Many people are advised not to come in until their dog has stopped barking. This is an Instagram post I did about why that is cruel – and useless.
*Today I’d like to look at some damaging advice which has become widespread online and among trainers not trained in fear or anxiety issues. It goes like this: ‘If your dog is barking, don’t come in but wait till they’re quiet before re-entering your house. If you come back in while they’re barking, you’re reinforcing the barking.’
On the face of it, this seems logical enough. We don’t want to reinforce the barking (or destruction of your sofa, or your dog scratching the door etc), do we? Anything nice, pleasant, or relieving is potentially reinforcing. However, in the context of home-alone training, we’re not focussing on training behaviours. We’re focussing on emotional needs. We have to remember we are dealing with a serious welfare issue. We don’t want dogs in our care to suffer fear on our watch. Every fear episode only deepens the fear.
Imagine I’m screaming because I’m locked in a room full of poisonous snakes. Would it be compassionate to wait outside the door till I stop screaming? Would it solve my problem so that next time I’m in there I wouldn’t feel the need to scream?
Obviously not. On the contrary, it would most likely be traumatising. Not only am I terrified but the person I rely on is refusing to help (for reasons no one could possibly understand.)
But here’s the thing. In home-alone training, well done, it never gets to this stage at all.
One wonderful side-effect of home-alone training is that you’ll become the expert in reading your dog’s body language.
In that way, you’ll be back through the door the moment you see your dog showing the very subtlest signs of unease. You’ll be back when they even start thinking about not being able to cope.
Here’s my graphic on the sort of behaviours dogs show when they’re trying to relieve fear. (They may not present in exactly this order.) Ideally, we never want to get beyond the pale green zone which are behaviours of low intensity.