This one falls apart immediately, because all the evidence suggests that free-ranging dogs (pariahs, feral and semi-feral populations) don\u2019t form packs. Dogs actually form loose, amorphous, transitory associations with other dogs. And males do not participate in the rearing of young as occurs in a wolf pack.<\/p>\n
2: If you let dogs exit doorways ahead of you, you\u2019re letting them be dominant.<\/strong><\/p>\n There is not only no evidence for this, there is no evidence that the behaviour of going through a doorway has any social significance whatsoever. In order to lend this idea any plausibility, it would first need to be ruled out that rapid doorway exit is not simply a function of their motivation to get to whatever is on the other side combined with their higher ambulation speed. Dogs walk faster than us.<\/p>\n 3: In multi-dog households, \u201csupport the hierarchy\u201d by giving presumed dominant animals patting, treats etc. first, before giving to presumed subordinate animals.<\/strong><\/p>\n There is no evidence that this has any impact on inter-dog relations, or any type of aggression. In fact, if one dog were being aggressive toward another, the laws governing Pavlovian conditioning would dictate an opposite strategy: Teach aggressive dogs that another dog receiving scarce resources predicts that they are about to receive some. If so practiced, the aggressive dog develops a happy emotional response to other dogs getting stuff, a helpful piece of training indeed. No valuable conditioning effects are achieved by giving the presumed higher ranking dog goodies first.<\/p>\n 4:Dogs have an innate desire to please.<\/strong><\/p>\n This is a concept that has never been\u00a0operationally defined, let alone tested. A vast preponderance of evidence, however, suggests that dogs, like all properly functioning animals, are motivated by food, water, sex, and like many animals, by play and access to bonded relationships, especially after an absence. They are also, like all animals, motivated by fear and pain and these are the inevitable tools of those who eschew the use of food, play etc., however much they cloak their coercion and collar tightening in desire to please rhetoric. So when a trainer says s\/he is relying on this, make sure it\u2019s not code for some sort of metal collar.<\/p>\n 5: Rewards are bribes and thus compromise relationships.<\/strong><\/p>\n Related to 4, the idea that behaviour should just, in the words of Dr. Susan Friedman \u201cflow like a fountain\u201d without need of consequences, is opposed by more than sixty years of unequivocal evidence that behaviour is, again to quote Friedman: \u201ca tool to produce consequences\u201d. Another problem is that bribes are given before behaviour and rewards after. And, a mountain of evidence from decades of research in pure and applied settings has demonstrated over and over that positive reinforcement \u2013 i.e. reward \u2013 makes relationships better, never worse. 7: Punish dogs for growling or else they\u2019ll become aggressive.<\/strong><\/p>\n Dogs growl because something that is upsetting them is too close. If you punish them for informing us of this, they are still upset but now not letting us know, thus allowing scary things to get closer and possibly end up bitten. Dr. Ian Dunbar calls this \u201cremoving the ticker from the time bomb\u201d. Much better to make the dog comfortable around what he\u2019s growling at so he\u2019s not motivated to make it go away in the first place.<\/p>\n 8: Playing tug makes dogs aggressive.<\/strong><\/p>\n There is no evidence that this is so. The only study ever done found no correlation between playing tug and the incidence of aggression directed at either family members or strangers. Tug is, in fact, a cooperative behaviour directed at simulated prey: the toy.<\/p>\n 9: If you give dogs chew toys, they\u2019ll learn to chew everything.<\/strong><\/p>\n This is a Pandora\u2019s Box type of argument that has zero evidence to support it. Dogs are excellent discriminators and readily learn to distinguish their toys from forbidden items with minimal training. The argument is also logically flawed as chewing is a behaviour that waxes and wanes depending on satiation\/deprivation. Dogs without chew objects are like zoo animals in barren cages. Unless there is good compensation with other enrichment activities, there is actually a welfare issue.<\/p>\n 10: You can\u2019t modify \u201cgenetic\u201d behaviour.<\/strong><\/p>\n All behaviour is a product of an interplay between genes and the environment. And while some behaviours require less learning than others, or no learning at all, their modifiability varies as much as does the modifiability of behaviours that are primarily learned.<\/p>\n Thanks to Jean Donaldson<\/p>\n For information, articles and free training resources including full colour posters for children, visit:\u00a0www.TheBehaviourCompany.com<\/p>\n TOP 10 DOG BEHAVIOUR MYTHS EXPLAINED 1: Dogs are naturally pack animals with a clear social order. This one falls apart immediately, because all the evidence suggests that free-ranging dogs (pariahs, feral and semi-feral populations) don\u2019t form packs. Dogs actually form loose, amorphous, transitory associations with other dogs. And males do not participate in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[23],"class_list":["post-102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous","tag-dog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thegooddogguide.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thegooddogguide.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thegooddogguide.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thegooddogguide.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thegooddogguide.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.thegooddogguide.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1766,"href":"https:\/\/www.thegooddogguide.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102\/revisions\/1766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thegooddogguide.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thegooddogguide.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thegooddogguide.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n6:<\/strong>\u00a0If you pat your dog when he\u2019s afraid, you\u2019re rewarding the fear.<\/strong>
\nFear is an emotional state, a reaction to the presence or anticipation of something highly aversive. It is not an attempt at manipulation. If terrorists enter a bank and order everybody down on the floor, the people will exhibit fearful behaviour. If I then give one of the bank customers on the floor a compliment, \u00a320 or chocolates is this going to make them more afraid of terrorists next time? It\u2019s stunningly narcissistic to imagine that a dog\u2019s fearful behaviour is somehow directed at us (along with his door dashing).<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/thegooddogguide.files.wordpress.com\/2012\/08\/tbc-email-footer_jez1.jpg\" "\\"TBC")
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"