Lynne S. Gots, Ph.D.
Licensed Psychologist
Dancing with the Dogs
By Lynne Gots, posted on October 5th, 2011.
Anyone who comes to see me for help with anxiety quickly learns The Cardinal Rule: don’t avoid the things that scare you. It’s human (and animal) nature to flee from danger. But avoidance only makes fear worse in the long run. That is, unless you find yourself in a dark alley with a knife-wielding thug on your heels, in which case—and I’m certain my professional liability insurance carrier would want me to make this perfectly clear—you should run like hell.
I wouldn’t feel right about pushing other people off the high dive, metaphorically speaking, unless I’d jumped myself. So I look for opportunities to get up close and personal with discomfort.
One activity really does the trick for me. And, as a bonus, it nudges my Australian Shepherd Freddie outside his comfort zone (which, admittedly, doesn’t take much). It’s called Canine Musical Freestyle, or doggie dancing.
Go ahead and laugh all you want. This is a legitimate sport. If you don’t believe me, check it out for yourself. It’s amazing to watch, but also extremely silly — especially if you’re the one doing chorus line kicks alongside a dog. I decided to take a Freestyle class because I knew it would make me feel ridiculous.
Freddie and I had already tried one canine sport, Agility. Most Aussies are naturals at it. Whip-smart and agile, they navigate the timed obstacle course with ease. Not Freddie. Sure, he had no trouble learning how to dash through tunnels, prance across balance beams, and jump through hoops. But we spent most of the time huddled in a corner, trying to avoid the other dogs. After only the second lesson, Freddie mistook a miniature Schnauzer for an errant sheep and got us kicked out of class.
So with great trepidation, I signed us up for Freestyle. I was very nervous. I started sweating before I even walked in the door, knowing I’d have to keep Freddie calmly focused on me while we passed through a room full of hyped-up Border Collies and Aussies. Then there was the matter of the dancing itself. I’m spatially-challenged; I can barely tell my left foot from my right. Embarrassment was clearly in the cards.
But who knew? Freddie turned out to be a dancing fool. His enthusiasm made me forget my awkwardness. It even helped him ignore all the barking and whirling around him—except once, when he chased down a Chihuahua who was performing an intricate balancing act on his owner while she did a series of yoga poses. I suspect that Freddie, who has a highly evolved sense of right and wrong, viewed it as unseemly canine behavior and was taking it upon himself to put a stop to it.
I spent weeks searching for the perfect music, finally settling on Frank Sinatra’s, “I Won’t Dance”—a classy standard that was just the right tempo for the choreography I’d been obsessively working out in my head. I imagined Freddie looking suave in a bow tie if we ever actually performed in competition (and if I could ever actually get him to wear one). When it came time to present our routine for the class, Freddie debonairly grasped an umbrella in his paws, kicked up his legs in perfect step with mine, glided sideways across the floor with me while I tried not to trip over my own feet, pirouetted on his hind legs, and finished with an elegant bow.
Too bad nobody could see us. After the Chihauhua incident (which thankfully didn’t phase our wonderful teacher Carolynn, herself the owner of six Aussies), I decided to play it safe and work behind a screen to obscure the other dogs from Freddie’s sight line.
But by the beginning of the second session, we were able to emerge from behind our barrier. Freddie can watch quietly now, relaxing by my side while Carolynn’s retired champion Freestyler, Rafe, shows us his moves. We’ve even demonstrated a few of our own.
Facing our fears made Freddie and me much more confident. And so did having that show-off Chihauhua drop out of class.
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Tags: anxiety, desensitization
Posted in Behavior Change, Dogs, Techniques |
Scaredy Dog
By Lynne Gots, posted on August 31st, 2011.
Like I’ve said before, dogs can teach us a lot about behavior if we bother to pay attention.
My Australian Shepherd, Freddie, is very high strung. He’s what’s known in training circles as a “reactive” dog. This means he barks at pretty much everything– bad guys on TV, garbage cans, the vacuum cleaner, motor cycles, Dr. Hambright (his vet), German Shepherds. These are just some of the many things that frighten him. We know this because, according to animal behaviorists, dogs barking out of fear sound and look different from dogs barking out of excitement or joy.
Freddie goes into a vocal frenzy whenever new people enter the house. He comes from a long line of sheep dogs, and it’s an occupational plus for his breed to be suspicious of interlopers. But Freddie takes the job of protecting his flock a little too seriously.
I’ve worked hard to get him to associate visitors with good things, like marrow bones and juicy steak tidbits. And, in much the same way I teach my human patients to face their fears gradually, I try not to put him in situations that would be too much for him to handle, keeping his fear level at around a 5 on a scale of 1 to 10. But sometimes I forget to follow my own expert advice.
Last week my son’s college roommate, Bryan, was staying with us for a few days before the guys drove back to school. Whenever Bryan entered or left a room, Freddie barked at him. I usually hold Freddie on a short leash if strangers are in the house so I can control the distance between him and them until he gets more comfortable—“habituates,” in behavior therapy parlance.
For some reason, though, this time I got lax. Maybe I was hoping he’d suddenly act like our late Golden Retriever, Calvin— a dog who gladly would befriend any person who extended a hand for him to lick. I let Freddie get close enough to Bryan for a head pat. Bad idea. Freddie let us know loud and clear, with snarling and baring of teeth, that we’d gone too far. This was maybe an 8 or 9 for him, and it was too much.
Lesson learned. Two lessons, actually: 1) Freddie is his own dog, and I need to accept him as he is, and 2) Slow and steady works best when doing exposure therapy.
By the time the loaded car pulled out of the driveway, Freddie had worked up the courage to nuzzle Bryan and lick his hand. Not like Calvin, exactly, but good enough for me.
Tags: desensitization, exposure therapy
Posted in Behavior Change, Dogs, Phobias, Techniques |
Dog Days
By Lynne Gots, posted on August 16th, 2011.
One of my hobbies is dog training. You can learn a lot about psychology from dogs.
Take Baxter, my 10-year-old Cocker Spaniel-Poodle mix. Baxter isn’t the smartest dog on the block, especially next to our 3-year-old Australian Shepherd, Freddie. (But we try not to compare. Each is special in his own way.) When Baxter was young, we enrolled him in a puppy class at PetSmart. The trainer was an old school type. He believed that the best way to train a dog is to admonish him for disobeying a command with a jerk on a metal-pronged collar around his neck, thus teaching him to respect you as “the leader of the pack.” Caesar Milan is still practicing this method of dog training. (Don’t get me started.)
Baxter graduated at the bottom of his puppy class. He was the only student who didn’t master “the down” at the end of eight weeks, despite the frequent leash pops he endured. I feel bad about this now. But at the time, I thought he was being stubborn. The teacher, whose own unleashed Golden Retriever impressed me by lying immobile on his bed, said Baxter knew full well what he was supposed to do. He was just being “passive-aggressive.”
Really? I can’t presume to know a human’s hidden motives let alone a canine’s (clinical bias alert). Speculating about the underlying cause of a behavior can be an interesting intellectual exercise, but it’s not very useful. Especially when it comes to dogs. They live completely in the moment. They don’t fret or harbor resentment. And they don’t connect the present with the future. (“How could she leave me all day? I’ll show her! I’ll pee on her Manolo Blahniks!”). That’s why it’s pointless, and quite unfair, to yell at a puppy when you discover a housetraining transgression that may have occurred hours ago.
Fast forward ten years. Baxter has learned many—well, at least, a few—tricks since his school days, and he can be very clever when he really wants something. Like vegetables. Given the choice, he’ll devour broccoli and carrots before steak any day. (I tested this.) He’s found a way to break through three layers of plastic to get into my garden this summer. I keep discovering partially digested globs of green tomatoes on the living room rug and new holes in the impenetrable deer fencing–proof that an old dog can learn new tricks when he wants to.
Baxter long ago figured out what “Down!” means. And now he hits the deck in no time flat, even faster if there’s a cucumber or pepper in it for him. Dogs learn more quickly—and have more fun learning– when we reward them for their efforts.
People too, for that matter.
Posted in Behavior Change, Dogs, Motivation |
