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Old 12-15-2011, 02:58 PM
 
3,244 posts, read 7,418,537 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Zembonez View Post
People are frikkin dog mad these days. It makes them feel like good people and all Starbucksy (a version of cool)... My idiot next door neighbor has three dogs (in his home) that he can't even tell to shut up. They are oblivious to any command... and he raised every one of the yappers from a puppy.

Brilliant.

We are a pet free home.
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Interesting attitude. Hopefully a child-free home too, for their sake..

This has nothing to do with feeling 'cool' or 'Starbucksy' (which is SO passe)...

Perhaps your next-door neighbor is an idiot when it comes to dogs. So be it. I can show you ten times as many idiot parents when it comes to raising children.
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Old 12-16-2011, 06:39 PM
 
378 posts, read 701,189 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gizmo980 View Post
Okay, I was totally with you until this statement... even Cesar Milan & Victoria Stilwell say that's fine, as long as they move when you ask (and don't get possessive).

I agree dogs should have basic manners - no jumping inappropriately, no stealing food off your plate, limited barking, stay out of your way, etc, etc. But in terms of sleeping in your bed and being allowed on the furniture, that's a personal decision for each household to make. My dog is allowed to sleep in bed with me, and he's also allowed on the sofa and armchair... I'm single with no roommates and infrequent visitors, so why the heck not?? He's a good foot-warmer, especially in the winter! Not to mention we're in a 700sf apartment with no yard (small balcony), so it's not like he has many other options.

HOWEVER he knows humans are the bosses, so all I have to do is *point* and he immediately moves at my request. He also knows the commands "off" and "leave it" (among many others), and generally obeys the first time I ask. He is a well-behaved & quiet dog overall, and typically the only people who dislike him are not dog people - period. Anyway, it's all about setting clear boundaries, but we all have the right to make our own boundaries with our pets.
Guilty Well I kind of push her off of me when I want to turn over or move. She growls, waits a second and then comes right back on me. There are times I just get up out of the bed and walk to the other side so I don't disturb her. .

My dog is allowed on the bed and the sofa. In fact her perch is on the back of my sofa on a blanket, head out the curtain, 'protecting' the house from outside activities and communicating with the neighbors dogs.

As long as your dog knows who the boss is and who to obey they are fine. And I've been to plenty of houses of people who don't dote on their dogs who's behavior is still the same as all that, that you mention. My dog gets punished, and while she may sit in front of me the whole time I'm eating waiting for something to fall, she has manners enough to not grab something off my plate. She knows when she's done something bad (and slinks off behind the sofa).

Probably the only thing I wish I had more control over, which I am working on, is her barking. She barks way more than I want her to, but not as much as other yappers her size.
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Old 12-16-2011, 07:16 PM
 
Location: In a cat house! ;)
1,758 posts, read 5,459,442 times
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Our dogs and cats OWN us and our home. They are kind enough to allow us to pay the bills though.
If we are awake, we are showing them attention AND talking to them. The majority of them respond back as well! If they don't respond...someone else (human) speaks FOR them.
All the pets have names, but they all have "cutesy" nick names as well. Lucy-Goose. Snarky-Sparky. Lola Granola. Leonard Skynyrd...Just to name a few.
The dogs don't beg for food so much, but they have been known to counter surf from time to time. Some of the felines do beg for food...AND we often reward their begging.
If a person wants a good seat on the sofa, couch, or recliner...they had better get their FIRST.
If I didn't step over a furkid (or two) several times a day...I'd trip and fall on my rear end!
My bed would be very cold, if it weren't for all the warm furkid bodies that sleep WITH me.
If a person doesn't think fur is a fashion accessory...our home isn't the place for you!
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Old 12-16-2011, 07:45 PM
 
Location: South Park, San Diego
6,109 posts, read 10,798,876 times
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I'm with the OP only in the sense that so many folks think that a little bit of basic training automatically equals cruelty to animals, and that having dogs just means that your house and garden is going to be kind of destroyed by "accidents", digging, jumping up on everything, scratching, constantly barking etc.. because, well, what are you going to do?- they're dogs.

I'd like to think I've just been lucky to have had many dogs, all of whom were doted on and none who exhibited such behavior, but nope, it wasn't luck, it was just a little bit of consistent, immediate and proper training that yielded a happy animal that was a joy to live with and didn't destroy and irritate everyone around it. Clueless owners just don't accept or get this.

The smaller ones are certainly welcome on the furniture and beds but they sure as heck don't destroy things, ever take a bit of food that isn't offered or just cause havoc because they could.

But where I disagree with the OP is that I just know I'm in the minority of dog owners and mostly just let other dogs antics go uncommented on, certainly not in the owner's homes, other than a not so subtle roll of the eyes at the exclamations of how cute this is.
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Old 12-16-2011, 08:59 PM
 
Location: Middle America
37,409 posts, read 53,249,236 times
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I love my dog...but he is NOT "my baby." He is not a child, not human. He is an animal, period. I will not humanize him, and really don't identity with those who anthropomorphise their dogs.

Dogs sleeping on beds is a hotly debated topic. We allow it, because he is crated the whole workday, and I'm not willing to tack on an additional 6-8 hours of crating. He may not have access to the house unsupervised, though, so I prefer him sleeping on my feet so I am assured of his whereabouts. This may have to be adjusted, though, b/c of late, I've noticed him behaving possessively re: the bed. I can't allow that to go unchecked.
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Old 12-16-2011, 09:11 PM
 
Location: In a cat house! ;)
1,758 posts, read 5,459,442 times
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The OP's original post didn't "get" to me so much, as a lot of the wording in this one did:
Quote:
You should never let a dog sleep in your bed, go into a doorway before you, eat food from your plate, never walk around them to get to where you are going or have to step over them, or do anything else to let a dog think it is equal to, or above you in power. It's amazing how many owners don't understand this.
Then there was the mention of "cutesy" names.

The above, was pretty much the reason for my post a few above this one.

Our dogs are not human, and we don't treat them as humans. We treat them with love, respect, and part of the family.
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Old 12-16-2011, 09:19 PM
 
Location: In a cat house! ;)
1,758 posts, read 5,459,442 times
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JUST curious. TabulRasa, why does your dog have to be crated all day? Is there a reason he can't be unsupervised...ever?
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Old 12-16-2011, 09:25 PM
 
5,652 posts, read 19,281,631 times
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I have a problem with people that will not train their dog (they just can't say no). We had neighbors whose dogs were immense because they gave the dog anything it begged for including whole candy bars! This is not good for the dogs health and to not give the dog boundaries it is not good for the dog socially. I could not own a dog that wanted to bite people all the time (chihuaha). Talk about a liability!
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Old 12-16-2011, 09:46 PM
 
Location: Nebraska
1,480 posts, read 1,368,742 times
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We put the dogs outside when we eat. Much easier. I don't care if they are on the couch, bed, etc. They move when told to. They know a raised voice means business. Issues arise from time to time. After all they are animals.
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Old 12-16-2011, 09:48 PM
 
Location: Middle America
37,409 posts, read 53,249,236 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Lola4 View Post
JUST curious. TabulRasa, why does your dog have to be crated all day? Is there a reason he can't be unsupervised...ever?
Mostly because he's a rescue who came to us with significant behavioral issues. We've done a good deal of obedience training over the years, but in the years we've had him, have not been able to combat the fact that he exhibits quite a bit of anxiety and territorial behavior when presented with various stimuli. He's housebroken, but I strongly suspect that he is the product of a puppy mill situation, and was not neutered early enough, and was allowed to develop marking behavior...he will do that on a few chosen spots (one being the lower tier of a coffee table) when anxious if nobody's there to catch him about to do it and correct.

When left unsupervised and uncrated, he typically becomes anxious, bored, scared, and destructive, and with nobody there to correct the behavior, it becomes habit, so supervision/confinement if there can't be supervision is key. He is compelled to "guard" the house (from the mail carrier, from the squirrels that live in our trees and sometimes hop onto the porch, from the neighbor walking to his car, from door to door Mormon missionaries or Jehovah's Witnesses, from the United Parcel truck so much as being visible anywhere up and down the street, whatever). If we're home when he's presented with any of these interlopers, we can keep him under command/distract him with other commands and reinforcers/remove him to a part of the house where he has no visual on any of this, and it's dealt with. If we're not home to provide commands and distractions, though, we learned the hard way that he will go nuts if he's in guard mode, and trash the place...tear things up, scratch and gnaw things up, mark the furniture/doors/baseboards/walls. So he has to be confined in a portion of the house that is not adjacent to the front door/street side. We have archways rather than doors that close throughout most of the house, so there's no shutting him into a room to confine him, so the crate it is.

The upside is that my SO telecommutes 1-2 days a week, and on those days, he is typically not crated. Even if my SO goes out to grab lunch, the dog rides along. We seldom leave him crated on weekends, either. But, since so much crating is necessary on most weekdays, I'm really just not going to crate him through the night, as well. But I do have to figure something out, to nip this resource guarding that is now starting with the bed in the bud. I'm wondering what's triggered it starting, after several years of sleeping on the bed with no issues.

He does very well with supervision, but when we can't be there to supervise (or awake to supervise), the potential is too great for him to engage in undesirable behavior unchecked, and I can't let those patterns start recurring.
As noted earlier, I don't humanize my pets, but I do work in behavior analysis, and whether you're dealing with human behavior or animal behavior, the methods of dealing with undesirable behavior are remarkably similar no matter the species...reward that which is desired, and address the undesirable as immediately as possible...and that doesn't work if you come home to evidence of behavior that occurred hours and hours before. If you can't catch in the act, you need to confine. Just my philosophy.
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