A label battle is raging in the dog community. And as collateral damage : families, confused by the terms used by everyone, only wishing to live in harmony with their dog, sometimes wish they did not act in one way or another, turn down a way of proceed just because of a label.
Let’s start with the definitions (according to Larousse)
⛔️ Aversive : refers to what arouses aversion
Aversion : “feeling of violent antipathy, even repulsion, felt by someone towards a person or a category of people”
⚠️ Coercive : “one who acts under compulsion”
Coercion : “to coerce”
Coerce : “to constrain someone to act in a certain way, against their will ; prevent someone from giving free rein to their feelings”
❎ Lax : “who shows laxity”
Laxity : “attitude of someone who is excessively lenient, tolerant”
What label for K9 Voice ?
At K9 Voice, I make it a point of honor that the dogs I work with do not feel any sense of repulsion because of my behaviors. I sometimes intervene because dogs do not tolerate humans, but it is then a perception that I mean to modify, neither to create nor to anchor. I ensure that my choices of actions, my behaviors, my training plans, the conditioning I carry out, only stimulate neutral or positive emotions. One of my motivations is the well-being of the entire household. If a dog feels insecure by my presence, by my actions, by the consequences of those ones, then I am not able to help restore or maintain serenity ; this is contradictory in my opinion. I want to see a dog act, approach, with trust, whatever his initial issues. Generating a feeling of withdrawal on purpose, at best, aggressiveness or retreat, at worst - without it being linked to pain or a lack of information - is working with aversion.
Coercion governs human life in society. Living in a community implies rules, which are likely to suit us, to amuse us, but also to disgust us, to drive us mad. Regularly, opportunities are seized to violate them because they are often experienced as an obstacle to “freedom”, as unnecessary pressure, as some exerted violence.
In my relationships with dogs, I see to put them under pressure as little as possible. For example, when I'm training a dog for cooperative care, I’ll show patience, I set up a favorable environment, I create learnings he wants to pursue. I only act in collaboration with him. When I intervene because a dog is uncomfortable or even frightened by unfamiliar humans, I leave him time to adjust, to observe me, in addition to working to modify his emotional perception.
However, I am also likely to impose constraints on a dog. When he is walked outside, the law, the life amongst humans, requires that dogs be kept on a leash or at least kept under control. So the leash or long line partly hinders his freedom of movement. I also refuse him to run at full speed, without looking where he is going, while fragile people are walking around, or when we are in an area where cars drive without taking into account the speed limit. If he has treatments to undergo, if he is not yet ready to give his consent, if I have to remove something from his body when he is reluctant but it could be potentially hazardous to leave it, I will act with coercion.
The life of a family dog, like that of many other individuals, is full of constraints. So when I have to add some more, I make sure that my coercive actions are experienced with as little disgust as possible. For example, a dog who is required by law to wear a muzzle will be trained at his own pace to accept it, with various steps, adding elements that are pleasant for him.
Ah… laxity ! This one is pronounced left and right as soon as it involves refusing to raise your voice at a dog that is growling, putting physical pressure on a dog that is pushing his way by you, or rolling a dog over down on the ground for he has jumped.
To return to the first example, when I have information that a dog is growling, I then ask about its health, about the contexts, about the frequency and duration, about the reactions of humans. If, for example, a dog growls because he suffers from back pain and we play with him a little roughly, he is expressing a need. “Growling” at him doesn’t solve his pain; this may eventually stop the growling, but not the latter's motivation (he will then opt for another behavior to express his need for calm or distance).
To take up the second example, when I notice that a dog is pushing through, I will note if his body language is relaxed, his level of arousal, if the behavior has been reinforced, if an emotion arouses this behavior and which one, if learning has been attempted before to manage the situation. I regularly work with dogs who experience difficulty when another dog is approaching them. They then demonstrate behaviors known as reactive ; this is manifested by vocalizations (barks, growls), by a tense body at the end of the leash, by potential lunges at the end of the leash. If this dog does not freeze or flee, the “counter-fight” (he experiences the approach of the other dog as an attack, regardless of the other dog's intentions) is an option that he considers potentially effective to put some distance between him and his assailant. I do not encourage this behavior, I do not aim for it to be reproduced. If I only see not to “tolerate” his behavior, I occult what has motivated him ; however, this is not how I mean to contribute to the serenity of the dog and his human family.
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