Have you ever considered what dogs do with their time?
Their activities can be divided into two types. They are either 1.) “looking” to satisfy their biological needs or avoid danger; or 2.) processing and making adaptive responses to the stimuli they internally generate or encounter along the way.
In other words, a living being, such as a dog, isn’t like a stuffed animal. Living things “do”.
Sadly, a lot of pet dog training is geared towards suppressing these two types of activities and try to turn dogs into plush toys. Their dogs can’t signal their intentions, and they can’t do anything about their needs.
Watch your dog sometime. What are they up to and what might that activity lead to? And is it going to be good to put a stop to those activities, or can you re-route them, so their needs are met in a harmless manner?
Let’s say your dog is just sleeping. There is more going on than that. The brain never turns off. It is still working even though your dog is peacefully snoring over in the corner. Then, as your dog is awake, your dog is going to be doing something. What is the activity? Maybe it is dinner time, and your dog is restless. Or your dog is tired and getting up on the couch. Or your dog is sniffing along a walk. Or maybe your dog is looking out the window into the back yard. Use your noggin: what might those activities lead to?
What triggers might your dog encounter when doing these things that would cause your dog to take some kind of action to eat, sleep, defecate, or chase away a threat? It is important to read the preliminary signs to anticipate what they are probably going to do next.
Most dog training programs are designed to squash these preliminary behaviors, then the owners can’t anticipate when their dogs are going to spring into action. Yes, you can mask a lot of these preliminary behaviors.
I have run across extreme cases in which dogs are so boxed in by their owners that they tend to explosively burst out of the physical and training boxes they are in, much to the chagrin of their control freak owners. Dogs can’t help it since they are alive.
One of the most important things I teach is that dog owners foolishly tend to see what they want to see, or they try to force a picture of what they want to see onto their dogs. And in the process, they miss what their dogs are going to do and can’t control how that is going to turn out. The more you try to confine a dog into being like a stuffed animal, the worse the outcomes. There is a good balance by letting a dog have some freedom while also keeping a dog safe and having some order in your home. The extremes are letting dogs “go wild” and eventually causing harm or crushing dogs so that they eventually break out and “go wild” by either harming themselves, your stuff, or others.
What is your dog doing right now? Is that causing any harm? What are the likely outcomes of the signs your dog is showing you by their activities? What need does your dog have and are you providing for your dog to satisfy that?
You can’t successfully raise a dog by turning it into a plush toy. Living beings are active for a reason. It is your job to figure your dog out.