Canine Behavioral Influences

Domestic dog behaviors are subject to three major behavioral influences:
1) The dog’s breed.
2) The dog’s personality.
3) The immediate environment.

The most important of these, and the only one we have control over, is the environment, which includes the presence and emotional and mental states of the dog’s pack members. In the dog’s eyes, this includes us.

We humans have the ability to create “what if” scenarios in our heads and form a plan based on a chain of logic to deal with or alter our environments. The parts of our brains that make these things possible don’t exist in dogs. Canines can only view their environments based on what they perceive through canine senses at that moment, and then react with canine behaviors to that environment. They can’t alter the environment based on what they create in their minds or alter their behavioral options based on “what if I were human” speculations. This means that all of the behaviors dogs exhibit in a human environment are canine reactions to that environment. They can’t imagine a different environment and form a plan to alter their living conditions. They can’t even escape that environment since fences and doors hold them captive. Therefore, every unwanted or dangerous behavior a dog displays is a reaction to the environment we subject them to.

This is all a very round-about way of pointing out that we are responsible for the behavioral reactions of our dogs…even the ones we don’t appreciate. Our dogs can’t alter their environments and thereby create different reactions to that environment.

From the 1997 edition of Webster’s Universal College Dictionary

“environment 1. the aggregate of surrounding things, conditions, or influences…3. the social and cultural forces that shape a person or population.”

Notice the use of the words “social and cultural forces” in this definition. When our dogs interpret our behaviors through canine eyes and choose a canine response to what they perceive, we have provided the social and cultural forces that shape their behavior. We actually create their behavior by choosing how we present ourselves to our dogs. People who lack accurate knowledge of how dogs perceive and react to our human presentation frequently encourage unwanted or dangerous behaviors in their dogs. In order for dogs to be safe in a human environment (and for humans to be safe while keeping a predatory species as a pet) we must realize we are dealing with a species that doesn’t interpret our actions in the same way we do, and therefore won’t respond to our actions the same we would. Canines have their own social and cultural rules of behavior that are appropriate for predators living in wild conditions. It is essential that we understand those rules.