Beneath Every Behavior there is a Feeling

“Beneath every behavior there is a feeling. And beneath each feeling is a need. And when we meet that need rather than focusing on the behavior, we begin to deal with the cause and not the symptom.” -Ashleigh Warner

In my experience the results that we get in modifying the dog’s long term state of mind and behavior are dramatically different when we start off addressing the dog's needs before jumping into modifying problematic behaviors head on. In the first few classes I focus on the questions below as we go through the process of teaching the dog a functional system of communication.

-Is your dog eating a biologically appropriate diet?

-Are they eating that diet in a biologically appropriate way?

-Are they healthy, strong, and pain free?

-How often do you play with your dog and does that play encourage teamwork and an expression of natural behaviors?

-What causes your dog to slip into an unhealthy state of mind and how can we avoid those situations for now as we rebuild your dog's system of communication?

-How are you using a marker system in order to capitalize on your dog's motivation and drive to access rewards?

-How are you using different forms of pressure  to guide the dog into specific behaviors or states of mind?

When we take the time to satisfy the dog's biological needs and address our system of communication in a way that validates their perspective I realize that many of our dogs' issues aren’t huge problems, but symptoms of a lifestyle that didn’t suit them. That doesn’t mean we need to dramatically change our lifestyle, more often than not it is consistency in small changes that leads to a huge state of mind shift for the dog. Once that shift happens, addressing things like reactivity/aggression, fear, anxiety and overstimulation become so much easier. 

In my experience when we just focus on the behavior there ends up being a lot of conflict, when we focus on the needs and emotions of the dog first there ends up being a lot more cooperation.