이러한 프로 개 훈련 팁으로 불안을 줄이고 반려견의 자신감 키우기 #79

Nothing to be anxious about, you know, challenge you. Okay. Now, add company to that situation. Now, your dog might get anxious. Add children to that situation. Your dog might add a dog, a new dog. Somebody brings another dog. Maybe it's a big dog. Maybe it's a small dog. Maybe it's a puppy. All those three are different situations. So, a dog who likes one dog might not like all dogs. Actually, it's pretty common. Don't expect dogs to like other dogs. That's not the norm. Some dogs like one dog, but that doesn't mean they're going to like all dogs. But I digress. That's not the topic of today's conversation. So, it's situational. And so, you will know when your dog is lacking confidence in any situation, when they're not showing you those physical signs with their tail, their ears, their eyes, their mouth, their posture, their respiration rate, how sweaty the pads on the bottom of their feet get. Those are all signs that your dog might be anxious or lacking confidence. So, what are the problems with dogs who lack confidence? Well, life is harder for people when they lack confidence. Life is harder for dogs when they lack confidence. So, that's why I say over and over again, our job is to protect the confidence they've got and build on it. You're going to be starting at different levels of confidence with all dogs. What makes the difference? Number one, their parents. So, it will start with the breed of dog, for example. The two breeds of dogs that I have had the most, Jack Russell Terriers and Border Collies, neither one of those breeds are very confident, but they show it in two different ways. The Border Collies tend to be submissive and would be more likely to roll over on their belly if they were upset, where a Jack Russell is kind of like a bite first and ask questions later kind of dog. Not really. I'm not spreading rumors about Jack Russells, but that might be how they would express their lack of confidence by growling rather than retreating. So, the breed of dog, there are dogs that are more confident genetically. That's how they are. And a lot of the breeds that you see as service dogs are the ones that are more confident by nature. However, you're going to get Golden Retrievers and Labradors that aren't confident because it depends on the two parents that are the sire and the dam of your puppy or of that puppy. Now, you could have great sires and dams, but then the breeder plays a big role because from birth to eight weeks old, there's a lot of things that us as breeders can do to bring out the puppy's confidence to a max. And then the puppy goes to the new home.

And here, there's some critical socialization periods that if you aren't getting that puppy out in a way that protects and grows the confidence that's there, then you could create a dog who is less confident. And let's face it, we're in a pandemic right now. So, there's a lot of puppies that don't have the confidence that they otherwise may have. My own puppy included that I definitely haven't been able to take her to the number. I mean, every other dog I've ever owned has been to agility trials and fly ball tournaments. I haven't played fly ball in probably 15 or 20 years, but I still go to fly ball tournaments every time I get a new puppy. These are great places to socialize your dog. My eight-month-old puppy has not had that opportunity because we've been in lockdown pretty much her entire life. Does that mean she can't be a confident dog? Not at all. It just means it has to be very, very intentional, which is what I have been. I'm going to share with you on this podcast a little bit about what that looks like. Now, we have our dogs that lack confidence and unfortunately they get labeled. Labels are just a death sentence, really. Labels mean this is all you will ever be because there's something called confirmation bias that like, have you ever noticed if you get a new car that you suddenly notice that same model on the road? Wow. Everybody's getting that model and color of car. No, it's just that now you're programmed more to look for that model of car. Confirmation bias. Okay. Same is true when we label our dog, right? So, dogs that are lacking confidence, they'll be labeled as fearful, scaredy cats, timid, shy, anxious, aggressive. What, Susan? Aggressive? Lack of confidence? Aggressive? Absolutely. Remember, I mentioned that Jack Russell, when they lack confidence, they may start growling. Now, they are by no means the only breed. I would say every single dog on the planet has the potential to express their lack of confidence by growling. They don't all do it, but they have that potential. And here's what happens. When they growl the first time, their owners will go, River, what are you doing? And they'll berate them. And so, the one person on this planet that that dog is looking to, to give them confidence is now yelling at them because we associate a dog growling as being a bad dog. They are not. A dog growling is saying, please take my hand and help me because it's a little scary right now. And we're saying, what the actual are you doing? And we go all spider monkey on them. So, now they were a little bit lacking of confidence and now they're out terrified.

That's sadly how a lot of dogs end up being put in rescues or euthanized because it all cascades. Okay. How do we get so sad? Confidence can be built. What we have to do is first recognize what we have. My last terrier, Decaf, she was three quarters Jack Russell, one quarter Border Collie. And she was, of all my dogs, the one dog that lacked the most confidence as a youngster. And she didn't have what I would say the generalized confidence to all locations in her life until she was five years old. All right. So, generalization is that chill, relaxed way your dog is living in your living room. We want to generalize that so that it happens in every situation. And if that's a goal that you have, it takes time and patience, but you can get there. Okay. So, a dog is out and they show a lack of confidence, a fear. And what you can do is desensitize them to that fear. And there's two ways of doing it. For example, my puppy, I like all my dogs, I want them to swim. So, my puppy is not confident around water. Of all the dogs I've owned, she's the first one that, me, I'm not sure about this water. I'm not sure if I really want to go swimming. Yeah. And again, if left up to chance, some dogs just won't swim. They'll run around the outside of the pool or they'll run around the outside of the pond barking or maybe getting their ankles wet. They'll never go swimming. I want my dogs to love to swim. It's great exercise. It's a great way to cool off and they can all love to swim, but I don't leave it up to chance. I will intentionally grow that confidence. So, what I've got right now is she shows fear around water. Now, there is, if you can Google this, the John Wayne method of teaching swimming. Just Google John Wayne teaching swimming and you'll see this old, I don't know if it's even in a black and white movie. The actor John Wayne in a Western picking up a small kid and throwing, who said, I can't swim. I'm six years old. I can't swim. And he throws them out into the middle of a river. That's called flooding, funny enough, that if you take something, like if you're afraid of snakes and you went to a psychiatrist and said, I'm afraid of snakes. And they said, we're going to desensitize you by flooding. What they would do is they would put you in a pit of snakes until you weren't afraid anymore. Oh, I don't think so. But that's a way that people deal with fears in dogs quite often. Get over it and they surround them with it. Like if I'm a little afraid of kids, they ask the kids to come closer or pick up my puppy. No. Oh, so no.

What we're going to do is desensitize it by giving them something they love in the presence of something they're afraid of, but we keep what they're afraid of a long, long, long way away. What's really good if you're trying to build confidence is to create cues, words that mean something amazing is going to happen. So, teach your dog to bark by saying, who's a brave dog? Because what happens is when we show, our dogs show that they're a little afraid, we go, oh, it's okay, honey. Oh, it's come on. What, honey? It's okay. Yay. And we get all gushy and, oh, let's change that. So, if there's something that your dog might be afraid of, for example, I brought this into the pool that we have here in the house and I just played tug all around the pool. And I get that thing. She loves to tug. And so, long before I ever brought her near the water, let's just tug around the water. Oh, okay. This is a good place then. Yeah, I could be here. Yeah, I don't mind this place. Yeah. So, I change the trigger to, I'm not sure about this place. That's water. I don't know if I'm being here. To, wait, this place means tug? Oh my gosh, I love this place. So, you might teach your dog to bark by saying, who's a brave dog? And the dog barks at you. And that may be just one way that if they're worried around, I wouldn't do this around other dogs though. But if they're worried because they're, you know, they're in a new environment, who's a brave dog? Bark, bark, bark. Okay, let's tug. Or you might get them to jump up and hand touch. Motion stimulates their arousal and actually helps them to be more confident, right? So, I like tugging, getting them to jump up and hand target, getting to weave between your legs, right? That if a dog is really fearful, then you've made the big mistake of putting them what's called over threshold. Now, sometimes this just comes up upon us. Like we didn't know that, you know, as we're out walking that we're getting near a preschool and your dog's afraid of kids. And all of a sudden, all these kids are kind of running after you because they want to meet your puppy. That's worst case scenario. All right? So, your dog instantly is going to go over threshold. And over threshold means that they are instantly going to show massive signs of fear. Okay? So, we want to prevent our dogs from going over threshold of anything that they're afraid of so that we can grow confidence in the face of that fear. And it is possible. You just have to be patient. And most important, you have to write a journal. In episode 66, I spoke about a period where this was going through some resource guarding

when she was showing aggression towards the other dogs in the house. And the most important part of that was creating a journal. You want to grow your dog's confidence. And listen, if you've got a rescue dog or a new puppy here in the pandemic, absolutely start a journal, a confidence building journal. And you're going to write down where your dog is the most confident and what that looks like. Who's there? What's the environment like? Are there any noises around? For example, my dogs are so chill when they're in the house, but if it was to thunder outside, Tater Salad and Swagger would not be chill. They would not be confident. They would not want to, well, Swagger will always play tug, but they are not happy campers. All right? So, where's your dog most confident? And write as much information about what your dog looks like and what's in that environment. Is it the same in every room of your house? Make sure it is. Is it the same in your backyard? Oh, it might not be. What about in your front yard? Oh, definitely not. And then what happens if visitors come to your house? Are they the same? What happens if visitor brings the children or the dogs or when does it change? Now, what about when you go to a park? Just don't expect your dog to be this brave, confident dog when you take them to new places. Listen, let's say you are, I don't know, you are an amazing accountant. Oh man, I am in my wheelhouse when I'm, you know, somebody asked me a question about accounting. Yeah. Okay. What if I asked you to, you know, come to our video studio here and we turn on the lights and camera and you shoot in front of the camera. You tell me about accounting. Oh, I don't know. The cameras might make me a little nervous. I can't. Oh, okay. So, you're in a new environment. You're not actually yourself. What about, so I've spoken to groups of 10,000 people and would you like to do that? Accountant person. Hmm. I don't, I don't think I, I don't think I like accounting quite that much. No, I don't think I'd do that. But we expect our dogs to be that. So, show your dogs the same grace that you're extending to yourself and recognize they aren't going to be confident in all environments. They are humans just like us. Okay. I know they're really not humans, right? We need to grow their confidence and the journal is the way to get there. And you're going to take that new puppy or that new dog or that dog that's not really confident. And you're going to give them micro injections, bring all the things they love best of all. Plan. I'm going to do, my dog's really confident with hand touches.

I'm going to get hand touches in all environments, in the house, in the backyard, in the front yard. And I'm going to say, who's a brave dog? And get my dog, jump up and touch my hand. Then I'm going to go to a baseball diamond and I'm going to evaluate. You're probably not going to get, you might get a look over your shoulder and grow it there until you get that same confidence. Confidence is something that you grow and confidence is something every dog deserves to have grown. So, please take the time, grab a journal. Like all the most awesome things. You get to buy a journal. Who doesn't love buying a journal? And start tracking your dog's confidence and start growing your dog's confidence. See you next time. Shared by Dog.