Barking

[slleipnir]

Liz...yeah i see what you mean. It's just the way that purrley said what she did; "I would never, never hit my dog" or something, as if saying that i do. Theres a BIG differance from 'hitting' and 'swating'

[purrley]

Oh Sleipnir - no I'm very sorry - I absolutely did not mean to imply that I think you're hurting your dog - I simply expressed my own opinion about my little dog. And I'm only a week into dog ownership anyway - sometimes you can read things into these posts that are not there. I probably shouldn't have commented on this because I am so new at dog ownership and I know ZIP. Please accept my apology and take heed to all the other posts, so many others know so very much more about dogs and their training than I do - I'm just learning. HUGS

[slleipnir]

Purley, I over reacted probably, but it's just because I care so much about my dog. My way of training is just different from you ppls thats all. I've taken jo to many training classes from obedience to agility and shes done extremly well in everything she does ( from 3rd to 1st in her classes) so something is working for me, shes very smart and trains easily for most things, and i'm sure whatever your doing works for you.

I hate discipling her but i can't let her around with nothing. The voice thing doesn't work for her, and so a swat on the butt isn't much for her either its that i ignore her for a little while and she HATES it! she loves getting her snuggles and pats and good dogs.
I've had a dog since i was 1 yrs old, but didn't do much with him. I got Josie about 3 yrs ago and have been doing all the training myself, and i think i let her away with to much and spoil her which probably why she doesn't take me seriously sometimes. But I know that she knows that when i have a bad tone then my hand might mean a swat but when i have a soft nice tone she knows she'll get pet and loved. But all dogs are different so i'm sure your puppy takes things differently then mine, and you way of training probably works on a lot of dogs too, but all i know is it doesn't for me. I would never do anything of the sort if i didn't think it was best for jo. She only gets a swat if she really bad, and the barking can't go on cause it really annoys me neighbors and i wouldn't want to have to do something worst like take her somewheres else..

ok i went on about nothing for like an hr so i'm done..lmao..sorry that i got carried away and over-reacted about it.

[purrley]

I can sure feel your frustration - don't be surprised if along the way I ask for your advise on the care and training of a dog. I've only had my little Tess for a week and I've been asking a lot of questions about what to do. This morning I couldn't get her to come to me for the life of me and this makes me angry, I'm sure my voice showed it - I think she knew she was about to go in the crate for the day. Good Luck with your sweet Josie - she sounds like such a sweetheart - I'm sure you two are going to work it out together Oh by the way - because you are a part of Pet Talk is a very good indication that you are a loving and caring pet owner and are seeking ways of improving your relationship with Josie - I hope you discover what will work for both of ya. Chin up and Welcome to this fun, fun site


[ December 13, 2001: Message edited by: purrley ]

[slleipnir]

Purley- Thanks :] I'm sure we'll find something lol. good luck with your puppy!
do you have pics of her? and what breed etc

[purrley]

I have a little chihuahua and thank you I need all the luck I can get I'm in the process of taking alot of pictures and will post them soon along with my 4 cats


[ December 13, 2001: Message edited by: purrley ]

[ December 13, 2001: Message edited by: purrley ]

[slleipnir]

aww sounds cute. Looking forward to seeing them

[carrie]

O.K. The problems you are having with time and energy are ones most of us can relate to - I know I can BIG TIME.

I tried to make it clear that I understand you are not beating or hitting the dog - swatting to a human is a very different thing.

Seen from a dog's point of view it is physical retribution and that is reserved in a canine pack for only the most severe wrongdoing. A weak pack leader will constantly "swat" at those under it in status to reinforce it's position. Other pack members recognise this as a weak leader and will not take direction from that leader. They will begin to make independant decisions about their role in the pack and the responsibilities they can not trust the leader with.

The method you are using now is clearly giving no results, it obviouly frustrates you and you seem to know that there must be another method of doing it. While this is stressful for you it is also an opportunity.

I do not think that you are a cruel person or bad in any way but I do think that many trainers fail to keep in touch with behaviour research and so do not take advantage of new findings. The training methods you describe are at least forty years old.
Us behaviourists and psychologists do work...well...sometimes we do....honest...and an awful lot has been learned about canine communication, canine origins, canine-human interaction and a great array of issues that have significant implications for pet owners and trainers.

You very clearly care deeply for your dog and want to do the best for her.

It is up to you to learn, to think about what you learn and to decide if you agree or not.

Everything new takes time to practice, time to reap results and time for confidence to build.

You are not bad and nobody here thinks that -

Christmas is on the way....my main suggestion for an easily understandable first step that has some great practical suggestions to get results is Jan Fennel. She has a book out - I believe it is called The Dog Listener - and is ideal for an introduction into canine thinking. Drop enough hints and you may just get lucky.....(I think you can get it on Amazon.com)
(One word of warning....like everything, it claims to be the "new thinking", the "new way" - it isn't. She is a very clever lady that figured it out on her own...but there are others out here that have been doing the same or very similar long before her book arrived on the scene!!!!!!)

[slleipnir]

Thank you carrie for you help. Josie listens to me about 90% of the time, 100% if we are in side. I tried many different thing and this works the best. Like i said you'd HAVE to know Josie to know what I mean. I think the reason why she doesn't listen sometime is because i'm not constent with it. I know if i keep it up steadily then she'll come around. I've even asked the advise of my veterinarin. Dogs are very smart and know when they can or can't get away with stuff. I know theres a "dog language" to follow, but it doesn't alway work, she seems to be more human then dog..LOL yes i know that sounds REALLY weird..hmm..anyway, Your way of training i'm sure works for you, but not for me. Theres seriously no way i can wake up any earlier or else i get a very bad headache the rest of the day, and I get up usually went josie wakes me up wanting her food. She hasn't barked really at all latly in the mornings when i let her out. Now it's mostly only at dogs she barks at. She got over humans mostly so now we're working with dogs. It'll take time but once shes older and used to the house a little more ( we just moved in not to long ago) she'll be better i think. Shes a very hyper dog who needs lots of exercise and just wants to play.

A while ago she howled at this kid walking his dog off lead and he looked at me like..my dog what a undiscaplined dog kinda thing..later when he walked by, the puppy walked across the road and he called her but she didn't come. He stomped across the road grabed her scruff of the neck and back (she looked kinda scared..had her ears back and head low) and he threw her down and WACKED her butt..i mean not a swat..a HARD WACK, a slap..or something..and he was yelling at her..i mean the poor dog...i don't think it deserved that just for walking across the road!

[purrley]

Sleipnir - What you described in your last paragraph is a classic case of animal abuse and I urge you to contact your local Humane Society and report that person. I have a neighbor, who in the past has exhibited his manhood by beating up on his dog on a regular basis - I did call the Human Society and they came out and gave him a warning, letting him know that he had been observed being cruel to an animal. What you described makes me wanna cry - no animal or human for that matter deserves to be treated like that

[lizbud]

Sleipnir,
Just wanted to ask "who's the kitty" in your
signature pictures., and is that a bandage on it's head?

[ December 14, 2001: Message edited by: lizbud ]

[slleipnir]

Purrley: yes i would but i don't know where he lives. The dog was a labby too! SO pretty and just a little pup! i was gonna go out and bitch at him but he was half way up the road... :[ poor little thing!

Liz: The caloco kitten, thats patches, its a swiffer cloth and a sock on her head..shes really stupid she actually liked it! lol! shes was the sweetest thing. Shes my..well was..my sis's cat, but when my sis was in the hospital for a long time once we took care of her and i got very attached to her :[ my sis wanted her back and ended up giving her to the HS. My friend a few months ago saw a cat JUST like her there and it had the same name and was 2 yrs roughly (how old she would have been-it was like over a yr since we saw her..) anyway the next day it was gone so it was probably put to sleep, unless someone adopted and there was no tag ( ppl have to wait 1 night before bring there new pet home) I sooo hope she found a good home! i loved her so much and wished we could have had her back

[carrie]

I urge you again to open your mind to other possibilities!!! Maybe it's not working because it is giving the dog the wrong signals and maybe you are inconsistent because you know, deep down, that it won't work???

Vet's are not behaviourists. They have no behaviour training and most of my business comes from vets who are big enough to say, "I spent seven years training to make sick animals better and all the animals I see and all the things that can go wrong with them took all that time!! I can tell you what might be a pssibility with a behaviour problem but I'm not the one you should be talking to!"

In the same way I can tell what might be medically wrong with a dog and even give a few suggestions but I can't give a firm diagnosis, prescribe drugs or perform surgery.

I am not a vet and the vet is not a behaviourist.

Dogs are smart, but only on the dog smartness scale. They can only interpret what you do with a canine mind. They can not interact with the world or the humans in it in any other way - that is why we love them, because they are dogs.
It's not rocket science, it's nothing new, it's just seeing and understanding as a dog.

Your dog is different from other dogs, but it is still a dog and still understands the pack structure and still understands the dog language (believe me when I say we are talking of different things when we talk about language here!).

If you are using understandable (to your dog) language - it will work. If you are using forty year old ideas of dominance and punishment, I've done two things to show you I'm the boss and you will be punished every time you disobey from now on....well, if I have the time - it won't. It won't work if you are more consistent. It won't work if you get harder with the physical punishment.

The very big clue to your dog not trusting you as leader is in the statement that you don't get out of bed, "until Josie wakes me up wanting food." She simply wouldn't do this if she saw you as the leader. She sees herself in the position to tell you when it is time for her to eat and all she has to do is demand it and you obey.

Finally the incident on the road that you witnessed is a person using the exact same strategies of dog training as you are. The only difference is that he was slightly more sophisticated than you. He has gone a little further along the learning curve ( of an outdated system) and also believes he is doing the best for his dog.
It is not acceptable to have a dog ignore your command and wander across a road. This is a life threatening thing for the dog who knows little of the dangers of traffic. This guy is making sure the dog never, ever forgets that running across a road is a really, really bad thing. He is hoping that the dog will remember it and never do it again.
This is dog training at it's best in one way beacause people can relate to it, can understand and react in the natural human way to a life threatening situation.

Sadly it won't work at all - the dog has no idea why it is hauled off and the best that can be hoped for is the dog will recall much better for a couple of days. It will not relate the incident to the road and the guy won't have the information he needs to reinforce the recall lesson and that too will fade quickly.
The only way this will benefit anyone is to repeat the excersise every other day.
The guy is only following the instructions of trainers just like the ones you have been listening to - and think about it, it does make sense. If it is OK to swat the dog on the butt for barking in the garden, that doesn't work very well but you are prepared to believe that is the best way to train your dog. You are out walking one day and the dog runs across a road, ignoring a command from you, right in front of a car. The only sensible thing to do in this situation is to go mad on the dog - if you swat the dog for barking then you have to make an impression in a big way for the dog putting itself in danger. (I know there was no car involved but the guy could obviosly imagine the implications.)

What has not been recognised is that the dog trusts it's own view of the world more than the owners. It does not believe the owner is capable of making decisions that will benefit it, so it makes it's own.

My way of thinking - and something I have proved over and over - is to get your body language as close as you can and to use the same strategies as Alpha canines use. If you can learn this and carry it out your dog does not have the need to run away from, or to confront, situations because it is the leader's job to decide how to handle it. If you can tell your dog, in language it understands, not language that makes sense to humans, that you are in control and understand much more about the world than it does then your dog can not help itself - it has to do what you want because it is genetically programmed to live life under a competent leader - it wants to! The pet dog has the major problem that it can't find a really trustworthy leader that understands it and that it can understand.


EVERYONE!!!
Please, if you have just skimmed through, don't be upset until you read the whole thing - thanks.

[slleipnir]

Carrie:
I can't believe you'd say my way of training is the same as that guy!? there is a TOTAL diff! I would never EVER hit my dog like that EVER! Thats abuse! You'd have to have seen what he did to her.

Have you ever tried this way (my way) of training? Josie is pure muscle and i'd be suprised if she felt anything, have you ever patted a horse? you know u have to wack them b4 then even feel anything..

I thank you for your help but i wil continue with my way no matter what anyone says! it might seem inhumane to you but it works! I'm sorry i don't have time to go outside every morning in the freezing cold.

My moms dad trained dogs, and i sware his dogs where the BEST and more well trained dogs ever! and he did what i do. Have you ever seen the the dog show where the dude goes to your house? he does it too, i'm glad this works for you and it DOESN'T work for everyone. So pleae don't keep saying this like i do it cause im mean to my dog and cause she only understands dog language and all this like your the only person in the world who knows anything about dogs! I'm sorry i'm so rude about this but i always say whats on my mind or i go insain. I don't mean it to be rude its just the way it comes out, i just need to get it out there and stuff. Yes i know i shouldn't go on but i have to get it out. So i'm sorry if i offended u.

But what that guy does is nothing like what i do, its totally different and humane. When jo chews on this (not anymore) i push down on her tounge, sounds mean? well i cant have her chewing my house up and i tried only yelling or whatever u said but it doesn't work for josie. I got that from a PROFESSIONAL dog trainer who does this sort of thing for a living.

Sorry again to anyone who thinks i'm offesive

[lizbud]

I agree totally with Carrie's statements.
Reacting to a dog's misbehavior with a
people response won't work.
If your dog trusts you as leader, he/she
can't help but follow your lead & look to
you for signals that convey "what to do" in
any given situation.
The guy who severely corrected his dog for
running into the street or the person who
swats the butt of a dog after the fact are
both ineffective in correcting a misdeed..
How many times have you seen a Mom or Dad
run to the rescue of a toddler, only to swat
them on the butt for scareing them so? That's
a human response to another human.Doesn't
work for dogs at all..It's the method being
used that's in question not the people
involved.