Hi, everyone. This is Bastian from TheK9Way and the topic of today’s video is your dog knows exactly what’s going on for you. Mostly people honestly believe that dogs understand what we say. That’s one of the reasons why we keep on telling them what to do, why we’re telling them off, why we keep on explaining. We’re having arguments with them. We repeat one thing 20 times. That’s all not really helpful. And most of the time, what it is to the dog is just blah blah blah. Obviously you can teach tricks / commands to a dog. And some dogs, very intelligent dogs , I read at least, that you can teach them up to a thousand words, a couple thousand words, which is quite amazing. But it’s an association you form. You form an association between an action and a sound and that’s what they learn to understand and what they learn to connect. It’s not that they understand the words.
What they understand, which is way more important in a way and it’s also way more subtle and clearer, is where we’re at emotionally. What’s happening for us. What’s going on inside. What are we putting out energetically. That’s what they pick up really well. And they often know it better than we do. And they have to because in nature, that’s kind of a really crucial element, to be aware of to pick up what’s happening in the environment.
Maybe one story which highlights that a bit is what a client told me a few years ago, she was in the park. She was going through a difficult time in her life. She was going through a break up and was emotionally quite raw while being in the park, she received a text. And that text really triggered her and, yeah, made her really distraught. And she wanted to go back home and wanted to put the dog back onto the lead. And what happened in that moment is that the dog went for her. He growled at her, he snarled at her, and had a nip at her. And told her off, big time. I mean it’s a strong response but objectively, if you look at the situation objectively from the dog’s point of view, it’s absolutely understandable because from the dog’s perspective she was in no form or shape to make decision or to be trusted making a good decision. So the dog just decided to take things in its own hands or paws. And take control of the situation based on what it perceived what was going on for the lady.
Another situation, which probably everyone can relate to is when we are sick or we’re injured. Not all dogs respond to that but many do. A lot of them become more affectionate. They hang around more. They look after us. They spend more time with us, etc. etc. On the other end, on the other end of the scale, a lot of dogs can become quite disrespectful like that dog in the park. Or they just don’t want to be around us and move away. They listen less, etc. etc. Whatever the response of the dog is, they just perceive what is going on for us and deal with it as they see fit and give a response as they see fit.
It is important to be aware of these things because it has a big impact on your dog’s response and your dog’s behavior. And we’re putting these things out all the time and we’re obviously worried, anxious, happy, excited, etc. etc. And there will be most likely a response from your dog towards what’s going on for you. And often, for example, when we try to tell the dog off and we get loud in our voice, that’s when we get angry or frustrated. And the dog might go, oh yeah, okay. It’s not that they understand what we say, it’s just the energy behind it they pick.
So it’s really important that how we behave, what we do, what we say, and what we feel is in line or is aligned so that the communication to the dog is congruent. Because if we do one thing but feel another, like let’s say you want to move the dog out of the room and give it a boundary for whatever reason, you do that physically but inwardly you feel sorry for the dog, that’s really confusing. That doesn’t make any sense to the dog because it’s two different things. Outwardly, you move it away. Inwardly, kind of you call it back in. That’s everything but clear. I just wanted to highlight that really and because dogs just pick up on it. So it’s important to become aware of our emotions and our energy and that they are aligned with what we’re doing. Then the communication can be clear to the dog and then it’s way easier for the dog to buy that, trust it, go along with it.
I hope you got something out of this short little video. Talk to you soon. Thanks a lot. Bye
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