Lessons from Feral Dogs
Feral and free-roaming dogs have heightened my appreciation of the dog; how they communicate, work together, compromise, and value a pro-social environment. These dogs have taught me how to connect with dogs on a deeper level, and this has improved my training with ALL dogs. A common challenge and subject of social media questions is training a dog that isn’t food or toy motivated. Feral dogs will not take food and certainly don’t want to play with me; wishing I go away all together. So, I had to figure out how to connect with the feral dogs in alternative ways.
This process requires little of the dog except to be a dog. It requires we humans enter the dog’s world and value what a dog values, then communicate that we understand this to the dog.
Dogs are often highly controlled, told no, encouraged to be excited, and/or not allowed to practice their natural behaviors like sniffing, digging, patrolling, hunting, and living in a pack that provides safety. If we learn about dogs’ language, what they value, and how they view safety, we can connect with them by participating in their natural behaviors WITH them.
The things that all dogs value, especially feral dogs, are safety, using the sense of smell, and hunting. Digging, environmental agility (climbing on things), puzzle solving, guarding, doing obedience, walks and hikes in nature, even hiding in the tall grass are also activities dogs value that we can use to connect with them. Every dog is an individual and no fixed recipe that works for every dog, so try some things and see what sparks a dog’s interest or gets a tail wagging.
Whatever the dog enjoys, YOU MUST DO IT WITH the dog. If you ask a dog to climb on a rock, you do it first. If you ask the dog to dig, you dig too.
Safety and security are the number one priority for all dogs. Humans’ safety in the modern world isn’t about hunting and keeping predators away, but it still is to our dogs. To be relevant to our dogs we MUST take a role in assessing safety, threats, and acknowledging what they find threatening or alarming. One easy way to do this is to walk the perimeter of your yard with your dogs in the morning. If you don’t have a yard, then look out the windows of your home with your dog. If a dog sees something that is interesting or alarming, take notice of it by being in the dog’s peripheral vision, turn your head to what they are noticing, glance at it, maybe sniff the air, and then move on, confidently. Yes, I said “sniff the air” – loud enough for your dog to hear you. Do this with intent to learn and be aware of what is around you. Performing these safety checks with your dog takes a few minutes each day, but is so beneifical to earn a dog’s trust.
The second way to connect with dogs is to utilize their most powerful sense, their sense of smell. I have yet to meet a dog that doesn’t use his nose for gathering information about the world. The dogs that don’t use their noses are usually fearful or reactive. Getting fearful, feral, and reactive dogs to use their nose will improve their behavior immensely. If we engage in sniffing or investigating WITH our dogs, we speak their language a little, and become more understandable to dogs. Sniffing with a dog means squatting or bending down while making audible sniffing noises in the direction of what your dog finds interesting. It may mean leading a dog over to the popular dog pee spots or stinky things on outings and encouraging them to sniff. No matter where you live, there are things dogs want to smell.
Actively sniffing with your dog will show them you are aware of their world. It can result in your dog following you easier at other times, like when another dog is passing by. A dog can learn to use his natural way of avoiding conflict by making space and sniffing the ground. A dog has choices of fight, flight, or freeze to avoid conflict. So often we humans make our dogs walk by another dog with a tense or short leash while making them heel and taking away any options beside fight. Sniffing lets them exercise flight while saving face.
If a dog is afraid of an object, set the example of how he should check it out like a dog would by using your nose. Encouraging a dog to sniff novel or “scary” objects is guiding them to braver behavior. Sniffing feels good to dogs and people. Breathing through the nose calms the vagus nervous system in humans. Inhaling through the nose brings us humans out of fight, flight, or freeze mode and helps us use our upper brain. Imagine what it can do for dogs.
Hunting for food is also incredibly important to free-roaming dogs. Doing this with your dog can form a deep bond. When we moved to a larger, rural property, my previously feral and free-roaming dog, Tipton, became more aloof when he had more space. Hunting mice with him quickly cemented a better bond between us. Tipton indicates places where the mice are hiding. I lift up rocks and items the mice are under and Tipton swoops in. We also survey the traps together. Is this kind of gross? Yeah, I guess. But Tipton has helped with our mouse problem and I am willing to get over the gross factor to do something with my dog that he loves. In our past neighborhood, we didn’t have mice. During the fall, we would walk to an apple tree and I would break the apples into small pieces for the dogs. Using what you have available, being creative, and replicating some kind of hunting activity can strengthen a bond with dogs. I have also found this can help dogs with high prey drive listen to direction to stop hunting. Something about being involved in the hunt gives me more clout when it comes time to ask the dog to not hunt. Keep in mind you have to be an active participant for this to work.
This is a quick run-down of what it means to join a dog in what the dog finds important to improve connection and training. If you are having trouble getting a dog to do obedience, come when called, walk on leash politely, or pay attention or engage with you, try to enter that dog’s world and see what is important to him. By authentically engaging with dogs in a more dog-like, familiar way, we are honoring what dogs are. This will allow them to be valued and seen for what they are and change behaviors accordingly. Keeping the things that a dog likes in mind gives me multiple ways to try and connect with any dog I am working with, feral or not.