Problem Dog Training - Part 3
Author: M.O.N.S. 10. Stop petting, stroking or fondling your problem dog for minutes, not to mention hours, at a time. Get your hands off the dog and pet for only seven to ten seconds and only if you've told the dog to sit or down. I know you love your dog, but love isn't enough. If it were, you wouldn't be having the behavior problem you're having. What your dog needs from you now to help it out of its behavioral jam is scratch-type petting, quick and light, not seductive stroking. It would shock most dog owners, but problem dogs are often pooped from petting, yet they oblige and stay for it because they're addicted to it.
11. Don't allow the dog to go before you in or out of a door. Make the dog wait by giving the stay command or at least go together. If you allow the dog to barge in or out of the door before you, you're telling it something pretty powerful about who controls the territory. The dog will say, "I do. After all, I always go first, and that wimp goes second." If this happens three or four times a day, the dog really gets to stake a claim to the territory it enters first, with ensuing problems. Some examples: The dog is allowed to barge out onto the street and has a problem fighting other dogs. Aren't you setting the stage for the fighting by allowing the barge? The dog chews destructively when the owner is not home. If you routinely let the dog crash into the house before you, aren't you telegraphing to it that the home is its territory—to chew up, to trash, to rearrange at whim? Don't allow the dog to go before you in or out of territory! Again, little things add up, usually to big problems. If that phrase is beginning to sound like a mantra in this chapter, I'm getting through.
12. Pick up all the dog's toys and leave one, perhaps its favorite, out. That's all the dog gets for one month. When a month passes and the problems clear, add one toy a week.
13. Stop playing any and all tug-of-war games. When you let go you look subordinate, and you're teaching the dog to bite down hard while in your presence. You're OKing serious mouth play. A no-no for a problem dog. Play only fetch and if the dog doesn't bring the object back to you and release it, get up and walk away.
14. If you have to have the dog move because it is in the way, make the dog move. Don't refrain from doing something or step over the dog because you don't want to bother it. If you're Alpha, you can go where you want when you want. Even if you want to change the channels and the dog is in front of the TV, make it move. Believe me, if you don't, the dog will notice. Little things add up.
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