[fourdez]

I saw that episode.. he's not "kicking" the dog to hurt him. Its more little a strong tap, the dog is fixated and he is trying to break that fixation. Years ago we had an alpha dog who tried to run our house, when he was a puppy we thougnt it was so cute, but then it quickly got out of hand. One small example is; if he was laying on the floor in front of the couch and we wanted him to move, he would growl and snap if we tried to go near him, etc..etc, Believe me it was not pretty... It wasn't until a trainer told us that the dog was all mixed up, he thought he was the boss and that we had been reinforcing that belief by letting him get away with it. We needed to be firm with him, we had to show him that we were in charge not he. It was hard work and it took a while but it paid off, there was a big change in that dog . We had him for many, many years and we loved him to death.

Thankfully, I have not had that problem again, and I would never ever think of using that tactic with my babies now, it's not needed now. But, in extreme cases, it works...its better than getting rid of the dog..