Q&A with ‘The Paw Man’ (770) – Can I be Alpha? BAM21 Dear Paw Man, I very much agree with your training methods. Our family dog growing up was trained with a balanced approach and was sweet, happy, and well behaved. I dont currently own any dogs--with my work situation, Im away from the house too long to make it a very happy home for animals right now. I do miss dogs though and occasionally dog sit for other people when they go on vacation. My question is this--some of these dogs obviously rule their households and, though good-natured, are not well-trained. I cant really apply a balanced training routine (or any routine at all) to other peoples animals. Paw Man Why not? If you were looking after a friends children and they started to misbehave, would you let it escalate? Would you allow them to damage your stuff or become aggressive to each other…. Of course you wouldn’t hesitate to correct them. When I do a consult with a client who has a dog that has been exposed to positive-only for all of its life up until I walk in the door….. four hours later after being exposed to ‘balanced training’ for that time frame all the dogs behavior problems are solved. If I can do that in four hours with a dog I have never met before, imagine what you can do when you’re pet-sitting for a few days!!! :) BAM21 Do you have any advice for getting along better with them? Can I establish myself as the alpha in a short-term situation with few tools? Or is the best course of action what I have been doing (put up with it and bribe with treats when needed)! Paw Man You can continue to bribe with treats if you want to, but you will not make any significant improvements in the dogs behavior doing that. If you just step up and BE the Alpha then the dogs will sense that and interact with you on a different level than they are interacting with you now. At this point the dog just sees you as a food dispensing machine who makes requests that they can choose to obey…. Or not. Dogs recognise a trainer using balanced training methods because they utilise the same balance within their own social groups. Once you start employing a balanced training approach you will go from being a pack accessory to being part or, or the leader of, the pack.
Posted on: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 13:22:59 +0000
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