What a dog wants, what a dog needs…
Everyone loves to love their dogs – but in order to maintain a balanced pack we need to make sure we’re giving the correct balance of affection and leadership, or you’ll quickly start to see behaviour problems.
As Mr Cesar Millan always says, “Exercise, Discipline, Affection”. In that order. This is a great recipe for living a harmonious life with your dog. Making sure you fulfil your dogs needs and draining their energy first is important. A bored dog that never gets challenged or never gets to visit a new place with different scents isn’t going to feel fulfilled. And with all that extra energy, that’s when you start to see problems.
I see lots of owners that use the excuse of throwing a ball in the backyard as a way to exercise their dog. This isn’t enough. Let’s get out into mother nature and explore new places with our best friends! When your dog is tired, relaxed and calm, it is a good time to provide some affection. However if they start to get too excited, it’s time to stop and ask them to relax again.
That said, exercise isn’t enough. Dogs are naturally better behaved when they’re tired & low on energy, however it’s important to also provide consistent rules for your dog/s. Demonstrating leadership and disagreeing with behaviours that you don’t want to encourage is vital in fostering the best relationship with your canine companion. You need to be a calm and confident leader that they can trust and rely on to show them the way, and let them know what’s acceptable and what’s not. Otherwise how do they know what to do?
In a pack, dogs practice discipline with each other all the time, with the pack leader setting the bar. When humans don’t provide any discipline (just purely affection) the dogs see this as a lack of leadership and take on the role of being the leader themselves, which leads to problem behaviours. Make sure you’re setting rules, boundaries and limitations for your dog and they will be grateful for it.
Now that you have provided consistent exercise and discipline, you will have made leaps and bounds in establishing a relationship with your dog, with you as pack leader. When your dog understands that the human is there to provide guidance and protection everyday, they remain in a calm, balanced state of mind all the time and in any situation (because you have shown them how). They feel no need to react, or protect, or be nervous, because they know you have control of the situation.
Once you have established this mutual trust, respect and consistency, you will be able to provide much more affection whenever you like, because you have created the perfect relationship where your dog respects you as their leader.
Remember, being a pack leader is a lifestyle and very rewarding one at that! If you can prioritise consistently providing exercise and discipline and give affection at the right times, you and your dog will both live a more relaxed, happy life.