Katherine over at Our Report Card posted this link on her blog: Ian Dunbar on dog-friendly dog training. It’s a 15 minute talk, but very interesting for dog owners, parents, and really anyone interested in relationships. A lot of what he says is exactly how I feel about being a parent, but he words it much better than I could.
I have to say, after watching it, that while I do follow what he says for Meredith, as far as being respectful, assuming her intentions are good, and realizing that she doesn’t always understand what I want and isn’t just trying to push my buttons, I certainly don’t always follow it with my dog.
Now don’t get me wrong. Dogs and kids are two very different creatures. Dogs do have a hierarchy and I think that while Dr Dunbar discusses all the similarities in raising each, there are a lot of differences too. And I’m not sure how to apply his methods to aggression or chasing the cat. I mean, I can’t ask her to sit and then reward her by letting her chase the cat. But it certainly has me thinking a bit more on what is working with her, and what isn’t. And I know yelling when she chases the cat doesn’t work. Locking her in the kennel when she’s aggressive may work in the short term (in that she doesn’t try to eat my friends when they visit), but it certainly doesn’t change anything.
Really I’d like to have her on a leash at all times, and be able to give her feedback constantly about what she’s doing and help her see what she should be doing, rather than telling her what she shouldn’t be doing without giving her any alternatives. It’s hard when I also have a 14 month old though. I’ve been trying to keep her with me more. The problem is that when she’s off leash again, it seems like she forgets anything I did with her while she was on the leash. It’s something I’m going to have to think about and keep trying new things and try to find something that works. I need to recognize when something really isn’t working and stop doing it over and over again, especially since that’s a parenting style that I really don’t like either. Plus, just like in parenting, all it does to punish a behaviour without giving options is stop a behaviour while you’re around, but the behaviour probably continues when we’re away.
Lastly, I want Meredith to grow up knowing to treat everyone with respect, regardless of size, age, race, species, etc. I want that to extend to pets, and while I think I treat my animals with a lot more love and respect than many people, it’s definitely an area where I could improve.
In other news, I am planning on probably creating a private section of the blog for discussing certain things that are a little more personal. For those who use RSS readers, I don’t think private posts would show up there, but I probably won’t have many anyway. You would need an account to see them. Unfortunately, the way our server is set up, you can’t create your own account for the blog. But if you’d like an account, let me know what you want your user name to be and what your e-mail address is and I can set one up with a generic password that you could then change to whatever you wanted it to be. Let me know who you are too if it’s not obvious already. 
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I’m so behind on reading blogs like yours and Kathrine’s!
I think that’s a great idea. I very much enjoy my more private parts of my blog even if I don’t use the feature all the time.
Yeah, there are certain things I’d like to write about even if not many people would see them, but I don’t want it aired to the whole world either.