Harmful Things You Do To Your Dog Without Knowing

countless amounts of times where owners accidentally even well-meaning caring loving owners like yourself cause psychological harm to their dogs by not understanding some key fundamentals that it takes to have happy content canine companions so let's look at some of the harmful things that you may be doing to your dog without even realizing it so I can't make a video talking about the mistakes that people make with their dogs without talking about the things that I bang on about in pretty much every single video and that is the mistake of people not leading their dogs when they go on a walk this is in my opinion probably the single most important thing that you can do with your dog is be able to go on a pat migration whether that's you and four dogs or just you and your one dog but you lead that walk when a dog isn't being led on their walk I truly believe that it's psychologically harmful for them because you're putting them in a position where they have to make the decisions for themselves this also creates calm content happy dogs that look up to me for guidance and Direction because they trust in my loving leadership why do they trust me as a loving leader is because every time we come out on a walk I lead the walk just like this the second thing we're going to talk about is very very difficult for the vast majority of people to understand to accept and to follow through and practice and that is that you need to stop loving your dogs too much now obviously that might sound dramatic and what I don't mean is that you shouldn't love them because I love these dogs more than anybody loves their dogs what I mean is loving on your dogs too much these dogs are best mates behind me they love each other more than a dog can love anything in their life but what you're not seeing is them smothering each other with kisses and cuddles they play nicely together they enjoy each other's company they're incredibly happy being in each other's company right now and are a deeply formed pack however they don't love on each other 24 7. that would be very frustrating to them so understand how dogs think understand how dogs communicate and communicate to them in a language that they understand rather than in a language they don't understand which creates anxiety fear confusion frustration which is the slippery slope to a whole host of terrible behaviors and frankly an unhappy dog not having a break command or not using a break command now some of the details around this point we're going to look at in the next thing we're going to talk about but it's incredibly important that dogs are never confused we want to make things crystal clear for them now right now I've asked them to go into a down stay or for my mate puppy here who prefers a Sit Stay but they understand that they must do this until I tell them otherwise therefore they're not confused they know exactly what it is that I expect of them make it Crystal Clear what you want from your dogs and one of the best things that you can do for that is have a break command so when I ask them to do something they do that until I tell them otherwise telling them otherwise is either asking for a new command or giving them the b-r-e-a-k command which lets them know I've finished with what I want from you you can now go and do whatever you want now this next mistake is definitely going to be a controversial one and it is around you not correcting your dog dogs don't speak our language dogs don't understand our language even if we train them to understand a few different commands they still have no concept of the intent behind the things that we're saying and dogs communicate naturally extremely differently than the way we do as humans and when dogs interact with each other the vast majority of their Communications is done with physical touch and in many instances physical Corrections and they need to know what it is that we do want from them but just as importantly if not more importantly what it is that we don't want from them without both pieces of the puzzle without both sides of the equation dogs become anxious fearful and stressed and that is the root cause the underpinning the foundation of the vast majority of problem behaviors and how we communicate what we don't want is fair loving kind Corrections and I have got countless videos on this channel that you can go and check out after to this video of me doing exactly that and you can see firsthand in real time what I call the weight of the world coming off that dog's shoulder so if you want to have a happy dog you must find Fair loving ways to be able to correct your dogs and I want to pre-face this point of being somebody that struggles with mental health difficulties depression and anxiety is something that I live with deal with and is a burden for me every single day of my life however one thing that I see time and time again that is harmful to our dogs is US passing on our emotional challenges on to them there's that old saying of owners looking like their dogs I personally think it's deeper than that and I think owners are a reflection of their dogs and if you utilize your dog as a coping strategy for your anxiety you're those low moods you will find that that dog will become more anxious and stressed and anxious owners tend to have anxious dogs but we have to remember that we have a duty of care to them to not pass on those things now one of the things that you can do to help counteract that is by choosing the right breed and by doing excellent temperament selection and trying to make sure that if you are somebody that has some of those challenges that you select a resilient breed that may not be susceptible as much as other breeds to those challenges that's why golden retrievers and Labradors are renowned for being incredibly emotional support dogs when I'm having a really difficult day myself all I want to do is curl up into bed and have my dogs with me making me feel better but I have to understand that that's doing them a disservice so one of the best things I can do is get up and take them for a structured pack walk leading that walk as much as every fiber in my being might not want to a it always ends up helping me but B it provides them an incredible service it helps them be calmer more relaxed dogs and as a byproduct we help each other them getting me out and walking and doing the things that deep down regardless of how I feel I know is important for them helps them but then getting out into the fresh air getting a bit of exercise helps me this is an incredibly challenging topic and it is one that isn't talked about enough because I do truly believe that it is a cause of a vast amount of problem behaviors with dogs but if we can have these difficult conversations if you can be reflective with yourself understand the pitfalls that we may be putting in front of our dogs and then try and navigate them proactively rather than reactively we're going to have better happier dogs because of it so subscribe if you are new here and we'll see you on the next video

Channel: Will Atherton Canine Training

Views: 310,722

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Id: JW-g4RXe0ZY

Length: 8min 8sec (488 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 13 2022