Jan 07 2009
Calm, assertive energy
Every time I turn on the National Geographic Channel, I catch a show of “The Dog Whisperer” with Cesar Milan as it has been running fairly frequently as of late. One thing that he emphasizes is that when walking your dog you must have a calm, assertive energy. This way the dog trusts you and is confident that you are the pack leader and, hopefully, will follow your lead. Overall, I think this is sound advice. But, sometimes I feel like the Dog Whisperer has got me constantly second guessing myself because I’m worried that Lola is not picking up on my calm, assertive energy. In other words, the pressure to be calm and assertive might actually be undermining my status as pack leader.
Today we went on a walk with the collar on again. It started out okay. But then, all of the sudden, Lola froze up. I became a bit flustered because there was a truck waiting to turn out onto the main street and, even though he could have turned just fine, I felt like the person in the truck was starring at Lola and me while we sat there frozen halfway in the street and halfway on the sidewalk. Of course, Lola picked up on my feeling freaked out and continued to stay put, not moving an inch. I resorted to dragging her just a bit, so we could get out of the street. The whole ordeal was rather dangerous.
I think Lola initially froze up because the truck and the cars zooming past scared her to death. She’s used to walking near a busy street, but there was something about the combination of the collar and the traffic that freaked her out. Needless to say, later when we went on our evening walk, I decided to test out my theory. We instead went to the nearby park, which is 33 acres and has very little traffic. She did perfectly fine. Aside from a bit of pull, she walked fine and didn’t lunge at the people who passed by. She was great.
I think the lesson of the story is that it’s much easier to be calm and assertive if you know your dog might have a chance at being calm as well. When you know that your walk might go well, being pack leader isn’t so hard after all.
