What Words Conceal

Did this faux advertising copy give you a knot in your stomach or make you bristle? Can you put your finger on what it is exactly? Is it the idea of obedience and compliance, the pejorative language, the myth of who a dog should be, the oversimplification of the learning process, or is there something else?

We’re bombarded with language about dogs across all kinds of media – film and TV, books, newspaper articles, advertisements – that paint a picture of dogs and our relationships with them. These words and phrases don’t merely reflect (a certain view of) reality though: they also have the power to shape it, not only in the popular imagination but also in terms of the social pressures and cultural norms that come from that.

“It’s not a command; it’s a cue”

The frequent echo of this phrase across social media is evidence that we recognise that words have power. Here, they are an attempt to distinguish ways of relating to dogs from the “dog-must-do” attitude espoused by those who believe in obedience above all else; they also serve as a marker of a particular identity and ethos – of belonging to a community of like-minded people who use particular techniques and avoid certain tools in their training of dogs.

In this phrase is a recognition that words can shape our beliefs, reflect outwards our values, and align us with and against certain groups or methods. It demonstrates that how we speak about dogs is intricately connected to how we relate to them, but also that we have the power to influence others through our language choices.

Many of us resist these views of dogs as strong-willed, manipulative animals who need to be trained into compliance; to be shown who’s boss; against whom we’re constantly pitted in a struggle for control. And yet while “cue” over “command” certainly marks a progression in thinking about dogs, there are some other terms that you may use about dogs that may benefit from an update. I discuss some of these below.

Manners

Focussed on behaviour towards other humans (too seldom we think of helping our dogs learn manners in their interactions with other dogs) teaching our dogs, the notion of “manners” is firmly rooted in human social norms (and, I might add, varies between cultures). By talking about our dogs’ learning in terms of manners, we are regarding that learning in terms of acceptable behaviour. While there is certainly no benefit to either the dog or their humans to excavate the sofa or to leave mucky paw prints all over your mother-in-law’s white trousers, the idea that we teach (especially young) dogs manners towards humans seems to suggest that we prioritise the idea of their conformity to what a “good dog” should be, rather than channelling their learning in ways that benefit them and those around them. Certainly, learning life skills may mean that visitors’ capri pants remain mud-free and that two-seater will support those capris and their contents for years to come, but in those precious early months in particular, we might prefer to speak in ways that reflect our view that our our dogs’ learning is something precious to shape rather than to suppress.

Behaviours & Tricks

Both of these terms suggest things our dogs perform on cue (with performance often being the operative word; there’s a strong implication here that these are what the dog does when a human is watching). Behaviours and tricks strike me as unidirectional: things the dog does for us, rather than for themselves.

Behaviours misdirects the focus away from who your dog is and instead onto what they do, treating their learning as isolated from what they find naturally rewarding, from how they choose to move through the world, and from your relationship. The term, instead, suggests conformity to externally imposed standards of how your dog should be.

There is, too, an implication of “frivolity” and unseriousness in the term “tricks”: a reductive view of learning that treats its goal as one of human entertainment rather than of canine skill and pleasure.

Thinking about actions and movements, however, roots the learning firmly with the dog: learning that they can carry with them, that is rooted in who they are, and that brings them pleasure to perform even when shielded from the human gaze.

Reinforcers

As a recovering (and occasionally relapsing) fast feeder who hurried to deliver reinforcers as quickly as possible to get the next behaviour, I feel this one particularly acutely. When I began to see my delivery of the reward as such an important part of the dog’s pleasure in the learning process, everything began to change, for them and for me. Not only did we have learning sessions that were just about reward delivery, but facilitating greater pleasure for them in the learning process increased their desire for learning as well as mine. Reinforcers are all about the “behaviour”; rewards, on the other hand, are all about the dog.

Motivation/Drive

These are terms that strike me as meaningless. If I sit on a thumb tack, I’ll be motivated to stand up, but it doesn’t mean that either the process or the outcome (standing up, sore bum or not) was enjoyable for me. Drive is similarly vague, and worse still it is often pursued as a goal without regard fo the emotional state of the dog. I often see dogs showing frustration in a particular scenario (frequently with a toy) being described as “high drive.” A dog doesn’t have to be highly aroused to learn; in fact, high arousal can often be inimical to good learning. How about we talk about their desire to learn instead?

Reactive

I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling like this is such a reductive term used to dismiss a dog’s experiences of the world around them by pathologizing their responses. The phrase “reactive” dog is a broad-brush substitute for looking at the learning of the dog and relating it to each scenario in which the dog feels the need to make their feelings known. I have no single suggested alternative for this (sensitive to the environment? Alert to novel events; it may differ from case to case); instead, let’s talk about this one with more nuance and understanding for the dog’s perspective.

Science-Based

What science? Whose science (how many of the most frequently cited scientists lived with dogs and lived with them in a way you’d endorse? How up-to-date is this science? How informed by interdisciplinary thinking from the Humanities to ask questions about ethics, empathy, interspecies relations and power? How immersed have you been in studying science and its principles? Are you acquainted with the scientific method? Pseudo-science is not science; watered-down scientific principles taken out of their original context are not science. And there is nothing – not even “science” – that should remain unquestioned and untested.

Positive Training

This term has become so overused that it’s essentiall meaningless. But even if it were not, by whose standards? In the name of “positive training,” I’ve seen dogs repeatedly exposed (albeit at a distance) to a stimulus that they fear while the human shoves food in their face; I’ve seen dogs “learning tricks” that incorporate poor, and occasionally dangerous movements (jumping, twisting, standing on their hind legs without the appropriate structure or foundational learning); I’ve seen “games” that confuse the dog about what an open hand containing food means; I’ve seen dogs left to try to “work out” what their human wants so that they can earn a piece of food. If positive merely means “trains with food instead of pain,” then that’s a very low bar.

For the above two terms, I have no suggested replacement. I don’t think there ís should be one as they do little more than act as a marker of group-belonging that serves to stifle creativity and avoid responsibility for reflection.  They don’t force us to ask the difficult questions like:

• Is this learning to the benefit of this dog?
• Does this honour who they are?
• Is this right for them, now, in this way?
• How do I help them thrive as a learner?
• How do I get both parties become skillful companions for each other.

It’s tempting to adopt the buzzwords, the marketing clichés, the soundbites that are so popular in the dog business. But we only need to reflect on why we got involved in this business in the first place to remember that it stemmed from a love of dogs, a respect for their learning, and a desire to see them and their humans thrive in partnership.

Time for a terminology update; let us know in the comments below what your contributions to (or excisions from) the Glossary of Dog would be.