|
 You
may think that obviously you are your dog's leader . . . you
make the decisions and you pay the bills; if your dog is
ill mannered, it means he doesn't recognize your leadership.
Dogs are not just four-legged, hairy little people.
They speak a different language than we do, a language based on
body posture and behaviour. They don't know about bills. They
do know about announcing the arrival of strangers,
guarding against invaders, and monitoring their group's social
life (who sleeps where, who strokes whom, who gets fed first,
etc.) These are the responsibilities of a canine leader. If you
are having trouble with your dog in any of these areas -- does he
jump on guests, beg at the table or insist on sleeping on the
furniture? --then he thinks he
is the leader!
Commanding your dog to sit at the right time will
go a long way towards establishing your leadership
To your
dog, a leader is someone who makes the following decisions:
When do
I eat?
Where do I sleep?
When do I go outside?
Who goes through the door first?
When do I come in?
When will petting start? When will petting stop?
When do I play?
What will I play?
When does playtime end?
What shall I bark at? How long will I bark?
What will I investigate on a walk?
The more
of these decisions you make, the more of a leader you are to your
dog. The more he can count on your leadership, the less he has to
worry about. As you assert your leadership, your dog will become
less anxious, less annoying and very possibly less aggressive.
Reclaiming Your Leadership
How,
then, do you act like a leader your dog can recognize? First, a few
things not to do. You do not establish leadership by yelling
at your dog, and you do not establish leadership by spanking
him, hitting him with a rolled-up newspaper, or rolling him onto his
back in the dreadfully dangerous "alpha rollover." You do it by
teaching your dog to perform a deferential behaviour, and insisting
he show his deference to you at all those crucial decision-making
times listed above.
What is "deferential behaviour"?
"SIT."
Yes, commanding your dog to sit at the right time will go a long
way towards establishing your leadership. The behaviour modification
concept involved here is sometimes called "Nothing in Life is Free,"
because by sitting on command your dog earns the interaction
that follows.
So that you do not need to remember which circumstances are the ones
that your dog considers leadership issues, the rule for establishing
leadership is as follows:
Your dog must sit promptly at your command to earn anything and
everything he wants or needs, from now on, for the rest of his life.
Once he has mastered "sit," use it! He'll be sitting on command many
times a day. He'll be sitting so much that pretty soon he'll sit
before you even tell him to . . . and that's great, for two reasons.
First, he is voluntarily showing deference to you, and that means
you' re becoming more of a leader in his eyes. And second, a dog
that is sitting is a dog that isn't getting into trouble!
As your efforts to reclaim your leadership take root, several things
may happen. Sometimes things get worse before they get better. Your
dog may challenge you as you assert yourself, or he may escalate his
obnoxious behaviours, tempting you to yell and hit. Don't be misled
by these setbacks into thinking you're making things worse!
They will get better if you stick with the program!
A few
tips for dealing with the setbacks:
Ignore your dog's attempts at leadership, or turn them to your
advantage.
Let's say your dog insists on being petted while you're trying
to relax in front of the TV. Will he go away if you ignore him?
Probably not--most dogs have learned that if you're being ignored,
just make yourself more of a nuisance until you get the attention
you crave. (So what if it's a curse and a slap? Negative attention
is still attention!) So at his very first attempt to get your
hand on his head, withdraw whatever body part is touching him and
command him to sit. When he does, reward him by petting him briefly,
then dismiss him. You're the one who inadvertently taught him to be
a pest; now you can teach him to ask to be petted and to be petted
only as a reward for obeying your command.
If you
need more physical control to get your dog to obey your
commands, use a Gentle Leader head collar with a light line dangling
from it so you can instantly have control of your dog without risk
of getting nipped. Talk to your veterinarian about how to properly
use this humane and effective training aid.
Source:
Dr. Laurie Green, Pet Care Information Centre
www.petcare.umn.edu |
