Reflecting on Habits: Lessons from Dog Walking

Every day my husband and I walk our dogs on an off-leash trail.

We often run into two different owners on our walks.

One of them has a German Shepard that's been prone to attacking certain dogs on sight, including our own. I'll refer to this dog as "Big Lucy."

The other has a smaller mix that's also prone to attacking our dogs. I'll refer to this dog as "Little Lucy."

LITTLE LUCY 

After the first attack, Little Lucy's owner has since put her on leash. Now when we encounter them, he stops on the side of the path to watch us pass.

I can feel the tension building as we'd walk by. He tells her to sit.  So she sits and watches us... UNTIL she sees the backs of our dogs. Then, without fail, she springs into action, lunging towards them, snarling. The leash holds her back. Her owner scolds her.

This has been going on for over a year now, and hasn't changed. At some level, I feel like the owner has been inadvertently training the dog to attack dogs on sight. He doesn't mean to obviously, but the repetition of the behavior has only reinforced it over time.

BIG LUCY 

Big Lucy's owner had a similar approach, at first.  Whenever we encountered them, he would drag Big Lucy by the collar, off into the bushes, and wait for us to pass. You could feel the tension in the air as we walked by. Big Lucy would lunge and snarl.

For a few weeks, we didn't see Big Lucy's owner (he was probably walking her earlier or later in the day.) When we saw him next, I expected yet another tense encounter, but instead, I noticed Big Lucy had a big ol' stick in her mouth. Big Lucy's owner would toss it as we approached. Big Lucy, too engrossed with the stick, would ignore our dogs. Occasionally she might give them a glimpse, but the stick was far more enticing to pursue than our dogs.

She hasn't been aggressive towards our dogs since.

CHANGING HABITS

I think this is a good illustration of how it's often easier to DO something than NOT DO something. And that if we have a bad habit we'd like to break, it's easier to replace it with another activity whenever the urge arises, than simply say "don't do this."

I don't think we're that different than dogs. Aside from the butt sniffing thing.