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Does Your Dog Respect You?

02/14/10 15:25 , Categories: Dog Training

When getting to a crucial element for results with dogs, I always find myself thinking back on a question from one of my original instructors - does your dog respect you? What a profound question! The (truthful) answer to that single question will speak volumes about a dog's behavior in almost every case. Will a dog trained with ONLY positive methods respect its owner? In my experience - NO. The dog may be friendly and everyone may get along fine - as long as you never expect the dog to do anything it doesn't want to do. But friendship alone is not respect. And while friendship is a great human concept, dogs are not people and they require more.

So now I ask you - does your dog respect you? Here are some points for consideration...

LOW (you might want to consider some work with your dog):
- my dog will sit for a treat
- my dog runs out an open door
- my dog pulls on the leash
- my dog jumps up on me, guests, my things
- my dog dog doesn't know 'down'
- my dog pesters for attention
- my dog won't come when called

MEDIUM (room for improvement, but fairly "good" dog):
- my dog will sit without a treat
- my dog will stay inside with an open door (without being held)
- my dog walks calmly on leash
- my dog keeps his paws on the ground
- my dog knows 'down'
- my dog respects my space
- my dog usually comes when called if there are no distractions

HIGH (congrats - work on maintaining respect EVERY DAY!):
- my dog will sit and down on 1st request (no treats)
- my dog holds sit and down around distractions
- my dog will sit and down while moving/chasing/playing
- my dog walks with me without a leash inc. near distractions
- my dog respects my space and belongings
- my dog will go to an assigned "place" on command
- my dog will come to me even when distracted

Read more thoughts on this topic on my next post, Dogs and Friendship.

1 comment

Comment from: calmassertive [Visitor]

Another explanation for why there are more searches for Cesar than there are searches for Victoria is that you have to be slightly brain dead to not see how Cesar has vastly more knowledge & experience than Victoria, and such a mental deficit makes it unlikely you have the intellectual curiousity to do the kind of comprehensive research manifested by doing web searches. Every time I watch Stilwell follow someone else's dog out a door, get pulled along by someone else's dog on a leash, get jumped up on by someone else's dog, etc, I see just how little she knows about dogs and how little respect dogs have for her as a result. Dogs, after all, are smart animals. Millan, in complete contrast to Stilwell, is seen many times leading his own multiple well-behaved dogs off leash, never gets dragged anywhere by any dog, and never tells owners to just ignore a dog jumping up on them. Like one of his clients said on the show, Cesar is the real deal, and dogs as well as internet investigators can see and appreciate it.