I Need Help With My Pup

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Canis-Equus, just calm down a bit- you are viewing everything of what i say in a deliberately bad aspect. For your better understanding (which l.michelle had no problem understanding), this is what i was saying (in black and white for your benefet);

a. By being the dominant one in you and your dogs partnership i simply meant you shouldn't allow your dog to dominate you, and that you should lay down the rules early on while the dog is still a puppy so it can start learning them from a young age. If you let your dog walk all over you, it will do just that.
Just to make this absolutely clear to you, I am not saying you should abuse/hit/shout etc at your dog at all and have never in any of my post ever indicated you should ever do such a thing at all- however, a dog needs boundries in its life just like a child does, and if you let your dog wear the trowsers in your partnership it will walk all over you. A dog is a dog, not a human, and cannot understand you like a human can potentially do. You cannot reason with a dog in the same way you can with an adult human and a dogs attention span is similar to that of a young hyperactive child- it helps if you enforce your rules as to what behavior is allowed or encouraged and what isn't. This is purely what i was saying and nothing more- be clear about the behavior that you allow or encourage in your dog and the behavior you don't encourage or want to allow; your dog looks up to you and learns from you, just like a child does, so these things are important to get across.

b. By excercising dogs i am not talking about miles upon miles of forced matching or anything like that at all. I would never encourage someone to force a dog to walk further than what it was more than happily willing to do- you should walk as far and for as long as your dog wants to. And in the vast majority of cases of young dogs, you will soon realise that this is a long time- they enjoy going out.
Too many people now days don't excercise their dogs enough, dog obesity has drastically risen over the years and one of the no.1 reasons is too little excercise not often enough. I am not one of those people (although you might be) who think a single 15min walk is sufficient for a young labrador or retriever a day.
You only have to go into such breeds history to discover that the majority of these working dogs were bred to have bags of energy, a lot of them if fit enough were bred to be able to work 8 hrs or more a day on farms etc. Now days few people use their dogs as working dogs, however these breeds still have the energy to walk and do things for hours on end that has been bred into them over the centuaries (even thousands of years in some cases).

Secondly, if you carefull read my posts you will find i am more than encouraging people to enforce consistent boundaries and rules so you do not need to point out what i already have in your post adressed to me like i am against it or something etc.
You have a bad attitude and i advise you stop trying to twist my every word in this thread.

 

[Canis-Equus]

Woah chill! (that will have to do for a happy smiley)....

I wasnt meaning that you meant 'dominate' in a nasty way, sorry i probably didnt word that right.

The problem is that a great many people will interpret that word in that way.

A dog will only dominate you if you allow it to, BUT that doesnt mean dogs WANT to dominate people and thats the concept i have a problem with.

Dogs purely and simply do the things they enjoy, and if thats sitting when you ask, tahts fine, if its ripping your sofa up its clearly not fine.

Some people end up with dogs who dominate them because they didnt set out sufficient boundaries and failed to be consistant.

Some people end up with dogs that are fearful of them, even if they dont use physical or nasty tactics, but are TOO domineering.

Some people end up with a dog who behaves even worse if they try to dominate them, these people often own terriers! (You should see my mum, she thinks dogs need to 'know who is boss' and goes about this by being scary, a bit shouty, but just generically 'scary' not in any way you can really put your finger on. Her whole attitude is 'me boss, you dog' and she is out to win every time.)

My terrier behaves appallingly for her, he ends up getting her really annoyed and the simple reason is, she frightens him and he cannot work out what to do to please her.

For ME, he is a fantastic dog, he can do a multitude of tricks, he obeys me as much as any dog can, even when hed really rather not (ie lie still unrestrained to have his claws clipped).

My point was that if you use words like 'boss' and 'dominate' and all the rest, you can set up a bad relationship. If you use words like team, trust, mutual respect, reward, you can set up a good relationship.

It might 'seem' picky of me, but if you have spent as much time as i have sorting out other peoples dog problems you would come to realise the same thing as i have. It all has to start with the human element of the partnership sorting out their attitude.

If you think thats a load of tree hugging hippy c**p fair enough, but i think its quite obvious. Dogs pick up on our attitudes, if we are nervous they react, if we are angry, they react. If we have an attitude towards them that is 'me versus you' they WILL react. If you dont start there, theres not much you can change in a relationship, and believe me, 99% of the problems ive come across in the last 7 years or so, its the HUMAN element that needs to change, not the dog.

I have also come to learn, that for the one person who posted a thread, there will be ten more reading it, and quite probably NOT understanding what you meant by 'dominate'.

So, when i give out advice, i avoid that, i try to get dog owners to focus on the positive and absolutely steer away from information that can be misinterpreted to mean treating a dog harshly, and im afraid a great many dog owners believe that dominating their dogs DOES mean just this.

Em

 

[KathyM]

Firstly I get where you're both coming from re: the word "dominate". While I'm sure Tokis didn't mean it how it is too commonly used, I agree with Ems that too many people think being "dominant" over your dog is the key to success with training. I don't believe that one bit in my experience of training - a working partnership where both parties receive what they want out of it and therefore communicate and work well together is far more important. Dharma works for "pay", she gets what she wants (ie. click and treat), I get what I want (a far better reinforced behaviour). When it comes to preventing and changing bad behaviours, I don't think there's a need to "dominate". If you have a good relationship with your dog, they're going to want to please you as it works for them too - therefore changing behaviours by replacing them with more suitable and acceptable behaviours works better than being "boss" over your dog. What I mean is, you will have control over your dog, your dog willknow that what you say should be done, but because it works for them too not because you're dominant.

On to this bit:

b. By excercising dogs i am not talking about miles upon miles of forced matching or anything like that at all. I would never encourage someone to force a dog to walk further than what it was more than happily willing to do- you should walk as far and for as long as your dog wants to. And in the vast majority of cases of young dogs, you will soon realise that this is a long time- they enjoy going out.
Too many people now days don't excercise their dogs enough, dog obesity has drastically risen over the years and one of the no.1 reasons is too little excercise not often enough. I am not one of those people (although you might be) who think a single 15min walk is sufficient for a young labrador or retriever a day.
You only have to go into such breeds history to discover that the majority of these working dogs were bred to have bags of energy, a lot of them if fit enough were bred to be able to work 8 hrs or more a day on farms etc. Now days few people use their dogs as working dogs, however these breeds still have the energy to walk and do things for hours on end that has been bred into them over the centuaries (even thousands of years in some cases).

Secondly, if you carefull read my posts you will find i am more than encouraging people to enforce consistent boundaries and rules so you do not need to point out what i already have in your post adressed to me like i am against it or something etc.
You have a bad attitude and i advise you stop trying to twist my every word in this thread.

While I agree that many working *adult* dogs are fit enough to do a day's work, studies have shown that large breeds who exercise too much and/or get the wrong kind of exercise (eg. mainly hard pavement walking) within their puppyhood and early adulthood as their bones are forming, are far more prone to joint problems. While the type of exercise generally dictates more than the amount, it's important to distinguish between puppies and adults - if you set the foundations right you may have your amazingly fit working adult dog, if you set them wrong, you could have a crippled dog that may have conditions that shorten it's life and enjoyment of life.

Edited to add: You can tell I've just woken up, because I missed the last part of that quote. I'll personally vouch that Ems has a lot of knowledge on dog behaviour and training, and her posts have not been in a "bad attitude". In fact, quite the opposite. Ems works alongside a top TV trainer, and has often helped me with Dharma's training. We've both worked in training (me far less than Ems), but if I ever have a question or concern about anything dog behaviour/training wise I can trust Ems to tell it like it is. She's opened my eyes on a lot of things I had the wrong way around with Dharma, so much so we've seen a marked improvement in Dharma's training.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Canis-Equus I see where you are coming from, i think we just misinterperated each other but are generally on the same track.
By being dominant i mean by setting down the rules early on in you and your dogs partnership (i.e. rules like "don't poop/pee inside the house", "don't bite or try to jump up at me or others", "don't tear apart the house/garden", "don't try to attack other dogs on walkies" etc) and putting your foot down when it does bad behavior etc.
You need to be clear in your message to your dog, simple words like "no" or "sit" work much better than blabbering onto the dog for ages about something its done (because dogs can't understand the human language, but they can understand simple words/commands to a certain extent and can definately understand the tone of your voice etc).

Where you said treat the dog as an equal, i think that can just as easily be misinterperated by people. A dog is a dog, not a person, we are not the same/equal and work very differently in many area's of our lives. For example if i had a child and they did something wrong i would sit down and explain to them why what they did was wrong, but with a dog you simply can't have that conversation. You have to show them the thing they chewed to peices and point to it and say "No!" in a stern voice- for a human child though this would just be completely patronising, but its better for dogs than going to the dog and saying "bad dog, don't chew this as it makes mummy unhappy, you've been a very bad doggy, lets go clean this up them and get you a new toy, oh but i have to be there by 5:00 before the shop closes blah blah blah blah etc" because as after the first couple of words it all sounds like mumbo jumbo to the dog.

I think when it comes down to it, dogs look up to you, so you must set an example for them. I personally believe that you can be too harsh just as you can be too soft though (like passing it food at the dinner table because of its cute puppy eye look when it should be sitting in its bed settling down, or not telling it off when it does undesirable behavior like jumping up at people, even in friendly manner, as it can scare people etc). As i said though before, you need to show love and be kind and rewarding to your dog when it is doing the right thing or generally being good just as much as you need to put your foot down when it shows bad behavior, if you don't combine these two you'll either end up confusing and upsetting the dog, or it realising you are a pushover and turn into a nightmare dog of bad behavior because it can get away with pretty much anything when you are or aren't around. But if you do combine these two (love/kindness and sterness/rules and consequences) it'll start to associate your behavior and reactions to its behavior and actions and overal the consequences of such things, whether good or bad etc.


With the excercise thing, i honestly believe if the dog wants to walk for hours on end, you should let it if you have the time to do so with it. A dog won't express enjoyment at doing excercise if it isn't actually enjoying it, especially if its in pain because of joint problems. I don't know about walking on concrete pavements and things (never had to do that with our dogs due to living on a farm when we had them), but i believe that the vast majority of joint problems dogs get are often to do with the dog breed itself and not the excercise you do with it- so many breeds of dogs are so overbred with their breeders concentrating too much on the appearance of the dog rather than the consequences of breeding the dog to look the way it does (take the example of so many of the snub nosed/pushed in face look of bulldogs, they almost always have breathing problems, joint problems and birth complications etc due to the way they have been bred to look the way they do etc).

I think overall, there's nothing better for your dog than taking it for a 2mile walk through a woodland/park/feild etc with it bouncing around enjoying the walk like its the best thing ever, than you keeping it indoors almost 24/7 because you are too paranoid it'll sprain an ankle etc.

 

[Canis-Equus]

I do think we mainly agree..

But...


Yes you do have to be clear, i totally agree there, as you say a dogs comprehension of our language is minimal so blathering on is not helpful.

I strongly disagree that you need to show the dog the thing they chewed up - a dog wont understand this.

Fine if you say 'eh! no!' when you catch a dog chewing your hairbrush. Total waste of time if you get the chewed hairbrush wave it about in front of dog and say no. Dog thinks 'oh, yes that thing, and?'

Unless you get in the distraction (the 'ah! no!') as you catch the dog in the act, you wont achieve anything, except quite possibly your dog being confused by you using unpleasant words, body language for no clear reason.

What ive done is go one step further than simply being clear. Yes you MUST be clear but simply saying 'no' isnt sufficient.



Dogs are really really bad at simply stopping what they are doing. If you say 'no' you mean 'stop doign that, dont do it again' but from the dogs perspective, he or she has a NEED to do something, chew, greet in an enthusiastic way, howl or whine due to boredom......

If you aim to both make the unwanted behaviour UNrewarding ie, distract the dog from it, display your displeasure at catching them in the act of eating your remote control...... AND you then give the dog an alternative, in this example an acceptable toy, then you stand a FAR greater chance of preventing unwanted behaviour. So i say to my dogs 'no, do THIS instead' (i dont say those words, but thats the effect).

This works in pretty much every situation - jumping up to greet: recognise that the dog has a need to greet its owner or guests. Remove the reward for jumping up by having the person being bounced on turn away and ignore the dog, teach the dog in this situation that sitting calmly gets a reward.

Or, pulling on the lead: The dog pulls because he thinks this gets him there faster, and generally, it does. Theres the reward so now you know what that reward is, to remove it you simply stop walking if there is tension on the lead. When the dog is by your side you have treats to reward, when the dog pulls you stop.

When i say i see my relationship with my dogs as more of a team, i still mean im the leader and they are not. They are not equals you are right, they are dogs and this needs to be remembered and taken into account.
What i DONT do is go into any interaction with my dogs with the attitude that 'i am human and almighty, do as i say or else' because i find that attitude unproductive and in the long run, unpleasant.
This doesnt mean that my dogs get away with murder, there are distinct consequences for misbehaviour - for instance whilst dogs playing together is fine, i will not tolerate dogs having massively noisy play fights or games of chase all around my house. The place for that is outside and if it happens indoors, the instigator is asked to do something else and if he (its always a he, the ***** is a good girl!), continues, he gets a time out on his own in another room for a few seconds.

This is far more productive than anyone yelling NO at them.

I think we will have to disagree on exercise - i dont think young dogs (or for that matter old dogs) always know when its time to stop. Sure a dog already IN pain wont overdo things, but a pup will and its not until later that the damage is apparent and the pain present.
My old ***** is very puppy like and no ones told her shes an old lady now. I must restrict her exercise or she will run herself to near collapse. By your reckoning i should let her?

Dont misunderstand me, this is no excuse for allowing dogs of any age to become fat, thats something I abhor! But puppies for at least the first YEAR physically need to spend their time growing UP, then the next year building up muscle. It is their minds that need the exercise more, their bodies should get sufficient exercise from play in and out of the house, and short walks for socialisation. This is how i bring up pups i have and ive never EVER had either a fat puppy, or a puppy so full of energy he hurtles around the house bouncing off the walls.
I am lucky in that i dont have any breeds particularly disposed to joint problems - i can tell you though that my best friends dog who was seriously over exercised as a pup now has at 2 years old, hip problems and cruciate ligament injury. Shes a collie x so thats not a pedigree dog issue, its a puppy management one!

My big thing in dog training is that its mainly, training people and thats where i have a problem with certain words, especially in a text based communication where you dont have the benefit of body language etc.

The dictionary definition of 'dominate' is this: 1. to rule over; govern; control.
2. to tower above; overlook; overshadow:
To most people, it is the second one that springs to mind. Its not a word associated with pleasant things really.

Interestingly, if you look at the interactions between animals you find that the naturally dominant animal in a group DOESNT have to physically dominate the others. The dominant horse in a herd is the stallion, yet its rare that he has to do something physical, he doesnt even lead his herd, he takes the rear position, he doesnt often have to discipline his herd, thats done by his main mares.

The same can be seen in feral dogs, the dominant dog is the one relaxing doing very little, he or she doesnt HAVE to do anything, that dominant position is one governed more by age, fitness, mental state than it is by physical acts.
Conversely, a dog that is seen attempting to dominate (and when we see dogs vying for position in a group that is what this is 'attempted domination', once thats achieved again the dominant dog need not do anything) is frequently NOT a naturally dominant animal and thus has to attempt it and make a physical effort.

So to my mind, humans that have to actively dominate their dogs are displaying that they are not at all natural leaders. Those who are respected because of their value to the group, their fairness and consistency in teh boundaries they set ARE naturally dominant and have no need to 'dominate'.

A great number of people believe they need to 'be the alpha' with dogs and this is wrong on a huge number of levels. What they need to do is make themselves the ultimate resource to the dog - thats easy we are the source of food, walks, toys etc, all the things a dog wants and needs we provide. We have no need of shouting, physical force etc because we ultimately control all the rewards a dog can seek.

So i avoid using the words dominant and dominate and domineering (which is a horrible trait if you think about it), because i find too often its misinterpreted and misused and conveys entirely the wrong message.

Em

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Yes but i think we have it clear by what i mean by being the dominant one in you and your dogs partnership now though- never have i encouraged putting fear into dogs etc etc.

If we are comparing domesticated dogs to wild animals though, what you say is not always nesarsarily true at all- the way the alpha animal treats the animals below it in its society in its group depends massively on the temperment of the individual alpha animal. With horses for example stalions have well been known to be agressive towards the mares and vice versa, its why keeping them together is not recommend.
And with rats and dogs, sometimes you end up with an agressive dominant dog or rat at the top of the pecking order who enforces their authority via physical agression, other times they are a lot more suttle in their aproach (its one of the reasons why with rats they are so difficult to keep together at times because they can be so unpredictable in how they treat each other in the pecking order, so much of it comes down to the individual nature/personality of the rats).
So i don't think you should compare wild animals to human and animal relationships in this sense as alpha animals in the wild can be very agressive to other animals just as much as they can turn out to be very suttle in their approach to maintaining the heirachy- both methods work in animal society well which is why they exist, but it doesn't mean you should nesarsarily copy them.

I personally believe that if you enforce the rules properly via rewards or no rewards the animal will quickly learn what is good behavior and what is bad behavior without you having to do much more than that. However this isn't always the case for all dogs- not all dogs have nice and intelligent personalities/nature to them, i have seen some dogs which are just down right nasty and have always been that way regardless of how the owner has treated them.
This is a lot more rare in dogs as because over the thousands of years we had been selectively breeding them, we have been breeding them to have better temperments (just like with pretty much all other domesticated or semi-domesticated animals)- but occasionally you do get bad apples in the basket. While most of these ways of training dogs will work for the majority of dogs, some dogs are simply just a lot more difficult to train especially when they do not have a nice nature at heart (just like you get nice people and nasty people, you get nice dogs and nasty dogs). Now i believe that in the vast majority of cases where you have a badly behaved dog, it is usually the owners fault, but i also believe that rarely you do get dogs just are just down right nasty (often due to bad breeding).
So, to sum up, the same tactics/training methods do not always work with all dogs, and a lot of what you have to take into consideration when training a dog is what temperment it has and the problems which have developed around it in its life so far.
Of course if you reprimand the dog while it is in the act of doing something bad that is good, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't also reprimand it when its just done something bad because it is no longer in the act of doing it- i don't think its wasted time doing that and think if you do it often and well enough, the dog will put the two together soon enough.

With your friends collie though, not to stir up too much controversy or anything, but how do you know she wasn't born with her joint problems and that they just weren't properly diagnosed until later on in her life when they became more apparent as the owner become more knowledgable of her? Its just one of black labradors was actually born with a limp in one of her back legs at birth (apparently its not that uncommon in black labradors either), and was not brought about via excercise or anything else- she was just born with it (we took her to the vet almost as soon as we got her who imediately diagnosed the problem).

 

[PlecMama]

I got a bit glazed over with the 1 on 1 discussion and didn't really read all of it - but I don't think the bone issue was addressed?

No bones, they are not really a good idea, they don't have to have bones and they do fine without them. My lab cross is horribly sensitive to getting bits irritating her throat, the vet told us no bones of any kind, no raw and absolutely no cooked, he is sick of operating on dogs to get bone fragments out of teeth, throats, stomachs, bowels etc - and none of those plastic fake bones either as they can in fact shave splinters of plastic off with their teeth and choke on them - this was why Sasha was there in the first place. She kept sort of coughing/yacking - we figured something was stuck. Little bit of plastic.

If you have a chewer, you're going to have to find something else, maybe hide bones? they are of course not bone at all.

Sasha contented herself with my trainers, slippers, hairbrush and anything else she could find when she was a puppy. We had the tidiest house in the world until she was maybe 2? then she grew up and just carried stuff around as gifts (still mostly my shoes) but wouldn't chew them up any more.

I still take a random shoe out of her mouth every time I walk in to the house, as soon as she hears the key in the door she runs and finds one.

 

[Canis-Equus]

The bone issue is a biggy -

My personal preference is to feed raw meaty bones - recreational bones ie those without much meat on i choose the ones that are too big for the dogs to bite bits off. Raw Meaty Bones are chicken carcasses, wings, legs, turkey wings, necks, lamb ribs, lamb shanks etc.
My dogs eat all the above regularly - no one fights. No one is nasty over bones. Because they eat them regularly, everyone can digest them, from pups who start out on chicken wing tips to 12 year old saluki x who can demolish a hefty lamb shank in under an hour. Adult dogs NOT used to bones will for the first few meals produce bits of bone in their faeces - for these i feed small amounts of soft bone such as chicken wings and get them used to bone before introducing bigger harder bones such as lamb shanks.

The risk of splintering with these is pretty much nil. They are soft and bendy, and RMB's that are totally consumed come covered in a nice wrapping of meat. Occasionally someone will swallow their wing whole - if this happens its generally regurgitated later and the dog chews it this time (yuck sorry).

RAW bones with no meat on that have been left out in the sun to dry are a different matter, especially things like shoulderblades and ribs. When bone dry (pun not intended), these will shatter and splinter like cooked bones!

Dogs DO need to chew on something though. Cooked bones are extremely dangerous, these DO splinter and shatter and are very dangerous not only in themselves but often because dogs gain access to these by stealing them and then gobbling them down really fast to prevent the owner removing them. Even the bones available at the pet shop are not safe.

That said:

Rawhides have caused blockages - rawhide becomes glue like when wet, in some places, wet strips of rawhide are used to create extremely tough fixings. Dogs can and have died from ripping off wet lumps of raw hide and swallowing it, where it forms a blockage that cannot pass through the intestine - much like swallowing a HUGE lump of chewing gum.

Plastic chews can develop very rough sharp edges and cause dogs to bleed from their gums, some dogs will get slivers of plastic stuck in their mouths and throats.

Dry kibble - often promoted as being good for teeth. Isnt. Dogs DONT chew dry kibble, at best they will crunch a piece once or twice and swallow. A raw meaty bone has not only abrasive bone but chewy flesh and connective tissue that acts like a gory toothbrush - had i taken pictures of my old girls teeth when i got her aged 9 you would see what 3 years of eating raw bones has done for her teeth. She came to me with horrid brown plaque covered teeth and foul breath. Now she has smooth white teeth that fool people as to her age, and her breath is fine!
It is quite unnatural for a dog to consume its days food in a few rapid swallows - this leaves dogs with a desire to chew that is unfulfilled.

If you absolutely cannot or will not feed large recreational raw bones, the next best thing is a Kong stuffed with suitable foods - this can be a portion of the dogs food, or it can be gravey flavoured water, frozen - or peanut butter or anything you can fit in there really.
Kongs WONT help with teeth at all, but they WILL help wtih a dogs natural urge to chew.

There are various other things on the market to help with teeth, personaly i think 99% of them are rubbish. Homeopathic Fragaria is good at loosening plaque and certainly in the UK you can buy various toothpases. I keep Logic gel in for the bits of doggy mouths that bones dont reach - this is great as you neednt brush, just smear it on the gums and teeth and leave it. Ive only needed to use it twice in the last 7 years though!

There endeth the sermon on bones and teefs!

 

[KathyM]

Of course if you reprimand the dog while it is in the act of doing something bad that is good, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't also reprimand it when its just done something bad because it is no longer in the act of doing it- i don't think its wasted time doing that and think if you do it often and well enough, the dog will put the two together soon enough.

Don't agree with this at all, sorry.

If someone punished a dog after the behaviour, all they're doing is confusing the issue, making it harder for a dog to understand what you want. Dog's don't have consciences, they don't put two and two together *after* the fact. It's the making of a bad relationship to practice this kind of training. I know, been there and done it in the past.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Of course if you reprimand the dog while it is in the act of doing something bad that is good, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't also reprimand it when its just done something bad because it is no longer in the act of doing it- i don't think its wasted time doing that and think if you do it often and well enough, the dog will put the two together soon enough.

Don't agree with this at all, sorry.

If someone punished a dog after the behaviour, all they're doing is confusing the issue, making it harder for a dog to understand what you want. Dog's don't have consciences, they don't put two and two together *after* the fact. It's the making of a bad relationship to practice this kind of training. I know, been there and done it in the past.

What is mean is if the dog did something like poop on the carpet, you shouldn't just not tell it off just because it had finished pooping on the carpet right? I'm not talking about telling the dog way after the incident, but if it did something like poop on the carpet in your house you should take the dog to the poop and show it the poop on the carpet and point to it and say in a stern voice "bad dog!" etc.

 

[l.michelle]

About dogs not havign consciences, I disagree with that. The dog I mainly grew up with, you could tell if he did something bad earlier. Say for instance we were out for the day and he chewed something, or overturned a flower pot, or anything, it didn't matter if he had done it early in the day or just before we got home, you could tell as soon as you walked in the door, he would be low to the ground, tail between his legs and would look so upset. We would ask him "what did you do?" and he would go and sit by the door until we found it. He felt guilty. They DO have consciences, they DO know when they have done something wrong. You may not have seen that with your dog, but I surely have with mine. Regarding reprimanding after the fact, the dog that we had before he knew when he had done something wrong, and you could show him afterwards and he would know that was bad. Luckily we never had any problems with him in the house once he turned about 2 or so. Even to the point that when he had a seizure in the house by the front door, he waitd until he got outside to let his bowels go. He was a such a great dog.

Regarding the pup chewing things, she has never chewed anything in the house. When we first brought her home she would lay on the floor and gnaw on the table leg, but we got her out of that. She carries shoes around, but doesn't chew them.

I guess we have differing opinions about the bones. We have never given our dogs bones, we watch the rawhides we give as well as the nylon ones, we gave Lola the nylon one back when she was little, the vet told us it would be good for her teeth, but we watched her chew on it, and once we saw it was starting to look like it was going to crack we took it off her.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

I totally agree l.michelle about dogs having consciences, our dogs were also similar when they had done something bad while we were out of the house, they definately knew they had done something bad as they'd have their tales between their legs when we came in and acted in a very submissive manner etc.
I also think that dogs dream too- one of our old dogs called muffet used to move a lot while she was asleep, her paws would twitch a lot while she was sleeping like she was running in her sleep and made gruff little noises while she was sleeping like she was barking in her dreams- i swear she dreamt about chasing animals half the time in her sleep lol .

 

[PlecMama]

Sasha is bold and shameless, she doesn't feel bad about anything she's done, lol, but my old dog Gena always felt guilty if she had done something naughty, she'd get in her bed, curl up so her back was to the room, tuck her head down, and she'd stay there all sulky and guilty looking until you found what ever it was she'd done wrong, then she'd wait to be pardoned before re-emerging.

 

[Canis-Equus]

*banghead*

Sorry. They categorically do NOT know they have done something wrong. For a supposedly intelligent species we are woefully thick at times *i include myself here i believed this for the same reasons you do for a long time*.

The behaviour that *looks* like 'im so sorry i did a bad thing whilst you werent looking' is an appeasement gesture, its dogspeak for 'eek dont kill me'.

What PROMPTS that response from your dog is NOT what the dog did wrong and a friend and i have proved this.

Two things will prompt this in the situations you are talking about.

1/ Your body language and manner
2/Presence of a mess that dog has learned to associate with you being angry.

The first one is an instinctive response - if you go to your dog now and act like you have just found a huge stinky turd, chances are your dog is going to cringe and go all submissive, reacting to your body language. Even if you come home and try NOT to be pizzed off your dog will still pick up on it and still display that behaviour.
All the dog knows is, you are mad and he must show you that hes not a threat and is submissive to you.


The second one comes along a bit later, although if you do believe that you must reprimand the dog after the event he will learn this very quickly.

When you see an item out of place and chewed, a turd or puddle on the floor, you display the angry body language (or upset or disappointed, it doesnt matter which the dog just knwos you are not happy).
So the dog learns NOT that the ACT of chewing or pooing or piddling made you cross, but the POO being there, the wee being there, the chewed up stuff being there is associated with an angry owner.

My friend and I tried out an experiment on our dogs and you can do it on your own dogs....

Make a mess on your normally clean and tidy floor, out of sight of the dog. Allow the dog access to the room and go out. Come back in adn act like the dog made the mess - dog will cringe and act submissive even though we all know the dog DIDNT make that mess.

Ive done this with my dogs, the more submissive ones showed quite an extreme reaction (the gormless collie showed nothing, however hes NEVER been reprimanded for something i didnt see him do, the others are all older).

My friend tried this with hers and had the same reaction, much more noticeable from the rescue dog who had been brought up with that kind of training - she even went so far as to get a poo from the garden and put it on the kitchen floor. This time, even the dog shed NOT conciously brought up that way reacted, showing that he picked up on her displeasure at finding a poo in the house even though she didnt conciously reprimand him for it.



Another thing to think of is this - imagine you are 2 years old and you speak russian.

You chew up a hairbrush.

I come in and pick up the hairbrush and rant in your face in a language you dont understand.

You, as a 2 year old have no comprehension of right and wrong and further more you dont understand the language. In all likelyhood you burst into tears and maybe you might avoid hairbrushes - but mostly, you would subsequently be fearful to some degree of me, because ive come and been unpleasant for no reason you can understand.
If the hairbrush was the only thing available to play with and it was highly rewarding to play with it, you would probably forget the hairbrushes involvment in the unpleasant experience, but you wouldnt forget the shouty angry person.

This IS the way dogs think - i realise anthropomorphism is generally frowned upon, but if you consider a dog along the same lines as a 2 year old who doesnt speak your language you cant go far wrong as to their capacity to understand you.


As dog trainers and behaviourists, we dont just have to find a method that works. We have to find a method that works *for the right reasons*.

IN the above example there is an outside chance that the dog would eventually associate the hairbrush with being shouted at. He wont understand that its CHEWING the hairbrush that gets him shouted at, hes forgotten that. But if he comes to associate the item with the unpleasant reaction from the owner, he may stop chewing it as a result.

But is that result desirable since it takes time, luck, and is a side effect from basically being unpleasant and confusing to your dog?

The same result can be gained by keeping items such as that away from the dog, and teaching reliable leave using nicer things as swaps, and simply quietly taking away the hairbrush and giving the dog a dog toy instead. Done consistantly the dog will not view hairbrushes as fantastic toys and so will not chew them, and theres no fear of the owner involved.

 

[KathyM]

Hallelujah Ems! I was just reading through and ready to bang my head on the wall in frustration, but you've encapsulated there everything I wanted to say from my experience with dogs.

Dogs don't have a conscience. They do however have amazing skills at reading even the most subtle signs of your anger/frustration. What you lot are seeing as "Oops I did it again, I pood on the floor! I's been a bad boy!" is actually "Oh cr*p Mum's angry again, what the hell have I done? Best show her some submission, that might solve it."

Most of the problems people have with their dog is down on exactly this - we expect them to have human thoughts and emotions, and to know what we're saying. Opening true communication with a dog doesn't happen until you try to think like *them*, not when you read them as thinking like you.