Today I want to talk about dog owner attitudes, and how to have the appropriate attitude for your pet. Having a good attitude is key to bringing goodness and happiness into your lives.
The attitude Cesar Millan promotes is, "Be the pack leader." He blames bad behavior on dog parents who are too soft and have unwittingly let their dog be the one in charge. To fix this, he says, you must take back control and let your dog know who's boss.
"Be the pack leader" is basing your whole relationship with your dog on a power struggle between the two of you. It's adversarial, not cooperative. This attitude scares people into thinking they need to show their dog who's boss. It promotes many otherwise kind people to take and unkind tone to, and sometimes an unkind hand to their dogs. Worse, it gives unkind people an excuse.
There's something attractive to us about watching Cesar Millan run around showing those dogs who's boss. That dog that peed on your carpet? Show him who's boss! That dog that doesn't sit when you ask? Show him who's boss! In fact, for anything your dog does that you don't like, even if it's your fault, show him who's boss! Tsssst! Tsssssssst!
Does this sound healthy to you?
Here's the thing, when you learn to be a good dog parent, your dog will know who's boss. You have all the advantages and he thinks you're really cool. You are (usually) bigger. You have these wonderful arms and fingers to do stuff with. You can open and bring the food. You can open doors. In fact, you seem pretty much in control of everything, and he's well aware of it.
Some owners ignore their dogs, don't feed them, don't walk them, and don't play with them. In this case the dog may be living it's own life. And if this person now wants to be a part of his life, well, this dog has a schedule. He's used to something totally different. So what should this person do? Stop ignoring, start feeding, start walking, and start playing. Make it fun and give it time. Unfortunately those owners rarely change.
Fortunately if you've read this far, you are probably not one of those owners. Your dog doesn't think he's the "pack leader". So don't worry about it. If you feel nervous, trainers recommend feeding your dog once or twice a day for 15 minutes instead of leaving the food out. That will only be good for your dog. If you don't play with your dog much, just be sure to have a little play session a couple of times a day. He just wants to be around you, so let him be near you.
You don't need this negative attitude that you have something to prove to your dog. If your dog pees inside, you're not a good potty trainer, yet. If your dog doesn't sit, then you're not a good sit trainer, yet. Both of these things are easily done, but they just take time and learning.
So put away the cans of coins, stop tsssst-ing to your dog, sit down, relax, and gather your thoughts. The first thing you can do is stop being mean to your dog. When you see him doing something you like, or peeing outside, say, "good dog!" Be really happy when he does something good, or even when he's just not doing something bad. Do this all day every day.
Now that's an attitude change, from "bad dog" to "good dog". It's going to feel weird, but once you get used to it, you're going to love it!
If your dog pees inside all day and you don't know how to stop it, just ignore it. There are three facts that you're going to have to accept here. 1. Your dog pees inside. 2. You have no idea how to fix it. 3. Punishing him will not fix it and may make it worse.
So let it go, and praise your dog for the good things he does. I've been hinting at the right attitude to have. It's to love your dog, to give your dog plenty of opportunity to succeed, and to praise your dog for any and all success. Potty training, sitting, rolling over, everything will be accomplished through this attitude. Am I saying that one sentence is all there is? Yes. For a normal dog owner like you, definitely yes!
And now is the time for learning how to apply this attitude. There are positive ways to potty train your dog. Teaching your dog to sit, down, and wait? Super easy!
We're going to explore a lot of these ideas in the future, but I'll tell you what you can do now. Find a dog training class for you and your dog that uses positive methods such as luring (call them and ask.) Go and have fun. It may just change your life, it changed mine.
I don’t agree with your idea at all. You are forgetting that dogs, as a species, function in a hierarchy. A dog immediately seeks to determine his status in any pack.
I have four dachshunds. Whenever one has been away from the other three for any length of time, upon returning he is sniffed by his pack mates. They need to determine: “O.K., you’re back. Are you sick or injured? Has your status in our pack changed? Meet any cuties? Get any action? Get any treats?”
Allowing a dog to urinate in your house without setting rules, boundaries and limitations is unacceptable. Period.
Hey, thanks for commenting! It’s nice to get feedback.
It sounds like you’ve done your reading on Cesar Millan. I have too. We’ll be covering Cesar a lot on this blog. Stick around, you might find it interesting.
I’m not suggesting anyone “let” a dog urinate in the house long term. I’m suggesting people realize that punishing their dog for that is not effective.
That’s not at all controversial, it’s common knowledge that punishment does not help with housetraining. I’m suggesting people accept they do not know how to housetrain, take a break from punishing their dogs (when it is clearly not working), and learn the correct way to housetrain. Of course the dog is going to keep going inside until the owner learns to train them, but he’s going to do that whether they punish or not. So they shouldn’t.
People commonly turn to punishment when they don’t know what to do. I’m saying turn to learning instead. Punishment is not better than doing nothing. It’s worse than doing nothing.
We’ll get into a good way to housetrain a dog another day.
I think Cesar Millan’s attitude is to be Calm and Assertive. Discipline, Exercise then Affection.
Discipline: Not allowing your dog to pee/poop in the house, by making sure the dog has plenty of time to potty OUTSIDE.
Not ignoring the situation. If you dog does potty inside…AND YOU CATCH HIM IN THE ACT, then you pick him/take him outside, and tell him NO POTTY OUTSIDE, as you are taking him there. Once there and he does it. THEN you praise!! You do this all in a CALM manner and not a MAD/FRUSTRATED/UPSET manner.
Exercise: Make sure you dog gets walked/played with frequently, so he is releasing as much energy as possible and doing GOOD things. That way, he doesn’t get into “BAD” stuff as much.
Affection: Once you have completed these steps yes, you feel free to love on your dog. Your dog is NOT bad all the time, so you can pet him/love him with food, water and plenty of hugs.
THAT is what Cesar is talking about being the Pack Leader.
Your version of potty training sounds fairly healthy. And exercise is certainly a good thing, it’s a quick easy way to achieve better behavior. No trainer would argue against that.
But I think you’ve combined your own common sense with Cesar’s statements to sort of find a balance, and that’s good. You sound like a good dog owner to me.
But think about someone not like you, who maybe doesn’t have as much common sense. Someone who watches Cesar’s show or reads his books might think their dog is peeing to assert pack dominance. In response to this they might put their dog in an alpha roll. Why wouldn’t they? Cesar does it all the time. And as Cesar says you have to “be the pack leader!”
And yet that would be completely counter productive.
Thanks for commenting, btw!
Well I’ll take that as a compliment! I actually most got all that from watching Cesar and reading books…I actually NEVER thought peeing was an assert of pack dominance…
Being a pack leader doesn’t mean that you are mean to your dogs…think what leading means – being in front.
No I don’t agree with EVERYTHING Cesar EVER has said..but for the most part, what he does is common sense!
The biggest part of being a pack leader is your ENERGY.
From your writing it seems that you were not presenting CALM energy, but frustration! Which as I’m sure you know is the wrong way to approach any situation.
BElieve me I’ve been in situations where my dog did not see me as her leader, and she wrapped me around her little finger. What made it worse was we are were in the public eye a lot, and I looked very incompetent. She was a guide dog in training, and I took her to classes with me. I’m sure my teachers were scratching their heads.
But after a dose of Cesars Way, the next semester, I walked in with my head held high,calm only thinking (POSITIVE THOUGHTS) and even I was amazed, how she respected me, and was so much more wiling to please. We had an awesome semester and I was glad to know that i had done my best.
And truly I was/am the pack leader!
Ok wow that was waayy longer than intended! Sorry about that!