“Blaming individual bite victims for this almost universal ignorance, however, just seems cruel. If we must assign blame for this kind of thing, perhaps we animal care professionals and enthusiasts should start by asking ourselves why we have failed to make what seems like common sense to us truly common. “
Jeff Silverman, The Blame Game: Who's at fault when dog bites Denver news anchor?
Hear! Hear! For a long time I’ve been frustrated with conversations among dog trainers about the lack of behavioral knowledge in the veterinary community, obnoxious behavior at dog parks, lack of puppies in puppy classes, owner non-compliance and the “stupid” things that dog owners do.
If we go to a client’s home and hear stories of all the terrible things their dog is doing, we immediately seek to help the client understand that the dog is not trained because the dog hasn’t been trained. It’s simple. You can’t expect a dog to sit when greeting a stranger unless you’ve taught the dog to sit when greeting a stranger. In fact, we (the dog training community) sometimes feel frustrated that this has to be explained in the first place.
But how is this different than what we expect from the public? You can’t expect the public to understand the stress signals of a dog unless you’ve trained them to understand the stress signals of a dog. Just as simple.
“But we’ve done everything to get this information out there! They just don’t care,” says the dog training community.
Hmmm…much like the dog owner who swears they’ve tried everything to train the dog, but claims the dog is just stubborn. We hate hearing that, don’t we? Our assumptions at that point are that the owner needs to refine their training technique, be more consistent and properly motivate the dog. Not to mention changing their attitude and expectations about dog behavior. It seems to me that the same could be said for the issue of educating the public.
Training a dog requires that you understand its behavior and motivation. Getting angry at the dog for being a dog isn’t productive. Why would we expect things to be any different when working with humans? The public is no more stupid, stubborn or untrainable than the dogs we work with every day. If you believe they are, you don’t stand a chance educating them. We must understand human behavior and motivation in order to train humans how to behave around dogs. It IS just as much a part of dog training as training dogs.
The problems of the dog-owning community are a real-life report card on the work we’re doing as dog trainers. If our job is to educate the public and the public is uneducated, it stands to reason that we have not done our jobs well. If we blame the public instead of ourselves, we are the same as the dog owner who blames their dog for not being trained.
- cindy bruckart's blog
- login or register to post comments
- 2434 reads
- back to the dog blog
- more by cindy bruckart
Hear hear
Hear hear
Not trainers alone
While the training community, as the professionals here, probably do bear more of the obligation to get that knowledge out there, I think those of us in rescue, and even dog owners in general, need to take some responsibility for educating ourselves and sharing that knowledge. We also all need to recognize when we need to call in a trained - or more expert - professional.
If we all take up Ian's call
If we all take up Ian's call to action this can be addressed
I stand corrected!
Hear! Hear! Yes. Sorry about that.
Cindy
Responsibility and Ian's call to action
Yes, we all have a responsibility for our own education. At the same time, if education is your business it does no good to blame the learner. How do we help the public understand that they need education? How do we make them want it? The practice of simply offering it isn't working. It seems a motivation problem to me.
And yes, Ian's call to action is right up this alley!
~Cindy
Psychology and The Human Element
In deed! We study canine behavior and learning theory but what about human psychology and interpersonal communications? How many times have we heard clients express regret for "ruining" their dog, doing everything "wrong", and apologize for making mistakes? Even in lessons, they tense up with the fear of making mistakes and doing things "wrong". That's when I share my three rules: 1) You are not allowed to apologize for making mistakes, because your dog has no idea what a mistake is. 2) When you get frustrated take a break and a deep breath. 3) Focus on the bigger picture. What do you see when you imagine life with your dog? Visualize it and do your best to make it happen. In addition, throughout every lesson, I constantly ask my clients how they feel and if they have any questions. I share my own stories about mistakes I've made and continue to make with my own dogs. When they know the trainer is not perfect, their own expectations are less burdensome, they relax and start to enjoy the process. What we feel and what we project affects everyone around us. Let's inspire our human clients the way we do with our animals. Perhaps this may seem trite or cheesy, but there is a "healing" that happens for our clients, their dogs, and us when we let go of the past, live in the moment, and focus on a bright future.
Motivators for Public Education
This is the same old story as any public service announcements. It's not that the information isn't available, but it is difficult to access cost effective avenues for reaching the intended audience. Those in marketing understand that public education is a very expensive proposition. The motivators come down to money ... money to buy the advertising space, money to buy the production talent, money to buy the performance talent, etc. Because these PSA's don't directly benefit any single trainer, no single trainer is going to make the huge investment -- it just isn't good business sense. Our industry doesn't have a consolidated trade association that can and will make the investment (i.e. like the Dairy Counsel or Autism Speaks). We also don't have a spokesperson on this topic that has broad-based support of the various factions of trainers.
So, to say that we don't understand what the message needs to be or that we aren't willing to apply the same model for addressing it, is a bit simplistic. We all do the talking on an individual basis, but the motivator to make a broader impact is money -- and we just don't have it.
Not being heard
I personally have been telling people for years never to put their face near a dogs face unless it is their dog. I also tell people the same thing about hugging strange dogs. Working in both the private and shelter world every time I have said this I get someone that tells me it's ok. I then try to point out how even if it is ok with 99% of dogs they only have one face and if their face gets bitten it just is not worth hugging or trying to get face kisses from a strange dog. Again, nothing but arguments. I think that people need to see these videos. This new anchor was way too close, when the dog backed away, turned it's head she kept coming at it. There was a video a few years ago about a police dog you can see it here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6SDOTzmbSs I have shown that clip to hundreds of people trying to get the point across. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. So, no, I don't think it's the training professionals that are failing.
Eleasha Gall, CPDT www.happytailsinpa.com