[Episode 30]

 

Obedience Won’t Solve Your Problem?        

 

I get emails that go something like this:

My dog is lunging and barking at dogs on our walk. I want to get obedience training for him. 

 

The problem is obedience training isn’t what the dog needs and it’s not going to keep the dog from lunging and barking. 

 

When my dog Sadie was young, she was extremely reactive. Every time she would see a dog when we were walking, she would lunge and bark like crazy. I didn’t understand why she was doing this and what was going on. I would tell her no or no bark or try and get her to sit as a dog walked past us. I never worked. Sadie wouldn’t sit and because she wouldn’t listen to no bark or sit, I started to feel like training wouldn’t work for her. I felt like Sadie’s problem was beyond training. I felt like Sadie couldn’t be trained and I felt like her problem wasn’t like any other dog problem because she wouldn’t listen.

 

Most people don’t realize their problems fall into one of 2 categories, (1) skills or actions and (2) emotions. A skill would be that your dog doesn’t know how to Come to you when you call. An emotional problem would be that your dog is fearful or anxious and is lunging and barking at dogs. 

Those are 2 different problems, one based on skill and the other is emotional. For example, if you’re afraid of flying you’re not going to take a Spanish class to get over your fear of flying right? 

 

But many dog owners approach dog training in that way. They think there is one way to solve any problem they’re having with their dog. For example, if they have a reactive dog that lunges and barks, they might try to tell him to SIT as another dog approaches. They know their dog is going to lunge if that other dog comes too close and they try to use SIT to get their dog to stop barking and lunging. 

I get it, it seems like asking your dog to SIT will work and you want your dog to listen and be obedient, but SIT won’t work. And unfortunately, there are a lot of uneducated dog trainers out there that will tell you that your dog must listen when you ask him to. But trying to do that will only get you frustrated and here’s why. 

 

There are certain behavior problems that are emotional. When your dog is barking, lunging, biting, snapping, or growling because they’re fearful, anxious, or in a stressful situation. These situations may not be stressful to you, but you need to let that go. Your dog isn’t a human and even humans have different experiences and fears. You have to look at it from your dog’s perspective. 

 

Obedience teaches a skill or an action. 

 

Sit, stay, come will not change the fear; it does not change the emotion, it does not change the anxiety. So if I’m afraid of a spider and I scream and you say, don’t scream, it’s not going to work. If your dog is afraid of another dog, how can sit, change that fear? 

A mistake we make with our dog is we look at the symptoms like barking and lunging. We get angry with our dog because that’s embarrassing and we expect our dog to listen. And we don’t think about why the dog is doing the behavior, to begin with. We only focus on the symptoms. If you want your dog to change, then you need to change how you think about what is going on with your dog.

Fear issues like anxiety, stress, they’re mostly just fear issues. Anxiety is the anticipation of something scary happening. Fear is something scary happening. Remember, it’s something scary in your dog’s mind not in your mind. Fears are irrational. I know that I’m bigger than a spider. I know that I can stomp on a spider, but it doesn’t make me less afraid. Fears are irrational, keep that in mind. 

 

Why can’t your dog just be obedient and listen to sit? There are two different parts of the brain that control emotions and skills. One part of the brain that controls emotions is called the limbic system. The limbic system is the fight or flight system. It tells your dog when they need to fight and run away, or when they need to fight, it controls emotions. 

 

The part of the brain that controls obedience or skills/actions is called the cerebral cortex and humans. The cerebral cortex controls things like, sit, stay, come. 

 

When your dog is frightened or anxious, the limbic system is working and the cerebral cortex is inhibited. In other words, when your dog is afraid, the fight or flight part of his brain is working and the thinking part can’t work at the same time.

 

Physiologically your dog can’t respond to sit, stay or be calm if he’s too worried. Your dog will never be able to sit, stay or come.

 

Your dog can’t be obedient when he is frightened.

 

There are hormones internally that are involved when your dog gets worried. Cortisol floods the body to help prepare to fight or flight. It can take 3 – 4 days to remove the cortisol from the system. 

 

How do I know if my dog is fearful or if he’s just ignoring you?  

 

In episode number 28, we talked about dog body language. If you listen to that episode then you learned about the five stress signals that you might be missing. You need to be able to read your dog’s body language. I posted a video of these 5 signals on our Instagram page.

 

How do I change my dog’s fears?

You need to counter-condition those fears. There’s a process for counter conditioning that involves desensitization. We break it down in the Barkaholics program. You can change that emotional response. One of the easiest ways to do it is with food. 

 

Now you know why your dog isn’t listening to you when you ask him to sit. He’s not ignoring you, he’s just too worried. 

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