My profession has left me a little cynical. I believe that in order to protect our dogs, we must train them for the stupidest human as accident prevention.
Never underestimate the stupidity of a human, and what unfair thing they might do to your dog. Train your dog for every possible scenario that your over-imaginative mind can create, which will prepare him for what ‘might’ happen. You cannot train for every scenario but you can get your dog so desensitized to stupidity that they become bomb-proof.
If you continually do ridiculous things to your dogs, and reward with giant food-rewards, eventually they will look forward for the next idiotic tortuous thing that you do to them.
One memorable stupid-person encounter that still makes me shiver was a man who grabbed my malinois by the cheeks and gave her a kiss on the nose. My dog looked so stunned that she failed to have any response. I too was too stunned to have a response. We got off lucky. Or, should I say our training paid off….
Don`t just train your dog for nice, appropriate people or you are failing your dog. Teach him that people will do ridiculously stupid things to him, and that he can overcome them without the need for teeth. Only do these things to your dog yourself, and always reward with a giant meatball, or equivalent reward, to make the torture worth while.
In no way am I suggesting that people should torture your dog for training, nor that you should allow people to be unfair to your dog in public. Make sure your dog is always protected by you. No dog should have to tolerate any rude behaviour from stupid people. We must do everything in our power to protect our dogs from unfair situations.
In the event that a stupid-person completely takes you by surprise like they did to me, pray that your training will give you two to three seconds before a bite or bad response. With that little bit of time, you can get in there and take control of the situation and protect your dog.
If you find that ‘accidents’ and ‘stupid people’ keep happening to your dog, it means that you are putting your dog into unfair situations and not doing your job. You and your dog should be a team, out exploring the world together, and watching each other’s backs. If events like this happen more than once or twice a decade – your are not watching your dog’s back and protecting him sufficiently.
In our litigious world that we live in today, we must be very careful with our dogs. While we will train them to expect food immediately after torture to hopefully get us out of a dicey situation if it ever happens, we must do our best to honour our dog’s rights, and prevent those bad things from happening.
This training might just give you three seconds that can both save your dog’s life, and your home and bank-account. For the minimal effort that it takes to train, your pay-off might be exponential if you ever underestimate the stupidity of a person.
Monique Anstee
Monique with Basil Tervuren (# 3 Herding in Canada) and Hilda Irish Terrier (# 9 Terrier in Canada)
The Naughty Dogge is a dog training school located in Victoria, BC. We truly are dog-trainers and competitors, bringing out the best in any dog, regardless of breed and issues. That means we teach competitive agility, Freestyle Dancing, Competition Obedience, Retrain Dog Aggressive Dogs, Teach Puppy Classes and Pet Dogs to be perfect citizens, and work with behaviour problems. There is probably not an issue that we havn´t retrained! This newsletter is copyright to Monique Anstee, April 2010 and may be reprinted with full credit given to Monique Anstee at info@naughtydogge.com. You can contact us at 250.590.2664
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