Category: Common Problems ¤
  Author: Victoria Farrington ¤
   Title: Leadership ¤

	Gee, I get to agree with Gary!  (not that I don't usually but I 
don't usually make a stink about it, just nod my head)
	Every time this relationship/leadership business comes up as if 
it's incompatible with clicker training, I go almost bug eyed in confusion.
	Okay, if every time my dog plunked his rear down, I stopped what 
I was doing and rushed over to give him half a chicken, he'd probably 
think he was controlling me.  He might even think he was running the show 
if every time I said sit and he plunked his butt, he got a treat.  Or if 
every time he stood in front of the door, I ran over and let him out.  
But none of this works that way, does it?
	First you catch your dog plunking his butt down and you c/t.  
Personally I don't think dogs think anything but I'm going to pretend 
they think COOL! so they sit again.  But that isin't the end of it, 
right?  If you're trying to teach them to sit for 2 mins. or 2 hours, 
they have to keep working a little harder.  Or you ask for twofers or 
threefers so they find out just the butt business isn't enough and may 
have to be repeated.  Then you put it under stimulus control so they can 
butt plunk right and left and it doesn't mean a thing if you haven't 
asked for a butt plunk.  THEN, you put it on a VSR so sometimes they butt 
plunk and you say thank you and smile, or you ask for another behavior or 
maybe you reach way down in your pocket and pull out an old weiner 
that's gone through the wash.  So now you have a dog who butt plunks when 
you request a butt plunk, where you request a butt plunk and sometimes he 
doesn't get one stinking thing for it.  And he keeps doing it.
	My dogs don't stare at the clicker.  They don't stare at the 
fridge when they're hungry or the door when they want to go out.  They 
look at me.  They're perfectly clear on what's happening.  The click may 
be the sound that tells them when they're right but I"m the one who 
DECIDES when they're right and then I decide what they get.  If that 
isn't control I don't know what is.  And, wow, they just think I'm cooler 
and cooler and even when they're a wee bit naughty and I refuse to 
acknowledge their existence  or run out of the room, they come after me 
resigned to it--okay, what about this?  What if I lie down and shut up?  
Then can I go out?  (Can I, can I can I...okay, they're still terriers.)  
	So over and over again, your dog learns that you approve or 
withhold your approval of its behavior. So then something comes along 
like a dog looking for a fight, you tell your dog, Come here.  Does he 
stop and think--oh right, says who?  He may very well just come.  Not 
because you've punished him for not coming but because he's 
CONDITIONED to respond to your lovely melodious voice.  He really ought 
not to think at all, just whirl around toward you because you've been 
through this routine a few million times.  I say come, you turn on a 
dime.  And at some point, it shouldn't matter any more if there's a bully 
looking for fight your dog would dearly love to give him or if there's 
prime rib on the ground.
	I mean, this is about conditioning right?  Not the value of 
sliced turkey franks. 
	As for dominant/submissive/leadership things, I know plenty of 
sweet submissive dogs utterly clear about who's the boss in the house and 
they still whine to go out, jump on their owners, nudge people under the 
table during dinner, threaten the mailman and run away when they're being 
called. And I know one little bossy boots dog who now does pretty much 
everything he's cued to do, including sitting behind me when a bully dog 
greets us at the mailbox looking for a fight.  I'd say you trusting your 
dog and your dog trusting you is a relationship.
	Geez, was I on a soapbox?  I feel kind of heated and sweaty...All 
because I met this really nice woman about 8 mos ago.  SHe'd put a CD on 
a bulldog, which is nothing to sniff at.  But the bulldog wouldn't 
retrieve.  She was told to lift his lip, insert DB and praise him.  The 
bulldog didn't care for this and he growled.  Not anything passionate, 
just cut that out kind of growl.  Her obed instructor told her this was a 
dangerous sign of dominance and so for about 8 weeks, she alpha rolled 
him, she ignored him when he wanted a head rub, she did this and she did 
that.  She felt bad about it sometimes, like when she was kicking him out 
of his favorite corner to sleep, but he took it well and it didn't cause 
any harm.  BUT he still growled when she lifted his lip and inserted DB.  
Then she caught onto clicker training, it went like a breeze once she 
left his poor lip alone.  And the reason this woman was talking to me 
with tears in her eyes?  (She'd seen me with a clicker in a park.)  SHe 
had kids, another dog, a cat.  She was terrified about that dominance 
business.  Yes, he did retrieve but was she harboring a dangerous 
animal?  The little beast was about 6 years old.  One of my dogs cuffed 
him and he showed no more than a sort of quizzical distaste.  Really.  
WHo makes people feel this way about dogs they love?
	Victoria Farrington