One of the most common misunderstandings in the dog-human relationship is the difference between love and respect. We often hear someone say, “I feed him, I pet him, I love him, I buy him toys, yet he still does not come,” or “I’ve never been cruel to my dog, I give him love, so why would he bite me.” The human concept of love seems to be an all encompassing word with many meanings. Often we attribute and project human emotions and emotional values on to the behavior of animals. While I refuse to argue whether a dog understands or exhibits “love,” it is important that we look at a very apparent factor in dog relationships and the effect on their behavior. We will define respect by these two relevant definitions:
1. esteem for or a sense of the worth or excellence of a person, a personal quality or ability, or something considered as a manifestation of a personal quality or ability
2. deference to a right, privilege, privileged position, or someone or something considered to have certain rights or privileges; proper acceptance or courtesy; acknowledgment
Dog packs exhibit a strong sense of social hierarchy. Each dog has a place in the pack, and either respects or challenges the dog above it. Some dogs have more dominant tendencies than others, meaning that they will be more likely to challenge dogs higher in the pack. So how does this relate to us? Does a dog challenge other dogs because of a lack of love? No, it challenges because a lack of respect of leadership. Programmed in the dog psyche is an understanding that each dog has a place, a job, and or function. When a dog sees a lack of this leadership in its pack, it will choose to become the leader itself. Sometimes this is seen with a physical challenge, often resulting in aggression. Sometimes this is exhibited by plain disobedience. It becomes the job of the dog above it in the pack to maintain its position and respect from the other dog. That means, when your dog chooses not to come, and you do not consistently enforce commands/jobs/functions, your dog will lose respect for your leadership. Respect is not only gained through enforcement (although a common misconception) nor is it gained through only rewards. It is gained through consistently balanced reward and correction. For example: someone may treat train a dog to sit, using only positive motivation. Unfortunately the dog is likely to only listen when the value of the reward is high enough leaving the boundaries of expectation unenforced, and the pack hierarchy unmaintained. The dog only sees the sit as a novelty, completely leaving respect unaddressed. Love is not conditioned upon expectations of behavior. We love the dog despite its disobedience. Love rewards because it wants to, respect rewards because the expectations were kept. We may pet our dog because we love him, and he approaches us for it. We maintain our respect by calling to the dog, and petting when he meets our expectations (within reason and understanding) by coming. We are actually better to only recognize and pet our dog when we create the expectation; otherwise they set their expectation (petting) in regards to their demand (approach.) This is one simple way of maintaining respect.
Not only is it important for our dog’s obedience to maintain respect from our dogs, but there is a major danger with some dog personalities if we fail to maintain it. It may place us at risk to not only be disobeyed, but physically challenged. While this is not as common as challenge through disobedience, it is common enough to be thoughtfully considered.
This week is dog bite prevention week. Even though dogs are called Man’s Best Friend there are a reported 4.7 million dog bites recorded annually.