What you resist, persists

Why it's not wise to only prevent your dog from doing naughty or unwanted behaviours...

“Whatever you fight, you strengthen, and what you resist, persists.”

This quote by author, Erkhart Tolle, has been on my mind a lot over the past couple of months and then today I listened to a podcast with animal trainer, Kath Sdao and she mentioned it too... So I decided to write this blog on my thoughts of how Erkhart's quote has so much relevance in dog training.
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I'm sure the quote has it's roots in Buddhist teachings and for me it leads me to think about times when I have had to accept that some things are the way they are in my life and instead of spending lots of energy trying to change them, and in doing so making it a bigger issue, I have accepted them and focused my energy on what I can change.

It also makes me think of times when I've had a strong difference of opinion with someone and I have argued my point, without not considered how the other person developed their opinion.  Instead of changing that person's mind, all my argument does is cause the other person to argue strongly back and more than likely strength their own opinion... We see this sort of argument happened all the time on social media!

So bringing it back to dog behaviour...

In many of the behaviour cases I see, the dog will have a strong need, usually a need that is totally natural to dogs.  At the time the dog's carer contacts me, the dog is meeting that need by engaging in a behaviour the carer finds undesirable.

These needs might include...

• Chewing
• Scent mark
• Consume a range of food
• Keep precious items
• Follow the smell of prey
• Exercise
• Keep mentally busy/avoid boredom
• Social contact (humans or dogs)
• Feel safe
• Dig
• etc

When listed like this, these behaviours don't seem unreasonable, after all, they are all natural dog behaviours. 

However, problems occur when dogs have not been taught how, or are not given opportunities to meet these needs.  In our modern lifestyle it's often difficult to give our dogs the exercise and mental stimulation they need to feel satisfied.  Many people juggle full time jobs and busy lives with dog ownership, meaning other tasks may take priority over entertaining the dog.

Many people live in flats or busy urban streets, with lots of different noises happening 24 hours a day, don't have a garden and only have access to busy parks.  All these things compromise some dogs abilities to have their needs met.

Problem behaviours dogs exhibit when their needs are not met...

• Barking 
• Barking and lunging towards other dogs/people
• Growling/snapping/biting
• Attention seeking behaviour (whining, barking, pawing/nudging)
• Destructive behaviours
• Chewing inappropriate items
• Running away
• Poor recall
• Clingy behaviours
• Urinating indoors
• Obsessive behaviours
• Excessive pulling on the lead and inability to walk safely on a lead (lead biting/spinning/scrabbling/stopping)

What you resist, persists.

So often when people have one of these behaviour problems their sole focus is on preventing or stopping the problem behaviour.  Even some dogs trainers will heavily focus their training on finding ways of preventing the dog from performing the problem behaviour.  This in it's self is not wrong, however if we only prevent a problem behaviour without considering what need the dog is meeting, or trying to meet, then we will either make the problem worse, or will cause the dog to find another way to meet that need.

Angus is a 3 year old border terrier who barks at unknown dogs, sometimes this will escalate to lunging on his lead towards dogs.  When off lead Angus will not do these behaviours however, if other dogs approach him he will often get into a fight with them.  Since Angus hit adolescence, other male dogs have often approached him, when he is on or off lead, with the intention of attacking Angus.  

Angus' carer is very focused on making sure Angus does not bark or lunge.  They have used treats in order to distract Angus when he barks and to reward Angus when he is quiet.  They have taught him to walk past dogs when he is on lead without barking or lunging.  They have followed advice from online positive reinforcement training groups to get Angus to this point.  When I observed this behaviour, Angus is indeed quite and not lunging, however he is tense and his movements stilted and stiff.  He does not look like a dog enjoying his walk.

However, Angus is still likely to bark when his carers do not have food.  They are not able to let him relax and sniff because if they do and an unknown dog approaches he is likely to want to fight them.  Angus frequently over reacts in any interacts with unknown dogs.  

While what Angus' carers have done is not incorrect, they have failed to realise that Angus' need to feel safe is not being met.  Angus' training has taken place in a local park where dogs are frequently approaching him and altercations happen at least weekly.  Angus is always on high alert and he was never going to get better without us helping him feel safe.

Our training plan for Angus focused on understanding he didn't feel safe around unknown dogs and it was impossible to keep him safe in local parks.  We started working with him in places he only met dogs on lead.  This way we could ensure his safety.  During this time we taught Angus ways of using his body language to avoid conflict with other dogs and Angus was able to learn from other dogs how they did this.  We also taught Angus how to tell his carer's he wasn't feeling safe and they learned how to get him out of those situations.  Only once these things were in place could we start on a programme where we taught Angus how to behave around unknown dogs.  Seeing Angus go from a tense, up tight dog, to a loose, wiggly one who actually invited some dogs to play had us all reaching for a tissue.

My own dog Velma, developed a very strong interest in chasing deer scent when she was about 9 months old.  She was very focused on this and on one horrifying occasion she ran off and disappeared for over 15 minutes.   This was a problem for me.  I couldn't keep her safe if she was going to go out of sight.  However, it was clear that following scent was very important to Velma.

Part of her training plan included finding safe ways we could go looking for scent together.  Some of this was done by me teaching her how to search for items I had hidden and other times it included walks with her on a long line in areas where I knew there was likely to be deer scent.   By making sure Velma's need for following scent was met, I slowly was able to teach her how to come back when I called, even around the distraction of deer scent.  Meeting her needs through training, also meant Velma has gradually become less motivated to follow scents when they take her out of sight from me.  Had I not recognised Velma's needs and found ways to meet them, then I am sure Velma's recall would have been almost impossible to train.

 
Whatever you fight, you strengthen.

To add to this we can also inadvertently teach our dogs to become really skilled at the problem behaviour by incrementally increasing how difficult it is for the dog to meet their need.  When I am actually training my dog to do a new behaviour, this is the strategy I actually use...  It's called shaping and is a very effective way of training our dog to do complex behaviours.... However it also works both ways. 

One of the dogs I worked with is a 1 year old labradoodle, Max.  His carer's contacted me because he was chewing furniture and anything else he could find.  By the time they got in touch with me, he was able to escape his play pen, move a clothes horse and open the door handle into a bedroom.  He would then spend any unsupervised time chewing on the legs of the bed, ripping pillows and chewing hairbrushes, make up, etc.

Max didn't learn to do these things in one go.  First of all his carers just tried keeping him in the hall, but he learned to open the bedroom door, then they bought him a play pen but he learned to climb it.  They then tried covering the top of his pen, but he chewed through the cover.  Then they tried putting a clothes horse by the bedroom door but by now he could chew through the cover, climb out of the pen and open the door.  Dismantling and moving the clothes horse was no problem.  Even when they changed the door handle to a round one, the dog would persistently chew and paw until the door handle turned.

Max's carers were right to try and prevent him getting access to the things they did not want him to chew, but what they had not understood was that as a young dog, with a developing jaw and low tolerance to boredom, he needed lots of different materials to chew on and mental stimulation to keep him busy.

The main bulk of our training plan focused on finding way for Max to meet his needs.  He was given lots of different things to chew every day, increasing how many ways Max's was given mental stimulation each day, improving the way he was exercised and his carers found ways of not leaving him at home alone for quite so long.  

Max is just one example, but this happens so often, where in an attempt to prevent a problem behaviour, the carer actually teaches their dog how to be more skilful and persistent.

Can you think how only ignoring your dog's need for social interaction, without making sure their needs are fully met in other ways,  might cause the problem to escalate?

So if your dog develops a problem behaviour, then finding ways to change your environment to prevent your dog doing those behaviours is very important, however top priority must be given to understand what is the function of your dog's problematic behaviour.  What need are they trying to meet?  To resolve the problem it is then vital that you find a way that meets your dogs need in a way that is acceptable to both of you.

Don't forget, “Whatever you fight, you strengthen, and what you resist, persists.”

Jill O'Sullivan APDT ISCP Dip CB
Certified DogTrainer and Behaviour Consultant