Why Your Dog Ignores You (And It’s Not Because They’re Stubborn)
Dogs experience human communication through a lens vastly different from our own. Unfortunately, this means that we may be sending mixed signals like a non-commital talking stage, causing our dogs to become confused an insecure. That’s not fair, is it?
Dogs Don’t Feel Shame
Dogs cannot feel guilt or shame for “being bad.” They do not have the brain structure to feel such emotions. That guilty look is a response to your body language and tone, not what you’re scolding them for.
You’re Accidentally Punishing Something You Want
While we as humans do most of our direct communication through words, dogs interpret our direct communication through our tone and body language.
For example, eye contact. Dogs struggle with maintaining eye contact, and many dog owners assume that to be a lack of respect when it’s the opposite.
Many people think of eye contact as a sign of attentiveness, but did you know that dogs maintain eye contact when they’re communicating a threat and are getting ready to act on it? When they look away from you, they’re telling you they’re not wanting any confrontation. When you stare them down after they’ve gnawed on your shoe or stole a paper towel roll, they’re often times responding to their interpreted threat and not the words you’re saying, or the behavior you’re scolding.
This is precisely why dogs tend to look to the floor or look away when you react to their behavior negatively and get in their face. Over time, they even learn to tune us out when we’re asking for their attention if they’ve learned it means they get scolded. It’s almost twice as hard to capture our dog’s focus and attention when we’re accidentally telling them that our eye contact and direct attention is scary! To set our pups up for success, we want to associate eye contact with good things like treats, toys, or praise so that the things we want after holding their focus becomes easier for them to achieve.
You’re Being Inconsistent and Unrealistic
If you’re changing the way you interact with your dog based on how you feel, you’re setting both you and your dog up to fail. This isn’t boundaries — this is a lack of communication and clear expectations. Like a toxic relationship, you can’t build trust on a lacking foundation.
Dogs learn with consistency and pattern, which means if when you’re annoyed you scold your dog for being on the couch but when you’re happy you don’t, you’re accidentally damaging the relationship you have with your dog. How does your dog know what your intentions are if sometimes you want them on the couch, and sometimes they’re scolded? Would you want to cuddle with someone who yelled at you when they’re annoyed?
If there is no clear and direct boundary that is consistent, repeatable, and objective, your dog hasn’t learned anything other than to predict when you’ll be annoyed and show behaviors like submissive urination, yawning, sniffing, and scratching to communicate that they’re not a threat. A simpler way to establish a boundary such as this is teaching your dog cues to both come on the couch and get off the couch regardless of how you’re feeling in that moment. It creates a clear expectation and opens a line of communication.
Your Dog is Being a Dog
Dogs act on instincts, which are unconditioned responses to things in their environment. For example, humans get a “gut feeling” when they’re anxious, and that is an instinct preparing us for danger. We get goosebumps, a stomachache, and maybe we start sweating. The response is something we just do, it doesn’t need to be taught. It can be influenced by things like trauma or negative association, though, and much like dogs, our instinctual behaviors can be retrained and redirected. But instincts can’t be eliminated, like the infamous prey drive everybody talks about.
Dogs don’t have to be taught to do things like sniff the grass before going potty, bark at people at the window, or dig in the yard; but, each breed has a different set of typical characteristics from the way they were bred to use their prey drive that influence the way they behave without any training. Most dogs are born with the instinct to sniff out, watch, stalk, chase, catch, retrieve, or dispatch prey. Beagles were bred to sniff out game, so they may have a tendency to sniff out gross things like animal poop. Rat Terriers were bred to alert and dig after vermin, so they may have a tendency to be escape artists and dig under fences.
Part of training is providing adequate enrichment to use those instinctual behaviors that engage their prey drive. Without this, you’ll see “problem behaviors” that arise from boredom, even if you think they “know better.”
Enrichment Activities to Try to Provide an Outlet for Behavior
And no, it doesn’t “encourage” inappropriate behavior. Dogs will do these things anyway; it’s our responsibility to give them appropriate outlets.
Biting the Leash —> Playing Tug
Finding Gross Things in the Yard —> Long, Sniffy Walks
Inhaling Food —> Puzzle Toys
Velcro Dog —> Hide and Seek
Digging Under Fences —> Sandbox Digging
Demanding Attention —> Trick Training
But Nothing is One Size Fits All
In my experience, these are the most common reasons why our dogs often come across as “stubborn.” There are other reasons I haven’t mentioned, but that is why there are many different dog trainers who are able to direct you to appropriate solutions better than an online blog can,
~ Ashley