How can "leadership" resolve normal, self-rewarding behaviors?

 I'll take a stab and say isn't a great manager a great leader?

I believe that to be true.

As per the counter surfing, well I'm fortunately unable to respond as for reasons unknown to me Bugsy has never taken food off the counter or table, he will however try and steal your paper napkin

So is this because we were vigilant from the beginning, or because he's not food driven ( loves it but other things can be more important), or satiated, etc.  No idea. He has also never been destructive to things in the house. A couple of DH's shoes, has a magazine fixation, and destroys all his things ( no beds in months though) but from the first time we left him alone - out of his crate @11 mos old - he just sleeps while we are gone.

I'd never be brazen enough to say - well I must be a great leader.  I do think I have managed his environment well.

Personally, I think Bugsy is more into mischief while we are there to notice than when no one is around.  That is his personality.  Seriously what fun is stealing a sock if no one is going to chase me to get it?

I too always gets confused when leader is used to define the human role.  I use the word caretaker and my relationship with my dogs is such that they recognize I am the caretaker and give me respect for it.  As the caretaker who would encounter counter surfing, I would look to what need the dog is trying to fullfill.  Hunger?  Play?  Curiosity?  Mischief?  Instinct?  Medical?  So rather than address the behavior, I would address the source of the need or the want.

DPU, moca is obviously too small to do any counter surfing, but if she wasnt she would do it, and i dont know how i would address the source of the problem, which is, she just LOVES food. if i let her, she would eat herself to death... how would you address that?

(i'm actually asking this seriously...)

In my situation I don't feel comfortable leaving the two youngest dogs loose all night, but once they get older I am sure we will be able to.

Great leadership is great management, one manages the dog's environment the best way possible, behavior patterns and learning have to be managed, also the confidence an owner exudes makes a difference in how the dog responds.

So, is one a great leader or manager, it's just word play and basically means the same....so, be on your way to be the best leader/ manager

Actually i dont think a good manager makes necessarily a good leader

You need to be a little bit of both, please note that i never said that manage does not help, if you dont manage to have your shoes away while you teach your dog the difference between right from wrong then you can say bye to a couple of them, you SHOULD NOT be a manager without being a leader because you are not teaching your dog anything

You can close doors, have creates, have clickers around the house, carry treats in your pocket, remove all the items from the table, hide shoes, buy lids for the trashcan, etc BUT if your dog does not see you as the authority figure you will have to buy a check list for the rest of your life and use it before you go to sleep or leave the house, a manager rathers to do all that instead of teaching the dog the difference between right and wrong; yes you hide the shoes so your dog does not eat them, but the dog actually knows that eating the owner's shoes is bad? no, and he will never know because he was not born knowing that and unless somebody teaches him, it will be the same forever

The difference is that the leader teaches rules, boundaries and limitations to the dog aka "yes you can do this and this but you can NOT do this or that",  the manager does not, aka "technically you can do whatever you want (even when i dont like it) but i'm going to prepare myself and my house to avoid it"

The leader teaches the dog how to behave, the manager controls the environment to avoid bad behavior

Like i was telling Ron on another thread, you can close your bedroom door but that wont teach (or take away from the dog's mind) the fact that the bed is an awesome place to lay down and he should not get into the bed when you are not there; you can turn the dog around but that wont teach (or take away from the dog's mind) the fact that he wants to protect his territory and attack other dogs

If a manager is in one room of the house without the dog then the manager always has on the back of his/her mind this fear of "where is my dog?, did i leave my shoes out?, is he chewing my shoes right now?, did i close my bedroom door or is open?" NOTE: This is an example for a manager with a shoe chewing dog, NOT all the managers have the same problem or the same dog, change this example if your dog likes your trash can, or chewing the furniture or whatever behavior your dog does towards your house

A leader taught the dog that chewing shoes (or whatever other example) is actually wrong and should not be done, so the leader does not have to be remembering or checking where the dog is when is not in the same room, a leader taught the dog that if the dog wants to chew something he can chew his chewing bone and not a shoe, a "manager's only" dog will not know the difference and will chew the first thing (shoe or chewing bone) that crosses in front of him if the owner forgot to put the shoes away

A leader only has to deal with the problem while is teaching the dog that is not allowed, a manager will have to deal with the problem for the rest of the dog's life 

houndlove

All dogs will behave like this if it gets them things they want (and I don't care how great of a "leader" you are).

Thats like saying "any dog will learn how to sit on command and i dont care how good of a "trainer" you are"; well if you could not teach a dog how to sit on command then you are not a good trainer after all, that does not mean that real good trainers cant do it

Bottom line: Management helps BUT if you only rely on that with out leadership you will have a tough road ahead

DPU

I too always gets confused when leader is used to define the human role.  I use the word caretaker and my relationship with my dogs is such that they recognize I am the caretaker and give me respect for it.  As the caretaker who would encounter counter surfing, I would look to what need the dog is trying to fullfill.  Hunger?  Play?  Curiosity?  Mischief?  Instinct?  Medical?  So rather than address the behavior, I would address the source of the need or the want.

My dog use to counter surf when ever he got the chance, why?  1)  Because he can, he is big and reaches with no problems.  2) Because he has found some pretty yummy items but doing it.   For me management was key, keep crap up and away ended my issues with counter surfing.  River use to go to the counter immediately when he came into the house, many etts etts and nothing yummy during the search eventually broke his interest.  That is not to say that if he gets a whiff of something, he won't investigate.  River is also a garbage dog, he NEVER use to until one day my Pug tore apart a garbage bag and River found great things in there - after that, now garbage is his passion.

I am sure that hunger wasn’t his motivation, and feeding his to stop his compulsion would have only made for a really fat dog.  Just this past summer we had a party and a friend brought 3 DOZEN hamburger and hotdog roll and left them on the back deck, on the bar – wayyy in the back.  I saw them their, but thought that River wouldn’t reach them and I knew he didn’t know they were there.  Well..  I feed him dinner and went out front with my guests.  I noticed my dog was not around (unusual since he is always up butt) so I called him..  when he didn’t come at first my ears went up.. hummm what is he up to.  I called again and now he came running.  After a little bit we went to the back deck to start dinner and low and behold 3 dozen bags of rolls and their plastic bags – GONE!  As his caregiver, I would have never expected such hunger so soon after dinner!  LOL 

Well, I can tell you how I've handled it with two dogs who love food (especially Marlowe, but Conrad wouldn't pass up an easy food opportunity either) who are tall enough to easily get on counters. I don't let it happen. When we first got Conrad we lived in a very very small house so it was extremely easy to keep an eye on him all the time, and if he left the room we were in and we could tell he was heading for the kitchen we'd follow him to see what he was up to and call him back. We never left food out on counters and after we started crating, we never left him alone in the house with free run. He never had the chance to learn that counters are where food is and his experience was always that when we were home, he was where we were; that being where we are is fun and interesting and there's no need to go exploring through the house to find something else to do.

When we got Marlowe we were living in a 4(!) story house so we had to be a lot more explicit about keeping him in the same room with us. Marlowe had never lived in a house before I don't think and we had to house train him and do remedial training about not chewing up random objects, getting up on things and scavenging throughout the house. We kept him with us in the same room, with the door shut, at all times, for several months. When we were not home, he was crated or confined. He was watched like a hawk (lesson learned after three chewed up laptop cables after back turned for just a second). He also never really got much of a chance to learn about all the amazing things that can be had if you spend some time alone in a kitchen.

We also make sure to exercise them both to a sufficient level that they don't have much desire to make their own fun when we're all home together in the evenings and at night. They sleep. They're allowed at this point to sleep anywhere in the house they want, and when we're all home together they have free roam and I don't have to keep them with me or follow them around. They're extremely trustworthy, but that is because we made a point to give them very little opportunity to successfully experiment with things we didn't want them touching, gave them plenty of opportunity to have experiences with the things that are okay to touch, and keep them tired enough that most of the time they'd just rather be napping anyway.
 

Espencer, I am a firm believer of teaching the dog right from wrong.....I always use a marker noise when I witness unwanted behavior, that alone stops them in their tracks, but getting to that point can take some time with younger dogs, or rescues.

How do I explain this and have it make sense.  In my home, for any of my resident or foster dogs, I strive so that there is no single object that has the highest value.  By objects I mean food, treat, toy, bed, car ride, outside time…anything that is highly valued by the dog.  I always connect the object with some type of social event that makes the object have a higher value.  In the absence of the social event the object loses values and the want or interest by dog. 

In my home, I am able to have an open 40lbs bag of dog food sitting in the corner of the kitchen and no dog will touch it.  The only time I had to remove the bag was when I started fostering an emaciated dog who was in survival mode and would glutton herself.  Once I diminished this want to eat, the bag returned to the kitchen corner.  My counter has on it, the dog’s milkbone treats and also the dog’s eatable bones.  They don’t touch those until our regular social event when everyone gets their treats and bones (and they don’t have to work for it).  Now, I do manage the counter.  For example, I would not risk leaving a chocolate cake there overnight.  But to be honest, I would expect the cake to still be there in morning because sleeping is a huge pleasurable social event for all of us.

IMO and experience, if a dog LOVES food, the dog is not fulfilling a need such as hunger but a want of pleasure.  I guess I am saying redefine the pleasures. 

snownose

Espencer, I am a firm believer of teaching the dog right from wrong.....I always use a marker noise when I witness unwanted behavior, that alone stops them in their tracks, but getting to that point can take some time with younger dogs, or rescues.

I agree, and it takes even longer if you only manage without leadership 

snownose

Espencer, I am a firm believer of teaching the dog right from wrong.....I always use a marker noise when I witness unwanted behavior, that alone stops them in their tracks, but getting to that point can take some time with younger dogs, or rescues.

I agree.  With Foster Marvin, he lifts his leg on other dogs while they are crouching to pee.  Since I am at a distance, I use a market noise to stop this behavior.  But, I think that without that marker, Marvin still does the unwanted behavior as evident by the yellow splash drops on the white Danes from time to time.  Haven't been successful on figuring this one out yet. 

Ah,DPU....I understand your point.......my dogs can be given treats, longer lasting treats, and when some are done and one is still munching on it he doesn't get attacked or bothered.Not so long ago I posted a pick of three dogs on the bed with DH, and Nanook had his bone with him chewing on it......the other dogs ignored him.

A manager builds a bridge and gets across to the destination but the bridge may be burning behind them.

A leader builds the bridge with his followers, guides them across and reaches their destination together with the bridge still standing.

It's not about getting the final product or destination, it's about how you got there that makes you a leader. 

In my kitchen I have a shelf unit, on this unit I have food, alot of food. It consists of things that I use alot, most of it is packaged, but there are boxes of crackers, chips, dips, sauces and the highly prized jar of peanut butter.

When Kord was just a few months old he grabbed a 5lb bag of flour off the shelf, dragged it into our bedroom and opened it and proceded to finish ripping it apart in his crate. To this day he has never ever taken anything else off this shelf, why? Because I taught him it was mine and not his, I expected him to leave it all alone, it would be bad juju to touch another thing on this shelf.

He counter surfed once and only once, same rules apply to the counter. And shoes, he chewed a shoe once, actually twice, and it was the same dang shoe, but the thing is I have been very very lucky that he was easy to train and correct in these area's. Part of it is leadership, the rest is teaching right from wrong, what is accepted and what is not, then you have management.

When I got up this morning my house shoes were on the floor in the bathroom, I had an open coffee cake (in plastic sheet with dome) on the counter and the peanut butter jar is eye level. Nothing had been touched. And he is not stuffed into his crate at night, he has free rein of the house.

When he was a puppy, it was all about management. As he grew it was about leadership and mangement. Kord knows that certain things are mine and mine only, so he leaves them alone and because of that he is allowed free reign of the house, and I never go looking to see if he is in something he should not be.