OVERVIEW: How faulty reasoning can lead people to mistreat dogs, blame them for the consequences, and defend the very decisions that created the problem. Are you setting your dog up to fail? Learn how faulty reasoning, human emotions, and self-justification can create and perpetuate dog behavior problems.
After more than 30 years of professionally training dogs and working with their owners, I've learned that understanding a dog's behavior frequently requires examining the behavior of the people around it. Sometimes people create the very circumstances that lead to a dog's behavioral problems. They make decisions based on inaccurate assumptions, unrealistic expectations, emotional reactions, or mistaken beliefs about how dogs behave. When the results are unfavorable, they blame the dog rather than reconsider their own decisions.
What particularly interests me is what happens afterward. Instead of examining whether their actions contributed to the problem, people sometimes construct explanations that justify what they did. When questioned, they may become defensive, change their account of events, appeal to their authority, attack the person challenging them, or insist that the dog left them no alternative. The human's explanation becomes more important than discovering what happened.
This is not unique to inexperienced dog owners. Professional trainers and other people who work with animals can fall into the same patterns. Dogs have their own inherited predispositions, motivations, experiences, and limitations. Not every behavioral problem is caused by people. But humans control much of the environment in which dogs live, and our decisions can profoundly influence their behavior. That gives us responsibility not only for what we do to dogs, but also for how honestly we evaluate and explain our decisions.
What Does It Mean to Cause a Dog to Stumble?
Causing a dog to stumble means creating or maintaining circumstances in which undesirable behavior, conflict, or failure becomes more likely, especially when the person responsible could reasonably have recognized or prevented the problem. There is an old biblical warning about causing another to stumble. In its original context, it concerns moral responsibility toward other people, particularly those vulnerable to another person's influence or actions. I see a useful analogy in our relationships with dogs.
Dogs live in a world largely controlled by human beings. We decide where they live, which people and animals they encounter, how they are trained, what rules they must follow, and what consequences follow their behavior. They cannot negotiate those decisions or challenge our explanations in human language. That creates a special responsibility.
We can prepare dogs for difficult experiences, establish understandable expectations, and manage circumstances in which problems are foreseeable. Or we can place them in situations they are poorly equipped to handle, provoke unwanted responses, and then punish them for behaving in ways we dislike. The moral problem becomes especially troubling when we use our authority and reasoning abilities to excuse what we have done. The dog may be held accountable for its behavior while the human refuses to accept responsibility for the circumstances that helped produce it.
How Does Faulty Reasoning Lead People to Make Bad Decisions About Dogs?
Faulty reasoning can cause people to interpret a dog's behavior incorrectly and select an inappropriate response before they have established what the problem actually is. Imagine a dog that resists being picked up. The owner believes the dog is challenging their authority. That belief becomes the starting point for the next decision: allowing resistance will supposedly teach the dog that disobedience is acceptable, so the owner must become firmer.
Notice what has happened. The owner has moved from observing resistance to assigning a motivation, and from that assumed motivation to justifying greater force. But the original explanation has not been established. The dog might be experiencing pain, might have learned to avoid handling because of previous experiences, or might be frightened or physically uncomfortable. Other explanations may be possible.
If the owner treats the assumption as fact, the intervention can create an entirely new problem. The dog may struggle, threaten, or bite. The owner then says, "See? I told you this dog was challenging me." The dog's response is used to confirm the very explanation that led to the confrontation. This is circular reasoning: the person begins with an unsupported conclusion, acts upon it, and interprets the consequences as proof that the conclusion was correct. The problem is not simply a poor training technique. It is faulty reasoning that produced the decision and then protected it from reconsideration.
Why Do People Defend Their Mistakes Instead of Correcting Them?
People frequently defend their decisions because acknowledging an error can threaten their beliefs, self-image, emotional investment, or professional authority. Psychologists have studied several processes relevant to this problem. Motivated reasoning describes the influence of desired conclusions on how people evaluate information. Confirmation bias involves favoring evidence that supports an existing belief. Cognitive dissonance refers to psychological discomfort associated with conflicting beliefs or actions.
Consider an owner who believes that being a good dog owner requires what they believe is being a “strong leader” (a bully… not the same as being a good leader). The owner confronts the dog over an unwanted behavior, and the dog responds defensively. Now the owner faces an uncomfortable possibility: perhaps the confrontation was unnecessary or made the situation worse. Accepting that possibility may require reconsidering beliefs the owner has held for years.
A more comfortable explanation is that the dog was unusually difficult and required even firmer handling. The person can preserve the original belief by changing the explanation of what happened. This does not necessarily involve deliberate dishonesty. People can sincerely believe explanations that protect them from uncomfortable conclusions. But sincerity does not establish that an explanation is correct, and when it justifies continuing an inappropriate intervention, the dog may suffer the consequences.
What Happens When We Punish a Dog Without Understanding Its Behavior?
Punishing an observable response without understanding its circumstances can create additional problems, particularly when the person assumes that stopping the response will resolve its underlying cause. Consider a dog that growls when approached. The owner believes that growling is unacceptable because the dog must respect human authority, and punishes the growl. If the dog subsequently stops growling, the owner may conclude that the training succeeded. But what has actually changed? An observable behavior may have diminished; the circumstances motivating it may not have changed.
There is a familiar training claim that punishing growling causes dogs to stop warning people and eventually bite without warning. That is a possible learning-related concern, but it should not be presented as an inevitable outcome.
The scientific literature supports a more precise statement than the one currently in the article. Punishment can suppress growling without eliminating the conditions that might lead a dog to bite. However, the evidence does not establish that punishing growling reliably causes dogs to become silent biters.
The distinction is important because the first proposition concerns a recognized learning process, while the second makes a specific causal and predictive claim.
What does the research establish?
Scientific Questions About Growling, Punishment, and Biting
Scientific question | Assessment |
Can punishment suppress growling? | Supported by learning principles. Punishment can reduce the occurrence of a behavior, including vocalizations. |
Does suppressing growling necessarily eliminate the dog’s motivation to bite? | No. The observable behavior and the underlying motivation are different matters. |
Can a dog bite without first growling? | Yes. Warning behaviors do not invariably follow a fixed sequence. |
Does punishing growling cause subsequent biting without warning? | Plausible, but not established as a general causal sequence by direct longitudinal or controlled evidence identified in this review. |
Do all dogs naturally growl before biting? | No. Individual differences, context, learning history, and physical condition can affect the behavioral sequence. |
Can an attack without growling establish a history of punished warnings? | No. That conclusion requires evidence about the individual dog’s previous behavior and experiences. |
What the authorities actually say
Veterinary behaviorist Lore Haug (2015) explains that punishment may modify warning behaviors without resolving the underlying fear or other motivation. Importantly, she acknowledges that warning sequences may be abbreviated, simultaneous, or incomplete. Her article describes suppression of growling followed by biting as a possibility, not as an experimentally established universal progression.
The American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior also warns that punishment can suppress signals that precede biting without addressing the underlying behavioral problem. Its position is a legitimate professional safety precaution, but a professional position statement is not, by itself, a controlled demonstration of that particular causal sequence.
Armin Winkler's aggression model supplies an important competing explanation. In his account, dogs with active defensive responses may resort to physical attacks early in an encounter, whereas dogs exhibiting passive defensive responses may initially growl, bark, posture, or retreat. His model challenges the assumption that an attack without growling must result from previously punished warnings.
There is also evidence that medical conditions can alter warning behavior. Research involving dogs with painful conditions has identified associations between pain and attacks reportedly occurring with fewer warning signals. This provides another reason not to attribute a missing growl automatically to punishment.
Growling and threatening postures are not themselves physical attacks. Aggression, attempted or completed violence, must be distinguished from nonviolent threatening displays. Winkler's observations illustrate why a single outward behavior does not automatically reveal the dog's motivation or behavioral history.
Now consider the reasoning used to justify punishing the growl. The owner might argue that the dog was disrespectful, that a good leader cannot permit such behavior, or that failing to punish it would encourage aggression. But each claim requires examination. Was the dog actually challenging authority? Was the growl associated with a particular threat or discomfort? Did the intervention reduce danger or merely change what could be observed? A person can use a coherent-sounding argument built upon an unsupported assumption, then blame the dog when it responds badly rather than acknowledge that the interpretation could have been wrong.
How Do People Justify Forcing Dogs Into Frightening Situations?
People sometimes convince themselves that overwhelming a dog is necessary for its own good, then reinterpret the resulting fear, appeasement, capitulation, or defensive behavior as evidence that the dog needs more forceful treatment and that forceful treatments work. Consider a dog frightened by unfamiliar dogs. Its owner believes that the best way to overcome fear is to force the dog to confront it, and takes the dog into a crowded dog park despite clear signs that the experience is becoming overwhelming.
The dog attempts to escape, threatens approaching dogs, or becomes involved in a confrontation. Rather than reconsidering the decision, the owner concludes that the dog is antisocial, poorly trained, or excessively reactive. The reasoning may go something like this: "The dog needs socialization. Socialization means interacting with other dogs. Therefore, I need to force the dog to interact. If the dog reacts badly, that proves it needs more socialization."
The argument sounds reasonable until we examine its assumptions. Is the dog capable of participating appropriately under those circumstances? Is forced interaction the same thing as productive social learning? Did the experience improve or worsen the dog's behavior? Exposure can be useful when appropriately planned; overwhelming exposure can also produce adverse outcomes. The important distinction is between an intervention intended to help and evidence that it helped. Good intentions do not establish good results.
How Can Inconsistent Rules Become the Dog's Fault?
People sometimes encourage a behavior under one set of circumstances, condemn it under another, and then blame the dog for not understanding distinctions that were never adequately taught. A puppy jumps on family members during greetings. Everyone laughs, pets the puppy, and enjoys the interaction. Months later, the dog is larger, jumps on a visitor, and the embarrassed owner shouts that it knows better. But does it? Perhaps the dog has repeatedly learned that jumping produces attention and interaction.
The owner may now insist that the dog understands it is not supposed to jump on visitors. That assertion is convenient because it transfers responsibility from inconsistent teaching to supposed disobedience. If someone points out the earlier encouragement, the owner might say the puppy was younger then, the visitor should have known how to behave, or the dog has become stubborn. Some of those circumstances may be relevant, but none establishes that the dog understood the new expectation.
Owners are free to change household rules. The responsibility is to teach new expectations rather than assume that a dog is deliberately violating them.
Can We Teach Dogs to Distrust Our Instructions and Then Blame Them for Not Listening?
People can inadvertently weaken a learned response by repeatedly arranging consequences that make the dog less willing to perform it. Imagine an owner who teaches a reliable recall. The dog comes when called and is rewarded. Later, the owner calls the dog primarily when something enjoyable is about to end or an unpleasant activity will follow. Eventually, the dog becomes reluctant to approach, and the owner declares it disobedient.
An alternative explanation is that the owner has changed what the recall cue predicts. The dog may have learned that coming when called is associated with outcomes it wishes to avoid. The human has unintentionally undermined the skill and then interpreted the resulting failure as a defect in the animal. The owner might say that dogs must obey regardless of consequences, but that is an expectation about the desired outcome, not evidence about what the dog has learned. A trainer should investigate the learning history before concluding that the animal is deliberately refusing to cooperate. Because it doesn’t work that way. As Armin Winkler says, “No dog has EVER knowingly done anything WRONG”. And he is right about that.
What Happens When Adults Allow Children to Provoke Dogs?
Adults can create serious and foreseeable risks when they allow children to repeatedly disturb, frighten, or hurt dogs, then blame the dog for responding. Consider a dog resting on the floor while a young child repeatedly climbs on it, pulls its ears, or disturbs its sleep. The adults allow the behavior because they believe a family dog should tolerate children. Eventually the dog snaps or bites, and the incident is described as an unprovoked attack.
But was it unprovoked? The answer depends on what happened before the bite. Perhaps the adults failed to recognize earlier warning behaviors or excused what the child repeatedly did. Perhaps the dog previously tolerated similar treatment. Perhaps it was physically uncomfortable or unable to move away. The dog's response still requires a serious safety assessment, but interpreting the bite without examining the child's conduct and adult supervision would omit important evidence.
The adults may defend themselves by saying the dog had never bitten before, children should be safe around family pets, or a good dog should tolerate anything a child does. These statements express expectations, not proof that those expectations were reasonable. When supervision is questioned, the discussion may become an emotional argument about whether the critic cares more about dogs than children. That changes the subject. Child safety does not erase adults' responsibility to prevent dangerous interactions. Protecting children and treating dogs fairly are not opposing objectives. If you can’t tell your child, “no”, and mean it and follow through, you have more than a dog problem. You have a parenting problem.
How Do People Create Conditions for Dog Fights and Then Rewrite What Happened?
Owners sometimes allow dangerous patterns of interaction to continue, then describe the resulting fight in ways that omit earlier events or excuse their decisions. Consider two dogs that have repeatedly confronted one another around a doorway. The owners know these encounters have become problematic but continue allowing the dogs to enter the narrow space together. Eventually, a serious fight occurs. One owner says a dog attacked for no reason; another insists they had always been friends. A trainer might immediately attribute the incident to dominance, jealousy, or resource guarding without reconstructing events.
But what happened? Were earlier encounters nonviolent disputes? Did one dog physically attack the other? Did both engage in reciprocal violence? Did either attempt to withdraw? Were people intervening? An encounter can begin as a disagreement, develop into reciprocal fighting, and end with one dog continuing an attack after the other disengages. Those distinctions matter.
Owners may have forgotten or overlooked earlier incidents, misunderstood their significance, or focused on the most dramatic part of the encounter. But there may also be a temptation to rewrite history to minimize human responsibility. "We had no way of knowing this would happen" deserves scrutiny if similar confrontations were documented. "They always got along" may describe much of their relationship without capturing recurring trouble spots. "The other dog started it" requires an accurate chronology, not merely identification of the dog that caused visible injuries.
The goal is not to blame owners for every household fight. It is to recognize that decisions can contribute to foreseeable risks, and an incomplete or distorted account can interfere with preventing another incident. And sometimes the explanations are a result of an owner who favors one dog over the other, creating a false narrative.
What If a Dog Is in Pain and We Justify Forcing It to Comply?
When pain or illness contributes to behavior, an incorrect interpretation can lead to interventions that increase conflict and unnecessary suffering. In my professional experience, I have encountered dogs with behavioral problems occurring alongside spinal disorders, orthopedic disease, painful ear conditions, allergies, dental problems, and other medical concerns. These experiences have reinforced my view that physical health should be considered when the history suggests a medical influence.
Imagine a dog that begins resisting being lifted or grabbed, such as putting them in a car or putting on a harness. The owner believes it is avoiding obedience, and a trainer recommends increasing pressure. The dog resists more forcefully and attempts to bite. The trainer says, "That's what happens when you let a dog get away with refusing." But what if the dog has a painful spinal condition? The trainer's explanation may have transformed physical discomfort into an alleged challenge to authority. The resulting resistance is then used to justify more pressure.
This is how faulty reasoning can perpetuate a problem. We should investigate whether pain or disease contributes to the behavior rather than assuming resistance proves defiance. A medical condition does not automatically establish causation; we still need history, findings, and chronology. Ignoring the possibility altogether is an avoidable mistake.
How Do People Use Bad Arguments to Justify Their Treatment of Dogs?
When challenged about decisions that may have harmed a dog, people sometimes shift from explaining the decision to defending themselves. Several recognizable argumentation tactics can make that process difficult to identify.
Tactic | Example | What the argument avoids |
Ad hominem | "You don't know anything about difficult dogs." | Whether the criticism is correct |
Appeal to authority | "I've been training dogs for 30 years." | Evidence supporting this particular decision |
Straw man | "So you're saying we should let dogs do whatever they want?" | The actual objection |
Red herring | "The problem is that society has become too soft on dogs." | What happened in this incident |
Whataboutism | "What about all the owners who spoil their dogs?" | Responsibility for the action being questioned |
Moving the goalposts | "The dog still bites, but now it respects me." | Whether the original objective was achieved |
Selective evidence | Describing a bite while omitting the preceding confrontation | The relevant chronology |
Shifting blame | "The dog made me punish it." | The human decision to impose punishment |
Appeal to emotion | "You have no idea how hard this dog has made my life!" | Whether the explanation is supported |
Shifting the burden of proof | "Prove that my method caused the problem." | Supporting claims used to justify the method |
Intimidation | Shouting or making personal threats when questioned | The factual disagreement |
A person's emotional distress is not necessarily irrelevant; serious behavior problems can be difficult to live with. Professional experience may also provide important evidence. The problem arises when emotions or authority are substituted for evidence or used to prevent legitimate examination of a decision. Sometimes these tactics are deliberate; sometimes they reflect defensiveness, frustration, poor reasoning, or mistaken beliefs. We should not presume motives from a defective argument, but we can recognize when the original questions remain unanswered. Did the intervention work? Was the explanation supported? Were important facts omitted? Were risks foreseeable? Did human decisions contribute to the outcome?
What About Crocodile Tears? When Emotions Become a Way to Avoid Accountability
Another way people sometimes avoid accountability is through what we commonly call crocodile tears, an outward display of sadness, remorse, or emotional distress that may be intended to gain sympathy, deflect criticism, or escape responsibility. When confronted about their treatment of a dog, someone may become tearful, describe how much they love the animal, emphasize how difficult their circumstances have been, or accuse the person questioning them of being cruel or insensitive. The conversation can quickly shift away from what happened to the dog and toward comforting or defending the person whose actions were being questioned.
We should be careful, however, about assuming that tears are insincere. Someone can be genuinely upset, ashamed, frightened, or overwhelmed while still refusing to acknowledge a mistake. Genuine distress and manipulative behavior are not mutually exclusive. A person may sincerely feel sorry for themselves, fear the consequences of their actions, or resent being confronted without necessarily feeling remorse for what they did to the dog. Research on emotional expression and deception does not provide a reliable way to determine someone's honesty simply by observing whether they cry.
This distinction becomes particularly important when emotions are used to replace evidence. Consider an owner who repeatedly places a dog in dangerous situations despite previous warnings. When confronted, the owner begins crying and explains how much the dog means to them, how hard they have tried, and how unfairly everyone is treating them. Those feelings may be real, but they do not establish that the owner's decisions were reasonable or that the dog is now safe. The relevant questions remain: What happened? What did the owner know beforehand? Were the consequences foreseeable? What responsibility does the owner accept, and what will change to prevent another incident?
The appropriate response is generally to acknowledge the person's distress without allowing the emotional display to determine the outcome of the discussion. We can be compassionate while returning to the facts, asking reasonable questions, and maintaining appropriate boundaries. Accusing someone of faking tears is rarely productive because we usually cannot establish their internal motives, and the accusation may create another diversion. Instead, we should evaluate whether the person acknowledges specific mistakes, considers contradictory evidence, and takes meaningful corrective action. If the discussion repeatedly dissolves into emotional appeals, accusations, or personal attacks, continuing to argue may accomplish very little. We may need to disengage while considering whether other reasonable steps are necessary to protect the dog.
Ultimately, remorse, self-pity, and accountability are not the same thing. A person may feel terrible about being criticized or facing consequences without accepting responsibility for the conduct that produced them. Genuine remorse is more meaningful when accompanied by recognition of the harm and efforts to correct it. We should not mistake emotional intensity for evidence, expressions of regret for corrective action, or tears for proof that someone has accepted responsibility. The dog's welfare should not disappear from consideration simply because the person responsible has become the most visibly distressed participant in the conversation.
What Happens When Someone Keeps Changing Their Explanation?
Repeatedly changing an explanation to avoid contradictory evidence can prevent an owner or trainer from recognizing that an intervention has failed. Or mislead the trainer, and create additional problems for everyone involved. Consider an owner who insists that a dog is aggressive because it lacks a strong leader. A trainer asks what happened before the incident. The owner says the dog refused to obey, but further questioning reveals it was attempting to avoid painful handling. The owner responds that the dog should obey anyway. When asked whether pain might explain the behavior, the owner changes the subject to discipline. When the trainer points out the difference between obedience and pain, the owner accuses the trainer of opposing all corrections.
The conversation is no longer about the dog. It has become an argument about the trainer's supposed beliefs. Answer that accusation, and another unrelated criticism may follow. The exchange can continue indefinitely while the original question remains unresolved.
Schopenhauer's writings on eristic argumentation examine the broader problem of treating arguments as contests to be won instead of questions to be resolved. In contemporary terms, these exchanges may involve defensive argumentation, sophistry, or bad-faith tactics. Not every mistaken argument is dishonest. A person can sincerely believe something and reason poorly about it. But the effect may be similar: the dog continues to be handled according to an unsupported explanation because the person responsible will not examine contradictory evidence.
How Can We Stop Rationalizing Mistakes and Start Setting Dogs Up to Succeed?
The first step is to separate what we observed from what we believe it means. If a dog refuses an exercise, that is an observation. Saying it is stubborn, dominant, frightened, or deliberately disobedient is an interpretation. The interpretation may eventually be supported, but we should not treat it as established before examining the evidence.
I want to know what happened before the behavior, what the dog did, what followed, and how its behavior changes under different circumstances. I also want to examine the humans involved. What did they expect? Had they prepared the dog? What did their actions contribute? What happened during earlier encounters? When evaluating an unsuccessful intervention, the following questions help distinguish the problem from the excuses used to defend it.
Question | Why it matters |
What actually happened? | Establishes observable facts |
What did we assume? | Identifies interpretations that need examination |
Why did we choose the intervention? | Reveals reasoning behind the decision |
What did the dog learn or experience? | Examines consequences of our actions |
Did the result meet our objective? | Separates intentions from outcomes |
What evidence contradicts our explanation? | Tests whether an interpretation is defensible |
What role did human decisions play? | Identifies potentially preventable contributions |
What should change now? | Turns responsibility into corrective action |
Setting a dog up to succeed does not mean avoiding all challenges or allowing every unwanted behavior. Dogs need understandable rules, appropriate training, reasonable expectations, and opportunities to develop capabilities. Sometimes they also need firm boundaries and effective management. But we should distinguish appropriate guidance from unnecessary confrontation, and development of competence from demands exceeding an animal's abilities. We should recognize when an objective is unsuitable for a particular dog.
The purpose is not to protect dogs from every unpleasant experience. It is to make responsible decisions about training, care, and safety, and evaluate those decisions without constructing excuses when something goes wrong.
When Is Professional or Veterinary Assessment Necessary?
Direct assessment becomes particularly important when behavior is deteriorating, physical attacks occur, household dogs repeatedly fight, or pain and illness may be influencing behavior. A professional evaluation should consider behavioral history, the chronology of incidents, relevant health information, environmental circumstances, and effects of previous interventions. It should also examine human decisions and handling without automatically assigning blame. Some problems cannot be explained confidently from available information; that uncertainty should be acknowledged rather than filled with a convenient theory.
Can We Accept Responsibility Without Blaming Ourselves for Everything?
Accepting responsibility means examining our decisions honestly, not assuming every problem is the owner's fault. Dogs have biological predispositions, developmental histories, motivations, and physical limitations. Some problems arise despite appropriate human care. Likewise, not every mistaken decision is deliberate cruelty or dishonesty. People misunderstand behavior, receive poor advice, and make decisions with incomplete information. Sometimes they believe an inappropriate intervention is necessary.
The important distinction is what happens when better information becomes available. Does the person reconsider the explanation, acknowledge that their actions may have contributed, and correct the approach? Or do they become increasingly committed to defending the original decision regardless of what happens to the dog? An ordinary mistake may become a more serious problem when someone refuses to recognize and correct it.
The Dog Cannot Argue Its Own Case
The central ethical problem is that the dog cannot challenge our explanations. It cannot tell us that the rules changed, an exercise was painful, a confrontation was unnecessary, or the human account omitted important events. The dog behaves. People interpret. Those interpretations can determine its training, living conditions, veterinary care, safety, relationships, and future.
We should not use our superior authority and reasoning abilities to construct excuses for our mistakes. We should use those abilities to understand the animal, evaluate our actions, and make better decisions. The biblical warning about causing another to stumble raises an important moral question about the responsibilities of those who possess greater power and control. I think that question applies meaningfully to our relationships with dogs.
We decide so much of what happens to them. We can create opportunities for learning, safety, and success, or unnecessary conflict, confusion, suffering, and failure. What makes the situation especially troubling is our ability to rationalize what we have done. We can convince ourselves that the dog deserved punishment, that confrontation was necessary, that there was no alternative, or that the failure proves our assumptions correct. We can even convince other people. But a persuasive explanation is not necessarily a true one.
Before concluding that a dog is stubborn, disobedient, aggressive, dominant, or untrustworthy, we should ask: What did I observe? What have I assumed? Did my own decisions contribute to what happened? Am I defending my explanation because the evidence supports it, or because admitting I was wrong would be uncomfortable?
Responsibility does not require knowing everything or never making mistakes. It requires recognizing mistakes, correcting them, and avoiding their repetition. We should not cause dogs to stumble, blame them for falling, and then use our ability to argue and rationalize to convince ourselves and others that we did nothing wrong.
Is There Anything We Can Do?
There is also a point at which we must recognize that we may not be able to reason someone into doing the right thing.
A person who is willing to listen, consider evidence, and acknowledge mistakes may benefit from correction, even when the conversation is uncomfortable. But someone who continually changes the subject, distorts what happened, responds with insults, or treats every disagreement as a personal attack may be more interested in defending their position than discovering the truth.
Psychological research suggests that increasingly forceful attempts at persuasion can sometimes strengthen resistance rather than overcome it. We therefore need to exercise judgment about when to offer advice, ask questions, challenge an explanation, or confront someone directly, and when further argument is unlikely to accomplish anything.
Sometimes the wisest decision is to end an unproductive conversation, leave the person with something worth considering, and hope that reflection or a later experience will lead to better decisions. That can be particularly difficult when a dog's welfare is involved, because the animal may continue to suffer the consequences of the person's mistakes. Walking away from an argument, however, does not necessarily mean abandoning our responsibility to the dog. If there is a serious or immediate welfare concern, we may need to consider other appropriate ways to protect the animal rather than continue an argument that is going nowhere.
Final thought: what evidence would cause you to reconsider your explanation or change your recommendation? If nothing could change a person's mind, the explanation may have become more important than the dog.
Sam Basso, Sam The Dog Trainer
Glossary
Motivated reasoning: Evaluating information in ways influenced by desired conclusions or existing beliefs.
Confirmation bias: Giving disproportionate attention or weight to evidence supporting an existing belief.
Cognitive dissonance: Psychological discomfort associated with conflicting beliefs, attitudes, or actions.
Rationalization: Constructing an explanation that makes a decision or behavior seem reasonable or justified, potentially concealing more important considerations.
Circular reasoning: An argument in which the conclusion is assumed, directly or indirectly, in the reasoning offered to support it.
Eristic argumentation: Argumentation primarily directed toward winning rather than discovering what is true.
Sophistry: Persuasive but potentially misleading reasoning that may rely on ambiguity, distortion, or logical defects.
Ad hominem: Attacking a person rather than addressing the argument.
Straw-man argument: Misrepresenting another person's position to make it easier to attack.
Red herring: Introducing an irrelevant issue that diverts attention from the original question.
Moving the goalposts: Changing criteria for success or proof after the original criteria have been addressed.
Shifting the burden of proof: Improperly demanding others disprove an assertion rather than providing sufficient evidence to support it.
Active defense reaction: In Armin Winkler's model, a defensive response involving an early physical attack toward a perceived threat.
Aggression: A motivational and emotional state involving an attempted or completed physical attack.
Fight: Reciprocal violent combat between two or more dogs during an identifiable period.
Unilateral attack: An attempted or completed physical attack by one dog without corresponding violent engagement by the other.
Bibliography
Amat, M., Le Brech, S., & Manteca, X. (2024). The relationship between aggression and physical disease in dogs. Veterinary Clinics of North America: Small Animal Practice, 54(1), 43–53.
Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford University Press.
Herron, M. E., Shofer, F. S., & Reisner, I. R. (2009). Survey of the use and outcome of confrontational and non-confrontational training methods in client-owned dogs showing undesired behaviors. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 117(1–2), 47–54.
Kunda, Z. (1990). The case for motivated reasoning. Psychological Bulletin, 108(3), 480–498.
Schopenhauer, A. (1896). The art of controversy (T. B. Saunders, Trans.). Swan Sonnenschein.
Wells, D. L. (2001). The effectiveness of a citronella spray collar in reducing certain forms of barking in dogs. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 73(4), 299–309.
Winkler, A. (n.d.). The Winkler aggression model. Rivanna K9 Services. https://rivannak9services.com/the-winkler-aggression-model/
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