How Dogs Act: Territorially and How to Manage It

In episode four, Chrissy and Cara discuss Canine to Five's third foundational principle of DOG which is How Dogs Act. They dive into the territorially nature of canines and troubleshoot a number of different scenarios the listener may experience with their pup. Whether it's jumping, incessant barking at the delivery man, or growling when someone approaches the leash, they explain why many dogs behave this way and what to do about it. Tune in!  

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Transcript

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Dog is love Like the roots

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of the trees And

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the stars up above Dog is love Judgment free Unconditionally Welcome back to Dog is Love. Hi. We hope you're getting a lot of our podcasts so far, having aha moments and a couple giggles along the way. Because we're so funny. We are funny. Today we're wrapping up our kickoff series on the foundational principles of dog with the third. Yes, which is? How they act. Yes, how they act. And how do they act? They act territorially.

UNKNOWN 1:04

Yes.

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Yes, they do. Okay, so why is this important? Dogs have several different forms of communication within the pack. Yes. And they are? There's three of them. Verbal, physical, and spatial. Okay. So being territorial is a spatial communication. Beautiful. I think it's important to kind of have the dog owner understand examples of how a dog is acting territorial.

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Absolutely.

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The biggest one is when dogs are barking, barking at strangers that come up to the home or your mail person, squirrels. Yeah, wildlife, any passing traffic if you live on a heavily trafficked road, something like that, just sitting at the window and barking constantly. And that's because they have that sort of box of your home that they have to be territorial of, which is like an instinct of theirs. But then what happens is, guess what? The male person comes up to your house, they bark, bark, bark, and then the male person leaves. Or the squirrel eventually goes up the tree or the fox passes by your property. So then they adaptively learn that their territorialness is working and there's no one there to correct or to intervene. So then it kind of piles up and it gets stronger and stronger and stronger. And you see it all the time. I mean, you see this. I just had a girlfriend say the same thing. My dog just goes nuts all day long going back and forth at the window. And I was like, that's what dogs do. If you guys aren't there to control that behavior, that's what they're going to do. Yeah, and if you're not there, you can control it by putting the shades down. Don't let the dog have access to the window. in the front, only maybe in the back. There's lots of things. We can get into that for misbehaviors later on. Definitely. But it would be helpful maybe to talk a little bit about that sort of territorial behavior, that adaptive behavior. I guess for the listener, What really... I mean, what is going on there? I mean, explain to me. Because I remember when you explained to me the mailman effect. I had a big aha moment with that. I was like, I have never thought of it that way. Yeah, it's just... I think we said it a little bit earlier. I think what it is, is that... In general, all types of animals are territorial species. Dogs in particular act territorially. So what is happening is the male person enters your territory. Their domain, right? Their domain. Yeah, the dog's domain. Yeah, and the male person gets closer and closer and closer. Right. But the male person continuing on with their job naturally is going to leave your house. Right. So the dog thinks, look at me. I'm such a good guard dog. I'm the boss. A paw pat on their back. And you guys aren't there and they've protected the territory. So that's basically what happens. That's the general psychology. And so it all sort of stems back to what we've been talking about too in the last episodes about PAC leadership. Yeah. Right. And and your dog sort of assuming that job. Correct. Yeah. While you're not there. Yeah. Because it's interesting. Right. I think you will find that more often a behavior with dogs that tend to go into that pack leadership role versus homes that they have. The owners have established that pack leadership role and you're not really hearing dogs bark in that type of house. You know, it's really interesting. that I want to bring up because we had this conversation about Juniper, my chocolate lab, and we have an issue with her. We have a big window, right, in our living room. And she loves to perch. She gets on our perch on top of the couch, and she loves to look out the window. And I, at first, I felt like, She shouldn't be barking at whether it's my neighbor walking up the driveway or a fox or whatever it is. But then you made a really good point. You were like, if you can call her off, then that is her assuming her, almost like her delta or omega role in the pack because what she's doing is alerting us. And so I started to kind of pay closer attention to the behavior And I was like, hmm, let's see. Let's try this out here. Like, let's see if I call her off if she backs down, which she does. So it was kind of interesting. So that's something, too, to keep in mind. Like if you can. Sure, you can be in relation with your dog. Right. And I usually if I say, oh, good girl. Oh, good girl. You know, I'll say something like that. And then she'll look at me like, I just wanted you to know, you know, that squirrel might try to. kill us later i think um it's really important to understand that um you need to call them off of the position that they are in or yes for them to interrupt for you to interrupt that barking right so if your dog if you can if you can get them to stop doing that uh-huh then yeah and they don't like It's like you say good girl and she looks over to you. Does she go back to barking at the squirrel? No, then she calms down. Okay, there. So then she's like, okay, I did my job. Yeah. So that's awesome. You guys are in relation. You've established that because you're the pack leader of the home. and she's responding to you and listening to you. It's like you're the pack leader, you're the alpha, and then she's in there as a beta, right? And so she's helping you be protective of the pack. Every pack member has a job and she's taking that job alongside with you. God, it's so interesting. It is so interesting. And it's like whenever I'm on the phone with you, if you're walking and you have a pack and she hears, like she'll hear somebody bark and she'll... go into this, like, who is it? Where are they? Yeah, and she'll bark as well. And she'll bark. Right. And then if you call her off, she'll call. Yeah, so that's really, that's an awesome relationship that you have with her. But if you, as a dog owner, don't have the relationship where you can call them off, and there's like, you call them off, and you can put a command in it, like, thank you, or, you know, gentleness, um leave it there's a couple different commands that work well with that um you just need to make sure when you call them off that they don't go back to that barking yes that they go back to that window and get territorial they have to literally relent to your command and calm down uh-huh and go back into that go into surrender yeah for sure okay um another example is dogs barking in your car as you pass people on the road yes i've had

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that

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yeah well first off it scares the living daylights out of people that are just naturally walking in the neighborhoods with your with their dogs sure um but if you have a dog barking in your vehicle it is the same exact thing as your home it's just now in the car yeah and again what is that um telling you that's telling you that your dog is taking that pack leadership role and if you can't call them off again like you said then you need to correct the behavior you need to intervene yeah we had to do some intervention sure with that yeah because we did that was another one that we struggled with and then another one is like your electrical fence dogs or the fences hard fences and the dogs are behind it and the electric fence like some of the dogs like make you know divots in the grass moose yes one of our clients moose does this and um and then also you know dogs that are on the like a fence that they kind of can see through the crack yes you know you can see they'll stay right there at that crack staring you got staring us down as we walk by to actually talk about that a little bit because um there i know that i've experienced this and you've experienced this and all of our walkers have experienced this but um what does that do what When you have a dog, for example, that's behind a fence, that gets really, really, really territorial of the fence, and say there's two dogs that are behind the fence, explain to the listener how that drums up sort of a negative energy then between those two people members of that specific pack. Yeah. So listen, I want to, before I say, and I'll get to that, but I think really important with the electric fence and the fencing, it's not inherently bad that they do this or that it's wrong because it's their primitive instinct to behave this way. But, you know, But we are in relation in neighborhoods, in community. And so them acting in this way only intensifies them as either a good citizen in the neighborhood or not such a good citizen in the neighborhood. And then also, if you have multiple dogs on an electric fence or a hard fence and they're being territorial, what happens is they have so much energy because they wanna get out of the fence to push you back. Because if you think about it, if I'm walking my dog and I'm coming up towards your house, I'm getting closer and closer and they're barking harder and louder and I'm not paying attention to them, I keep on coming. So the energy gets intensified and they have nothing else to do because they can't get out of the fence, that they then do internal aggression. So they go after their own pup mate that's in the fence with them. And then that is not a good relationship being demonstrated within your own little pack. Right, and all of that is just energy that needs to go somewhere. It's energy that needs to go somewhere. So it's called internal aggression. They just go after each other. And it's really sad to see. And it's really heartbreaking when I see it. I try to intervene in it as much as I can, but they don't know me. I don't know them. Of course, yeah. I remember there was once a house on a route that I used to walk at least once or twice a week. It was in Gino's neighborhood, and there were three dogs behind this one fence, and it happened like clockwork. And the pack would cruise by, calmly but they were just i mean salivating to get out yeah and get us and then what would happen would be one dog would turn on the other and then they would be barking and chaos in it i mean like you said it's scary too because you know if you don't have control of the pack you're walking in that instance i mean that can that can really stir up Correct. Then what happened? A lot of aggression too within your own pack. Exactly. And then also, you know, your dog's going into the red zone. The dog behind the fence is going to the red zone. And so if those dogs ever meet out in your neighborhood or in the community, then there's going to be even more potential that somebody snaps off of a leash and they go after each other. So it's really about, you know, raising your dogs to be good as citizens within your community. Yeah, absolutely. Another one is jumping. Yeah, I was like, talk about the other. Yes, jumping. Jumping. Yeah, that's a territorial spatial communication. You know, a lot of dogs jump to like people think to like welcome them home and it is a true welcome but it also is like so they can oh there's my pack member that's been missing come back and then it's like they are sending you to come back into the pack basically so interesting so what should you do yeah like dogs aren't born knowing that jumping is you know not an acceptable way of showing affection right or like running up and down the lawn to protect your territory is like not neighborhood friendly So I think what you do is, so when you're establishing yourself as a pack leader and utilizing the way that the dog acts, you're using spatial communication to get the dogs to perform. To perform behaviors, to be a good citizen in your household. And it's extremely helpful when teaching them manners and commands. So if you remember in the PAC leadership episode, I think it was number two, that when we're taking over thresholds to get them inside or outside or just from out of their crate or their gated area, we are using spatial communication. We are using the way that they act to get them, number one, to be in the calm mindset and number two, to do human first, dog second. And then it is also the case when we're feeding them that we're using that spatial communication the way they act so that we can show them that we're the pack leader because we're eating first and they're going to eat second. And then at times in the dog walk, we're gonna use spatial communication. We'll get into this a little bit later, but if your dog pulls on a leash, right? A lot of times I give them a correction when they're out in front of me and they get corrections the entire time that they're out in front until they get back to what we call a spot, which is next to us or behind us. And at that moment, I will use my body again to create spatial communication with them because that's how they act. So I'm going to communicate with them in dog world, in dog language. And that's how you really get them to understand that out front is not where you should be. next to you or behind you is where you are. And so I'll tap them back maybe with my leg on their chest very gently. And when they get back to that spot, I'm gonna reward. Right. Talk about jumping though too, because as far as spatial communication is concerned, it's so often the human instinct when a dog jumps to, you hear this all the time, Oh, turn your back. Oh, give him a knee. You know, that kind of thing. But really, what we're supposed to be doing, and I just, we were talking about this, I just had this conversation with my sister-in-law, Heather. Heather and Tony's next-door neighbor got a puppy. And the puppy, and she was like, oh, she's such a really good girl. But she just started to jump a little bit. And the puppy was really sweet. It was a lab puppy. She was behind the fence. She was literally on the other side of the fence. And I said, well, when she jumps on you, don't. Don't let her jump on you. Take up her space. So just gently walk into her. Correct. Right. Yeah. And Heather was like, I had not because they have little dogs, you know, and this was a lab puppy. And she was like, I didn't know you were supposed to do that. Yeah. You know, and I was like, yeah, like the instinct for us is to either lean back or Right. Step back. Step back. Or turn our back. Or push them down. Or push them down. Yeah. So the step back. version of when a dog jumps on you and you step back, they have spatially taken over your territory. Right, so they have commanded the territory. Yes, so that's the first thing. The second, when you knee them, when you push them down, you're actually rewarding for the behavior. You would know if I come up to you and push you hard. You'd be like, what's up, Chris? But a dog does not know that because dogs are animals and they're a little bit tougher and rougher than us. And so us pushing them down is just simply... one of the five forms of affection or a reward. And so that is affection. It's so interesting. And so you're actually rewarding for the behavior of jumping. Right, because you're going, you're giving them what they want. They want to interact with you. Yeah. Right, when they jump. And so you're, even if you're pushing them down. Yeah, it's praise, right? Right. Because they think you're giving them a pat. So interesting. Right. And so when, I always kind of say this. So like in jumping, you know, if a dog jumps on you, yes. like you said to Heather, you walk into their bubble. A dog has a bubble around them. You have a bubble around you. You walk into the bubble, right? And you keep on going into that bubble until the dog relents because you're taking over the territory. You're taking over their territory. And so the dog will like turn their head and relent.

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Mm-hmm.

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But what you do is if you want to train them, you can. And I say this with everything about training to our customers is that it's like if you have yourself or your children that are learning something, like a sport or an instrument, they have to practice before they get into the game or the recital. And then from the game, they go to a championship, right? So the practice would be for this particular misbehavior, jumping, would be to walk into their space and then the dog relents, turns the head, and then you say the command. So again, we go back to how they learn. It's so intertwined, right? Yes, of course. So they learn behaviorally. Right. And then we're gonna use spatial communication to get them to do the behavior we want when we say the command off. So you're gonna walk into their space, they're gonna relent, Yeah. Yeah. No jump. And then they lick up the treat. And then you practice that for five minutes with the dog. So then the dog's standing there and looks back at you. Then you walk into their space again and you do it all over. You repeat. multiple times. This is so helpful. This is amazing. I'm glad you think so. I mean, I really do because I think that this is one of the things that you hear consistently that people struggle with. My dog is jumping. My dog jumps up. And you don't want your dog jumping up. You don't want guests coming into your house and your dog jumping on them. And I also think because so many people... struggle to understand that we should be really speaking the dog's language when we're trying to teach them things. We have to get into their mindset to understand and thus be able to teach them by speaking their language that this is such a simple fix. Yeah, I think we... like a lot of things, I think we overcomplicate things. Yeah, of course. Overcomplicate? Yeah. You think humans overcomplicate things? Yeah, 1,000%. Oh, nah. And I think actually if we can pay attention to this and see how, you know, just understanding how dogs live learn and act and how they kind of twine into each other and how we use them. And it's just that simple. Because with those three principles, you really can get your dog to do anything. And a lot of patience. And a lot of patience, checking the ego as the door that we say, and taking one step at a time. But it is really, really, it's not easy. It just doesn't have to be complicated. Right. It's not as complicated as we like to make it. This, I was watching the other day. My husband put on a, we like to watch those nature documentaries on YouTube. PBS, come on, because we're nerds. And there was this really beautiful documentary about silverback gorillas. Oh my God, guess what? Did you watch it? Yeah, when you told me about it. So last night I watched it. Did you love it? I did. I mean, wasn't it emotional? It was very emotional. Can you tell everybody about it a little bit? Yes, I would love to. But anyway, what I thought was... so poignant about it was that here we are having this podcast right about how we can learn from nature and how nature has all of the answers and and humans just we we complicate everything so intensely but um but the The thing that struck me was that you have, okay, so you have this camera crew who's going into the Congo and they are trying to, what is the word that they used? It's not humanize, but essentially what they're trying to do is desensitize the gorillas, right? to the presence of humans so that they can, they have these wildlife, parks, essentially. And then, you know, the parks, they can bring humans on tours of the parks to see the gorillas, right? And so you have this camera crew coming in. Well, hold on. So the tourists come. Right. And they pay money. And they pay money and they bring tourism to the community. Yes, which creates opportunity. Correct. And then it saves the gorillas from the community because they will, the community... I mean, it's natural to hunt wildlife. So they will poach onto the gorilla packs. So it's kind of, it's a very... There's a deep ethical component to it. Because also, too, the other part of it was that there's a lot of war in that part, in that region. And... When the gorillas are then desensitized to the presence of humans, they're unable to protect themselves because they're not afraid at that point. So this camera crew, they witnessed an already silverback gorilla I forget what they're called. It's a pack, but I think a troop, a silverback troop. He got the opportunity to witness them and they were totally desensitized. And the one that they were filming was not. Yes. And the one thing that they said, this was the reason that I really perked up, especially when I was watching it, was that what they do... is they try to speak the language of the gorillas to communicate with them. So there are certain behaviors that gorillas will do with one another. They will pound their chests or... Do the... Yeah. And certain calls to each other. And so then the humans will then mimic those behaviors, right? So they'll mimic those behaviors in an effort to say, we're safe, and try to communicate, try to understand, try to make themselves appear to be safe. And that whole idea, that premise, is not dissimilar to what we're saying here with dogs. Right? We're trying to help you understand as a listener that dogs don't speak English, right? They don't speak English. So if you can understand the way that they interact with one another and interact in the pack and then mimic those behaviors, then you have a better chance of establishing yourself as a member of that pack, right? And that's what this camera crew was trying to do. They were sort of trying to get in with the pack and they were trying to get in with the alpha. With the silverback. With the silverback, right. Because they said, when you are accepted by the silverback, then you're accepted by the whole troop. Yeah. Yeah. So, I don't know, I just thought it was really relevant and also to just, it just goes to show that we can learn so much from nature. Yeah, I thought some really other cool points was, this wasn't just like a, one week thing. Right. Yeah. So these guys that are a part of the park and this organization that brings in tourism and allows tourists to go see these troops, they have observed these gorillas forever. Right, for years. For years. And so they are, like you said, they're able to know what are accepted gorillas you know signals like the beating of the chest or different facial expressions to make that welcome you into a group versus anything that maybe looks like territorial or that you're up to your to take over right yeah yeah so that's that's really an awesome takeaway that they and i think that they spent a lot of time to really understand them. And to establish trust. Yeah, and then to establish the trust is a good point. And we talk about that all the time too. We talked about this and that in the very, very first episode of this whole series with the family, with the situation where the dog nipped... the dad and it was a new dog in the family. And so there wasn't as strong of a bond of trust at that point yet. So that dog was behaving territorially, which is what animals do. It's how they act and it's not inherently bad. It's just on us, the humans, it's our responsibility to learn to learn that, okay, if this is how dogs behave, then how do I mitigate this? You know, how do I act responsibly? And how do I not do my dog a disservice by being, for lack of a better word, kind of like, I don't want my dog to be an asshole. You know what I mean? So it's like, how do I, how do I be a good steward to the pack? You know, and it's just really, I mean, it's, I just think it's all really interesting. Yeah. And I loved this nerdy documentary. I just... I thought... I just think... And then there's a beautiful... I mean, they go into depth because the lead camera guy, he relates a lot of the qualities of the alpha to the patriarch in his own family, who was his grandpa. He talks a lot about that, draws a lot of comparisons. And... you know, mammals are not that different. I mean, we're all mammals, right? And I mean, gorillas are obviously much more closely related to humans than dogs are, but, but, there are so many similarities there. Yeah, nature is very connected. Absolutely, absolutely. So the hope is that as you have listened to these four episodes, including the three foundational principles, is similar to, have been, I guess I should say, brought to light by my observation of the pack similar to the camera crew or the organization that runs the tourist group for the silverbacks. I've observed the dogs and I've clearly put them into these foundational principles. And then we obviously incorporated another episode to, you know, how do you be a pack leader within your relationship with your dog? And so I think having that knowledge, having that understand to speak dog will then just give you a jumping point to welcome in a dog or detox or intervene with a dog that you already have. And we'll continue this conversation and layering it on top of each other as we go forward with more episodes. But I think it's just a great jumping point to know and have knowledge of so you can interact with your dog in those ways. It's a great foundation. It is. It's a good foundation. Okay, so until next time, dog is love. If this podcast aligns with you, it would mean so much to us if you would take 30 seconds to do these three things. First, follow or subscribe to Dog Is Love so you don't miss an episode. To do this, just go to Dog Is Love show page on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts and tap the plus sign on the upper right hand corner or click on follow. While you're there, give a five star rating and review why you liked our episode and share an episode We would be so grateful. Dog is Love is created and hosted by Chrissy Waltman and Cara Kelly in partnership with K9to5. Our show is produced by Tony Kelly at Baltimore Podcast Space. Our original theme song was written and recorded by our very own Cara Kelly.

SPEAKER_00 33:47

We could pretend That we have the answers

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Or we could lean into the light

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As man complicates

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The stillness of nature While

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dogs humbly watch With awe in their eyes

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We're not supposed to Struggle alone Friend for a lifetime, to guide you wherever you roam. Dog is love, like the roots

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of the trees and the stars up above. Dog is

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love, judgment free. Unconditionally