[nagdu] What do you do when you're angry with your dog?

[Tamara Smith-Kinney]

Dar,

I would be shaken by that, too.  It's one thing for a dog to have a bad day,
but when it's a dangerous day...  That's a whole 'nother ball game!  And I
have a hard enough time getting my trust in Mitzi back when she's just
having a sniffy day, although I'm getting better at it once she decides to
settle down and work.  That's aggravating, but it's not the same as blowing
the big stuff.

What I would do, exactly, I don't know.  She's too big to throw into
traffic...  When she's seriously in a mood and going too far with it, I do
tend to crack down by giving a couple of sharper harness checks than I would
normally use.  Then, if she's still determined to be a monster, I stop her
and grab her around the body and do some dominance stuff and talk to her in
a firm voice.  I make a point to look her directly in the face, whether I
can find her eyes or not that day.  Then I maintain my gentle but firm
restraining hold until she starts to relax and accept it.  Then I will do
little stuff like tug her ears lightly, then slowly relax and then stand on
a wait for a few seconds, making sure to be stern and to make it very
clearly that she is under my command...  Since I'm not faking the stern, she
picks up on it and will finally become a good little worker girl!  /smile/
Then I praise her, of course, and once we've safely done whatever it was she
was too cool to do right before, I will give her a simple task to praise and
rewward, etc.

Oh, and at the moment of panic in a situation like that, I go ahead and let
myself gasp or shriek or just generally let it all out.  For some reason,
Mitzi responds more to that emotional expression of fear/anger/whatever than
she does to all the obedience stuff in the world.  I've never been one to go
around shrieking in terror, but I've gotten pretty good at it.  /smile/

It's sort of a long, involved way to go about things, but it's what works
with her when she really has her attitude on.  Fortunately, she doesn't
fudge the big stuff any more, or at least almost never.  Now that I've said
that, I can only imagine she will make a liar out of me the very  next time
she has a chance.  /smile/

Don't know if that helps at all.  But you're right that there are some
things you take seriously and do *not* "blow off."  You do, however, have to
keep your cool and work it through, which is tough to do when you've just
been scared out of your wits with good reason!  And when you suddenly have
lost all trust, it's tough to just suck it up and go on for the rest of the
day, even once you have the problem solved.  It is for me anyway!

Glad you got it worked out and have been safe!

Tami Smith-Kinney

-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf
Of d m gina
Sent: Monday, March 22, 2010 10:10 AM
To: nagdu at nfbnet.org
Subject: Re: [nagdu] What do you do when you're angry with your dog?

Last year I went to the school working with Mike Sargent, on behalf of 
the walking harness.
Sure came in handy this year.
Getting back to that.
One day they were doing car checks.
My dog was so mad from the day before, because he had to walk in the 
rain he wasn't going to do a car check for me or anyone else.
Now it was another instructor doing this, where they truly had to honk 
the horn in order for my dog to even look at the car.
I was so badly shaken, that when I saw Mike I just started crying.
The instructor who was with me said it was OK, my dog was having a bad day.
I shared rite then and there, I can't have a bad day with my dog on the 
street, it scared me to much.
Now that I am a diabetic, I don't know with reading all of the articles 
on folks getting hit, or anything like that if it gives me more of a 
scare I don't know.
Mike was kind to me, and said you just have to blow it off.
Now I disagree, when if I had been alone, I can't just blow it off.
I shared if my dog did this to often he had to become retired.
I didn't know how else to get the message across that I needed to be 
safe out there.
What would you folks have done if this had happened to you.

-- 
--Dar
skype: dmgina23
  FB: dmgina
www.twitter.com/dmgina
every saint has a past
every sinner has a future

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