I don’t need to fix the dog

I title this photo “Dog on Stairs'“ - a trainer captures a moment of decision.

If this was hanging on a gallery wall, which let’s be real, would be an exhibit I would visit because - dogs, but it really isn’t “art”, what it is though is a good example of a typical problem. A common experience as a trainer is being asked to “fix” behaviors that are problematic for the owners but are not actually unreasonable from a dog’s perspective. The behaviors are not always the same, but sometimes the solution is. Nova on my stairs could be the beginning of one such behavior - growling at my husband when he comes to bed.

This photo, taken at around 10:00pm on a Wednesday night, followed our typical nighttime routine. I started brushing my teeth which lets Nova know it’s time to go out one last time; She runs to the gate to be let out and when she comes back in, she should go to her bed under my husband’s desk until bedtime. You see, my husband and I have very different sleep schedules, he is a night owl and often comes to bed hours after I am asleep, not problematic for me, but not the best situation for Nova. When we started letting Nova sleep in bed with us (I blame the king size bed we all shared on her first vacation), it created a bit of a problem. Nova startles fairly easily and can be very protective of me, a recipe for disaster when she is fast asleep in bed with me at 2:00am and a person comes into the room. What does she do, she growls. It didn’t matter if I woke up first (I’m a light sleeper) and told her, ‘it’s just daddy”. She still growled. Is this a behavior that should be addressed? Yes, but I don’t need to fix the dog, I need to change my behavior.

I like having Nova sleep in bed with me, she is a great little spoon, but it’s not a necessity for either of us, it’s a privilege. The dogs used to sleep in their own beds in our room, but over time the routine changed depending on what was fair to both of them. When Mongo, my Rottweiler, got injured and could no longer go up stairs, she stayed downstairs with him. Now that it’s just her, we allow her to join us in bed, but only under certain conditions. When she started coming up to bed with me and the growling behavior presented, I had a decision to make, and honestly, it was an easy one. Yes, I wanted her to come to bed and snuggle, but I did not want to put her in a situation that caused her stress and could potentially result in a bigger issue. Growling is appropriate communication, but if she felt her warning was not being heeded, it could progress into something that was not safe for my husband. This is the point in the conversation with clients that trainers may hear things like, “but I want the dog to sleep in bed with me, can’t you just fix it”.

Yes, but you might not love the answer, because I cannot teach the dog not to feel startled and protective in a pitch black bedroom at 2:00am . I was the one that needed to change my behavior, I needed to change the routine to remove the opportunity for the behavior to occur, not “fix” the dog. For us, this was simple, Nova stays up with my husband until he is ready to come to bed. I get to snuggle with her in the wee hours of the morning before it’s time to get up, and she has no one to growl at (besides the cat on occasion) because everyone is already in bed. Problem solved. This is just one behavior and one solution, but there are so many more. If you can start a sentence with “My dog doesn’t like it when I _______”, which results in an undesired behavior, then consider what role you are playing in perpetuating that behavior. Unfortunately the simple solution isn’t always easy for us to accept as humans. But is it so important to get the thing that you want that you potentially jeopardize the needs of your dog in the process? How would I feel if Nova bit my husband because we let the behavior escalate? Terrible, and I would only have myself to blame. My job as my dog’s caregiver is to try to make decisions that set my dog up for success, and while I still make mistakes sometimes, the goal is to learn from those mistakes for the next time.

So back to the photo, Nova saw an opportunity to “sneak” up to bed and get a few more hours of snuggle time, but I didn’t allow it, no matter how dang cute she looked on those stairs, saying “mom, are you coming to bed?”.