Book: Bonding With Your Dog: A Trainer's Secret For Building A Better Relationship by Victoria Schad
I was going through some of the dog-related books I bought shortly after I brought Maluko home (almost 2 years ago). While browsing through them, I found a different understanding of the material now than I did back then.
This is not really a review of the book, but more of a food for thoughts for other forum members.
Book: Bonding With Your Dog: A Trainer's Secret For Building A Better Relationship by Victoria Schade
http://www.amazon.com/Bonding-Your-Dog-Trainers-Relationship/dp/0470409150
At the beginning of the book, there is a relationship quiz to test how strong is your bond?
"1. Does your dog check in with you during walks? Does she occasionally look up at you as you walk, or is she at the very end of her leash the entire time?
2. Are you afraid that if your dog slipped out the front door unleashed, she'd take off running and not come home?
3. Do you think your dog is "too stubborn" or "too dumb" to learn basic obedience behaviors?
4. Does your dog seek you out in new environments (for example, at a crowded dog park)?
5. Are you frequently frustrated with your dog?"
The author suggests that If you answered yes to the majority of these questions, you don't really matter to your dog when it counts.
Then the author gave a more detailed description of what a bonded dog look like -
"The bonded dog listens to basic obedience cues without thinking-it's natural for her to respond when you ask. Training is a part of her everyday routine, not something you only attempt in special circumstances, so that she'll hold a stay when you ask or come running when you call. The bonded dog wants you in her sightlines, even when she's in intriguing environments. She doesn't head out the door and take off for parts unknown, because there's no better copilot than you-you bring the fun! The bonded dog follows your house rules once you've worked through them with her. Best of all, she thinks that you're the coolest being around-as entertaining as her canine friends, almost as fun as birds and squirrels, and more scrumptious than the three-day-old bagel on the sidewalk. You've seen well-bonded dogs and their people around your neighborhood or at the dog park-they have the relationship you envy."
What I find interesting is how the author differentiates between "bond" and "love". She argues that bond is not exactly love.
She believes that love between you and your dog should be a given, otherwise, you wouldn't bring a dog into your life. Our dogs love us and put up with our craziness all the time - that sure is love. Victoria Schade believes that the bond is certainly rooted in love, but it's different from love. She thinks you can't have a bond without love, but you certainly can have love without a bond.
Direct quote from the book-
"While love develops naturally (one hopes), building a strong bond needs time and attention. It doesn't happen automatically, like love-the bond develops through every interaction you have with your dog, and what you do, say, and even think all play a role in either strengthening or diminishing the bond you have with your dog. The bond forms the core of your entire relationship; if it's lacking, it's the source of the majority of your frustration with your dog. A strong bond is the reason your dog wants to be close to you, work for you, and listen to you."
I also found the following quote interesting -
"On the surface, it might appear that you have a sound relationship with your dog. After all, she follows you around the house, and leaps deliriously when you come home each day. But there's little competing interest in those scenarios-you're the only game in town!"
Victoria Schade then gave examples of how we unintentionally undermines the bond with our dogs and that it is never too late to build the bond we want with our canine friends. She then went into details discussing how you can build a stronger bond with her 6 building blocks approach.
I would highly recommend anyone looking to deepen their bond with their dog to read this book. It is a great investment (less than $11 on amazon whether you get the actual book or the Kindle version!)
This is not really a review of the book, but more of a food for thoughts for other forum members.
Book: Bonding With Your Dog: A Trainer's Secret For Building A Better Relationship by Victoria Schade
http://www.amazon.com/Bonding-Your-Dog-Trainers-Relationship/dp/0470409150
At the beginning of the book, there is a relationship quiz to test how strong is your bond?
"1. Does your dog check in with you during walks? Does she occasionally look up at you as you walk, or is she at the very end of her leash the entire time?
2. Are you afraid that if your dog slipped out the front door unleashed, she'd take off running and not come home?
3. Do you think your dog is "too stubborn" or "too dumb" to learn basic obedience behaviors?
4. Does your dog seek you out in new environments (for example, at a crowded dog park)?
5. Are you frequently frustrated with your dog?"
The author suggests that If you answered yes to the majority of these questions, you don't really matter to your dog when it counts.
Then the author gave a more detailed description of what a bonded dog look like -
"The bonded dog listens to basic obedience cues without thinking-it's natural for her to respond when you ask. Training is a part of her everyday routine, not something you only attempt in special circumstances, so that she'll hold a stay when you ask or come running when you call. The bonded dog wants you in her sightlines, even when she's in intriguing environments. She doesn't head out the door and take off for parts unknown, because there's no better copilot than you-you bring the fun! The bonded dog follows your house rules once you've worked through them with her. Best of all, she thinks that you're the coolest being around-as entertaining as her canine friends, almost as fun as birds and squirrels, and more scrumptious than the three-day-old bagel on the sidewalk. You've seen well-bonded dogs and their people around your neighborhood or at the dog park-they have the relationship you envy."
What I find interesting is how the author differentiates between "bond" and "love". She argues that bond is not exactly love.
She believes that love between you and your dog should be a given, otherwise, you wouldn't bring a dog into your life. Our dogs love us and put up with our craziness all the time - that sure is love. Victoria Schade believes that the bond is certainly rooted in love, but it's different from love. She thinks you can't have a bond without love, but you certainly can have love without a bond.
Direct quote from the book-
"While love develops naturally (one hopes), building a strong bond needs time and attention. It doesn't happen automatically, like love-the bond develops through every interaction you have with your dog, and what you do, say, and even think all play a role in either strengthening or diminishing the bond you have with your dog. The bond forms the core of your entire relationship; if it's lacking, it's the source of the majority of your frustration with your dog. A strong bond is the reason your dog wants to be close to you, work for you, and listen to you."
I also found the following quote interesting -
"On the surface, it might appear that you have a sound relationship with your dog. After all, she follows you around the house, and leaps deliriously when you come home each day. But there's little competing interest in those scenarios-you're the only game in town!"
Victoria Schade then gave examples of how we unintentionally undermines the bond with our dogs and that it is never too late to build the bond we want with our canine friends. She then went into details discussing how you can build a stronger bond with her 6 building blocks approach.
I would highly recommend anyone looking to deepen their bond with their dog to read this book. It is a great investment (less than $11 on amazon whether you get the actual book or the Kindle version!)
Comments
Even the examples above seem a bit dubious to me, and very breed and individual dog related. It's easy to get this kind of obvious bond with some breeds--with a GSD you would see something that looked like this bond (but may or may not be) within days or even hours (saw that with a rescued GSD). You may never something that looks like this with some dogs.
Obedience is different than a bond, in my mind. There are a lot of reasons a dog might not "obey" that have nothing to do with bonding. A dog may not understand the command yet (I see that a ton as I'm trying to learn new things at the same time as my dog, and am not yet communicating well to him). And there are distractions--just because my dogs see, say, a squirrel or a new place as more exciting than me does not mean they are not bonded with me!
I'd still like to read the book to see what she has to say, but I do worry that the idea that bond =obedience is more harmful than not. I would say there are all kinds of dogs and many ways to bond, and part of accepting the unique dog you have and that unique relationship, is understanding that the bond is going to look very different depending on the individuals involved.
I am with Shibamistress on this in some respect. The term "bond" in the above context seems to imply that there is some ethereal or magical "no matter what chain" of behavior that happens at all times that a dog provides because it is "bonded", and only in "good" relationships that a "bond" can develop. I am not so sure that is the case. There are dysfunctional bonds too. Owners can get there with their dysfunctional pet relationships, but it just takes a whole lot longer for competition.
Therefore, I am not sure I would say full bonding is necessary in terms of obedience training.... There are loose bonds, tight bonds, temporary and transitional ones in my experience. Not all have to be tight bonds to succeed. It is a whole lot nicer if there is a strong bond, but not sure it needs to be there 100%
Whatever the case, since I have not read the book at this point, I will say in any relationship behavior flexes and changes according to priorities/needs for both parties. The value of reinforcers/reward can change dramatically depending on context, so it's useful to have several types of reinforces available to give a trainer choices of what to use in any situation to strengthen a chain of behaviors. It is the discrimination of your cues in your dog's repertoire that seems most important regardless of type of bond. This won't be cookie cutter, but will vary with each animal through the reinforcement chain with the individual and emotional state of the animal.
I do think training it is more of a motivation and reinforcement issue with the ability to shape things as needed. Kathy Sdao points this out with her work with marine mammals. Each marine mammal will work with several to many people over it's lifetime and each relationship will be different so bonding may not be a full component to the process.....success happens in many cases anyway. It is easier, often quicker and probably more fun if good bonding occurs, but not necessarily a must in all cases.
Just my take....
Snf
PS: Oh goodness 1 -5 above varies so much with each animal and depends on what I ask for and where they are in the training process. There are times I am certainly frustrated, more with myself than the dog for stepping up a criteria they just can't handle. No two relationships will be the same regardless of the bond though, but see her point that it takes time.... Would say it is important to know where those competing interests are in order to change up the game plan.
I had a much better appreciation for what is mean by a bond between human-K9 after watching this movie:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quill_(film)
I also learned this word "skinship" from the movie, LOL!