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

by Patricia B. McConnell

Direct head-on approaches can be threatening to dogs, especially shy ones meeting a person or dog whom they don’t know. Watch two well-socialized but unfamiliar dogs greet at the park. The politest of dogs tend to approach from the side, perhaps even at 90 degrees. They avoid direct eye contact. On the other hand, two dogs standing face-on, staring into each other’s eyes, are trouble—big trouble—and I see it sometimes in dog-to-dog aggression cases. Dogs may greet head-on on occasion, but it’s not polite, and it leads to tension and sometimes aggression.2 When we do primate-based, head-on, direct approaches to dogs, they often respond as if they are being threatened. I must have seen more than a thousand dogs who are comfortable if you greet them by standing sideways and letting them come to you but who will lunge and bark aggressively, and possibly bite, if you stride up straight toward them, stare directly into their eyes, and reach your hand over the top of their heads.

Just as primates want to extend their hands in greeting, we humans can’t seem to resist trying to catch something that’s moving toward us.

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.

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.

I don’t think dogs understand the concept of “removable parts” as we do. If someone comes to your house with a new hat on, you don’t assume that they’ve morphed into some outer-space alien. But dogs do, at least a lot of them.

If you think about it, why should dogs understand how our silhouette changes randomly? We know that dogs pay a lot of attention to shapes.

Shy dogs are especially put off by hats, huge coats, or packages, so if you have a dog who seems wary of all the strange forms in which humans come, help him out by wearing a hat around the house for a couple of weeks. Get him used to your coming into the house with a backpack or whatever it is that seems to bother him. Most dogs eventually learn to ignore our insectlike ability to change life-forms, but some of them need a little help.

It hadn’t occurred to me to pay attention to my feet and face, and I had been busy pointing for all I was worth toward the sheep I wanted him to follow. But Luke’s not a primate, he’s a dog, and like all dogs, he tends to go in the direction that I’m facing, not where I’m pointing.

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.

To your dog you can look just like a traffic cop stopping traffic when you move directly toward him. So if you’re calling “Come” and walking forward, your voice says, “Come over here,” while your body says, “Stay there.” Besides, if you’re moving toward your dog, why shouldn’t your dog stop and politely wait for you to finish your approach? The most subtle of “approaches” can have a profound effect on a dog. Even leaning your body forward just a bit can stop a sensitive dog in his tracks. The best way that I know to visually “call” a dog to come is to bend down as if in a doggie play bow, turn away from your dog, and clap.

I taught my own dogs to come when “called” by starting when they weren’t too distracted by something else. (Good teachers always help their students by starting at a reasonable level of difficulty.) I called with a clear, consistent signal like “Tulip, come!” while I clapped my hands, bent forward a bit in a play bow, turned my body sideways, and started to move away. The microsecond that my Great Pyrenees, Tulip, moved toward me, I started cooing “Good girl! Good girl!” and ran away faster. That action lured her in my direction and at the same time rewarded her with one of her favorite activities—a good chase game. Dogs may love treats and petting, but they love a good run, too, and it seems to be a wonderful reward for coming when called. (If your dog becomes too excited and starts getting nippy as he nears you, stop your run before he catches up to you, turn toward him, play bow, and give him a treat.)

Often I’d throw a ball or treats behind me as she arrived, adding on yet another fun chase game to sweeten the pot.

I must have played “come” with Tulip five times a day when she was an adolescent.

Say I’ve put Tulip on a “stay,” and she starts to get up and investigate the corn bread crumbs that I’ve dropped on my kitchen floor. If she moves forward toward me and to my left, I’ll counter her with my own forward motion, stepping forward and sideways just one step into the space that she was about to occupy. I call it a “body block.” Just that move on my part is enough to stop Tulip, whose body rocks back to her original sitting position. I respond by leaning backward myself, taking the pressure off Tulip but ready to move right or left again if Tulip initiates another break.

I get the best results by combining ethology and basic learning theory, so besides using relevant visual signals, I give the dogs treats while they are on the stay. I help them stay in place while I approach with the treat in my right hand and my left hand extended out like a traffic cop. When I get right up to my dog, I sweep the treat with an underhanded motion all the way to her mouth, then back away again, still holding out a helping “stay” signal with my left hand. Dogs learn that “all good things come to those who stay,” and they develop a rock-solid stay that can be hard to break.

to a dog, a raised paw can signify submission or a request to play or the beginning of a dominance-related mount, but it never seems to mean “go away.” So I’ve stopped pushing dogs away with my paws. Instead, I keep my hands tucked into my belly and push dogs away with my shoulder or hip, using body language that they understand.

The key is for you to occupy the space before they do,

If Tulip is on a stay and starts to get up and move forward and to my left, I’ll shift to the left myself to block her path, but I’m also going to shift my body forward to block her forward motion. But the instant that she pauses, I should stop leaning forward and “take off the pressure” by leaning back again. Just as she needs to get blocked when she moves off her stay, I need to reward her for going back to it, not continue to put pressure on her.

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.

If you learn to shift your body backward slightly when you greet a new dog, you usually can ensure that the dog doesn’t perceive your posture as threatening. When you’re slightly sideways with your weight on your back foot, you’ve taken away what ethologists call an “intention movement” to proceed forward,

Of course, you’ll want to do the opposite when you’re working with some lunkhead who’s all tongue and paws and thrashes around ignoring everything you say. Then you want to purposely move forward, both taking space and using your torso to signal your intention to take control, before you ask for that “sit.”

(Think of your face when you’re “talking” to a baby or your dog: your eyebrows rise, your eyes widen, and your mouth rounds, corners moving forward as they do when you say “Ohhhhhh.”) But usually that’s a sign of offense in a dog and is called an “agonistic pucker.” Any dog who barks at me with puckered lips gets my full attention. This is not a dog on defense; it’s a dog ready and willing to act on his threat—not fearfully but with confidence.

I’m looking to see if the corners go forward or backward. Forward correlates with status-seeking dogs who are not the dogs you want in a family with three kids under five. Commissures pulled back in a defensive grin, even if the dog is growling and snarling at me, means the dog is on defense and is afraid either of losing her food or of what is about to happen. Either dog can bite, but it’s important to know as much as you can about a dog’s internal state before you give a prognosis and treatment plan.

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.

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.

An important principle in primate communication seems to be, “If we can’t see each other, then we can’t start something.” That seems to be true for dogs as well.

Humans can do it consciously, doing what wolf researchers call “look aways” by turning our heads to the side when we greet a new dog or we sense that tension is mounting. You can also cock your head, which is something never done by a tense dog on offensive alert. Many mammals cock their head to gather more information about the world around them, and they almost always do it when they’re curious and relatively relaxed. 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.

Submissive dogs seek interactions, but high-status dogs get to decide whether to grant an audience or not.

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?

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.

Tulip had done exactly what I had asked from the beginning. “Tulip!” I had said at first, meaning “come” but simply saying her name and expecting her to read my mind about what it was that I wanted her to do. She acknowledged my presence politely,

when I clearly communicated what I wanted, she did exactly what I asked. Tulip has learned that “No” means “Don’t do what you’re doing” and that “Tulip, come” means “Please stop what you’re doing and come here right now.” She did, too, as soon as I got my act together and told her what I wanted.

If you assume ignorance of the English language, “Come here” sounds nothing like “Ginger, come!” but humans seem bound and determined to use as many words as possible for the same command.

Be specific about exactly what words you use. Do you say “Lie down” or “Down,” or both? After all, the words complete and pleat share the same sound, but they mean different things to us. How is your dog supposed to know if “Lie down” has the same meaning as “Down”?

Think about how you say each of the words you use to talk to your dog.

Try writing a symbolic equivalent of what each word sounds like when you say it. Does “Down” rise up in the air as you finish the word (like a question) or descend (like a statement of fact)? Start listening to yourself and asking your family and friends to pay attention to what you actually do say to your dog.

A standard and proven method of behavior modification is to ask people who are dieting, stopping smoking, and the like to keep a record of when and what they ate or smoked. Without even trying, people begin to eat or smoke less, simply because they are focusing their awareness on that behavior rather than doing something without thinking about it. So just pay attention and you’ll automatically become more consistent.

If you’ve thought about what words you use to communicate with your dog, the next step is to write down exactly what these words mean. In other words, what do you want your dog to do after you say something?

For example, many of us say “Down” to ask our dog to lie down and ten minutes later say “Down” to get her to stop jumping up on Aunt Polly. So which is it?

It’s very popular now for trainers to teach dog owners to ask their dogs to sit and then praise them by saying “Good sit.” But look at those words from a dog’s perspective. If “Sit” means “Put your butt down on the ground,” and you want your dog to do that every time you say it, what could your dog make of hearing “sit” after he’s already done so? I know your dog is smart, but expecting him to read your mind about when “sit” means “Do something” versus when it means “Don’t do anything; I’m referring to something that you’ve already done” is a bit much,

Even if you are clear and consistent with your signals, be sure your dog defines them the same way that you do. For example, I suspect that most dogs and owners define the simple word sit differently. If you’re like most pet dog owners, you taught your dog to sit by calling her to come, telling her to sit, and then reinforcing her after she did.

My guess is that most dogs think that sit means go to your owner’s legs, stand in front of him or her, and go part of the way down toward the ground. Of course, you can teach your dog to sit without coming to you or to sit up rather than sit down. But the point is that you have to teach it. Unless you go beyond where most dog owners go, your dog probably defines sit differently than you do.

Does “Lie down, lie down, LIE DOWN” mean the same thing as “Lie down”? Does “Come” mean the same as “Come here”? Just thinking about the way you use words to your dog will automatically help you tighten up your vocabulary.

Never Repeat a Command. Never Repeat a Command. Never Repeat

“Lie down!” I’d yell, immediately following with “Lie DOWN! LIE DOWN!” In no time at all, I had trained Drift, my first Border Collie, to lie down to, and only to, “Lie down, lie DOWN, LIE DOWN!” For all I know, he was waiting for the full signal before he responded, since there was no way for him to know what the basic unit of the signal really was.

Barking dogs are often frightened dogs, and the louder they get, the more panicked they are. Keep in mind that barking is relatively rare in wolves, especially from adults.

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.

Since the natural behavior of dogs is to join in the barking, they well might assume that we’re barking, too, when we call out “Quiet!” or “Shut up!”

If you have a barker, don’t try to stop his noise by being louder. Instead, get up and go over to him with a tasty treat between your fingers. This first step sounds easier than it is. Getting humans to move toward dogs at the appropriate time is a challenge for all training instructors.

Be prepared with easily accessible yummy treats. (Don’t be cheap. Go for chicken or beef or anything your dog really loves, but keep the pieces very small.) As soon as your dog starts barking, say “Enough” and then walk all the way over to him, moving the treat to within an inch of his nose and making clicking or smooching noises to get his attention. If the treat smells luscious, and it’s right beside his nose, he’ll turn away from what he was barking at and sniff the treat. But don’t give it to him yet. Palm it in your hand while saying “Good boy” a few times and use the treat to lure him away from what he’s barking at. Then give him the treat. What happened was that your dog was barking, you said his signal to stop, and you mechanically created a situation in which he did stop. After he stopped, he got reinforced for it with a treat. First, the treat acted as a lure to stop him from barking, and then the treat became a reinforcement for being quiet.