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

by Patricia B. McConnell

When I first meet a dog, my primary attention is on the dog’s center of gravity and his breathing. Is the dog leaning toward me, away from me, or standing square over all four paws? Is the dog frozen still, breathing normally, or breathing too fast with shallow breaths? At the same time, I’m looking at the dog’s mouth and eyes, where there’s a world of information, but being careful not to stare directly at him.

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. Polite dogs not only avoid direct approaches, they don’t greet unfamiliar dogs by slapping their paw over the head of the other dog.

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.

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. Your version of a play bow is the closest signal there is in canine language to encourage your dog to come to you.

Will turning away from your dog rather than facing forward get your dog to come when you call her off a running squirrel? Don’t count on it, but if you remember to turn away from your dog when you call her to come and reward her with a chase, a ball, or a treat, she’ll come more than she used to, guaranteed. (I find it most useful in this circumstance to also teach a dog to stop first to “no.”)

use visual signals for space management all the time now when I’m with my dogs. 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 see dogs in the office all the time who, like a two-year-old child, simply have no frustration tolerance. They’ve always gotten what they wanted, but like any child, they must eventually cope with frustration but have no experience in how to manage it. Frustration is a common reason that dogs—or most any other mammal, for that matter—get aggressive. If you want your dog to be a polite house dog who is part of your family, then you need to raise her as you would any youngster and teach her how to tolerate not always getting what she wants the instant that she wants it.

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.

Almost every dog training book ever written advises dog owners to pick simple commands and use them consistently, and almost every dog owner in the world violates that rule repeatedly.

Start to pay careful attention to the words you use around your dog. You might even write down what you think your signal words are. 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”? Would you, if it were two unfamiliar phrases in Swahili?

Here’s another example of how speech confuses our dogs: 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 for the smartest of dogs. Rearranging the order of the words is a grammatical change, and asking a dog to understand the rules of human grammar is asking for the moon.

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. Be sure to do this when he’s not too excited to focus: don’t start these sessions when he’s crazed with excitement because there’s a big family and two dogs at the front door. Set this up in the early stages so that you have control over the situation to avoid making it too hard for your dog (and you) to do it right. Have a friend knock just once or twice and then stop, while you lure your dog away from the door with the treat.

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. Let’s say you want your dog to come when you call. Perhaps because so many of us see this as an exercise in “obedience” (translation: a test of our authority), many humans belt out the word come like a marine drill sergeant. If I tape-recorded the sound and analyzed it, it would look exactly like the sounds made around the world to stop animals. You could substitute any combination of letters, and you would still have a single sharp, short note that replicates the “Whoa!” and “Ho” that I heard from sixteen different language groups to keep an animal from moving. I’m always amused when an owner belts out “Come” in one loud, low command. Some of the dogs do indeed come, although some do with heads down and tails tucked, because you can eventually override biology with enough training. But why work so hard? Use a sound that inherently encourages your dog rather than discourages him and training will be more effective and, as important, more fun.

hanging out in the lobby of the vet’s office isn’t all that relaxing for an owner or a dog. Is that 165-pound Saint Bernard over there friendly, or was that a growl you heard? Will Chief break away and try to chase the cat that just came in? Here’s your chance to use one long, continuous note to calm your dog, just as handlers all around the world would do. This is when you want to say, “Goooooooood boy, Captain, goooooooooood boy. What a goooooooooood boy you are.” What won’t help is what I see a lot—slightly anxious owners repeating short, choppy versions of “Good boy, good boy, good boy” while their retriever strains wild-eyed at the end of the leash. The words are often accompanied by equally choppy petting actions, which arouse the dog even more. Here’s where you need to learn to separate your own emotional state from the one you want in your dog. If you want to soothe or slow your dog, replicate the “Eeeeeeeeeeasy” of the dressage trainer that I recorded when slowing an anxious horse. Mimic the “Whoooooooooooaaaaaaa, son” of a racehorse jockey calming his horse before the race. Remember the “Steeeeeaaaaady” of a sled dog driver as his dog enters a tricky turn. This is exactly the way that parents all over the world speak when trying to soothe their babies, but it’s harder to do when you’re feeling agitated yourself. It can take a conscious effort to make sounds that reflect what you want your dog to do rather than how you’re feeling inside. There’s a bonus, though: s...

The bottom line is simple: Use short, repeated notes like claps, smooches, and short, repeated words to stimulate activity in your dog. Use them when you want your dog to come to you or to speed up. Use one long, continuous flat sound to soothe or slow your dog, as you might when you’re trying to calm her at the vet’s. Use a burst of one short, highly modulated note to effect an immediate stop of a fast-moving dog, saying “No!” or “Hey!” or “Down” when you need Chester to pay attention and stop chasing that squirrel in the backyard. For a “picture of sound,” look at the sonograms in the photo insert to help you visualize what the sounds look like. It’s easier to use sound correctly when you can see a picture of it in your mind.

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.

But just because something is childlike and joyful doesn’t mean that it is trivial, because how you play with your dog has serious implications. The safest way to play with your dog is to play fetch together, to play mental games like “hide-and-seek” (a great way to keep your adolescent dog busy while you make dinner), to play discrimination games (“Go get your big chewy”), and to teach your dog silly, lighthearted tricks. Leave the play fighting for well-matched individuals of the same species, so your play sessions with your dog always end in joy and laughter rather than tears and heartbreak.

Watch the tails of two dogs while they are greeting each other, and you’ll get an excellent idea of how each dog sees himself or herself compared to the other. Look to see who raises the base of the tail and whose tail gets lowered (the base of their tails is the relevant part, not the tip). In some pairs the differences are extreme, with one dog’s tail held high like a flag and the other dog’s tail submissively tucked under her belly.

If both dogs look like mirror images of each other, with their tails high and their bodies erect and stiff, then you are well advised to distract them and get them thinking about something besides each other. Both dogs are communicating that they would like the higher social rank, thank you very much, and it’s rarely pretty when two social climbers get in each other’s faces.

I pet my dogs dozens of times a day when they come up for stroking. But don’t do it because you feel that you have no choice. You do have a choice, and your dog needs you to exercise it on occasion. Think about what you had to learn growing up. Just because you wanted an ice cream cone didn’t mean that you got it. Just because you’d enjoy a massage right now doesn’t mean that your friend will drop what he or she is doing and rush to your side. So don’t feel guilty if you don’t feel like petting your dog right now. He can cope, honest. If he can’t, then more petting is the last thing that he needs.

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.

give a signal like “Mind” or “Wait” in a low, even-toned voice, and then partly open the door. What you do next depends on your dog’s behavior. Most dogs dart forward when they see the door open (or even when you move back toward the door), so be ready to use your body to block the path to the door. Concentrate on not repeating your verbal signal (not surprisingly, this takes some practice at first) and just using your body to impede her forward progress. Some people prefer to close the door before a dog can get through it rather than using their body to stop the dog. This teaches the dog that if she tries to charge through, the door will shut before she gets there, but if she sits and waits patiently, it opens. If you use this method, be sure not to slam the door on your dog. I’ve seen it happen, so my preference is to use my body to block the doorway, but both methods work. Once your dog has paused (either simply stopping her forward movement or, ideally, stopping and looking up at you), even just for a microsecond, say “OK” and let her out the door. Timing is everything here.

Let me warn you now about the most common mistakes that people make so that you can work to avoid them: Repeating the verbal signal over and over again (think chimp). Concentrate on saying it just once and then letting your body do the rest. Using the leash to stop the dog rather than your body (again, another very human thing to do: it’s almost impossible not to do something with a leash in our hand). Use your body, not the leash. Walking or leaning forward toward your dog when he has already stopped moving toward the door. Remember that body blocks are very powerful visual signals, and the microsecond that your dog stops leaning forward and putting pressure toward the door (you can feel it even if you’re not touching the dog), you should respond instantly by stopping your own forward motion. Continuing to move or lean forward puts too much pressure on your dog and will create its own problems.

Say you’re seated on a chair and Duke is moving across the room at the speed of light. It’s clear that in three strides he’s going to launch himself into your lap. Instead of doing what comes naturally, which is to lean backward to avoid the furry missile (which creates a space for the dog to move into), lean forward with your chest and shoulders and meet him more than halfway. Avert your face, keep your hands tucked into your belly, and use your shoulders and torso to block the dog from entering the circle of space around you. Once he’s stopped trying to climb into your lap, reinforce him with petting, praise, treats, or play when all four of his paws are on the ground.

Dogs seem to love people who are quiet, cool, and collected and prefer sitting beside them over sitting beside others.

If your dog is doing something that you don’t want her to do, your job is to do two things. First, stop her from doing what she’s doing by startling her. You don’t have to hurt her or terrorize her, just interrupt her by making a noise that evokes what is called the mammalian startle response. If you slap the wall or the table, drop a paperback book, or toss an empty pop can with a few pennies in it on the floor, she should momentarily look up to see what the noise was about. Like lightning, you’re going to take advantage of her attention and redirect it onto doing what you want her to do. Say, for example, that your eight-month-old Labrador is chewing on the coffee table. Your job is to interrupt that behavior and instantly redirect her to doing something appropriate, like gnawing on the chew toy that you spent a fortune on last night. Say “No” in a low, quiet voice and immediately make a sound to startle her. In the microsecond that she looks up, say “Good girl” to praise her for stopping what she was doing, smooch or click your tongue to keep her attention on you, and then redirect her attention to something more appropriate.

Our obsession with looks is not surprising, I suppose, when you consider what a visual species we are and that looks are staggeringly important in our interactions with people. Attractive people are more likely to be hired, are more likely to get raises, are more likely to get away with shoplifting, and are judged to be more intelligent than those who are less attractive. With a legacy like that, no wonder we care so much about what our dogs look like. But being seduced by good looks can get puppy buyers in trouble, just as it gets people in trouble when they are shopping for a prospective mate. Pretty figures and handsome faces may have a powerful effect on us in the beginning of a relationship, but they don’t keep us happy in the long term. When you have to take a bone out of your dog’s mouth, you’re not going to care much if her ears are cute. “Pretty is as pretty does” applies just as readily to our dogs as it does to people. Remember when that good-looking date turned out to be a jerk? Picking the prettiest puppy can have the same result, so look more carefully at the plain black dog that everyone else ignores—he just might be the best one.