April 29, 2011
My husband beats our Maltese for peeing on the floor. It is getting aggressive, should we keep the dog when our new baby comes?
Full Question:
Here is our problem....We have a 3 year old Maltese, Yorkie/Terrier, Merl Pom mix and he has not been fixed....yet.
We are about to have a new born baby in June and we are in a quandry on whether to keep the dog with a baby on the way.
My hubby, Alan, reached in today into the dogs crate and he bit him after not liking to have to go into his crate after peeing (which is becoming worse of a problem). Alan of course beat him like he knows to do with dogs who do this...but this is the 2nd time in the dog's 3 years of age of doing this.
He keeps growling at Alan whilest being spanked....and spanked hard too.....still growling... Any harder and Alan feels the dog will be in jeapordy of serious hurting pain being afflicted on the dog so to speak...
He appears to also be trying to mark our clothes but good thing we have a diaper he wears while inside our house.
We're concerned now....shall we keep and fix him in hopes of correcting him....or get rid of him?
Alan thinks to get rid of him as he is not one to take chances with dogs and little babies/kids if it is even a question.
If this problem is not correctable...I agree with him.
Just trying all options as he has been a great dog and only started this in recent months....probably suspecting the baby on the way and getting some jealously issues going on...
attached is a pic of him...and Xena (the littler one who wouldn't hurt a fly..)
Your thoughts?
A K :)
Cindy's Answer:
I don’t think the problem is the dog, I think the problem is the way you are handling the dog.
Beating a dog doesn’t do anything but teach a dog how to be stressed, anxious and afraid.
There are a lot of issues here, but first and foremost is that you and your husband need to become pack leaders for your dogs, not punishers. Dogs don’t learn what we want from them by being hit. You can call it spanking, beating, hitting or whatever but it’s not training.
The dogs crate should be a refuge, not a place of punishment.
Please read this article about becoming an effective pack leader. If you set this dog up as outlined in this article, there is no way he can get into trouble and you will be showing your dog in a productive way how to behave.
The first sentence in this article says it all: “You can feed water and love your dog and he will like you but he very well may not respect you. “ 99% of all behavioral problems are a result of dogs not respecting their owners. This happens as a result of poor handling and/or poor training.
This article was written for people like yourself, people who have great intentions but not enough knowledge of pack structure.. There are links within the article that will take you to other articles on my web site.
At the end of the article I tell people that I wish I had time to train them through emails but I don’t.
Go to the web site and read articles I have written, buy some of the training videos. We have been doing them since 1980. Go to the web discussion board and read the archives of the board. There is a great deal of information here and I make sure it is valid information. This board has almost 6,000 registered dog members like your self. Use the search engine on the web site (it’s on the tool bar on the left side of my web page)
We also have a section on introducing dogs and babies.
I hope this helps.
Cindy
Beating a dog doesn’t do anything but teach a dog how to be stressed, anxious and afraid.
There are a lot of issues here, but first and foremost is that you and your husband need to become pack leaders for your dogs, not punishers. Dogs don’t learn what we want from them by being hit. You can call it spanking, beating, hitting or whatever but it’s not training.
The dogs crate should be a refuge, not a place of punishment.
Please read this article about becoming an effective pack leader. If you set this dog up as outlined in this article, there is no way he can get into trouble and you will be showing your dog in a productive way how to behave.
The first sentence in this article says it all: “You can feed water and love your dog and he will like you but he very well may not respect you. “ 99% of all behavioral problems are a result of dogs not respecting their owners. This happens as a result of poor handling and/or poor training.
This article was written for people like yourself, people who have great intentions but not enough knowledge of pack structure.. There are links within the article that will take you to other articles on my web site.
At the end of the article I tell people that I wish I had time to train them through emails but I don’t.
Go to the web site and read articles I have written, buy some of the training videos. We have been doing them since 1980. Go to the web discussion board and read the archives of the board. There is a great deal of information here and I make sure it is valid information. This board has almost 6,000 registered dog members like your self. Use the search engine on the web site (it’s on the tool bar on the left side of my web page)
We also have a section on introducing dogs and babies.
I hope this helps.
Cindy
User Response:
Thanks for your reply and your particular viewpoint on the subject.Actually our email was intended to go to frawley@leerburg.com but that's ok....it's definitely different hearing both sides from your end.
You're saying one thing and your site said another.
Again, good info...we'll take a peak and see if we can add it to our knowledge base of "how to handle" dogs. :)
Thanks again.
A&A
Cindy's Answer:
Ed and I live together he asks me to answer many of the training emails. He sent yours to me.
I’d be interested to know where on our website you found training advice to hit a dog for making a mistake? If it is on there, it needs to be removed because that is NOT what we advocate. There are times for corrections (but not beating or spanking) only after the dog understands what he is being corrected for. I will wager a guess that your dog does not understand.
Putting a diaper on a dog is basically giving him permission to pee in the house, so if he then doesn’t have the diaper on and you spank him, he won’t have a clue what is happening.
Can you point me to the information you read on our website? I would really appreciate it.
Cindy
I’d be interested to know where on our website you found training advice to hit a dog for making a mistake? If it is on there, it needs to be removed because that is NOT what we advocate. There are times for corrections (but not beating or spanking) only after the dog understands what he is being corrected for. I will wager a guess that your dog does not understand.
Putting a diaper on a dog is basically giving him permission to pee in the house, so if he then doesn’t have the diaper on and you spank him, he won’t have a clue what is happening.
Can you point me to the information you read on our website? I would really appreciate it.
Cindy
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