"I Really Don't Want To Do This"

"I Really
Don't Want to
Do This!"

Recognizing and Correcting Escape and Avoidance Responses

Retriever Journal July/August 1999

written by Butch Goodwin

of                     

Northern Flight Retrievers 

sk any professional trainer, and he will tell you that it is often easier training and dealing with the dogs than with their owners. You see, dogs put everything on the table; they tell you everything, and they tell it to you honestly. The task is to try to recognize what they are trying to tell you and how they are trying to communicate it. And I'll be the first to admit that this can be one of the real challenges of dog training.

     One of the most often seen and obvious communications that a dog transmits to the trainer are “escape” or “avoidance” responses to training commands or to pressure. I'm not talking about an obvious escape such as bolting; correcting such a major problem is best left for an entire article at another time. What I am talking about is a dog's often subtle body language and facial expressions that he communicates to you in his daily training. These are the signals that say, "I really don't want to be here; I really don't want to do this."

    A dog is not much different than humans in response to pressure. When given a command, especially one that he doesn't want to do or isn't his idea, he will often try to avoid it. In some cases, a dog, just like a human, will go to almost any length to avoid complying with the command. Although few training books ever mention dealing with these behavior characteristics, and most trainers almost never truly recognize what they are dealing with, all dogs show a full repertoire of these body language avoidance responses. They are most obviously seen when the trainer starts either the dog's formal obedience or force-fetch; but when you learn to keep your eyes open and discover what to look for, they can be recognized at almost all ages and levels of training.

   Experienced trainers unconsciously correct these avoidance reactions when they see them in their daily training. However, many fail to even recognize these as being responses purposefully directed at avoiding compliance with a command, and thus they often go uncorrected. It is the rare trainer who ever realizes what message the dog, by his body actions, is subtly trying to communicate to him.

Avoidance of eye contact

   I said before that a dog tells you every-thing. His eyes and his head reactions convey much of what he feels. And what he doesn't communicate with his eyes and head, he communicates with his body. It is essential that before giving a command to a dog in training that you establish eye contact. More often than not, when a trainer starts a dog's formal obedience or a force-fetch program, the dog tries to avoid eye contact. This avoidance of eye contact is not a submissive sign but a sign of avoidance, indifference, or escape from the commands. Watch for this in the dog you are training, and try not to touch the dog with your hands while correcting avoidance behaviors. Dogs know that if they can get you to touch them, they are well on the road to training you to comply with them!

   Use a rope or lead to make corrections whenever possible. If you tell him, "Sit," step away and tug on the rope to reinforce the command, or if you put him on the force-fetch table and attach a string to his foot, and he seems to ignore you or wants to appear indifferent by looking away and obviously avoiding eye contact, then it is time to back up and correct the problem before it goes any further. I won't even put a dog on the table for proceeding with force-fetch until he will watch my every movement while sitting in front of me. I do this by walking around the sitting dog, tugging on the rope, and commanding him to "look," "watch," or "pay attention."

    Each time he takes his eyes off of me, I give the rope a good snap in order to re-establish eye contact. I want him to understand that he has to watch my every movement and that looking away to avoid pressure or avoid complying with a command is unacceptable.

    I also will not allow the dog to appear to be making eye contact, but actually giving me that blank "look through me" stare. He might as well be looking away - he is still avoiding eye contact! Once eye contact is established, when I move on to the table to proceed with force-fetch, all that is necessary is to tell him to "look," find I can expect to get his undivided attention.

Yawning and Stretching

   Does the dog that you are training seem tired much of the time when you are working on his obedience exercises? Does he seem to yawn or stretch a lot? He doesn't need doggy Geritol; he's avoiding your training exercises. These are both quite obvious forms of avoidance responses similar to avoiding eye contact. Just last week, a friend asked me to attend her dog's graduation from obedience training school. After 10 weeks of the one evening per week school and working at home with their handlers, the 35 or so dogs in the class were highly disciplined. But from my position standing back watching the group, it was quite noticeable that a few of the dogs really were just awaiting the end of the formal training sessions to revert back to their same old ways again. The handlers of those dogs had established physical control, but had never established the mental control necessary to have the obedience be solid in the dog's mind throughout the rest of his life.

   I saw dogs looking away and yawning when given a command. Several would stretch in indifference when released from a command. A few avoided eye contact with their handlers throughout the entire evening. These particular dogs were going through the motions of what they had been taught, but they were trying to avoid really being under the control of the handler. The handlers had never really "broken' through" to those dogs. In effect, those few dogs didn't want to be there and couldn't wait until it was over.

     In a related story, another friend had been starting obedience with her young retriever and asked me to watch the "funny thing" that her dog had learned. It seems that her dog had "learned" to yawn every time she gave a command or tugged on the lead. She found it quite amusing that, without even trying, she had taught her dog to look away and yawn on command! That was, until I pointed out to her that her dog was really blowing her off and avoiding an immediate response to her commands. After making the necessary correction, her dog isn't nearly as amusing to watch, but is under much better control.

    Problems such as this can be remedied by not allowing the dog to avoid eye contact and making him pay attention to the handler at all times. If he looks away and yawns, it is time to establish the "look at me" or "pay attention" command as you snap the rope. If he insists on stretching, it is time to make him "snap-to-attention" and execute another obedience command and force him to comply. This is just sloppiness, and the dog is trying to avoid turning his will over to the handler.

Sloppy Sitting

  Sitting crooked or off to one side may simply seem like a "puppy thing.” But once a youngster is taught to "sit" straight, if it continues it becomes an attempt at avoidance, indifference, and inattention to the training. The dog is saying, to you, "I will sit as you commanded, but I'll do it on my own terms." He is making an attempt to train you, rather than totally accepting the obedience exercises on your terms.

     If you have a dog that exhibits this reaction, pull forward on the rope to straighten up his "sit" position, and verbally growl at him, "Sit straight." You might even give him a gentle boot in the offside thigh or step on his foot to get him to straighten up. You can bet that after several sessions of this, when you tell him to "sit straight," he'll straighten up and will also pay far better attention to what is expected of him.

     Since we are on the subject of a dog's response to the "sit" command, I occasionally see dogs that try to dominate the trainer by putting their front foot on his foot when told to "sit." Unimportant or cute, you think? No it's another example of a reaction similar to the sloppy "sit" described above: I’ll do it, but I'll do it the way that I want!" Correct a dog that insists on putting his foot on yours, and stop it before it degenerates into a more blatant avoidance behavior.

Head-Shaking

    I have a dog in my kennel for training right now that insists on shaking, his head before or after complying with commands. If I didn't know better, he would want me to think that he just came out of the water or had ear problems. I have had him checked and discovered that his only problems are between his ears! He isn't shaking off water, he's shaking off the command. Now I give the command, and if he insists on shaking his head, I immediately apply sufficient pressure with the rope to force him to do as told.

Affection Avoidance

    I'll bet that most trainers, especially those who train their own dogs, never recognize that their dog has a couple of quite obvious affection escape responses. Often due to nature of the dog/owner relationship, it is common for these to go totally unnoticed and to eventually develop into much worse problems.

   It is not uncommon to have a dog try to avoid a command or pressure by leaning on the trainer's leg or - more subtle yet - staring up at the trainer with that sad eyed, "Don't you think I'm cute?" look. Most dog owners might perceive this to be, “He loves me so much that he wants to be touching, me or gazing at me all of the time," when, in fact, the dog is making, an attempt to avoid, or is insecure about, the training exercise.

    The dog needs to be taught that leaning on the trainer's leg will result in a good bump from the trainer. A good method for keeping a dog from leaning is to make lots of left turns when doing heeling exercises (assuming that the dog is on the left, and bump the dog quite hard on the turns with your knee.

    As for looking up at the trainer, this problem will only be aggravated by further reinforcing the "look at me" command. Before it gets out of hand, this dog needs to be taught to focus his attention straight ahead and not on the handler. The last thing the trainer wants to do with such a dog is to maintain excessive eye contact. I was happy to see that this problem of gazing up at the trainer was thoroughly covered by Mike Lardy in the January/February 1999 issue of The Retriever Journal.

Fighting the Lead

    Perhaps the most obvious volume of avoidance reactions come from the dog who insists on putting on a "rodeo” by fighting the lead when initially made to walk on a leash at the "heel" position. Every experienced trainer has, at one time or another, encountered such a rodeo. Dogs bite at the lead or at the snap, foam at the mouth, lie on their backs and wrap their front feet around the rope, jump at the trainer (especially jumping on the trainer's back), scream as if being skinned alive, or just stand as rigid as a sawhorse.

   You name the reaction, and some dog has tried it in an attempt to avoid learning to wall, at "heel." And, occasionally when demanding compliance to these obedience drills, it can be difficult to distinguish between a dog that is merely trying to avoid the exercise and one that is truly aggressive. Personally, if I were going to have to encounter such reactions, I would rather that the dog lay all of his cards on the table up front. That way I can work on eliminating each of these as he shows them, rather than having, him hold bad, creating an ongoing, day-after-day battle. Professional trainers see this kind of behavior, and these are the dogs that force them to earn every penny that they charge.

  Actually, all of this can be avoided by having a young pup drag a rope with a knot in the end when he is taken on his daily walks. This allows him to take his frustrations out on everything that the rope gets tangled around, rather than on the trainer. And if there is nothing to get tangled around, wait until the pup comes blasting past and unexpectedly step on the rope. This dumps the pup head over heels. Then, without a word, casually walk on, as if nothing ever happened, after several weeks of this, when you pick up the rope to begin formal heeling instruction, the youngster is more than willing, to walk along without reluctance or creating a ruckus.

n entire book could be written listing all of the avoidance reactions that dogs exhibit and how to deal with them - and then I’m sure that still a few more would crop up! We don't have room to deal with all of them here, but a few other common examples that dogs exhibit when under pressure are lying down or curling up in a ball, dropping his head and looking at the ground, putting his nose on the ground or sniffing the ground, moving along at "heel" with his belly on the ground, licking (especially trying to lick the trainer's hands), ducking behind the trainer in an attempt to become invisible, spinning in circles, nipping at the trainer's fingers, squealing at the mere hint of pressure during obedience or force-fetch, and trying to intimidate the trainer by coming straight at his face or going, for his arm or hand rather than the bumper during force-fetch.

   Learning to recognize and systematically eliminate escape and avoidance behaviors, like putting a dog through a force-fetch program, can avoid a multitude of inevitable problems. But, you will have to learn to watch for and eliminate each of these responses individually as he shows them to you. These reactions are a facade that the dog shows to the trainer, and since each dog has a different temperament, so does each dog relate escape and avoidance responses in a different manner.

   Some dogs are far worse than others, but recognizing and correcting these behaviors will help to move toward the end result of a dog that will respond to your commands precisely and without hesitation throughout his future training.

The end.

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