This desire for control undermines the dog’s natural need for scent dogs depend on their sense of smell to communicate and assess their surroundings. This might lead them to, for example, discourage pausing and sniffing on walks to try to keep the dog matching their pace. Its influence is such that even people who would never physically punish their pets may still assume that the most important quality in a dog is obedience. The dominance-focused model is rife with physical punishment, deprivation, and, perhaps most bizarre, the idea that humans must eat dinner first. (It has since been proved that wolf packs are not led by an “alpha” and instead comprise a set of adults, called “parents,” and their children.) In his study, Schenkel placed unrelated wolves in a small enclosure they fought, and he erroneously interpreted this fighting as a battle for dominance. In dog training, this “do it or else” model has its roots in the concept of the “alpha wolf,” a long-debunked theory that originated in the 1940s with the Swiss researcher Rudolph Schenkel. Read: What kind of villain doesn’t clean up after their dog? This march sees society “moving away from the ‘do it or else’ model that is the legacy of most of us,” she told me, “to ‘How can we have a dialogue about what you do, and can I provide reasons for you doing it that matter to you?’” The idea is now gaining traction, a fact that Susan Friedman, a psychology professor emeritus at Utah State University, attributes to a “long-standing march towards more humane and effective interaction” between parents and children, and between animals and their caregivers. This way, change can come from a place of mutual understanding and comfort, rather than from a place of fear. It requires working in partnership with a dog’s nature, rather than trying to get it to suppress that nature to more easily conform to a human world. Recent science shows that the best way to change a dog’s behavior is not through aversive techniques, such as prong collars or scolding, but through positive reinforcement and curiosity about the root of behaviors. Read: The comic strip that explains the evolution of American parentingĪnd although children are obviously very different from dogs, a parallel shift in approach has been happening in humans’ relationships with their canine kids. Tenets of gentle parenting, including a focus on empathy in parent-child interactions, and avoiding punishment in favor of helping the child understand the reasons behind their actions and emotions, have been linked to positive outcomes for kids. The language might sound familiar to those acquainted with the concept of “gentle parenting,” a philosophy that’s become popular in recent years. “This is an important finding,” Udell said, “because it suggests that dog owners who take the time to understand and meet their dog’s needs are more likely to end up with secure, resilient dogs.” These results mirrored those in similar studies done on human children. They bested those with “authoritarian” owners (high expectations but low responsiveness) and “permissive” owners (low expectations, low responsiveness). The dogs who were cared for by owners with an “authoritative” style, meaning one where high expectations matched a high responsiveness toward their dog’s needs, were secure, highly social, and more successful at problem solving. I should probably mention that the children involved were dogs. The adult subjects were given a survey about their expectations for their children, and how they typically respond to their needs the children were tested to determine their attachment style, sociability, and problem-solving skills. In 2022, the researchers Lauren Brubaker and Monique Udell recruited 48 parents and their children for a study on the behavioral effects of different parenting styles.
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