"Dog Problem or People Problem?!!!"
Ripped from the headlines (or really, case studies) of actual cases we have seen at Front Range K9 Academy...
Here are the scenarios:
Set-up #1: An unsuspecting person purchases a puppy outside a large box store, from the back of someone's car in a parking lot. The seller tells the buyer that the puppies are 8 weeks old. When the buyer takes her new puppy to vet, the vet tells her he is only 5 weeks old, and shouldn't have been separated from his mother and litter mates this young. However, she has no contact information for the seller, and decides to keep the puppy. Her problem, as stated to a trainer is..."The puppy keeps peeing and pooping all over the place. It needs to be potty trained immediately or I will have to give it up ."
YOU DECIDE: Is this a dog problem, or a people problem?
Set-up #2: A young couple adopts a dog from a local shelter. The shelter had no good history to give the new family, as the dog was left in their 'overnight kennels' - a place where people just abandon dogs. This young couple lives in an apartment. They each work 8 to 10 hour days. The dog they just got is a medium-large, high-energy breed mix who is having serious dog aggression issues.
While training may help, with no background on where the dog came from, and close living quarters with other dogs, the situation is very dicey.
YOU DECIDE: Is this a dog problem, or a people problem?
Set-up #3: A well-known, highly respected local dog trainer purchases 3 lbs of raw hot Italian sausage links and 1/2 lb of mozzarella cheese and LEAVES IT IN THE CAR with 5 adult dogs - unsupervised, while taking 2 of her new puppies in for their shots. When she returns...the sausage and cheese have been pretty much completely consumed!
YOU DECIDE: Dog problem, or people problem?
Yes, that last one was on me....
Just to remind you all that there is no such thing as a perfect dog, and no such thing as a perfect dog owner!!!!
However, when I arrived at my car to find a bit of raw sausage still in the casing, and a bunch of plastic and paper all over, I did not say one word of reprimand to my dogs. Why not?
If you can answer THAT one, you get the gold star for the week...ready....set...go!
Jennifer Hime is the owner of Front Range K9 Academy and Horsetooth Whippets. She can be reached atwww.k9counselor.com.
9 comments:
You didn't reprimand them because you didn't catch them in the act.
Do I get a gold star? :)
Heather - you get a gold star! But there is another reason (the deeper one) that I didn't reprimand them....any guesses?
Because you shouldn't reprimand an animal when its your mistake.
Cheryl - you get TWO gold stars!!! Exactly! Absolutely unrealistic expectation on my part for the dogs to control themselves with raw meat & cheese in an enclosed space for an extended period of time...
That said...there is still one element left to this question...
Anyone want to try for 3 gold stars?
I was gonna go with Cheryl's answer, but I suppose also because you never told them not to eat it, it seemed fair game to them.
Chris...you just picked up the final gold star. You hit it on the head...*IF* I had given a "leave it" command (and ONLY *IF* I had practiced it to a high level with those 5 adult dogs), I may have been 'allowed' a correction.
However...this brings to mind an interesting debate - How realistic, even with the leave it command, would that expectation have been on my part?
Seems like there's another reason-- no way to know if all the dogs partook, and I think it's too much to expect our animals to police each other. It would be unfair to reprimand them all for what might have only been the actions of one or two of them.
I think it would only have been realistic if you'd trained a similar situation-- leaving them alone with the tastiest of treats, giving a "leave it," and really leaving (and our dogs _know_ when we haven't really left!).
Hi, Heater -
Precisely. While the most likely culprits have a good leave it command, the others have never been proofed in this type of situation.
This leaves me in the sticky spot of asking more, morally, of my dogs than I'd ask of myself.
Remember, Folks, I always talk about how people speed when there is no cop watching us, and it's not fair to hold our dogs to a higher standard of morality than we hold ourselves.
This was one of those cases, for sure. The cop was gone, and there was some serious speeding going on. :)
Jennifer - this was an interesting article. Thanks for the reminders - and your honesty. We have experienced "speeding" by our dogs before and now keep a large cooler in the back of our SUV. Its perfect for keeping groceries cold in case we make other stops after shopping and it also helps our dogs uphold their "morals"... Lord knows I could use some help :)
Jeanne Marie
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