Discipline

I do not have the most disciplined dog in the world, so I am not going to write about the proper way to discipline your dog. I have however, been around a lot of dog owner's and their dogs. I notice each person has a different level of patience and each dog has a certain level of obedience.

I was at the dog park last weekend with Wilson, my dog. Wilson goes crazy when he knows we are near the dog park. He starts whining and tugs on the leash, runs around back and forth trying to work more slack. He pulls so hard he starts choking himself. To fix this I shorten the leash on him, and it works really well. I noticed, coming from a different path, a man and his dog. The dog seemed very well trained and didn't get within three inches of the man. Every 3 steps the man would instruct his dog to sit and wait. I was impressed at the obedience of the dog considering how close they were to the dog park fences. As I got closer I realized the man was giving his command, and the dog was not listening at all. The man would say sit and the dog would ignore, they only time the dog would listen was when the man would twist the dog's ear. I thought how painful that must be to get an immediate reaction out of the dog. The man did it several times, the dog was not really obedient just getting tortured. I think that is going overboard, especially the amount of times I saw him do it.

That being said I am sure he did not see any problem with what he was doing. Certain people don't see that as punishment but as conditioning.

After that incident I kept a close eye on the other owner's interactions with there dog's or even other people's dogs. I was surprised to see a different reaction out of each of them for the same common behavior. Dog's like to jump up on peoples leg's. Mine does it a lot, in fact I think I encourage mine too. I call them Wilson hug's and scratch his back and give him a lot of attention for doing so. But some people really get offended to a dog jumping up on them. I saw people push them off, yell at them, yell for the dog's owner, hit the dog, and even kick the dog. I was surprised how one common behavior was treated so differently. The reaction to the behavior shows the level of discipline they show their own dog. From going soft on them, to the extreme.

In this long ramble I figure there is a point to be made. I think we forget that our dog's have feelings and we need to treat them a little nicer. They have the mind set of being in a pack, somewhere they belong. I feel hitting them or treating them badly is mentally damaging and makes them feel like a prisoner versus a member of the pack. Treat your dog right.