It hasn't been many minutes since I posted mine previous post, and already I need to write another one. 😀 This time it will be about why it is so important to think about your own role in your own dog's behavior.
Ella was mine first dog. She is also my very first teacher when it comes to handling dogs. Given that she came from the Armed Forces, She was extremely dog-like – and I really mean extremely dog. It took an enormous amount of me to handle her soaring energy, driv, will and so on. She is like my role model in how I imagine a dog “will” be.
I liked it I was with her. She forced me to be damn straight, have a backbone of rebar, not to back down, to be determined – almost to exaggeration at times, for her to function at all. She is one of the reasons why I believe that leadership is so incredibly important.
Boyo is on in many ways very similar to Ella, and in many ways very unlike her. They are shepherds, both, so they have some common characteristics. High energy, for example, although Boyo doesn't even come close to Ella's lowest energy level, on their most energetic days. The spiciness and ability to lose yourself in your own high energy is another thing they have in common.
But I need not have the same intensity in my leadership with Boyo. If I was with him, as I was with Ella, he would probably go off in the middle. He wouldn't necessarily be scared – he knows me too well for that, but for him, as he is, is that type of leadership excessive. You can be softer with him, even in the moments where he sees a hare/rabbit/cat/bird/whatever, and the hunting instinct kicks in.
But like me described in my previous post, so he has some things that I can find a bit disturbing. His jumping to stand and lean, for example. Him doing it with me is one thing – at least if I invite it. That he tries to do that to the old aunts who live in the gate next door, is something completely different, and actually not quite ok.
It got me to begin to consider why he takes the liberty of doing so, and what it is in myself that makes him actually do it. And believe me when I say it – smallest 50% for the reason lies with me, not in the absence of “exercise” (regardless of what you put into that concept).
For the point of training is for our dogs to take us and what we say so seriously, that they actually follow our instructions. I see that sentence can be interpreted as that we have to be violent and mean for the dog to take us seriously, but that's not what I mean. My point is that whoever wants to teach the dog something needs to have a straight and steady one (mental) spine, manage not to give way, to demand space, and so on. Our personality must be that bit stronger than the dog's will to do something else (“up”).
To my confessions hear that… or, there are several things. One thing at a time.
Boyo come in in my life just a few weeks before the first case of Covid, Here in Sweden. The, i sig, contributed a lot to my relationship with him. Not only that – I discovered very soon that he was very different from Ella in his mentality. Compared to her, where psyche was hard as crystal, is Boyo as melted milk chocolate. It took me quite some time to find a way to relate to him, which worked for both of us. It also makes me feel softer, which is not automatically or necessarily good, always.
I would have treated Ella differently if she had been a puppy/young dog/adult today? And, probably. I've learned a lot over the years. Anyone who has seen and experienced me together with both Ella and Boyo would probably agree. For example, I have learned to apply the knowledge I have, in a different way than I did before.
One of the disadvantages with being softer is that I let Boyo get away with a lot more than I ever let Ella do. The walks are one such example. Now there is, in and of itself, a certain difference between going with a female and a male dog. The bitches are, in my experience, more focused and easily controlled (with some exceptions, as I also learned) than male dogs who apparently die if they are not allowed to have their noses glued to the hill. It is a big, bold #facepalm on it. 😀
I have not really decided how and what to change, but before I start making any major changes to the Boyo itself, should I take a closer look at myself and figure out what it is that I need to do, so that the things I get annoyed with will work better.
There are certainly one or two of you reading who think I'm crazy thinking about things like this. 😀 You are welcome to think so. Personally, I find it very rewarding, because it spreads like rings into the rest of my life. There are no downsides to navel-gazing and thinking about how to change yourself for the better, for whatever reason.
The advantage of dogs is that they are a direct reflection of us. If our dogs behave like mutts, that is rarely the case with the dog “up”. The most likely thing is that it is ourselves who through our mood, our mood and the energy we project, affects the dog so that it starts behaving in ways we don't like. According to my way of seeing it, is it more important to at least start look over yourself, before you start trying train remove the dog's behavior.
But I am, the.