Trust, Fear And Dogs

[corvus]

Rather than take the Too Much Socialisation thread off topic even more, I have started a new thread.

K9 questioned my belief that if you frighten a dog their trust in you diminishes. So this is why I believe this. It is based on just one dog so I am not holding it up as fact or something that applies to all dogs. It's just a lesson I learnt that I share because it was a revelation for me at the time.

Anyway, Temple Grandin says the worst thing you can do to an animal is make them feel afraid. It is one of the most profoundly sensible things I have ever heard, in retrospect. I tried to avoid this wherever possible when I was raising my hare for obvious reasons and to cut a long story short, I learnt a lot about trust. The more good experiences I piled on my hare the more resilient he was to bad experiences. He would recover quicker, regain his confidence quicker, take less time before he was happy to talk to me again.

I now think of animals as a piggy bank of trust. When you do something they like you make a deposit. When you do something that frightens them or makes them nervous you make withdrawals. When you do really good things for them you are making big deposits. So when you have to make a little withdrawal if your balance is high it doesn't make a big impact on your relationship with them. You are still in the black, I guess. With the hare it is sometimes difficult to stay in the black, but with dogs, it's so easy. Just looking at them sideways can be a deposit in the bank!

The problem with my dog is that I made some big withdrawals early on. I used leash corrections on her and she didn't like it. I ignored her as I didn't know what she was telling me. Those were big withdrawals for her and it was at a time when the balance in the piggy bank was still small as we hadn't been together for long. We carried on for years and every time I got cross with her when she didn't understand why I made another withdrawal. I made withdrawals when I was unpredictable, when she was trying to tell me she was frightened and I ignored her, whenever I punished her, and those are just the ones I can identify in retrospect. I didn't know that any of this had diminished my trust balance with her until I realised how much my hare trusts me. It was not a nice thing to realise.

Anyway, I have made up a lot of lost ground with Penny in the last 5 or 6 years since I started working with wild animals and absently applied all the rules with them to Pen. When I realised how I had let Penny come to be not entirely trusting of me, I thought I would never be able to fix my mistakes. I still think that, but I think I have fixed it more than I ever thought I would. It doesn't help that I make habitual withdrawals with Penny. When she annoys me I get cross with her. She's too sensitive to do that to, but I forget because I've been doing it for 13 years.

So when I say that frightening dogs diminishes their trust in you, I'm not usually talking about anything particularly easy to detect. I'm talking about my desire to keep my balance in the piggy bank as high as I can. Just in case. When I got Kivi I was determined to keep those big withdrawals to a minimum. I don't ever want to see him worried that I'm going to do something bad to him. I don't want to see him miserable because I'm cross and might yell at him. I don't want him to EVER be afraid of me even the teensiest little bit. He is not as sensitive as Penny and it's easier to make deposits with him. The withdrawals aren't as big, either. But the difference between the two of them is sometimes a little disturbing. To Kivi, people are never unpleasant. One time my little brother gave him a tap on the nose when he bit him too hard during play. The look of shock on his face was so telling. He didn't know that could happen to him. But people doing bad things is not something out of the realms of possibility for Penny. She's never been physically punished, but I have unknowingly been too hard on her in the past and so even years later she doesn't trust that it couldn't happen again. I would rather Kivi never learnt that.

[poodlefan]

I'm trying to reconcile your post with your practice of letting your dogs sort potentially problem dogs for themselves.

Isn't that a trust issue that would make a withdrawal on their piggy bank? Shouldn't your dogs trust you to protect them above all else?

I personally don't think that dogs undertake this kind of balancing exercise you suggest. They do understand the notion of consequences and boundaries for acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. They practice that themselves. If they're jumping on the dining table to eat the cake and you scream your head off at them, I don't think that creates fear. If screaming and hitting is all you do, some dogs STILL won't fear you.

I do agree that your relationship with your dog is based on the sum of experiences you've had together. But appropriate discpline does not errode trust. I'd argue it promotes respect - also important in the relationship.

[Kavik]

I don't think it is such a balancing thing.

Eg One bad experience with something (other dogs, the car, a bike, a moving surface) can scare a dog and make it fearful of that thing or experience even if it has had good experiences with it previously. I don't think they go 10 good experiences - 1 bad experience = still 9 good experiences, so will be OK.

And I agree with Poodlefan - you don't want them to get scared, but you want them to sort out potentially scary/harmful dog interactions by themselves?

[Steve K9Pro]

C: K9 questioned my belief that if you frighten a dog their trust in you diminishes.

K9: I didn't question you, I said your wrong, quite a difference.

Spend some time with more than a couple of dogs & it will be blatantly obvious.

[Miranda]

Spend some time with more than a couple of dogs & it will be blatantly obvious.

This is what I was thinking, you don't appear to have had a great deal of experience with lots of different dogs, if you had your thoughts on dog behaviour and training might be somewhat different.

[persephone]

This is what I was thinking, you don't appear to have had a great deal of experience with lots of different dogs,

I have this impression as well.

Animal behaviour has many similarities, species wide... but those which are domesticated/have become part of the 'human world' do have many different ways of behaving/coping.

IMO dogs living in different environments, and having been reared/trained differently may have varying levels of fear/body sensitivity, and knowledge of 'dog manners'

[dogdude]

Being "cross" and using aversive methods are not the same.

[~*Shell*~]

I'm trying to reconcile your post with your practice of letting your dogs sort potentially problem dogs for themselves.

I must admit, I'm doing the same.

With Zero, he had no trust in me until I started being the alpha and not letting him get into situations with other dogs that weren't completely controlled by me. At this time, I put a prong collar on him so that when we did get into a situation where he had to be near another dog (if for example, we were on a walk and there was a dog behind a fence that I couldn't see or hear until it started barking at us) and I found that bringing his attention back to me with a small correction (me turning and walking in the other direction with a small tug on the leash if he didn't follow) actually increased his focus on me and his trust in the fact i'll deal with any situation that comes up.

Steve can attest to the fact that when Zero is being lunged at aggressively (i'll try to find the photo), instead of trying to deal with it himself, he looks to me. I think that shows complete trust in me. He's not fearful of the other dog, he just trusts that I'll protect him.

[corvus]

I don't want them to be scared of ME. Last time I checked I wasn't a strange dog.

Seems you guys missed the bit where I said if you do something really good you make a big deposit. If you tell them they are a good dog it might be a small deposit, but if you toss them a piece of roast chicken it might be a big deposit. Shouting at a dog when they're on the table eating chicken doesn't quite match the chicken, so overall it's a positive experience despite shouting.

Fear is always a slightly tricky balancing act. It is a very powerful teacher. A little fear can make a lesson well learnt, but it can easily go wrong. You could use too much and the dog makes a broader association than you were looking for, or they could make the wrong association all together. Temple Grandin in working with antelopes discovered that if an antelope gets scared in the presence of a particular person they may never want to go near that person again. Before you say antelopes aren't dogs, we KNOW these associations can sometimes happen with dogs, which is why you all think I take huge risks in letting my dogs talk to other dogs I don't know.

In day to day life it's difficult to prevent an animal from ever feeling fear and I wouldn't want to do it. There are things they should learn and fear is a natural teacher. I just don't want it to come from me. For example, I'm quite happy for Kivi to learn that cats can be scary, but I don't want him to learn that they are terrifying. So I pick a cat for him to meet that will be reasonably comfortable with him but will whack him on the nose if he gets too boisterous. I pointedly did not pick the cat my mother has who hides and smacks dogs on the rear when they pass. At least, not until he'd met the cat that likes dogs and the cat that bops them on the nose if they get too boisterous. He learnt in nice easy steps that cats can be friendly, sometimes bop you, or scary. His overall impression of cats at the moment is that they are worth checking out in case they are friendly, but checking out with caution.

I actually did more or less the same thing with dogs. He learnt in steps, and it happened naturally most of the time as he grew up with his puppy licence and all. Dogs have frightened him. I am okay with that. The important thing is how much they frightened him. Stupid to toss him in at the deep end and get really scared. He learnt in stages with other puppies, dogs I knew would be nice to him, dogs I knew would gently tell him off if he got too boisterous... We worked up to the dog park. And I'd learnt my lesson from Penny. If he said he was frightened I comforted him or took him away until he felt better.

Oh my, K9. Sounds like I piss you off. Must be doing something right, then. :laugh:

[Steve K9Pro]

S: Steve can attest to the fact that when Zero is being lunged at aggressively (i'll try to find the photo), instead of trying to deal with it himself, he looks to me. I think that shows complete trust in me. He's not fearful of the other dog, he just trusts that I'll protect him.

K9: whilst that is true (& amazing), the more amazing side is that we didn't use any over the top drive trigger, he just calmly stares at Shell & it is clear in his eyes he knows nothing will happen.

He is totally relieved of duty & that is a very nice thing to see in a dogs eyes, never mind one that was aggressive previously, THAT is just stunning.

[Steve K9Pro]

C: Oh my, K9. Sounds like I piss you off. Must be doing something right, then.

K9: lol I am not pissed off, lol you can still type....

Maybe I am just harder to please than a wild Hare?

Edited May 1, 2009 by K9 Force

[huski]

Steve can attest to the fact that when Zero is being lunged at aggressively (i'll try to find the photo), instead of trying to deal with it himself, he looks to me. I think that shows complete trust in me. He's not fearful of the other dog, he just trusts that I'll protect him.

Come on Shell... where's the photo now??

[~*Shell*~]

I had a dog that felt fear for the first half of his life - i choose never to put him in a situation where he is fearful again. I just had to raise my hand quickly, talk loudly or excitedly or try to touch certain parts of his body and he would shoot off to the furthest spot from where I was and cower. It was the most heartbreaking thing I've ever seen. Having a dog that has been abused has taught me that I never want a dog that feels fear for even a minute, even if it will teach him a lesson - there is too much that can go wrong mentally for them and it's really hard to fix!

With the example of cats, I taught Zero to ignore Mow by saying to him, yes, you're interested in that cat, but nothing that cat can do is more interesting than me. I now have a prey driven dog that won't chase my cat - the cat is part of our pack and he knows that he's not allowed to touch it. He might chase other cats and wouldn't put them in a room alone together because I want to control their interactions but I can have them together without a problem. If i let Zero and Mow sort it out, I would probably have a dead cat and a dog with a big scratch on it's nose. Zero might be a little more wary of the scratchey, bitey end of the cat because of the small amount of fear that he felt, but given the chance, he would still chase cats.

I found the photo I was talking about. The ridgeback is lunging, Zero is standing calmly - his tail is down which means he's not in the slightest bit interested in the dog, and his back is turned because he trusts that I won't let him get hurt. You can't see it in the photo, but he's looking right up at me.

[~*Shell*~]

And this one:

Tail only goes up when I move (i admit, the ridgeback caught me off guard and i freaked a little) - he doesn't care what the other dog is doing, Zero's ready to follow me because I'm moving.

[huski]

Shell those photos are amazing, they bring a tear my eye as I know how bad Zero was and how far you've come with him

[corvus]

Steve can attest to the fact that when Zero is being lunged at aggressively (i'll try to find the photo), instead of trying to deal with it himself, he looks to me. I think that shows complete trust in me. He's not fearful of the other dog, he just trusts that I'll protect him.

Which is fine. If I understand what you've done with Zero correctly, I imagine that he looks to you because he's been taught that it solves his problems. Penny looks to me if she has a problem, too. But if she knows what to do she does it. When she sees a dog behaving aggressively she knows what to do. There is no problem. Of all the ways I've let her down that is the least of it. I think she would have benefitted from your approach at one time, but we're past that now. She is happier if she sorts it out because she knows how to. I started this way with Kivi, but soon gave up. It just didn't seem necessary for him. He is outgoing and at the time we were still bonding. He trusts me more now than he did back then despite letting him sort out his problems a lot of the time. Anyway, I discovered soon after I gave up on it that he absolutely needs me sometimes and is quite capable of finding me when he does.

I did actually point out that this was all based on one particular dog, guys. This is what I learnt from Penny. It does not necessarily apply to any other dog in the world, but it's not a mistake I intend to make again. So can your silly "you need more experience" remarks. This is not about all dogs! It's about one dog. One lesson. This is also not about corrective training. What's a withdrawal for Penny is not necessarily a withdrawal for every other dog in the world.

[Monah]

Great stuff Shell!!! :)wonderful and amazing, well done!

I must be very stupid as I don't really understand the OPs post (don't comment on my stupidity!!). I only got one thing really, but I would never allow my dogs to 'sort' things out themselves. Appologies if that was nothing to do with the post. Brain fade! I find the more I try and understand the posts, the more confused I am :cool:

[~*Shell*~]

S: Steve can attest to the fact that when Zero is being lunged at aggressively (i'll try to find the photo), instead of trying to deal with it himself, he looks to me. I think that shows complete trust in me. He's not fearful of the other dog, he just trusts that I'll protect him.

K9: whilst that is true (& amazing), the more amazing side is that we didn't use any over the top drive trigger, he just calmly stares at Shell & it is clear in his eyes he knows nothing will happen.

He is totally relieved of duty & that is a very nice thing to see in a dogs eyes, never mind one that was aggressive previously, THAT is just stunning.

You should see him when there's food around! :wink:

Shell those photos are amazing, they bring a tear my eye as I know how bad Zero was and how far you've come with him

You guys make me smile! I still can't believe how far he's come. I made my appointment with Steve at about this time last year when I was feeling so down about the whole situation because he was just getting worse and worse and I look at him now and I can't believe how much happier he looks. He'll even roll over for me to rub his stomach at training now - he never would've got into a submissive position like that with other dogs around before. He's actually relaxed and focused on me when there are a lot of strange dogs around now!

[huski]

You guys make me smile! I still can't believe how far he's come. I made my appointment with Steve at about this time last year when I was feeling so down about the whole situation because he was just getting worse and worse and I look at him now and I can't believe how much happier he looks. He'll even roll over for me to rub his stomach at training now - he never would've got into a submissive position like that with other dogs around before. He's actually relaxed and focused on me when there are a lot of strange dogs around now!

That's cos it's true! Zero is amazing Mish couldn't be that close to a lunging dog without reacting, well not without food anyway!

[Kavik]

I think what you are saying in this is that you think you were too hard on Penny and this caused problems with her trust in you and you don't want to damage another dog's trust?

Which is fair enough.

But I don't see how letting your dogs sort out interdog issues comes into it.