Articles about American Pit Bull Terrier
...to start reading this article from the beginning please click on here...The last reason a behavior might occur is because of a medical condition. For instance, sometimes urinary inconsistency may be caused by urinary track infections, however, some may label the urinating as a dominant action. How bad would you feel if you constantly punished your dog for urinating in the house and later found out that it was caused by an infection? Imagine the poor dog's frustration. On one occasion one of my friend's dog growled at her when she tried to take the dog off the couch. At first anyone may have thought this was a dominant growl, however, after veterinary inspection they found out that their dog was suffering from pancreatitis a very painful condition. These two examples show that we shouldn't be hasty and jump to conclusions but instead explore all other possibilities and be proactive when trying to solve a problem. …the negative effects outweigh the positive ones. Unfortunately, many aversive methods have created very aggressive and unreliable dogs, because of this many have had to be put down. The reason for this is that when people try to dominate their dogs, the dog's natural reaction is to resist (such as with the alpha roll), the next thing is that this resistance is met with force on the part of the owner and in some cases the struggle may lead to serious injury either to the human or the dog, but in either case the dog suffers. A classic example of a dominating technique is the alpha roll. The concept behind this is that if you roll a dog on his back, in the similar way an alpha wolf rolls other wolves, you are showing him that you are more dominant. Those that advocate this method couldn't be more wrong. The alpha roll also has its basis in a faulty observation, initially biologist thought that an alpha would roll another on his back to demonstrate dominance; now we know that the so called alpha roll is not forced upon the offending wolf but rather the lower ranking wolf is willingly rolling over to show submission. Again, this is an example of how submission and not dominance is used to keep the peace in a pack. The only cases recorded where a wolf (or feral dog) rolls another over on his/her back forcefully was in order to kill it. If this is the intent of the forceful alpha roll, then what are you telling your dog when you roll him/her over? A logical comparison would be a boss pointing a gun at you and asking you not to repeat a mistake! Any dominating technique that uses force is better to avoid for another reason. When you implement alpha rolls, harsh leash checks, scruff shaking, etc. You are teaching your dog that aggressive struggles for dominance is fair play. A dog that mistakenly thinks this way may use force to try to dominate other people such as elderly or young members of the family and such a dog could be a health hazard. All in all its best simply to avoid these methods because you gain a lot less than you loose.
...to start reading this article from the beginning please click on here...