Unleash your dog, Unleash yourself
Trust
“The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.”
- Ernest Hemingway
On a cold winter morning six years ago, Jura and I stepped out the door to go for a run. The route was simple enough, but it was dark and there weren’t streetlights. Without Jura I would stumble over branches, or worse, drown in the canal. The fact that you’re reading this means that this didn’t happen. The solution was as simple as the route: relinquish control and trust Jura to guide me.
You cannot control everything that matters, and not everything you can control matters. Take for example the smartphone. I see people walking with their dogs and meanwhile they constantly check if they have messages, likes, emails. As if keeping tabs on everything, everywhere, all the time, puts you in control. Gustavo Rozetti writes in an article on the Liberationist:
“Wanting to control is the same as wanting to be controlled. We become depended on what we want to dominate — we end up being wrapped around its finger. ”
Keeping a dog on a short leash, literally and figuratively, is very similar. You exercise constant control over your dog, yet, you’re also controlled by it. Freedom is severely restricted on both sides of the leash. If possible, I unleash my dogs and simply trust them. I see people ‘barking’ at their dogs, pulling and yanking on the leash all the time. To me, someone who wants to dominate and control his dog is not tough, but a coward. You show much more courage by trusting your dog and let go of the need to control.
What we can learn from the mistakes that judges make.
In his book “Atomic Habits”, James Clear highlights the well-known research about the decisions of judges in Israel. The researchers looked at: “Extraneous factors in judicial decisions”.
Now, you can expect judges to be influenced by factors such as the type of crime that has been committed or the specific laws that have been broken. However, the biggest factor on the court’s decision turned out to be: the time of day.
No matter what the crime was, murder, rape, theft or embezzlement, a criminal was much more likely to hear a favorable decision if their conditional hearing was scheduled in the morning (or immediately after the break) than if it was scheduled at the end of a long session. In short, more decisions make a judge fatigued, and chances are he chooses to restrict freedom because of it. I think we're also more controlling when we feel tired or stressed out and more often than we probably like to admit, our dogs pay the price.
Dogs are our prisoners, but that’s okay
Am I the judge and my dogs my prisoners? Researcher Marc Bekoff states in an article on Psychology Today that this is indeed the case.
“Captive means you lack the ability to choose what you do, who you see, who and what you smell, and what and when you eat. It means, at times, being forced to do certain tasks others ask of you ”
I already decide so much for my dogs. What they eat, when they eat, when they go for a hike, and the list goes on. Being a control freak would tire me during the day, and chances are that like the judges, I will give my dogs far less freedom. Think for example, a shorter hike, a leashed hike or less playtime only because I don’t have energy enough to be prepared for every imaginable situation, like a control freak would do. So as a good human to my dog, like a good judge to his prisoner, I should be well rested and not have a case of decision-fatigue.
Why dogs need more freedom
In Unleash Your Dog, Bekoff describes his experience in a dog park where he looked at 300 situations where a person communicates with his or her dog. In 83% of the cases it was a command to stop something. Of the 17% that was not negative, only 6% (that is 1% of the total!) was a compliment. We may not see ourselves as a judge, but apparently many of us do behave like that tired judge mentioned above.
Since we are talking about judges, we ought to talk about rights. In the same book, Bekoff lists the rights of animals. In addition to the five legally established rights such as the right to be free from hunger and thirst, he mentions five other rights. One of these is the right to make choices and to exercise control over their life. I think the whole book can be summarized with this one advice:
“Give dogs the freedom to make choices and exercise some control over their lives by participating in activities that they enjoy.”
Making mistakes
Giving your dog freedom of choice and control over the activities of the day is not weak or poor leadership. The opposite is true, because it requires courage to let go. First of all, I need to trust my dog. He (or she) must be given the opportunity to resolve difficult situations himself and I must keep appropriate distance. Secondly, I need to trust my own abilities. I do not have a leash in my hands that I can yank (I do not like that anyway).
In the unlikely event that a difficult situation arises, it comes down to my ability to make good decisions. Sometimes that requires a lot of creativity and in some cases some physical discomfort. Over the years I have gone through ditches, I gut stuck really bad in blackberry bushes, I have planted my face in the mud and once I got bitten in my hand. Let’s be honest, most adventures start with a bad judgement.
“We don’t make mistakes only happy little accidents” — Bob Ross
Being a teamplayer
It’s been six years or so since that run with Jura. Now I am standing in a forest and it’s pitch-black. I can’t see anything, Jura leads me around the deep puddles and along the paths that I can not see. She smells a fox. I recognize her reaction instantly, a reverse sneeze and she will get very angry. But since she has a job to do she only barks angry into the dark night to let the fox know she means business.
Over the years, Jura has become an absolute master in leading me through the dark. She knows where I can and where I can not walk (which supposes she learned to think/see things from my perspective!) When it finally gets lighter, I unleash her. We cross a field to the next forest and Jura is waiting for me at the T-junction. When she waits for me like this, I realize that this little action means more than all the commands she follows and all the tricks knows. I want to turn right, the shortest route to home, but Jura let’s me know she wants to turn left, the long route. And I’m fine with it.
“What really matters is helping others win, too, even if it means slowing down and changing our course now and then.”
- Fred Rogers / Mr Rogers
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