Intimacy and Your Relationship with Your Dog

Dogs Don’t Listen

“My dog doesn’t come when called.”

“He jumps on people”

“She pulls on leash.”

The list goes on, but what they all really say is, “he doesn’t listen.” This, by far, is the most common complaint I hear from owners.

And it’s reasonable. 

We love our dogs as members of the family and provide them orthopedic beds and designer collars and the hottest new toy. We hire them walkers, drop them in daycares. They adorn our holiday cards, share our furniture, and accompany us on vacation.

But damn them, they don’t listen.

Relationships are Basis for Good Behavior

In my early training years, I believed it was reasonable to train “attention.”  I believed we could achieve owner relevance through obedience, better handling skills, sit, stand, down, watch, look, heel, blah blah blah. 

And it worked. It appeared a dog would listen when we trained those things. We said, “watch,” the dog looked at us. We asked for a sit, he sat. And we could even get clever and use his own environment for rewards and punishments; only open the gate to the dog park when he sits, only walk forward when the leash is loose. 

Inevitably, however, over time that system would fail. The dog would stop responding reliably, his owner would ask more harshly, eventually the good behavior would wane, and the frustrated owner was on the scene again, but this time with a sour taste in his mouth for kind (positive) training. Ugh. 

This has given rise to a revolution among the top trainers in the world; relationships being the basis for good behavior rather than obedience and training. 

Intimacy with Your Dog

If you have children, think of it like this: it’s relatively easy to get a child to behave in any given situation. You don’t really even need to know him. You need only know his basic hierarchy of rewards and punishments and control them. He will behave because he fears the punishment and wants the rewards–even if the reward is just to be left alone, even if the punishment is only to be spoken to sternly. 

In this scenario, it could be argued the child listens to his parents. He is obedient, does as they ask, and his behavior is good. If he were a dog, he’d be a well-behaved one. He’d be one who listens. 

But the motivation for this child is external. He is behaving for an understanding of the influences acting on him, not from within. Again, completely lovely. He’s pleasant, accepted, and welcome many places. 

Bear with me, we’re now going into uncharted territory. What’s lacking in the relationship between this child and his parents is….intimacy. 

Photo from Seattle DogSpot

That very word can evoke strange feelings, I know, but let’s normalize it for a moment. Intimacy for our purpose only refers to two beings regarding one another as individuals, knowing one another, and interacting in a way that’s more personal than not. It takes space and observation, give and receive. 

That’s pretty counter-intuitive to how people generally like to relate to others. We like to do on rather than do with. The former only requires us to put information out while taking nothing in. Super easy. The latter, however, is a two-way road. We have to listen, watch, understand, and respond thoughtfully. It’s harder. 

Humans are Verbal, Dogs are Visual

It’s fair to say true intimacy between two humans is hard. But let’s really monkey it up and talk about intimacy between species, human and dog. 

Humans’ primary mode of communication is verbal. It’s mouth to ear. As such, its not surprising that we are most offended when our dogs don’t appear to listen though we talk and talk at them.

Ah, but the dog’s primary mode of communication is visual. WHAT!? I know. Yes. Visual. We are verbal, they are visual. While we’re talking, they’re watching. While they’re using their body to show us we’re only listening. 

It is my firm belief that herein lies the real problem with intimacy and relationships between people and dogs. Not only are we different species with entirely different language, we have different modes of communication altogether. 

How to Be Friends with Your Dog

We’ve expertly learned how to co-exist. And we can flub through enough of our communication problems to get good behavior from our canine partners. 

But what if instead of co-exist, we were to actually co-operate. Rather than a push and pull in opposition directions, what if we were to stand on the same side of a behavior goal partnered together in reaching that goal, shoulder to shoulder. You know. Partners. Intimate partners. Actual friends. 

And here’s how you start.

Watch. Hush and watch. Do it a lot. Get quiet in your body and voice. Eliminate distractions and watch your dog. That’s how you listen to him. 

And play. Play with him without a toy, just your body. Find out what makes him happy, what makes his tail wag, his eyes fill with mischief.  Get on the ground with him and touch him.  Put your hands up in claws, chase him, let him chase you. Shift your body sideways then run away. Play. For Dog’s sake. Play. 

Listen with your eyes. What does he do when he has choices? These are his favorite things! If you walk and let him lead, where does he take you? These are his choices! He’s communicating. You need only to listen.

And listen with your hands. Feel when he’s relaxed and when he’s tense. Where on his body does it happen and when? How does his chest feel versus his hip versus his shoulders. How does he show you he likes your touch, and what kind? What does he move away from, what does he ask for more of?

Only when you are comfortable listening, then respond with your body, his language. Communicate with him at this very basic level, not on him. It is the foundation of where your relationship can go and the kind of behavior that will come. 

Spend 30 days doing just this. Throw out what you think to be true of him. He’s not a D.O.G. He’s your dog. He’s altogether different. Find out how. I promise it will be wonderful. 

Cristine Dahl is the founder the Northwest School for Canine Studies and author of the acclaimed book, Good Dog 101  She holds a CTC from the San Francisco SPCA Academy as a distinguished graduate, has worked professionally with dogs for almost 20 years, and has a BS in Biological Science from with a focus on the mammalian mind and brain.

Cristine has been recognized by the American Medical Association (AMA) for her work helping doctors better understand the circumstances affecting dog bites to children and she is an active participant in animal welfare efforts in the state of Washington. 

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