Alexander's Law of Stacked Bad Luck

How many of you remember this book? Now, keep it mind while you read...

I woke up one morning, around 7, and as I stumbled to the bathroom, I stubbed my little pinky toe on the metal bed post. %*&#! You know how bad that hurts, right? Especially when it’s the little one, because it gets bent all sideways and feels like it snapped off ‘cause there is no toe on its one side?  Anyway, I finish peeing and inspecting my pseudo broken toe and I walk out, and freeze, staring at a giant pee spot on the carpet. HUH? What’s that all about? Gracie never has accidents…? So, I walk around the spot, downstairs and I’m looking under the sink for carpet cleaner. First, I can’t find it, so I’m knocking everything over in the meantime, getting angrier and angrier and then I finally find it in the wayyyy back and there are two. One’s almost empty and one’s full. Being that my toe is throbbing and I just want to hurry up and clean the pee so I can get in the shower, I grab the full one so I don’t have to pull the trigger 317 times to get a half-ass foamy squirt out.  I am pretty much at the end of my rope. So, I stand up and my legs are all achey from squatting for so long and I walk three steps and the bottom to the freaking bottle crashes to the floor, leaving me with the stupid trigger in my hand and a gallon of cleaner E V E R Y W H E R E.

UUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, I violently clean up the spilled liquid and am holding back tears because I’m so mad at all the stupid things that have happened in like 7 minutes and then I kinda clean up the pee and without another word, I got in bed, covered up, reset my alarm and decided I needed to start my day over in about a half hour. I was way over my threshold.

"I went to sleep with gum in my mouth and now there's gum in my hair and
when I got out of bed this morning I tripped on the skateboard and by mistake
I dropped my sweater in the sink while the water was running and I could
tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day."

Read this blog before continuing:
 http://reactivechampion.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-stress-bathtub.html

No, really, go read it.  

If you're a big jerk, and said, “Yeah, yeah, I’ll read it later” and skipped it, then here’s a summary of the analogy:  
Each dog has a bathtub in which their stress fills or drains.  Some dogs start with an empty bathtub and some dogs that are more anxious or unstable start with a partially filled bathtub. As stressors occur (dogs walking by, a loud noise, being yelled at, hurting yourself, anything perceived as upsetting), the bathtub fills a little bit more.  If a dog has no pre-existing stress in his bathtub, then he can handle a lot of stressors before his stress runs over the top and he goes over threshold.  If he is already starting with a half-filled bathtub, it only takes a few things to send that dog over threshold.  Now, the greatest thing about this analogy is a bathtub isn’t like a bucket. You can’t just dump it out and start again. All dog’s stress drains differently. Some drain slow, some drain quicker, but for all dogs, once threshold has been reached, learning stops occurring and it’s going to take a good 24 hours or more for that dog’s stress levels to recede back to normal.  Amazing, right?

Thinking back to my terrible morning – had all of these things occurred in the afternoon, after I had been awake for awhile, it probably wouldn’t have had such a pronounced effect on me. But, the timing of when all of those stressors occurred, back to back to back and so early in the morning, was a perfect recipe for going over threshold. As a human, I can say, “WOAH. I need a break.” As a dog, they try to tell us in the only way they know how; barking, reacting, whining, whimpering, running away, mouthing, shaking, etc.

Here's an example of a typical walk with stacked stressors: Unbeknownst to you, your dog stepped on a pinecone on your daily walk so keeps leaning into your leg 'cause his foot hurts, but you fuss at him to stop, so he does, but his foot still hurts.  Then, a dog runs up to his face and wasn't being nice at all, but he kept his cool and when you started walking again, he had to poop, but you kept walking, cause you thought he was just sniffing again, so he had to keep walking, too.  And then, when he couldn't hold it any longer, he stopped to poop but it was on the sidewalk and he got choked cause you kept walking and then when you turned around, he got scared you'd be mad, and then a flock of geese flew overhead right as a dog walked by and looked in his direction, and he suddenly goes ballistic.  Lots of stressors, not one of them is a huge deal, but allllll stacked up - BAM. Over threshold.

If your dog goes over threshold, have the courage to say, “Ok, we’ll try again some other time” and go home.  Forcing your dog to cope is unfair to your dog and can have drastic side effects, as well as some redirected behavior onto you.   

Listen to your dog. If you don’t know how, find a local trainer who can help you. Your dog is trying to communicate with you - are you listening?

"Well, what do you do when they're bad?"

I was talking to a friend from college recently and she said, “I know you are all about positive reinforcement to encourage the behaviors you want, but what if they do something bad? Like something they know they shouldn’t do? Do you yell at them?”

I realized at that moment, that in all my passion to post all of these ideas of how to teach your dog what TO DO, instead of punishing for what you don’t, I neglected to state what I do in the interim: like when my dog chases my cats or jumps up on the counter. Those are things that I’m not willing to ignore. Nor, do I. 
 

I have yelled at Gracie, I have smacked her butt a time or two, but what I use most often is the equivalent of when your Mom would say, “You’ve really disappointed me” and I say, “No, ma’am, that is SO SAD.” I say it in the same tone every time and each time, she goes to her bed or the couch and puts her head down on her paws and stares at me. I didn’t explicitly teach her that, but she’s learned over time that I won’t fuss at her anymore if she does that.  After a few minutes, I say, “Ok” and she runs over to me for hugs and love. 

Dogs do bad things. Sometimes, they do really bad things like eat an entire couch, or tear down the blinds in every window in the house, but harboring those emotions will only hurt the relationship between you and your dog.  Allow yourself to act like a 3 year old for a minute and stomp around huffing and puffing as you pick up the minuscule beads from the now-shredded bean bag you just bought your child yesterday.  Your dog knows that you’re unhappy. THAT is why they are cowering, or in Gracie’s case – putting her head down on her paws. It’s not the behavior they did an hour ago or even five minutes ago.  So, after your toddler tantrum, don’t shun your dog.  Think hard about WHY they did it:

Is she bored? Is she not getting enough attention? Did anyone exercise her today? Have we taught her that the bean bag is not a dog toy? Is it anxiety? Who was supervising?

Once you figure out the "Why?", situations like this will happen less and less.  Focus on your dog’s positive attributes and expand on those as much as you can. By strengthening them, you form a better bond with your dog and you’ll find that many of their flaws will shrivel up, and eventually, be a thing of the past.