Originally published in slightly
different form on
January 4, 2010 at PsychologyToday.com.
In their groundbreaking
book—DOGS: A Startling New Understanding...—Raymond and Lorna Coppinger,
write, “Animal psychologists and psychiatrists often work on aberrant behavior,
which they describe in psychological terms. This dog has separation anxiety;
that dog has a compulsive disorder. Since many of these behavioral disorders
don’t respond to classical or operant conditioning, the specialist might
prescribe drugs. Our complaint here is that behaviorists tend to think all
animals learn the same way. ... And this is where the gap in understanding dog
behavior lies.” (p. 34)
I agree that behavioral
science techniques are ineffective at resolving behavioral problems in dogs,
and part of the problem is that behavior analysts believe that all animals learn
the same way. However, I would argue that all animals actually do obey the same
set of rules. The problem is that they’re not necessarily the rules of Pavlov,
Watson, and Skinner, they’re the rules of Newton, Joule, and Maxwell.
This might seem like a strange idea at first,
but former K-9 trainer and natural philosopher Kevin Behan writes, “The
irreducible essence of anything is its energy.” And he’s developed a theory of
canine behavior designed specifically around energetic principles.
This makes perfect sense
when we step back and contrast the idea of canine behavior operating according
to simple energetic principles—such as attraction and resistance, and tension
and release—rather than on higher thought processes such as symbolic and
abstract thought (“I will obey because my owner is the alpha and has a higher
rank than I do.”), or hypotheticals and/or mental time travel (“In the past,
when I did X I got a reward; therefore if I do X in the future I might also get
a reward.”).
A clear window into this
new way of seeing behavior as energy is a simple training exercise where a dog
is fed outdoors in such a way that he has to push into his owner or handler in
order to eat his daily meals.
You let the dog eat out of
one hand, and while he’s gobbling his meal you place your other hand against
his chest, palm up, lightly cupping his breastbone. As he gets used to the
presence of the second hand (over the course of a few feedings), you begin to
pull the food hand away ever-so slightly, so that the dog has to push into your
other hand in order to keep eating. As you increase the amount of pressure the
dog can tolerate you’ll begin to see positive changes in his overall demeanor
and a marked increase in his obedience skills. Why? By increasing the dog’s
ability to handle more and more pressure you’re reducing the drag coeffecient
on his emotional energy. The effects are global and systemic and can’t be
explained by either learning theory or the pack leader model.
Most +R trainers I’ve
discussed this exercise with don’t get the point. “You’re just teaching the dog
to be pushy over food.” Yet the exercise make dogs less pushy, and can even
extinguish food-guarding behaviors!
Dominance trainers don’t
get it either. “You’re encouraging the dog to think he’s alpha.” If that were
the case, why would it make dogs more obedient?
Here are just a few case
histories:
Ginger: an adolescent Jack
Russell terrier, who wouldn’t play with her owner and couldn’t be housebroken.
Within a week of pushing for food Ginger stopped eliminating inside the house.
She also started to play.
Fancy: an adolescent boxer
who was getting into fights at the dog run. After I’d spent a few days doing
the pushing exercise with her, one of her owners called and asked me if I’d
been also working on her fear of walking on sidewalk grates. I told them I
hadn’t.
“That’s funny,” she said.
“Because she’s no longer afraid of them!”
Kyla: A German shepherd
mix with a very “dominant” temperament, who could not be bribed, cajoled, or
coaxed with treats away from her intense focus on squirrels. She now loves to
obey all her commands. She still shows a strong interest in squirrels, but is
easily called away for a game of tug instead. She’s an almost completely
different doggie.
Caleb: A young Welsh
springer spaniel was starting to exhibit a severe form of food guarding around
other dogs. This was an otherwise wonderfully social dog who had a knack for
making almost any other dog fall in love with him instantly, no matter what. I
did the pushing exercise for 2 days, and his food guarding disappeared
completely.
Muskoka: A Westie who had
2 problems, leash aggression and a frantic fear of walking anywhere near her
vet’s office. Her leash aggression is gone, and each day she gets more and more
comfortable about walking past her vet’s office.
Dudley: A cocker spaniel
who had separation anxiety for seven years and had also forgotten how to play.
He was so frightened of being left alone, he was found by his owners several
times, crying out in fear and trembling in a corner of the room, covered in his
own excrement, his eyes practically spinning with terror. And he was taking
anti-anxietal medications to keep this from happening! Thanks to the pushing
exercise (and a few other things I did) he’s now off the drugs, and is totally
fine about being left home alone, He’s even been initiating play with his
owners every night when they come home from work.
How could one simple
exercise have so many positive effects?
Dogs are designed to work
for a living. Pet dogs no longer have the utilitarian function in our lives
they once did. They don’t have to hunt, herd, or guard our flocks. All the
energy they’re designed by evolution and breeding to expend on working for a
living goes into, what? Playing with other dogs at the dog park? Going on long
walks? Playing fetch? Patrolling the back yard for gophers? All worthwhile
pursuits, but nothing remotely close to the kind of work their ancestors put in
on a daily basis.
One way of defining “work”
is the amount of force (energy) it takes to displace an object. And all objects
have inertia, defined as resistance to change. So when a dog learns he can get
what he wants - his dinner - by pushing past the external, physical resistance
your hand is putting against his chest, then whatever internal, emotional
resistance he’s feeling toward you or the things in his environment disappears
as well. The more he learns that pushing feels good, the more emotionally
balanced he’ll be.
Meanwhile our species, the
human animal - who also used to hunt (and gather) for a living - now expend
much less of our physical energy toward putting food into our dinner bowls.
Sure, some of us still farm the land and pull nets full of fish out of the sea.
But the difference (or one of them) is that those of us who engage in that kind
of hard, physical labor on a regular basis don’t need gym memberships. Most of
the rest of us do.
Why is that? Why do we go
to the gym, or the golf course, or go hiking or kayaking, or mountain climbing,
or skiing or snowboarding?
Because pushing feels
good. Whether your thing is lifting weights, jogging on a treadmill, doing
pilates, playing golf or tennis, hiking, kayaking, skiing, or going to a spin
class, you’re pushing against something to get a result. And the pushing feels
good.
Why is Michael Phelps the
best swimmer in the world? His physical gifts are a big part of it, but there
are some other swimmers with his height, his reach. So why does he consistently
perform better? Why do some football teams always seem to come from behind in
the final minutes to win a big game while other teams tend to fade in the
clutch? Certain athletes are simply better at pushing past their own internal
resistance, past that internal voice that might say to the rest of us, “I can’t
do this.”
Do dogs have such an inner
voice?
Not exactly. But if the
dogs I described could talk they might say:
“I can’t hold my bladder
muscles until I get outside!”
“I can’t walk on sidewalk
grates!”
“I can’t control my urge
to bite other dogs when they’re eating near me!”
“I can’t obey commands or
not chase squirrels or not be dominant!”
“I can’t walk on the same
street as my vet’s office!”
“I can’t be left alone in
the apartment!”
The truth is, my little
doggies, “Yes, you can!”
You just have to learn how
to push past your own internal resistance. You just need to have someone with a
big pouch of food, take you outdoors, and teach you how to push for your
dinner. You don’t have to push very hard at first. You don’t even have to push
at all if you don’t want to. But slowly and gradually, the more you learn how
hard you can push, and how good it feels to push that hard, and how you can
even push a little harder, and a little harder after that, you’ll start to
realize that you can do anything. And guess who’s the one teaching you that
wonderful lesson?
That’s right. It’s the
person who loves you. He or she is the one who’s like Peyton Manning or Joe
Montana, the one person who knows you can do it. That you can come from behind,
you can get out of whatever hole you find yourself in, and prevail! That you
are a strong, amazing doggie with a wonderful, wild heritage. And that you can
do anything.
All you need is a little
push.
Footnote:
My goal
is to familiarize every dog trainer in America with this exercise, especially
those who work with rescue and shelter dogs. If you’re an average dog owner,
and you’re interested in trying it with your dog, click here. Please print out the instructions and follow them carefully.
However,
I wouldn’t attempt to do it with dogs who have strong aggressive tendencies
around food unless you have a lot of experience in relating to, understanding,
and working with such dogs. Personally, I would spend at least 2 weeks getting
to know a dog with those issues—taking her on long walks, getting her to play,
and occasionally hand feeding her with no pressure attached—before ever putting
my hand against her chest while she’s eating. Be forewarned.
Take it
slow. The slower you go, the faster you’ll get there.
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