It's Saturday morning, flipping through the channels, eating my cereal, and I stumbled upon a relatively new show 'Dog and Cat Training with Joel Silverman.' Descent enough show, but at this time of day, who really cares, right? At least, as a dog person, it didn't piss me off, like the commercial that followed. Anyway, he ended the show with a quote that is an excellent way to state what we have been trying to teach people for years: "Bond with your heart, Train with your brain."
Yes, it makes sense, but for many people it is easier said than done. I can't even count the number of times when someone says "I can't do that, he's my baby." So, since you can't train your dog right, you'd rather live with the behavior that you are enabling, and the dog is training you to do, until you can't live with the dog any longer? Sometimes they just don't get it. We have all seen the children in the store or restaurant, or even at their home, totally out of control. So by giving your dog/child no boundaries, no rewards (or rewards for all behavior), and no consequences you are not raising a well socialized, well behaved, wonderful to be around, member of your family and community.
I think I will steal his quote and repeat it often:
"BOND WITH YOUR HEART, TRAIN WITH YOUR BRAIN."
If you are wondering about the commercial that pissed me off: 'theshelterpetproject.org' with the quote "The best place to get a pet is a shelter." Yes, it's best for the animals, but if this country had the requirement that anyone who bred a dog was responsible for that dog for life, we wouldn't have near the shelter problem we have now. Or how about some personal, non-government-regulated responsibility? How many millions of dogs and cats are put down because they were bred to make a profit, and the breeders don't care what happens to them. We see it in the show dog world enough, and all you have to do is pick up any newspaper or online ad to see how extreme it is. I am not a fan of all of the government control and restriction, but at the same time when I am trying to breed better, healthy, quality dogs, and have to jump through all of the hoop, and I see ads promoting shelters as the best place to get a dog, when it is not the good breeders who have dogs that end up in shelters, it gets me worked up.
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