to want to stand atop a high building and yell "YOUR DOG IS NOT TRYING TO DOMINATE YOU!" so that all othe dog owners in the land hear meme?

[poachedeggs]

/facedesk

Dog2 was, errr, very difficult. She liked men and male dogs, hated women and bitches. One of the many things she did with me was going on the sofa and growling at me if I wanted to sit down.

And this ISN'T dominant behaviour?

BTW she was a racing greyhound who was actually well looked after before I got her (it can happen!) so she had no big traumas like my first ex-racer. The behaviourist I saw attributed it to her being naturally very dominant and wanting to be top-bitch. At the time she was an entire female (op was already in the pipeline)

I never suggested she was saying sorry! She was afraid and upset and it happened immediately after the incident so I trust it was sufficiently linked in her mind to teach her she should not do that again or I would again shout and make her afraid.

The fact that she has never again run off from the park suggests to me that it worked - 15 mins of fear has saved her from being killed by a car or killing someone driving it. A price well worth paying I think.

(philosophical question btw, I'm now dog-less)

I agree highriggs. My dogs don't actually go out the door first, because they say please by sitting nicely, but they say please before they get anything they want, because it reinforces calm behaviour and keeps us all ticking over as a nice harmonious machine :)

If they did get out the door first, I wouldn't start eating crackers

I don't live half an hour from the park. I agree that punishments well after the event are pointless - for all animals.

The difference between dominating and being in charge is that you become in charge just by being in charge, not by doing arbitrary things that show you're the boss.

If you're having a problem with a dog not coming back you deal with that problem because you're in charge and what you say goes, so you train the dog to want to come back to you, you use treats and praise and possibly shout mild abuse when it runs off which is pretty much ignored anyway (because everyone less their temper occasionally) and you teach the dog that coming back when calked is what you want and s a good thing.

You don't decide that the dog has no respect for your place as pack leader and start eating crackers before it's fed - because that just leaves you with a mouthful of crackers and a dog hat still thinks chasing leaves is more fun than coming back when it's called.

No Gemma, not dominant. She hated women (probably had a fright from a female at some point, and probably had an unrelated fright from another bitch at some point too) and then one of the things she fears sits on the sofa with her. What was she supposed to say "Excuse me, I was here first, do you mind?".

Much easier to teach her to lie elsewhere or teach her to be called down from the sofa.

My puppy training did al that crap about eating before the dog, don't let it leave the house first etc, and I dismissed it for the obvious crap it was.

But in my house, on my sofa, I have no qualms about removing dog from my spot. I am in charge in my house.

no gemma4d, that is fearful behavior. and your behaviourist needs to go back to college.

i have successfully retrained fear aggressive dogs without silly sets of over complicated rules.

one of our recent fosters was terrified of men and nervous of women. dh had her laying on his lap eating cheese from his hand by the end of day three, simply by yawning at her occassionally. no shouting, no stupid rules, no eating crackers before we fed her, just yawning and otherwise ignoring.

I work for the UK Wolf Conservation Trust. I don't get to spend as much time as the wolves as I would like - I am on the editorial side. But I do meet an amazing array of biologists, explorers and theorists from that world. Wolf-wise - there is a mixture of European, Timber and Arctics.

It will always be an interesting debate but I think mankind can be very arrogant when it comes to animals....we need to have some empathy.

And the beauty of understanding how dogs learn is that if you spend that time teaching alternative behaviours, using rewards, the dog is learning all the time that good things come from you and you are a positive source of happiness and all things wonderful, and therefore it is much, much more likely to look to you for leadership, want to please you and develop the bond that we all love so much.

My dog was terrified of men, all men, when she arrived. She wouldn't go near my husband and any man walked near her she ran. She is still wary, but after a life of abuse it's understandable. She will now curl up quiet happily with DH because he has shown her that he is nothing to be scared of, he gives her cuddles, scratches and treats but the affection is on her terms he has never forced her into a situation where she is uncomfortable.

Tabularasa - exactly. My rules are fair and fairly applied. No probs with dog for ages. I really don't get this aversion to saying that we are in charge of our pets.i had naively thought it was a legal requirement, with quite serious criminal consequences if we weren't.

at some dogs being gobshites

Sone dogs are smarter than you think.

My female dog is quite manipulative.

Example: puppy comes to me for love. Gets loads of cuddles. Female dog watches. Goes into kitchen and gets ball, dangles it in front of pup. Pup gets distracted and chases ball. Female dog comes to me with a pleased smile for a tummy rub.

I know my evil girl well. She is a master at getting things from people and unsuspecting other dogs. I am quite proud of her, tbh

While poor male puppy is quite clueless and is a few sandwiches short of a picnic.

hmmm. She wasn't at all fearful of me when I was doing anything she approved of (getting her food, taking her for a walk, etc). Behaviour wise, I would say that she was the least fearful dog I've ever known (Dog1 was the I'm-scared-don't-beat-me type). She just came over as very entitled - she always knew what she wanted. She was like that with Dog1 too, ran rings around him until she had everything just how she wanted it. Probably helped that Dog1 was daft as a brush and Dog2 was quite (very?) intelligent.

Looking back at earlier posts Spero, you talk about "if I had left behaviours unchecked" - what i am saying is that we don' need to "check" undesirable behaviours - simply change things to stop them occurring while we teach the dog an alternative. So we're agreeing on this point but my way of doing this is by telling the dog what we do want while yours is by telling the dog what we don't want. Which is fine, but gives the dog a bit less to go on. I don't think we fundamentally disagree (but I think you would find a book like www.amazon.co.uk/Complete-Positive-Training-Lifestyle-Paperback/dp/1592574831 really interesting.

there is nothing wrong with being in charge. there is something very wrong with taking charge using fear and punishment.

and the rest of the dominance crap just sounds exhausting to me. if the dog wants to go and lie in another room do you have to get up and run to the door to go though it first? even if the dun dun bit on 'enders is nearly on?

what if the whole family is not in the house to eat the cracker before feeding time? do they all have to come home for their cracker? won't it be confusing for the dog if they don't?

Ha to Flatbread, yours reminds me of my Dog2!

It's resource guarding Gemma. She didn't feel threatened by a man sharing her resources as she presumably han't learned she needed to fear men. But she had had previous bad experiences with women and therefore wasn't up for sharing a resource. Moving into a space the dog views as its own is very different to offering it food or taking it for a walk.

In dog land, possession is 10/10 of the law

I agree - dogs are extremely intelligent and that has its pluses and minuses. Not all dogs which exhibit bad behaviour have been beaten or abused. Some have been very spoiled and think they rule the roost which is bloody tedious for anyone who has to have dealings with them or their owners.

The issue I have with treat training is that if you have a dog who is not food motivated when outside, because other dogs are far more fun than a treat, the dog doesn't come back. My dog went through his adolescence having no huge interest in food and recall was a nightmare. Thankfully he has grown out of it and is now almost 4 and a piglet so he comes back most of the time.

I really do still maintain that allowing him on the sofa affects his recall negatively though. We've done it 3 times - in terms of periods when he is allowed on the sofa - and his recall gets worse. Stop letting him on the sofa and it improves. I don't believe in dominating my dog in the aggressive sense and would never dream of hitting him (why the hell would you) and don't shout at him either but I do believe in boundaries.

Dooin

Those Carr's water biscuits were a bugger for DD before she had teeth

"Some have been very spoiled and think they rule the roost"