Here's the Thing About "Giving Your Dog a Job"
I hear it all the time. “I have a cattle dog/German shepherd/Aussie/pit bull/Doberman/labradoodle….and I can tell he just needs a job! He’s bouncing off the walls with energy and honestly, no one in my family can tell him anything.” I ask them what kind of job they have in mind, and they say:
Carry in the groceries
Fetch me beers
Bring the paper in
Put their toys away
I’m like, “Where the heck are people getting these ideas?” Then I’m like, “Oh, probably from Lassie.”
They are envisioning the self-reliant, farm dog of yore that saved Timmy from falling down the well without batting an eyelash. Lassie didn’t need a variable reinforcement schedule! But this dog, like June Cleaver, is a fantasy. It’s nice fantasy, a useful fantasy even - an archetype that reminds us all of the remarkable bond between man and man’s best friend and encourages us to keep it alive. The idea that a dog can be self-sustaining and go around doing helpful stuff for us out of the goodness of its heart is so captivating that it has somehow ingrained itself into our collective unconscious, even though there are very few dogs like that left in 2023. In fact, the whole “Timmy fell down the well” trope isn’t even factual - it’s just something that circulated in the years following the show, and happened to stick. Although Lassie did save Timmy from plenty of close calls, there was never any well, never any falling. Did you know that?
As someone who owns a dog who can do all the tasks listed above I have to inform struggling dog owners that call me up on a random Wednesday… these skills can be quite challenging to teach, and will require heavy involvement from the handler for several weeks or months. And that’s just the first phase of training - to get these behaviors functional to a level that the dog will reliably perform them without treats, it will take a lot longer. I tell them that it’s fun to train dogs to things like this, but also a hell of a lot of work, and there were challenges even for me as a professional dog trainer. That means for several weeks or months, the handler will need to:
Work the dog every day reinforcing slow, gradual approximations of the target behavior
Know how to add distance, duration, and distraction
Find something to do with their kids and other dogs because their presence is distracting to the dog
Wear a treat pouch around the house, have treats in little bowls all around the house
Come up with something for the dog to do the other 95% of the day when it isn’t fetching, finding things, or tidying things
Come up with a plan for when your dog brings you the wrong things, like the knives out of the dishwasher that you’re unloading
The reality is: most people already manage too many things every day. They are overseeing kids’ homework, dinner, sports careers, and social calendar. They are wrangling people at their job. They are remodeling their house. They are working on next year’s budget. They are moving their elderly parent into the spare bedroom. They don’t need or want to be their goldendoodle’s unemployment agent.
The “job” metaphor in dog training is so common, I’ve probably even used it myself, as shorthand way of saying “the dog is on Place even though it would rather be rushing the door” or “the dog receives it’s breakfast by performing several recalls at the park.” But I’ve noticed that sometimes when trainers say something, the full meaning isn’t imparted to the dog owner. I’m beginning to wonder if dog owners and trainers are missing each other. In my observation, the “give your job a dog” trope often doesn’t give owners a useful picture. It gives…Lassie. Even if your idea of “job” is laying on Place, doing recall, sitting at the front door…it’s easy to gloss over the fact that all of those behaviors aren’t going to be done out of the goodness of the dog’s heart. They might be done out of habit, one day far in the future. But there’s this vast, crucial period of Making Sure Your Dog Does The Good or At Least Okay Things And Not Bad Things before you arrive in habit land. Part of our work as trainers is to help people with that part, and gently guide them away from the Lassie fantasy.
I can’t help but be reminded of my years in early childhood education. A common piece of advice was: give your toddler a “job” - like helping with cooking - so that they can feel included, and so that they don’t get into anything bad. This isn’t a terrible idea, by the way. But as someone who has been there, done that, got the shirt… I know firsthand that for some kids, the corollary to “give your toddler a job” is “be your toddler’s manager.” Many times, it goes really well and the cookies get made with nary an errant dusting of flour. But no one really talks about what to do when your toddler decides to freelance by pouring sugar all over the floor instead of in the bowl, and refuses to help you clean it up. No one talks about the fact that some toddlers are going to tell you to take that job and shove it. What’s your plan then?
People say dogs have the impulse control level of a two year old child, so it’s at least a somewhat fair comparison. In order to give your dog a job, you are going to have to train them for that job, teach them the rules of that job (for example, my dog is not allowed to carry anything ceramic - only metal and plastic), come up with some sort of payment structure for that job, and then figure out what the hell you’ll do if the dog doesn’t want to show up for work. Perhaps it would be less stressful for the parent to put their toddler in a safe place to play nearby when they make the cookies, rather than involve them. Maybe it would be more useful for the dog to be made to be still when the groceries are being brought in - rather than worrying about training the dog to bring them in.
My dog did not learn any of the cool tasks that he knows until he had a achieved a solid down stay, solid recall, solid Place command, and was reasonably well potty trained. Until then, I was doing the same boring crap as every one else - crating him when I could not supervise, leashing him inside the house so he couldn’t do anything bad, e-collar conditioning him for off leash control, walking him, taking out for potty breaks, teaching him Place command, and making him stay on Place.
Does he see these things as his job? I don’t know. I doubt it. I think he just lives his life and gets by like the rest of us - eternally navigating towards things he wants, and away from things he wants to avoid. And 95% of his day he’s not bringing me things - he’s farting around the house and yard. His training (and my periodic reminders of his training) keep him acting “civilized,” for the most part. He knows that he isn’t allowed to bite people’s skin, get into the dishwasher, ignore recall, chew on furniture, and jump on people. I think this is what most people are looking for when they hire a dog trainer.
I have my dog bring me my slippers for my own gratification, not because I think it will help him be civilized inside the house. It’s just fun (at least for me) to teach really complicated behaviors, and it’s damn useful to have my dog retrieve empty dog food bowls from the back of large kennels - saves my knees and my back! But I’m a full time dog trainer without kids. I have the time and I enjoy the work. The vast majority of dogs out there don’t need a “job.” They need basic life skills.
They need to learn to not clobber people.
They need to learn to be still when told.
They need to learn to walk on a leash safely.
They need to learn not to bark constantly.
And this usually means that their owners don’t need to be focused on training really complicated behavior chains like carrying a basket of cookies to the neighbor. This would be like teaching a child to code before you’ve taught him how to say please and thank you, not hit his friends, sit at the table for meals, and and zip up his own coat. Many of the dogs I see are missing life skills, not tasks. Most owners need help with boundary setting in the house, emotional control, spatial pressure communication, management, leash handling, and basic dog husbandry.
So let’s start teaching that, okay?