To think how I discipline my dog is no-one else’s business?

[1Childand1Dog87]

I have a 3 year old dog, had him ever since he was a puppy. I am quite strict with him - he isn’t allowed to jump up at people, he isn’t allowed to approach other dogs without the owner’s permission, he is sent to his bed when the family eat so he doesn’t beg for food, he is told no when he touches something he shouldn’t like the children’s toys etc - and occasionally if I have had to tell him more than once about something (he has a habit of getting distracted when guests are over) then he goes to his bed for some time out etc.

Because of this, he is generally a really well behaved dog and I’ve never really had any issues with him apart from if he gets distracted and overwhelmed with loads of people or loads going on, he can struggle to concentrate on what is being said to him - but that is something that is a work in progress. In a normal environment he is very good at listening, etc.

The issues I have had however are with family members making comments every time I do put these boundaries into place - because basically they think he should be able to just do whatever he wants to do. Like an example from earlier today - his behaviour has been all over the place the last few days from being quite overwhelmed with Christmas and busy households - this is normal for him and will settle back down when everything else quietens down. He had something in his mouth that he shouldn’t have done and could have easily caused an issue to himself had he swallowed it - I told him to drop it a couple of times and he didn’t - so I VERY lightly tapped him on the nose and he dropped it straight away and went back to playing with his toys. I very rarely do that unless it’s something he needs to let go of right that second for his own sake and safety and he isn’t listening to verbal commands because of distractions etc rather than trying to drag it out of his mouth. But my family said I should have just left him and he might have dropped it eventually etc.

One family member has a similar dog and she lets him get away with murder and then constantly moans about it - he doesn’t let her sleep and rules the household basically - and yet she criticises me for actually having rules and boundaries with my dog.

Any advice for how I handle this situation?

Nope, I disagree. You can easily get a dogs attention without tapping it’s nose while asking to drop an item. It’s called training from a very early age and sensible. If the OP cannot control her dog through training and not tapping it on the nose then she needs educating.

@AlwaysArty if it was a situation where I was in immediate danger then please go ahead ☺️

@AlwaysArty you sound like a lovely person hun ☺️ next time I’ll let him swallow it and you can pay the vet bill ☺️

@AlwaysArty plus unless my eyesight is worse than I thought most people have voted YANBU - so probably not the queue that you was expecting my lovely!

@AlwaysArty whilst we are at it - I’ll tell you about the time he choked on something - you should have seen what I had to do to him then - you would probably need another queue for that! 😬

My rescue dog has attacked my youngest son in the past, always when he's sneaked unto the sofa. We have to have a very strict rule of no sofa and the alternative would be a probable biting incident. The dogs background means we have to have strict boundaries and he's made huge progress with the help of a dog behaviourist and the animal shelter we got him from. My son is a large 16 yr old who's well able to handle the situation but it's taken a lot of work and the dog now always approaches him with a toy in his mouth and is confined to a dog bed on the floor.
A visitor deciding it's cruel not to have the dog on the sofa is our worst nightmare and can undo a lot of work.

@Streamside honestly it’s so frustrating especially if they are frequent visitors so I feel your pain there - his no jumping up rule and training nearly came completely undone because of visitors in our home - and they were the first ones to moan about having scratches/dirty paw marks etc on them!

@AlwaysArty he choked on some food - unless you want me to starve him now? 👀 I’m pretty sure I could do that, you know given what a terrible dog owner I am 🤷‍♀️

@AlwaysArty now the real question is do I start starving him tonight or show some mercy and wait until the morning 🤔

I must admit it’s exhausting trying to get him to behave all of the time but I just worry about having a problem dog later on that is out of control sort of thing!

I find this rather sad. Yes, dogs do need a certain amount of training, but they are supposed to be friends and companions, not robots. I often see people out walking their dogs, issuing comands, and it all seems rather joyless to me, and as though they are trying to get their dogs to behave as humans. Our dogs, except for one, were rescues and we never did much in the way of training, however they certainly weren't "out of control".

I can understand about the tap on the nose in this situation however

It's interesting, I'm all for trained dogs and use sending dog to bed as an effective way to deal with eg barking. You bark, you're called inside and directed to your bed. If you want to play outside you do it quietly. Very effective IME. I'm not understanding people saying dogs don't get cause and effect. Of course they do. Otherwise how would they link receipt of a treat to a random word?

I don't agree with ignoring undesired behaviour until the dog guesses the correct answer. As with children, tell the dog what you want them to do. If you want them sitting, then say sit and reward the response with a pat.
No is not a command. Instead tell the dog what you want and reward. Being consistent will have the dog offer the correct response without you needing to give any command.

A happy dog is a dog who has consistent boundaries which are kindly enforced. The dog can be as cheeky as it likes within boundaries (I love cheeky dogs). I use dog beds as a target. They have a bed in every room, so being directed to their bed doesn't mean they miss out, it just gives them their place in the room where they can chill out or snooze. They seek their beds out now they're older.

One of the posters said spaniels took ages to mature. I've got a westie and it took him until he was 7 yo to be reliably obedient. Right little rascal up to then if you called him for something he didn't want to do - he'd look at you and go the other way irrespective of treats etc. Interestingly he had a pretty solid Stop command. Cheeky boy. But I can handle him all over including removing things stuck between his teeth, checking his eyes, ears, mouth, feet without issue. That's all been trained with games. I was playing with my cockers mouth over Christmas and, lifting her front lip, I've spotted a decaying tooth. Because we play mouth games I've spotted it before it's hurting her and she's off to the vet to get it taken out.

Tapping his nose is fine. People are insane. If I touched as in literally tapped our dogs nose she would drop what she had and I certainly would do if she had a pin in her mouth! Honestly Mumsnet is hopeless if your post involves animals. I just use stick phases "yes we do have a different approach. I'm glad your way is working for you." And just repeat....they will get the hint eventually

Ah… to be a dog owner it garners the same scrutiny as being a parent, don’t worry you will always be doing it wrong. I’ll put this here and in big bold letters for the reading challenge among us. I DO NOT CONDONE HITTING ANIMALS OR ABUSING THEM. Now that we’ve got that out of the way.

@1Childand1Dog87

No you don’t sound too strict. My dog was raised similar. Probably a little less strict than you, but she definitely had boundaries. And yes there we’re times in a large gathering she would be made to sit at my heel. And if she started to bark she would get a tap a.k.a me putting my finger on her noggin and tapping like one would do on a table to get her attention so she would hear the command. (Typically ‘No Bark’).

Side story: She had this weird thing and would start barking at someone if she didn’t expect them to be there… think she would be fine with Aunt Betty all night, but would bark when Aunt Betty came out of the kitchen… it was odd and we never did figure that little behavior quirk out.

She also was not allowed on the sofa until my husband or I sat down first. This started as she growled at me after I woke her up by sitting next to her one morning startling her from a deep sleep. Seemed like the a good idea to avoid that going forward by making her wait to get on the sofa. She suffered no I’ll affects by waiting for me to get settled before she jumped up. We also did resets where she was taken out of a room if she got overexcited and stopped listening.

She was a happy well adjusted doggo who was spoiled by our neighbors where she spent 1/2 of her time at their request. And was smart enough to know different houses, different rules (they didn’t have the same sofa rule for example).

I will admit our semi-feral cat did a lot of the training for us, including no inappropriate chewing of anything that wasn’t her toy or going into certain areas of the house. And I can guarantee that the cat did not stop to wonder if he was too strict.

I like a nicely trained dog but not to the extent that their spirit is broken. He sounds like he has quite a sad existence.

Is he ever allowed to have fun, or is that not allowed?

Well said.

Welfare is everybodies business.

When your training methods potentially put other people in danger - and using aversive methods does indeed do that, then yep thats a problem and yes it should be brought up.

It doesn't matter how gentle or whatever the 'tap' is, what matters is how aversive the dog finds, and how they process that.

Telling your dog 'no' and tapping them in the face is not necessary, and it is risky.

Why would you want to justify and defend that when there are better, more effective and safer methods?

I much prefer positive reinforcement to be honest that ruling through fear. Each to their own, but don’t complain if someone comments when you hit your dog as I personally would have to say something too

Words like discipline and boundaries are almost always human interpretations of behaviour and are rarely correct imo.

Dogs don't like boundaries. They like predictable worlds in which they already know what will happen. We use the word boundary because it feeds into a human interpretation of the world in which we impart control. But that's not how the dog sees it, imo. Dogs like consistency and routine. So we might interpret never letting them in the sofa as a boundary but it's not that for them. They just don't like something bad happening when they do jump on the sofa one day when nothing happened when they did it the day before.

Discipline is almost always a euphemism for the application of some sort of punishment. Even the word punishment is a euphemism of sorts because it suggests some sort of balance of scale in which the dog did something to deserve it. What we are describing is the act of doing something unpleasant (physically or psychologically) as a way to dissuade a dog from doing whatever it is they are doing. Lots of studies available on the impact and effectiveness (or not) of using punishment as a training tool.

All animals adhere to the basic rules of learning:

1. If I do something and then something I want happens, or something I don't want goes away, I am more likely to do that thing again. Positive and negative reinforcement
2. If I do something and something I don't like happens, or something I do like goes away, I am less likely to do that thing again. Positive and negative punishment.
3. If I do something and nothing at all happens, I am less likely to do that thing again.

A tap on the nose is not something the dog wants, so is a punishment. And you are adding or applying it so it is a positive punishment. (Positive meaning added, not meaning good).

There are some proper self-righteous busybodies on here. And people who have never owned a dog and/or don't appreciate that dogs are different to each other and humans.

Dogs need to know their place in the pack. And it should be at the bottom. This actually gives them security. It is possible to give them boundaries and affection. They are not mutually exclusive.