"Geoff Miller" wrote in message
et...


"William Clodius" writes:

Geoffs recomendation is a good way to get a bitten
human and a dog awaiting euthanesia in a shelter.

Nonsense. Dogs are pack animals, and a human has
to establish dominance as "leader of the pack."
(vroom! vroom!) I don't advocate brutalizing
the animals, merely employing a judicious amount
of rough stuff to get their attention and establish
who's boss.


Alison responds:

I expect Geoff is a troll.

You expect wrong. I'm deadly serious. Suspecting
someone of trolling just because they have opinions
vastly different from your own is intellectual
slovenliness. Not to mention just a wee bit too
convenient.

Anyway...

In an age when many dogs are surrogate children to
their owners, it should hardly be surprising that
dog training techniques have come to echo the soft,
ineffectual child-rearing style of the day where
parents try to "reason" with toddlers and "time-
outs" and used in lieu of spanking.

Never underestimate the effectiveness of a rolled-
up newspaper across the snout.

It is important to let a dog know you are the leader, and some dogs are
harder to convince than others. I do believe that the gentlest effective
method is the way to go, but some dogs (and humans) will take advantage of
a "too light" approach. I have followed some discussions on the Dog
Whisperer site as well as Victoria Stilwell's www.positively.com, and there
are valid reasons for using either method. CM seems to be more versatile
and he gets very quick results and is effective in really difficult cases.
VS seems to stay with bratty little dogs and clueless owners.

There was a thread in the VS forum entitled "I'm a Bloody Mess Today" about
a young woman's attempts to discourage an adolescent dog from lunging at
her and biting to the point of drawing blood, and the advice given by these
gentle geniuses was to wear extra layers of protective clothing and just
ignore the dog's attacks until he got bored. Clearly this was a case where
a firm physical aversive was needed. Some dogs are born to please, while
others must be coerced into having respect for the human.

And you are right about excessive permissiveness causing delinquency and
anti-social behavior in children, and the adults they become. I believe
even Dr Spock attempted to dissuade young parents from going too far in
following their interpretation of what he wrote.

Paul and Muttley
www.MuttleyDog.com