The Other End of the Leash: Why We Do What We Do Around Dogs

by Patricia B. McConnell

Canis lupus familiaris, the domestic dog, is now one of the most successful mammals on earth, thanks to hitching his star to ours. It’s been estimated that there are about four hundred million dogs in the world. Many American dogs are eating organic food, going to canine chiropractors and doggy day-care centers, and chewing on millions of dollars a year in toys. Now that’s a successful species.

The next time you see a dog you’d like to greet, stop a few feet away, stand sideways rather than straight on, and avoid looking directly into her eyes. Wait for the dog to come all the way to you. If she doesn’t, she doesn’t want to be petted. So don’t pet her. It’s not really that much to ask. Do you want every stranger you see on the street to handle your body? If the dog approaches you with a relaxed rather than a stiff body, let the dog sniff your hand, careful to hold your hand low, under rather than over her head. Always pet unfamiliar dogs on the chest or under their chin. Don’t reach over their heads to pet them. What would you think if an unfamiliar animal the size of King Kong waltzed up and reached over and behind your head with its huge paw?

The best way to get a dog to come to you is to turn away from him and move in the opposite direction (which is actually “toward you” from the standpoint of the dog). This is so unnatural to us humans that I sometimes have to take clients by their sleeve and pull them away from their dogs to prevent them from moving forward. Dogs want to go the way that you’re going, and to a dog that’s the way that your face and feet are pointing.

The direction in which a dog’s body is shifted, whether forward or backward, is critical information to an Applied Animal Behaviorist. A dog may be snarling when I meet him in the lobby, but if his body is shifted even the slightest bit backward, I know that he’s on defense rather than ready to attack. No matter how much he’s growling and flashing his teeth, there’s little danger if I don’t put pressure on him. I’m much more concerned about the quiet, stiff-legged dog who stands still, shifting just a tad forward while he stares directly into my eyes. Dogs who alternate charging forward and retreating are ambivalent, torn between wanting to attack and wanting to flee. You can learn a tremendous amount about a dog by learning to read which way his body is leaning. Once you have a “template” in your brain, you’ll find that you see it everywhere—in the little Sheltie who drops her shoulder and leans the slightest bit backward when you forget yourself and reach over her head with your paw. You’ll see it at the dog park when two dogs greet, one dog leaning forward and the other shifting back. It becomes like a neon sign, and you’ll wonder how you could’ve missed it before.

A common situation of visual miscommunication between people and dogs is when owners let their leashed dogs meet each other for the first time. The humans are often anxious about how the dogs will get along, and if you watch them instead of the dogs, you’ll often notice that the humans will hold their breath and round their eyes and mouths in an “on alert” expression. Since these behaviors are expressions of offensive aggression in canine culture, I suspect that the humans are unwittingly signaling tension. If you exaggerate this by tightening the leash, as many owners do, you can actually cause the dogs to attack each other. Think of it: the dogs are in a tense social encounter, surrounded by support from their own pack, with the humans forming a tense, staring, breathless circle around them. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen dogs shift their eyes toward their owners’ frozen faces and then launch growling at the other dog. You can avoid a lot of dogfights by relaxing the muscles in your face, smiling with your eyes, breathing slowly, and turning away from the dogs rather than leaning forward and adding more tension.

If you cock your head, you are signaling to a dog that you’re relaxed, which can go a long way toward relaxing the dog as well.

Turning your head away doesn’t just deflect tension. As with a smile, it can have many meanings. My huge Great Pyrenees, Tulip, looks away every night when submissive Pip grovels over to her for attention. Pip lies down on her side, thumps her tail, keeps her head low and her lips in a submissive grin as she flops her way over for attention from alpha bitch Tulip. Matriarch that she is, Tulip rarely deigns to give Pip the attention that she seeks. Tulip raises her huge square head a bit, nose in the air, and turns her head away from Pip. Submissive dogs seek interactions, but high-status dogs get to decide whether to grant an audience or not. Sometimes Tulip deigns to turn back and sniff Pip’s face (while Pip seems to melt in ecstasy). Most of the time she continues to ignore Pip until Pip gives up and goes away. What, then, is your dog to think if every time she comes over to you, you instantly drop what you were doing and respond with petting and attention? Who has control of the agenda in the living room? It’s easy to train your dog to demand attention from you. That’s what you unconsciously do if you respond every time your dog requests (or demands) something from you. You might ask yourself what she’ll learn from that. Perhaps she’ll learn that she is always more important than anything else that you might be doing. Alternatively what some dogs don’t learn can create the biggest problem. I see dogs in the office all the time who, like a two-year-old child, simply have...

If your dog pesters you for petting when you need to be doing something else, break off visual contact with him. You can use your torso to push him away with a body block (remember not to use your hands) or turn your head away (chin raised) in a benevolent but royal dismissal. It’s amazing how fast dogs will go away if you break off visual contact with them. It’s equally notable how hard it is for us humans to do that when we’re trying to get our dogs to do something. All of our instincts seem to have us look at our dog, just as primates do when they are trying to communicate directly with another individual in the troop. But the look that works best, that we use ourselves when we’re not thinking about it, is that slightly snobby, hard-to-get look when we turn our head away in dismissal. It works with dogs as well as with humans. Honest. Dogs can take...

As a matter of fact, the universal tendency of adult domestic dogs to bark is one of the many behavioral markers that suggests that adult dogs are actually a juvenilized version of adult wolves. Barking appears to be directed toward two different receivers. One is, of course, the intruder (“I see you. Can’t sneak up on me. Better watch out!”), but barking is also directed toward the rest of the pack (“Help! Trouble at the west border!”). The pack usually comes running, responding to their pack member’s danger signal. The dogs who make my blood run cold are the ones I can barely hear, who stand stiff and still, staring straight at me while producing a low, quiet growl. If barking correlates with a juvenile and submissive condition, then it’s doubtful that dogs read our loud vocal displays as dominant or impressive. Rather, they might see them as a sign of fear or as a sign that we don’t have a lot of control. Many people to whom dogs are drawn are laconic and soft-spoken. I think their lack of “barking” is perceived as a sign of leadership, and dogs are drawn to their sense of self-confidence.

Professional animal trainers, who should know as well as anyone how to use sound to communicate to their animals, distinguish themselves from dog owners in one consistent way. They are able to separate their own emotional states from the sounds that they make, making sounds that elicit the response that they want rather than sounds that represent how they are feeling inside.

The general rule is to use short, repeated notes to encourage activity and one single note to discourage it.

There’s a variety of ways you can teach your dog that it’s fun to give up the ball. First and foremost, be sure that whenever she does give it up, you throw it back instantly. That’s instantly, as in an instant. Not two seconds later after you’ve clutched it to your bosom and said, “Good dog. What a good dog!” She doesn’t want your praise or your petting, for heaven’s sake, not then. (Think your kid would be appreciative of a neck rub in the middle of a ball game with his or her buddies?) She wants the ball. Give it to her, quick! Just learning to give or throw the ball back the instant that the dog releases it solves about half the fetching problems that most people have with their dogs. Most of the other problems are solved when people learn to move away from their dog to encourage him to fetch rather than moving toward him.

Enough Is Enough All my dogs know “Enough,” which means to stop whatever they’re doing (like asking for petting or bugging me with the ball) and leave me in peace. It’s easy to teach, and it’s a wonderful way to let your dog know that as much as you love her, it’s still your life. All you need to do is to say “Enough” in a low, quiet voice and then pat her briskly on the head two times. If she doesn’t go away (which most dogs won’t the first several times you do this), stand up and walk your dog away from the couch a few feet, using your body-blocking skills to back her away. Cross your arms and turn your head away to the side as you sit back down. If she comes right back as you sit down, “pat pat” on her head again and body-block her away a second time. When she returns, be sure to do a “look away” so that you’re not making eye contact. (I’m always amused at how often we humans tell our dogs to go away and yet continue to make eye contact with them. Meanwhile, the dog is desperately looking at your face, trying to find the cue to what the heck it is that you’re trying to communicate. If you turn your head away from your dog, you’re saying that your interaction is over, and many dogs will seemingly understand and go away. If you keep staring at him, using words to tell him to go away, he’ll keep staring back at you, sure that you are trying to visually communicate something important and desperately trying to figure out what it is by looking at your face.) These two little...

My nieces call these pats “happy slappies.” They coined the phrase after coming to watch a taping of “Petline,” an animal behavior advice show on Animal Planet that I cohosted with my ex-husband Doug McConnell. They were visiting the set and watched in horror as a guest veterinarian swooped into the studio dressed like a Las Vegas showgirl. She deposited her tiny dog onto the rug, where he promptly urinated, defecated, and almost killed a visiting cockatiel while she changed into what became known as the “killer bee outfit.” Clothed in yellow-and-black striped Lycra (the producer eventually forced her to change), she asked to borrow my Luke for a demonstration of brushing a dog’s teeth. Luke is a trooper, so I said sure. Luke had to sit and stay on top of a table while directors, four cameramen, and the usual herd of assistant producers swirled around getting ready to tape. Finally it was time to roll the cameras. Our guest veterinarian explained to the audience the importance of brushing a dog’s teeth, and then, without so much as a word or a friendly touch, grabbed Luke’s mouth and opened it as you’d open up your purse on a busy, hot day when you can’t find your wallet. Luke’s eyes got huge while I soundlessly mouthed “Good boy, good boy” and held out my hand in the universal “stay” signal behind the camera. After abusing Luke’s mouth for a couple of minutes (I’d have bitten my own dentist if he’d been that rude), she turned to Luke and slapped him twice on top of the he...

You’d be appalled if you visited a home where the children knocked you over while running out the door, yet many of us let our dogs do just that. It’s not that I don’t love exuberance, I do. But just as we teach our children that there’s a time and a place for everything, it makes sense that we should expect that of our dogs, too. If dogs are going to be part of our “family,” then we have to raise them to be polite.2 Just because they’re dogs instead of children is no reason to think that their going into a frenzy is cute. If they’re going to live with us, dogs need to learn impulse control and some good, old-fashioned patience.

I’ve come to believe that when an animal comes into our lives, our responsibility is to use our resources and intelligence to provide him with as good a life as possible. The trick is to learn enough about the dog to know what he needs to be really happy and to get our own ego out of the way.

Animal Behavior: Mechanisms, Ecology and Evolution by Drickamer, Vessey, and Miekle, and Perspectives on Animal Behavior by Goodenough, McGuire, and Wallace. Anyone who is seriously interested in learning more about the behavior of dogs and their humans will profit by getting a solid foundation in the study of behavior itself through the often unheralded science of ethology.