👤 Have you ever felt uncomfortable for having someone standing up-close behind you?
👤 Have you experienced a state of anticipation for being approached by someone unfamiliar?
👤 Have you ever felt anxious for being/feeling followed?
👤 Have you ever struggled to disengage from a conversation with someone you don’t know, for fear of upsetting them?

It takes a lot of confidence to turn your back on an individual who is moving into your space. Doing so or considering it can trigger anxiety for some.
This is because once your back is turned you are vulnerable, your guard is down and you are at a significant disadvantage.

The principles of survival can be compared across species. Many species of animal freeze or choose to face a threat with readiness to act in order to increase the odds of survival, when avoidance or escape is not achievable.

If the other individual appears faster, stronger, more confident, more pro-active and more likely to approach- it may feel safer and actually be more sensible for your dog to stand still and watch that individual. They may need to be sure that they are NOT approaching before being able to comfortably move away.

Dogs aren’t stupid! They probably know that turning their back makes it safer for the other individual to approach them.
In fact, many trainers often use this advantage for fearful dogs, staging following of confident dogs (or even people) on training sessions.

🐶 In our puppy classes, we often see less confident puppies begin to approach and gather information (such as air scenting or watching) as the more confident puppies are encouraged to turn away and create space.

Turning your back can actually initiate approach. Movement can trigger counter movement, whether that be information gathering, predatory or antagonistic behaviour. Of course dogs know this.
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Having owned a primitive minded street dog for 11 years, this is obvious. Yet, I often see dogs who are low in confidence or who have had negative experiences being asked repeatedly to turn their back on an approaching dog or recall out of an interaction.

This has the potential to cause emotional conflict in your dog in that moment. Most will need to feel safe to be able to move away.
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Don’t get me wrong, we want to build up your dog’s skills to use avoidance behaviour and/or disengage from situations as an alternative to reactive or fearful behaviour.

But we have to be mindful of when it is simply too difficult for a dog and that sometimes letting them face the threatening stimulus and get the information they need to feel more safe is probably the kindest thing to do.

In some of these situations we can ask the other person and/or dog to help our dogs when they are ‘stuck’.
In my experience, most people are happy to oblige if asked calmly and nicely to wait or even to create a bit of space.
Often, after some time being able to watch or for having a bit of extra space, the dog I am handling is able to move on.
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Example;

Here’s a video of my dogs responding to their emergency whistle away from two labradors we came head to head with.

A fantastic, rapid response to the whistle from both boys but only Amigo committed to the full recall sequence.
Mohawk took a quick glance as he was recalling away and suddenly stopped returning to me. He turned round and stood quite rigid- ready for action. I tried his verbal recall once and he didn’t move, so I ceased to ask him.

Why did he do this?

Am I upset with this recall failure?

What you don’t see off camera is that the two labradors continue to approach (they were heading that way anyway) but that they start to come off the path and make a bee-line for us.
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Border Collies have been selected to be highly sensitive to movement. He is quick to see their pace pick up to a trot and their direction change indicating approach, and he stops his return to me.

Mohawk’s learning history involves many young dog of various breeds, but predominantly labradors, rushing over from great distances and causing stress within our group.
He has made huge progress with the breed now, being able to interact with them well. But he is still sensitive to young adolescent dogs (including labradors) indicating they are considering rushing over or towards any dog making a beeline for the group when we are avoiding the dog.

In other words- uninvited and approaches from other dogs who we are not passing naturally are difficult for him.
In other words- uninvited and approaches from other dogs who we are not passing naturally are difficult for him.
He never charges at a dog if they do not approach. He responds predominanyly proportionatly to their behaviour; counter-charging if they are running or standing still, walking or troting if they are slowly approaching. If the dog’s body language is antagnositic, and then he may do a charge/flank blocking move and immediatly retreat to stand still again.

He also finds the behaviours associated with blocking their approach highly reinforcing (intrinsically)- because it involves freezing, explosive counter- movement when the dog makes a move and flanking behaviours. These are all border collie behaviours (that do not make physical contact) and have proven highly effective in blocking dogs coming up to the group.
It’s a huge amount of reinforcement I am up against with my toys, food and voice for recall training!

In summary, his learning history and breed-specific behaviours make it very difficult for him to feel motivated to response to ANY recall cue when there are certain cues present (unwelcome approach to the group).

Amigo is very toy and food focused. Yes, he’s socially motivated but if distance is adequate, he can commit to his recall and commit to staying with me. His learning history and motivation is different to Mohawk’s- just like you and I have different motivations and previous experiences.

Yesterday we all came head to head with an on lead spaniel as we walked through a gate in a field. I whistled both dogs and they both recalled successfully away despite being the same distance- because the spaniel was on lead and unable to follow them.

So often, I see dogs struggling to move away from an interaction, an approaching dog or a dog signalling they will run over.
In some instances, this is very sensible and in some instances, it is disproportionate.

Dogs can become too sensitive to being approached – as was once the case with Mohawk and labradors.
He would once freeze and watch them regardless of what the labrador was doing- because he had so many rush over across a period of time. So, he started to anticipate they would regardless of their behaviour.

We worked on it, and his response became proportionate to the information being presented to him- such as in this video.
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What you don’t see off camera is that the labradors are both females who obviously got whiff off Mohawk’s total sex-god pheromones (he’s an entire male) and started to approach to flutter their eyelashes. I stopped filming and they all had a mingle while the owner and I laughed about their flirting.
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🧐 Would we ignore someone who appeared relatively unthreatening but signalling they wanted our atttention, such as a brief wave and slight quickening of approach?
🧐Would we turn our back on someone asking us for directions?
🧐Would we walk away from someone mid-conversation or would we consider that to be rude?
🧐 Do we always respond to the person interrupting a conversation we’re having with someone else? Or do we sometimes not hear them or even choose to ignore them?

Perhaps some people would if they were more socially anxious than others. Some of us may not feel threatened and welcome to approach with a hint of sensible caution because it’s an unfamiliar person. Others may respond a little defensively, with extra caution until the individual proves with more communication what their intentions are. We may give body language that expresses our concern or we may use a tone of voice that suggests we are feeling a bit defensive.

For example:

Other person: “Excuse me?”
Our abrupt response, with a slight frown: “Yes?”

Our learning history and individual will shape our responses, as will the behaviour of the other person. Someone making a distinct and fast beeline for us with over-confident body language from across a larger space will likely create more threat signalling in our brain that if they were to start their communication as our paths were more naturally crossing.

We may feel more threatened by someone continuing to approach us when we have tried to move away, than if we decided to stay where we were and see what happens next.
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It is not different for dogs!
So often we forget they are having these similar encounters and conversations and that these interactions do not always start up close.
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So, when your dog is struggling to move away from a dog, have a think about whether your dog feels threatened.

🤔What is the other dog doing?
🤔Do they look fast and strong?

Or perhaps your dog is having a conversation, and that ending it abruptly may lead to conflict or is simply rude behaviour!

We need to remember that dogs are a social species, and that social species do talk to one another and that talking helps them feel safe – because they are information gathering.
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Some dogs are so motivated by food and toys that it’s easy for them to block out what other dogs are saying or doing, or they feel confident enough to take a risk and turn their back on the other dog.

Other dogs are not always risk takers and prioritise their safety over food and toys- which simply makes survival sense. You can’t eat or play if you’re dead.

Which finally leads me onto the use of aversive tools in recall training. If your dog recalls to you, because they fear what will happen if they don’t, then this is simply replacing one potential threat (the dog) with another (you or the sensation they are escaping). You may think you are keeping your dog safe, which perhaps you are physically. But threat signalling occurrs within the brain, and the body responds accordingly.

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So……should we expect dogs to turn their back on another dog?

Well, I think it depends.
What is the other dog doing?
How close it is?
How fast are they going?
Is it directly approaching head on?
Are they staring at your dog?

A good goal, in my humble opinion, is to get your dog to be able to recall away from relatively disinterested dogs, slow approaching dogs or dogs approaching from far away.
As soon as a dog is within 10 metres, running fast, looking intent on approaching, postural body language etc – you may be asking too much of your dog to turn around and run at speed away from that dog. Remember, movement can trigger movement and dogs know that!
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This is why you’ll never hear me bang on about a 100% recall. We should strive for close control and reliable recall of course.
I think 100% recall goals are unfair on dogs and their owners. That said, if we recognise our dog’s limits and reduce OUR failures in asking, then perhaps 100% recall is achievable.