Dog discipline, is a rolled up newspaper a good way

Sagz wrote: »

Yes a rolled up newspaper is an excellent way to discipline trolls, if an iron bar can't be found.

This is an outrageous post suggesting hitting the OP with a rolled up newspaper! I think it is well worth the effort to find an iron bar if you haven't got one to hand (I have).

Prothet_of_Doom wrote: »

3 solutions

1) Keep dog in Kitchen
2) Get up 2 hours earlier and take dog for very long walk
3) Get a plastic bottle, fill with pebbles, and shake it, whilst shouting "NO"

All from a book written by a certain Mrs B Woodhouse and freely available in our Local Libary.

A certain B Woodhouse did use several aversive methods though, ones that would be banned for registered trainers/behaviourists by organisations like the APDT and APBC.

For example, a dog that is anxious about being left home alone (and therefore displaying this with destructive behaviour) may become worse when using a method designed to scare a dog, like the pebble bottle and shouting. These are designed to spook and/or intimidate a dog - and that would likely worsen anxiety rather than fix it.

It may work, at least whilst the fear of the bottle or shouting is greater than the fear of being left home alone, but with this kind of method it often doesn't have a longterm effect - often requiring the aversive to be ramped up and up to have an effect. If anything, it could worsen the behaviour - not only will the dog get anxious about being home alone, but that it may be shouted at when the owner returns and sees the damaged furniture. So then a greater aversive is needed to be more intimidating, then that creates more anxiety, etc. - a vicious circle.

You're far more likely to get an effective resolution by addressing the cause of the destructive behaviour, i.e. the fear/anxiety if that's the cause, and changing the dog's emotional response to being home alone. If the dog actually looks forward to you leaving it, because that's become a cue for good things to happen, there's no need to intimidate it. Once the dog's state of mind has changed, you have "fixed" the dog.

Plus, if you teach a dog to deal with stress (e.g. with the settle training, providing physical means to calm down like chews and Kongs, etc.), if it does relapse slightly, it has more tools to learn to deal with this stress. I noticed this a lot when dealing with separation anxiety in my dog - the more time I spent training her a proper, relaxed "settle" on her bed, for example, the more I noticed (I recorded her being left alone and watched back the videos) she would go to her bed and attempt to settle. Every day she managed to settle for longer - and it was a self-rewarding behaviour, so it didn't even require me there like the pebbles-in-a-bottle method would.

http://shibashake.com/dog/aversive-dog-training
http://dog-notes.blogspot.co.uk/2010/03/why-not-advise-aversive-techniques-on.html

krlyr wrote: »

Yes, newspaper can be very effective. Roll up said paper, and whack yourself in the face every time you think of using it on the dog.

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl: