It is always compared dogs to wolves and that is exactly what I will do to explain why dominance-methods are useless. You see, in a wolfpack there is the alpha male and alpha female who are the only ones to mate and have puppies. But when said puppies grow up they help the alpha-pair to raise the upcoming litters of puppies. Siblings taking care of siblings. Parents and children. The reason why the pack gains on helping raising the puppies is because they get a stronger pack and can take down larger prey, but also because the puppies carry the same genes as the siblings. They ensure their bloodlines survival this way.
Seeing it from this perspective, the pack would not gain at all from members attacking eachother, wounding eachother in battles for the alpha role, and not being able to trust eachother. They trust the leaders (alpha female steers the females and alpha male steers the males) and they follow them. Leader/follower. And dogs, just like people, like having someone to guide them and not have the responsibility for the packs/family's survival. The wolves stick together as a team, and everybody help out in their own way, which is why they are such a powerful dynamic. They all know what to do. Young wolves sometimes wander off to find themselves a mate to start their own pack or to become "lone wolves". Alternatively, young males sometimes team up in waiting to find their chance of a new territory and create their own pack.
What I am trying to say is, dogs are not baboons where there is one male and several females where other males attack all the time to take the position as the "top dog" to spread his genes to the next generation.
With this said, I will now break down the meaning of the word leadership. A leader is someone who leads. This means that a good leader is not the meanest and bossiest bully, it is the one who leads to success. The meaning of "follower" does not always mean walking behind unless you have that as a rule. I prefer having my dogs infront of me so I can see them and I do a lot of trustwork before I have them unleashed. Eventhough they walk infront of me they are still waiting for my directions. I tell them to stop, come, wait, turn around, go left, go right, continue forward and I got no aggression issues. They do have ranks among eachother but no agression whatsoever.
You have to be a pack leader, but the true meaning is that you have to be the parent. You teach it right from wrong, you tell them when it's time to go to outside and play. You make sure they eat right and stay healthy. You take them to the doctor (well, in this case, veterinarian) if they are sick. As long as you are a good parent and keeps the dog safe and is consistant and fair with your rules, it will never act out on you. (Example: One consistancy is to never be on the furniture. Another is to only be there when you give an "ok". But if the dog breaks this rule, be fair. I dont mean you to be mean, I mean tell it to go down from there and praise when it does so. Dogs are capable of asking for permission.) But if you constantly pick on the dog, it will not trust you and may feel as if it has to defend itself against you. This is not good leadership, this is creating an insecure stressed dog.
What you also have to be, is a good teacher. The dog is your student and if the dog does not get it then you need to find some other way to teach it. But I will bring this topic up at a later point.
Most of the time when people think they got aggressive dogs is when the dog is a puppy or teenager. Puppies use their mouths to see the world with. They just like toddlers have to touch everything they see. They also play with their mouths with their siblings and when they get wind up at around bedtime they can bite pretty hard. If you don't know how to handle this then it will continue doing this when it is a teenager and possibly adult with larger size, larger teeth and stronger jaws. This training is a lot like the "You do not hit people" training with kids. I will bring this up later too, or this post will be too long.
I will also bring up:
- clickertraining
- how to guide your dog to success
- how to save money on grooming
- how to deal with stress
- how to deal with an insecure dog and build confidence
- risks with neutering your dog
- what to think about when buying a dog
- and so much more!
I am in no way picking on Cesar Millan as a person. He saves a lot of dog lives who are on the brick of death. But I truly wanted to get this knowledge out there. I will through this blog bring up how you can make it right from the start, and how you can correct problems and errors with some patience, time and effort.
How you can have a life in harmony with your dog, where he truly is your best friend and you are one solid team. A true pack!
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