Why do people want to fight with their dog?

I’m not, of course, talking about people organising dogfights - which is barbaric and against the law in most civilised countries.

What I’m talking about is the need people often have when they get a dog, to order it about, “command” it, make it do things, stop it doing things, control it, in general have a master-slave relationship.

Do they get a dog because they need someone to boss about?

Thing is, this is a-a-a-a-ll conflict.

Conflict-based.

This is what leads them to complain that their dog is “stubborn”, “defiant”, “ignores me”.

The way some people want to be with their dogs is centred on conflict.

And it’s a mystery to me!

Love

The great dog trainer and trailblazer in how we treat our performance dogs is Susan Garrett.

And she saith:

Dog training is really relationship building

 This is what it’s all about, guys!

It’s not about making your dog do something, or stopping it doing something.

It’s about developing a relationship with your dog, living a full and enjoyable life with another creature. From another species, sure - but a sentient being who can work things out, solve problems, seek pleasure, who has fears, likes and dislikes, JUST LIKE US!

Remember Shylock’s impassioned speech in The Merchant of Venice?

“If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?”

He was talking about being a Jew. He could have been speaking as a dog, or any other animal!  

Frustration

If you’re frustrated with your dog on a daily basis, I suggest that it’s because you are looking for Confrontation and Conflict on a daily basis.

It’s an “I’m right, so you must be wrong” approach. Whereas anyone who has ever lived happily with another person knows that it’s Compromise and Compassion that win the day.

If you’d like to find a better way to live with your dog - to banish conflict from your life and have fun instead - start with our free Workshop here and sprinkle a little stardust in your home!

Your puppy’s first Christmas is coming!

If your puppy is brand new and very young, then he needs to be protected - as you would protect any baby - and keep his routine as near as possible to how it usually is.

If your puppy is older, more excitable, boisterous - or perhaps nervous around strangers - then a slightly different approach is indicated.

Either way it’s important that you are on the ball and can give your puppy the attention and care he needs, regardless of how busy your schedule may be.

In general, Christmas is a time of upheaval for dogs.

Upheaval = stress

Stress for your dog = stress for you, and for your guests!

So what can you do to minimise the stress?

Very young puppy up to 15 weeks old

Let’s look at the brand new puppy first.

This is a vital time for your puppy’s socialisation - which can only effectively happen between the ages of 3 and 15 weeks.

As ever, ALL experiences must be positive!

So this means you are on duty the whole time your puppy is awake and there are visitors and new activities taking place. As this young a puppy should be sleeping at least seventeen hours a day, this really isn’t hard!

For a puppy who’s still a bit leaky, greet your visitors outside, then it won’t matter if the excitement causes damp patches on the pavement.

It’s important that you maintain his usual schedule, in terms of sleeping, eating (should still be on 3 or 4 meals a day), and housetraining. You’ll have a cosy, quiet, place for him to do all of this, and you need to ensure that your puplet won’t be disturbed by anyone, especially over-excited children!

If you haven’t already got a cosy nest, make one now - set it up in a quiet room whose door you can lock - and start using it straight away! Consider soft lighting, half-covering the crate, soft music (classical, Mozart, is best - but you can also find stuff on Youtube). The music will not only soothe and calm your dog, but also muffle some of the sounds of the household.

The older puppy, over 15 weeks

Your older puppy is well past the socialisation period, but you have hopefully been introducing him to new experiences - happily - ever since.

The more novelty your young dog enjoys, the better he’ll be able to cope with novelty in the future.

You’ll be following the same guidance as for the very young puppy, but he’ll be sleeping an hour or so less. And depending on how much he’s learned of the outside world, you may need to do some counterconditioning work to help him cope with visitors invading his usually quiet home!

We can show you how to do this in detail in the Brilliant Family Dog Academy, but what counterconditioning means is gradually acclimatising your dog to something new - firstly in a very dilute form (I.e. at a great distance) and slowly nearer, always with lots of tasty treats. How do you know how to get nearer? When your dog shows little more than curious interest at the sight of the thing that previously worried him.

Remember he’s still very young, and very impressionable!

And remember too that lasting damage can be done if you fail to protect his burgeoning personality, his confidence.

Not to mention the damage that can be done to squawking children or furniture if your puppy is allowed to get overstressed and exhausted!

You’ll find more ideas in our free e-course with eight lessons here.

Want to teach your dog an instant recall?

Do you want an instant recall?

I don’t think there’s any sane dog-owner who’d say, “Er, no thanks, I don’t care whether my dog comes back or not.”

Everyone wants an instant recall!

And an instant recall is not hard to teach - in fact it’s great fun to teach! But the operative word here is TEACH.

Your dog does not arrive with an instant recall installed. Whether a tiny puppy or an older dog, he does not have any idea what you want … until you teach him!

So yelling his name, nicely or crossly, stamping your foot, blowing a whistle - none of this will work until you teach him what it means and why he will WANT to do it.

[HINT: if he doesn’t want to do it, you’re wasting your breath yelling and all the rest! This is a two-way thing.]

The first step

So how do you achieve this wonderful Nirvana state of calling your dog, just once, and having him thunder back to you with wild enthusiasm?

The very first step is to teach him that you are nice to be with, you are reliable, and it’s worth his while to keep a close eye on you, and respond when you ask.

This isn’t done in a soggy field, as your dog hurtles off, nose to the ground, on some chase or trail.

This happens at home. In your kitchen. Many times a day. It’s what I call “All Day Training”.

All Day Training

We want to teach our dogs to respond to us every time, not just when they feel like it, or when they have nothing better to do.

And that’s why we need to build up this deep history - that every time they respond to us, they get some kind of reward.

To start with, by far the easiest and most effective reward is to give a treat. Instantly, as soon as their head starts to turn toward you.

And the key is that this reward must be given EVERY time you ask, and they do.

No exceptions!

If you want it to work it has to work every time, without fail. As soon as you start to demand compliance with no semblance of a reward being forthcoming, you are starting to hammer nails into your Recall coffin.

The first step in detail

So your first step is to make your dog’s name precious. Whenever she hears her name, she stops in her tracks and responds to it - whether that means turning round in front of you, or racing back from 50 yards away.

And I go into detail into how you can precisely and positively make your dog’s name precious to her - in two places for your convenience!

The first place is here in Here Boy! Step-by-step to a stunning recall from your Brilliant Family Dog which you can find in ebook or paperback at Amazon and in audiobook direct from the author right here.

And the second is here in our

free Workshop

on getting your dog to LISTEN!

 

Choose your poison! And let me know how this game transforms your relationship with your puppy or dog, and you can see it setting you on the road to having that stellar recall you’d love!

Is your dog obedient? Or is he happy?

The old-fashioned emphasis on “obedience” has led a lot of people astray.  

It’s strange that this fixation on obedience was abandoned in schools a long time ago. The pupil’s wellbeing and engagement is rated much more highly.

Blind obedience is only expected in the armed forces, not in everyday life!

And yet people still have an expectation that their dog should instantly and without thought OBEY their every “command”.

It’s all the wrong way of looking at it.

 

Happiness leads to “obedience”

The long and the short of it is that if you take care of your dog’s physical and emotional wellbeing, you’ll automatically have an “obedient” dog.

Why?

Because dogs are easygoing creatures who, like us, value a warm bed, a full stomach, and a life free of conflict. And like us, we appreciate those that provide those things.  

So naturally, dogs are ready to comply with whatever works to provide these essentials and these comforts. 

We just need to tap into that mutual admiration, and you will have a confrontation-free environment, a compliant and happy dog, and a happy owner!

Read this article in Psychology Today for more on this.

“But my dog …..”

If your dog does not fit this happy model, I suggest there are things happening that are interfering.

It’s not that your dog is disobedient. It’s that something in your relationship is missing.

Do watch our free Workshop on getting your dog to LISTEN! There’s plenty of sound advice there, and a lesson which people find amazingly transformative. If you only learn one thing, let it be this game!

Doggy expectations!

You’re getting a dog!

All those cries of, “Mummy WHEN can we have a dog?” have been heeded.

It’s going to be your first dog!

Maybe you caved in under pressure. Maybe you’ve always wanted a dog and the time is now right.

But don’t go into this new venture without a hand on your shoulder. You need a roadmap!

First off, are you starting from the right place?

You need to be sure the dog you’re getting is the right one for your family. This article has a lot of advice for the first-time purchaser.

You can follow that article with the first in a series of HOW NOT TO MAKE A GHASTLY MISTAKE with your first dog!

Chosen the right dog?

Great! Now, how realistic are your expectations for your new dog?

Are you expecting your new puppy to slip into the household almost unseen?

Are you expecting the children to know exactly how to behave round a dog?

Are you assuming your rescue dog (who was presumably in the shelter because his previous owners gave up on him) will be the perfect trained, well-mannered, easygoing, dog?  

I find that there are two camps of new dog-owners

1. There are those who expect the very best and are totally unrealistic, expecting the puppy to “train” himself, with never a hair out of place.

2. And there are those who assume it will all be awful.

So some will give their puppy total freedom of the house, then say, “Why do I keep finding puddles? I put him out in the garden every few hours …”

And some will say, “I expected my puppy to bite, but my hands and clothes are shredded by my 5-month-old pup.”

Both of them have got the wrong end of the stick.

Both of them have had faulty expectations.

And neither of them has actually taught their new dog what they’d like of him!

They talk of puddles everywhere, and bitten hands. But you see, neither is inevitable!

Some pups housetrain fast, even without thorough teaching. And many puppies never bite anyone at all.

But you do need to be armed for every eventuality. And the Brilliant Family Dog Academy is the best place for you to learn everything you need to know to make this new relationship a success.

Whether your dog is a puppy or a seasoned campaigner, you’ll need to have some understanding of WHY she’s doing what she does - and ways to kindly divert her into something you find more acceptable.

 You’ll need to understand how to reach your new dog’s mind

And this doesn’t mean shouting SIT ever more loudly in the hope that she’s been swotting up on the English language and knows what you mean!

Did you know you can teach your dog everything she needs to learn without ever putting a hand on her? (Except for cuddles when she wants them, of course! That’s different.)

I love it when people write to tell me how following my guidance has helped make their new dog the Brilliant Family Dog they wanted, as Charlie said about her Busta: “Busta is 10 months now and is a Brilliant Family Dog!”

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all new dogs had owners like that?

Here’s where you can start:

 For more about the Brilliant Family Dog Academy I mentioned above, watch our free Workshop and learn all about how you can transform your Li’l Nipper into your Brilliant Family Dog!

Starting out with your new puppy

First published on positively.com and reprinted with permission 

You’ve been planning for months, and at last your new puppy is here! Your expectations are enormous: this is going to be the perfect dog you’ve always wanted.

And maybe that’s right, and your little puppy will become your Brilliant Family Dog.

But for many of us - and for many of our puppies - we have to work hard to achieve that perfect dog. Just as you have to work at your career, or your relationship with your partner, to make the best of it, so you have to work with your new puppy to build a powerful bond where you understand each other so well. It won’t all fall into place without a good bit of effort!

Your puppy’s personality

While you can expect a certain type of personality if you choose a particular breed or type, this is by no means guaranteed! Dogs, like us, are individuals.

There are plenty of whippets, for instance, who love nothing better than a rabbit chase, and there are plenty more who will watch the rabbits race past without raising an eyebrow. Some collies will herd anything, down to a blade of grass or a matchstick, while others are not even interested in toy play.

So you can’t necessarily expect the breeding to have done the work for you! You may have to spend quite some time getting your whippet pup interested in chasing, or your collie keen to play.

But if the inborn drives are strong, this is a good thing! Those instinctive drives will be tremendously useful to you as your training progresses. Imagine having the perfect reward you can offer your dog whenever she does something you like! While using treats is a great way to train - all dogs like food: they have to, or they’d starve to death - you should also build in alternative rewards early on.

One of your early tasks will be to figure out just what your new puppy loves best, so that you can use those things as rewards to get the results you want.

How do I get this crazy puppy to do what I want?

And how do you get the results you want, so that you can reward them? It’s pretty simple if you remember a few key points.

1. DOGS DO WHAT WORKS

They have no wish to rule the universe - they do what will bring them what they want. This is where understanding just what it is that they want is vital!

2. REWARD WHAT YOU LIKE

The stress here is on reward. Don’t bribe! Don’t offer food in the hope of getting what you want. The reward should always come after your puppy has done what you want. Sometimes they’ll be surprised, sometimes they’ll be working methodically towards their reward.

3. REWARD THE SMALLEST THING YOU LIKE

What I mean here is that you don’t wait for a perfect, smart, snappy, sit before dishing out your reward. As soon as your puppy makes any move whatever in the direction of a sit (a rear paw may step forward) you reward that tiny movement. Gradually, as understanding grows, you’ll be able to reward the whole smart, snappy, sit. But don’t hold out for that at the start, or your puppy will have no idea what you want and give up!

4. ALL-DAY TRAINING

No need to have ring-fenced “training sessions” where you go on and on at your puppy till he’s bored senseless. Training is something that happens all the time, at any time, spontaneously. We don’t line up our children in the morning and run through their shoulds and shouldn’ts for the whole day! We just chip in as the day goes by, teaching them at appropriate moments. So your puppy learning to wait at the door happens because we never open the door till the pup is still - or even better, sitting. It takes an extra second or two each time, and the reward? A treat? Nope - opening that door to let the pup fly out to the garden with you!

Your Action Step for today: get yourself a suitable lead that will work *for* you, not against you! This needs to be 6-8 feet in length, and soft and comfortable in your hands. To help you get the right walking gear for your puppy you can download a free guide here. 

It’s more about attitude than technique

So while a lot of your “training” will happen spontaneously, tiny bits at a time, there’s still a place for more formal methods - especially for the vital recall and for comfortably walking next to you on the lead. There are plenty of tricks of the trade which will help you immeasurably. And this is where going to a force-free puppy class will be an excellent experience for you and your puppy - where you’ll meet other people and dogs in a controlled and calm environment where your puppy’s individual character will be recognized and nurtured.

But some of you will be in a force-free desert where it’s impossible to find a suitable class which you’d take a dog flea to, never mind a dog. Never fear!

Take a look at the Brilliant Family Dog Academy which will teach you everything students at my “live” puppy classes learn, only at your own pace and in your own home. You’ll be given careful guidance on how to manage the vital socialisation for your puppy, as well as techniques to give you a confident dog who is happy to fit in with you and do what you want. And you’ll get massive support from your fellow students, who will understand just what you’re up against in your little pup!

Meanwhile, the most important thing to do with your puppy is to carry him everywhere with you and - enjoy him!

Want a bible to help you through this stage?

Go to www.brilliantfamilydog.com/new-puppy book page and get New Puppy! in ebook, audiobook, or paperback.

Is your dog or your little puppy throwing up more challenges than you anticipated? Watch our free Workshop and find how to change things fast!