Thursday, July 1, 2010

Frustration of our own making

Given the intensity and intimacy of the relationship between dogs and humans, it’s a wonder that there isn’t considerably more frustration experienced by both species.  Frustrations do, however, occur.  There’s a whole lot about your world and even you that I do not and will not ever understand and I strongly suspect that the converse is equally true.  While most of these frustrations are minor and even inconsequential, sometimes serious difficulties arise that can lead to the termination of the relationship.  A great number of the dogs that come in to the GARD shelter are refugees from failed relationships.  They’re almost every one of them good dogs but somewhere along in the relationship with their humans, there was an insurmountable glitch and they ended up homeless.  Fortunately, there’s hope.  Okay, sometimes a relationship just won’t work.  We know that.  But a lot of times we’ve missed something and our frustrations can be overcome with a little objective thought, a fresh perspective or maybe a new set of eyes on the problem.

To illustrate how this can work, I’d like to relate a short story about Lilpuff who you met in my last post.  While the nature of this frustration was very minor and much more prone to creating pity rather than antipathy, the principles are valid and can be extrapolated to fit numerous other situations.

Now Lil is not only my best friend but is dearly loved by my mom and dad as well.  She’s a constant companion.  When dad’s here, it’s him, me and Lil.  There’s a problem here though, ‘cause Lil’s always been terribly afraid to ride whereas I love to go in the car and dad takes me whenever he can.  Lil, by necessity, is left out, she used to run whenever the car door is opened.  At the same time, you can tell she feels left out, she does everything else with us.

Now my dad’s a pretty smart guy (for a human) but he used an approach to this that, if he’d thought it out better, he should have known was almost doomed to failure.  One of my favorite places to go with my dad is the beach, so dad took Lil along too on one trip.  Okay, hold it right there.  I love the beach now, but my first time ‘round, it scared me half to death (Oh, neat, water.  Oh crap, it moves.) so dad might have suspected that Lil’s reaction may be similar.  What he was trying to do was gain acceptance of an activity that was scary (riding) by pairing it with another activity that was even scarier (beach).  Of all people, my dad knows better than this, he’s worked for decades, teaching humans (along with other aspects of behavior modification) how to accept new, sometimes frightening things into their lives.  If he’s thought it through in advance rather than in retrospect, he’d have realized that the operative principle in pairing is the combination of a non-preferred activity with a preferred (better yet, highly preferred) activity.  The hope and goal of this is that the preferred activity temporarily provides sufficient distraction from the non-preferred activity until the intrinsic rewards of the new activity can make themselves manifest and it, in itself, becomes a rewarding activity.  The new activity actually has to have some intrinsic rewards for this to work, there’s no way you’re normally going to pass off a bath or shot as a good time (trust me on this). 

Alright, dad stumbled upon the right approach and then thought about it later to figure out why it worked.  Mom and dad were taking care of a friends dogs while they were away and there was an offer of the use of their in-ground pool involved.  Mom and dad planned a rare afternoon off with a pizza party at the pool.  The pizza never happened, something my dad’s still grumbling about, but here’s what took place.

Lil LOVES water!  If nothing else is available, a wet washcloth will do.  Dad had to hang the water dish up in the air to keep her out of it.  We joke that the reason she likes water so much is because she practically grew up in a bathtub (see last post).  Lil LOVES water.  She can jump off a five foot embankment, six feet out and never leave a ripple.  I’m a duck dog and no slouch when it comes to aquatics and it makes me envious.  After a nervous ride to the friend’s pool, Lil had the time of her life discovering the joys of the human’s “cement pond”.  Since that joyous occasion, she’s been eager to ride and has totally dispelled her fears of riding.  She actually asks to go now and rides everywhere with me and my dad.  We’re (me and my dad) both so happy that our Lilly is able to be a part of an activity that we enjoy so much.  We don’t have to feel bad for her being left out anymore.  A couple of weeks ago, dad took us to Hilton Head and we spent hours strolling the length of South Forest Beach and guess what, we’re both learning to be less afraid of the water that moves.

This whole point of this post is to identify that there may well be very simple solutions to more serious, relationship-threatening problems that are just as simple and simply overlooked.  Rather than suffer a breakdown of the relationship between you and your best friend; A. Think about the problem and its antecedents and what behaviors are actually being reinforced. B.  Talk about it with a friend, preferably one who loves companion animals and understands them.  You can even talk to me.  I’m a dog.  I’ll understand.  C.  Consult a professional.  Short of hiring a trainer or consultant, there is plenty of good professional advice available for free on the web.  You can find links to some good starting points on GARD’s website.  D.  If all else fails, break out the checkbook.  I know that when you’re frustrated and at wit’s end, you’re probably not experiencing your greatest inclination to do this but it will be worth it in the long run.  Your dog will be a better friend and you’ll be a better person for taking your responsibility to heart.