To build trust with your dog, you must be trustworthy. What does that mean? It means you are consistent and therefore predictable. You are kind and understand that dogs have feelings and express them through behavior. You are aware of your own emotions and behaviors when interacting with your dog. Looking to build trust with your own dog? Want to show her you have her back? Follow these seven steps.
7 ways to build trust with your dog
- Learn your dog’s body language. Observation is key to learning how to read a dog’s body language and this helps you understand them better. Noticing an atypical or unfamiliar behavior in your dog is a sign that your dog is trying to tell you something. Are they in pain, feeling scared, worried about something in their immediate environment, confused by what you’re asking?
Instead of getting frustrated, ask yourself what’s going on. Why does she act this way? When you stop and ask questions, you’ll be better equipped to help your dog by managing the environment – going to the vet or stopping playing with another dog – they can cause behavior. this vi. This way, you show your dog that you’re always supportive of her.
It is necessary to learn a dog’s body language in order to correctly interpret their behavior. This protects the dog’s health and helps minimize the development of anxiety-related behavioral problems.
- Be consistent. Consistency gives dogs predictability, which helps foster trust. Habits are a way to be consistent. I don’t mean at the same time, in the same place. I mean training, feeding, playing and walking happens every day, but not necessarily at a precise time. When your dog can depend on you to care for them physically, mentally, and emotionally, it helps them feel safe.
Make sure your interactions with dogs are consistent in the way you approach them, talk to them, teach them, play with them, etc. Again, this gives them a sense of security and reassurance. They can trust you to be compassionate and kind in your interactions, so they don’t have to worry or be surprised when you can yell at them, forget to feed them, or put them in situations where they might be. make them worry.
- Raise your awareness. Have you ever asked your dog to do something and instead, he stopped and looked at you? Some people may think the dog is being challenging, but let’s look at this through a different lens.
You just had a good time playing with your dog, but then realized you were late for your appointment. You tell your dog “Come here” in a hurry, and he doesn’t. She just looks at you. Usually, your dog accompanies you. But this time, she froze.
If you’re angry because she doesn’t respond to your sudden behavior, you’ve broken her trust. Instead, if you’re aware of who she is (an irritable and hasty one), you’ll find that she’s confused by the abruptness in your tone at the end of the game.
Seeing a situation through the dog’s point of view will help you realize who you are. Take a minute to gather yourself:
- reduce your energy
- soften your voice
- relax your body language
This alone lets your dog know that all is well and that she will happily go with you. Don’t underestimate a dog’s innate ability to notice your every move.
- Use positive reinforcement. We’ve come a long way in understanding dogs and dog ethics. We know that their behavior is an expression of their emotions. With this understanding, we know that punishment is not the way to help them deal with their emotions. Science is there.
Punishment brings no relief. It just makes a dog shutdown. With punishment, she quickly learns that you can’t be trusted, because you didn’t help her feel safe. Instead, you punished her.
Provide safety, because you understand that she is expressing some kind of emotion, tell her that you are trying to understand that she is going through some anxiety and that you will support her. that.
- Focus on providing safety and security. Creating a safe environment inside and outside the home happens when you understand each dog is an individual, with its own feelings and needs, and you do your best to meet those needs.
I often see pet parents living with multiple dogs and including them in everything they do. They don’t realize that a dog may not feel safe walking with another dog, eating too close to other dogs, being left alone in the same room as all dogs, preferring to stay at home. rather than hanging out, etc. a dog’s individual needs go a long way to building trust.
- Patient. Dogs are not robots and not every dog wants or needs what you consider important. Whether you’re exercising, playing, or walking, be aware of your own level of patience or impatience.
You are your dog’s world and she looks forward to being with you, interacting with you, and learning together. If you had a agenda, you wouldn’t think about her – her wants and needs at the moment. This can easily deplete your escrow account.
Patience means allowing your dog to handle not only their environment but also what you are asking them to do. Do not rush. Give your dog a chance to participate or not, depending on their pace. Consent is very important in all aspects of being with dogs.
- Give your dog agency. The agency provides dogs with a sense of freedom of choice. Given that everything they do – go to the bathroom, eat, sleep, exercise, play, study, etc – happens on our terms, let’s allow them to choose/participate or not.
You can only know what your dogs want if you pay attention to what they say, allowing them to feel and process their emotions. This gives them the opportunity to develop healthy coping skills, because they feel safe in the moment. When a dog feels they have a way out or a way out of any situation, they feel more secure. Feeling more secure builds trust.
Understanding your beliefs and your dog
The foundation of our relationship with dogs begins with their trust that we will provide a safe and secure environment. Barking Brains Owner, Dr. Kathy Murphy, put it this way, “Essentially, a belief is a prediction. I trust you to have my back = I guess you will always have my support. Trust is essential for social species, otherwise we would waste a lot of brain energy preparing to deal with all the possible outcomes alone.” And she should know, Dr. Murphy is a neuroscientist who specializes in brain development related to behaviors and the success (or failure) of training methods in different life stages. .
We usually only think of trust when it comes to how to get a scared, abused, or hurt dog to trust you, but that’s just one obvious aspect of the concept of trust. trust. Trust is established when the dog feels safe as a dog, doing what dogs do, when they can communicate, feel understood and heard.
By knowing how to read a dog’s body language, we can tell when a dog is stressed, scared, quiet, or overly excited. Only then can we help them by providing safety and security, in this moment. We can do this by allowing them to process their emotions while accepting their behavior as an expression of their emotions and, subsequently, helping them feel more at ease.
Andrew Hale, UK certified dog behaviorist, has given so much to the canine community with his ongoing conversation about dog-centered care, a method that sheds light on the emotions of dogs and how we can help them. . He said that trust cannot be bought, coerced or artificially created. It is an organic process that builds up and happens quickly when a person feels safe.
Building trust in our dogs is no easy task. It is our responsibility to take it seriously. When we assert that dogs are our best friends, we must allow them to be vulnerable, thereby feeling safe around us, thereby laying a solid foundation of trust. Nothing compares to the deeply shared glances we experience with our dogs as we give them the safety and security to “be a dog”.
