Post by kninebirddog on Jul 2, 2011 21:04:19 GMT -6
Leader or Friend
Being a Leader or a friend to your dog that can make the difference between having that companion that looks to you as a leader with a “What we gonna do now boss?” behavior, Compared to a dog that has their own agenda and a “Yeah I will be right there” type behavior.
It doesn’t matter if you have hunting dog house pet or service animal, if you’re not the leader then they will be and when the dog is the leader of the pack this more often than not will be a frustrating relationship and this is how many dogs end up at rescues, the pound or reside in pretty unbalanced households.
With years of working with animals from obedience to fun shows as a kid to horse training to cattle dogs and birddogs as an adult, one of the most important things I learned is that with dogs and horses they are pack animals and pack animals need a leader, and this imprinting needs to start as a young animal.
Leadership is very important and there is a Hugh difference between Leadership and dictatorship. Dictatorship is an over board control which leads to many undesired behaviors specially when your dealing which hunting dogs stickiness to lack of style to blinking birds.
Animals start to learn from imprinting at a very young age after the eyes and ears open around the 21st day they start with interaction amongst each other each day they play more and more with each other then between 4-5 weeks of age they also start to role play growling showing dominance and also subordinate roles. The 5-6 week old stage of life they start to become more self investigative and the things they learn start to become ingrained, at 6-7 weeks of age though pups go through many small changes you can start to see some long term traits which each pup will have as they mature barring any trauma which can cause some drastic changes but with a nurturing environment the basic being of a dog is there for the natural traits. Also through a nurturing environment one can actually help bring a young dog along to learning the desired traits. Some traits can be trained and or nurtured but the overall demeanor of a pup or dog is going to be an individual characteristic of that certain animal for instance, GENERALLY Speaking a dominant pup unless there is some super dramatic happening will always test their parameters where a soft submissive dog will do things to passively avoid and not do things the type training no matter which one will require a dog to learn to comply and in neither case will a heavy hand work, as far as letting a dog learn to comply for themselves regardless of what method any training must be done with getting a pup to learn with in their realm of their attention spans.
So when you bring them home as puppies you can start with simple things as laid out in puppy foundation and even the intro in to the field it can also be very helpful in laying a leader foundation from the start.
When you are imprinting and pre training a pup you will see as a pup matures they will go through different phases, from absorbing things you show them to testing parameters. At about the 8-12 week age you may see a fear stage set in for a week or so where a pup will become apprehensive during this time it is important not coddle any timid or scared behavior your best off just ignoring it making no issue either way this will imprint on the pup how to further react to situation. If you act like nothing is wrong that is what they will learn, if you are abrupt and yell they learn to fear situations and if you coddle the scared behavior they will learn a reward for the fear behavior.
It is also important to remember training as a pup to young dog is merely introduction work and should be made light easy small simple steps to success and do not set a time limit for your sessions, because as soon as you set a time limit on a session, you will have set up for failure. If you get a desired result on the first try quit especially when you first start training, this applies more so to puppies, but it also can apply to older dogs which are just starting a new training or a new thing once you get a desire behavior then stop let the dog have a time out. That time out back on the chain is just as important for you as it is the dog. If you have to make a back track to get a desired result your best off doing that. No matter If it takes one minute or 5 get the result in small steps don’t be afraid to stop and quit on a good note you can always build up. If you over work or make your sessions last longer then the pups attention span you can sour them out and they will not look forward to working sessions and that will make for harder training sessions down the road.
On a rough average a young pup through a year though they are always learning all the training during this time needs to be short sweet simple sessions and leave them wanting more. What you are doing during this time of life is actually putting in the building blocks towards a solid foundation. To apply full adult dog training on a young dog or a dog which isn’t mature enough will only result in a pressured dog which many undesired behaviors will show up in many ways, for bird dogs it can show up as a lack of intensity, blinking, burn out to name a few of many things which are directly caused by pushing a young dog to hard and to fast.
Once the dog matures and has properly learned commands then one can start to be a bit more demanding in training, such as asking for a command to be followed through for longer and longer amounts of time or more combining of commands taught such as here and whoa. But you still want to always end your session on a good note even if it means back tracking to something you know the dog does well on.
At about the 2 year old stage the dogs will go through another testing stage. So until a dog has tested and been corrected a couple of times they are still buying in to what your teaching them. They are still basically are in the learning process and the training will go through waves where they seem to understand things very well then one day it is like someone turns the switch off where you have to take some steps backwards to end a training session on a good note. Keeping things where a dog understands no matter what through repetition the dog starts to totally buy in to what you the leader really wants. So, until a dog has gone through these phases of the turn you off I forgot everything, and you have worked them through it letting them know what is expected from them with corrections at the times of breech of manners you will not have a broke dog. Even dogs which many would consider broke will one day test you, it is just in the animal’s nature to do so and when they have those momentary lapses and getting the corrections at the time of infractions that is what turns a dog in to that great trained dog trialers and hunters are proud of. But if those little tests that are not corrected at the time of infraction they can turn into undesired behaviors or what many would call un-training.
So being a good leader means you will correct the dog right as the infraction happens and never hold a grudge. Watch a momma dog with her obnoxious pup bouncing in her face she will quickly snarl and snap pup yelps mother is trotting on like nothing ever happened and pup has learn getting in moms face may not be the thing to do. If you remain on top your dogs training they will remain a good companion. If you keep your training sessions where you can set a dog up for success and in small steps, the learning curve will drastically go up.
Being a Leader or a friend to your dog that can make the difference between having that companion that looks to you as a leader with a “What we gonna do now boss?” behavior, Compared to a dog that has their own agenda and a “Yeah I will be right there” type behavior.
It doesn’t matter if you have hunting dog house pet or service animal, if you’re not the leader then they will be and when the dog is the leader of the pack this more often than not will be a frustrating relationship and this is how many dogs end up at rescues, the pound or reside in pretty unbalanced households.
With years of working with animals from obedience to fun shows as a kid to horse training to cattle dogs and birddogs as an adult, one of the most important things I learned is that with dogs and horses they are pack animals and pack animals need a leader, and this imprinting needs to start as a young animal.
Leadership is very important and there is a Hugh difference between Leadership and dictatorship. Dictatorship is an over board control which leads to many undesired behaviors specially when your dealing which hunting dogs stickiness to lack of style to blinking birds.
Animals start to learn from imprinting at a very young age after the eyes and ears open around the 21st day they start with interaction amongst each other each day they play more and more with each other then between 4-5 weeks of age they also start to role play growling showing dominance and also subordinate roles. The 5-6 week old stage of life they start to become more self investigative and the things they learn start to become ingrained, at 6-7 weeks of age though pups go through many small changes you can start to see some long term traits which each pup will have as they mature barring any trauma which can cause some drastic changes but with a nurturing environment the basic being of a dog is there for the natural traits. Also through a nurturing environment one can actually help bring a young dog along to learning the desired traits. Some traits can be trained and or nurtured but the overall demeanor of a pup or dog is going to be an individual characteristic of that certain animal for instance, GENERALLY Speaking a dominant pup unless there is some super dramatic happening will always test their parameters where a soft submissive dog will do things to passively avoid and not do things the type training no matter which one will require a dog to learn to comply and in neither case will a heavy hand work, as far as letting a dog learn to comply for themselves regardless of what method any training must be done with getting a pup to learn with in their realm of their attention spans.
So when you bring them home as puppies you can start with simple things as laid out in puppy foundation and even the intro in to the field it can also be very helpful in laying a leader foundation from the start.
When you are imprinting and pre training a pup you will see as a pup matures they will go through different phases, from absorbing things you show them to testing parameters. At about the 8-12 week age you may see a fear stage set in for a week or so where a pup will become apprehensive during this time it is important not coddle any timid or scared behavior your best off just ignoring it making no issue either way this will imprint on the pup how to further react to situation. If you act like nothing is wrong that is what they will learn, if you are abrupt and yell they learn to fear situations and if you coddle the scared behavior they will learn a reward for the fear behavior.
It is also important to remember training as a pup to young dog is merely introduction work and should be made light easy small simple steps to success and do not set a time limit for your sessions, because as soon as you set a time limit on a session, you will have set up for failure. If you get a desired result on the first try quit especially when you first start training, this applies more so to puppies, but it also can apply to older dogs which are just starting a new training or a new thing once you get a desire behavior then stop let the dog have a time out. That time out back on the chain is just as important for you as it is the dog. If you have to make a back track to get a desired result your best off doing that. No matter If it takes one minute or 5 get the result in small steps don’t be afraid to stop and quit on a good note you can always build up. If you over work or make your sessions last longer then the pups attention span you can sour them out and they will not look forward to working sessions and that will make for harder training sessions down the road.
On a rough average a young pup through a year though they are always learning all the training during this time needs to be short sweet simple sessions and leave them wanting more. What you are doing during this time of life is actually putting in the building blocks towards a solid foundation. To apply full adult dog training on a young dog or a dog which isn’t mature enough will only result in a pressured dog which many undesired behaviors will show up in many ways, for bird dogs it can show up as a lack of intensity, blinking, burn out to name a few of many things which are directly caused by pushing a young dog to hard and to fast.
Once the dog matures and has properly learned commands then one can start to be a bit more demanding in training, such as asking for a command to be followed through for longer and longer amounts of time or more combining of commands taught such as here and whoa. But you still want to always end your session on a good note even if it means back tracking to something you know the dog does well on.
At about the 2 year old stage the dogs will go through another testing stage. So until a dog has tested and been corrected a couple of times they are still buying in to what your teaching them. They are still basically are in the learning process and the training will go through waves where they seem to understand things very well then one day it is like someone turns the switch off where you have to take some steps backwards to end a training session on a good note. Keeping things where a dog understands no matter what through repetition the dog starts to totally buy in to what you the leader really wants. So, until a dog has gone through these phases of the turn you off I forgot everything, and you have worked them through it letting them know what is expected from them with corrections at the times of breech of manners you will not have a broke dog. Even dogs which many would consider broke will one day test you, it is just in the animal’s nature to do so and when they have those momentary lapses and getting the corrections at the time of infractions that is what turns a dog in to that great trained dog trialers and hunters are proud of. But if those little tests that are not corrected at the time of infraction they can turn into undesired behaviors or what many would call un-training.
So being a good leader means you will correct the dog right as the infraction happens and never hold a grudge. Watch a momma dog with her obnoxious pup bouncing in her face she will quickly snarl and snap pup yelps mother is trotting on like nothing ever happened and pup has learn getting in moms face may not be the thing to do. If you remain on top your dogs training they will remain a good companion. If you keep your training sessions where you can set a dog up for success and in small steps, the learning curve will drastically go up.