All over the world (specifically North America) and across the internet, the same things are happening. Everyone is saying the same thing. A lot of pointless click and feed, slap an e-collar on for a four, six, eight week board and train, use this harness to stop pulling, use higher value treats, use a higher level on the e-collar. It goes on and on.
If your relationship is an equation what does it look like? How does it add up TO THE DOG? What I see is, please bear with me
Here is our equation glossary:
Right now, this is you in daily life with your dog: 🙈🙉🙊 🤬😵😩😑😢😩🥰
You don't know what don't know and that's not your fault. Don't beat yourself up.
You're angry and frustrated, confused and defeated by all the information out there, you still love them obviously and you just want what's best for them. What owner doesn't?
You should be like this with your dog and you CAN be like this:🙂
🍱 is the dogs regular food
❤️ is affection- petting, belly rubs, words of praise
✋🏼 is NEUTRAL physical touch
✂️🧼 is grooming- brushing, washing, drying, nails, ears, teeth
🧠 is mental training- getting the dog to use it's brain rather than it's body
🏋🏼♂️ is physical training like conditioning
🥓 is "high" value treats
🧸🎮 is toys and games (tug, fetch etc)
⚡🔋🔗 is the e-collar/prong collar
🐿️ is chasing animals like squirrels- in the yard or on a walk
⚽🏆 is dog sports/clubs like agility, obedience, flyball, bitework and so on
🐕🏞️is the dog park/daycare
🧩😋 is puzzle bowls, licky mats and other forms of "enrichment"
To clarify, obedience and training it is a combination of mental and physical work and proper food use is very effective in teaching but it is NOT to be relied on.
What is common and unfortunate to see today is an equation that looks something like this:
🐕+🐕🏞️+🏋🏼♂️+⚽🏆+⚡🔋+🐿️+✂️🧼+🧸🎮+🥓+🍱+❤️+🙈🙉🙊
Look closely at this. What do you see?
I see 🐕 and all these things getting in-between the owner over here > 🙈🙉🙊
All these things ADD to the static and confusion between you and your dog when you haven't put the work into the foundation of the relationship. If you take a new dog home and immediately go to dog parks, dog sports like agility, they WILL start to develop behaviour problems and the common go to solution is equipment like the E-collar or try using more treats. The real, long term solution here is to stop and remove the things that are contributing/creating the problems! Then begin the rehab work to eliminate those behaviours and change how we communicate with the dog. Additionally, grooming is usually done by someone else and generally there is a lack of neutral physical touch
When we get a new puppy or older dog home for the first time it should look like this:
🙂+🐕+✋🏼+✂️+❤️
Then, depending on your lifestyle and goals with the dog, somethings will be added out of necessity like a crate, leash and collar, food during training. Personally, in most cases, I don't use treats, especially "high value" ones- I feed raw so I will get portions of their daily meal and use that or get a medium bag of higher quality kibble and use that as "treats."
Over time it will start to look something like:
🙂+🧠+🐕+❤️+🍱 with ✋🏼+✂️🧼 being done separately
Maybe we go to
🙂+🧠+🧸🎮+🐕+🍱
After awhile it may look like
🙂+🧠+🧸🎮+🐕+❤️
I notice that the games are creating a problem so we go back with a slight variation
🙂+🧠+🐕=🍱and❤️
Sometime later it will look like something like this
🙂+🧠+🧸🎮+🐕+🏋🏼♂️=🍱and❤️ = ☯️
My goal is have a cooperative relationship and clear understanding between the dog and I to avoid developing behavioural issues that I would have to come back to later and solve BEFORE moving to something like dog sports and more general freedoms. So when the dog comes out it should look like this from the dogs perspective:
🐕🧠🙂 = the dog thinking of me FIRST and what I want from them. This is the original working relationship we have with canines. Dogs have, can and will HAPPILY and willfully work for humans. This is the service mindset.
This dynamic leads to ❤️🍱 at the very least and if it isn't detrimental to the long term goals we can add🧸🎮🏋🏼♂️
Now we have this solid foundation- our world is wide open and we start our adventure together. With our new equation looking like
🙂+🐕+🧠+❤️+🍱+🏋🏼♂️+🧸🎮
We can add stuff now.
🙂+🐕+🧠+🍱+⚽+🏀+⚾+🏈+🎾+🏒+🏐+🏉+🥅+🏊🏼♂️+🏃🏼♂️+🚴🏼♂️+🏆 +🥾⛰️
Please take the time to look at each of these. The order they are laid out is very intentional- because just like with real math, our relationship math, the order of operations matters and if we don't get the order right, you might not like the answer you come up with and if you don't really pull it apart and change it, you'll always be trading one wrong answer for another.
In the first one
🐕+🐕🏞️+🏋🏼♂️+⚽🏆+⚡🔋+🐿️+✂️🧼+🧸🎮+🥓+🍱+❤️+🙈🙉🙊
The dog comes first and there are all these different things inbetween you that are confusing and working against you.
When we start to pull it apart and start over, it's a much smaller and simpler equation.
🙂+🐕+✋🏼+✂️
You and the dog come first and some of the first things we do with the dog (Neutral physical touch and grooming) serve to start the foundation of the relationship and where the dog sees itself in it.
As we get to know the dog and go on with training, we want the dog to use it's brain, specifically, for us and using food is one of the most effective and efficient ways to do this.
🙂+🧠+🐕+🍱
Remember that thinking comes BEFORE food. Food is payment.
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