I must admit I followed all of those rules as a first time dog owner, having done all of the reading etc etc.
I'm undecided on the whole pack leader thing, bit I think that many of them do ring true and teach the dog who is in charge, although we will rarely move Baxter out of the way, we always step over him!
But if they are all a load of rubbish, how can the same dog behave so differently with the two members of the household as the originall poster stated (sorry, I have forgotten your name after writing for a bit!). How comes he knows to obey one and not the other?
He must understand that someone is boss, and if changing the way the other person involved interacts with him via feeding, teaching him about doorways, making him move etc does the trick, then surely it is a good thing. Nothing involved in any of those rules will do any harm, and a lot of it will probably come in quite useful.
CharlieBrewer - I am by no means calling your right or wrong in the way you have trained your dogs - I am in no place to do that. As I have said in my origional post I do not follow all these rules myself - However I still very strongly stand by my point that dogs are still pack animals weather in the wild - on the streets or in a home.
I also noted a post of your's asking for help about your barkey dog - and noticed your line about how he will bark and bark at you for food but you then say unless he is queit you do not give him any - this is you being alpha to the dog - the treats he is given are on your terms as you stated you wait for HIM to do something for YOU - which is being quiet.
I am myself extramly interested in behaviour in dogs and weather you like it or not your dogs will still see your household, your family, and themselves as a pack. This dosent not mean they will be agressive if not given a pack placement - nor am I saying there are anything wrong with your dogs. Just that a pack is still, yes, in this day and age - something still programmed into them
Although your dogs are fine - as I also stated in my first comment changing or re-establishing the pecking order in a family will sometimes solve many problems such as the one above. For dogs to believe they are in a pack does no harm, infact most with thrive on it - especially labradors who are very keen to please their owners.
I never intend to be attacking you - I am a very strong believer that opinions can never be correct or incorrect as they are just as they are - opinions. I hope you are not offended by mine as I am not with yours
I also noted a post of your's asking for help about your barkey dog - and noticed your line about how he will bark and bark at you for food but you then say unless he is queit you do not give him any - this is you being alpha to the dog - the treats he is given are on your terms as you stated you wait for HIM to do something for YOU - which is being quiet
Sorry Night, but No this is not me being the alpha by any stretch of the imagination - this is me trying to get some peace and quiet, and also teach my dog that barking for no reason is not the way to win friends
I agree that we are all entitled to our own opinions - but I sometimes think it can be dangerous for such emphasis to be placed on packs and dominance etc - I have seen far too many sad cases of dogs that were treated as a pack with disastrous consequences.
Surely the fact that it is you teaching the dog and not the other way around, and the fact that you control food puts you in that leader position by default?
OK, there are two opposing schools of thought here, who is right?? Sorry, it's just not that simple.
For years, right from the day I first had dogs we subscribed to the pack theory. Then all that changed! I can't remember who it was now who said as Sarah said, that dogs KNOW they are not humans. Then along came, (I believe it was John Rogerson) why chucked everything back into the melting pot by saying that the whole "Leadership" thing was wrong!
So, latest thinking, (Which will probably last until next week ) is that the pack leadership is fluid, no real overall leader. The leadership passes from one to the other according to who is the best equipped for that particular job. The leading defender of the pack might not be the leading food provider who might not be the leading "burglar alarm". A completely new concept.
So how does that affect the "Domestic Pack"? Does such a thing exist? Very obviously a dog knows it is not a cat and will see any stranger out of the garden. But what about families who have a cat and dog living together. The dog will happily lay with the cat and often defends the it against all comers! When I was a child we had a terrier cross. A real ratter, yet we also had a hamster and he would happily watch "Tin Ribs" (that’s another story!!!) running around on the floor. Do dogs see these animals as part of the pack? What about the shepherd dog out in the field guarding it's flock? Why? No, I don't believe it believes we are its pack as such, but it does have ties which bind it to us. I've no doubt it starts with us being the provider of food, but it goes deeper than that. It goes almost as far as a reverence for us. I believe Anna would walk off a cliff for me! Now that has to go further than a purely mercenary philosophy of sticking to the money tree. You all love your dogs. Does that make them your pack? Not really. Family of creatures living together in harmony?
Sorry, I'm no good at defining these things. Why do I keep dogs? I've not the faintest idea how to put it into print. Could I live without? NO!
I grew up in an era when we didn't have the Dominance theory, or TV dog behaviourists, or the internet. We just had dogs and common sense. .
Some dogs were well behaved right from the beginning and some dogs were more challenging. The more challenging ones were, what we called "pushing their luck" and this sounds like the sort of thing your boy's doing. He knows he can't get away with jumping all over you, but he knows he can get away with it with your Mum....he is "pushing his luck" so to speak.
Some dogs you can treat as your best friend...let them sleep on your bed, sit on your lap, etc, with no problems. Whereas others start to push their luck and need putting in their place. Now how you do this has changed over the years. As a child we were told to smack the dog with a rolled up newspaper, but things have changed since then and other ways have been found to be more effective.
I would say your Mum has to be much more strict. If she says "get off" , then she must mean it. She should take him by the collar and remove him from the room, if he doesn't do as he is told. She should take a "no nonsense" approach. She has to make it clear that he can't "push his luck "anymore. All the orders have to come from her as he already knows you are not to be messed with. It's no good you telling him to stop jumping up her, she has to tell him herself or else he will always think she is a softy and a pushover and will give her merry hell while you are not there .
As for leaving him, I would go down the crate route too. Pop him in the crate with a stuffed kong for five mins and leave the room....build this up gradually, until you can actually go out for a short while without him fussing. Never let him back out while he is barking/whining etc, or else he'll think this is the way to get you to open the door .
He will be persistant and you will have to be firm...Huskies can have a very stubborn streak and they tend to be very vocal, so it may take a while before you get the better of him, but if you are consistant you will win in the end .
Not wishing to make you appear old Jules, but that was the period I was brought up in also. I'll be charitable and say that I guess I was in that period before you though
I can remember being told many times I was pushing my luck, not just my dog lol
Not wishing to make you appear old Jules, but that was the period I was brought up in also. I'll be charitable and say that I guess I was in that period before you though
You may have been there a little before me John, but I had older than average parents and I've always had an old head on my shoulders ...And yes I pushed my luck a few times too and got firmly put back in my place
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