Understanding and Managing Anger and dog/child care – Part 4

Thanks for the positivity, coach.

Ok on separating the models, i created two. Shortening the thought lines to one sentence and no questions. And shortening the feeling line to one/two.

IM 1 –
C: I tell the dog to sit. Dog doesn’t sit.
T: It’s OK that the dog isn’t responding as usual to this cue.
F: neutrality
S: nothingness/neutral?
A: I assess what I should do next as a result, but i don’t force it many times if the dog continues to not respond, i simply don’t ‘reward’ it and let it go. If it is a safety concern, then I give up the cue giving and I try a different cue that gets the safe result or intervening with touch.
R: The dog sits, or doesn’t sit. it doesn’t matter, i adapt. I learn more about the dog. Our relationship is stronger.

IM 2 –
C: I tell the dog to sit. Dog doesn’t sit.
T: There are many possible reasons why the dog isn’t responding to this cue.
F: patience, empathy
S: active mind, cogs turning
A: I assess what could be going on for the dog (distracted, overexcited, didn’t hear me, confused, in shock from something else, not interested right now).
R: I am better equiped to assess what to do next.

And to answe your other points:

“What do you think would be most helpful to focus on?” – managing the rise of anger/rage, or preempting it.

“A thought that keeps coming to my mind that may be helpful in this process is T: dogs are incapable of insolence.” – oh good one. I will make an IM 3 for that:

IM 3 –
C: I tell the dog to sit. Dog doesn’t sit.
T: A dog is not capable of insolence.
F: reassured
S: deep breath
A: I assess what could be going on for the dog (distracted, overexcited, didn’t hear me, confused, in shock from something else, not interested right now). I assess what I should do next as a result, but i don’t force it many times if the dog continues to not respond, i simply don’t ‘reward’ it and i leave calmly or manage it how safety requires.
R: The dog sits, or doesn’t sit, and it doesn’t matter. I learn more about the dog. Our relationship is stronger.

And on your last point:

“A dog is not a human. How could projecting your interpretation (story) of their behaviour be making this process harder? What if it’s truly simple?” – yes it has been inserting difficulty to the whole relationship with dogd and process of caring for and training dogs. I am in process of unlearning. And also of detaching from the big bad amorphous What If.

back to you, coach!

Thanks

 

 

Answer:

 

You’ve made some good strides here. What’s the next step you’d like to take now that you have insight into what you can focus on, think, and do when you are working with a dog?