What does consent mean to us practically?
If you haven't already I recommend having a look at my previous blog on consent here. Following on from that how can we implement a consent based approach at home and not fall foul of being permissive.
Areas where consent is most necessary is where we are going to be invasively touching a dog's body. Like with people, we want autonomy over our bodies, dogs feel pain, itchiness, discomfort. This means they can also feel that they don't want to be touched. That might seem obvious to most but some people don't consider this to be the case.
Consent testing
When embarking with a pup or a dog that struggles with vet handling or grooming or even just simple touching it's important to understand how to ask your dog if you can touch them, or to say to them that physical contact is going to happen. Consent testing is an important part of this. I strongly recommend the book below:
Predictability
It is also possible to develop a predictable cue for touch related work such as introducing a word "touch" followed by food and gradual introduction of touching. Other cues can be mat training and a clear parameter for where touching happens. Feed your dog for any interaction with the mat and ultimately raise your criteria to include touch. I highly recommend doing this with a professional.
Options
When we look at consent and choice we are always considering options and opportunities to opt out. In your training sessions this may look like setting up toys if safe to do so for your dog to interact with when they choose to take breaks, or food stations and enrichment for them to interact with. It's important not to do this if you know your dog will find these things hard to interact with in your presence – either because they guard resources and high value food, or because they are too worried. This applies to any training scenario your dog may find difficult to cope with. If they are easily coerced by food, it may be that you have to enforce the breaks for them and revisit training for short periods.
Slow is fast
Teaching a dog the principles of consent and the idea of being able to remove themselves from training is one that can take time, especially if they have significant prior learning. It's important to be clear about your criteria, if you have decided that you will only touch the dog when they are on the mat, then that must stay the case. The rules can't change or else you are being unfair and not actually staying true to your word. The dog can't consent if you change the criteria without telling them.
Sue Williamson has a lot of resources on this in her blog -- Happy Paws With Sue.
Chirac Patel's videos on cooperative care are amazing -- The Bucket Game is a great place to start.
I strongly recommend that if you need support with touch, vet handling or grooming, that you get in touch asap. I can help out with emergency vet visits, long term grooming programmes and more. Check out our services here.