"I just want my dog to love me," said a new client at the beginning of a behavioural assessment.
She called me to help because her dog had been expressing an increasing level of aggression. First it was towards other dogs, then it began to be towards other people and finally, when she had enough, towards her.
She got this popular breed of dog for companionship shortly after her marriage of many years ended. She did all the right things: puppy classes, obedience classes, had a private trainer work with her on walks. I was familiar with the trainer and knew she was very good, so there was something else going on that was causing the dog to show this aggression.
When she said those words as soon as I walked in the front door I knew what the problem was.
The dog had been spoiled rotten. This is a common problem among dog owners. They seem to think that whenever a dog is acting up or behaving badly it is because it isn't being loved enough. So the owners begin to lavish them with affection and attention hoping that this will make the dog love them and stop behaving badly. What's really happening though, is that the owner is expressing his or her own issues with a lack of self-love. It is the owner who is in need of some love, from him or herself, and is projecting those insecurities on the dog.
It's like they're thinking, "You must be acting badly because you don't love me and think I don't love you. If I show you that I love you, you will calm down and begin to love me back and be a good dog again."
Wrong.
Our emotional relationship with our dogs is not much different than the one we have with our spouses. Just because a spouse is having a bad day or is crabby doesn't mean the love has stopped. Those are the days you must remind yourself that the love is still there, but there is an issue that needs to be addressed so that the love is able to express itself again.
Dogs are no different, they have good and bad days, some days you want to wring their necks and other days they are as cute as apple pie.
On the days they act up, it is not the time to soothe them with treats or lavish them with more love and affection to "snap them out of it."
What happens when you try to snap your spouse out of a grumpy mood with a showering of love? They get more grumpy, because instead of being smothered they need space to sort out what the issue is that is making them grumpy. In a way, they are asking you to be quietly confident on your own.
In this situation, when the dog began to act out, the owner gave it liberties, such as sharing the couch and bed, begging at the table, little things like this that made her feel good. Over time the dog interpreted these "little freebees" as a sign of leadership weakness. Then the acts of inappropriate behaviour began to escalate as did her feelings of inadequacy ("I'm showing my dog all the time how much I love him, but he is getting worse!").
Dogs need strong, confident leadership. When they don't get it, they assume that role themselves and begin to act in ways that we assume is because they don't love us anymore and because they are bad dogs.
Instead, they are asking you to be a strong, benevolent leader and take charge of the situation. Sometimes that means giving the dog a time-out and ignoring the dog until it has had time to have a "change of heart." That change of heart will manifest as a change in behaviour. The dog will become a good dog, which we interpret as a dog that loves us . . . which it does.
