Augh (The Wrong Way to Train your Dog)
I don't typically like to tell people that there is a right and a wrong way to do much of anything - I know from experience that breaking from the norm often produces excellent results when it comes to problem-solving! But in the world of dog training, there is absolutely no room for hitting, grabbing, shaking, or those bullshit fucking alpha rolls.
On Saturday, we pulled up to the lake at the abandoned Girl Scout camp, and there are these local rednecks there who are the proud new owners of an Aussie pup (who looks like it might have Lethal White Syndrome). The instant this puppy doesn't listen to one of the owners, they call it over to them so they can throw it down in an alpha roll.
At one point, the dude-owner leaned over the puppy and grabbed it by the scruff of the neck to force it onto it's back, and the puppy reared up and grabbed the young man by the lip and nose. He laughed it off, forcing the screaming puppy down, and, when he saw my disgusted expression, said, "She's trying so hard to be dominant! I don't think she knows how much bigger and stronger I am!"
I'd never seen someone bit on the face like that before. It was rather jarring, even though no blood was drawn. I told Andrew later, "That dog is going to hurt someone some day. They're going to say, 'I don't know what got into her! She just snapped!'"
I wanted so badly to tell these people that they were dooming their animal to be a cowering, fearful, aggressive mental mess. But I already knew that they weren't the type to take my advice, and would, most likely, consider my attempt to help an insult. I would have heard the old excuse of, "Well, I've raised a lotta dogs like this and they all turned out great!" or, "My cousin is a professional trainer, and he says..."
If you call your dog to your side so that you can beat the piss out of her, then get upset at the fact that your dog has shitty recall, there is something wrong with YOU, not with your dog.
Of course she doesn't want to come to you! You grab her, shake her, and throw her on her back every other time she does so. If someone told you that if you reached into a dark hole, you might get $50.00, or you might stick your hand in a conibear trap, would you be willing to make that reach each and every time? I sincerely doubt it.
Yet that's exactly what this poor puppy faces, and it angers me, because this kind of treatment has become so incredibly normalized that even people who love and care for animals think that it's okay.
