What behaviour do you want to change

What extent can you retrain a dog behaviour bearing in mind the strength of its own natural instincts.Every dog has a set of natural instincts, these instincts are inherent to them and led by the pack animal from which they descend.

Many may argue this point and that is where the divide between training and balance begins.

I believe there is a massive difference between a trained dog and a balanced dog.

If you just look to training to change behaviour then you are going against the natural instincts of the dog.

There are many theories and training systems being used today, but these do not bring balance because they do not bring order to a dog’s life.

Times have changed for the dog, gone are the days they could just roam and do their own thing all day long and then come back to the home at night to be fed.

We didn’t need behaviourist because there were less aggressive dog’s.  Adverse behaviours like  dog to dog attacks and dog to human attacks just didn’t exist 40 or 50 years ago.

Dogs are highly social animals, and their behavioural patterns account for their trainability, playfulness, and ability to fit into human households and social situations.

Much of the dog’s natural instinctive behaviour revolves around learning how to interact with other members of their species.

This is where we sometimes slip up as dog owners, it all goes back to the natural need for balance not training.

Balance comes from their inherent obligation to the group, which in many cases this is just you.

Offering them that balance through a simple process which includes specialising and interaction with their own species, we are fulfilling their basic need’s.

Training a dog is a human activity; it is not a dog activity. It becomes more about the humans ability to control rather than the dogs natural instinct to fit in and live in a social environment.

All dog’s are capable of living with a human family and other animals but it is important to teach them how to properly interact in a balanced state.

Helping your dog to gently and consistently know what is acceptable behaviour in any given situation.

The number one mistake we as dog owners make is that we treat them like humans.

The human race is such a kind and compassionate species but we can also be very narrow-minded.

We look at our canine companions as being the same, we so want the best for them we can become blindsided while trying to create the perfectly trained dog.

We miss out the key factors that a dog needs in its life. To a dog, constant rewards without rules or having to work for it goes against its instinct. They have to fulfil their instincts everyday to feel balanced and happy.

We as dog owners/Family leaders have to provide this balance in order for them to achieve this. Giving reward is important but it must be done at the correct time.

Simply training a dog often gives the dog mixed signals, which throws the dog off-balance, confusing them and in turn causing many psychological and behavioural problems we see in dogs today.

To answer the question,”can you retrain a dog behaviour”, yes you can. If you have a balance between natural instincts and the humans need to train will create a truly functional and working relationship.

The human race has successfully domesticated the dog, but we have never managed to totally de-animalise the dog and remove their strong natural instinct.

We cannot change a dog into having human characteristics as much as we like to think we can.

We can pretend and fulfil our own needs in doing so, however this is where the behavioural problems begin.

While we think we are treating a dog in such a way that it is happy, we are actually creating the opposite in most cases.

By not fulfilling the dog’s natural need for balance, boundaries and limitations we are creating a confused and very unhappy dog.