, licking the grass.  Really folks, he was a very smart dog 😉

Sometimes when I see my dogs doing something or I think about a behavior that just happened, I get so excited.  Like I remember a behavior pattern that became clear with my 1st cardigan, Monty and one of my flat coats, James, years ago.  Frequently when a certain friend called to tell me she was almost to my house, I would end the call with, “See you in a minute.”  Then of course shortly after she would arrive.  My dogs learned, completely with no influence from my other than my saying the phrase in conversation to my friend, that “See you in a minute,” as I hung up the phone meant Li was coming to the house and the excitement level of the dogs in the house would instantly ramp up and they would rush to the door waiting for her car to pull up.

Or I used to have my computer desk set up near one of the windows at the front of the house.  And apparently I had a habit of leaning over to look out of the window when I heard the mail truck pull up.  Niche, another flat coat in my life, learned to associate if I leaned over to look out that window it meant we were shortly after likely to go out to get the mail.  And there he would be, at the door, dancing and prancing with anticipation.  Of course if I leaned over to look out that window without then getting up to go get the mail, well, I’m sure you can imagine Niche’s “What are you doing?!  It’s mail time!  Let’s go!!!”  (Niche could be a very intense, very persistent dog)

There are countless other examples where a behavior I was doing unconsciously or subconsciously (or sometimes even intentionally) became paired for my dogs with something they enjoyed (or sometimes disliked) and influenced their behavior.  Not until I observed the chain of events, could I then figure out and marvel at ‘wow that is so cool!’ (even when it’s a behavior I then plan to modify or change.)  The fact that the dogs observed their environment to that degree to make such an association is just WOW so awesome.  I frequently find myself wishing human beings would be so observant.

Most of the dogs I saw for behavior concerns had made associations with their environment, or owners, or certain stimulus that then impacted their behavior choices or patterns.  Often times with their owners completely unaware that such an association was made in their dog’s point of view.  Frequently a starting step to change was assisting owners in practicing their own observations of both the environment, their dog’s behavior and their own behavior.  Non judgmentally.  A starting step was helping owners realize that from their dog’s perspective the behavior or behavior set being practiced was completely reasonable to the events occurring.  That their dog wasn’t acting ‘out of the blue’ or for some completely unfathomable reason, or because their dog was stupid.  Instead to find value and awe in their dog and the canine species.  To be able to see just how intelligent their dog really is.