Are you a lawnmower dog owner?
Two young parents take their child to a playground, carefully placing the child at the top of a 3ft slide. The child looks a little worried, so the parents stand carefully at either side, hands inches from the kid ready to catch them if they fall. Carefully the child slides down, ever so slowly. When they reach the bottom, the parents have a realisation. The child wasn’t afraid at all - they have mirrored the emotions they saw all over their parents faces.
When I heard this story on an excellent 2-part series about raising happy, resilient kids on “The Happiness Lab” podcast with Dr. Laurie Santos, my dog trainer brain was instantly drawing parallels between this and how we raise dogs today.
I got my start in dogs by sending my beloved dogs off to round up mobs of bulls anywhere from 100kg weaners through to the occasional 1 ton beast (who was too stroppy to go on the truck the previous 3 attempts). These working dogs would get stuck in, relishing any conflict the bulls offered as an opportunity to put their skills to the test, working to manoeuvre them out of the paddocks and down to the yards. Getting knocked down and coming back twice as hard was par for the course in that world.
When I got into the nerdier pet side of dogs, reading all about raising puppies “right”, something shifted. Suddenly I was seeing all the potential dangers that lurked around them, wanting to make sure their path to adulthood was as smooth and stress free as possible with nothing going wrong that could destroy my sweet precious little pup. I was stressed as hell, and my dogs were not benefitting.
Since then I’ve found my way to a happy medium - not working cranky bulls on the edge of a cliff nor wrapping them in bubble wrap - but I still recognise this anxious newly educated dog owner in many of my clients. We all want to raise the best dogs possible, but sometimes in striving for the best we take away many of the things that go into creating resilient, happy dogs.
While we do want to set our puppies up for success and safety out and about, to cope with life, our dogs do need to experience life and all of its challenges. They need to learn that they can face adversity, gradually increasing stressors, dust themselves off and try again. Our dogs are incredible - capable of so much - yet we see the dog struggling to climb over a log in the bush so we grab their special hiking harness and lift them over, or they’re struggling with a food puzzle so we wiggle the food around and make it easier. Or they have a mild disagreement with another dog so we decide they’ll never interact with each other again. We’re depriving them of the opportunity to learn how much they can really do on their own, leaving them less likely to even try next time.
So here’s my challenge to you this week.
Have a good look at how you’re raising or living with your dog, and think about how many times they really get a good chance to test out what they’re capable of. We’re not freely throwing these dogs to the wolves (or rather the dog (fight) park), but we are taking a deep breath, acknowledging these amazing creatures for the power they possess and giving them a chance to discover how capable they really are. Here’s a few ideas.
Teach your dog a new trick. But rather than using a lure in front of their nose to guide them into the new position, try and shape it by gradually marking and rewarding closer approximations to the end result you’re after. Can they figure it out?
Give your dog a new food puzzle toy (or cardboard box to destroy), and let them work it out. No helping.
Take your pup out somewhere new on a long line, and let them take it all in without leading them around or regular treats.
Head out on a hike somewhere a bit tricky, and encourage them to explore the logs, ditches and gullies with you. Let them pick their own way over or through the obstacles.
Practice your *doing nothing* skills, together and separately. Can they chill out without needing constant stimulation?
Teach them a job, and get them to do it regularly. If you don’t have access to their traditional purpose, what can they do around the house or on your regular walks? One example I love is my aunts dogs who run down the driveway and retrieve the newspaper for her.
Do something fun together where the process is more important than achieving a perfect score or looking fancy for onlookers. Can you teach your dog to hunt out a scent? Play with some parkour? Introduce your herdy dog to treibball? The journey is just as important as the destination, and takes a lot of the pressure off.
Be aware of how you are responding to situations and how that is passed on to your dog. Like the parents and the child on the slide, if your entire body is screaming that there’s a problem your dog is likely to pick up on that and become anxious around that thing too. Take a breath!
By letting our dogs experience small doses of healthy stress, experience and work through challenges and have some agency to try things for themselves, we can create more robust, happy dogs who are more prepared to take on the world.
Highly recommend checking out The Happiness Lab podcast, particularly these two episodes, wherever you listen to podcasts.
