My dog has "a thing" about hats (or bikes, or kids, or men, or best of all, men with hats)
As I entered the dog park off leash area the other day, one dog decided to run at me and bark. Another followed and before you know there was a whole pack of them.
I'm pretty good with that sort of thing, knowing that some dogs just sort of "do that," but this one dog was pretty "brave" and as he got closer and louder, it kind of scared me. Which was, no doubt, his point. His owner came sauntering over eventually and apologized while cooing at the dog and kind of laughing as she told me her dog has a "thing" about hats. I laughed and said that was ridiculous, I wasn't about to take off my hat for a dog. She seemed taken aback a bit and said modestly that she didn't expect me to... and that was that.
But the question left unasked and unanswered in this encounter was, What then did she mean by telling me that her dog has a "thing" about hats?
I think she meant that she liked that her dog has a "thing," it not mattering what that "thing" might be; she is just glad he's not inert. Or possibly, she's the one who has a thing about hats, maybe even the particular hat I was wearing that day and just couldn't help her subconscious from welling up and saying something just short of "You look ridiculous (and deserve to be chased from the park by my dog)."
Whatever her motivations or reasons, I have to say that I don't buy it. I see her and her dog in the park frequently. Her dog barks a lot at people who come into the off leash area.
A lot of dogs do that if someone they don't recognize comes in, or someone comes in from an unexpected place like the bushes or not a path, especially if they don't have a dog with them. But this dog does it more than the rest. It's not a bad instinct, a kind of intruder alert. And all dogs need jobs to do, some more than others. Evidently her dog has taken intruder alerting to be his vocation.
Which would be fine except it's like dogs that bark at children, chase bicycles, or bark at people in uniform. It's scary for the people being barked at, potentially dangerous, annoying for everyone else and a disappointment for their owners. I don't think we should put up with it and the best way to deal with it is firm discipline on the first and every single incident until it stops.
Firm discipline means a firm voice command and physically taking the dog by the collar away from the scene. Firm discipline is not, "Oh Woofy, stop that you silly dog." spoken in a cooing voice that is really saying "good dog." Firm discipline is not petting the dog while cooing.
This sounds pretty simple but it's amazingly hard to do. It means disengaging emotionally from your dog and the way you identify with your dog and going into a very clear relationship mode where you are the leader. If you let your dog know that you don't like his behaviour, he's that much less likely to do it next time. He may not understand why you don't like it. Indeed, he will very likely be confused by your reaction because he is not alerting just anyone about intruders, he is alerting YOU.
It might be that the vocation of "intruder alerting" can be diverted into another adjacent, similar job, like "friendly greeting." I don't know really but dogs that start going down the road of scaring people as one of their jobs need to be given a new job.
I'm pretty good with that sort of thing, knowing that some dogs just sort of "do that," but this one dog was pretty "brave" and as he got closer and louder, it kind of scared me. Which was, no doubt, his point. His owner came sauntering over eventually and apologized while cooing at the dog and kind of laughing as she told me her dog has a "thing" about hats. I laughed and said that was ridiculous, I wasn't about to take off my hat for a dog. She seemed taken aback a bit and said modestly that she didn't expect me to... and that was that.
But the question left unasked and unanswered in this encounter was, What then did she mean by telling me that her dog has a "thing" about hats?
I think she meant that she liked that her dog has a "thing," it not mattering what that "thing" might be; she is just glad he's not inert. Or possibly, she's the one who has a thing about hats, maybe even the particular hat I was wearing that day and just couldn't help her subconscious from welling up and saying something just short of "You look ridiculous (and deserve to be chased from the park by my dog)."
Whatever her motivations or reasons, I have to say that I don't buy it. I see her and her dog in the park frequently. Her dog barks a lot at people who come into the off leash area.
A lot of dogs do that if someone they don't recognize comes in, or someone comes in from an unexpected place like the bushes or not a path, especially if they don't have a dog with them. But this dog does it more than the rest. It's not a bad instinct, a kind of intruder alert. And all dogs need jobs to do, some more than others. Evidently her dog has taken intruder alerting to be his vocation.
Which would be fine except it's like dogs that bark at children, chase bicycles, or bark at people in uniform. It's scary for the people being barked at, potentially dangerous, annoying for everyone else and a disappointment for their owners. I don't think we should put up with it and the best way to deal with it is firm discipline on the first and every single incident until it stops.
Firm discipline means a firm voice command and physically taking the dog by the collar away from the scene. Firm discipline is not, "Oh Woofy, stop that you silly dog." spoken in a cooing voice that is really saying "good dog." Firm discipline is not petting the dog while cooing.
This sounds pretty simple but it's amazingly hard to do. It means disengaging emotionally from your dog and the way you identify with your dog and going into a very clear relationship mode where you are the leader. If you let your dog know that you don't like his behaviour, he's that much less likely to do it next time. He may not understand why you don't like it. Indeed, he will very likely be confused by your reaction because he is not alerting just anyone about intruders, he is alerting YOU.
It might be that the vocation of "intruder alerting" can be diverted into another adjacent, similar job, like "friendly greeting." I don't know really but dogs that start going down the road of scaring people as one of their jobs need to be given a new job.
posted by howboy > link to this post
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