instinct or impulse

 

                                                          Instinct or Impulse?

Sometimes it’s difficult to know which is which but if we can understand the difference it can have a huge impact on how we train or rehabilitate our dogs.

The first time a child sees or hears something unusual their instinct will put them on their guard. If they hear a large bang of thunder their instinct will tell them immediately that this is not a ‘usual’ sound so be on their guard or even afraid. Their impulse may be to run and hide but if their parents handle the situation carefully the child will understand as he matures that the impulse wouldn’t have helped and the noise was not to be scared of.

Picture an adult standing in a busy area and someone bumps into them knocking them to one side. The person spins round and becomes aggressive towards the perpetrator, only to discover it was a complete accident and the offender is mortified, but is now becoming steadily aggressive due to the first person’s attitude to the accident. Instinct caused the adrenalin to kick in and self protect, but impulse caused the aggressive reaction of the first person. Taking a few seconds to calm down and see the situation for what it was would have allowed the instinct to finish its work and tell the person how to react in a safer way.

Something rushes past a dog or it sees something moving quickly, instinct alerts it to something to be aware of and something that could be a prey, to be caught. Impulse will make it want to chase after it. But in the wild, just like the parent when the child hears thunder, the young dogs are taught to think about fast movement before reacting, as chasing doesn’t catch a prey whereas hunting, stalking and devious tactics will.

A young dog seeing a ball flying through the air will have an instinct that says, ‘has to be caught and attended to’.  A senior ‘parent figure’ (the dog’s owner) says stop and think, chasing is not using your brain, stop and think before you act. The dog’s chase impulse needs to be curbed by making it wait and ask how to deal with it, and then its natural instinct to calmly hunt, seek and find can be developed.

The impulse to chase will progress to cars, bikes and joggers whereas the instinct to think, seek and find will use the dogs brain, give it some purpose and give hours of entertainment to both dog and owner. Plus they are working with natural instinct and not developing impulsive reactions.

Comments

  1. Unknown13 December 2021 at 12:39

    This is excellent. I never hear anything from Barbara that isn't. People seem to forget that in the wild puppies & young dogs receive teaching & guidance relevant to living in the wild. How much more do they need a parent figure when living in the human world which is so unnatural to them.

    Joanna Hebdon

    ReplyDelete

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