Last month I talked about how the most successful animal adults expend the least amount of energy when training their young. One particularly effective technique involves calming ignoring the pushy, attention-seeking youngster until the latter recognizes this approach isn’t working and chooses to give it up. Because those who choose to do the right thing—as opposed to being forced into doing it to gain a reward or avoid punishment—internalize what they learner more quickly, this also saves the adult energy.
Alas, we live in a terribly reactive society. We personally may find it boring to stay one step ahead others so that we can spot potential problems and prevent them. Worse, we live in a society that equates reactivity with leadership. We dismiss the person with sufficient skill to recognize and prevent problems effortlessly as a do-nothing; at the same time we celebrate as heros those who miss all the early signs of impending problems who must expend tremendous amounts of energy dealing with the results of their negligence.
A society that champions reactivity, a lack of leadership role models: such an environment puts owners of pets whose problems arise from owner reactivity in a situation almost as challenging as changing that proverbial tiger’s stripes! However, it can be done and we’re going to consider several ways to convert an energy-hogging reactive (subordinate) owner mind-set into a sleek, energy-efficient leadership one.
When we waste a lot energy reacting, we communicate a lack of confidence in ourselves, our pets, and our relationship. However, this may manifest in different ways. Sometimes we react to everything our pets do because we need them more than they need us at those times. Other times we react because we fear what those behaviors communicate to others about us. On still other occasions, we react to negative behaviors because we’re worried our pets may harm themselves or someone else. In all cases, though, and regardless what we tell ourselves about any benefits for our pets, we react because doing so dissipates the stress we experience at such times.
The nice thing about the human-animal bond is that it’s not dependent on the physical presence of either participant. Consequently, we can always tap into that relationship anytime and anywhere we want. This is an important realization because, when it’s necessary to stop reacting to attention-seeking behavior, those who only associate the bond with physically reacting to canine or feline displays, often feel bereft as if they’re going through withdrawal. Because of this, the first two exercises are designed to help you become aware of the true nature of the bond.
Exercise I: Groom or massage your pet, or do the at-home physical/behavioral/bond check-up (described in the last chapters of >DogSmart and CatSmart). As you do this, focus all your energy and all your senses on the animal. Imagine yourself a scientist who has just discovered an amazing new life-form never seen by humans before and it’s your job to describe this being to others. Take in every inch of this wondrous creation with your eyes—posture, shape of the head, tail carriage, color and kind of fur; smell the unique scents radiating from this extraordinary animal body; feel all the different textures of animal fur, whiskers, skin, footpads, tongue, and other canine or feline parts; listen to the animal breathe—the regular pattern when all is well, the little moans or groans or purrs of pleasure when you rub ears or some other soothing place, perhaps the slight acceleration or intake of breath when you hold a paw or get too close to the tail. Repeat the exercise daily until you can appreciate the unique catness or dogness of your pet.
The goal of this exercise is to help you appreciate your pet as a complete being rather than a composite of any projected human beliefs and emotions. This is about learning to recognize and appreciate what your pet is in and of him- or herself, not what your pet means to you. Think of it as taking the photographs off that old chest in the family room, and then stripping the layers of paint added over the years to reveal the exquisite creation of a master craftsman beneath all that.
Exercise II: When your is pet resting comfortably or sleeping beside you or at your feet, put your hand (or bare foot) lightly on the animal, close your eyes, empty your mind, and focus on the animal’s breathing. Gradually increase the amount of time you remain in this position. Don’t get discouraged if your pet gets up and walks away or if you can’t settle down enough to do this for more than a minute or two. Anything you experience provides you with the opportunity to become more mindful of your relationship with your pet. If your relationship has been highly reactive in the past, it’s going to take a while until you calm down enough to enable your pet to calm down, too. If you’re too impatient to do this, you may need to read a book or listen to music while you sit with your pet, then gradually phase these out as you become relaxed and confident enough to do less and less.
Where the goal of Exercise I is to become consciously aware of the animal as a unique being, the goal in Exercise II is to become consciously aware of the bond that always exists between the two of you. Because the bond essentially functions as an invisible leash that connects you, the more you understand how you relate to this particular animal, the better. If you’re upset, your pet will be upset; if you’re calm, your pet will calm down. Remember: thousands of years of evolution have primed our pets to take their cues from us. However, the more reactive you’ve been in the past, the longer it will take the animal to calm down, and some animals may become even more reactive at first in an attempt to get you to react. This is perfectly normal and nothing to get upset/reactive about.
Exercise III: Sit away from your pet, close your eyes, and summon the memory of Exercise II in as much detail as possible. As time goes on, do this from farther and farther away. The goal is to summon the relaxed bond mental state even when away from the animal to remind you that you don’t have to be reacting in order to communicate love and confidence to him or her. And vice versa: your pet knows the love is there without you having to react to every little animal display for attention.
Armed with the awareness of the bond which always exists and can serve as means of communicating confidence and calmness in the storm, let’s now consider those times when we react because we fear what our pets’ behavior communicates to others about us. Dogs who bark or jump all over visitors are a prime example of this: we don’t want people to think of our dogs as nuisances and ourselves a negligent. As soon as the animal displays such a behavior, we become anxious (which communicates submission and actually tells the dog to display the behavior even more) and yell at the dog (which further reinforces our subordinate position and perpetuates the behavior). So in order to stop the behavior, we need to stop reacting to it. If we can’t distract the animal with a more positive alternative before the negative display begins, then anything other than calmly ignoring it will only make the behavior worse.
To make it easier to summon that calm, cool mind-set under such trying circumstances, there are three things you can do. One, if you believe that your dog’s barking or any other behavior is driving someone else crazy, ask them. It’s amazing how many times we get upset (and increase our pets’ problems) worrying about their nonexistent effects on others. Even if others are a bit testy about the display, taking the initiative (i.e. acting like a leader) and bringing up the issue yourself as well as assuring them of your desire to correct the behavior will go far to diffuse any negative feelings. Of course, you need to follow through on your part of the deal, too. Now there is absolutely no reason for you not to calmly ignore the barking dog if you’ve missed the opportunity to distract the animal with a more positive activity before it occurs.
Two, until you resolve any door-related problems, put a sign on your door that says something like, “Please excuse the delay in opening the door. I’m in the process of training my dog and want to restrain her.” Believe me, no one will mind waiting for you to do this! This will enable you to move the dog calmly to some secure area where you can leave her, and greet any visitors in a calm, relaxed manner. It will also prevent visitors from reacting to canine attention-seeking displays and reinforcing them. At the same time, practice calmly and confidently ignoring the dog when you come home until the animal lies quietly and even dozes off. And invite those people with the confidence to do likewise over to do the same. Do this consistently and the dog will associate homecomings and visitors as a calming, human-leadership communicating event rather than one which forces them into the leadership role in which they must jump up to establish eye contact and engage in other attention-seeking displays to relieve their stress.
Three, see the humor in the situation and share it with others. The ability to make light of what you’re doing communicates a much higher degree of confidence that acting anxious and insecure.
What if you miss all the early warning signs, your pet misbehaves, and that behaviors threatens the animal or someone else? So many different factors come into play at this point that such events deserve their own commentary next month.
If you have any comments regarding subject matter, favorite links, or anything you’d like to see discussed on or added to this site, please let me know at mm@mmilani.com.
Last month I talked about how the most successful animal adults expend the least amount of energy when training their young. One particularly effective technique involves calming ignoring the pushy, attention-seeking youngster until the latter recognizes this approach isn’t working and chooses to give it up. Because those who choose to do the right thing—as opposed to being forced into doing it to gain a reward or avoid punishment—internalize what they learner more quickly, this also saves the adult energy.
Alas, we live in a terribly reactive society. We personally may find it boring to stay one step ahead others so that we can spot potential problems and prevent them. Worse, we live in a society that equates reactivity with leadership. We dismiss the person with sufficient skill to recognize and prevent problems effortlessly as a do-nothing; at the same time we celebrate as heros those who miss all the early signs of impending problems who must expend tremendous amounts of energy dealing with the results of their negligence.
A society that champions reactivity, a lack of leadership role models: such an environment puts owners of pets whose problems arise from owner reactivity in a situation almost as challenging as changing that proverbial tiger’s stripes! However, it can be done and we’re going to consider several ways to convert an energy-hogging reactive (subordinate) owner mind-set into a sleek, energy-efficient leadership one.
When we waste a lot energy reacting, we communicate a lack of confidence in ourselves, our pets, and our relationship. However, this may manifest in different ways. Sometimes we react to everything our pets do because we need them more than they need us at those times. Other times we react because we fear what those behaviors communicate to others about us. On still other occasions, we react to negative behaviors because we’re worried our pets may harm themselves or someone else. In all cases, though, and regardless what we tell ourselves about any benefits for our pets, we react because doing so dissipates the stress we experience at such times.
The nice thing about the human-animal bond is that it’s not dependent on the physical presence of either participant. Consequently, we can always tap into that relationship anytime and anywhere we want. This is an important realization because, when it’s necessary to stop reacting to attention-seeking behavior, those who only associate the bond with physically reacting to canine or feline displays, often feel bereft as if they’re going through withdrawal. Because of this, the first two exercises are designed to help you become aware of the true nature of the bond.
Exercise I: Groom or massage your pet, or do the at-home physical/behavioral/bond check-up (described in the last chapters of >DogSmart and CatSmart). As you do this, focus all your energy and all your senses on the animal. Imagine yourself a scientist who has just discovered an amazing new life-form never seen by humans before and it’s your job to describe this being to others. Take in every inch of this wondrous creation with your eyes—posture, shape of the head, tail carriage, color and kind of fur; smell the unique scents radiating from this extraordinary animal body; feel all the different textures of animal fur, whiskers, skin, footpads, tongue, and other canine or feline parts; listen to the animal breathe—the regular pattern when all is well, the little moans or groans or purrs of pleasure when you rub ears or some other soothing place, perhaps the slight acceleration or intake of breath when you hold a paw or get too close to the tail. Repeat the exercise daily until you can appreciate the unique catness or dogness of your pet.
The goal of this exercise is to help you appreciate your pet as a complete being rather than a composite of any projected human beliefs and emotions. This is about learning to recognize and appreciate what your pet is in and of him- or herself, not what your pet means to you. Think of it as taking the photographs off that old chest in the family room, and then stripping the layers of paint added over the years to reveal the exquisite creation of a master craftsman beneath all that.
Exercise II: When your is pet resting comfortably or sleeping beside you or at your feet, put your hand (or bare foot) lightly on the animal, close your eyes, empty your mind, and focus on the animal’s breathing. Gradually increase the amount of time you remain in this position. Don’t get discouraged if your pet gets up and walks away or if you can’t settle down enough to do this for more than a minute or two. Anything you experience provides you with the opportunity to become more mindful of your relationship with your pet. If your relationship has been highly reactive in the past, it’s going to take a while until you calm down enough to enable your pet to calm down, too. If you’re too impatient to do this, you may need to read a book or listen to music while you sit with your pet, then gradually phase these out as you become relaxed and confident enough to do less and less.
Where the goal of Exercise I is to become consciously aware of the animal as a unique being, the goal in Exercise II is to become consciously aware of the bond that always exists between the two of you. Because the bond essentially functions as an invisible leash that connects you, the more you understand how you relate to this particular animal, the better. If you’re upset, your pet will be upset; if you’re calm, your pet will calm down. Remember: thousands of years of evolution have primed our pets to take their cues from us. However, the more reactive you’ve been in the past, the longer it will take the animal to calm down, and some animals may become even more reactive at first in an attempt to get you to react. This is perfectly normal and nothing to get upset/reactive about.
Exercise III: Sit away from your pet, close your eyes, and summon the memory of Exercise II in as much detail as possible. As time goes on, do this from farther and farther away. The goal is to summon the relaxed bond mental state even when away from the animal to remind you that you don’t have to be reacting in order to communicate love and confidence to him or her. And vice versa: your pet knows the love is there without you having to react to every little animal display for attention.
Armed with the awareness of the bond which always exists and can serve as means of communicating confidence and calmness in the storm, let’s now consider those times when we react because we fear what our pets’ behavior communicates to others about us. Dogs who bark or jump all over visitors are a prime example of this: we don’t want people to think of our dogs as nuisances and ourselves a negligent. As soon as the animal displays such a behavior, we become anxious (which communicates submission and actually tells the dog to display the behavior even more) and yell at the dog (which further reinforces our subordinate position and perpetuates the behavior). So in order to stop the behavior, we need to stop reacting to it. If we can’t distract the animal with a more positive alternative before the negative display begins, then anything other than calmly ignoring it will only make the behavior worse.
To make it easier to summon that calm, cool mind-set under such trying circumstances, there are three things you can do. One, if you believe that your dog’s barking or any other behavior is driving someone else crazy, ask them. It’s amazing how many times we get upset (and increase our pets’ problems) worrying about their nonexistent effects on others. Even if others are a bit testy about the display, taking the initiative (i.e. acting like a leader) and bringing up the issue yourself as well as assuring them of your desire to correct the behavior will go far to diffuse any negative feelings. Of course, you need to follow through on your part of the deal, too. Now there is absolutely no reason for you not to calmly ignore the barking dog if you’ve missed the opportunity to distract the animal with a more positive activity before it occurs.
Two, until you resolve any door-related problems, put a sign on your door that says something like, “Please excuse the delay in opening the door. I’m in the process of training my dog and want to restrain her.” Believe me, no one will mind waiting for you to do this! This will enable you to move the dog calmly to some secure area where you can leave her, and greet any visitors in a calm, relaxed manner. It will also prevent visitors from reacting to canine attention-seeking displays and reinforcing them. At the same time, practice calmly and confidently ignoring the dog when you come home until the animal lies quietly and even dozes off. And invite those people with the confidence to do likewise over to do the same. Do this consistently and the dog will associate homecomings and visitors as a calming, human-leadership communicating event rather than one which forces them into the leadership role in which they must jump up to establish eye contact and engage in other attention-seeking displays to relieve their stress.
Three, see the humor in the situation and share it with others. The ability to make light of what you’re doing communicates a much higher degree of confidence that acting anxious and insecure.
What if you miss all the early warning signs, your pet misbehaves, and that behaviors threatens the animal or someone else? So many different factors come into play at this point that such events deserve their own commentary next month.
If you have any comments regarding subject matter, favorite links, or anything you’d like to see discussed on or added to this site, please let me know at mm@mmilani.com.