Quote:
Originally Posted by Maximo  
I fell into that trap the first year I had my first Yorkie, my first puppy. Now I disagree with a lot of trainers, especially those who want little robotic dogs or fully submissive dogs.
I do not try to control my dogs' every movement. Instead, I try to make life fun so that they will want to behave in a pleasing way -- that includes little personality quirks.
My dogs are not perfect and we still work on things that may never be fixed: they have an annoying barking game in the car.  But they are good guys 95% of the time, so I'm not going to crush their spirit to try to fix that 5% of naughty. |
If you're the one predominantly feedling, walking, grooming your pup he'll automatically see you as his leader. I'm not too keen on focusing on being a pack leader for my dogs. I want them to be able to trust me and through treating them well, them seeing you as their leader comes naturally. I treat dog training about the same as I do child rearing. Do my son and I butt heads at times? Absolutely. My dogs may not want to do what I ask of them, but hopefully they will trust me enough to do it anyway and realize "that little Caribbean lady" knows a little bit of what she's doing
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