Well intended advice from others and the damage it can do.

Have you ever had a stranger comment on your dog's behaviour and then offer you advice?

We've all been there...  We're in the park and our dog does something we would rather they didn't.  Whether it's barking, not coming back, rolling in poo, you can bet someone else will notice and then offer you advice.  The advice usually goes along the line of "my dog did that and I just did X once and he never did it again" or "my Uncle Sam's dog used to do that and he just did Y to her and it stopped it straight away". 

While the person offering advice is usually doing so from a place of kindness and a desire to help, often you will be left feeling further embarrassed by your dog's behaviour. If you have no other strategy you may feel compelled to follow that advice.  You many even feel peer pressure to carry out an action on your dog you are not entirely comfortable with. 

Some of us even seek this sort of advice from other's when we feel stuck and don't know what to do, and then we feel like it's our fault when it doesn't work out like expected.

So many of my clients come to me, feeling like failures because lots of people have given them advice, often conflicting, and none of it has worked.  I feel so much sympathy for them because this sort of advice nearly ruined my relationship with my dog, Bertie.

​When Bertie was a puppy I had an embarrassing problem with him.  Whenever we were outside he would bark, non stop.  It could start at any point on a walk and it didn't matter where we were, how long we'd been outside or who else was about.  Once Bertie started barking he often wouldn't stop until we were home.  It felt like my worst nightmare, as I hate people looking at me and now not only did I have a cute puppy but I had a very noisy one.   

It was obvious that Bertie was feeling anxious and finding things difficult but since this could happen anywhere, at any time normal puppy socialisation and just general life became very challenging.

The advice that was given to me by passers by, another trainer, a vet,  a cockapoo facebook group, people I know and commercial dog walkers nearly ruined my relationship with Bertie and destroyed what little confidence he had.  The advice included,
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• Ignore him
• Absolutely do not pick him up because he is only barking so you will pick him up
• As soon as he starts barking, I should give the lead to someone else who would take him away from me to teach him a lesson.
• He must be very spoiled.  You need to teach him you're in charge.
• Give him a treat when he stops
• Walk faster so he has to run to keep up and he will forget to bark
• Hit him with a garden cane every time he barks
• Tell him NO very firmly as soon as he barks
• He knows he's making a fool of you, don't let him away with that
• He's doing it for attention, wait til he is quiet then give him attention

Apart from hitting him with a garden cane (!!!) most of the advice is the normal sort of advice the general public and uneducated dog professionals will give when a person has a problem with their dog excessively barking.

The problem with this advice, and all advice of this kind, is that people giving it were either not qualified to or had not had a chance to observe Bertie before, during or after his barking episodes.  They were not present to witness how Bertie reacted to any actions I took to modify his behaviour and crucially they did not understand why Bertie was actually barking. 

Sometimes people gave advice based on the emotion (often irritation) they felt when in the presence of a barking Bertie and unintentionally most of their advice was about stopping the annoyance of being in the presence of a barking puppy rather than considering why Bertie was behaving that way.

​I only followed one piece of advice given to me and that was to ignore Bertie when he was barking and then give him attention when he stopped.  Fortunately for Bertie I had already learned a lot about dog training and knew  I should monitor how effective this was in changing his behaviour.  It quickly became clear that this was making Bertie much worse.  

Luckily for Bertie and I, we had a good friend who walked with us frequently and although she didn't have any advice to give on Bertie's actual barking, she listened to me and encouraged me to follow my heart and be as kind as possible.

Once I was able to understand Bertie's barking behaviour better and implement my own training plan I started to see improvements in Bertie's confidence and his barking began to disappear.  My training plan didn't include any of the suggestions made by others.

Puppy Bertie taught me several crucial lessons that I carry with me as a dog trainer now.

• You can't effectively change a dog's behaviour without understanding why the dog is behaving that way in the first place.
• There is no one size fits all method of providing puppy socialisation (or any sort of behaviour change) and anyone who suggest there is, should be distrusted.
• If you are applying someone's advice, then there needs to be a way of monitoring the effects and adjusting or changing your training plan.
• You do not have to follow anybody's advice if it makes you uncomfortable.
• Kindness matters.
• When giving advice, people will often try and resolve their own issues first, even at the cost of you or your dog.
• Avoiding situations where your dog behaves in a problematic way is a perfectly acceptable temporary solution.
• Ignoring a dog who is using problematic behaviour to seek your attention will not help if you do not resolve the issues that cause your dog to want to excessively seek your attention.  (look out for a whole blog on the topic of attention seeking!)

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I was lucky that Bertie came into my life when he did.  The lessons he taught me have directed my path of learning and shaped me into the trainer and I am now.  When working with any dog, I always seek to understand why a dog is behaving the way they do first, before I create solutions or offer advice.  

When a person gives you advice that is based on "it worked with my dog" remember that is the story of one.  It may work for that one dog but it doesn't mean it will work for other dogs.  When I, or other ethical dog trainers, give you advice, it is based on our skills of observation, understanding of dog behaviour, learning theory, behaviour analysis and we create a training plan specifically for your dog, your lifestyle and your environment.  We then teach you the skills to train your dog and adjust the training plan as necessary.

If you feel bombarded by advice, just remember you can listen to it, but you don't have to act on it.

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