What to Do When You Have to Do Something to Your Dog That They Hate

Real Life Tips on Navigating Moments When You Cannot Give Your Dog a Choice

In my dream world, we’d all have adequate time and skills to prepare our dogs for every husbandry and care event, and our dogs would never be trigger stacked or in pain. They’d always be able to opt in and out of care. But alas, we live in the real world. A part of me debated writing this article because it feels like whatever the opposite of aspirational is. I’m supposed to be helping you work more collaboratively with your dogs, right? But perhaps sometimes what we all need is information about how to navigate the less than ideal situations that are a normal parts of life with dogs. Perhaps it’s unfair to tell you to give your dog control without offering tips on how to handle it when you simply can’t.

While l will continue to be a huge advocate for honoring your dog’s no – for giving them ways to opt in and out of any interaction, the truth is that many of us will have moments in our dogs’ lives where we will have to do something our dogs don’t want us to do.

I recently got this comment on a cooperative care post I shared on TikTok where the start button behavior was a chin rest: “The thing I don’t understand about it is what do you do in the interim? If [my dog] never offers a chin rest or avoids it but he still needs eye drops etc. What do you do?”

So let’s chat.

Challenge your understanding of what is required right now.

Is it really required? Even if it is, is it required right this second? There are so many veterinary events that are “required” but still flexible – to a degree. I think the first thing we owe our dogs is to challenge our own urgency.

Often, we can at least buy ourselves a little time to prepare for a specific event.

But if care is truly required right now (e.g. an acute eye infection) and your dog wants no part of the care, there are some things we can do to minimize harm and reduce risk to your relationship with your dog.

Distinguish between choice and no choice moments.

If you are not able to honor your dog’s no, then don’t ask your dog a question.

Imagine a cooperative care routine that looks like this:

• You sit down with a pillow in your lap and a food bowl at your side

• Dog puts chin on pillow → You lift eye drops → dog remains with chin on pillow → You put eye drops in eye and give a treat

• Dog doesn’t put chin on pillow → You do not lift eye drops & still give a treat

If your dog has an acute eye infection and needs drops right away and you think there is no chance your dog is going to opt in, then your setup needs to look different than your cooperative care setups where your dog has a choice. For example, instead of sitting down with a pillow for your dog to offer a chin rest (in this case, a familiar cooperative care framework), you might use a leash and harness (but we should take special care to avoid poisoning these cues — more on this below).

Put something unique in the environment for the aversive event to attach to.

Not just a fashion statement, but a tool used with intention.