We love our dogs – but do we respect them?
No one could ever accuse us of not loving our dogs. Look what we do for them on a regular basis:
We share our bed; resign ourselves to losing our favorite pair of shoes; buy pretty collars our dogs don’t need … just because they’re pretty; go out of our way after work to pick up our dogs to do errands with us; get up at a hideously early hour to give them exercise; leave TV or music on to keep them company when we’re gone; accept lots of kisses even when we know where their mouths have been; give up some of our own behaviors/activities we’ve enjoyed simply because “The dog doesn’t like it when I …”
So there’s no doubt about it. We LOVE our dogs.
But here’s the question I’m putting to you: Do we respect our dogs?
Let’s think about it. Respect is all about showing consideration.
Look at what happened the other day when I was walking my dog:
My dog-reactive dog has several “friends” – which really means there are a few dogs on the planet she’ll walk comfortably with. She will never play with them, but she will do some shoulder-to-shoulder grass sniffing and for her, that’s a big accomplishment. Still, when we see an unfamiliar dog coming toward us, we get off the path and out of the way.
We were walking in the park with one of her best friends, a wonderfully intuitive standard poodle who “gets” her. Buddy understands dogs (something my dog doesn’t), and whatever she was putting out there from the start, he got: “You don’t want any bodily contact. No problem. Let’s just walk together.” And they do frequently.
On this morning, my dog and Buddy were walking when an unfamiliar little terrier mix came toward us. I quickly got off the path but Buddy did what he always does: He sat down politely and waited for the little terrier to approach.
I watched the encounter from the top of a hill. As soon as the terrier noticed Buddy sitting in the middle of the path, she backed up behind her owner’s legs. The owner pulled on the leash to force the terrier to get out from behind her legs. It reminded me of a shy kid in middle school being shoved by her parents into the gym where a dance was being held: “Go inside! Make some friends! Be social!”
The terrier was desperately trying to tell this woman, “I REALLY don’t want to say hello to this big dog!” but the woman was determined her dog would make friends. Not only did she continue hauling him into Buddy’s face with the leash, but she finally bent down, used both hands, and physically pushed him toward the big poodle.
I could go into a nice, long lecture here about the dangers of forcing a dog to do something he or she doesn’t want to do. A dog on a leash doesn’t have a lot of options. If this terrier had been off-leash, she would have taken off like Flo Jo in the opposite direction. But as it was, she could only back up, try to hide behind her owner’s legs, turn her body sideways and avoid looking at Buddy.
And Buddy got it. He didn’t even try to sniff her. He just got up and looked at his owner as if to say, “Nothing’s happening here. Let’s keep walking.”
The dangerous part, of course, is if that terrier had felt her I-don’t-want-to-interact-with-you messages weren’t getting her anywhere, she might have resorted to growling, snarling … or worse. And I promise you, if she’d gone for the bite, her owner would have yelled at her. But how fair would that be? Because the terrier could say, “I tried to tell you 100 different ways that I didn’t want to meet this dog, but you kept forcing me closer! I was scared and tethered to a leash. What was I supposed to do?”
And that’s why I’m asking: Do you respect your dog?
This woman clearly didn’t. When she was shoving the terrier into Buddy’s face, it never occurred to her to respect her dog’s right not to want to meet the big poodle.
Do you ever think your dog knows best? I can tell my dog-reactive dog that the Golden Retriever heading toward us with the low wagging tail, soft eyes, and slightly open mouth is friendly and has nothing but good intentions. But if I force my dog to meet the Golden face-to-face, well … let’s not go there. Am I happy I have a dog-reactive dog? Not at all. But I do respect her right to feel about dogs the way she does. I’ve made it my job to help her be more comfortable around dogs – but I can’t force her to like them, and I have no intention of trying.
Here’s what I’d recommend to anyone who lives with a dog: Watch your dog. Listen to your dog. Maybe what he’s doing, thinking or feeling doesn’t make sense to you, but it does to him. I talk a lot about setting dogs up for success – and you can’t do that if you don’t respect your dog for who he or she is.
Trust me, we don’t always know what’s best.
Do you think dogs deserve our respect? Let us know by posting your comment below.
3 May 2015
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