Dogs As Teachers

I was recently reading an article in the newspaper about an animal behaviourist who uses her four year old dog to teach clients' aggressive dogs to become more sociable and less aggressive.

It's an excellent idea as dogs, just like people, learn by example. Puppies learn from their dams particularly easily. If you ever breed from a bitch of your own and keep back a pup you will quickly be aware of it happening. But they will also learn from other dogs they are not related to.

My first dog never barked before the age of 2. At that age I had to put him in boarding kennels for the first time. If you've had cause to visit such establishments you'll know they tend to be very noisy places, with lots of barking.

When I went to collect my dog after his ten day 'holiday' I was astonished to see him barking - I'd never seen him do it before. But I shouldn't really have been surprised. Being totally surrounded by other barking dogs it was almost inevitable that he would pick up the habit.

Have you ever wondered why packs of beagles and foxhounds are counted in 'couples'?

It's because it used to be commonplace for puppies to be attached to an older, experienced hound when they first joined the pack and were learning the ropes. They would both wear a leather collar and the two collars would be joined together by means of a rigid leather and metal bridge about twelve inches long. Hence they were 'coupled' together.

The experienced hound would in effect drag the puppy along with it, thereby teaching the puppy what all the various different commands meant.

Years ago I remember reading about a man who had a pack of springer spaniels used as sniffer dogs for either drugs or explosives (I can't remember which). He had originally started out with a bitch which he'd trained 'conventionally'. But from that point on all of his additional dogs were home bred and trained entirely by the dam and other members of the pack. At the time I read about him he had about 13 in the pack, all of which were trained to a very high standard yet he hadn't actually trained any of them himself for years!

It stands to reason if you think about it - dogs are far better at communicating with other dogs than we are. Which makes them ideally placed to do a good job of teaching other dogs.

If you only ever have one dog at a time then obviously this will all be completely irrelevant to you. But if you are going to be bringing a new puppy into a home where you already have a dog or dogs (or of course if you are going to breed a litter of your own with a view to keeping back a pup) you will find that the puppy will learn a great deal from its canine companions.

Just beware however, that the pup will learn both good and bad habits! It has no way of knowing that certain peer group behaviour is OK to mimic, while another type of behaviour is unacceptable. So make sure that your old dog/s already behave exactly as you want them to. In other words you need to have done a first class job of training them to the desired standard. That way you can be sure that only good manners will rub off onto the pup.

If your older dogs are not impecably behaved, I can virtually guarantee that the new pup will pick up the undesirable behaviour too, so you could just be perpetuating it unless you work very hard on that particular aspect of training.

You have been warned!

Recommended reading "Dog Training Blueprint To Success".

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