Do you have a gentle dog? I have worked with a lot of very gentle dogs. You better know what kind of dog you have before you implement a training program, otherwise your dog is going to fail, and you are going to fail.
I met one this past weekend, a 1-year-old female Doodle. She’s a nice girl, affectionate, not troublesome. The main issue is that she pulls the owner down the street on a walk.
Leash pulling is a common problem of untrained dogs. They are happy to go for walks, a lot of interesting things are up ahead, and they have desensitized to pulling hard as they go forward.
But, then factor in the gentle part. This is where a lot of owners, and trainers, mess up. So many today think they need to assert their “dominance” on all dogs, and they try it with these dogs. What they get is a dog that still pulls, but also a dog that shuts down.
You can test this with a treat. Have the dog on a leash outside the house, walk them a few yards, and try to give them a treat. If this same dog would eat that treat indoors, but outdoors, turns their head away and won’t take the treat, you might have such a dog. Now, take the dog inside and try to get the dog to take the treat, or do most anything, such as Sit. With these dogs now, they have already given up. They will turn away, not take the treat, and many will just now remain immobile or lay down.
If you have a dog like this, then STOP. What you are doing with your dog on a day-to-day basis is wrong. Your “dominance” approach is like a repressive threat by a superior ranked wolf to a lower ranked wolf. You’ve won the contest, but you are losing your dog. In a wolf pack, this kind of repression prevents lower ranked wolves from taking initiative regarding many things in the group. With rats, and other rodents, such pressure will not only stress them out, but they will also stop reproducing, they won’t eat as much, and if forced into proximity in a cage, they will get sick and die. For dogs, they don’t die, they just shut down.
Furthermore, you are blowing it if you hire a trainer that walks in the door and on the first lessons is introducing this dog to an electric collar, or some kind of “dog whisperer” approach. That will really shut your dog down, possibly damaging your dog permanently. Likewise, if you browbeat your dog, especially a gentle dog, you will wreck your dog.
I explained this to my student. I showed them what they should be doing at this stage to draw this dog out, to get her to persist instead of quitting. It will take gentle persuasion, and she does have some good traits that we can build upon, but it will take time to build this dog. The repressive command approach that this owner had done on previous dogs was backfiring, and they took good notes during our first session to start over again properly.
Do you have a gentle dog? I assume every dog I meet is going to be that way, even the boisterous ones, until proven otherwise. Most people are too heavy handed with their untrained dogs and set back the training from the very start. The training must be rebooted, and remedial steps need to be taken to head the dog in the right direction and to solve the known problems and to make good progress in the future. If you have such a dog, then it is time to schedule with a professional to figure out what to do.
You need to emotionally connect with all dogs. You need to read how your dog is dealing with whatever you are exposing them to. To not recognize how the dog is perceiving what you are doing is how to fail with your dog.
Plan accordingly.