The power of choice
The power of choice
Listen to your pet.
Agency and body autonomy are just as important to animals as they are to us. When the choice to say “I don’t like what you are doing please stop” is taken away from an animal, fear, struggling, and aggression follows.
Dogs and cats are easy to overpower and force into grooming and veterinary procedures. Not surprisingly, each time an animal is forced to endure something they find uncomfortable or scary their behavior deteriorates to a point where they become dangerous to handle and require muzzling and/or sedation.
Imagine yourself in the same situation, no one is listening when you ask them to stop and you’re forced into having something done to you that you don’t understand.
It’s very simple to train and condition any animal to cooperate voluntarily in their own care.
If you want cooperation from your pet, the key is to listen to the animal and respect their choice to say no. They say no in many ways and in ways that are unique to the species. You need to learn that animal’s communication methods so that you can recognize when they are asking you politely to stop what you are doing, they should not have to escalate to aggression to get you to stop.
It may feel uncomfortable for some people to give up some control and slow down or allow the animal to walk away and opt out of a procedure. The interesting thing is that when the animal is given a choice without being forced into it, and we do everything in our power to make the experience positive, they almost always choose to participate. Participation is where the reinforcement is, choosing not to participate is okay but it doesn’t come with anything special like food or playtime.
There are unfortunately times when the animal has no choice but to participate because of an emergency of some kind or a deadline, because of this it is important that cooperative care training starts right away. You want to invest as much time as you can into your pet’s cooperative care trust account so that when you are forced to make a withdrawal from that trust account and take away the choice to say no because of an emergency or deadline, you won’t be bankrupting your relationship with your pet. When possible, postpone anything that can be until the animal is ready.
Cooperative care is something you will do with your animal for their entire life with you. In the beginning cooperative care is training and conditioning but overtime it becomes part of a routine you share together to keep your pet healthy and happy.