My Home, My Rules
Dogs have different behaviour patterns compared to us. It is a fact. Actually there are innumerable behaviour patterns among humans as well, simply because we have different personalities, skills, attitudes, behaviours, habits and cultural backgrounds. The decisions we make also differs in each case. When the same situation happens to different individuals it is really rare that the reaction of each of us is 100% the same. That is how we work simply because of our differences. A dog should fit into our tremendously varying world, while being able to meet the diverse expectations of its owner or even the whole household.
A well-trained dog matters. We keep pets as companions and expect them to smooth into our everyday life without causing a huge disturbance. We would like them to know how to behave and how to avoid undesired reactions or responses. When we return home we would like to find the couch in exactly the same condition as we left in the morning, instead of being ripped to pieces. We prefer our carpet to remain dry instead of being soaked with dog urine. When we go out for a walk we want to feel proud of our pet socialising well with other dogs, and also humans, instead of its hectically and uncontrollably jumping on or even attacking others.
Uncontrollable dogs cause a huge issue in our society. Trainers, blogs, TV programmes all try to offer solutions based on various approaches to fix spoiled dogs and reintegrate them into their household. In the worst case scenario, misbehaved dogs are just simply thrown onto the street as their owners give up on them and their naughtiness.
There have been many different – and sometimes contrary – ideas about the easiest and best way to train dogs. There are different schools of training absolutely promising the success of their specific method, claiming to be the only one delivering the required outcome. But which one do you choose when you are planning ahead to prevent your home from a potential little devil or when a dog has already had behavioural problems and handling it becomes totally impossible? How do you know which one to choose?
My Dog is Not Your Dog
Dogs are fantastic creatures. Assuming they do not bear any serious mental disorders, they are absolutely capable of interacting with humans and trying to predict what the one standing on his or her two legs wants and expects to be done. Interaction is the key phrase, as it means that the communication and reaction between the two participants needs to go in both directions with a mutual impact.
The result of dog training can be separated into two different aspects. The first is when one gives instructions and the dog acts to follow the instruction. The second is much more complex, where a dog is able to thoroughly evaluate an ongoing situation and automatically knows how it should react and behave. Developing and crafting the personality of the dog this second aspect is a complex issue. However, many of the pet owners make a major, fatal mistake: they think a dog is just a dog and that such a thing as a general guide book on how to train ‘a dog’ is all that is needed.
The education of dogs with the intention of placing them into the human world – or you can call it training – is about building up an expected behaviour pattern based on the traits of the particular dog. And I mean the exact dog we are talking about. We want this dog to behave appropriately, leaving behind unwanted behavioural issues. We are talking about one specific dog, not the neighbour’s dog, a dog from the park, or our friends’ dogs.
There are significant behaviour differences between breeds and even there are differences between individuals within the same breed. As humans differ, dogs do also. And what is a highly effective approach for one may be totally hopeless for others. First of all you have to consider the general behaviour and attitude of the exact dog defined by its genes. There are further characteristics like temper, capability of memory and logic or even stubbornness. And all of these elements vary on a wide scale regarding the level of ability.
All of these traits matter and must be taken into consideration when we are talking about behaviour and the decision-making process of a dog. You cannot neglect the process of decision-making since behaviour itself is the end result of a decision. What matters is how a dog gets to its conclusion in any situation, and how that conclusion leads the dog to act accordingly. All the different traits have an effect on how the dog decides to react in a certain situation and how it manifests in either acting correctly or an absolutely unacceptable way.
The term for this diversity and complexity of traits in dogs is known as the ‘cognitive profile’ by those scientists who are conducting experiments to comprehend the behaviour and the ‘mind’ of dogs.
Just as not every child can be a good dancer or a gold medal Olympic swimmer, so too not every dog can do the same ‘tricks’. And especially not through the same method.
First Step of Education
Training a dog is a long-term and continuous, ongoing process. If someone attends a training school with others then he or she is definitely one step closer to a better fellowship with his or her dog. However the learning process of a dog cannot be limited to a single course of a training school for some hours per week. There are also regular, boring everyday routines when nothing special happens, but they still cannot be overlooked.
If we accept the fact that one dog is absolutely unique compared to any other dog (and vice versa) it is apparent that each dog needs a tailored training based on its own traits. But in order to build up such an educational strategy for any dog, the dog-lover first needs to become familiar with the ‘personality’ of his or her dog. To teach a dog, first it is the owner who must be trained. The more time a person spends together with his or her dog, the more essential information he or she can access about how that dog really works, behaves, thinks and reacts to different situations. Preferably all dog keepers should first know the pros and cons of their own particular dog before they start to change its behaviour.
There is an additional element to be considered. Whether the everyday conditions a dog is expected to face is beneficial to its mental health? Many behavioural disorders root from inappropriate environmental conditions. One can attend the training school every weekend and spend many hours there, yet still be leaving the dog on its own without any challenging activities and lack of stimulus, which is a common root of problems. The dog may still wreck the house due to spending the rest of the week on its own without any tasks to complete. Dogs have always had duties in their lives and they constantly need something to keep them busy not only physically, but mentally as well. Situations can develop where no amount of training can ever solve a behavioural issue if the misbehaviour of the dog is rooted in the fact that it is not kept under conditions appropriate to its nature.
Different Methods, Different Debates
Each dog is unique, and if you or I fail to consider this vital fact when attempting to teach one dog how to behave, we will definitely face difficulties. The question has remained unanswered: which school or method is the best? You can read and listen to so many determined points of view contrasting different approaches on how to train a dog.
Most of the training methods are based on the experiences of the trainers. This is the ancient learning process of the human, when we experience what works out and what does not. Luckily dog behavioural sciences have started to rapidly evolve. During the last ten years we have been gaining more scientifically proven facts through experiments, instead of based solely on observation and experience, than ever before. We had many ideas about how and why dogs behave as they do. Many of these theories were proven to be right, but in some cases we had to realise that dogs make decisions and behave differently or in a more complex way than we ever assumed.
The answer for our question, ‘which training approach is the best’ is this: at the moment, none. The ultimate ‘user guide’ for understanding and teaching dogs is still under process and probably will never be fully written. Each dog is unique, each has advantages and each of them has flaws to be taken into account. Different methods can be effective for individual dogs to achieve the same behavioural outcome. One approach can be highly effective in one case and can turn out to be absolutely useless in others. It is self-deluding idea that there is one single step-by-step guide valid for training all dogs.
And which trainer is the best? The owner who realises that he or she is the one who lives with the dog and is eager to get to know its behaviour, habits and even understands and accepts the negative side of his or her own pet. This attitude demands the owner spends sufficient time together with his or her dog to learn about its behaviour as much as possible. Productive socialisation can never happen otherwise.
Certainly one can hire a professional with massive experience and hopefully up-to-date knowledge based on modern scientific discovery. But the one who holds the leash on a regular basis is the key. A personal trainer or a trainer in a training group can only can give guidance, but the majority of the work is undertaken by the owner, and not exclusively during the class, but during those boring everyday routines when the dog starts to pick up all those new behaviour patterns.
There is an additional, significant yet mostly forgotten aspect of dog training. One can experiment with many training methods, but there is one which is absolutely essential not to neglect: self-education comes first, training of dogs second. A human educating a dog without proper knowledge about dogs can lead to all those general problems we can find worldwide. Always remember: each dog has unique traits. And if it misbehaves, then the human holding the leash bears the ultimate responsibility.
Images: Dreamstime
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