First of all, I want to say that my blogging here will be somewhat irregular for a while to come. It has to do with Ella, and all my thoughts and feelings about her. I simply can't bear to blog that much. However, I will do my best to come up with a post here and there, so you don't get tired. 🙂
That being said; today's post will be about how the environment reacts to how you as a dog owner reprimand/guide your dog.
I saw one today section of the Balance Guide, a series that deals with various different things that have to do with dogs and balance. Most often, the episodes are about how we humans need to take on the responsibility of creating balance for our dogs. Today, Alexandra Ortega and Linnea Torndal brought this up with how people around us like to interfere in how we treat our dogs when it comes to things like reprimanding/correcting/guiding.
I can't do enough confirm this. I can't tell you enough about the number of times I've had someone enlighten me that I'm tough, dodge, cruel, unnecessarily harsh and so on, when I needed to reprimand/correct Ella. When I was younger, I ate quite a lot and felt like a lousy mother for not being able to raise my dog better.
Now that Ella is old, I have finally learned that I am the one who knows my dog best, I am the one who knows what is required for what I say to go through. I am also the one who spends time with my dog 24 hours a day, 7 days of the week, all weeks and months of the year.
The one who has his opinion has zero clue.
I can do more let alone imagine that this is pee-worthy enough if you have a normal dog. For me who has one, After all, quite a special kind of dog, it will be extremely expensive. Not that I have much to compare it to (because I didn't have any other dog), but I have eyes to see with and notice that my dog is not like everyone else.
The problem with them most people is that they have no idea what it's like to live with a military-bred dog. The energy, the intensity and the will to do things, be with, explore, experience, never ever ends. A dog like mine basically never needs to rest – she goes on and on and on, and when all the other dogs had died of exhaustion she is still going.
The intensity in mine reprimands and corrections must match my dog's energy and intensity, otherwise they are of no use.
In my experience people often get two things wrong. It is believed that a meatball does the trick and can stop a dog from acting out, basically regardless of what it is about. Above all, it is believed that the meatball makes a dog want to do anything for you. It also seems that many people believe that if a dog learns a thing/a behavior, it will always do so regardless of what is happening around it.
About my dog is in working mode, and, then she will basically do anything for a piece of candy. When my dog is in working mode nor is she necessarily distracted. If she does, it's usually at least fairly easy to pick her up.
When my dog not is in working mode. When my dog gets excited, when her energy rises into the universe and when her intensity hits the roof, Isn't it time for a meatball?. The only thing the meatball does in that situation is partly reward a behavior I don't want to reward, partly, it occupies her attention for a thousandth of a second. After that, she is just as energetic, intense and rough – if not more.
So it is required something else to bring her back down to earth, listen and take in what I want her to do.
Believe me, the meatball does no good at all in these situations.
Is there anything What I have learned from Ella is that training and treating/handling a dog are two completely different things. They cannot be compared or equated – it is simply not possible. If you want to teach a dog something, meatballs are fantastic. But the fact is that the communication with the dog, one's ability to respond to it, handle it and get your message across, has nothing whatsoever to do with the meatball. The meatball also does not necessarily affect the dog's energy level or willingness and ability to calm down. It is the person holding the meatball who must project it, and without our influence, the meatball is nothing more than a meatball whose function here and now is a reward.
The meatball method is a way of having a dog that I am personally extremely uninterested in.