Help! My Dog Ignores Me when I am Wearing a Mask!

As many of you know, I started out working with exotic animals.  In those days, we were taught to never wear sunglasses when working with the animals because they needed to see your eyes and where you were looking, two things that sunglasses impeded. While it was often uncomfortable for us to be working with animals in the blazing sun without sunglasses (and I blame ALL of my crow's feet on this!), I know this was true.  If you wore sunglasses, you would often see the animals ignoring you, or becoming anxious and looking away or moving away. Even when visiting and observing captive animals at zoos, you will notice a difference in their behavior if you watch them with your uncovered eyes, or through sunglasses.  Which brings me to our topic this week of face masks and how wearing them might change your animal's behavior.

We know that dogs, in particular, are meta-communicators, using sounds as well body language to communicate with each other and with us.  Humans, not coincidentally, use meta-communication as well.  So, for example, a dog might growl while doing a play bow and then pounce on another dog. The play bow lets the other dog know "hey, everything after this is just play and meant to be fun!" even though there was a growl and a pounce. Without the play bow, the growl and pounce could have been interpreted quite differently. Meta-communication is all of the nonverbal cues used in communication, so tone of voice, body language, gestures, and facial expressions.  All of these things add (or take away) from the message given by what we are strictly saying with our words.  Even with their limited range of facial expressions, dogs are able to use meta-communication as part of their "conversation" with us and with other dogs.

When humans wear face masks, we are blocking the lower halves of our faces.  We can still be heard, but our message is often muffled and not as clear.  While we can raise our voices to be better heard, that change in pitch or tone can have unintended consequences for our dogs.  In addition, if you are wearing both a mask AND sunglasses on a walk or during an outdoor training session, you are really making it difficult for your dog to understand your message.  If they can't see your eyes, and they can't see your facial expressions, they may be unsure or ambivalent about your message.  This is one reason I always advise my clients with puppies to work on verbal commands in combination with clear hand signals.  That way, if you ever lose your voice (or have your voice muted as we do with our masks), you can get your dog's attention and have him comply simply through the use of hand signals. This is also important for older dogs whose hearing may be impaired, meaning they must rely more on what they see to determine what you want from them.

Initially, clients were telling me that they thought their dogs might be afraid of the face masks.  I told them that I thought fear was a much less likely response than ambivalence.  If dogs don't see your mouth moving or your facial expressions when you say things to them, they may just discount what was said as unimportant or not worthy of their attention. Pulling your mask away from your mouth to communicate with your dog when outside on walks defeats the purpose of wearing the mask, so what should you be doing?

First off, practice with the mask on at home, in a quiet room, with one dog at a time, if you have multiple dogs. Use your hand signals AND verbal commands and reinforce the behaviors with treats. Even if you are asking for simple behaviors that your dog already knows like "sit," "down," "watch me," etc., you will still want to reinforce those behaviors with treats while you are wearing your mask.  This makes "working harder to listen to you while wearing a mask" a reinforceable behavioral task for your dog.  Once your dog is watching for the hand signals and better listening to your voice through the mask, you can move to working outside in your yard or on your porch where ambient outdoor noises may interfere with what your dog hears and/or distract him. Once you've got them working for you there, you are ready to head out into the real world, mask securely in place, with the confidence that your dog will listen to you, watch for your hand signals, and respond appropriately. Just make sure that your hand signals, gestures and body language are clear to your dog since your verbal message may be muted.

As always, if you have questions about your pet's behavior, you know where to find me.

Ozzie is undeterred by masks.  He will respond to what he's asked to do even with the muted tone or volume due to my mask.  He wants to chase the squirrels, however, no matter what you say, mask or no mask!