The Dog is Probably Training Us

Between the depreciating pound and yen, and all the upsetting news about horrible effects of climate change, reading about world news has never felt more depressing. Found a more cheerful read in Alexandra Horowitz's 'When Your Dog is a Teenager', published in The New York Times on September 17, 2022. 

This essay is an excerpt from her recently published book titled 'The Year of the Puppy: How Dogs Become Themselves' (2022). The writer is a cognitive scientist. She uses her young dog Quid as an example and a reference point to how dogs grow from puppies to adults, and they don't skip the teenage 'months' too. 

What is called “disobedience” seems to rise during this time: “a passing phase of carer-specific, conflict-like behavior,” as one study gently puts it. Dogs who have learned to sit on command as puppies are less likely to do so as adolescents — and even then, mostly when a stranger, not their person, asks. How perfectly teenage of them. They may be aggressive to other animals, aggressive to people; they destroy things.

While there is a license granted to puppies to err as they grow, to get things wrong now and then, the expectations for their performance grow faster than they do. A primary reason for abandoning dogs in shelters is behavioral — they jump, bite, escape, soil the house. And there is a severe uptick of relinquishments during adolescence, partly because of the uptick of these behaviors; such relinquishments are notable, since euthanization is still the outcome for many returned or unadopted dogs. “Simply being an adolescent can count as a fatal condition,” write Barbara Natterson-Horowitz and Kathryn Bowers, the authors of “Wildhood,” a book about the vast territory between childhood and adulthood across species.

We know that dogs fully mature only at two years old, one year old for the larger breeds. I've seen in my other dogs, and I've seen it in Choya. Many 'misbehaving' traits are young adults pushing their boundaries. That's when punishment isn't necessary. I don't believe in that anyway. Just set firm boundaries, reasonable expectations and do positive reinforcement. Also, when this Choya is not quite a dog dog, she blows apart many canine cognitive behavioral theories.

While the excerpts are decent reads, I'm not bothered to read the book about puppies and adolescent floofs. It's not flagging anything new. It's framing what we know and what trainers know. It's probably useful for first time dog-owners and those who never bother educating themselves more about dogs, and depending on 'Oh when I was young, I had dogs, I did this this that that', and listening to hearsay and only accepting 'holistic theories'.

I've read the writer's 'Our Dogs, Ourselves: The Story of a Singular Bond' (2019). That was quite fun. While the books are fairly informative, I don't take these books as gospel. They're just offering another point of view, and it happens that these writers are trained observers and behaviorists. How often do we get the chance to sit down and talk to people at length about dogs, and exchanging valuable information, for free? Books offer that opportunity. Also, I'm not very sociable that way. If IG offers me the anecdotal information, I'll take it. But I won't approach another stranger to ask about it. 

The writer has a similar piece published this week as well in The Atlantic titled 'What Do Dogs Know About Us?'. It also talks about the same new book about puppies, but featuring a different excerpt. This excerpt explains that every dog will learn how to read us, to learn how to communicate to us what they want. 

Choya has spent a lot of time watching us, well, mostly me. She has decided that her Daddy's behavior is uncomplicated, and I pose more of a challenge. I'd often turn around in the middle of doing chores or look up from the MacBook to catch her staring at me. Damn creepy. Hahahaha. Choya has a habit of staring at me, or she happily follows me around. 

She isn't being needy. She's learning my routine, learning my habits, associating certain words with the follow-up actions, and learning to read my facial expressions and body language. By now, she has learnt so much. She can read me well. This Smol Girl knows a lot more than she lets on. As much as she isn't very affectionate, she has certain times of the day when she's completely relaxed and happy, and will ask for tummy rubs and isn't averse to me stroking her head. She knows when she is allowed to wander and explore at will; she knows when I need her to be quick, or she will have her own set walking route in mind. I let her be. After all, she asks for so little. Why would I ever say no? 

Observing us, she has done a decent job of training us. If I presume to stop tickling her belly before she deems it time to stop, she looks at me with great seriousness of purpose, then paws me, requesting more tickles. I tickle her more. Sadly, she finds that not everyone is so easily persuaded. As I sit on the couch one day responding to my mistress’s every demand for tickles, the cat slowly wanders between us. I stop tickling, and Quid, per her wont, tries to paw me—pawing the cat instead. The cat, having not been trained in fulfilling the puppy’s every request, responds by calmly but firmly biting her on that paw. Quid looks completely surprised. She paws again. The cat bites more forcefully this time. Quid tries again. The cat bites with vehemence and a yowl that communicates even to the unschooled. Not only do I suddenly see how much more trainable I am than the cat; I realize that though I thought Quid had learned to “touch” me to make a request, maybe what she has really learned is something slightly different: to “stretch your leg out” when you want something. Maybe to her, the communication was not the touch; it was the feeling inside her when her leg moved—whether there is a cat in the way or not.