Hi, OK. This is what I did.
EATING: I would prepare food and leave the bowl on surface and eat small piece of fruit. Jaya would sit and wait patiently then i would put food on floor and he would eat. The first time I did this I noticed a calming.

WALK: I would ask him to sit before going out of the door (just good manners for me) and if he pulled I would stop until the lead relaxed. Then set off again. I would repeat this until he got the message. There was little commands to heel from me, but through habit I did "heel" him a few times.

DANGER: If he were startled by a knock on the door or barking for any other reason (BTW he doesn't bark much anyway) i would thank him and check out what was going on.

REUNITING: After being apart from him I would ignore his excitedness then when he settled i would call him over and shower him with affection. I rewarded he behaviour that I wanted.

in my experience this way of working had instant results. I noticed he was calmer and less frantic around the house. He was easier to train being more obedient. About a month after this i took him to the vet and she commented that he looked a "happy dog", then commented on how calm he was. i havent fallen into the trap of thinking an excited and frantic dog is a happy dog.

This is just my experience and I realise that a lot is common sense.

hope this helps, Surya

I had never heard of AB but I have heard of some of the methods. I personally don't want to use them and don't see why I would need to when my dogs seem OK with things as they are.
I absolutely love that link to the older post by Merlins Mum and if I was just starting out with dogs then it would really help me to get a good perspective on training and why not to take things too seriously or read into them too much - that's what I pay the trainer to do and assuming I find a good one then I get all the explanation I need!
I have realised since being on dogsey that I just don't seem to be the person who can grasp all these different ideas so I'll just leave it to the experts.
I'm besotted with my dogs and don't doubt their happiness, nor mine!

Dog training really isn`t that hard. It`s an animal. You just find a way to train the animal to do what you want. If you`re a kind person you use a kind way. If you`re a cruel person you use a cruel way. If you`re the type who likes to complicate issues you find a way to make it complicated.
And if you`re broke you invent a `method` and write a book.
Every dog is different. Every owner is different. Which is why no one theory can ever become THE way to train. If something works for you and your dog, great. But it doesn`t mean you`ve found the Holy Grail for everyone else.

eta - the classic answer to people when the Faith Healing doesn`t work is `you`re doing it wrong/ not worthy / not trying hard enough.
I find it insulting and patronising to infer that people with challenging dogs are inadequate human beings. Your title - `transform yourself` implies that the owners of difficult dogs are to blame. How rude is that!

I'm the complicated one - can you tell?!

Gesture eating is silly. I doubt the dog even notices what you're doing nor cares if you're gesture eating a cracker. My dog is going to smell HER delicious food and be staring at that. Gesture eating just makes the big bad human (who is the only one focused on being "dominant" in the relationship) feel like they're in charge. I doubt they realize how stupid they look, nor how it is perceived by the dog.


In proper "loose leash walking" no one walks anyone. I walk with my dog. I don't walk her and she doesn't walk me. No one is pulling on the lead. We both choose the directions we go in. Yes, that means at times I allow my dog to turn down a street and simply follow along. She has a mind of her own and I prefer to let her make choices and exercise that mind.

I doubt most people would even know the answer to this question as hopefully most of us and our dogs have not been in truly dangerous situations. I hope I never find out.

Why? If the dog has issues with excitement urination I can understand making the entrance low-key, but I still see no reason to outright ignore the dog. That's punishment and why would you want to punish your dog for being happy to see you? When I get home, I immediately get down on my knees, let my dog kiss me and cuddle up to me, rub her belly, and then play tug with her. It's a wonderful greeting ritual. Why would I want to just walk in and act like she's not there? This is as silly as gesture eating and likely a lot more damaging to the bond.

I think perhaps you should check out Patricia McConnell's work sometime. She has a brilliant blog: www.theotherendoftheleash.com and a bunch of amazing books (I recommend The Other End of the Leash and For the Love of a Dog).

i now understand the answer to the question i asked you earlier, about how can you say people may be doing AB without realising it?
its the other way around, people that practice the four elements just dont relaise they arent doing AB, but they are just doing standard dog training that all dog trainers teach!

see my bold bits below:

its because they arent doing AB!
cheers surya

this last paragraph is word for word spot on.
As in you initiated a training programme for a new dog that yet was aware of the routines of living in a human household.
It has worked, so from your human point of view, your dog is calm.
So when you earlier said you had instilled AB into your dog and he is now a calm dog that you can now train, that isnt what you did.
As you had already started the training, it was just the foundation obedience stuff that you need for all the more detailed stuff later.

(btw, 2 of these 'elements' are from the old fashioned 'top dog' list of rank practices dating back a few dacades ago....see John Fisher etc).

Correct me if I am wrong but I think Mech only studied the wolves for the 6 mths where food was plentiful?---when they moved to more difficult terrain etc he couldn't moniter them in the same way.

Personally I think if you are going to use a wolf model at all you should use captive wolves since our dogs are, in effect, captive and confined to a designated area. Mrchs studies, whilst very interesting are more or less totally irrelevant to any captive animals.

rune

that was the point i was making vis a vi wolves being the basis for AB, so the basis itself (forgetting the human and dog issues for a minute) being erroneous as it is, so what then the value of the theory that is postulated upon it?

also, the relevanceof mech is he shows the alpha wolf doesnt always eat first.

equally, having been to the captive wolf park in scotland, where the food is chucked over the fence, there was a free for all with all wolves diving in at the same time.

I was under the impression (one of) the reason(s) that dominance/alph roll was being rejected was due to it being based on a study of captive wolves.

So is it a case of dominance being rejected due to the wolves being captive and AB being rejected as the wolves were wild?

In my experience, the individual attitude of any canine towards its food, is UNIQUE to that individual and is depenmdant on many things, such as, frequency amd availability of food, food type, relationship of dog to food - some dogs simply are not that bothered about their food if there are other distractions - relationship with other present food source threats, some friends will happily share the same bowl and may do for along time.

All groups of canines approach eating differently too. Having spent time amongst several dog packs, I do not believe that there is any single eating structure that is species wide or that can be used globally to apply to all dogs.

The "effect" of eating a biscuit before a dog is likely to be dependant on a huge range of variables.