When we are experiencing behavior in our dogs that is difficult to live with for any reason, addressing the dog’s behavior is only part of the equation. Getting more clarity on how we interpret the behavior and what we think it means about our dog (and about us) can make all the difference in the world in the approach we take to address it.

The truth is that we all tend to overestimate both how well our dogs understand us, and how much we understand about them. We ascribe motives, thoughts and feelings to them as a way of explaining their behavior in a way that makes sense to us. We look at ourselves We are often unaware that our interpretation is often more based on the narrative in our minds that is running in the background about how things are “supposed” to be and then mistake the narrative for the truth.

These stories may or may not closely represent our dogs’ behavior; but whether they are true or not, and even when we are unconscious about them, they directly impact how we react and respond to their behavior and how we interact with them in general.

Being lost in our stories gets in the way of truly seeing the dynamic sentient being in front of us.

To be clear, having and believing these stories doesn’t make us “bad”. It’s what our brains do naturally. Starting to develop more awareness of the process, catching ourselves in the act, so to speak, is what gives us the opportunity to make different choices than we have in the past. The less lost in this narrative we are, the easier it is to focus on the observable behavior of the being in front of us to make connections and have insights that can help us more clearly understand, and more skillfully address, a given situation. Awareness helps us perceive here and now. Yet awareness is not something we can force; we need to cultivate it with practice.

While we all know on some level that part of living with dogs is trying to make sense of the behavior of an individual of a completely different species that we don’t share a common language or cultural understandings with, we don’t tend to think about it much or consider the impact it can have. And when we do try to educate ourselves, we are bombarded with conflicting and inadequate information everywhere we look.

Unfortunately, much of what we assume to know about dogs is based on the unregulated field of dog training and behavior. Anyone can proclaim themselves as an expert and preach lore, falsehoods, and oversimplification that gets in the way of us truly understanding what is really going on with our dogs and what they most need from us. And how we interpret what their behavior means can take us down an unhelpful, and often harmful, road, leading us only further away from addressing the true issues at hand.

Having awareness about this does not need to involve beating ourselves up for our past actions. Not only is that unhealthy for us, it is also unhelpful for our dogs. It takes energy and focus away from developing our skills and knowledge, adds stress that no one needs more of right now. We can cultivate compassion for ourselves for being human and our dogs for being dogs, and approach our journey with the precious dogs in our lives right now with curiosity and a willingness to learn and grow.

We need to meet our dogs where they are and start from there, not where we assume they (or we) should be.