when-it-rains-it-snows:

why-animals-do-the-thing:

themotherfuckingclickerkid:

OKAY here is one of the videos that has honestly made the biggest impact on my training approach and every interaction I make with animals.

It’s a really simple video. Eileen (from Eileen and Dogs, which you should all be reading) points out that while we love petting dogs, dogs often don’t want to be petted, either at all, or in the particular ways we pet them. One great example is the way people (and children, which is so fucking dangerous) are so eager to grab onto a dog’s face and head. This can be extremely uncomfortable for a dog. Better places to try petting a dog (particularly a new one) are on the chest and shoulders, neck and ears if the dog is really feeling the attention (and I have never met a dog that did not appreciate a good butt scratch).

But beyond just being respectful of what dogs do and don’t like, Eileen demonstrates a simple consent test.

To test whether your dog is enjoying being petted, simply stop petting, and see if they try to restart it.

(Jackson Galaxy also gives great input on how to properly touch cats in this video. One way that he gives a ‘consent test’ is by performing the ‘fingernose’ – he holds his finger out to the cat, who comes in to sniff it [like cats naturally sniff noses], and then can choose to rub their face on the finger and actually direct it to where they want to be petted. ‘Let the cat pet you’)

Eileen gives two very clear examples in this video. With the first dog, while they aren’t exhibiting extreme stress, they show small signs of discomfort (looking away, full body turning, lip licking), and they don’t try to restart the chest scratching. They aren’t unhappy, but they don’t want to be petted.

The second example is a dog that actively shoves their face/chin into the petting hand. This is a dog that not only wants physical attention, but knows how to ask for it.

Teaching my animals how to ask for the kind of attention they want, and teaching them how to direct my hands (instead of teaching them to just allow touch), has done amazing stuff for both of us. I’ve been working on waiting for my cat to solicit the attention he wants, and otherwise keeping my hands away from him, and there has been a huge uptick in him seeking my attention and trusting me in his space – because he is learning that I won’t bother him, and that he can receive exactly what kind of physical affection he wants.

This has also led to a minor breakthrough with Zeke. You all know him as the horse that hates being touched, and he still does. But lately I have been taking some time just to stand with him through the fence, putting my hand out, and allowing him to pet himself with it. Instead of explicitly teaching him to hold still while I touch his face, I let him guide my hands to stroke his eyelids and around his ears, where I would have had a difficult time touching him if I had wanted to. When given the choice, Zeke not only consented to touch, but encouraged and directed it.

So to dial it down, here are some of the benefits of this approach to petting:

• You improve at reading your animal’s body language
• They can direct you to particular itchy spots, or direct you away from uncomfortable spots, potentially tipping you off about budding discomfort and health problems
• Your animal feels more secure about being around you
• Reduces the likelihood that an animal will bite
• The animal learns better how to communicate directly with you about their care and handling, instead of being a passive recipient of it

And no this doesn’t mean that every time you’re around a cat or a dog or a horse that you have to get ‘consent’ in the human sense of the word, because animals don’t have a concept of consent, but it DOES mean that if you learn to read and respond to the way they respond to your touch, you will both benefit.

This is an absolutely amazing and accessible video. While there’s no transcript, it is captioned the entire way through. 

We get so many questions about ‘how do I tell if my dog likes it when I do x’ and this is a beautiful visual example of the concept of consent testing. Try it with your own dog! 

For nearly all domesticated animals, they’re required to consent to touch they don’t want – a collar, a bath, a trip to the vet, who then does things that actually hurt – and so on. That’s just how life is for them. With repetition and reinforcement they can learn to associate a collar with a leash and a fun trip, and while many of them never learn to love a bath, some of them are capable of learning that it’s over faster if they’re compliant, some even *seem* happy afterwards in a way that has made me think, “He must feel better, the point of the bath was to relieve itching.”

So my point is, if you have spent time figuring out what your pet responds best to, then after “mandatory touching” you can give them a reward they will appreciate. The first dog in the video, it looks like that reward is spray cheese and being left alone. Note that her person does Not sit down, therefore the dog doesn’t anticipate training. She gets a treat, and *half of her reward is that she gets to continue to relax.* This is important!

This one (give the animal maybe a treat but definitely SPACE) tends to apply broadly to cats, and also (as above) many horses. Horses are highly sensitive to space, and they actually don’t have to be trained to understand that when you back off / quit asking them to do whatever, it’s positive. This is horse language and they grasp it easily if the human applies it consistently.

Horses do have to learn to appreciate petting – and honestly, most of them just plain don’t – but if you happen to want to see how a horse responds to petting in horse language, stand at the shoulder, face the tail, and then scratch the top of the shoulder, up to the base of the mane. This is how horses show affection to other horses, by standing in a nose to shoulder pair, both of them nibbling / scratching with their teeth at the shoulder of the other horse. Very often they’re highly baffled when a human does this, some of them don’t do much, but some of them respond very positively. They may nibble at the back of your shirt or pants, which means they’re petting you in return.

But anyway, my tl;dr – giving the animal space IS a reward, if they don’t want to be touched. With time and trust, they may learn to ask for petting, but until then, don’t feel as if you’re being cold by walking away and leaving them alone.