Boundaries – Or Lack Thereof. Saying “No” Is Not A Boundary.

Yes, I’m old. 53, GenX. When I was a teen, we liked to have fun. Yeah, we drank underage, we partied, had fun but never set out to hurt anyone. A friend’s parents owned a convenience store in our little town – they sold beer. So we had easy access. Lets get into what boundaries are and how they lead to “Self Management Of Behaviours”.

If you choose/decide to do X – then Y is the result. My mother told me – if you choose to drink underage and get caught by the police – then Y is you dealing with the consequences. She stated that she wouldn’t bail me out. So, she put the onus on me – if I screw up – don’t call home – deal with it. She was telling me beforehand the consequences of MY OWN actions. The consequences – positive or negative – are completely on my shoulders. And that caused me to self manage my behaviours – cause the consequences are clear.

It’s the same for relationships. Any woman that I had a relationship with over the years – I laid down my boundaries. If you choose/decide to break my boundary – then the consequence of your actions is to leave the relationship. I can’t handle liars, cheaters, I won’t be hit and a few others. If you choose to lie to me, to cheat on me, or hit me, then that choice ends the relationship – and there are no second chances. You only have yourself to blame – my boundaries are not that difficult to understand. I am clearly laying out the consequences of certain actions – self manage your behaviours – or we are done. Finished. How badly do you want to be with me?

Once you lay out your own boundaries – then the onus is on the other person to win or lose. You are laying out the consequences for their own actions. They know the consequences of their actions – before hand. Pretty simple no?

How does one apply that to a dog? Monty has boundaries, he knows the basic rules. And for him – he had to learn the hard way. It all starts with developing that relationship – your dog needs to want to be with you – they need to understand that you are the most important thing in their life. You need to be a Positive Reinforcement in their life – And they aren’t going to run away from that. They only run away from Negatives – think about that if you feel the need to train recall. Why doesn’t your dog want to be with you?

Prepping for going off leash, I conditioned a whistle as a stop and look. When he was calm, could be asleep on the couch – I would whistle and all I wanted was for him to look at me. Or stop what he’s doing and look at me, that’s it. The morning of day 3 of him in my life, we pulled into a dog park – I opened the door and let him go – no leash. Was he ready for this – probably not but sometimes a leap of faith is required. Put the onus on him – he’s going to learn the boundaries in a different way – cause I can’t tell him the boundaries. He’s my dog now, and he wants to be with me – give it a whirl. Sometimes, one has to take leaps of faith to test a relationship.

When I opened the door, he jumped out and started running into the park. I whistled, he stopped and looked at me – wonderful, lets see where it goes. Then ran off to a group of dogs. I walked into the park to meet a friend, he was off doing his thing. Running from dog to dog, and eventually – he didn’t have a clue where I was – but I knew where he was – hundred feet away. It took about 10 minutes for him to come to the realization that he’s alone now in the park – he doesn’t know where I am and the panic set in. Monty just slammed face first into the wall – and he’s going to suffer the consequences for his actions.

The most important thing in his life is now not available, he’s suddenly alone among strangers. I was hiding from him, I’m going to let him sweat it out. Why? He made all the decisions from the time that door opened – he chose to lose access to me. And I’m going to make damn sure he doesn’t do it again.

Monty is facing the consequences of his own decisions – and he’s going to learn to self manage his behaviours. And that is called Operant Conditioning – the positive and negative consequences that shape our behaviours. It has to be the consequence of his choices.

When I felt he had enough, I stepped into view and whistled once – that gave a general direction for my location. Whistle a second time – and he came running faster than I ever seen him run before. He was stuck to me like glue for the rest of the walk – wouldn’t take his eyes off me. That’s not what I want – I don’t want him stuck to me all the time – and I knew he would start exploring. To make it fair – That whistle turned into a locator. So if we are on a trail and he’s off in the woods exploring – I would whistle periodically to let him know where I am – I’m further up the trail. And sure enough, he would pop out somewhere close to me. This is all cooperation.

Telling your dog “no” all the time is not setting boundaries. That word “no” is going to lose meaning over time.