YOU SHOULD!
Recently we had the family of one of our Good Dogs give a lecture to us about how they collected data while they trained their dog. In their presentation they brought up the issue of what they thought they “should” do with their dog, and it reminded us of all the things that our clients do that they are told they “should” do, but for which there may be no real need. How many of us hear a little voice in the back of our head telling us what we “should” do? Should you really do those things?
Many people think that they “should” walk their dogs around their neighbourhoods every day. Should you? Does your dog actually like walking around the block? Most dogs find leash walking very frustrating. We don’t walk at the right speed for dogs, and most dogs don’t want to walk past everything they see. It is very difficult to get enough exercise for your average dog just by leash walking, so that means that you aren’t doing much more than providing a place for your dog to toilet by taking him for a leash walk through the neighbourhood.
If you are actually committed to taking your dog for a neighbourhood walk, you may want to take him for a sniff instead of a walk. To teach him the activity, grab a handful of treats and go out and hide them along your route. You are only going to have to do that once or twice, so don’t worry, this isn’t going to mean a second walk for you. Get your dog on leash, take him outside and point out all the treats you have stashed. The key to this activity is that it is something you do with your dog jointly. It is not you mindlessly walking down the street with your dog sniffing to his heart’s content. A good sniff walk involves you pointing out the things that are important to both of you. When you are pointing out the treats, he is rewarded for following your directions and gets the hang of the activity. Once your dog understands that you are pointing out interesting things, you can start pointing out things other than treats. Try and look for things that would be interesting for a dog to sniff, like the vertical surfaces where another dog may have left some “pee mail”. When you tune into what your dog is interested in, walks become a whole different experience for both of you.
This is what it looks like when I approach a corner with my dogs! If we need to wait as this person does for the oncoming car to pass, then it fine with me if my dog chooses to stand.
How about the idea that dogs “should” stop and sit at every corner? This is one I see people struggle with all the time. I suspect this tradition came from the early days of guide dog work, back in the 1920s when some guide dogs were taught to stop and sit so that the blind person knew where the corner was. There are many different ways that guide dogs signal their person now, but should your pet dog stop and sit? Is it useful? Often it isn’t. I don’t teach this to my own dogs. Most people do this in the hope that if their dog is ever loose, he won’t run across a street, but most dogs don’t make the connection between coming up to the corner on leash and off leash as being the same thing. There are other ways that we can teach the dog to stop at the edge of a street, but those are complex beyond the scope of this blog.
Should your dog sleep in bed with you? Studies show that 60% or more of dogs in North America do! Dogs have likely been sleeping with us for millennia. We have used them as living hot water bottles, for company and to warn us of danger. If you like to sleep with your dog, go ahead. Unless your dog is dangerous to you in bed (I did have one client whose dog attacked them while they were sleeping!), then if you like it, go ahead. There is no reason not to do that.
If this makes your family happy, why wouldn’t you have your dog in bed with you? Only once have I recommended not having the dog in bed with my clients. That dog had night terrors and would attack in his sleep. Otherwise, go ahead if it makes you happy.
How about “should you eat before your dog?” In my life that would often be very inconvenient! Often Friday will eat at 5 in the afternoon at work between classes but John and I don’t eat until 9:30 or 10 when we get home from work. I think some folks think that the dog eating after they do means that they should only feed the dog after they eat, but in our home, that is often inconvenient. Usually one of us will feed the dog or dogs, and the other of us will prepare the meal. When it doesn’t work out that way, our dogs will lie down while we are eating and patiently wait their turn. This takes training but it is reflective of how we live with one another. We value being polite to one another in our home, and that includes the dogs, so when it is not your turn to do something, then you wait politely until it is.
How about “You should always go through the door first?” This one is a particular pet peeve of mine. Often, I want the dogs to go out the door first so that I can see what they are up to, and so that they don’t trip me by rushing up behind me and knocking into me. When I am getting ready to leave, I will often ask the dogs to go out first, but if there is a reason for me to go first, then I just ask them to wait. I do the same thing when I go up or down the stairs, especially if I am carrying something; I decide who goes first and who waits till I am at the top or bottom as may be the case, in the interest of safety.
It is physically difficult for dogs to go up or down stairs at the same speed we do, so generally, in the house, I will send my dogs up or down ahead of me or ask them to wait so that I can avoid tripping on them. Should you do this? It depends! Would that work for you?
I love the “shoulds”. Should you? Should you never? Always good questions. How about if instead of thinking in terms of “should, you think in terms of “what do you need?” or “how will this work for me?” Should you exercise your dog every day? Does he need it? If he is a healthy, adolescent dog, I would argue that yes, he needs to be exercised every single day. But if he is an adolescent dog who is recovering from hip or knee surgery he may not need to be exercised at all! If he is an elderly dog exercise may cause him harm. If he is an adult dog and has had heartworm disease, exercise may kill him. When your friends and neighbours start saying “you should exercise that dog” and exercising him is not in his best interest, “should” gets bolstered by guilt. And then guilt pushes you into second guessing, and then you get stuck between what you “should” do and what everyone else wants you to do. Many years ago, I had a client who had a 7 month old husky. The dog was in desperate need of exercise, but the man had been in a car accident when the dog was only 5 months old. My client had a trach tube, and thus could not go out in our cold winter weather. The vet told him that he “should” exercise the dog. I went in and helped this nice man meet his dog’s need for exercise by doing stretches, slow stair walking, searches in the house, and puppy push ups. Was it ideal? No, but it was what was the most appropriate for my client. Never the less, the neighbours left him a nasty note in his mailbox one day when the dog howled while he was out, accusing him of not exercising his dog. Should gets in the way of a lot of things, including being aware of what you actually need, or what you can actually do.
There are a few things that I think every dog family “should” do. You should get good preventive veterinary care for your dogs. You should see who your dog actually is and what he actually needs so that you can actually meet his needs. You should make sure that he is properly socialized as a puppy so that he can have the best life possible. You should keep your dog up to date on his shots. You should give your dog an education so that he can cope with the world he lives within. My list of shoulds are things that lead to better overall health and welfare for your dog and your life instead of a list of rules to follow in the hopes that your dog will fit into someone else’s mould of what living with a dog is intended to look like. Many of the “shoulds” come to us from police, military and service dog training where the dogs have very specific roles and what is interesting is that these rules may have been accurate for a period of time long ago, but are no longer useful for our current lives.
When you are living with a dog, look at what works for you and your dog. Look at what fills your needs. And leave should for another dog family; “should” does not need to govern your or your dog’s life.