Stubborness

Today I was watching a woman attempt to walk her bulldog.  I was sitting in my car at a set of lights when I noticed them standing under an overhead cover of the bank.  I realized by the body posture of the bulldog immediately that the dog was not going to want to go into the rain.   It was cold and rainy and he had no intention of moving forwards.  She prepared to walk down the stairs and he put on his brakes, and when a 70 lb bulldog puts their brakes on, there is not automatic release unless you have planned for such an incident. 

It was pretty funny watching the woman pull and pull.  The harder she pulled the more firm this big boy planted himself.  There was no way he wanted to walk in the rain and no matter what she tried he was not giving in.  I had to move along so I never did see what the outcome was, but I have a pretty good idea.  Dogs are programmed so that when you push, they push back.  You pull on them, they pull back.   Just try it; walk up to your dog and gently push them, they will push back. 

So what do you do if you have a lunk of a dog that won't move?  Training, training, training.  Once you see that you are dealing with a certain type of mindset then you work with it.  In my opinion dogs are allowed to like and dislike things, but they also need to learn to listen.  Listening could someday save their life.  So you need a very positive association to a word that means "let's go."  That can mean many different things as we have previously discussed.  What is fabulous for one dog may not be the least bit positive to another.  So find out what makes your dog tick and use that. 

For Tilley it would be the chance to catch something, for Luke, probably the same.  For Jessie; food, most definitely food.  I taught all my dogs that "let's go," meant of follow along with me.  Meaning, stop doing what you are doing and do what I want.  Not always desirable but followed by a reward, is then given a completely different meaning all together.  As they caught on the reward became less and less but as always when the rewards get few and far between the praise becomes the replacement.  I can often be heard mushing over my dogs as they stop what they want to do to do what I want them to do. 

Afterall; like I always say, they are not robots.  And sometimes you are never going to win a tug-o-war.