How often to you find yourself explaining your dog’s behavior in terms of the ways you feel about life?

How often does that interpretation help your dog to change behaviors and give you what you want?

Please forgive the trick questions.

I’m sure you’ve figured out by now that projecting human emotion onto canine behavior is a recipe for frustration and confusion.

As a people therapist, I understand the almost automatic tendency most of us have to describe your dog’s behaviors with words like ‘jealousy, anger, bullying, judgment, guilt, craziness, revenge and, god forbid, racism.’

The truth is, dogs do not have the cognitive ability to make complex negative social judgments or to stay in any frame of mind for an extended period of time.

Here is what is really true:

The Basics

1. As primates, humans stare at trouble. (That’s why soap operas, politics and train wrecks are so fascinating to us.)
2. Humans project their thoughts and fears into the future and into the past nearly every minute.
3. Dogs are totally and completely present in every moment…with no concept of past or future…but amazing pattern recognition.
4. When you resist the urge to make an observation about a particular behavior in terms of emotion, you are MUCH more likely to get what you really want from our dog.

Factual observations

• Your dog pooped on your couch
• Your dog is pulling on the leash
• Your dog jumped on a stranger on the street
• Your dog puts his head down and looks away after he makes a “mistake”
• Your dog reacts negatively in the presence of people different from you

What you might think is going on

• Your dog pooped on the couch because he was mad that you left for the day
• Your dog is pulling on the leash because he can’t resist all the smells and noises on the street
• Your dog jumped on that person because he smells cats on her
• Your dog feels guilty for acting out
• Your dog hates ethnic people or delivery men

Solution-based conclusions

• Your dog pooped on your couch because he is not completely house-trained. Separation anxiety may also be contributing to the problem. These behaviors can be fixed!
• Your dog is pulling on the leash because he can. Let’s train him to walk on a loose leash.
• Your dog jumped for attention or to play. Let’s train him to jump as a game so that he knows what “No jump!” means. Let’s also teach him he is not allowed to jump on anyone, INCLUDING YOU.
• Your dog is moving away and is concerned because your expression looks like thunder. Take a breath, remember that you can’t correct for behaviors you didn’t see. Go back to some basic training to help avoid a repeat. (NEVER punish, it teaches your dog to fear your hands and voice.)
• You are remembering a bad experience with your dog’s behavior and every time YOU see the stimulus, you react to it. Let’s work with your dog to stay calm in the face of any stimulus.