[ROSE REPLIES:] Thanks. That was so much more visually descriptive. Save that email and incorporate it into your e-zine. Lately, the dog has been getting so excited when we begin our walk that he keeps juming up on me as we walk. Do I pop the leash down toward the ground and make him drop to stop this, i.e., the correction is just the opposite?
[ADAM RESPONDS:] It doesn’t matter really, for the jumping up. As long as it’s a negative, and it happens RIGHT when the dog does it, and it’s motivational… the dog will drop the behavior. I went out on a date with a woman last week who was a client of another dog trainer I know. But this other dog trainer uses inferior techniques for companion dog training, as far as I’m concerned.
She’d been working on fixing the jumping up behavior for more than a month, by giving the dog food when she didn’t jump. Well, needless to say, the dog was still jumping up on me. I hate that. So, I ran to my truck and grabbed a pinch collar from my box of dog training tricks. In less than 2 minutes, I’d fitted the collar on the dog and had to only correct her twice. For the rest of the evening, she wouldn’t jump up on either of us. 😉 It’s all about making sure your corrections have meaning.
[ROSE:] Ok, I’ll try it. The embarrassing part are the zillion dog owners in the neighborhood who will probably think I’m abusive. We just bought a house on the bluff overlooking the blah, blah, blah… and there are approximately 33 acres of undeveloped land where everyone plays with their dogs and watches everyone else… oh well, hopefully they’ll only see it happen a couple of times 🙂
[ADAM:] Disregard what they think. If you know you’re doing the right thing (which, if you follow the instructions in my book, I can guarantee you are) then you have nothing to worry about. Plus, it’s none of their business. Thirty years ago, everyone thought it was “horrid” to sit at the same lunch counter with African-Americans. They “thought” it was wrong. My point is: Don’t live your life worrying about what other people think is right or wrong. Instead, DO what IS right, and eventually, they’ll come around when they see that your dog is so well-behaved. Especially when their dog is still jumping up on people.
-Adam