I'm feeling the need to make a few comments concerning your dog's behavior (generally speaking here... not targeting any specific person or dog). Been thinking a lot about these things this morning as a co-worker came into my office crying about her little jack russell terrier (4 months old) who they left ALONE yesterday ... uncrated... unconfined... while they were at work. They returned home to find their expensive oriental rug pretty much shredded and are now talking about giving the dog up to another home. WTH???? Can you IMAGINE what I said to this lady? This is the same lady who was bragging last week about finally getting Walker crate-trained and how well he was doing! (when they first got Walker, they thought crate-training was "cruel" and had no intentions of doing it). Now... because he has been doing so well, in a matter of a week she and hubby decided he was ok to be left totally alone and unsupervised???? I lose patience sometimes in situations such as these.
Your dog may look like she understands why you're mad at her, but more than likely, all she understands is that she doesn't want you to be mad. To change your dog's behavior, you must remember that the two of your are not the same species. Too many of us think of our pets as humans when it comes to modifying behavior problems, but our pets do not think or communicate the same way we do. And, if we expect them to, that's a problem of our own human behavior that we need to correct because unfortunately that type of thinking negatively impacts our pets and can seriously damage the bond we share with them.
To prevent breaking the bond between us and our dogs, it's important to try to understand how our dog thinks so we can change his or her bad habits with a minimum amount of confusion, frustration, or damage. It's impossible for ANY of us to totally understand why animals act as they do, but there are some basic things we can ceretainly learn and understand.
Example: Your dog tips over the kitchen trash can whenever he is left alone. You try scolding and shaking him in front of the mess, but he continues to dump the trash, only now he cowers and has that "guilty" look when you arrive home. Well obviously, you think to yourself, he knows he's doing something wrong, right? No, wrong. The "guilty" looks are submissive postures to show you that he knows you're angry, but he doesn't know why. If you dumped the garbage yourself and then left the house, your dog would have that same "guilty" look when you returned. What your dog understands is that he gets yelled at when you come home to find garbage on the floor. He does not understand that it is the actual act of dumping the garbage that upsets you. The same applies to chewing, scratching, or housesoiling. It also applies to shredding an oriental rug!
PLEASE....punishment is such an impractical and often damaging way of training your pet. Punishment makes your pet fear you and sometimes forces him or her to become aggressive, and it does not necessarily make for an obedient pet.
For correction to be effective, you HAVE to catch your pet in the act and the correction has to be strong enough to make him or her stop after only a few times. Animals have no long-term memory for things like "yesterday, I pulled the garbage out of the can and got in big trouble for that, so I better not do that again." They are truly creatures of the moment. Animals are also extremely intuitive and are sponges for our "bad vibes." If you continue to react angrily toward your pet, trust will be broken and the animal's fear of you will take hold.
Even though pets are not people, we do share a preference for pleasant things. Humans and animals alike catch on very quickly if rewarded. If you stop scaring or hurting your pet when she does something wrong and start rewarding her every time she does something right, you will see a definite difference.
Be sure not to make the behavior worse by using positive reinforcement in the wrong situation. If you console your pet while he is acting afraid of people or noise, he will think you are rewarding him for being scared.
As with most pet-and-owner problems, your pet is probably doing a perfectly normal behavior, like urinating or barking... or being food agressive... but in the wrong place or at the wrong time. You first have to determine why your pet is doing it and encourage her to it some place else or at another time.
Punishing your dog when he sniffs or licks at the baby can teach the dog to be afraid of the baby because bad things happen to him when the baby is around; he could become aggressive toward the baby because he fears the baby; or he could do something like barking to get your attention away from the baby and directed toward him. Instead of punishment, teach your dog to sit and lie down using food rewards or tell him to obey these commands around the baby in return for a chew bone, snack, and/or petting.
I'm no canine behavior expert and don't claim to be. But the canine behavior class I just finished... even though I've worked with dogs for several years... has been very enlightening to me concerning their behavior.. why they do what they do...
Please... make your training experiences positive experiences... and do NOT punish your dog in a negative, hurtful way. You are doing more damage than good ! |