Who is Responsible for Dog Behaviour Part 2
Who Is Responsible For A Dogs Behaviour?
Instructors are now teaching handlers that to understand pack structures is not important, but to use a method of some difference.
“You never correct the dog”. You praise the dog when it does something correct and ignore it when it does something wrong. While l agree with praising and motivating for correct responses, and you can ignore certain behaviour if while teaching a new exercise or a young puppy doesn’t get it right, why are we not teaching the handlers that there is a cut off point. There is a time when a dog needs an instant reprimand and you mean it. You cannot ignore the dog that growls, snarls, bites when it is told to do something. You cannot ignore a dog that has bad manners, the one that rushes through the door and knocks you over, jumps on the chairs and won’t get off. Where has your control gone? These actions require an immediate correction as the dog has to know where it is in the pack order. In the animal pack they accept the reprimand quite matter of fact and usually quickly. If this distinction is not made by us the owners and they are allowed to go away with the idea you never correct you just ignore, then the problems we have will escalate.
Sometimes I wonder if we humans interfere to much with dogs from birth at times! Some dogs are born with genetic problems and probably should not make it out of the first couple of weeks. Humans however continue to save the pup but the mother has neglected it for a good reason, her instincts have told her that there is something wrong. We find this hard to accept but l am putting this out there because we may be selecting dogs that have traits that we don’t desire, but the mother may already have known. We make excuses but the mother will not.
How many commands do you give your dog to do something before you correct it & if it does do it after that many times do you reward it? A dog can count, so if after 3 or 4 commands it does what you want and you reward it then next time it will be 4 to 6 times. We should have different levels of rewards for our dogs. Voice levels of praise and discipline, stroke praise and voice, food praise and also ball/tug praise. There are many other ways to stimulate the dog to do what we want but we must remember that what ever your dog likes the best, it only receives that when it does it the first time and correct. The reason that we must have the leader of the pack control is for us to put a structure in place so that our dogs do not become a problem in the eye of the public and to protect them and other people be it our children, family and friends. Another point to remember is that if we have more than one dog then the pack order still must be structured as kids and DOGS playing is when the problems arise. This can be caused by excitement and sheer enjoyment on the dogs behalf but teeth do hurt even in play.
l never allow my dogs to be alone with any young children even though l trust them totally, as accidents do happen. l think we the owners should take responsibility of our dogs but with that l take it as to protect MY dogs because l know that their instincts for play are different to ours.
An old dog, any dog can be taught new behaviors, Don’t make excuses re-train the dog & it’s love & loyalty will resurface.