Training Philosophy

Hello,

I have some basic dog obedience questions based on an interaction i had with someone who claimed to be a trainer.

I was with my dog at a very popular dog park, recently, and he was interacting with another dog. They were doing the usual sniffing around each other, then they started play chasing. There was no obvious outward aggression (at least not to my untrained eyes). Well, my dog, who has never shown outward signs of aggression, made a biting on the top/back of the neck gesture, one he always does when playing with other dogs. It wasn't an actual bite and the other dog didn't react aggressively.

The person/owner of the other dog threw the leash at the 2 dogs hitting mine, and yelled no! I was not immediately offended, but i asked what the purpose for the act was. The answer was that my dog caused the other one to adopt an aggressive posture. I asked and noted that they both had tails wagging and were not growling or biting.

The owner replied that was a way to train the dog to not be aggressive. I get that part. But my question to that individual and all of you here is simply this.

Where is the line between aggressive and playful behavior? What is socially acceptable dog behavior?

I'm not advocating dogs running wild or anything, but the answer i got confused me. I was told that the trained was erring on the side of caution and considering any act by any dog an aggressive one. I mean, really? What is the point of bringing a dog to a dog park, where at this particular place aggressive incidents are the exception not the rule. I'm all for intervening and working to curb aggression, but this seemed ridiculous to me at the time.

Is there such a thing as too much training? Is there a difference between a healthy happy socialized dog and one that is fully trained and under firm control?

I then asked this person what would happen if someone got upset that objects were being thrown and unsolicited training to their dog occurred. The answer was that they would report them to animal services for having an aggressive dog. I thought immediately, that I could report that person for throwing things at my dog (which i didn't nor would ever do). It struck me as strange.

As a fairly new dog owner I could be completely wrong about my initial instincts, however something seemed odd about it.

Any ideas about this would be greatly appreciated. I ask these questions in the sincere pursuit of knowledge, and in the best interest of mine and all dogs.

Thank you,

Waking11

One, no one, absolutely no one has a right to "train" your dog without your permission. They especially have no right to throw anything at your dog. Ever. Unless there is an actual fangs bared fight going on, and in that case throwing things is pretty useless.

Two, throwing things at some one else's dog is dangerous, becuase it can teach the dog to BE aggressive . . . towards humans. "Strangers throw things at me. I don't like strangers . . . growl." So the person you ran into was an idiot.

Now, I didn't see the incident. Sometimes play and aggression are a bit hard to tell apart if you are inexperienced. But from your description, it sounds like play (their tails were wagging . . .were they straight up and vibrating, or was it looser?). But you'll learn that there is always someone at the dog park who doesn't like the way dogs play and thinks that roughhousing (which is what dogs do) is unacceptable, even if both parties are having a blast.

Yes, you can overtrain a dog. You can train them until they become furry robots. But you do that mostly by ignoring their natural behavior, or by misinterpreting it. There are people out there for whom everything other than absolute quiet compliance is agression or dominance. Don't trust these people . . . and don't let them near your dog.

There are many excellent books on dog behavior and postive methods of dog training out there, and on training philosophy. Let me recommend these as books I found especially helpful:

http://www.amazon.com/Other-End-Lea...bs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1202177780&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Love-Dog-Understanding-Emotion-Friend/dp/0345477154/ref=pd_sim_b_img_1

http://www.amazon.com/Power-Positiv...bs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1202177853&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b...lias=stripbooks&field-keywords=bones+rain+sky

Other people on these forums can recommend other excellent books and advice.

Yeah,

I really don't want to train the dog out of the dog. No "furry robots" as you say. I have seen my dog play like that countless times and I have never even suspected it was aggression. Neither was the other dogs behavior for that matter.

Thanks for the help.

Good lord. If that had been me, the "trainer" would have ended up with a leash wrapped around his/her neck. My dog can make terrible noises while happily playing, and if someone says "I don't like this", I will take her away. Nobody needs to deal with dog play that makes them uncomfortable. But nobody gets to "train" my dog, especially by throwing things at her.

It's impossible to say what was going on between the dogs without seeing it, but if both dogs seemed comfortable with the situation, I can only assume there wasn't anything too serious going on. And if it was happy play, your dog has now been corrected for engaging in it. Charming. I would make a note of what kind of car that "trainer" drives, and be sure to keep driving by if you see it in the parking lot.

I agree, Boston.

My dogs make horrible nioses/growls/bitey faces while playing. First, I think it starts by knowing your dog. Then you can get a good idea of when a dog is acting DA. Also it helps to know positioning of the ears/tail/legs/face when determing if a dog is going to act aggressive.

That's what I was thinking. This trainer person said that when a dogs tail is wagging or up that it is in an excitable state, that you can't really tell happy play from aggressive play. I immediately thought it was utter bs.

Like you say, i know my dog, when his tail is wagging he's in play mode and happy. The only time he seems unhappy, his tail is between his legs or just down. Even a certain amount of barking, snarling, or whining is playful to me. You can usually get a sense when the play is starting to escalate and then I move in and remove MY dog.

I agree with what's been posted - no one has any business training my dog unless I have specifically asked them to and no one ever has a right to throw things at my dog or to hit my dog.

Without having seen the incident, I can't tell you whether it was play or if there was aggression. I can tell you that when my dogs play, it would scare the pants off of anyone who didn't know what dog play looks like.

Same here, my dogs freak out other people at the park when they going with each other, but that still doesn't give ANYONE the right to throw something at them.

If that "trainer" is that worried about his dog "adopting an aggressive stance" he shouldn't be at an off-leash dog park.

I can tell you that my dog is LOUD when she plays. While at work, playing with the boss' dog, I've had unexperienced people ask "are you sure those dogs get along?" They do. They LOVE rough play. But I'm always watching attentively for signs that it's become not fun anymore, at which point I seperate them.

If anyone came in and threw something at them, I'd be PISSED.

That person was completley out of line, and from the sounds of it, full of BS.

Oh god. If anyone ever threw something at my dog and it struck him, theyd really have to be more worried about ME "taking an aggressive stance" and calling them out on their stupidity. NO ONE anywhere is allowed to touch my dog unless I say its okay. Most of the time, Im happy to let people pet my dog. But if Im training, or he is stressed, or in full on play mode, no, dont touch him, he isnt going to like it and Im not either.

What an idiotic man. If you see him again, dont let your dogs play with his, or do, and tell him if he throws anything at your dog, youre going to press charges. Thats like someone coming up and throwing a book at a child because he was running around screaming while he was playing. Sure, it might be annoying to adults, but the other kids are probably having just as much fun as he is. And responsible adults will step in and remove their child before play escalates into fighting.

And if a dog is getting over the top in the play the other dog will let him know, and usually the one getting out of hand will play bow to say "Sorry, I didnt mean it like that!" and they both will go back to playing.

lol, I hope they never see our lot play. We sound like we run a fighting ring in our backyard with the noise they make. My grandparents came to visit and asked about 10 timesd "are you sure they're just playing"... well trust us. You would KNOW if it was a fight.

Both Harry and Sophie chase Mac and mouth her back as she passes, Harry more so as he gets so over excited. Mac and Buster tend to just run headlong into their victim lol.

Osa has a friend in Intermediate class who plays with her during the down times when the trainers are talking with us. They wrestle, snip, snort (that short of shhh, shhh, shhh they make through their noses), growl and have a wonderful time. If one gets out of line, the other will put her in her place and they are back to playing. I think of it as good play aggression that they take out on each other and not us. I would only start to worry about it if Osa started to snip at us or when we try to break them up they snap but they don't. When we want them to stop they just come over and sit by us, panting and happy.

Talking about teaching non aggressive behavior yet throwing something at them, that guys is a quack. I would have asked him to leave right then and there and provided his name and dog to the park so they could red flag him.

Well, for a variety of reasons my dog would not be in that position - first because we rarely if ever go to dog parks, because my dogs do not play with strange dogs, only dogs that I know the owners of, and my dogs DO play quite aggressively with each other, and that includes dominating stances, bitey faces, growling, snapping, snarling etc all in good fun (though it can get out of hand). And I do train my dogs, quite extensively - Rah is currently enrolled in 4-5 classes a week (we are ending the 5th class this week so we will drop back down to 4) and my puppy is currently in 2 classes a week), not including time spent at home training. So I do consider that while he is not the most well behaved dog, he is a highly specifically trained dog and at some point in his life, he will be expected to display manners

That being said, if my dog WAS approached by a dog that truly was acting aggressively with them and my dogs were "at risk", then I absolutely would intervene in any manner necessary to protect them - not necessarily because I think my dogs are in danger of being injured (truth be told, I rather think my dogs can handle themselves) - but rather BECAUSE they can handle themselves - my dogs can cause serious damage and based on their breed, they are going to always be blamed first. So you better believe that if a dog approaches them aggressively and starts to truly threaten them, I will absolutely throw, kick, and do what I need to do to get the dog away from them.

Either way, these misunderstandings are why I don't do popular dog parks. My dog park is almost always empty. When I do go - once every month or two, it's almost always empty, which is what I aim for.