Can I really train my dog by giving him a choice?

We all want to do the best for our dogs. Of course we do! 

We love them dearly and want only good things for them. That’s why you’re here!

But it’s so frustrating that when it comes to training for your pet there are often so few options in your locality. Either the classes are at difficult times, too far away, or there’s just too much going on in your life. You were already using your allotted 24 hours in full before you got a dog! Now you’ve got to fit all this in - maybe three hours out of one of your valuable evenings at home with the family. 

Then there’s the trekking to the class, perhaps in the dark, having to organise babysitters - many won’t allow children. The weather may be awful, you may be held up at work, your car may break down! It’s common for even the most dedicated of dog-owners to have to miss lessons from the local class they’ve enrolled at. Life happens!

Another problem is that you can’t find any trainers you’d want to work with. There’s an awful lot of harsh training out there, often masquerading as good training - making it very hard to know what you’re letting yourself and your dog in for. Having your dog shouted at by a “trainer” is bad - being shouted at yourself, belittled, shown up - is even worse!

So all in all I do understand why lots of people decide to pass on classes and “do it themselves”. 

Trouble is, that only works if you know the answers already! Otherwise you may just be passing on the old-fashioned methods and old wives’ tales handed down to you in your childhood.

You need to have access to the latest in scientific training techniques, with convenient classes led by an experienced and understanding trainer.

Times they are a-changing

Well, I may have an answer for you! As a trainer who uses only dog-friendly methods, based in science (no pixie dust or magic mushrooms!), and who genuinely has the dog’s wellbeing at heart, I could be just who you’re looking for. I’m also people-friendly! You won’t be shouted at or belittled as sadly so often happens in dog training classes.

I get amazing results very quickly, and it’s all done by giving the dog a choice - just as you do with your family and workmates. You don’t order them around and expect them to comply! You show them what you’d like, then encourage them to choose to do that for you.

As you know by now, I don’t talk gobbledygook. Look at these emails - representative of many that I get. Life is too short to be trying to unfathom deep mysteries! We want it explained in language we can understand.

“Thank you for sharing your easy-to-follow tips, helping us to help Smidge become our Brilliant Family Dog!”
Janet and Smidge Patterdale x

“Thank you for your books and articles - they are a great help: clear, simple and easy to follow and remember. I've read similar books, but almost all are much more wordy and hard to remember.”
Carol and Charlie in Singapore

“Wow! Back to Amazon! :-) I’m only partway through the first book but it’s great. So easy to understand. So well explained.”
Shirley and Hettie, Huntaway

So that is always my aim. It’s absolutely pointless having information about how the dog’s mind works, and being unable to convey it to the person the dog has to live with - through not understanding how the owner’s mind works!

Hmm … but just look at the map

BUT - I hear you cry! - you live in the middle of England and I live in Australia / West Coast of America / Hong Kong / Scotland / [insert your location here]. 

Thanks to the wonders of the internet, things are changing. Anything can be taught effectively online, from baking to weight loss, from ancient philosophy to astro-physics, there are even popular courses on blacksmithing and aerial dance! I have personally taken a lot of online courses and found them hugely helpful.

And dog training is another subject that works really well! You follow the course in your own time, and in your own home! If things are explained thoroughly and understandably, and you are shown videos of the training in action, you can learn really fast.  

Start the change with your reactive, anxious, aggressive - Growly - dog with our free Masterclass packed with ideas and strategies, all force-free

 

My dog’s NOT afraid of fireworks! But why?

Fears have been high up in doggy discussions recently. It’s the Fireworks season in the UK and this is what’s brought them bubbling to the surface again.

Remember, remember, the 5th of November - gunpowder, treason, and plot!

And one thing common to a lot of these discussion threads was the surprise registered by owners of reactive dogs who were not upset at all by the noise. Some of these new owners had got prepared for the onslaught and were expecting the worst - then were utterly astonished that their dog couldn’t care less about it all.

So perhaps a little look at the subject of fear would be helpful here. 

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Is all fear the same?

Humans are born with only two fears: fear of falling and fear of loud noises. And these fears are stimulated in the Apgar tests for newborns, to elicit the startle reflex and check that all is well neurologically with the baby. All other fears are learned.

So fear of ghosts, planes, spiders, heights, and so on, are acquired on our journey through life. Many of these fears are developed early on, and can be heavily influenced by our family's response. A mother who is afraid of spiders can quickly transfer this fear to her children, while the mother who is happy to pick up an insect and take it to a place of safety is likely to have children who are curious about the other species in their environment and not fearful of them. It’s also true that a natural predisposition to be cautious around predators means that people are more likely to be afraid of creatures than of … bicycles, or trees.

Now the jury is out on whether dogs are born with any fears. Certainly there will be a predisposition to fear certain things, and the social influence of the mother and the environment in which the pups are reared are definitely going to have a big effect. Hence the supreme importance of early and proper socialisation for puppies up to the age of 12-15 weeks (jury is out on the timescale too).  

But we can certainly influence this fear by showing extreme fear ourselves. 

Will I make my dog worse if I cuddle her?

Fear is an emotion. And you cannot reinforce an emotion. It’s either there or it isn’t. You can only reinforce a chosen behaviour. While it is not possible to reinforce the emotion of fear - that is, to reward it and encourage it and make it stronger and more likely to occur - by giving comfort to a frightened person or dog, it’s certainly possible to plant the idea that fear is the correct response to something. Hence the general firework advice to mask the noises and flashes as much as possible (loud tv, curtains drawn, prepare a den) and carry on as normal yourself.  

You can't make your dog more afraid by comforting her.

And this advice also extends to not making your dog afraid of other dogs by being afraid yourself! So many people anticipate a bad outcome at the sight of another dog - maybe because their dog is reactive and has barked and lunged in the past - that they will tense up, breathe quickly, panic, tighten their grip on the lead, winding it six times round their hand to shorten it. This is telling your dog that you are afraid of the incoming dog, and that strange dogs are inherently dangerous. As you’ll see in the Growly posts on this site, your first response at sight of an incoming dog should always be

• Relax hands

• Relax shoulders

• Breathe out

• Relax lead

This will be telling your dog that you are ok with the incomer. (Whether you are or not is beside the point!)

What’s conditioning? And what’s counter-conditioning?

So fears grow in people and in dogs through experience, through social learning, and from a pre-disposition - self-preservation is all-important, so being afraid of things about to pounce on you is sensible. There’s also genetics to factor in. Some dog breeds are more alert to strange things in their environment than others, and are going to be faster to develop fears - unless that careful socialisation, familiarisation, and habituation, is done.

So your puppy is being conditioned to certain fears through his life experience. A snake appears and mum runs away from it: noted - snakes are dangerous.

Counter-conditioning is when we weigh in to lessen a fear, or lessen the impact the fear will have, by changing the association in the dog’s mind to something good. If every time that pup sees a snake you stuff pork pie in his mouth - his emotional response is going to change, over time! No, we don’t want him getting curious about the snake and approaching it - but we equally don’t want him to panic and run off - into the path of our modern-day killer, a car.

Your dog is going to be afraid of things he’s learnt to be afraid of. It follows that without that experience he’s not going to have the fear in place. Of course there are dogs who are so psychologically damaged that they have a generalised fear of everything. But even these can be brought to a level of comfort with patience and dedication, and possibly medication.

So being afraid of snakes is not going to make your dog also afraid of cars. And being afraid of other dogs is not going to make him afraid of horses, or sheep, … or fireworks. 

Cricket will sleep through a thunderstorm!

Cricket the Whippet will sleep through almost anything!

In my own household I have two (Lacy and Coco) who will ignore most fireworks, but bark at a very loud bang - it’s an “alert bark” not a panic attack - one (Cricket the Whippet, the professional sleeper) who is not at all bothered, and Rollo the usually independent Border Collie who gets very unhappy and worried.

During the firework season Rollo sticks to me like a limpet, wedging himself under my legs and following me pathetically wherever I go. It’s at least reassuring that I am considered a place of safety. The situation is manageable without medication, as he doesn’t panic and damage himself trying to escape - as some dogs do.

The interesting part - for the purposes of this discussion - is that Rollo is not what is commonly termed “reactive”, while Lacy and Coco most definitely are.

Border Collies are a sensitive breed with superb hearing. So if they’re going to be worried about anything it’s understandable that loud and sharp noises would be up there. But it’s not automatic that a Collie would be noise-sensitive, any more than the dog who is afraid of men in hats, for instance, should also fear children. 

So what you can take away from this is that fears will exist in your dog; you can minimise those fears with appropriate socialisation at the correct age; you can help make those fears manageable with careful training; and that a fear of one thing does not automatically imply a fear of anything else. 

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Are retractable leads safe or useful? 11 reasons why you don’t want to use one

Resounding answer: NO!

This article is prompted by an email from a reader:

“Hi Beverley, I am in hospital thanks to someone who didn't use an extending lead properly. It must have been 30ft and the dog at the end, totally out of control. The dog came right up to mine and over I went in the road breaking my femur. Instead of taking her dog away she left her to play and I was getting dragged round the road. I had to tell the owner to take her dog away.

Housing estates are not the place to use extending leads, it is too dangerous and I was wondering if you had any information on them please. The internet is not very good in the hospital and of course I keep getting interrupted by nurses wanting to take my blood pressure etc.”

Wow. Do you need to read any further to be convinced that these leads are an accident waiting to happen? Well, just in case you do, here is some more evidence against:

What's so bad about them?

1. They are unreliable. The mechanism can break and your dog zips under a bus

2. They are unwieldy and easy to drop. Then your frightened dog races away with the handle bouncing along behind him chasing him

3. They slice people's legs - especially children's bare legs. Or necks ... or amputate fingers

4. The cord is thin and can snap, with recoil injuries to both parties

5. The lead is hard to control in a crisis

6.  If the dog races to the full extent of the lead this can result in neck and spine injuries, and see no.2 again

7.  Common sense would suggest that they should never be used near a road - but they are! And that has led to the deaths of a number of dogs who were at the full extent of the lead and saw a cat that had to be chased, or a person the other side of the road that had to be greeted

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These are all pretty frequent occurrences and documented facts. I have heard several of these stories direct from the unfortunate victims of the misadventure. 

Physical damage

Think I’m exaggerating? There are stern warnings on the website of the biggest manufacturer of these infernal devices. They say "This leash should only be used by responsible people who have read and can follow all of these precautions."

You can go and read them yourself, but suffice to say that some of the headings are as follows:

• Cuts & Burns
• Finger Amputations & Fractures
• Eye & Face Injuries
• Falls
• Injuries to Bystanders

They also advise that:
• Children should not be allowed to use the flexi leash

I hope by now that you have taken your retractable leash (if you have one - most new dog-owners are duped into buying one) and put it in the bin. But if you are supremely confident that none of the things listed above could ever happen to you or yours, take a look at what these leads do to your training and - for me, the most important thing - your relationship with your dog.

A soft long lead is essential for sympathetic dog training

Training implications

1. They teach the dog to pull - every time he pulls he gets more lead

2. There is always tension on the lead - Loose Lead Walking is impossible. You can't give the dog the choice necessary to achieve harmony. One reader found this out the hard way, but saw the light and changed things:

“I used to use a harness with a retractable leash, which I think started some problems. I threw the retractable away. We do now walk and jog with a loose leash all the time.”

3. There is no sensitivity in a lump of plastic. Imagine asking a showjumper to hold a clumpy plastic handle instead of having his delicate fingers on his horse's reins!

4. They are a lazy option and teach the dog nothing that you would like him to learn.

Illegal devices

To cap it all, these leads are illegal in many US states, notably in San Francisco and New York. 

“Leash length: the length has been set at three meters. Dog trainers will be happy about this because it bans the use of most retractable leashes, which are deemed dangerous and do not support having care and control of your dog at all times.” – Pat Lee, The Chronicle Herald, California

So do yourself and your dog a favour! Bin the expensive retractable lead and equip yourself with the right sort of lead to achieve safety, connection, and that lovely loose lead walking. 

This post will get you started!

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Is my dog protecting me?

I often hear this question. It usually involves the dog lunging aggressively at someone or something that gets too close to you out on a walk. And the questioner often looks quite flattered by this acknowledgement of their own importance.

But sadly, the only person your dog is usually protecting is his poor, sorry, self.

It’s what's known as Resource Guarding.

You may think that Resource Guarding only involves food, and a typical scene would be a dog with a bone or other tasty morsel. Someone leans towards the bone with outstretched arm, the dog freezes, crouches, and lowers his head over his possession, wrinkles his lips, snarls, shows the whites of his eyes as he stares at you, deathly still. This is a very clear warning! Take one step closer and you will be bitten!

There’s no moral judgment here. We use body-blocking and turning to cover the thing we want to keep, to warn others off. We’ll shove with our elbows, shout, whine. We see this more in children who are still learning our strange social ways. Dogs do it as above. That’s the way they’re made. 

They’re not bad or vicious, they just have something they want to keep.

Food, bones, a bed, old socks, toys …

And what the dog values can vary hugely. It may be a shred of dirty tissue, a dead rat, a toy, his bed. And the more value you place on the item, the more value the dog will think he has. So if you make a song and dance about your dog holding that dirty tissue, you’re making him more likely to guard it!

In my experience, dogs are either serious resource guarders or they’re not. And not many are. Coco Poodle is the first of my eleven dogs to show any resource guarding at all. You can certainly use early training to ensure that any such tendencies are not going to cause a problem. 

So with your new puppy or new dog, when you feed them just leave them alone to eat. Don’t interfere. Don’t touch them. Don’t go near them. Don’t threaten their food. Some people seem to have a mad idea that taking the food away from the dog while he’s eating will show him who’s boss.

Imagine you came to dinner at my home, I put a splendid plateful of food in front of you, then just as you were about to tuck in I snatched the plate away. How would you feel? I give the plate back to you, then snatch it away again! Now how do you feel? Next time I reach for your plate you’ll probably hang on to it and, within the bounds of normal polite behaviour, resist me.

So to think this will make the dog less of a resource guarder is nutty. It’s actually likely to trigger Resource Guarding in a dog who wasn’t showing it!

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What you can do, is to give your dog his food and leave him. Then you can breeze past him and drop something really tasty down near him - something better than what he has in the bowl for preference, like chicken or beef. Gradually, over several days, you can get nearer to his bowl. He’ll now associate your approach with good things, and move his head out of the bowl so you can drop your treats into it. As Gwen Bailey says in The Perfect Puppy, “Hands come to give, not to take.”

This is the monstrous and delightful Coco Poodle!

With the exception of Coco, my dogs will all move off and relinquish a prize if another dog wants it. And they’ll happily give anything they have to me. I’ll inspect it - I may have thought they had something dangerous - and wherever possible I’ll give it back to them. If it’s something they shouldn’t have, I’ll “buy” it with a treat or a game.

And Coco will move off if the other dogs approach him when he has something he values, but he may grumble and snatch it away with him. It never advances beyond him stating his displeasure though, because nobody ever tries to force him to give up his prize.

I can ask him to give me a fresh chicken wing or bone and he will, reluctantly. Then I can give it back to him. Trying to force him to give me what he has could have resulted in a bite - probably a “covered” bite in his case, an inhibited bite which doesn’t do damage. 

But some dogs - especially dogs whose history you don’t know - may have been tormented whenever they had anything they wanted to keep, be it food or otherwise, and they are very ready to defend their valued item.

What should I do?

The important thing is NEVER to challenge your dog when he has something he wants to keep. You will get bitten. Always back off and organise a diversion. This isn't "losing face" - it's just pragmatic. Sometimes scattering some treats on the floor away from him and his object is enough for him to drop the item and go foraging, leaving you able to pick it up. If the foodbowl is an issue, feed him in his crate with the door shut, so that inquisitive children and cats can’t get bitten. Put a training program into place at the same time.

Management of a behaviour problem should always be coupled with training a better response.

Practice swapping things with him - things he doesn't value at all to begin with, gradually grading up to more valuable (to him) things. Swap for a similar item, or swap for food. One day you will be able to swap a bone with him. 

If you are worried that your dog will bite someone, or that this is too dangerous for you to manage on your own (and it may well be), get a force-free trainer in to help you. It's essential that it's a force-free trainer - so-called “balanced” trainers will make the situation worse. You'll find some resources to locate a trainer for you beneath this post: Is my dog a reflection of me?

Back to the Protection issue

So you can imagine that to your dog you are a very valuable resource. You provide food, shelter, comfort, play, for your dog - you are his home. So when you are out together, if your dog is the guardy type, he’s going to protect this valuable resource of his. Maybe from other people, maybe from other dogs. 

There is, of course, a difference between your dog just being fearful of things and one who appears to be protecting you. You’ll find help for the generally reactive dog in lots of articles here on Brilliant Family Dog 

And usually your dog is making a hullabaloo because he’s trying to keep something scary away from him. But some dogs want to take it that bit further and make it abundantly clear that no-one is going to get close to you. And that's one reason for the threatening behaviour - the other reason is just plain fear. Coco Poodle, for instance, gets on far better with other dogs at a distance from me.

The key is always to give your dog a choice. Help him make a good decision by taking the pressure off him. If it’s an item he has, back off and distract him, as above. If it’s someone out on a walk, turn away and keep a comfortable distance if you want to chat. 

Resource Guarding is a natural process, not a moral issue.

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Are you a Firefighter or a Planner?

I get so many emails along the lines of 

      • “How can I stop my dog doing xyz?”

      • “Every time x happens, my dog does y”

      • “My dog does xyz out of the blue.”

      • “My dog always does xyz - I say NO, but he doesn’t seem to learn and does it again next time.”

Let’s take these one by one.

1. “How can I stop my dog doing xyz?”

Far, far, easier than stopping your dog, is to ensure he doesn’t start!

It may be that you’re new to living with a dog, and you can’t foresee what’s likely to happen. Once you have a few dogs “under your belt” you get much quicker at spotting hazards in advance. So, if your dog already has an established behaviour pattern that you don’t like (and if he was re-homed with you, he may have come with this habit already well-learnt), you want to look at what causes that action to happen. 

Once you know the precursor, you have a chance to change the outcome

Perhaps your dog jumps up on visitors. What happens before he jumps?

1. Visitor arrives at house and knocks at door (huge excitement!)
2. Visitor is admitted (excitement unparalleled)
3. Maybe visitor tries to greet the dog, in self-defence (dog is massively rewarded for lunatic activity)

So you have three clear points there where you could make changes. 

1. When visitor arrives, or - if expected - before visitor is due, settle your dog in his crate or another room with a chewtoy or stuffed foodtoy.
2. As the visitor is admitted to the house, your dog is either safe in his crate or other room, or is on lead beside you with your foot on the lead, and cannot jump.
3. If visitor wants to greet dog (preferably when you ask them to) dog has to stay sitting in order to earn this mighty reward.

So there you have three easy fixes to a nuisance behaviour with little effort - just a little advance planning.

2. “Every time x happens, my dog does y”

This is along similar lines as the first point, but this time my correspondent has picked up on the fact that something happens first, then the dog reacts. So we’re ahead already!

Sometimes the full question may read:

“Every time another dog walks towards us on the street, my dog lunges and barks.”

What’s happening here?
1. Strange dog (and probably strange person) are advancing towards your dog
2. Your dog is afraid of this incursion
3. Your dog is on lead and cannot exercise the “Flight” part of “Fight or Flight”, so he puts on an aggressive display to frighten away the intruder
4. Other dog and owner turn and go, or hurry past, or you turn and go (Result! The threat has gone! The barking and lunging worked!)

So we want to change this to:

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1. Strange dog/person advancing - turn and go the other way, or cross the road
2. Demonstrate to your dog that he needn’t be afraid, you will take care of him
3. Keep hands soft on the lead so he doesn’t feel trapped, and make distance
4. The other dog has gone without the need to be shouted at!

3. “My dog does xyz out of the blue.”

So you can see by now, that your dog never does stuff out of the blue. Unless your dog has dementia, there’s always a reason, just like there is for anything we do. 

The trick is in identifying the reason so we can fix it at that stage, without waiting for the full bad thing to happen.

And one of the commonest times I hear this statement is in regard to dogs reacting - perhaps leaping up and snapping. There’s always a reason!

Perhaps the dog is resource guarding - a speck of food, his owner, a shred of tissue, a toy - and someone got too near. Perhaps he felt another dog was threatening him, too close. Perhaps someone leant over and scratched his bum without permission! (How would you feel if a stranger scratched your bum without so much as a “by your leave”?)

Dogs always run through a sequence of calming signals before biting. Granted, they may run through it pretty fast, especially if they do it a lot. But they do do it. Just as you’d be unlikely to spin round on that stranger and pull a knife: rather, you’d fix him with a frosty glare and maybe say something loud enough for others to hear. 

Kendal Shepherd's Canine Ladder of Aggression

So the dog who bit “out of the blue” will probably have tried to turn away, gone still and stiff, shown the whites of his eyes, given a stare, wrinkled his lip, mumbled a growl, swished his tail stiffly, maybe snapped - all steps ascending the Canine Ladder of Aggression - before he felt forced to bite. Fighting is dangerous for all parties, and is not entered upon unless it’s the only choice. 

By the way, dogs are so much faster than us, that if a dog is going to bite you, you are going to get bitten. There is no “He nearly bit me but I moved away in time.” If you are genuinely threatened by a dog, your best course of action is to avert your gaze and posture, keep your arms still, and stop being a threat. 

Teaching children to “be a tree” when confronted by a dog they don’t know is an essential skill: 

• Plant your roots (keep your feet still)

• Fold your branches (fold your arms across your body)

• Watch your roots grow (look at your feet)

A child running away screaming and flapping arms and legs is a great target for a chasing dog!

4. “My dog always does xyz - I say NO, but he doesn’t seem to learn and does it again next time.”

Here we have a combination of acting too late to affect the outcome, and using punishment to try and fix the situation. Both are doomed to failure.

We’ve seen above that you have to identify the precursors to an action if you want any chance of changing it. If your dog “always” does whatever it is, this means it’s a firm habit which you are allowing to happen every time. Change something! Find out what the sequence is and interrupt it. 

If you wait till he’s done it and punish, he’s already been rewarded and you are too late

And as for saying NO, this really is not going to help. Saying NO gives the dog no information about what you do want, and just tells him that you are angry with him and adversarial. You’re not on the same side as him any more, so he can’t expect any help from you. This is exactly what we don’t want in our relationship with our dog! 

Instead, decide on what you want him to do instead, teach him how to do that, reward his response enthusiastically, and you now have a new go-to action for that situation. 

Let’s revisit the first example above:

1. Your dog jumps up on a visitor (fun - visitor dances and flaps hands)
2. You shout NO (more fun! You’re joining in with him now!)

How about, instead:

1. You ask your dog to sit on lead as visitor arrives (you have taught and rewarded this endlessly)
2. Dog sits as you welcome your visitor
3. Dog is rewarded - either with a treat, or by being allowed to greet the visitor calmly

No firefighting!

A lot of these “beginner” mistakes can easily be avoided or changed with a little foresight. Don’t expect your dog to be a small hairy version of a civilised human brought up with our society’s values. 

He’s a dog.

So think of how he sees the situation - get inside his head and think like a dog - then you can pick out the turning points where you can directly influence the outcome, with a happy dog!

You have to be proactive, not a firefighter. This is true of life in general, and never more true than in developing the magical bond with your dog.

Lots more help can be found in other articles here at Brilliant Family Dog, and specific “recipes” to change things you don’t like can be found in our free 8-part email course.

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Dogs don’t operate through “Pack Theory” .. and the earth isn’t flat either

There are plenty of people about who perpetuate the myths that

• dogs are stubborn,

• dogs are obstinate,

• dogs are trying to rule you/your family/the world,

• let them eat before you and they'll turn into a ravening monster,

• if you give them an inch they’ll take a mile,

• and so on and on …

If you’re repeating it because you were told by someone you thought knew what they were talking about, you’ll need to think again (and stop repeating it!)

You may have heard this from a tv personality who sets himself up as a dog trainer; you may have heard it from someone who calls themselves a dog trainer - albeit without any respectable qualifications. You may have heard it from your vet or groomer whom you trust, but who is not qualified in dog behaviour.

The fact is, that whoever you heard it from is talking through their hat.

There was a stage, many, many years ago, when people formulated the Pack Theory model. It was based on erroneous data and has since been completely discredited - even by those who promoted it in the first place! There is no basis in fact for “pack theory”, “dominance”, “rank reduction”, or anything else you may have heard of which works through punishment, pain, or distress.

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You wouldn’t put your child into the hands of an unqualified, self-proclaimed, teacher who came out with all this nonsense. Why do you listen to a so-called dog trainer who says the same stuff?

I get that the internet is a confusing place! There are so many opinions declared to be gospel truth. You have to have your b******t glasses on when you read much of it!

What else is outdated claptrap?

I have actually heard people say “Yes, this new approach must be right, but we can’t throw the baby out with the bathwater …” hoping against hope that the things they have been inflicting on their dog will still magically work, despite being disproven and discredited.

Your ancestors could be forgiven for thinking the earth is flat. They didn’t know. They made best guesses based on religious beliefs and the total absence of factual knowledge. But we know now. So anyone who says “I get that the earth is spherical, but maybe some bits of it are still flat,” would be dismissed as deluded.

We know now that our weather happens because of all the events and influences around the globe that affect it. We no longer think that a drought was caused by some sin we had committed. You would laugh at someone who said “Yes, I know about El Nino, but I still think that if we didn’t allow same-sex marriage we wouldn’t be suffering this adverse weather.”

The enormous developments in scientific data-collection have proven what to accept as truth. The science behind the modern view of dog training is just as valid.

If you say, “Yes, I can see the dog’s brain is wired this way, but I still think that if he goes through a doorway before me he is going to take over the house,” you are putting yourself alongside the flat-earth proponent and the mediaeval weather analyst above who we have just dismissed as WRONG.

Dogs do what works

It’s fortunate for us that dogs haven’t read all these crazy theories. Dogs do what works. Dogs have always done what works and they will continue to do so. Their brains are the same as they ever were. 

And like all beings, their life is focussed on gaining pleasure and avoiding pain. If you think any of the weird practices promulgated by those flat-earthers and tv personalities who think they are dog trainers work - then maybe your dog is cleverer than you and has worked out how to please you by complying with your demands, however barmy they may seem to him.

Chickens were used in the last war to spot downed airmen in tiny orange life-rafts - possibly miles below the spotter plane. The chickens were very effective, with their amazing eyesight, at picking a dot of orange out of the churning waves.

Did they do this because they wanted to help the war effort? Did they do it because they disliked Hitler and all he stood for? Did they do it because they didn’t like the colour orange? Of course not! They did it because they had learned that if they pecked at a tiny orange dot they would be given some grain. The chickens were working on the simple system of

Reward what you like and that action is more likely to be repeated

They didn’t need to be threatened, prodded with metal spikes, or given electric shocks if they made a mistake. They just got rewarded when they did the required action. Simple!

So if someone tells you that your dog lying on the sofa is trying to take over your home - rather than that it is just a comfortable place with a good vantage point; or that your dog preceding you down the stairs is going to lead to mayhem and bloodshed - rather than that it’s just safer to let the dog whizz downstairs without tripping you up; or even that feeding your dog before you eat will lead to him exceeding his rank - rather than you simply getting the chores done before you settle down for the evening; then treat these statements with the contempt they deserve.

NOTE: if your dog is guarding the sofa from you, pushing past you on the stairs without consideration, or begging while you eat, these are training issues and can be resolved by simple training. 

Note that the same people who come out with this outdated stuff will often want you to use vicious devices of torture on your dog. Have nothing to do with anyone who suggests a spike/prong collar, or any electronic gadgets which will "instantly change your dog". 

Dogs are not people

It can be beguiling to ascribe complex motives to your dog when he does something. Because we tend to ascribe human responses to dogs. But dogs are not humans! They are a different species and they don’t have all the hang-ups that we have when it comes to responding to situations.

“Why did she look at me like that? What is she trying to gain? What does she expect me to do? Does she not like me? Is she jealous of me? ….” we may say in our convoluted thought processes of whywhywhy. Your dog is so much simpler: “She looked at me. I looked back. End of story.”

“My mind is made up: don’t confuse me with the facts”

We all know intransigent people who will swear that black is white rather than accept they may be mistaken and should have a re-think. They may be repeating the old wives’ tales that have been fed to them all their lives.

But we don’t need to do that! We have plenty of access to well-researched material that shows us how to treat our dogs - with kindness, understanding (understanding of canine thoughts and fears, that is, not thinking that they are small people in fur coats), and effectiveness.

Apart from all the scientifically-proven reasons why this approach works, it makes us feel good too! No-one likes to be a martinet or a sergeant-major when dealing with their family (and if they do, then they have some serious problems) and it’s so much easier to deal with your dog in the same courteous and straightforward way. 

Ensure that you look at what you’ve been doing with your dog, and excise anything that comes under the heading of “rank reduction”, “pack leadership”, “dominance”. Enjoy the new way of getting what you want from your companion. Ask him to do things, don't tell him.

And don’t worry about “the baby being thrown out with the bathwater” - there never was a baby in that particular tub in the first place!

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