corvus
Posted : 1/18/2007 6:35:05 PM
ORIGINAL: espencer
Is not that your dogs cant help being like this or like that, they only dont know that you would rather for them to behave in another way
See, that's where my problem is. My dog KNOWS I don't like excitable barking. She can suppress it to a certain point, but every single morning before we go for a walk, at some point her restraint slips and she lets out a little bark, or a string of barks. I know she's trying not to do it because she's tense and her bottom lip quivers and she pants her excitement. When she barks, I say "AGH!" and if she barks more than once I make her sit beside me and we don't walk until she's calm. She'll wait at the open door in a sit on a loose lead until I say she can go despite how excited and eager she is, but she just can't keep those barks in. I used to try to stop her grumbling at me, too. She can know I don't like it but still it comes out, almost against her will. I'm pretty sure it would be the same story with growls and snarls and snaps at other dogs. She knows and she tries, but she can't seem to deny something that's so natural and inborn in herself. Knowing the rules does not always automatically mean they are obeyed. Like I said in the food stealing example, we NEVER tolerate food stealing, and the dogs know we don't, but it doesn't stop them from trying it from time to time.
Strange dog situations: Dogs (like we have discuss before) read body lenguage and "read" better what kind of attitude the other dog is having, if you have your dog calm all the time then the strage dog will get that your dog is not a threat for him and like John Lennon said he will only "let it be" [
], if your dog is aggressive at one moment and tell the strange dog to "back off" since we dont know how the strange dog reacts he might as well be aggressive back, if i think the dog is too close to mine i just change the leash from one hand to the other, if you dont ackoledge the strange dog he will do the same, if your dog does you just redirect his attention, just like when you dont want to meet every person that walks in the same street as you the strange dog niether. You cant control other dogs but you can make your dog be calm, is like not providing the match when the gasoline is there []
If my dog is calm is mostly sure the strange dog will be also and wont be rude, i dont think my dog would be having a happy walk if he has to take care of every rude dog, if i'm there to take care of the situation (since i have more knowledge than my dog about what to doin which situation) then my dog can feel relaxed
What kind of situation involves your dog with a rude one?
Well, I don't know about that. The strange dogs that I meet tend to be offlead with no owners around. Sometimes they just want to be friends and sometimes they're signalling aggression right off the mark the moment they see us. I think my dog responds to their signals, rather than causing their signals. I don't think I could convince my dog to be calm when faced with a dog she doesn't read as calm. She's very aware of how small she is and most of these dogs are quite large. If she's scared of them and reads them to be seriously aggressive, she hides behind me and I take care of it. If she's not scared of them, or if she's confident she can handle them, she doesn't hide. Often handling them means letting them touch noses with her, but snapping at their noses if they try to move into her space or sniff under her tail before she's ready for it. They generally step back and give her space. If they don't, and she starts to think she was wrong about handling them, she'll run behind me again and I take care of it. She's a very well socialised dog and she's quite confident despite being attacked a couple of times by loose dogs. She doesn't start arguments with strange dogs, even when they're rude, but she sure tells them that they're rude. I've never seen a fight break out because she's snapped at a dog's nose for getting too close to her. It just doesn't seem to happen.
Basically, I think it's important that she learn how to deal with rude or pushy dogs herself. She's the dog, not me, and she's better at dealing with them than I am. She's quicker to read, more accurate, and she communicates way more efficiently. She learnt the basics when she was a pup at training school and the likes, but the rest she has learnt by encountering rude dogs and learning what to do through trial and error. I often see people walking their dogs and they don't allow them to meet with other dogs. They pick them up or cross the road to walk away from us. Those dogs seem both poorly socialised and desperate to come and say hello. Our dogs are very well socialised and usually ignore the other dogs, but I feel they learnt to do that by being allowed to interact with strange dogs with a fair amount of freedom. Maybe they just respond to our calmness, but then, we're calm because we know our dogs will be able to handle just about anything.
In conclusion, I can see how it could be done, but I don't think it would work in our pack. And I think I wouldn't want it to. Dogs are a social carnivore, which means they have social rank. I like that about dogs. It's interesting and I learn a lot from it, both about dog body language and about what's natural for dogs. Our dogs have had the odd barney that's been pretty serious, but even so, the worst damage they've ever inflicted on each other has been a nick on the ear or a minor scratch on the back of the neck. To me, that's not such a huge risk that I have to interfere with the way the dogs naturally organise themselves in order to stop it from ever happening. I don't know anyone else locally who insists on no aggression, either, so why should I make my dogs put up with things they don't like from dogs not in my pack when not putting up with it actually keeps the peace rather than starting fights?