When the Cue Just Won’t Work
It’s unfortunate, but sometimes we train a cue only to find that it later becomes useless. If you train enough, this may have happened to you. But why does it happen, and what can we do to fix it? In dog training sometimes we forget that the immediate consequence of a behavior is what causes […]
Beating a Dead Zebra – Part 5
Learned helplessness occurs when an animal/human finds their situation so out of their control, they eventually stop trying to change or escape it. This is the reason that humans stay in abusive relationships, and it happens when punishment is used with our four legged friends. Because our timing is not perfect, our dog doesn’t understand […]
Beating a Dead Zebra – Part 4
Next on our list: Modeling. Modeling is seen in humans when children live through abuse. The often grow up to be abusers. Thank goodness our dogs are so often capable of living through horrendous torture and still coming out the other side without any apparent signs. But as a general rule, violence in a relationship […]
Beating a Dead Zebra – Part 3
So, going with our list, avoidance is next. This one is fairly straightforward. If you punish your dog the dog is likely to be unaware of your intentions. Most people (even trainers) don’t have the absolutely precise timing that it would take to allow the dog to associate punishment with the act he’s being punished […]
Beating a Dead Zebra – Part 2
Okay, so on the list I gave you in my last post the first one is not really applicable to dogs. Dogs don’t act in a passive aggressive way. I know some people will argue with me. I myself had a little dog that would pee under my chair every time I sat at my […]
Beating A Dead Zebra
I don’t want to feel like I am wasting my time trying to convince people that they do not need to cause their dog distress in order to get their dog to behave. It is SO important to me that people understand their dogs and don’t just go with the latest fad because it looks […]