Whispers, Screams, & Singing

Do dogs whisper, scream, & sing?

And if so, what does that look like?

Most dog owners would say that their dog has different barks or levels of bark to mean different things. They may use in "inside voice" or whisper on cue to get a treat, their alarm bark for an intruder that can be heard miles away, and sometimes a singing voice that often comes out when they are playing with good friends. Just like the audible voice dogs have, their behavior also reveals body signals that can be divided into these 3 categories. The emotions a dog is feeling in any given moment plus the level of arousal the dog is experiencing work together to create the behaviors we see. Humans then can observe these behaviors to take an educated guess at what our dogs might be feeling.

Screams

The loudest, most energetic, obnoxious, extreme behaviors are signs that our dog is extremely aroused and over-threshold or rapidly going off the deep end. This might be that audible alarm bark, lunging at a perceived threat, running away, or any one of the behaviors that we recognize as fight, flight, freeze, fawn, or fool around behaviors. New dog owners might struggle to recognize this body language, but most seasoned dog owners recognize when their dog is over-the-top reacting to a change in the environment.

Whispers

These are more like the subtle body language cues we can observe in our dog that suggest something has gotten their attention and their arousal level is starting to increase. Unlike screams, the whispers are very easy to miss! Whispers vary greatly from individual to individual, sometimes impacting the common places we watch for body language (eyes, ears, mouth, tail, etc) but creating such a minor change that it's easily missed. Often dog trainers will refer to these smaller actions as micro signals, meaning small or almost barely noticeable actions.

Azul's nose is his first thing to change when he notices a change in the environment. His biggest distractions are other dogs, deer, farm animals, and burrowing animals. When Azul smells things of interest, his nostrils flare a bit faster which is really hard to see since his nose is generally facing away from me or buried in the ground. Often the first thing I see is his nose point up towards the sky or down to the ground followed by the rest of the body freezing in place. How long that freeze position lasts will depend on how high Azul's arousal level is in that moment; the more excited he is the longer he freezes. Azul generally carries his tail high, often curled to the point of touching his back. However as his arousal starts to climb, his tail goes straight out like a pointer. If his tail drops below his back level, then whatever he is smelling is a bit scary going even lower for extreme scares. If Azul's tail points out then curls back up quickly, it's likely he's spotted something that he wants to chase. 

Sometimes whispers or micro-signals happen so fast that owners miss them entirely not recognizing a pattern for their dog. This is especially true for owners who ask their dogs to stay in heel most of the walk. If your dog is walking by our sides, yet our gaze tends to be out in front of us along the path, we simply can't see many of those signs. This is one the great advantages of getting comfortable with walking using a longline of 10-15ft as this places your dog out in front or off to the side far enough for you to easily watch their whole body as you walk.

Singing

You may have guessed that this is when you and your dog have spent countless hours walking, training, engaging with each other and now you seem to have hit your stride where you are just in tune with each other. This would be my comparison to an opera singer or someone with great talent. But there are also dog/owner moments where perhaps you're both singing the same song, but perhaps in different rhythms or at different volumes. This would be the case if you've been able to get to a routine walk that both you and your dog enjoy together, but perhaps there is still a hiccup or an unpredicted tempo change every now and them.

I've always considered this to be like dancing with your dog with some give & take, changing out who is leading for a nice back and forth silent conversation as go through your daily activities. Another trainer refers to this as tracking, or paying attention to movements and motions of another being. It doesn't really matter what you call this form of communication between you and your dog, but it should be every dog owner's goal; to spend more time in a singing or dancing mood state and as little time in the screaming state as possible. Recognizing the whispers helps us to sing in better harmony.

My job as a Canine Coach is to help you reach a point where you and your dog can meet each other's needs, communicate clearly, and enjoy moments in time together. I love helping dog owners turn the screams into whispers. And if we can spend enough time together, I love seeing you hit that magic point where you and your dog are singing together!

If you're not thrilled with your dog's behaviors, let me help you! 

1. The blogs in this website are easily searchable from a web browser, which leads to a whole bunch of free information.
2. Several specialty FB Groups are available to help you depending on what you need. You can always message me to see what group(s) might be best for you.
3. Virtual classes & workshops can help with learning to understand your dog, communicate better as a team, build confidence, increase focus around distractions and work on advanced training.
4. Monthly memberships are one of the cheapest ways to get help with your specific issue, mixing webinars, workshops, printed text, video demonstrations, and live group sessions.
5. Private session packages are a great way to save a bit a money when we need to build up skills as your puppy grows up or to work on a challenging behavior. I have several package formats available right now including in-person and virtual sessions, 1 hr sessions, 2 hr sessions, & 4 hour sessions.

Be sure to check out the Black Friday Sales that run through Nov 28th! 

Most of these allow you to mix & match a few services to get the most bang for your buck!

And be sure to check out the Yooper Paws Patreon Page where you can select memberships, including a free option that is going to have a Creating a Calm Christmas Collection available beginning Dec 1st!

Noticing Needs November

We all have needs! But do we know what WE need or what Our DOGS need?

All animals, including humans, have some basic needs; food, water, shelter, or other needs to survive physically. These basic needs get met or animals die, plain & simple. I'd like to focus on the needs that help us thrive or excel in life instead of merely surviving. These needs become more complicated because they are very individualized from animal to animal. We all need exercise, but the level of exercise I need is going to be different than a younger, healthier human. 

We all need places and connections with other animals where we feel safe. In a perfect world we can hope we would all feel safe at home, work, school or any place we need to be regularly. Yet we all know the world is not perfect and many humans and other animals lack the ability to feel safe in the environment they are in. Absolute safety simply isn't possible in a world where hazards are everywhere. That is where connection with other animals fits in. Hopefully we all have made at least a few connections with other people or animals that help us feel safe. I try really hard to make the Yooper Paws Training Center be a place of safety for everyone while they are there and this branches out to all the social media groups we run as well.

Getting back to the needs...some of us humans find other humans safe, while some of us might feel more safe with our dogs. Some might need lots of safe connections, while others might prefer a just a few safe connections. The need very quickly becomes individualized.

There are many other needs that animals have including a need to learn or better ourselves, whether that's increasing our health, feeling of safety, confidence of survival, etc.

Expressing needs

Switching gears a bit let's look at how we express our needs. Pretty much everyone here recognizes the basic behaviors that happen when we or other animals feel fear; fight, flight, fear, etc. We also probably recognize when another animal is feeling joy or happiness. It can be easier to recognize the needs of other humans because we have words to communicate most needs. But dogs don't have words, they only have behaviors. 

If you haven't noticed yet, all needs stem from a physical survival need or an emotional thriving need. The extreme emotional reactions are easily noticed, but also very hard to change, for both humans & dogs. We often recognize a base line in the middle where the animal spends most of their time, physically and emotionally. Yet we often fail to notice the behavior that happens as our dogs start to have elevated stress hormones caused by stronger emotional reactions.

If you want more to know more on Emotional States, check out this previous blog: Emotional States of Dogs and watch for the next blog that's going to be highlighting micro signals and how we can notice emotional changes in our dogs before they become extreme enough to encounter outbursts.

Understanding Canine Choice Workshop

 The concept of teaching our dogs to make choices or even encouraging our dogs make choices is uncommon for many dog owners. 

Like many of my clients, my experience with dogs was with the philosophy that you had to teach the dog who was in control. With this strong human history of punishing dogs into submission, it's understandable while we are not quite used to letting or dogs make choices much less encouraging our dogs to make choices. Unfortunately it is the human dominance model that as prevented many dogs from learning how to cope with environmental changes to learning how to make choices that may or may not impact their life. Most of the fearful, aggressive, and overly excitable dogs struggle with confidence which includes the ability to make choices.

Image from the Confident Canines Class

If you missed it be sure to check out my recent blog on Choices, Agency, and Boundaries! But here I shared the definition of Choice as the freedom to do different behaviors in the environment.

One of the common debates about Canine Choice is the arguments that if we give dogs choices, they will do things that are unsafe! My big mission is to help people create a foundation of rules that help them decide what choices the dog can/should make and when might a human have to step in with directions. 

Some people believe that once you give a dog options and choices, they will become the boss and rule the house. I don't know about you, but I've never seen a dog actually run for president or been elected the ruler of any country let along a household. Now you might think Azul rules our house, and often his needs dictate what I do and when but that's my choice to do the best I can to give him what he wants, when he wants it. But the choices I give him are still defined by my boundaries that I've set for my dogs. There is another webinar available in this series that was recorded a few months ago about Setting Boundaries.  If you missed it, it's now in my list of paid webinars and can be viewed for a one time fee of $20. Email me if you'd like to review this workshop at yooperpaws@gmail.com.

In the Confidence Canines Class we discuss the Confidence of One's Self or the Ability to Make Choices Successfully. In this class we look at how building in simple choices with games like the Pick One Game that is easy for our dog to make the "right" choice. The right choice being one that earns them a yummy food treat. One of the other key concepts taught in this class is to avoid offering choices that have an unacceptable solution. Don't ask your dog to choose between kibble and cheeseburger if the choice of taking the cheeseburger is unacceptable and you're not really going to let them have it.

The choices each dog owner is comfortable giving their dog ties really close to the boundaries or rules for their household which makes this topic very much an individualized process. This makes it a complicated topic and why we decided to host this as one of Challenging Behaviors Series Lunch & Learn Webinars. 

Understanding Canine Choice & Agency Workshop

November 16th at 12PM Central Time

Register here to get the Zoom link delivered to your email box before the workshop and/or to get the replay link sent to you as soon as it becomes available. (Within 48 hrs of the workshop)

It's not the exact choices that we give our dogs that impact their behavior. Agency, or the perception of how much freedom you have to make choices, is the key to choices effecting confidence and thus impact behavior. In this webinar we will be taking a look at the whole dog including! 

• How the dog's choices change the environment or the distractions in the environment.
• How the dog's choices impact their feeling of agency or perception of control over the environment.
• How the dog's choices impact their confidence to try to new things and their resiliency or ability to recover from triggers or other perceived threats in the environment.
• How the dog's choices can impact their health physically as much as emotionally.
• How the dog's choices can lead to the dog choosing to do the behaviors we love vs the behaviors that drive us crazy!

If you want to learn more, be sure to register for this webinar live or for the replay. As always, it will be available for 30 days for FREE, then it will be going into the vault not to be released again until the Challenging Behaviors Series is released. 

Here is a sneak peak for those who have read this far! The Challenging Behaviors Series Announcement will be coming on Black Friday with a special Holiday Weekend price for a very short period of time!