Empowerment.
I talk about that word often as it relates to dog training (and have written about it too), especially for dogs who dealing with issues of fear, stress and anxiety; and I got to thinking about it the last few weeks.
The dictionary defines ‘empowerment’ as the process of becoming strong and more confident, especially in controlling one’s life and claiming one’s rights. (Oh boy, two labels!) In other words, how I interpret that is that it is about seeing less of the animal’s stress signals, more of the animal engaging willfully in approaching stimulus, more of the animal having relaxed body muscles, more of the animal playing, etc.
When this happens, I have seen the animal willingly staying in the training for longer, the learning speed up, and the wanted behaviors done with greater frequency. And the relationship between the learner and the teacher strengthen. It really is a beautiful thing to witness and to be part of, even more so when it has to do with an animal that has some sort of behavioral issue such as fear, reactivity, and aggression.
I saw this yet again with another new client the other day. I was called to help because Stu’s 10 year old mini schnauzer, Olivia, was barking and lunging on her leash at other dogs. When I arrived and greeted them outside, I realized she also was keeping her distance from me, a stranger, with her tail still. (I was told she also barks a lot at strangers when they first come into the home.) We went inside and sat down. She still kept her distance. Even when she approached Stu, it was not with a loose tail wag. It was with tense body muscles, and she was not taking food readily either – another sign of stress.
Stu had mentioned that he hadn’t done much training with Olivia. Their days consisted a lot of just hanging out together mostly. So, we made some changes.
I wanted to begin the road of adding a lot of positive reinforcement to little Olivia’s life, teaching her that paying attention to and doing things asked of her dad, would result in awesomeness…and teaching her dad how to be that leader who she would want to do those things for.
It began very simply. We took out some food Olivia really loved (opened a package of tuna fish). And Stu began looking for a very simple behavior to mark with a ‘yes’ or ‘good’, followed by a dash of tuna. When she would look at him, he said ‘yes’ and then gave her tuna. He did this over and over. Very soon she began offering this readily. Then he added in another simple behavior that she also began offering.
Really incredible to see too was her little tail wagging. She was not merely going through the motion, she was choosing to focus on her human dad and choosing to do behaviors and feeling good about it all. Yay!
Then we took our lesson outside and practice more of this on a leash. And something beautiful happened. The dog who, on any other day, would have caused her to begin barking incessantly, walked by on a leash (that dog did bark at us). We saw them coming and moved further from the street into Stu’s driveway, but still, Olivia, had relaxed body muscles as she moved with us and continued to do focus games. There was jerking of the leash, no harsh words from us…simply Olivia feeling comfortable enough to be able to make a choice to pay attention to us vs that dog and person on the street.
When we came inside, Stu and I sat at the table to wrap things up. Olivia was still wanting to engage with us so I taught her to sit. And she sat. Again and again and again and again.
This is one example of a dog (and her human) who is learning and being empowered. There is still a lot of work to do with these two but it is a really incredible start. These kinds of lessons are what reminds me of why this work is so fulfilling for me.
My challenge to you is this: think about ways in which you can add more positive reinforcement to your pet’s life. Teaching your dog that simple, easy behaviors work to get good stuff (from your pet’s perspective) will go a long way toward beginning that journey of empowerment. It will also go a long way toward giving your pet a reason to want to pay attention to you.
