Attitudes

When most of us decide to get a dog, we’re usually looking for something to love. Generally, we get dogs for our own emotional gratification. Okay, fine. But all too often we forget to examine the animal we’re acquiring. It’s not a dog, but “a member of the family”, “my child” or “a person in a fur suit”. Unfortunately what we want dogs to be doesn’t determine their behavior. Their behavior is based on what they really are: a social animal (they live in groups) and a carnivorous predator. Every behavior dogs engage in are based on these two facts and when or where those behaviors occur is taught to them by us.

As members of the canine species, dog behaviors are instinctive knowledge developed through evolutionary development in wild conditions. These behaviors are appropriate for living with a pack of canines in a kill-or-be-killed environment. They are instinctively programmed to kill to eat and to defend their territory and pack. Just because we wish them to be “my child” doesn’t mean these instinctive behaviors will go away.

Every unwanted, inappropriate or dangerous behavior dogs engage in are created by us, because in refusing to acknowledge what dogs really are we fail to prepare for what might happen. I was called by a lady who didn’t know how to handle her dogs increasing levels of aggression. When I asked her why she got a dog in the first place she said, “I wanted someone to love who couldn’t tell me I was doing it wrong.” The dogs’ aggression was the dog telling her she was doing it wrong. This woman was trying to love her dog like it was her human child and that wasn’t working for the dog.

Dogs can’t pretend to be something other than dogs. If we learn about what dogs truly are, then it’s possible to love them in a human environment and keep them safe, polite and content.

This brings us to instinctive behaviors. Canines have developed “Patterns of Instinctive Behaviors” (or PIBs) designed to assist pack survival in the wild. These are behaviors dogs must utilize because they are canine. Learning about them provides us with the ability to allow our dogs to be dogs and still behave appropriately in a human environment.