Understanding Dogs Part 34 - Decide How You Want Your Dog To Act! - Family - Pets

Before you may use the outcome of the profile, you want to take a look at what you need Tommy to do or - and this is frequently more critical - stop doing. For instance, when you walk Tommy on leash and need him to focus on you, he needs to be in pack drive.

Tommy, on the other hand, wants to smell, perhaps follow a trail, or chase the neighbor's kitty; he is in prey drive. For most of what you need Tommy to do, for example the following, he has to be in pack drive :

* Come

* Down

* Sit

* Stay

* Walk on a loose leash

For most of what Tommy wants to do,eg the following, he is going to be in prey drive :

* Chase a pussy-cat

* Dig

* Follow the trail of a rabbit

* Retrieve a ball or stick

* Sniff the grass

You can swiftly see that those times when you need him to behave, you've got to convince Tommy to forget being in prey drive. Dogs high in prey drive customarily need rather a lot of coaching.

The dog with high pack and low prey drive barely wishes in depth coaching, if any in any way. Such a dog doesn't do the following

: * Chase bikes, vehicles, children, or joggers

* Chase pussies or other animals

* Gnaw your things

* Pull on the leash

* Ramble from home

* Scouse borrow food put simply, he is an ideal pet.

Allegedly, Tommy doesn't need defense drive ( fight ) behaviors for what you need him to learn, but the lack of these behaviors has crucial implications. An especially low defense drive decides how Tommy has to be trained. As an example, our first Labrador, Bean, was low in defense drive.

If we, or any one else, would lean over him, he would collapse on the floor and act as if he had been beaten. Katharina, our German Shepherd, on the other hand, who was high in fight drive, would just look at you if you leaned over her, like to assert, "Okay, what do you want?" Coaching each dog needed another approach.

With Bean, a check on his leash lead him to literally collapse - he did not have enough fight behaviors to deal with the check. A slight tug on the leash or a quietly spoken command was enough to make him ignore chasing our well-known rabbit. Katharina needed a firm check to persuade her to forget the rabbit.

The only real difference between the 2 dogs was their score in fight drive on their Personality Profile. The fantastic thing about the drives concept is that, if used properly, it gives you the essential discernment to conquer areas where you and your dog are at percentages with one another as to appropriate behavior.

A soft command could be enough for one dog to switch the undesired behavior, while a check is needed for another.