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Why "Bad Dogs" Need Love and Help, Not Punishment
"The Canine Commandments" is a must read for kids and adults.
Posted April 26, 2023 Reviewed by Vanessa Lancaster
Dog books with the word "happy" in the title are becoming more and more common, and veterinarian Kendal Shepherd's easy-to-read The Canine Commandments: Be Happy and Safe With Dogs shines with sage advice for kids and adults using canine research and her own extensive experience as a veterinarian, a most welcome combination of skills.1
Her 12 commandments reminded me of Jessica Pierce and my 10 freedoms for dogs and how important it is for dogs to be able to have a say in what they do—highlighting the importance of agency and consent. The same goes for cats, of course. She also covers the importance of positive force-free training, why dogs bite, why "tough love is bad," and what "bad dog" really means, poses common questions at the end of each commandment with answers and explanations near the end of the book, and much more.2
Shepherd is also the author of Demystifying Dog Behaviour for the Veterinarian and clearly understands how important it is for veterinarians and others to know what dogs are thinking and feeling to achieve reciprocal happiness and for everyone to feel safe.
I learned a lot from Shepherd's book, and here's what she had to say about her convenient cheat sheet for all guardians to follow.
Marc Bekoff: Why did you write The Canine Commandments?
Kendal Shepherd: The Canine Commandments grew out of a series of talks I had given to the final-year students at a local primary school. As the sessions progressed, I gathered information from the children themselves—about how their family and friends thought dogs should be dealt with and what they had learned from the lessons. I found that not only had they learned that, for example, kneeing a dog in the chest was not the best way to stop a dog jumping up, but they were also going home and first reprimanding, then instructing Grandad exactly what they should do instead! I was even more convinced, then and since that any dog bite prevention strategies must start with the education of children, when they are so open to new learning and before adult prejudices and cognitive dissonance take over.3
MB: How does your book relate to your background and general areas of interest?
KS: This book is the result of all the experiences and knowledge I’ve gained over firstly my years as a GP vet, then as a behaviorist, counseling families with dogs. As I hope has come over loud and clear in my previous book, Demystifying Dog Behaviour, behaviour problems, or often more accurately, problem behaviors, have very fundamental dog-human misunderstandings at their root.
This book and its commandments pick out what I see as the simplest ways to identify and explain these universal misunderstandings, with the intention of preventing problems before they arise. In addition, some commandments—e.g., "Do not touch a dog you don’t know," "Never hit or kick a dog," and "Do not take anything away from a dog"—are simple instructions akin to "Don’t play with that electricity cable or run in front of cars" based on common dog bite incident scenarios.
The reason the book is written for children is because, both from my experience in the veterinary consulting room and family homes, I could see and have been constantly amazed by how readily children understood exactly what I was going on about, often when their parent still looked puzzled.4
Particularly in the children’s introduction, I’ve tried to make any child who reads this book feel special in the knowledge and ability they now will have, possibly more than some teachers, to better understand and get along with dogs, when and wherever they come across them, and, above all, by knowing how to prevent a dog feeling like biting.
MB: Who is your intended audience?
KS: Children and the adults they live with.
MB: What topics do you weave into your book, and what are some of your major messages?
KS: Some of the commandments are not instructions as such but informative statements, as in "Dogs do not know the difference between right and wrong," "Being cross does not make you the boss," and "When dogs are being bad, they need the most help, not the most punishment." These statements are followed by explanations in simple terms of why misbelief and misunderstanding can have major destructive fall-out for the dog-human relationship. The belief that dogs are aware that they’ve done wrong and acknowledge guilt in their body language as well as the dominance myth, translated into coercive and threatening training techniques and frankly ludicrous rules about where a dog should sleep and when it should eat, continue to have had hugely damaging consequences for our relationship with dogs.
The idea that bad dogs need help and not punishment calls into very gentle question the means by which humans administer punishment to fellow humans and what is expected to be gained by it, tit-for-tat retribution or behaviour change for the better. That dogs must be taught what is needed of them and that they must choose to do it for themselves is a novel concept for most children, not to mention a revelation for adults, as is the difference between obedience and well-behavedness. This subject is dealt with by means of a thought-provoking Q&A.6
MB: Are you hopeful that as people learn how to live with dogs and let them express their dogness, there will be much better dog-human relationships, and why?
KS: One must always live in hope, but sometimes I despair, to be honest. The domestic dog is a victim of its own success, having attached itself so firmly to the human species with its self-serving motives. But the same goes for dogs, who are cupboard lovers par excellence! Ultimately both species are selfish, which is why the pragmatic aim must be for both species to get what they need from the dog-human relationship and be satisfied (aka happy) with it at the same time. So, for dogs to be allowed to express more dogness, people have to need less from them and give dogs more in terms of freedom and choice.5
The best I hope for is that an acceptable compromise is reached, whereby the ownership, or having the companionship of dogs, is based on a far better understanding of their individual nature and needs and for people to be content with dogs’ company, in the knowledge that they have fulfilled those needs as best they can.
References
In conversation with Kendal Shepherd DVM. Kendal is one of the UK's leading, independent veterinary and behavioural consultants in matters relating to animal welfare and canine behaviour assessment and modification. She accepts legal instructions in both dangerous dog and animal welfare cases and offers online behaviour consultations and has written and published two books on canine behaviour as well as an educational resource for primary schools regarding dog bite prevention.
1) Some examples that show that happiness is a two-way affair in dog-human relationships include: Wag: The Science of Making Your Dog Happy; Making Dogs Happy: A Guide to How They Think, What They Do (and Don’t) Want, and Getting to “Good Dog!” Behavior; The Happy Dog Owner; 100 Ways to Be As Happy As Your Dog; Be as Happy as Your Dog: 16 Dog-Tested Ways to Be Happier Using Pawsitive Psychology; Easy Peasy Puppy Squeezy: Your Simple Step-by-Step Guide to Raising and Training a Happy Puppy.
2) For more on these topics see: The Psychology and Art of Positive "Do No Harm" Dog Training; "Bad Dog?" The Psychology of Using Positive Reinforcement; Science Shows Positive Reward-Based Dog Training Is Best; The Best Way to Avoid Dog Bites; Why Dogs May Bite, and How People Could Avoid It; Why Our Dogs Don't Need Tough Love; Is a "Bad Dog" Really a "Bad Dog?"
The 12 commandments are: Being cross does not make you the boss; Any dog may bite if he feels in danger; Never hit or kick a dog; Do not touch a dog you don't know; Do not tease or deliberately excite a dog; Dogs do not know the difference between right and wrong; Behaviours that dogs enjoy will be repeated; Dogs must be taught what you want them to do and they must choose to do it; Do not take anything away form a dog; When dogs are being 'bad', they need the most help, not the most punishment; Get your dog used to your life; and Tech your dog to say 'please'. (Kendal writes that dogs don't know right from wrong and while I think they do in some instances, she is correct for the contexts about which she writes.)
3) This new edition has very little change to the ‘commandments’ themselves but is supplemented with learning objectives for each chapter, Q&A’s, a glossary, a lovely Matt Black poem on the ‘Ladder of Aggression’ and of course Anna Currey’s wonderful illustrations.
4) To quote from a case in Demystifying Dog Behaviour, this understanding was exemplified by the five year-old who said to his mother very shortly after the start of the consultation, ‘You know Mum, you just can’t make him do what he doesn’t want to’!, which couldn’t have hit the nail on the head more accurately. This then brings in the whole question of what obedience actually is and means when applied to dogs, a subject which most adults haven’t thought about.
5) My intention is obviously that people come to better understand dogs and in turn, allow dogs to be dogs, but this may appear in opposition to what some people want out of the relationship. It also may be hard to reconcile with dog-related legislation and byelaw, where the general assumption is that dogs must be under human control at all times and therefore not be left free to make their own decisions.
6) In response to how Kendal's book differ from others that are concerned with some of the same general topics she wrote: The book seeks to create empathy with dogs by making many references to how a child might feel in equivalent situations, for example greeting and being greeted by different people in the street. Would they want to be touched, kissed or hugged by everyone? How might a dog feel? One section also explains how a human ladder of aggression can be created, an exercise I originally did with the children in class, to illustrate how misunderstandings and disagreements can lead to physical violence.
