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Originally Posted by s1utster yoshi is a really smart dog. very well behaved other than the problems that i have listed above. he know alot fo tricks( spin, paw,sit,high five,hope,roll over,bow down, belly rub etc.) we walk him at least 2 times a day for at least 30 mins. i was watching dog wisperer and will try to make a difference for US as a family. Once again thanks for all the advice. i will never give up till we are on the same level of respect.
you guys are great! |
I totally understand that. Our trainer probably thinks Loki is a monster because we have her help with the 3 things we need help with, even though he is very well behaved otherwise. Every dog has his quirks, that's why we work on those things. There is a difference between being the leader and dominating your dog. IMO, dominating your dog will not earn you any respect - no matter what Cesar says. Your dog might fear you or fear the consequences if they don't obey you, but they won't "look up" to you in leadership. Leadership means you control the good things, like the food, the walks, etc. It means you teach them HOW to behave, rather than correct them when they do something "bad" Like, I have Loki sit while I prepare his food and then "release" him to eat. I don't punish him if he doesn't sit, but we also stand there ignoring him and wait for him to sit before he gets his meal. He learned to be "polite" early on.
Barking is hard because you don't know why the dog does it. A trainer would. Maybe he is scared, maybe he is just "excitement barking" and he is way over his threshold, maybe he is trying to tell you something! Barking in itself is rewarding to the dog, so you need to come up with something more rewarding to counter it. Maybe give your dog a Kong in the car, or a bully stick - something he only gets in the car so it is special. Teach him the "quiet" or "that's enough" command and if he is alarm barking, thank him for alerting you. (For example, Loki barks when the phone rings and when the stove timer goes off. I'm OK with that, since it's a good time to bark. Once I was upstairs and I didn't hear the stove timer, but Loki came after me and started barking at me. I thanked him, went to see what was up, and he stopped. To him it's like, OK mission accomplished.)