Why I Let My Dog Pick Up Trash
My style of dog training has very little to do with obedience.
Yes, I love clean mechanics, stimulus control, and high rates of reinforcement. I love learning theory and the science of behavior. I spend lots of time and money on my own continuing education. I do believe dog training is a technical skill that requires education, practice, and peer review.
But I think the reason why these skills are important is so that we can keep our dogs happy. To me it has very little to do with having a dog who does what you tell them to do. And so, I let my dog pick up trash.
Minnow is about 10 months old and has the spirit of a kindergartener running around without pants on. Pure joy in a brindle body. Pretty much every walk we go on (decompression or otherwise), she will find a treasure and pick it up in her mouth. Coffee cups, chip bags, old potatoes, juice boxes, toy cars, disembodied Barbie legs, soccer cleats, soda cans, wigs, corn cobs, empty 10-gallon water jugs: these are among her finds, and if she had held on to them for more than a few minutes, I would have collected them all to display in Minnow’s Cabinet of Curiosities.
People have asked me if I have tried teaching her to “leave it” or “drop it”. To which I shrug. It’s not that I couldn’t -- these skills are fairly easily taught with errorless learning. I’d have to get creative with reinforcement since Minnow finds her treasures more reinforcing than any food I could offer her, but we do a lot with the Premack principle anyways (using forward movement, exploration, running, etc, as reinforcers). But sure, it could be done. I’m just not that interested in doing it.
I think that we often take training and behavior modification for granted. Dogs do not exist to be trained. I know this may sound strange coming from a professional dog trainer. But what I mean is, all dog behavior has a function, and it is arrogant to think that we have the right to change the behavior of another living being just because we want to.
Of course we should prioritize the safety of those in our charge. Left to their own devices, dogs engage in activities that are objectively dangerous: running near busy roads, eating choking-sized chicken bones off the ground, picking fights on the fence line, chasing cats, etc. I’m certainly not saying that those are shruggable moments and that you should just let your dog do whatever the heck they want.
Here’s what I am saying: having a joyful coexistence with a dog means helping them meet their needs. Foraging, chewing, shredding, digging, sniffing, are all immutable needs for a canid. And all beings need access to reinforcement and freedom from punishment as much as possible. We know that autonomy is inherently reinforcing. We all need to just be.
Safety is a need too! So please do keep your dog safe. But I implore you to think before you deem a behavior unsafe. Is it posing a threat to your dog’s wellbeing, or do you just think it’s gross?
Minnow also picks up gross things: bird wings, dead stingrays (floating in the tide, fetched herself), moon jellies, crabs, fish heads. Things that make you feel the urge to screech “leave it!” bubbling up inside you. Scarfing these delicacies down is one thing. But if your dog wants to pick something up, toss it around, maybe take a nibble here or there, what’s the harm, really? A dog’s immune and digestive systems are way more capable of handling the potential bacterial load so the risk of them contracting something funky is pretty low.
If I see something up ahead I’d rather she didn’t pick up, I provide her with another reinforcement opportunity (perhaps a Pattern Game) until we’re past it. And if she’s already picked something up that I need her to drop? Something potentially toxic or dangerous (the other day it was a broken glass bottle)? It’s easy for me to get close to her because there is no history of me grabbing things out of her mouth. It doesn’t turn into a “catch me if you can” game. We negotiate a trade for a handful of treats, I remove the item once she’s let go, and/or I run away and ask her to chase me (fun!). Sometimes she just drops it on her own after a few seconds. #puppyattentionspan
Minnow has some dog friends at our local park and we gather there a few evenings a week. The park has some muddy patches that are doused in manure-based fertilizer. The dogs think it’s a buffet. Absolutely delicious. Minnow grabs a mouthful every now and then. Almost every other owner at the park will shout, scold, and/or chase away their dog if they approach the mud. However, the mud-eating behavior does not decrease. The dogs continue to approach the mud patches but their body language changes: their eyes and ears are alert to any approaching humans, their weight is shifted backwards, and they sprint away when they anticipate a scolding. The reinforcement hasn’t changed (access to delicious mud) but the presence of aversive stimuli has created avoidance behaviors. In some dogs, I see the fear/avoidance generalizing to any human approach.
I know these owners are well-intentioned and likely perceive the mud to be a health threat. I wish they could see that there are plenty of ways to keep your dog safe while meeting their needs for joy and autonomy.
I think in order to let our dogs live their lives to the fullest, we have to let some stuff gross us out. Shrug!
