The owner’s side and the dog’s side of training English Bulldogs

Although it’s hard to imagine, that adorable little wrinkly English bulldog puppy you just brought home will one day weigh 50 pounds and be capable of powerful strength. Is that when you’ll start teaching him that you’re the leader of his pack, or will you start instilling this in him when he’s just a cute little thing?

You read article after article advocating dog training and after a point you even wonder, is all of this necessary? If I give my dog ​​a lot of food, water, love and take him out regularly, that’s enough, right?

Dogs are pack animals
This thought, humanizing a dog, is what leads to more aggressiveness in dogs, dog bites, and dogs not respecting their owner. Will an untrained dog love its owner? Yes, but respect him or her, he or she won’t! Dogs are pack animals, you may read this all the time, but you may not understand what it means.

The members of a pack have their place and are ranked. From a human perspective this makes no sense. Putting your children in a particular order is something we assume happens due to age and birth order. The eldest is supposed to be the most responsible and often the one who is asked to look after the others when parents go out at night etc. Of course, sometimes the older one ends up being irresponsible, requiring one of the younger siblings to take the lead.

Pack members do not operate this way. Birth order has little to no bearing on who is the leader of the pack. If there is a human being in the image, he or she is the leader of the pack, or should be, and while there may be some struggling to determine order, one is eventually established.

Things that cause aggression in your dog
One of the main reasons dog trainers are called into homes is to mediate between the dog and the owner, who are seemingly standing still. Common complaints owners hear are:

• “Zeus growls when I touch his food bowl while he eats.”
• “Puff Puff jumps on my guests. I can’t control her.”
• “When I open the door, Spot runs in front of me. He doesn’t respect me.”
• “No matter how many times I say no, Tinkerbell jumps on the bed!”

When the trainer arrives at the house, he apparently doesn’t have any of the dog problems reported by the owner. The owner says, “I’m not crazy. I know what I see and experience.” So, not wanting to convince the owner that she is not in touch with reality, he asks her to take out the vacuum cleaner or feed her dog. In other words, emulate the problem and see what happens. As you might suspect, Zues growled at his owner for approaching his food, Spot ran out the door and was down the street before the owner could react, Puff Puff jumped on the visiting neighbor, and despite her protests, Tinkerbell he didn’t listen and jumped on the bed.

Your dog’s side of the story
If the trainer could get into the minds of the dogs, he could extract the following information:

• “The reason I growl at my owner when I’m eating is because that’s what I do to other pack members if they try to steal my food. Is she the leader of my pack? She didn’t tell me that.” .
• “I ran out the door because it’s fun and I saw a squirrel that I wanted to chase.”
• “I rush with my owner’s friends because I’m hyper and I can’t help it. Also, no one made it very clear to me that I’m not supposed to.”
• “The cat sleeps on the bed, why can’t I?”

While these are quite different excuses for committing each of the crimes, they all stem from the same issue. If pack leaders don’t make it clear from day one who is boss, a pack animal will assume he or she is. It’s really quite simple.

If you could go back in time to the day you brought your puppy home, the things you would do differently might be:

When you feed Zeus, have him sit patiently until you put his food bowl down and YOU say, “Zeus, eat.” Another trick you can do to further instill your position as leader of the pack is that before he eats, you bring the food to your mouth and appear to eat from it first. The communication he receives is: “The leader of the pack eats first and can even eat my food too.”

Another thing you can do while Zeus is eating is crouch down and put your face in his food bowl. Don’t push him out of the way, just let him know you can move if you want. If he growls, immediately get up, sit him down, and take his food away until his ears roll back, showing you submission.

When the doorbell rings, have Puff Puff sit down before opening the door. If he tries to jump, stand between your friend and Puff Puff and calmly say, “don’t jump.” A dog should NEVER jump on anyone. It’s a sign that he believes he’s the leader of the pack and if he doesn’t control himself, it will turn into aggression.

Before leaving or entering the house, always have Spot sit down. Open the door and after Spot is sitting on the door, go out or go in first. A dog must not cross any gate before its owner. If Spot doesn’t understand or if his voice wavered, call him back and keep trying until you both get it right.

There are different schools of thought on whether to allow dogs on furniture. If she allows hers on the furniture, she needs to know that it is a privilege and not a right. As such, she must be invited there and she must never decide for herself when to get on and off the furniture.

By addressing these issues early, when your dog is still a puppy, they alleviate the problems of trying to negotiate with a 50-pound adult dog.

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