Bob loves to ice fish and wanted to see how thick the ice was. We loaded up his pups and off we went. When we got back, his wife Sue had cooked up an awesome dinner and we all had a very enjoyable evening until...
The show "When Good Pets Go Bad" came on.
Shows like "When Good Pets Go Bad" are like a car accident that you pass as you drive down the highway, you try to look away but you need to see what happened.
"When Good Pets Go Bad" comes on you start to watch it and before you know it an hour has gone by, youre sitting there in disbelief, with a bad taste in your mouth because you have just observed some truly horrific stuff.
It does not surprise me when I see the national statistics for dog bites. Shows like When Good Pets Go Bad do not shock me the way they used to. As someone who makes his living working with pets I have seen first hand how dogs are treated and I am NOT talking about the pet owners.
I talking about the trainers. I have seen first hand how some dogs are trained. I have seen dogs choked, hung, beaten, shocked, slammed, and I could share some horror stories with you that you would make you ill.
In a lot of ways, dog trainers cause more problems than help. Look at some of the books on dog training, I wont mention any names here but one of the most popular dog training books was written by a guy that says you should carry a wooden stick in your back pocket. If the dog "acts up" use the stick to whack the dog across the nose.
This guy was the trainer for Walt Disney studios back in the 1960s - scary.
On the show "When Good Pet Go Bad," they show actual footage of elephants being beaten with slicks and whipped with chains, not to mention the awful conditions that they live in.
Why is it so hard to convince some people that dog training does not have to be harsh? What is the big deal about rewarding behavior, especially with a treat?
Behavior is reward driven. Relationships that are strong and lasting are developed though love and patience not anger, pain and dominance.
I know, Im starting to sound like an animal activist. Im not. I also believe that punishment, used correctly, can be an effective form of behavior modification - notice I said used correctly.
Punishment is often doled out when we are angry or upset with our dogs. Punishment is often associated with the owner and not the behavior and the timing is almost always wrong.
In my book "The Amazing Dog Training Man," I discuss the chalk board theory which basically goes like this:
On the top left side you write the word negative. On the right side you write the word positive.
Now every time you do something negative to your dog ie., scruff shake, leash correction, yell, smack, etc, you write a - in that column. Every time you do something positive to your dog ie., give your dog a treat, play ball, play tug, etc you put a + in the positive column. It would look something like this:
Negative Positive
- - + +
- - - - + + +
- - + +
As you look at the board you should have way more + signs that - signs on the board. If you have more - signs than + signs you have a problem.
Add up enough - signs and guess what...there is a good chance you will start to see aggressive behavior.
Its not rocket science. Raise a kid by beating him and yeling and screaming, theres a very good chance that hell grow up to be an aggressive person.
Take a kid and rasie him with love and patience and theres a good chance that hell grow up to be the same way.
Dogs that have been trained with hitting, "Alpha roll overs," choke chains, and electronic collars run a very good chance that they will become aggressive.
Most of the pets in "When Good Pets Go Bad" have had a lot of negative experiences and look what happens. Every person and every animal has a breaking point. Your tolerance level for certain activities may be higher than mine.
My girlfriend never, ever gets mad at other drivers. She can get cut off, stuck behind slow drivers, traffic, whatever, she never gets upset or angry.
Me on the other hand, I dont have her tolerance for driving. Some days are better than others but I can be frustrated much more easily than she is.
Training has to be done by spending the majority of time rewarding behavior. The only way we are going to see the number of dog bites go down in the United States is by changing the way we train dogs.
We can change the way we train or we can continue to hear about and watch shows where dogs are attacking and in some cases killing people.
Wouldnt it be great if we could turn on the TV and see a show "When Bad Pets Go Good"?
As always I look forward to your comments.
Peace,
Eric
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar