Howard Moon and friends

[RubyTed]

I've had no need to really due to the exercises I did with him when he was younger - but Cesar made me understand the importance of being 'alpha dog' and also understanding what created a balanced, happy dog. Most of my interaction with Copper is based on his theories and I always reward calm submissive behaviour with food (always make him sit and wait) I do practice Cesar's method of walking, loose leash, shoulders up and Copper religiously walks either beside of behind me :thumb:

I think if I ever own a more 'difficult' dog (Copper is a very good dog when in the right hands) I hope I am well enough equipped to be able to make him/her calm and balanced.

See, I don't believe in "alpha dog" and "calm submission". If a dog does a desired behaviour then it gets a treat. They can be the most excited dog in the world but if it's well behaved dog then he'll sit when he's told in order to get that treat (be it food or a toy). No one could say that that dog's calm or submissive but he's well trained.

Obviously it's worked for you though, so that's there's no problem!

 

[catherine09]

I agree, but the dog is learning that for it's got to sit still for 3 seconds and then it gets a treat. Dogs are naturally pack animals and if you aren't seen as 'alpha' in their eyes then they won't respect you unless you have a treat in your hand that they want :lol:

With the calm submission - Copper isn't a dominant dog really so I've never had that problem - however I have seen Cesar turn around very hyper/agressive/dominant dogs destined to be PTS into happy calm and submissive dogs and its incredible to see. Copper used to pull on the lead badly and we took him to training classes to address that. The woman who took those classes had been training dogs for over 30 years yet when I told her how to address him pulling she just told me to yank him back by his collar and he would get the idea:shock:. Well there was no way I was doing that - he has a delicate neck by breed! Instead I ensured he was calm before we left the house (patience!) and wouldn't let him through the door if he was excited. I walked with my shoulders up and didn't worry about him too much - sort of expected him to walk beside me, and made the leash slack. Like magic, he walked alongside me for the first time

However, for training things like sit, stay, down etc treats are probably necessary for most dogs - but that's not really got a thing to do with dog psychology, thats just training an animal to do cute things for our pleasure and convenience.