Have
you ever heard someone say or perhaps you’ve caught yourself saying,
“My dog knows he did wrong”, or how about this, “My dog knows he’s
guilty”, or better yet “My dog did that just to spite me because he’s
mad at me.” I’m here to tell you, dogs don’t think like that. What
we’re doing is placing human emotions on our dogs to explain their
behavior. Dogs respond in the moment to their physical surroundings,
available resources, and social pressures. They don’t sit there and
think, “you know, I didn’t like it when Dad/Mom yelled at me earlier
today so I’m going to rip out their cable line attached to the house
and I’m going to do it when they least expect it. I’ll show them!”
Dogs just don’t think like that. Although we all have very smart dogs,
they don’t sit there and think out plans of revenge.
What’s
really happening is dogs are opportunists looking for opportunities to
take, possess, and/or guard resources. In the above example with the
cable wire, it’s much simpler behavior that’s being expressed than an
outrageous act of revenge. The dog has too much unsupervised time
outside with fun toys available for him to amuse himself with. Trust
me, I know this personally. I looked out the window one day to find my
young German Shepherd ripping out my professional grade landscape
edging. I’m here to tell ya, my dog Zena lives a pampered dog’s life
with plenty of food, exercise, and massages. There isn’t anything that
she could possibly be upset about with me. In fact, she adores me so
much I sometimes question if she knows she’s a dog. But let’s stick to
one topic for discussion here.
In
a dog’s mind, Zena found the largest tug toy there is, 20 feet of
edging material. And, better yet this toy was hidden treasure since it
was partly buried in the ground. What an adventure it must’ve been for
her. It reminded me of the time when my brother and I were young kids
digging a hole to visit China. Jimmy, as I called him back then, was
looking down into our huge hole when I raised the shovel to take out
another load of dirt. We were positive China would soon appear.
Unfortunately, the shovel connected with the bridge of my brother’s
nose. To this day, he still reminds me of having scarred him since
boyhood. I just wish he would understand that at age 5, I didn’t know
one should first go to Engineering school prior to constructing a
tunnel. I’m happy to report though, while he may not have forgotten
that tragic expedition experience, he has since forgiven me. Thank you
Jim.
But
let’s go back to Zena. She was expressing the zest for life and
adventure as my brother and I had in our earlier days. She was having
the time of her life and I couldn’t help but marvel at her commitment
to remove that toy from the ground. She was tugging with all her might
on one end of the edging material having successfully exposed 15 feet
of it. With another tug or two, she certainly would remove the
remaining 5 feet still buried in the ground. If I hadn’t spent so much
time and sweat installing that “tug toy”, I think I would have found
myself cheering her on. But instead, it really wasn’t that funny when
I thought about the work it would take to replace what she had removed.
Okay
so what did I do? Well I certainly didn’t replace that edging where she
could perform another search and destroy mission time and time again.
My mistake was failing to anticipate her commitment and resolve to
amuse herself in my absence. And, while the edging material was there
prior to her coming into my life, I couldn’t expect her to make this
extirpation. That would be placing a human emotion on her. Instead, I
used the edging material in another part of my landscape that isn’t
accessible to her and I purchased a large jolly ball (a tough but still
flexible rubber ball). She loves to pounce on that ball, carry it
around and throw it just so she can go chase it again. And, that one
ball which seemed expensive at the time (approximately $24.00) was a
drop in the bucket. It certainly saved me much more money, sweat and
tears from having other landscape objects destroyed.
Zena
was being a dog operating in the moment, which is one of the reasons I
love her so much. In a world that we find ourselves pondering the
motive behind another person’s behavior towards us; it’s reassuring to
know my dog is perfect at being a dog. Instead of blaming her for
finding a truly wonderful tug toy, I found her a new appropriate toy to
occupy her time and energy.
So
the next time you find yourself considering your dog’s unacceptable
behavior as a well planned out and executed act of revenge consider the
following question. When my dog is being “good”, did he/she sit there
and think “you know its my owner’s birthday tomorrow, so I am going to
be extra nice because I love them so and this is what they would want
me to do?” I’m sorry to inform you they don’t have this forethought
either. Instead, they are fun loving opportunists thinking and acting
in the moment. It's true that dogs have and express emotions such as happiness, being sad, etc. but I hope this helps to reformat the way we unfairly
place human emotions such as guilt and revenge on dogs.
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