This post was originally going to be titled "Common Mistakes People Make with Their Dogs," but I decided that title sounded like I was saying that I am outside this group of mistake-making people. I am not. I make mistakes all the time. When I think about some of them, it feels like when you look through your Facebook memories and see something that you posted when you were 12 and thought you were cool. While I could obsess over my regret of how I acted in the past, I instead choose to look at how much I have grown since then.
1) Dog Parks
When Troy was a puppy, I took him to dog parks a couple of times. I quickly learned that it was not a good idea for him to go and stopped taking him. Have you ever heard someone say, "They're dogs; they'll sort it out," or "They're just establishing who the alpha is," or something along those lines? Yeah, I had too.
Baby Troy in a free-for-all play setting.
Troy was a bully when he was younger (he is a bull terrier, after all...), meaning that he was pushy in his play, he did not care if the other dog was having fun as long as he was, and he did not allow his play partners the opportunity to get back up once he tackled them down. To my credit, I did follow him around the dog park vigilantly and interrupted him whenever he was playing inappropriately, but it wasn't until another dog owner wanted me to allow Troy to continue tackling her lab puppy to the ground that I started to reconsider whether bringing him was even a good idea at all. She said one of those "they'll figure it out" lines and was upset when I insisted on stopping my dog from bullying hers.
What I eventually figured out was that Troy needed to play with dogs who were confident enough to tell him off when he was being rude. I introduced him to my friend's dogs, Synder and Blayze. If Troy was a jerk, they told him so in no uncertain terms, and then they moved on. This is exactly what he needed. I am incredibly lucky that he did not meet a dog who attacked him in response to his rude puppy behaviour. His rude behaviour was pretty standard for an adolescent dog too. Most adolescent dogs are rude, and they need to play with confident, appropriate, adult dogs in order to learn some manners.
Unfortunately, dog parks contain dogs with all sorts of behaviours. Some play inappropriately, and their rude behaviour continues or even escalates at dog parks. Some dogs are under-confident and, even if the dog park only has really nice dogs, the number of dogs could be overwhelming. A young puppy may be repeatedly bullied and grow up to feel anxious around other dogs as a result. People also bring their dog aggressive dogs to the dog park, knowing full well that their dog starts fights, and your dog could be on the receiving end of that.
I have heard some stories about really nice dog parks in other places, but I have not personally found one anywhere. I steer clear from them and suggest others do too. If you are going to use them, definitely exercise caution.
2) Trying to Be the Alpha
Thankfully I know better now, but words like "dominant" and "alpha" were things I heard a lot before I was a dog trainer. Until I learned about behaviour, I thought those words were important if you wanted to raise your dog right. When I was a first-time puppy owner, a co-worker let me borrow her Dog Whisperer DVDs, the trainer in my Petsmart puppy class suggested training techniques like alpha rolls, and random people on the street told me that I needed things like prong collars in order to be a good dog owner. I am now embarrassed to say that I took some (thankfully not all) of this advice for a while.
Not only did that advice not help, it actually made things worse. I also did not like using this kind of training. I had gotten a puppy because I liked dogs, and all this methodology was doing was creating conflict between us. We were both frustrated all the time. I branched out and took some courses about dog training so that I could find another way to train, saw how much more effective it was, and started to like training.
My sister, Emma, using treats and kindness to win over a group of doggos.
Training with force and intimidation sucks. You have to be mean to your dog. Even when it does work, it's because your dog is scared. I love my dogs, and I would be heartbroken if they were scared of me. It also often does not work, and your dog will start to avoid you in order to avoid punishment. It's pretty hard to teach someone who is trying to avoid you. Not only can it lead to avoidance, it can also lead to behaviour issues like aggression, reactivity, and extreme fear due to the stress your dog is under. These are things I think everyone wants to avoid when training. Thankfully, there is another, more-effective way to train: with positive reinforcement.
3) Training When My Dogs Are Not Enjoying It
I think it's pretty clear that I love training dogs. However, just because I feel motivated to teach my dog something does not mean they feel the same way. My dog may be sore, tired, stressed, etc., and have the need for some downtime. We may even start a training session while they are into it, but then train for too long, leaving them feeling all of those things but now also bored and frustrated. It can be challenging to choose not to train when you are excited about teaching your dog a new thing, but sometimes it is necessary to take a rain check or end a session earlier than you anticipated. My personal solution to this problem has been to get more dogs so I can usually find someone who is up for a training session at any given time.
I have also made this mistake when it came to classes and trials. A couple of years ago, Zero and I were taking a class that neither one of us was enjoying. There was a dog in the class that kept getting away from the owner and charging at us. Zero was the smallest dog in the class, so he was the easiest target. Since I had paid for the class, I did not want to stop attending. I decided not to sign up for the next session and stay behind a barrier for the remainder of this class. When the barrier did not work, Zero and I left the ring when it was not his turn. I should have just cut my losses and stopped going. We were both too stressed to have any fun, and Zero actually got worse at some things because his worry had him focusing on where that dog was in the room. Neither of us got anything out of that class.
I now do my best to train only when my dogs are into it, and that actually results in them being into it more often. Taking the pressure off of performing on demand means that it's a fun extra-curricular instead of a chore that they have to do. I have called it in the middle of a run at a scent trial with Zero because he was too cold and was not having a good time. I have also gotten over-excited about the number of runs I've signed Spice up for at a trial and left early on the day because she was too tired to want to continue.
Zero being a cold pup.
Making mistakes is frustrating, but you can learn from them. I just realized that I need to spend less time warming Troy up at rally-o trials if I want him to enjoy the actual run. Too much time warming up tires him out, and then he has no juice left for the real deal. I figured that out by attempting to psych him up before his runs at our most recent trial and then seeing that it was a mistake, having the opposite effect from what I was hoping for. When you know better, you can do better.
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