Gus is coming up 17 weeks old and as all pups like to do is testing the boundaries on how much he can get away with. So it is time have another session on the rope training. When I gave him the first rope training at 13 weeks he behaved for a while but has started testing me again at kennel time.
This is a time that I see a lot of people making a mistake where the pup convinces their owner to play the game of the big fat man chasing the quick little dog. This game can sometimes have a bad outcome as the person gets worked up and can make some bad decisions that have a negative outcome on the dog and owner.
For any dog owner, if your dog is not doing what you want, work with the dog. I like to think of it this way. I’m dealing with a person who doesn’t speak my language, so we know we have a language barrier yet we still have the tone of our voice and it doesn’t matter what language you speak you will know the difference between an angry tone and a nice tone. On top of this we also have our body language that we can use to be intimidating or calm. I always work with my dogs in a calm manner because then their mind will also be calm. If you put yourself into the dogs mind for a second and someone was threatening you then your thinking will be different than normal and you would become flustered and when we are flustered we don’t think clearly.
If we become involved in a traumatic event like a car crash or being attacked, unless we are trained to stay calm in these situations we would become flustered and when this happens we struggle to make good decisions.
Back to Gus now that he has the rope back on he behaves himself as he knows from the last time he has nothing to fear from the rope but if the boss wants him to do something then we will calmly work together for the right outcome.
One big thing to remember here is that because he performs the required task OK this time does not mean that he will do it every time. If next time he tries not coming up to his kennel I would again repeat the rope training. A calm dog will always learn quicker than a scared dog.
Gus is now six months old and I have not had to use the rope on him again. For me the rope training is great to create that bond where your dog learns that you are there to work with them to learn together.