>YOU are the master. > >Once you establish that, everything else comes easy.
Well, sort of true, but it's the *way* you establish it that is the issue. And a lot of people also take this to mean using heavy hand and a lot of force to get a dog to behave, which can hugely backfire with some breeds, and certainly doesn't really lead to the best relationship with your pet either. My number one rule is to be patient and persistent. It's just like with young kids, dogs are very good at figuring out what they can get away with and will push the limits constantly. Even my most well-behaved dogs are constantly testing me to see if maybe today they can hop on the couch without waiting to be invited, or if they can run out the door without sitting first, etc. But I never use physical corrections with my dogs....they've just learned that the only way to get things they want in life is through doing what I ask them to do. The times I run into problems is when I lose my patience and get frustrated...or when I let a dog (no matter what age) do something that I really don't want them to do on a regular basis. So I spend a lot of time correcting behavior I don't want, and rewarding them for things I like (huge amounts of time when I first get a dog in particular)....and as a result my dogs are (as most people put it) more well behaved than most children. ;-) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;207172674;29440083;f Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:295492 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
