"Your dog should be Terrified of you" - Please help me with this argument!

[MyDogNeedsaLawyer]

I have a 12 month old German Shepherd. On the whole, his behaviour is good - he has good recall about 70% of the time, he's well socialised with people and dogs, no aggression, no nerves, a happy dog.

He is boisterous and highly strung - liable to jump up at people, and has zero recall if he sees another dog to play with. I'm working on it hard with lots of positive reinforcement, practising recall constantly, and using a halti collar to control him to prevent him from running up to other dogs.

I've just had an argument with a family member who told me my dog should be terrified of me.

He was in the garden, he looked up and woofed at a passerby, so I told him a stern no, then told him to sit, lie down and then I praised him and gave him a treat. She told me this was wrong, because I was praising him for woofing at the passerby. I tried to explain that what I had done was told him to do something, he did it, and I was praising him for that. She couldn't see that.

She said that I should give him a good hiding, and he ought to obey me because he "should be terrified of me".

I tried to explain that teaching a dog to fear you doesn't work, and that positive reinforcement is the training method that is used by all the expert dog trainers. But I struggle to make the argument in the face of her stubborn insistence that she is right..

Please can someone help me to make the argument - my dog should not be terrified of me, and that is absolutely not the way to get him to do what he is told?

Of course it's wrong to suggest that, but can I just say that it pisses the SHIT out of me when people don't have full recall on their dog so that my poor dog, who is terrified of other dogs having been half eaten by a bigger dog as a puppy, gets jumped on while on leash, craps himself and then goes crazy at everyone and everything, and is then blamed by the "my dog loves everyone" crowd. If you don't have full recall when approaching other dogs, put the freakin' lead on before you get anywhere near them.

I would also look at your training as it's really easy to accidentally train your dog to bark at people. I had to talk to my postman and ask him to stop leaving dog treats as he was training the dogs that, if they bark aggressively, they get a treat in the mail!

German shepherds were very popular in the 70s and unfortunately so was the school of thought that as soon as you got one you should tie it to something then beat it. Luckily most of the sane world moved on from this but you still get some assholes who still believe it. My uncle was visiting my mum and her little fearful dog was barking at him so he grabbed the dog and pinned him down getting severely bitten in the process. All that taught the poor dog was that hands were to be feared and he went on to bite others.

Yes, hands should be a source of reassurance and comfort to a dog. If you hit a dog all you're teaching it is to fear your hands.

If you hit a dog then you really shouldn't be surprised if one day someone, could be the owner, could be a child, puts their hand out towards the dog and gets bitten, because you've trained your dog to be fearful and it needs to defend itself against attack.

Your dog is still an adolescent he will be a bit feisty and willful.

This woman sounds ignorant and nasty.

If you don't have full recall when approaching other dogs, put the freakin' lead on before you get anywhere near them

I do. For that very reason.

Your relative sounds a thick idiot so I doubt a hundred people telling them they are wrong will make the slightest bit of difference. I just hope they never ever get a dog.

I have had many dogs over the years, mainly rescues, and have never ever hit or even shouted at any of them. I will say "No" in a stern voice if they misbehave and that seems to work.

One of the dogs I have now is a rescue. He was only a puppy when we got him but had been ill treated and neglected. He has been the naughtiest dog we have ever had and almost impossible to train. Thankfully he is starting to calm down a bit (he is 5 now). I can't even speak to him in a stern voice as he just cowers

My response to her would be 'fuck off and mind your own business' but if you feel you can't say that to her, then just say 'thanks for that' and continue to ignore her. I do love that you called her out on her bratty children, though.

You sound like you're doing everything right. I'm nowhere near an expert, but scaring an animal is just plain wrong. Your ddog is still young - he'll continue to settle as he matures.

Thank you

I guess my question is - if you catch your dog in the act of being naughty e.g. running away, or jumping at someone - how do you tell him off? I would just shout NO at him when he's being silly or jumpy and remove my attention / end play / walk away.

However, I've never had to catch him in the act of running away. Because eventually he will recall, and then I praise him for coming back. I wouldn't punish him at that point because I'd be punishing him for coming back!

Sounds like your relative may be one of the many people who hold negative views about GSDs.

GSDs don' t train fully by 12 months - in fact I think the police don't start until about that age because of their learning style. GSDs also have to be considered in relation to their temperament, they can be skittish in my experience and because of their loyalty trait they can take fear and beatings very badly which can damage them psychologically. In my experience they are quite a sensitive breed and can easily lose trust. I also feel they are a one owner animal my GSD behaves for me but less so for other family members - they are a very intelligent animal but will also be using that to work out how to make things work for themselves.

Owning a GSD I think requires some recognition that a lot of people hold rigid views about this breed and you just have to be aware of that. They are a big dog so I also factor that in - a GSD running up on you will always be seen differently to a small dog. They do have a very high prey drive so their desire to play chase can get out of hand very quickly. I restrict that game to other GSDs whose owners I know will appreciate their particular style of play and the dogs are more evenly matched. Its a shame people are so quick to judge a GSD as they really are a lovely breed of dog and big babies at the best of times.

We have always had GSDs in my family, so she's not prejudiced against the breed per se, but she just thinks that by 12 months, his behaviour should be perfect.

He's very different to my previous GSD, who was calm and steady. This dog is more bouncy and highly strung. He still has a lovely temperament though, and I think people forget that it took time to train my previous GSD - they remember the calm dog he was for the 10 years of his life and forget that for the first 1 year he was also challenging...

I think the one-owner animal is part of the problem here. My parents look after him occasionally when I'm away with work. They are also old-school and believe in fear tactics (they adore him though). So when he misbehaves - I am blamed for him not listening to them, and I am told that he ought to drop in fear at the sound of an angry voice.

I've tried to explain that when he misbehaves, he ought to recall at the sound of a positive voice, and we are working on that recall but they must do that too - if they want him to listen to them, they have to train him to listen to them. They refuse to use the same commands that I use, and refuse to use the halti lead that I have urged them to try because it stops the pulling instantly.

Few of the resources I keep to hand.

The first relates to resource guarding, but the premise is the same - punishment creates problems.

The second singles out a specific punishment method but again the end result is the same.

Shouting NO at him is pretty pointless as he doesn't actually understand what it means and what you want from him.

Dogs read body language, much better you show him with your body eg turning your back, or with good things (treat or toy) when he does well.

Shouting NO at him is pretty pointless as he doesn't actually understand what it means and what you want from him.

I also tried to explain this to my family member and got into a circular argument.

SHe said he ought to immediately drop when he hears my angry voice. I said 'how would he know to fear my angry voice?" She said "Because he's done something wrong"... I tried to explain it again saying those two things are separate... him doing something wrong might trigger the angry voice. But how would he know what the angry voice meant? She said "because he's done something wrong"....

I was trying to get her to understand that cues - be they tone of voice or word commands must be taught. A dog isn't born knowing what No means, and he isn't born knowing that an angry voice means he's done something wrong. She refused to listen.

Apparently my dog should know instinctively to drop and cower when he hears my angry voice.

And to teach him that (despite the assumption by her that he should just instinctively know), I would need to teach him to fear me. I will not do that.

I went to a dog trainer for a one on one session. He's an ex-Police dog handler. He told me that if the dog is jumping up and demanding attention, shouting NO at him would just feed the attention and become part of the game. He's still getting something out of me.

He told me to completely ignore him and gave me a taste aversion spray to spray around myself if that doesn't work - so dog jumps up - dog gets no reaction and a bad taste in his mouth.

No fear, no punishment.

Erm... the bad taste in the mouth is a punishment and goes against all modern science-based learning theory.

Its an aversion. I haven't used it - but the trainer did, and it worked.

It's not a punishment - he didn't spray it at the dog. He sprayed it around himself. So the dog learns that jumping on him doesn't taste nice.

That's not punishment, it's aversion.

Aversion is punishment

You could also tell her that giving your dog/any dog a 'good hiding' is abuse and would lead to prosecution under animal welfare laws, and that you would hope she isn't advocating animal abuse? My dog was a pretty boisterous one when younger, we taught a 'leave it' command early on, and with jumping up did the 'turning away/ignoring' thing which worked after a while. But also took her to an excellent ADPT dog class every week for about two years and then continued to go but mostly to do agility which really helped with bonding. She is also a working type breed so helped with offering her an outlet for her mental energy. It's as much about your dog understanding you as you understanding your dog. I swear mine thinks she trained us, she often uses eye contact and other techniques from training on us!

We also did tracking courses and weekends which she really enjoyed.

Basically, you can't reason with stupid. Don't try.

Is it? I'm not sure I agree.

Punishment is an act upon the dog - a dog does something wrong and he gets something bad done to him. He is then afraid of doing it again for fear of eliciting that punishment.

Aversion leaves the choice entirely with the dog. He jumps on something and it doesn't taste nice. He isn't afraid of anything, but he has no motivation to do it again because he didn't like it very much last time he tried it.

The dog trainer was very clear that he wasn't advocating spraying anything at the dog - I guess that would be punishment. He sprayed it around himself - to make himself less attractive.

Sorry my previous comment was in response to the 'aversion' comment.

I'd love to do agility with him - he needs group training to learn recall in distracting environments.

You can’t prove it to be people like that, unfortunately.

The best thing you could do is carry on as you are with the training and your dog will be the proof when he’s older and everybody sees that you’ve got a positively trained well mannered dog. That’ll be proof in itself that she’s talking shit.

I also tried to explain this to my family member and got into a circular argument. So that was your first mistake. Because the minute she said that, she would have been out.

Why did you even have this discussion? Why are WE having this discussion again now? Hurting and upsetting an animal is wrong. That's the end of the conversation, never mind all this debate about training methods. Cruelty is wrong. Anyone who tries to dress cruelty up as a "training method" is a cunt.

What an evil person. That sort of awful comment would make me distance myself from them. Anyone who beats a dog is nothing but a bully.