If you have any connection whatsoever to dogs with behaviour issues, you might have heard the expression that these are dogs with “big feelings.”
Dogs manifesting anxiety, insecurity, fear, or reactivity, are said to have “big feelings” and therefore the way to help them recover from these emotional states is to change what dog trainers call the dogs’ “conditioned emotional response” (CER). So if something was scary, make it less scary through counter-conditioning and desensitization.
However, there is little questioning of where these “big feelings” come from.
Here is where we stand: Emotions, feelings, and attitudes ALWAYS originate from a situation. They have more to do with environment and context than with anything particular about the dog’s personality, breed, or temperament.
What we call “Way of Life” is that dog’s environment carefully designed, managed, and curated by us. We have control over the dog’s environment when we know where to look, and when we understand what “Way of Life” means. We define Way of Life as encompassing five elements:
- The stage of our relationship
- How we manage space and boundaries
- How we understand and orchestrate socialization
- How we develop our dog’s innate drives
- Our own attitudes and mindsets about dogs and perceptions of why they do what they do
When these elements are approached consciously according to the Way of Life Method guidelines applicable for each relationship stage, this changes the dog’s world radically. And when that happens, the dog’s inner world of attitudes, thoughts, and feelings will also change and therefore their behaviour in the world.