FOUR PROPERLY TIMED INTERRUPTIONS!
WITH PRAISE!
SURVIVAL INSTINCT: The oral desire.
Your dog is programmed to do what it must to insure the survival of itself and its species.
That’s one powerful tool that is often overlooked as a training aid. Most trainers utilize this with food bribes.
To get results at any price is their motivation.
Other aspects of survival instinct can be more successfully employed. At some point bribery will cause trouble, as with each treat, survival instinct comes into play.
Soon your dogs appreciation level of you is lowered from a mind appreciation to the gut level. When your dog would rather go to his food than you, look out!
Pack mentality is one manifestation of survival instinct.
Your dog looks upon his family as his “pack”. We can manipulate this instinct, or be victimized by it.
“Checking back,” a familiar term with hunters, is a side ways glance to keep from straying too far from the hunter, or in our case, the pack or family.
Praise when you see your dog “checking back,” and he will move in closer.
If he forges on ahead, turn and he will “check back” on you.
If you keep moving away he will turn to follow. Praise him and he will continue.
Just don’t get caught checking back on him, or he will expect you to follow. This principle will be used effectively in our program latter.
Symptoms of behavior, good as well as bad, may be attributed to survival instinct.
These symptoms may be manifest outwardly or inwardly. Over protectiveness or cowering could be examples of very closely related but opposite ways of dealing with circumstances of the environment.
They are often interchangeable within the same individual. Other symptoms of a self-concerned rigid nature could be compulsive scratching, paw licking side or leg sucking, hiding, balking, withdrawal, cowering, and submissive urination.
EXAMPLE: Fear biters can be made to be aggressive biters. “My dog bites/shies out of fear when strangers try to pat him.”
SOLUTION:
Don’t try this without our professional guidance
(This graphic solution is just one of several possibilities.)
Teach the dog to bite on command, thus building confidence, overcoming shyness or fear.
Tags: dog memory, dog training