She is trying to dominate me!!

[Timbers_Mama]

Recently I have noticed that Timber is trying to be dominant over me. At first I thought she was just being a puppy but now I have started to notice that when I tell her NO she just wags her tail and hardly listens to me. When my husband tells her no her tail quit wagging and goes down and her head goes down and she quits what she is doing. I am a big pushover!! Help! We start puppy training tomorrow so I am hoping that the trainer will give me some tips but I would appreciate any of your suggestions of how I can be more effective with discipline. How can I teach her that she is not the dominant one over me?

 

[JaredKyah]

I think your puppy is a little too young to purposefully dominate you. She is less than 4 months old, and I think she is being a puppy. She may respond to your husbands voice because it is deeper and in the puppy's mind, may be taken more seriously. Perhaps, you could try using a stern tone to your voice? But keep in mind, a puppy is not going to want to obey the "come" command if you are shouting or clearly displeased, your tone of voice may affect her reaction.

Similarly, she may have gotten used to the word "no" coming out of your mouth. One of the mods suggested that we try saying something else besides "No" , like "uh-uh". Some puppies hear the word "no" so much that it doesn't mean anything anymore.

Try practicing her recall using treats as a reward. If she is doing something she isn't supposed to, say No (or use another term) but redirect her to appropriate behavior, ie if she is chewing on a shoe, give her an appropriate chew toy.

I am sure your trainer will be able to help more thoroughly.
Good Luck

 

[gmacleod]

Likewise, I think the idea of such a young puppy somehow trying to "dominate" you to be a bit ridiculous. Even with an adult dog that understands the concept of pack hierarchy (which does not necessarily include humans), it is a dangerous mind-set to get into - because once you start blaming things on this much-misunderstood concept of "dominance" then it's far too easy to end up figuring you've got to somehow smash any rebellion, lest you end up being "lower" than the dog. Frankly, I wonder how anyone gets any joy out of dog ownership when they turn the whole thing into some unpleasant competition like that.

Your puppy is a baby. Like any baby, she's got no concept at all of what you want from her - yet. That comes with teaching. I can't understand why you would actually want to have a baby puppy shrinking on the floor at the sound of your "no", or think that it's a good thing. All it means, btw, is that she understands that your husband is displeased with her and is intimidated by that (versus not being intimidated by your displeasure). Who wants to, or can achieve anything by intimidating a baby puppy?

That part is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things though - what's actually important is teaching the dog what you DO want Just like with human kids, if you can teach them what you DO want them to do, and keep proper control of the rewards so that they're only rewarded for what you deem to be good - then you will get predominantly good behaviour. It isn't necessary to compete for some notion of dominance in that case. The problem we people tend to create for ourselves is failure to control rewards - we give things away for free, sometimes treat our dogs like little humans in furry coats, including in response to behaviours we don't actually like. Little wonder then, that we fail to control the dog's behaviour

If, however, you can keep control of the rewards in this puppy's life (a reward being anything the dog wants or enjoys - including food, including attention, including a seat on the couch, a game etc), then you WILL control her behaviour. All without any need of the gruff voice or pup cowering at the mere sound of "no".

 

[ELubas]

The problem we people tend to create for ourselves is failure to control rewards - we give things away for free, sometimes treat our dogs like little humans in furry coats, including in response to behaviours we don't actually like. Little wonder then, that we fail to control the dog's behaviour

If, however, you can keep control of the rewards in this puppy's life (a reward being anything the dog wants or enjoys - including food, including attention, including a seat on the couch, a game etc), then you WILL control her behaviour. All without any need of the gruff voice or pup cowering at the mere sound of "no".

So, so true. What a difference it makes in a dog when they know what you DO want and good stuff happens when they do those things. Much less stressfull for all concerned (dog and human) than the other way around

 

[Timbers_Mama]

Thanks so much for the info! Today I have been focusing on what I want her to do, instead of what I don't want her to do and it seems to have a good affect. The training went well tonite and my trainer was actually suprised at how well she was listening to my commands! She thinks she was responding very well. I think we will be just fine

 

[ELubas]

Glad things are going well Erin

 

[gmacleod]

Excellent That's great to hear.

It really can be quite amazing to see the results when we conciously stop focussing on saying "don't" and start saying "do" instead. They're pretty willing and ready to please - just need the instructions on what TO do Sounds like you and your pup are well on the way to a most satisfactory relationship

 

[MaxDertian]

I used to think the same thing with my, now 8 month old. My husband would say things and he would listen quite well, I would have to say them several times. One thing that I found is that it eventually changed and he started listening to me and not my husband. And now he is very good about listening to both of us most of the time. He is still a puppy so, just like kids, we don't expect him to listen every single time.
Here is one thing that I found work really well. I live in a small lake neighbor hood, which means that in the summer cars drive in and out all day, almost every day and on the weekends it gets really crazy. My neighbor across the street from me visits often and we would visit her and her dogs as well. We had a problem with Maximus running across the street to visit her as soon as he came out the door and no matter what we did he just didn't care. One day he almost got hit by a car and that scared me bad. So we started to do this. First we walked him around the yard several times, several times a day- just to get him to remember our yard lines- and during this time we did not take him across the street. After about a week I started to let him out again without the leash, he would of course start to run to the road, I would call him and if he listened I would put him on his leash and let him visit across the street, but only on his leash. If he did not listen he had to go back inside (which was a horrible thing to him) and had to stay for 10 min (just long enough that he would remember what he did, not too long because he would just forget), then let him out again. If he ran out to the street he went back inside, this actually went on for about 3 hours one day, but after about a week he started to listen to me because he was getting rewarded. Since this worked soo well, we started to find some reward every time he listened. Sometimes it was treats, some times it was his favorite toy or even just giving him a good rub down and scratch (his favorite thing after food). So now we have a really well behaved puppy. I can take him anywhere without having to worry about him running off or being really bad. again he's still a puppy so he does his little bad things. But for the most part he very good and listens to us 98% of the time.