Your dog is part of your family! Right?

You love your dog as you love your kid, your siblings, and maybe more than your mother-in-law!

BUT… If you call your dog your “fur baby”,

you may be setting your dog up for failure. Well, calling your dog your fur baby obviously isn’t really a bad thing, but treating your dog as a fur baby is.

Treating your dog the same way as you treat a child will not make your dog listen to you or behave the way you hope - in fact, totally the opposite. Let’s use some examples:

THE “TELLING OFF” ONES:

(Child bites mums hand) “EXCUSE ME! That’s very naughty. You must not bite mummy! Go sit on the stair and think about what you’ve done”! The kid might cry and stomp to the stairs. But he knows he’s done wrong, and that you’re not happy with him. He might think twice about doing that again

(Dog nips owners hand) “EXCUSE ME! That’s very naughty. You must not bite mummy! Go sit on the stair and think about what you’ve done”! The dog thinks, “WTF is she saying? That’s a lot of words. I don’t understand any of them. What does she want from me? What should I do”?

Okay, okay, so you probably don’t use the EXACT words you’d use with the kid, but trust me, I’ve heard similar

(Child shouts at passers-by) You say, “Oi! You know better than that! WTH man?! Apologise now”! Kid replies, “but that’s the kid who called me names at school”! You say, “Oh, in that case, kick his ass”! I’M JOKING! Let’s start over… “Oi! You know better than that! WTH man?! Apologise now”! Kid knows he was out of order. How? Cos’ you let him know. He understands what your reaction means. He understands your shock and tone

(Dog barks at passers-by) You say, “Oi! You know better than that! WTH man?! Stop barking at people”! Dog thinks, “OMG, there are all those weird noses coming from my humans face hole again! What does it all mean”?

ONE MORE..

(Child pees on your nice, clean living room carpet. CHILD, not toddler) *Dad raises voice: “NO, naughty boy! You do not pee on the carpet, you pee in the toilet! SO GO!... And put the seat down after, you know how mummy gets”! Kid says sorry (maybe), and knows what he’s done wrong, and will probably never do it again.

Yeah I know, a bit far-fetched right

(Dog pees on your nice, clean living room carpet) “NO, naughty boy! You do not pee on the carpet, you pee in the garden! SO GO”! Dog: “What? So many words”!

THE “NICE” EXAMPLE:

Dad leaves the house and says to his young daughter, “Daddy’s going to work now. Be a good girl for mummy. I’ll be back at tea time”. Daughter cries because she was having fun drawing butterflies and flowers on dads hand with a sharpie. But mummy comforts her; “It’s okay baby, daddy will be back soon. You wanna’ do some baking”? Kid is happy again and forgets all about dad

Dad leaves the house and says to the dog, “Daddy’s going to work now. Be good for mummy. I’ll be back at tea time”. Dog whines and yelps because she was having fun playing fetch in the garden. But mummy comforts her; “It’s okay baby, daddy will be back soon. You want some treats”?

Dog is confused. Dog thinks she’s getting treats for crying about one of her owners leaving. “Does this mean I should cry every time one of my owners leave? Is this what they want? Why would they want that”?

With all that gobildy-gook above, I’m just saying, TREATING YOUR DOG THE SAME WAY AS A CHILD DOES NOT WORK

So what DOES work?

ONE OR TWO WORD COMMANDS - That works.

SIMPLE WORDS - That works.

BODY LANGUAGE - That works.

Simplify EVERYTHING!

In the past, I’ve trained dogs with just body language and hand commands.. No Words

Yes, we LOVE our dogs and our dogs love us. But it’s important we understand that dogs are not kids. They’re not babies. They’re DOGS. Their brains are wired completely different to ours

Dogs understand commands when we teach them commands, with good, calm training.

SIT. STAY. GOOD. NO. COME. SPEAK. QUIET. DOWN. OFF.

NOT, “Sit, siit, siiiit, SIT, sit”.

NOT, “Stay, staaay, stay, wait there, waiiiiit, don’t go anywhere”.

NOT, “Gooood boy, that was very good, well done, goooooood”.

NOT, “Noooo, no, off, get down, stop it, leeeeeeaaaave, naughty, get down”

When you learn how, it’s easier than you think.

COMMAND then POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT.

“SIT.. GOOD SIT” *Reward.

“STAY.. GOOD STAY” *Reward.

The REWARD / Payment can be food, a toy, affection.

This reinforces good behaviour, and when you repeat each aspect of the training with COMMAND & PAY, your dog soon realises what you want them to do

DOGS LOVE TO WORK.

DOGS NEED LEADERSHIP.

LEADERSHIP IS LOVE.

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