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

While certain posters here are famous for their ability to control their dog using their raised eyebrow

Lol, that's me. I don't even need to raise my eyebrow now, my girl dog is fully attuned to my mood. She just senses when I am happy or displeased with her, with no facial or verbal communication. And she responds immediately.

Puppy is still a bit oblivious, but hopefully he will learn. He is so different though. When girl was his age, she would spend a lot of time glancing quizzically at my face, trying to read my expression. He, on the other hand, just bumbles about and only focuses on my face to steal a licky kiss

The point is that man and dog have a strong bond. It is fine to train rats and parrots with food, they don't care about you really, and will respond only to food stimuli. Dogs are capable of so much more bonding and are far more intelligent than simple conditioning. It is simply unnecessary to do clicker and treats all the time.

Trainers who see the dog for only a short time need to rely on clickers because they have no bond with the dog. But getting the dog to respect you and bond is a more nuanced and longer-term process.

I would disagree about rats....highly intelligent and loving. But my chickens would step over my corpse if there was sweetcorn on the other side....

Punk, how does a rat show love. I am genuinely interested. Do they snuggle into you or nibble your ear or what?

I agree with highriggs - In Defence of Dogs is a great read (I've read some of it, intend to fnish soon), and it thoroughly dispenses with the wolves/dogs pack stuff.

www.amazon.co.uk/Defence-Dogs-Why-Need-Understanding/dp/014104649X

Yep rats can be very affectionate. Ask a rat owner.

Where to start.

Firstly this oft professed shit that dogs live in the moment only and have no concept of past and future.
How can anyone who has ever actually lived with a dog say this is true. You wouldn't be able to train them if this was true.

Secondly there is an important difference between dominating your dog and having them live in fear of you. I object to you making pp feel like she has caused her dog to fear her by shouting at it or excluding it socially.

Thirdly. Where they sleep etc definitely does make a difference to behaviour in some dogs. I could give you endless examples from previous experience of behavioural problems, ranging from aggression, excessive barking, unreliable recall and couple busting, being solved by not letting the dog up on the furniture.

Fourthly discipline is not the same as abuse.
When you are teaching a dog to do tricks you use only positive reinforcement.
That does not mean that you do not punish them if they do something really bad such as run in the road or snap at children.
Have you seen a bitch with her litter?

My dog is far from scared of me, unless she is in heat I don't use a lead.
She is road trained and will walk at heel or middle distance depending.
She will wait outside a shop for me off the lead ( so I don't stop existing to her once I'm in the shop)
She would not take any food left lying around.

She is not perfect, when she thinks I'm not looking she sneaks up on the seats.

I absolutely agree with what you said about rescue centres and these pricks who try and turn dogs aggressive.
You would honestly not believe some of the pathetic creatures I have taken on. Some utter wanker who seemed to think his dog was an ashtray after months of retraining was pts because of internal injuries

For the record if my dog growled when I went near her food, I would take it away.

Happy if you are in the north, I recommend Caroline Jenkins, in Dundonald. Google her she has a website, and is qualified.

Ha I wish it was utter wanker who got pts but sadly it was the dog.

It does make me really angry that people just get away with beating and torturing dogs. They almost never fight back and if they do they're pts.

To the pp with the toddler.
I personally would never leave any dog unattended with a toddler. Toddlers can be unintentionally cruel and accidentally frightening
I would recommend that you give your dog a place he can go where the kiddie is not allowed to approach him. It gives him an escape route if he feels harassed.

Do not be too alarmed if it is just a little growling. This is a warning to communicate that he is unhappy. You don't want to teach him not to tell you if he is unhappy. Read the situation, what isn't he happy about?
Serious snarling or snapping should be dealt with using a firm no and shutting then in the hall or similar for a few mins. If snapping persists contact a behaviouralist but tbh what you need to identify if what the toddler is doing that is getting the reaction either the dog needs to be taught to accept it or the child needs to be taught not to do it.

I bellowed at a teenager tonight for kicking a football at me and Davedog...I don't think they will be doing that again, tbh.

I bellowed at Davedog once for being food aggressive with his siblings. He was chasing all the other pups away from their bowls, which were really spaced out btw. Short sharp shout, got his attention, dropped my voice back down and called him back to his own food. Never had to do it again. Other pups weren't bothered, they can tell who's being spoken to, imo.

Have to say, the adult dogs will growl at the pups when annoyed. The pups lie down and roll over. Likewise I will raise my voice with the lot of them if I need to. It gets their attention, they come right to me and snuggle up in a sit by my leg. And then they get a fuss.

I have five dogs and six cats. And a DH. The latter is untrainable...keeps trying to negotiate with the cats. This does not work. I on the other hand can say "Cats, window!" and every feline in the room will cheerfully trot over to be let out. With cats, you have to really believe that it will work, they just pee behind the furniture otherwise.

I've never managed to train a cat to do anything...they're not interested in making me happy and they don't want food I give them, that's cat food, even I'd it's not in fact cat food - if I'm offering it to them then it's clearly unworthy of them

One will come to her name, but I'm fairly sure that's because she'd quite like to actually live sitting on me and if I call her there's a good chance she can get to sit on me

It was the prevalent theory a few years ago.

In a few more years people with think the current lots is bollocks as well.

Same as parenting advice.

Only dog people care though, so you will just look a bit nuts...

Herena, you say it's important to heed growling, but then go on to say you'd punish a snap (and then call a "behaviouralist"). A snap is also a warning. No dog which means to bite just snaps. All this work with dogs and you've never heard of the ladder of aggression?

Call a behaviourist at the growling stage and save your toddler's face.

herena you said you'd take your dogs food away if she growled at you over it, then you advise another poster not to punish the dog as it will teach the dog not to warn them with a growl. how are the two situations any different?

Don't be snotty it doesn't do your argument any favours.

In my view a warning growl is the time when you look up and listen to your dog. If you have let it progress to snapping you are not dealing effectively with the situation and need to seek external help.

Snapping is a threat, growling can just be communication.

What pp needs to identify is what causes the dog to growl.
If it is growling just because the child is approaching it on the sofa then it needs to get off the sofa.
If the child is startling it by running in them dog needs reassured.
If child is just getting to close and up in the dogs face then it is the behaviour of the child that needs to be addressed.

For instance, I had a whole hoard of children in my house visiting the other day.
Every one was getting along happily and I was preoccupied with one child or another, I notice a low rumbling growl, looked for dog and discovered one child was stood on her, poor sweet thing was lying there showing her belly looking plaintively at me. I removed and disciplined child and there was no further problem.
Why would I have then called a behaviourist?

Of course I would remove food bowl if a dog started growling over it.
This has often been a problem with rescue dogs I have retrained and it is essential to teach them not to. There are plenty of ways of acclimatising them to you being around while they are eating but first things first you take it away. I don't think it is fair to the dog to just shut them away to eat in private as this hides the issue rather than deals with it and you can't find a home for a dog on the basis that you don't let your children near it when it eats.

Oh and in response to stmerry.

In my view you need to address the cause of the growl not the growl itself.

Sorry posted to soon.

In the growling over food example the dog is growling to protect it food from you and the dogs behaviour needs to be modified.
In the other example the cause is as yet unknown and may require the dog, child or owners behaviour to be modified.

Interesting thread.

Me and DD moved in with DP who has a dog. It was hard to get used to at first.

He is generally a well behaved dog but I feel he would benefit from a bit more training.

For example he pulls on the lead, a lot. I invested in the none pull harness but he is a strong dog so whilst its easier to control him he still pulls a bit. Recall could be better too I don't trust him off the lead .

I've read about clicker training and was wondering if anyone could give me any tips on it? Tried food treats but he didn't really respond?

Sorry to derail the thread there just seems like a few knowledgeable people about.

Kikopup on you tube is very good for all sorts of training including loose leash walking

Thanks highriggs I will take a look.

Hi ircl.

There are dozens of approaches you can take but the key to them all is consistency.

The one that I have found to be most effective with most dogs is.

Firstly you should take dog out with out distractions or destination in mind.
You need to leave the house calmly. Have them sit and wait with lead on before / while door is opened.

Once you are on the move and they start to pull, stop.
Call them to heel ( with whatever command you use) then ignore them until they do. If this takes so long you think they have forgotten repeat once.
Don't stand there saying it over and over.
As soon as they start to return to you repeat heel command, praise and continue.

This is the difficult part.
Repeat until effective

I find a piece of chicken in my pocket more effective than biscuits.

Wrt recall I would say that the two most common mistakes here are calling too soon and calling to late.

If you have just got to the park and let them off its a big ask for them to come straight back so use only if necessary.
If they are already haring off at full speed they just won't hear you. Watch for the cues that they are thinking about going. Stiff, alert, focused, stance and call before they start to move, ideally while appearing to walk away from them it definitely not moving towards them.
Practise recall for fun once they have burnt off some energy reward with lavish praise or chicken

Thanks HH, I do think that he prefers chicken over the dog treats, I bought him some dog "buttons" but he lost interest after a few!

He managed to raid a pouch of chicken though, clever so and so, will invest in some more of these, he obviously liked them and they were only 19p a pack!

Thanks for the info, will try again when we go out this eve.

I've had my dog since he was a puppy. He's fantastic and I can train him easily. Except food. He will brazenly try and steal food out of the children's mouths and even climb across me to reach something he's seen.

I know he's not dominating. I know he's an anxious dog in general. I wish I could find a way of training him not to do that.

Incidentally, he was quite aggressive with our other dog (who now lives with my parents because he attacked him) over food, but will sit and wait until I give the command to eat his own food

parrots are also loving and have far better memories and far more intelligent than dogs. i trained my parents parrot to bow his head when i said "friends" to him months and months and have never used it since, i was trying to stop him biting me while i looked at a cut on the back of his neck. i'd completely forgotten about it and never repeated it until about a week ago, when he said "friends" to me one day when i walked in and then bowed his head down for his neck scratch, when i obliged he offered me a grape from his bowl and said "good", which was my 'clicker' word to him when i was training him

Please don't take the food away from a dog that is growling to defend it that's the perfect way to teach it that it needs to defend its food.

You need to teach them "hands come to give, not to take away" give them an empty bowl and keep putting more food in it while they are eating. Every time your hand comes it brings food. If you need to take something away from them, give them something else they really like instead. Just forcefully overpowering them and taking things away when they are already defensive is the perfect way to escalate defensive behaviour. Any experience to the contrary is more luck than judgement.

The trouble is when people use methods because they always have and they've always worked, rather than because it's based on an understanding of learning theory, eventually they will come across an animal it doesn't work for.

Brilliant informative thread, its nice to see different opinions being discussed without it turning into a bun fight.

I have a question too, I never crate trained my gsd, tbh he's never fully got toilet training, he goes for weeks being good, but then I'll get up to mess in the kitchen ( he's let out plenty before bed)

He's now four and just been through a really annoying patch of messing every night, so at the end of my tether, I've decided to buy a crate, as I've heard dogs will not dirty their immediate space, I plan to fill with treats and toys etc, how hard will it be getting him to sleep in it over night? doable?