Giving Dogs Time

Thoughts on the importance of processing time in humans and dogs

Before working with dogs full-time, I had the honor of being a special education teacher at a public middle school for about 8 years. It was an extraordinary experience, and I got to work with some incredible students who I’ll never forget. I learned so much from all of them. They taught me valuable lessons about myself, the learning process, and what was actually important in school. I could go on and on about them.

One of the lessons I learned while teaching this cool group of kids was the profound importance of processing time in learning. Giving students enough time often lead to unlocking their true personalities, potential, and skills. They taught me about my own need for processing time too. And as I figured out how important it was, I started advocating more for myself so that people would give me the time that I needed to process information, thoughtfully respond, or take action.

Dogs need time too.

But they can’t self-advocate with language. And it’s tricky and imprecise to do with behavior. What they do have, though, is a specially qualified teacher who can prioritize their individual learning needs to support their success. That’s you. And me. And every other dog handler out there. We are their teachers whether we realize it or not, and it’s up to us to give them what they need to be successful. I think one of the most powerful things we can give them is simply enough time to process our input.

So what does this mean practically? It means we need to adjust our expectations, slow everything down when needed, and watch carefully for the reinforceable moment when our dog makes the right choice. When you give a cue and your dog doesn’t perform the action right away, just wait. Keep that hand signal out and let them process, give them time for compliance after a verbal cue, and use your eyes and body language to show them what you want. We can of course still reward for quicker behaviors if that’s the goal, but it’s important that we give them time when they need it. Remember that our cues are often competing with a complex set of emotions and motivations. Sometimes it just takes our dogs a little while to think, “okay I’ll do the thing you asked me to, even if I’d kind of prefer to go chew on that box over there or chase the cat.”

We live in a fast-paced world. And culturally our attention span has gotten shorter and shorter. We’re used to very quick results with a lot of our interactions in the world. We scroll through 10-second video clips. We order food and groceries that can be here in like 30 minutes. And we can have packages delivered in a day when it used to be like two weeks. I think we can all benefit from slowing down a little bit, and dogs actually help us with this by making us feel more calm and present. Let’s return the favor by giving them time when they need it. 🐾