When we love our dog, we can all agree they enrich our lives in so many ways. They appear to brim with love, loyalty, unbridled joy, they are funny, fun and comforting.
So, what do we offer them?
We feed them, provide them with a warm comfortable home, walk them and love them in return. That seems like a lot .. but is it enough?
What would your dog ask you for, if they could?
I think they’d like more choice.
After all, as much as we dote on them, we make nearly all their decisions for them. We choose what they eat, when they eat, when they walk, how far they walk, where they walk, when they sleep, where they sleep, when they get our affection, and to a degree how they are allowed to behave.
In fact nearly every facet of their lives is decided on by us .. this is a lot of rules to live by.
We do this with love and the best of intentions, but I think most of us could do better.
Choices are about freedom - and that's something we all crave. When you remove choice, to a big extent, you remove freedom. Freedom isn’t just about running free off lead (as lovely as this is, being a responsible dog owner is a necessity and running loose isn’t appropriate for all dogs, all the time). Freedom is a mental state as well as a physical one, and providing your dog with choices will give them a feeling of freedom which in turn will boost confidence, and empower them.
How do you give your dog more choice?
There are small but significant things we can do for our dogs that take up little time and effort and provide these clever minds with feelings of choice and freedom.
Here are a few examples to get you started today:
Scatter Feed
Literally throw your dog’s kibble (if that’s what they eat) into the grass in the garden. This might sound a bit revolting to us, but to your dog, this is like starting the day with a nice cup of tea and a yoga or meditation session. Dogs’ innate need to hunt for food, to seek, to forage and sniff, will be largely satisfied with this easy task. It is proven how calming activating the seeking system is for dogs….let them sniff, this is after all how they see the world
A Dog Led Walk
Literally that. And if your dog can’t go off lead - clip your longline on and let your dog lead the way. Let them sniff where they want to sniff, for as long as they want to do it for. Let them meander and take you in the direction that they want to go. This is not about distance, this is about choice, so keep the lead loose and just take your time and follow your dog
Learn Your Dogs’ Body Language
Be thoughtful about when and how you pet your dog. Just like us, dogs might not always want to be touched or hugged, sometimes, they need their own space and time to relax. We live in a noisy world, with televisions, artificial lighting and artificial hours dictated by work and social commitments…provide your dog with an option to escape this. We don’t own them in a way that entitles us to satisfy our own needs for affection over there’s. Let them choose when they want to interact, become familiar with their patterns
Introduce or Learn About Freework
A wonderful training technique, which engages all of your dogs’ senses and allows them complete choice. It can be quite complex, but as a basic tool it can be effectively used to build confidence, create independent thinking and problem solving skills...very empowering!
Play Time
There are times (we’ve all been there) when you are tired after a long day and your dog brings you a toy and wants to play .. do it! Even if it’s not for long this is a massive choice you are allowing your dog, it’s things like this that help your relationship to be more reciprocal
Secure Paddocks
There are many of these popping up all over the country in rural and built up areas. If you have a dog that can’t be let off lead for any reason, it would be well worth hiring one of these once or twice a week to allow your dog complete freedom of choice. Let them explore in their own way in their own time
Walk Times
Dogs are by nature crepuscular, that is to say, they are more active at dusk and dawn. Just by changing the time you walk on some days, could provide your dog with much needed evolutionary satisfaction, if they want to spend extra time in the garden in the evenings let them
Steve Mann’s Rucksack Walk
This idea was sparked during his travels where he had ample opportunity to observe stray dogs. Steve used his many years of experience in dog training and behaviour to help discern what dogs chose to do when they had complete freedom of choice and time on their hands. He made amazing discoveries about how dogs chose to spend their time and managed to emulate some of this behaviour through his development of the rucksack walk. I find this a quite magical tool for offering dogs choice and building bonds with their humans
Positive Training Promotes Freedom
Positive training methods create an environment where the dog is given choices. Our aim as positive dog trainers is to teach you how to guide your dog into making the right choice at the right time.
Make no mistake, in a training situation these choices are about getting them to perform the behaviours we want from them, but by making these choices rewarding and fun they become the behaviours the dogs choose to do. Fun, choice-based learning, engages the mind, cements desirable behaviours and allows your dog to feel empowered.
It’s a win, win I promise.
Empowering your dog, will NOT make them dominant, (we’ll talk about this another time!!) on the contrary it will strengthen the trust and bond between you and it will make them happy.
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Lynne :-)