Do the dog a favour - ditch the sob story
Is your dog a rescue that has come to you with a big backstory? Maybe they were abused, starved, neglected, covered in mange or some other awful thing.
Having been in the rescue world for a long time, I know that these stories get attention. They get donations. They get likes and shares on social media. They get dogs into homes who might not have taken them if not for that god awful story that pulled on their heart strings to “save that dog”.
But in the real world, these stories being front and centre don’t help the dogs move forward behaviourally. This is one of the most important lessons my foster dogs taught me.
Frequently when we see a dog with issues and a back story, people do the same thing I used to - all those issues are attributed to that background. The dog barks because it was abused. They are resource guarding food because they were starved. They don’t like men wearing hats because that’s who beat them in this narrative. People kind of want to sort it, while also kind of giving them a free pass because of the history attached.
Yeah, maybe the issue might be connected to that background. On the other hand, maybe it’s totally irrelevant and the dog just missed some socialisation around that thing/type of person etc rather than any horrific abuse. Or they’re just finding reinforcement in the behaviour and have learned that this works for them - dogs will always do what betters their own situation.
Either way, while it might give you a little insight on causes in some cases but these stories are pretty useless otherwise as it generally shouldn’t impact the way this behaviour needs to be addressed going forward. We work with what the dog is showing in front of us, and adjust that based on how the dog is responding.
But if you as the human are so attached to that poor dog narrative, or even the identity of having saved this poor dog and are linking that to every issue they have, sometimes you’re going to struggle to separate that and actually do the work needed to fix it. Like how dare you enforce any boundaries on this dog when they’ve had such a tough life before? How could we possibly have them work for their food or say no, biting the cat isn’t actually okay to do.
Because it helps them have a better life going forward, that’s why.
You haven’t got a poor abused rescue dog. You’ve got a dog who happens to be second hand & you’re giving it an awesome life going forward. That’s it. It’s a small change in mindset, but sometimes the most important step to helping the dog move on and be their best selves without us loading it up with unnecessary baggage.
Photo - Dash, my first kelpie. Among the worst backstories I’ve ever heard. And evidence of how resilient dogs can be a when allowed to move on and live their best lives without us holding them back.
