The Gift of Intervening
“Ow! Stop!...I said stop! Please stop!”
Ahh yes. The sweet sounds of siblings on summer holidays. Even though I hear that line daily, I’d say our two girls get along really well majority of the time. Being less than 2.5 years apart in age, they currently are on equal playing fields with interests and humour and with that comes a really great friendship.
Where there IS disconnect is when one continues to bug the other, gets told to stop, and it isn’t respected.
If you’re a parent or someone who has kids in your life, you know what happens next.
The demand for respect gets audibly louder and louder and when that isn’t listened to, it gets physical.
I usually intervene after the second or third ask of wanting the “game” to end and it looks like me saying the instigators name in a warning tone and the behaviour stops. Usually followed with “I was getting off!?!” Mhmm…
Stepping in at this point, rather than waiting for tears, usually means everyone calms down quicker and they resume playing, or change the game to something else, almost instantly.
“BuT kIdS nEeD tO fIgUrE iT oUt On ThEiR oWn!”
Oh, I disagree wholeheartedly. You see, what I’m doing is I’m seeing a limit in one of my kids not being respected. She’s using her words and they’re not getting heard. I’m also seeing a limit not being acknowledged – my other daughter is getting told to quit and she’s not quitting. So, I believe it’s my job to teach the one pushing the boundary to step off when the situation goes from play to panic while showing the one not getting heard “I hear you and I’ll help you.”
You guessed it. This also applies to dogs.
“BuT dOgS nEeD tO fIgUrE iT oUt On ThEiR oWn!”
You know what can happen when we let dogs figure it out? Everything from trust issues to injury and worst of all: death.
Sounds dramatic, I know. And if you rolled your eyes at that, you’ve had very good dog experiences.
But to the people who have had their dog’s limits pushed in a way that your dog had to snap – I hear you and I’ll help you.
When your dog is showing any sign of uncomfortableness in regards to another dog, (look for any of these signs: tail tucked, avoiding eye contact, frozen when the other dog jumps on them, ears forward with teeth bared, tail tense and set high) calmly separate them.
Ask the other human to take their dog away and have the dogs just sit beside their humans. Still in “chatting distance” for the humans and what that does is the unsure dog can build trust with the more forward dog, and the more forward dog is learning impulse control: just because there’s a dog doesn’t mean you get to crowd it then tune out its “this is too much for me” cues.
The unsure dog makes the association of “I felt this way, communicated with energy and body language, and the dog left. Perfect!” so it didn’t have to make the choice of biting. The more forward dog is learning “when a dog gives me this signal, I need to give space. Got it!”
Treating our dogs like humans all day, then expecting them to know how-to-dog with another dog isn’t fair to them.
A lot of dogs ignore the signs, so before it turns into a fight step in and “parent it” so it’s a good experience for both then trust and respect can be built.