Dogs Learn from Dogs: Choosing the Right Social Circle

Hello, dog peeps. Jack here. Just a quick one before we get into this episode. You may or may not be aware that when I'm not talking dog stuff with Max, I in fact interview people who are incarcerated in prisons across the United States on a show called One Minute Remaining: Stories from the Inmates. And that show has been nominated for an award in America. And I would love your support if you've got 60 seconds to click the link in the show notes of this episode and just vote for my show. That would be amazing if you could. Thank you very much indeed. Oh, and don't forget to verify your email address. Otherwise, the vote does not count. Thank you.

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It's the Dog People Podcast with your host Jack Lawrence. Secretly, I decided to start this podcast for some free dog training advice. You know, Malinois seem to be like the dog at the moment. Like, I think people see them on Instagram doing these incredible things. Yeah. Go, oh my God, that's awesome. And then I get one like, oh my God, what the fuck have I done? And Max O'Neill.

You would not believe how many people I meet And I go, what made you want to get, say, an Aussie Shepherd? They go, I don't know. I go, had you met one before? They go, no. If you want to ask me how often I walk my own dog a week, it's only twice a week.

It's the Dog People Podcast, the podcast giving you a no-nonsense approach to dog training so you never have to shout, it's okay, he's friendly. And today we're talking, ooh, friends, dog friends.

Shout out to The Inbetweeners.

Indeed. Now, this is an interesting one because as we've spoken about in a previous episode, people seem to be Quite obsessed with their dogs having doggy friends and hanging out with other dogs, which isn't a bad thing, or it can be though, can't it?

Yeah. It's not always a good thing, not always necessary. And we've done a lot of chatter about that. And today we want to dive a little bit deeper and kind of look at what is your dog's circle? What does your dog's circle say about your dog? How does your dog's circle influence your dog? And what is your dog's circle in general? So a dog's circle is the 5 dogs or the dogs they spend the most time around. And everyone sort of knows the old rhetoric now, you know, the 5 people you spend the most time with, you know, will decide who you are and who you become and all this sort of stuff. And I think that's pretty accurate. You know, you become the people you spend the most amount of time with. And that same principle I definitely see on a daily basis definitely applies to our dogs too. So you've got to start to ask yourself, which dogs is your dog spending the most time around and how is that influencing their behaviour? Because again, there's some benefits, but There's also some massive risks to this, and let's break that down. So let's chat about some benefits. I think things like those dog training sort of ride-along services where your dog goes out with the trainer's dogs and other dogs can be hugely beneficial. In a controlled setting like that, your dog spending time with their circle being other dogs in training, other dogs that are already trained, can have a huge positive benefit. There's a lot of companies all around Australia and on the Gold Coast doing really, really good jobs of that. taking dogs out for these ride-along things, and that's awesome. Your dog's— the dog your dog spends the most time with, positive role models. Your dog's seeing, hey, that dog listened to that person and that worked really well for them. How about I give that a shot? That person called out the word come. I don't know what that means, but the other dogs all ran to them. I may as well fall in line and copy. So that sort of stuff can be hugely, hugely beneficial. Your dog's circle can be huge for that. It can also be great if you've got a dog who's maybe on the on the shyer side of things, hanging out with some dogs that make them feel good about themselves, not bad about themselves. And I don't mean that in the sense of dogs are going to say, no, you don't look fat. Like, it's not stuff like that. But dogs that aren't bullying your dog, dogs that are leaving space for them to be themselves and not trying to dominate them, things like that could be really good for your dog's confidence. So your dog having a positive circle, you know, if your dog is the sort of dog who wants dogs around them, because again, not every dog does, can be massive for them. It can be so, so good. And this is a tool that I will use in, in training, is going, hey, sometimes I think that your dog would get to where you want them to be from being around other good dogs. And this lesson that they need teaching is best served by being around good doggy role models rather than you trying to necessarily teach them. So it's definitely a training tool I prescribe. But again, your dog's circle can also be, as we know, not always the best thing as well. Your dog can be around the wrong type of dog a whole lot, and that can massively dictate their behaviour for the negative.

I'm going to draw it back to children again, because, you know, that's where my, not expertise comes from, but my area of knowledge is no different with your kids. You want your kids to hang around other good kids because they'll be influenced by those kids doing the right thing. You don't want your kids hanging around nasty, awful kids who are going around doing shit things because they're going to end up picking Peer pressure happens, they follow suit, shit's going to go wrong, and they're going to end up in a situation that you're not happy with. So as a parent, you always tend to, you see a really nice kid and you think, oh, that kid's just such a great kid. And you just try and sort of steer your kid towards that kid because you know that's going to be better for them. And it's no different again with your dog. You want to steer them towards dog, other dogs that are well-behaved, as you said, that are doing the right thing, that are listening to their owners so that they feed off that. As opposed to another dog that's barking at everything that moves, running around, ignoring the owner, doing this and that. And your dog just goes, oh, this looks like fun. I'm going to follow that dog. This is great.

Yeah, exactly. It's just our dogs learn so much through mimicry, both mimicking us, mimicking other dogs. It's called vicarious modelling if you want to be technical. And like, again, that can be great, but it can also be a huge hindrance if you're spending the most amount of time with other dogs, say at the dog park where we know there's going to be a lot of, you know, really untrained, out of control sort of dogs, or they spend every, you know, second Thursday at your mum's place with their out-of-control Jack Russell, your dog's picking up a lot of those things. They're going, hey, those dogs are doing that. Maybe I should join in. And that could be something as innocuous as, well, Jack barks at the mailman, so now I'm going to learn to bark at the mailman.

I don't like that guy.

Yeah. Something about his fluorescent top. Something about it. I don't know what it is, but I don't like that colour on him. Or it could be, hey, all the other dogs at the park are chasing this one dog. I can either be a chaser or a chasee. I choose to be a chaser.

We get that pack mentality, don't we?

Yeah, the dogs just join in and go, well, let's gang up on the weakest. I don't want to be on the wrong side of this. So dogs can pick up bad habits that way, or they could be around dogs that just— you might take your dog to the dog park, and I've done this plenty of times with clients, and they'll go, let's— oh, can I show you what they do at the dog park? They're really defensive and snappy. And I take— and you take them there. I'm like, you're taking your dog there who's just getting absolutely bullied by 10 other dogs. Of course they're standing up for themselves. Why do you bring them here? So your dog could also be around 5, 10 other dogs on a regular basis that make them feel really crappy about themselves. And again, this isn't in terms of what dogs say, it's just how they act. If your dog's constantly being downtrodden, bullied, dominated, your dog's going to start having a pretty low self-esteem and think pretty lowly of themselves. And when dogs lack in confidence, as they know, that's when issues can start to develop. So that's why your dog's circles are so, so important. It can massively dictate who they are. And if you think If you start to look at your dog and who the dogs they spend time with, go, you know what, it's actually a few dogs in there I don't really want them spending that much time with because I don't want my dog to pick up on that. Maybe it's time to just make a call and go, hey, I just don't think our dogs need to hang anymore. I don't think I need to bring my dog here now, or, you know, things like that. And we've got that. We've got some mates that are really into dog training. I've got mates who are not into dog training at all. And some of my best mates have got dogs and our 2 dogs have never met. So I'm like, nah, sorry, my dog does not need to hang around yours. I know it sounds snobby, but I'm just like, I don't need I don't want him to pick up on XYZ. Yeah, like, I'm good.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's funny, I've got a dog that absolutely loves other dogs, and I'm the least social person in the world. So my dog's friend circle is almost nil apart from Nelson. When Nelson pops over here once a week or so—

You go down to the park, you're like, Kira, you better not make any friends.

Yeah, I'm like, that's why I'm like correcting her. She so much as looks at her, don't you dare. I do not want to speak to that owner. We are staying over here. I mean, but, and it's okay for your dog not to have friends if it's getting, you know, all its needs and wants met by you. So you don't have to sort of panic going, oh, but Max, I can't find any really decent dogs. Everyone I know has got a really badly trained dog, but I still want my dog to interact with other dogs. So, you know, I don't know, it's, it's maybe it's one of those things where if you really, really want your dog to interact with other dogs and you want to find something, maybe you go on social media and find a group of dog training. There's so many groups and stuff with breeds and training groups and stuff like that.

Exactly. We provide that for our clients. Like, we've got various private Facebook groups for our clientele, and they're able to post in there, hey, like, my dog would really benefit from having a playmate. Who's in the area? Who's at this level of training? And that works. Or, you know, for where we are on the Gold Coast, there's a brilliant Facebook page called Dog Friendly Society Gold Coast. Shout out to them. And, um, same, I know that is a great spot for like doggy hookups, so to speak, where you can find your dog a playmate. So, but again, as Jack said before, you know, Dogs really don't need anywhere near as much interaction with their own kind as we'd like to think. They chose to domesticate themselves with us and they're perfectly happy with, you know, us as their main source of interaction over other dogs. So keep that in mind. Don't feel the guilt to, you know, have to give your dog a million mates.

Any questions, as always, the Dog People Podcast on Facebook, chuck them in there and we'll get them answered for you. The podcast is a Mashed Pumpkin production hosted by Jack Lawrence and Max O'Neill.

Edited, produced, and audio production by Jack Lawrence.

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