Children are Pack Leaders
I am always surprised when folks insist on using food, love hugs and kisses to rehab dogs with behavioral issues. Most likely the dogs that are being worked with have gotten plenty of the above in abundance. What they have not gotten was structure, exercise and any corrections. I deal with every single behavior out there both good and bad and I am one of the few people that will and is capable of dealing with aggression issues. I am not talking about barking or nipping, I am talking about behavior that 99% of dog trainers and behaviorists would tell you to kill your dog. I am taling about 100% of shelters would kill the dog instantly.
What I do is set up a new baseline for the dog, we start out with exercise and exercise, boundaries and rules, then work on default commands that dogs can do instead of the bad behavior, this helps teach coping skills for dogs and what they can do when they are stressed or feel like growling, biting, lunging.
Then one of the most important thing we do is CORRECT bad behavior, we do NOT punish dogs. If you growl at me, I will correct you, if you snap at me I will correct you, if you try to bite me, I will correct you. How hard do I correct you, well I will let you the dog determine that, what does it take to stop the behavior that would get you killed if another trainer, behaviorist or vet had a say in this.
What am I able to do with this is put dogs together that are dog aggressive, we put dogs with humans that are aggressive towards humans, we put dogs with children that are aggressive towards children.
We don’t do this by redirecting the behavior or removing dogs from the distraction. We don’t put the dog away either, both of these things are always recommended by Positive Trainers and then if that does not work then they recommend you kill the dog. I truly don’t understand how this is Positive at all. Killing dogs is one of the worst things imaginable to me. Our country does this to the tune of 5 million times a year.
All of these dogs are able to be controlled by my 2 young children, yes controlled, yes dominance. This is not a bad word, call it leadership. I call it a lifelong skill that keeps children safe and dogs alive. These are skills that keep dogs in families instead of turned into shelters where they will most likely will be killed.
Clover and Romy are extremely helpful when it comes to training dogs. The black dog Jake is with us since he has been biting the kids in his family. The grey dog has some very serious issues with humans and dogs. He is in week one of a 6 week board and train. Then there is Domino who is with us for some basic training and weight loss.
Clover and Romy are responsible for so many dogs being trained to behave around children. The have helped work with these dogs over and over again til they get it right, til they stop lunging, stop biting, stop jumpin, stop fighting and listening to commands. If a 6 year old and a 5 year old can work with these dogs, I think anyone can.