Читать книгу Clever Dog: Understand What Your Dog is Telling You - Sarah Whitehead - Страница 12

That was good enough. Using a clicker, George marked the head turning and sniffing behaviour, then offered Dave a treat from the bag. Like many German Shepherds, Dave was immediately suspicious. He refused the treat and it dropped to the floor. I told George to leave it there and to show Dave the bag full of goodies. Once again, Dave moved his nose a couple of centimetres towards the food. George clicked again. This time, he didn’t attempt to feed Dave the treat he had earned but instead dropped it onto the floor next to the other one. Dave sat back slightly. He looked at George, then at the two treats on the floor. I could almost see his brain whirring. He looked back at George, then deliberately moved his nose again towards the bag. He got his click and the food treat went on the floor. Dave just couldn’t resist the number of treats on the floor. He bent his head slowly, very slowly, and sniffed them. George clicked and added a fourth treat to the collection. Dave put his tongue out and tasted one of the bits of liver-cake. Click, and another appeared. He took one into his mouth. Looking for all the world as if he were being poisoned, he ate it very tentatively. I tried not to look at him in case it put him off. Deciding that he might live after all, he ate another.

Now that we had a little window of opportunity, it was important to use it wisely. I gave George a running commentary on Dave’s body language and facial expression – which I was checking out of the corner of my eye – as we started, very slowly and deliberately, to click and treat Dave for any hint of muscle relaxation, facial softness, or averted eye contact.

It is well known in human psychology circles that body language, physical movement and even posture can directly affect our emotional state. In a rather neat experiment by researcher Fritz Strack in 1988, subjects were asked to rate how funny they found cartoons while they held a pen in their mouths. Participants consistently rated them as more humorous when they held the pen between their teeth, an action that forced their mouths into a semi-smile, than they did when they held the pen in their lips, which forced a partial frown. This study has since been replicated several times, all with the same fascinating results: facial expression can affect mood, rather than just the other way around. Still sceptical? Sit in a slumped position and hunch your shoulders forward. Let your head droop towards your chest. Sigh deeply once or twice. Look at your feet. How do you feel now? Perhaps it’s no accident that we describe the feeling this posture can engender as being ‘down’. Now, change your posture and see how it changes your state. Just try to be depressed while standing up tall, clapping your hands in front of you, smiling and keeping your shoulders back. Now look up and to the left. Walk about briskly. OK, you may feel a little silly, but humour me – the chances are you will feel much more cheerful.

Fearful dogs tend to keep their heads still while moving their eyes to follow anything they think may be threatening, so George clicked for Dave’s head turns, no matter how small. Scared dogs keep their ears pinned back to their heads, while relaxed and confident ones allow their ears to be in a relaxed but alert position, so George clicked ear movements too. Tension nearly always causes dogs to shut their mouths and hold their breath, or to stress pant – a bit like human hyperventilation. George clicked and treated Dave for a relaxed mouth and, when unsure what else to reward, simply for eating in the presence of someone scary.

In that first session, all I wanted Dave to learn was that good things can happen around a stranger. He had little idea why he was being clicked and treated, but he came as close to enjoying an outing as he ever had before, and despite the fact that I couldn’t risk getting up to see them out, I was pleased with our gentle progress. George went home armed with Dave’s body wrap and clicker, with instructions to reward calm and quiet behaviour whenever possible.

Over the next two months, George and I worked with Dave several times a week. Gradually, very gradually, the big dog began to relax in my presence and accept me moving about close to him. He would still startle if surprised by a sudden movement, but given enough space he would choose to back away from me rather than attempt to get me to move. However, we still needed to give him some different options when meeting other people.

George and I started to watch Dave for unconscious reactions when he felt fearful and defensive. We videoed his behaviour and watched it repeatedly for clues. The most obvious of these was a tendency to move backwards one or two tiny paces before coming forwards again in a barrage of lunging and barking. George used the clicker to mark the ‘backing up’ behaviour, and then reinforced or rewarded it with a piece of food. He needed to be pretty accurate, but the exquisite timing of the click allowed this and we soon began to see results. Indeed, by the end of the session Dave was backing away four paces instead of just two. I sensed we might have a chance of encouraging him to choose that option in a moment of panic and sent the pair home to practise once again.

The following week I arranged a home visit to see how Dave and George were getting on. In this new setting, Dave was once again unnerved by the presence of a stranger, and barked at me from behind the safety of a baby gate across the kitchen door. George ignored this completely, knowing that any attempts at intervention or ‘discipline’ would only fuel the big dog’s anxiety. Instead, once Dave’s initial fear had subsided, he was brought in on a long line to allow him freedom but also keep him under control. Instead of rushing at me, teeth bared and frothing with saliva, Dave’s new-found option kicked in. He took one look at me and gracefully retreated, by neatly reversing out of the room. Encouraged by his own success, and lured by the sounds of George and I chatting and laughing about this new development, Dave soon reappeared – peering round the edge of the door to see what was going on. This of course elicited a click and treat from George, which brought the big dog another couple of paces into the room.

For the next twenty minutes, Dave shuttled back and forth, in and out of the living room doorway, in forward and reverse gears. Finally, discovering that this was rather tiring, he decided to come right in and say hello. This was the break-through we needed. Allowing him to make his own decision about whether to retreat or approach seemed to give him new-found confidence, which in turn helped to bolster his emotional state when he was around new people and new situations. While Dave was never going to be a dog to wear his heart on his sleeve, at least he had a strategy to employ when the going got tough. Quite literally, the tough got going.