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Posted by Noofies on August 27, 2009, 12:35 pm, in reply to "Love this site and wanted to share an article I wrote...let me know what you think."
75.128.112.183
That's silly. You're not a dog, and your dog knows it.
Establishing Leadership (not quite complete, but you'll get the drift): http://www.katzenwoofers.org/establishingleadership.html
Effective training lets the dog figure things out for itself, rather than forcing compliance. I have a rescue dog that jumped on the gate between my yard and my patio when he wanted to come in. I didn't want him to jump - and not just because he was flinging muddy water around with his paws when he jumped, but because it was impolite. So I'd start walking toward the gate, he'd come up on the gate, I'd back up to the door and wait until his feet hit the ground. Then I'd start forward to the gate again - as soon as he put his feet up on the gate I'd stop moving forward and take a step backward instead, and wait until he put all 4 feet back on the ground. It only took him a couple of minutes to figure out that I'd only come forward toward the gate when his feet were on the ground and, since he couldn't come inside - which is what he wanted - until I opened the gate, it was to his benefit to keep his feet on the ground. Once I got to the gate and put my hand on the latch, if he came up again I'd simply remove my hand from the latch and wait until his feet were back on the ground before I'd reach for the latch again. It only took about 6-7 minutes the first day, and only 2-3 minutes the second day, for him to figure out what I wanted from him, and now I have a dog that sits at the gate and waits politely for me to open it so he can come in. I didn't growl at him, I didn't "claim the space", I didn't go all alpha on him, I didn't hold my hand up - I simply didn't reward the behavior I didn't want and DID reward the behavior I was looking for.
By the way - NEVER turn your back on a jumping dog. You can turn your body sideways to the dog so his feet miss you, but don't turn your back on him. The most effective way to teach a dog not to jump up on you is to ignore him as long as he's jumping and acknowledge him the instant he puts all 4 feet on the ground. He's jumping to get your attention - if jumping doesn't get your attention (either positive OR negative attention) but keeping all 4 feet on the ground DOES, he'll learn very quickly not to jump.
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