Weekend dog owners

© Aleksandra “Lexi” Hayden

Weekend dog owners are like weekend drivers

There are “weekend drivers” and then there are also “weekend dog owners”. Dog owners who only have time to fulfill their dogs’ needs on weekends or “when time allows” are like weekend drivers. Pack leadership is a full-time commitment...Your pack depends on you and trusts you...You owe it to the pack to lead and guide it... Very much like an inexperienced driver, a dog owner with poor handling and leadership skills often cannot control the dog. This situation is an accident waiting to happen because both driving a car and polishing dog handling and pack leadership skills take time. Also, just like a driver with poor skills, bad judgment and slow reactions, a poor pack leader may cause serious “accidents” when he or she finally finds the time to take the dog into public areas and expose it to the rest of the society. It is then that a weekend dog owner realizes that their dog does not listen or pay attention to them whatsoever. The weekend dog owner who does not spend the time to establish and maintain a position of pack leader is like a driver getting into a car in severe weather conditions such as an ice storm without having practiced driving with a relaxed and calm attitude when the weather is beautiful and the driving conditions are easy. Inexperienced drivers can crash easily and can also be a danger to others, very much like poor pack leaders. While they themselves might even not suffer any damage, their car might be seriously damaged or even completely destroyed. Do not let your dog to be that “car” and don't be a reckless "driver".  Be a reliable, consistent, fair, trustworthy pack leader to your dog.

Pack leadership is not a part-time job

I always say if the marathon is a part-time interest, you will only get part-time results. ~ Bill Rodgers

Pack leadership is not a part time job, but rather a constant commitment and way of being. This commitment starts the day you decide to acquire a dog, whether it’s a pure bred dog from a reputable breeder or a dog from a shelter or rescue. It does not matter where the dog comes from – all dogs need reliable and trustworthy pack leaders. There's no such thing as a part-time pack leader. To your dog, there's either someone to follow or not. Pack leadership is like breathing - you cannot breathe part-time...I wouldn't recommend it at least... ;) You’ve probably met weekend dog owners. They’re around. You can spot them easily when you see how their dogs walk them (yes – their dogs walk THEM). Their dogs set the rules during a walk. These dogs are the pack leaders to their weekend dog owners, and from the dog’s point of view it makes perfect sense. Dogs do not understand the ideas of weekdays and weekends, vacations and time when owners go to work. They understand routine. Why should a dog follow an absentee part-time leader? After all a dog is a full-time dog that needs full-time guidance and knowing who leads and who follows at all times. If there’s nobody to follow, a dog learns that he has to be in charge of his life, situation and that he has to lead.

Pack leadership starts at home

Quite often I hear complaints from my clients that their dog does not listen at all when they walk him. Then after having a discussion about the dog’s routine and habits (if any at all), I discover that the dog rules the house. Pack leadership should start in your house. If your dog does not respect you on your own turf, he or she will not respect you outside with all the exciting distractions around. Your dog is very consistent. In his eyes, if you’re a follower in the house then you’re a follower outside the house.

Full time dogs...Being a dog can be tiring...Welcome home – welcome to dog’s kennel

Finally the time has come for a busy weekend owner to come to their home…From a dog’s point of view, a pack member has been gone, and many times the dog was also given an opportunity to make a lot of decisions. Quite often those decisions turn into behavioral issues in our human terms. The issue can be, for example, jumping on furniture. A dog who has the best spot in the den (house) and who can decide where to lie down is a leader. Also, if a dog is given the privilege of any type of “ownership”, such as being given free access to toys, may develop some serious resource guarding issues that can become dangerous. Then a clueless weekend owner finds out that he or she cannot sit on his or her favorite sofa anymore because the dog does not allow that, or that reaching for a toy (that in a dog’s mind is his or hers), can cause the dog to nip. The weekend dog owner cannot understand what has happened to the beloved dog and keeps trying to explain all these unwanted behaviors from a human perspective: “my dog must be mad at me because I was so busy, poor thing…here’s a cookie!”

Often when this human pack member arrives home for the weekend, he or she greets the dog very much like a good pack follower would, by giving affection and full attention to a higher status pack leader. From a dog’s point of view this is very confusing, as dogs live in the NOW and do not understand sudden outbursts of affection.

Busy dog owners often feel guilty about not spending enough time with their dogs, so when the weekend comes, the weekend dog owners try to catch up with being dog owners and most frequently they perform weekend affection showering, either by constant petting, talking to the dog, giving the dog food rewards “just because” or taking the dog to a dog park to release the pent up energy. There they often encounter other weekend dog owners with their dogs who have accumulated lots of frustration and nervous energy over the whole week. Weekend dog owners and their dogs in a dog park often resemble “Clash of the Titans”.

How to spot and react to a weekend dog owner

As a responsible dog owner and good pack leader, you have worked hard to create  a wonderful relationship with your dog and you’ve made sure that your dog has good manners whenever you go. Great job! Unfortunately, not every dog owner provides their dogs with what their dogs need on a regular basis. Various and often quite unpredictable challenges pop up in the environment, and it would be unrealistic to expect that you as a dog owner can control the environment and distractions so that things are easy for you and for your dog when you walk together. However, you can control your dog’s immediate environment and your and your dog's personal space.

Other times, the “weekend dog owner” is on a “canine socializing mission”. It is very common to spot a weekend dog owner in a dog park. They bring their under-exercised, frustrated, out of control pack leaders (yes, their dogs lead them to the dog park) to reward their dogs for being so understanding about being ignored for the whole week. Now their “mommy” or “daddy” is ready to give them the moon…or at least some interaction. The weekend dog owners’ dogs rarely come when called and lack manners both around fellow canines and also around humans. For this and other reasons, it is best thing to avoid dog parks.

What about just regular walks in the neighborhood? It is quite easy to spot a “weekend dog owner here. Sometimes you can hear them from a distance having a “dialog” with their unruly and uncontrolled dogs. Usually they try to plead with their dogs. Once (and I kid you not - it was Saturday), I saw a woman who was obviously a “weekend dog owner” and a full time pack follower. She followed her two powerful, strong dogs, who pulled her the whole way to the mailbox while she was struggling the whole time. She was repeating the same sentence over and over. “Don’t go YET! Don’t go YET!” she repeated, as if the repetition of this phrase that was completely foreign to her dogs would suddenly make them realize what she meant.

Whenever weekend dog owners spot another dog owner walking a dog, they want to catch up with their dog’s neglected social life, and you can hear their “Is your dog friendly?” from a distance at the same time that their dog is almost choking itself pulling its full time pack follower and part-time dog owner toward you and your well-behaved dogs. These owners are so used to their dog's hyper, over-excited behavior that in their eyes it becomes normal and is a sign of their dog’s friendliness. Then you hear the explanation of what you’ve just witnessed: “He/She just wants to play with every dog”. Weekend dog owners do not realize that the mixture of their dog’s hyperactivity, over-excitement, lack of self-control, and the lack of a pack leader whom the dog respects and responds to, together with built up tension and frustration, may really backfire and cause their dog to harm another dog or person. So what to do?

Self-defence is Nature's eldest law. ~ John Dryden

Put your dog’s (and your own) well-being first. Pack leaders (like you) always protect the pack. Sometimes this means protecting the pack from clueless weekend dog owners and their dogs, because if a bite were to happen,  the weekend dog owner would be really shocked, continue being clueless and say something like “I don’t know what happened…He just wanted to play…”

If you do not see any benefit and might even see a possible danger for your own dog, turn around and remove your dog from a possibly dangerous situation. There’s no reason for your balanced dog to be “socialized” with an unbalanced dog. Socialization should bring beneficial results and teach your dog about normal situations and calm behaviors, not about chaotic and potentially hazardous ones. Otherwise it would be like trying to learn driving skills from a weekend driver.

If a weekend dog owner comments on your well-behaved, calm, balanced dog, you can mention to them that you’ve worked very hard to help your dog be that way and that it is so worth it. If you had your dog trained you can encourage the weekend dog owner to contact the trainer and do some training. Meanwhile, tell the weekend dog owner who’s approaching you while being dragged by their dog that this “road” is “under construction” and that your dog is in training. Then simply turn around and increase the distance between you and your dog and the careless “weekend driver”. If you’re worried that this is not a polite thing to do, realize that the weekend dog owner does not have your and your dog’s interests in mind, only his or her own. If the weekend dog owner wants to know what kind of training your dog does – just say it’s a WOD dog in training…Weekend owner detection dog... Just kidding… ;)

Be polite to the weekend dog owner and mention to him or her that they could become a pack leader like you too. But at the same time, be a good, calm and assertive pack leader and do not allow this owner to use your dog to satisfy his or her own needs, especially in an unbalanced, chaotic and potentially dangerous way. Your dog has nobody else but you, the pack leader, to rely on. There’s no benefit for a dog to be exposed to an unruly dog that is full of negative energy, tension, hyperactivity, frustration, anxiety and overexcitement. Share the benefits your dog has gained from training with the weekend dog owner. Maybe that will inspire the weekend dog owner to start training their dog... Maybe someday you’ll meet the same dog owner, transformed into a pack leader, and see him or her leading their well-mannered and balanced dog andyou’ll notice how both of them are actually enjoying the walk. Then you can let the dogs socialize together and share calm and balanced energy together.

Contact Fine-tuned Canines about our programs to help your dog to stay balanced and fine-tuned!

© Lexi Hayden

Fine-tuned Canines, www.fine-tunedcanines.com

Lexi Hayden is a professional dog training instructor, canine behavior specialist, owner of Fine-tuned Canines, and a proud member of the International Association of Canine Professionals. Fine-tuned Canines provides dog training and canine behavior counseling services to residents of Southwest Florida. She can be reached at (239) 935.5391 or info@fine-tunedcanines.com.