Humping male pup (kinda long)

[A Woman's Touch]

I had to respond to the suggestion that one would "hump" your dog and whisper anything into its ear. For many dogs that would start an aggression response, and for many others, it would be plain incomprehensible, even if it made you feel better. That is not an appropriate way to deal with dominance, IMHO, and is asking for more trouble, not less.

If a male is humping my leg, I very gently start stepping into his space with my hip leading the way, moving into his space so he has to back up. I then will get him to sit, using a treat if necessary. A couple of these moves, and he is convinced that it is a fruitless exercise.

A lot of behaviorists are re-thinking dominance, and how to establish control and cooperation with your dog. I strongly recommend reading Patricia McConnell's book "The other end of the leash" for information on ways to become the leader of your pack in a way that your dog will understand. I also think it's worth reading Suzanne Clothier's new book "Bones would rain from the sky" for a wonderful description of why it's important for us to improve our relationships with our dogs and develop a good connection without force or pain.

The class I attended with my first Berner had us doing all the traditional dominance moves: alpha roll-overs, staring into the dog's eyes, lots of chain-collar jerking and a correction-based training. It was a disaster for both of us - I would leave class shaking and upset by the harshness of the method, and Emma would have these incredible flashes of sharpness and aggression at any attempt at alpha rolls, etc. It was not until I started taking classes with Patricia McConnell (in the days when she still taught directly) that I recognized Emma's responses as fear aggression. Tricia taught us gentle, kind ways to communicate our desires to our dogs, and the change was immediate. Emma became cooperative, loving, enthusiastic, and she learned everything I taught her (sometimes too well...<g>)

Since then I and my partner only use clicker training and other positive training methods. That's not to say that we never correct a dog when it's being a dingbat (see above for the humping management - same strategy for jumping up, by the way), but we focus on teaching behaviors that are incompatible with the problematic behavior, giving our dogs useful jobs (our youngest, a Newf with high prey drive and intense activity level is learning to bring us all kinds of things, and to "save" someone in the next room by taking a rope or toy to that person as if it were a life ring to drowning person), keeping them occupied and active, and trying very hard to understand the world from their point of view. All this works very well for us, and we've seen it work well for lots of others.

My opinion and experience, of course.

Ellen (with Bella & Livi the berner girls waving hi)