Saturday 12 May 2012

Your needs; the dogs needs; a simple formula to alter the behaviour of your dog, and your relationship with the dog.


Diagram: an adaptation of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (1943)

According to Maslow  (1943) all  human beings have a hierarchy of needs, it is displayed as a pyramid and before an individual can go up in the pyramid each need needs to be fulfilled, The first part is physiological needs this is the need of survival:  the need to breathe; have food and water;  able to excrete;  sleep; and  the need to procreate. After all these needs are met  individuals  go up in the triangle to the next level; which is safety needs, in order to feel safe there is a need for good health, all resources readily available to sustain physiological needs like: warmth; a place to live; stability, cleanliness; safety within the family; and a role within the family.  Once these needs are met and sustained ‘beings’ progress up another level to  love and belonging : love from the family; relationships;  and a sense of belonging and sexual intimacy; once these needs are met further progress to the next level esteem : here individuals seek self-esteem; confidence; achievement and respect, fun and play.  After the esteem needs have been met  you progress to self-actualization  which means fulfillment, where you reach for your actual potential this is a constant process, and provided that all the needs in the lower levels are being met you constantly strive to develop.

The dog has the same needs as you, in the wild a dog will seek his needs himself and a domestic dog will seek to satisfy his own needs, so in order to prevent the dog seeking satisfaction that might not fit in within  the  family home it best to provide those needs.  Just providing those needs can prevent bad behaviour developing or even eliminate  a behaviour that is undesirable. On the whole a bad behaviour develops not because it is wrong in the dogs mind but that need has not been provided by the owner.

If you provide a dog with food, water, a place to excrete,  and allow them to sleep, and not get to hot or cold the dog will survive.  So having given the dog a chance to survive you need to provide the dog with his safety needs, in order for the dog to feel safe he needs to know that all of his physiological needs will always be fulfilled, your need to ensure he is in good health, a safe place to live and sleep, warmth, stability, his role within the family is safe.

It does not take much for a dogs feeling of safety to be undone. A move of house, a new member of the family,  a change in routine, a new dog or cat, even a new dog moving in to house up the road can threaten the dogs feeling of safety.

Once the dogs physiological and safety needs are met they progress to love and belonging, all dogs have a need to belong whether it is within a pack of dogs or within the family home, a building of relationships is very important for good behaviour.  It is at this point that  If you have an entire dog or bitch and their need for procreation is not fulfilled the dog is going to have difficulties progressing to the next level of need, its not impossible but there might be a  certain amount of frustration and distraction. 

So now you have a dog that is surviving, feels safe, and has a sense of belonging, the dog then needs his esteem addressed. Ensuring that the first three levels are sustained will give the dog confidence, however life is unpredictable and there confidence can be quickly dented.  This can be overcome by ensuring that the dog  makes achievements, this is when training comes into its own.  Each new skill a dog learns boosts his self esteem, the more he learns the more tools he has at his disposal to deal with the unpredictably of life and ensuring that his confidence carries on developing.  A dog is a dog and needs to do dog things for his own esteem;  to smell the air, feel  freedom, run, play,  and chase. At this level bad behaviour is replaced by good behaviour.

Now the dog that was just surviving, is now safe, feels that he belongs, he is confident with a high self esteem, he is now ready to embark on the journey of fulfillment whereby he can maximize his potential, with the support of his owner. The journey is only just beginning.