Q&A with ‘The Paw Man’ (709) – Only Missing One Thing… Training Katherine Boyes Dear Paw Man, I live in New Zealand and have a 6 year old Border Collie cross Bull Mastiff named ‘Breaka’. He is well trained and behaves well most of the time. Paw Man Im an ex-Kiwi myself, born in Hamilton and raised in Auckland, migrated to Brisbane, Australia when I was 16. Katherine Boyes He is dog aggressive to any dog that is not submissive but gets along great with dogs who are. Paw Man So you own a dog that is essentially a bully by virtue of the fact that he only plays well with dogs that submit to him. So your dog lacks tolerance and the knowledge of how to play with other dogs that are not submissive. Katherine He has been in a few fights, nothing that has needed vet treatment on any side. Paw Man Yet. Like all behaviors that are beneficial to the dog that have no human control protocols applied to them, these behaviors will continue to repeat and they will escalate over time…… so the fact that not dog has needed treatment yet just means that it is in its early stages……. Well it was in its early stages 3 months ago when you submitted this question…… I am guessing that it has continued to escalate during this time. Katherine He will leave dogs alone. It’s other dogs that come up to him, or we will say to the other dog owner that Breaka does not get along with other dogs and they seem to think that Breaka just wants to play and wont call their dog back, very frustrating. Paw Man What you should really be saying is that Breaka does not have the necessary social skills to play with all dogs…. He only knows how to play with submissive dogs and is completely unprepared to play with any dog his equal or more confident than him. Katherine My real problem is that though he is not aggressive to humans at all and specially not around food he has become aggressive to cats around food. Paw Man Again another area where you have failed to convey to the dog what behaviors are acceptable and which behaviors are not. Just like we humans, dogs do not somehow acquire the knowledge of how to be polite and interact correctly with other humans…. We have to be taught that by our parents….. and likewise your dog has to be taught how to interact appropriately with all other dogs and cats as well. The dog will not work it out itself…… if the dog relies purely on its instincts…. Well then you will see why they have molars to crush bones and canines to tear flesh from bone. If you do not work at giving your dog the behavioral values that you want it to have then it will just resort to the hard wired behaviors that Mother Nature gave it to survive with in the wild. Katherine He doesnt even have to be his food and sometimes the cats will just glance his way. He has never done this before and has grown up with a cat, they even sleep together at times. I didnt see anything that may have started this odd behavior but I am finding it hard to find a way to discipline him and would hate for him to become a cat killer. Paw Man ‘You’re finding it hard to find a way to discipline him?’ How do you currently discipline him? What behaviors have you successfully extinguished in him so far and how? Katherine If there is no food about he does not even notice cats at all, will walk right pass them. I want to nip this in the bud. I would hate for this to grow worse and him to become aggressive with food around humans. Hope this makes some type to sense to you. We live in Katikati. Paw Man How do you normally discipline this dog when it does something very wrong? What age did you get him at and where from? The training he has had, was it formal training at a dog obedience club or just what youve done at home? Katherine Boyes We have had him from a pup, once he was weaned from his mother I think around 8 weeks. Paw Man Pups wean off the mother around weeks 3-5 and are on semi solid food by week 8. But if you got the dog removed from the litter at week 8 then your dog has the best chance of being a well-balanced canine……. Once we get YOU sorted out Katherine We got him off ‘Trade Me’. He has never had dog obedience or been to any class. Paw Man Forgive my tone here, but you have failed to give the dog any formal training and you are wondering why you have little to no control over it. To me it is a very obvious consequence for failing to train the dog. This is a case where the dog doesn’t actually have any behavioral problems…. It is just untrained. Katherine When he does do something bad we grab the scruff of his neck twist and push his head down to the ground. We find this is the best way to get a yelp from him as he is quite strong. Paw Man I don’t know where you picked up that technique from but that definitely is NOT discipline. That will confuse the dog, that will intimidate the dog but that will not discipline him. Katherine He also hates getting blowing on so if it’s something little and I am close you can blow on his face and he will stop right away. Paw Man Doing this to the dog only acts as a behavioral interuptor and just interrupts the behavior at that point in time….. but it does nothing to stop the behavior from happening again. Katherine He is very responsive to voice when you growl he will tuck tail. Paw Man Yes he may be very responsive to voice but there is no such thing as verbal discipline to a dog. A growl is a threat to discipline, but it is not discipline on its own, yet again it is an intimidator and a behavioral interrupter. Katherine I find it harder to discipline him as he is not fixed and I feel like he is always pushing what he knows he is not allowed to do with me. Paw Man You find it ‘harder’ to discipline him because he is not fixed…….. nothing you have done to date even comes close to discipline. How can your dog know that he is not allowed to do something if he has had no formal training and you have not successfully communicated to him that he is not allowed to misbehave with non-submissive dogs and cats. Giving a dog formal training is no more voluntary nor optional than sending your children to school is….. it is something you are obligated to do the moment you take ownership of the dog. Katherine He never plays up with my husband and when we are all together I let my husband do the disciplining and be the boss. Paw Man Does your husband discipline the dog the same way that you do? Katherine Boyes Yes. Paw Man So the question that needs to be asked here is…… when your husband is with the dogs does it still have difficulty with other non-submissive dogs and cats around food. If the answer to that question is ‘No’ then your husband has trained the dogs and has control over them and you have not…… or if the answer to that question is ‘Yes, the dog still misbehaves around other non-submissive dogs and with cats around food’ then my summation of this situation being that the only problem this dog has is that it is untrained. So the obvious answer here is to give your dog some formal training by putting him through a dog obedience class at your local dog obedience club. You can choose a positive-only club if you want to but they will not be able to assist you very well in solving the issues with other dogs and cats around food....... so I would recommend that you find a balanced training school as opposed to a positive-only one.
Posted on: Sat, 13 Dec 2014 14:30:52 +0000
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