Human Training 102

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324 – The Annual, 2022-23

By Chris Robinson

Good day, my fellow American dogs. This is the second in my series of seminars about how to train your humans. This session will cover such topics as discipline, leash training, getting your fair share of your human’s meals, dealing with cats and for the gun dogs, hounds, terriers and poodles among today’s attendees–hunting.

Let’s begin with the issue of discipline. Humans often won’t do what you want them to do and when this happens, they need to be corrected. But, since they are very sensitive and many are, at their core, extremely insecure, any corrections have to be done very carefully and with a lot of diplomacy. Because humans often refuse to accept that dogs are the ones who are really in charge, when this state of affairs becomes apparent to them, they tend to get angry and defensive or they may sulk so it is really important to be able to communicate with them without having to resort to measures such as growling because that only exacerbates an already unpleasant situation. Biting, while it may be completely justified in some cases, is to be avoided at all costs because to resort to such extremes is a surefire way to cause a minor conflict to escalate to unrestricted warfare. When that happens, everyone–dog and human alike–winds up a loser.

Most of the time, all it takes to get humans to behave the way you need them to behave is to communicate your disapproval of what they are or are not doing. Sometimes, just giving them a glare that communicates your disgust with their actions or lack thereof is sufficient to get your point across. If that doesn’t work, the next step is to turn your back and sit down; or if you happen to have a really hard-headed human, walk away. This is usually sufficient for humans to get the message that you aren’t happy with their behavior and you are seriously disappointed with them.

It is always important to select the right technique in dealing with human behavior. For example, barking is highly effective but it has to be used judiciously. It only takes a few “woofs” to get their attention and get them to let you out, come and play with you, serve your meals or follow you, so never use even one more bark than is necessary to get the desired result.

Click here to read the complete article
324 – The Annual, 2022-23

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Posted by AnthonyA on Jan 9 2023. Filed under Current Articles, Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.