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Lessons from the Living Room (Suffering)

One of my colleagues recently wrote this (paraphrasing): Attempts at dog training often fail because the owner isn’t suffering or hasn’t suffered enough. It’s a harsh statement, yes. Nevertheless, it’s often quite true. Complacency inspires nothing, and nothing is quite as inspiring (and reinforcing) as suffering interrupted. My colleague is spot on. Action is often borne of agony. We trainers know the technical term for this: Negative Reinforcement.

We hear our clients begging for it all the time. Make my dog stop (you fill in the blank). He’s aggressive. He’s out of control. He has ADHD, dominance, and stubbornness. At some point the labels we slap on things aren’t enough to ease the pain. We call out for help. We’ve suffered enough and it’s time for something to happen.

I work with people whose dogs have bitten people or other dogs. If they haven’t bitten, they’ve growled or snarled or lunged. These are good people; many are very good people. They love their dogs. “He’s a good dog,” they tell me. Their voices are soft, pleading. They mean it. “I love him. I just want him to stop this.“ And then they ask me why. Why does he act this way? Why is this happening? Some cry.

Suffering shines a harsh light on things. There is the world the way we hoped it would be. Then there is the world the way it is. Sometimes the two match up. More often they don’t. The humanistic psychologist Carl Rogers called this incongruence. We form an ideal self, a perfect life; and then we struggle to conjure it into reality. So I listen to people who love their dogs tell me about the life they dreamt. “I got him for my son,” they say. Or, “I just wanted a running buddy.” Or, “I want to pet him, and cuddle.” They pause. “But ….”

Incongruence. Suffering. The dog bites, growls, lunges. He won’t be touched. He is not like the last dog, the perfect dog, the one from childhood. This dog doesn’t match up. “I love him.” But. More tears.

My colleague is a trainer emeritus of sorts. Though not yet retired, he’s taken on the title early, a plainspoken Texas Man who’s found wisdom helping folks with their dogs over the past twenty-some years. It’s strange, though no less profound, what we can learn from people and dogs in their living rooms. Life is suffering. The Buddha’s First Nobel Truth is frequently misunderstood. The literal translation of suffering (dukkha) takes us a bit further than mere discontent. Life’s pain is the hinge of change; it is temporary and conditional. Incongruence, for Carl Rogers, was one of the first keys to change in our lives. The beginning, not the end. It puts us on notice that life is not what we expected or dreamed of, but that it is nonetheless our life. For the Buddha it’s also about contrast. Suffering leads us to compassion.

There are steps to helping dogs who are frightened and angry as a result, the ones who bite and all the rest. They are not all that unlike the steps we take to help our fellow humans, small steps, gentle. We begin wherever we are and move forward as best we can, slowly at first. There is always a helper, a trainer like me or my colleague, friends. And yes, there are the dreams for which we still reach, or the memories of the last dog, the perfect one, the one we mourn in the face of the one we have. The wish. The reality.

The lessons, taught well and practiced faithfully yield results. The pain eases and the hinge moves more freely. Behavior changes. The dog does stop (fill in the blank), and new behavior replaces old. Life imagined more closely matches life at hand. People smile. I wish them well and eventually move on to the next dog, to the next living room.

Sometimes I wonder if I’ll stay at this as long as my senior colleague. It’s been nearly 30 years for him now. Perhaps like me, he is drawn by what he learns as much as by what he teaches. Life is dukkha. Only when it’s crushed and ground does wheat transform to flour; and before it becomes bread flour is put to flame. The work is hard at times. I’ve cried for clients, even with them. The lesson is compassion. What else is to be learned from unavoidable suffering? Smile kindly at the client who is pleading and questioning. She is your teacher. Love the dog who wants to hurt you. His suffering is teaching you to care more effectively. It is the grist that eventually feeds us.

Michael Baugh CDBC, CPDT-KSA teaches dog training in Houston, TX. He specializes in counseling families with fearful and aggressive dogs.

The Whole Truth (so help me dog)

Truth is a slippery thing, subject to so much bias and spin. We know this, all of us, all too well. And, those of us who work in the community of dogs and their people know it particularly well.

We dog people are an emotional lot, and emotion is so often what clouds truth. We take on beliefs about our dogs and shore up those beliefs with what we see on TV or read on the Internet. It’s called confirmation bias; we hold true to an opinion and that belief is strengthened every time we hear it repeated elsewhere. A natural human process called cognitive dissonance blocks contradictory ideas; information that doesn’t support our beliefs is disruptive to our mental processes and set aside as false. We are, it seems, not a reliable filter for truth.

In the world of dog training there is a great deal of bias and dissonance. Some believe quite strongly that dogs learn from a social structure similar to that of wolves. The idea is that wolves and dogs both form linear pack hierarchies lead by alpha males and females. Humans teach dogs by showing their social dominance and become leader of the pack. It’s the basis for Cesar Milan’s approach, and that of many other trainers.

Still other trainers believe with equal vigor that dogs learn based on clearly communicated criteria and consequences. The idea is that dogs learn the same way all other animals learn, based on whether or not any given action is reinforced or punished. This is called Behaviorism. It’s rooted in the early 20^th century work of John Watson and B.F. Skinner.

Add to that other ideas. Many feel quite strongly that they can communicate intuitively with dogs both living and dead. Closely related is the idea that dogs have a sixth sense that allows them to know and understand us at a very deep, even unconscious level. This belief suggests dogs learn in a much more humanlike way, that they already understand what we mean and intend. For some, dogs even become mystical creatures, romanticized as much as they are beloved.

What’s the truth? It’s a slippery thing, especially when it mixes with strongly held emotional beliefs. The closest thing we have now to truth is the vigorous work of science. Contrary to what many believe, science is not a list of answers but a constant questioning. It is the search for truth, proposing possibilities and testing them against reality. An idea is tested, measured, and then presented for scrutiny. Others then test the idea as well, measure, and present. Ideas that test and measure what they clearly intend to are considered valid. Those that are tested many times by others with identical results are considered reliable. Validity and reliability are the hallmarks of good science.

When it comes to how dogs learn, I lean deeply into science. Some questions have been asked for nearly a century with valid and reliable answers. Dogs (all animals) do learn based consequences. Presented with a given situation, dogs will behave (act) in a way that reflects the consequences of that behavior in the past. Dogs who get treats when the come when called tend to come when called more often. We’ve taught dogs in this way, perhaps for hundreds of years.

Newer studies within the past decade indicated that dogs do not form packs with alpha males and females. In fact, we are gaining new understanding that suggests wild wolves don’t either, at least not in the way we once thought. Wolf packs are more like a family with a father and mother; the rest of the pack is made up of their offspring who remain with them for a year or more. The idea that dogs are trying to ascend to leadership of our human families has never been shown to be true. These early studies are promising in terms of their validity. More research will be needed to bear out their reliability.

The idea of animal communication is intriguing. It speaks to our attraction to things mystical and unknown. Mystery and questioning were the very things from which science was born. Still, there has been little research in this area. That said, there is early evidence that dogs can read our facial expressions and body language expertly, better even than chimpanzees can. That can look very much like evidence of a sixth sense to us, but is it more likely the very deft use of the dog’s existing five senses.

What then is the truth? How does it settle with our beliefs? To what can we grasp firmly when so much seems all too slippery? My answer follows the vigorous work of questioning. Lean into the science. It’s where faith finds firm rooting. Science is the universal codex of great things divine.

And what better way to explore the divine than through our dogs.

The Nonsense of No

We all do it: fuss at our dogs, yell at them to stop doing this or that. More often than not our rants begin with a sharp stern “NO!” The funny thing is with most of our dogs the “no” results in nary a pause in the action, a look of glum recognition followed by more of whatever it is we wanted him to stop doing. The sad truth is, “no” is a nonstarter. It doesn’t work. And yet we keep barking away. “NO!”

The main problem with “no,” of course, is that it’s devoid of any instructive content. What does “no” mean? If a dog is jumping on our guest, for instance, and we yell “no” what are we communicating to the dog? Maybe we’re letting him know we’re angry, but we’re not conveying even an inkling of what we want him to do. Part of the reason is because “no” means so many things to us. We yell it when the dog is jumping up, but also when he’s running away, digging, barking, and pulling on his leash. It’s too vague. It also violates one of the golden rules of dog training: a command can only have one meaning, not many. Inference, creating meaning out of context, clues, and the subtleties of language is a uniquely human quality (and not always one of our best).

Of course, we humans are clever. So we add the offending behavior after the word “no” to help our dogs understand our indignation. We say “no jump,” or “no bark.” In my many years as a dog trainer, and the many more as a human being on this planet, I’ve never heard a dog use a verbal language. The idea that our dog understands our particular meaning of the word “jump,” much less its antithesis, is a huge leap of logic (pun fully intended). They are linear, not relational, thinkers. Plus they follow visual cues better than words. Never mind the minutiae of behavior science. Yelling no-anything just makes us sound like cartoon cavemen. It’s silly.

So what are we wordy creatures to do? We just want our dogs to STOP IT (whatever it is). Are we hopeless? No. Let’s try this instead. What do we want our dogs to do? When our dog is jumping, what would we prefer he was doing? Sit, perhaps. We can teach that. “Sit”, when taught properly generally has one meaning (place bottom on ground). Awesome! I can teach my dog to sit, and if he jumps on a guest I have something clear and meaningful to yell at him. “Sit!” His bottom hits the ground – jumping ceases. It might take some practice, sure, but the meaning is clear. Do this, not that.

Some of us will still yell out “no” in anger (move me to the head of the mea culpa line). That’s okay if we just remember this. Follow up with a clear instruction. If we see a dog digging a hole in the back yard, we might bark out “no” in our justified anger. But then what? Add meaningful instruction. “Stella, come.” Stella is my dog’s name and she has a pretty decent coming-when-called. It’s liable to get her away from the hole, at least long enough for me to get her on to a new task. “No” is quickly forgotten. The instructive part was calling her to me.

Try this, too. When your dog does something right, pick a word that means they’re getting a tasty bit of food. The word should be short and crisp, timed exactly with the good deed to let them know a food reward is on the way. That’ll get them learning. Actions result in delicious consequences. The word marks the moment of success. Of course, I have a favorite word for this kind of teaching. “Yes.”

Michael Baugh CDBC, CPDT-KSA teaches dog training in Houston, TX. He specializes in behavior related to canine fear and aggression.