Your thoughts on pet discipline

[PetLuvR]

Hey guys I was just wondering what yall's thoughts were on pet discipline. You always hear about abuse. What are yall's thoughts on disciplining your dog. Should you spank them or shouldnt you. There are some people out there that dont belive in spankings at all and vise versa I am interested in you alls thoughts. Thanks!

[Marty]

all that does is make them afraid of your arm. I have hit newspapers on tables to catch their attention, put pennies in coke cans to shake for the same reason. And that was to correct puppy behavior. As adult dogs, they don't need any of that. Hitting, or spanking does nothing, but bring fear, for a dog nor a child...IMHO...

[davet]

will show you and the dog how to handle situations..tone of voice will help a lot...now here is where i will again get into trouble but when ever a dog snapped at me on the table he got an unwelcomn smack...shook the clients up but i said now watch and the same dog never snapped back at me...i do not say to do this but when your trying to ecxamine a dog and you are not in control you might as well forget it or got to sever restraints...but again an obediance trained dog will never have to be disciplined other than tone of voice and a pointed finger..

[Mary Plummer]

...the rough treatment on him; it seems to us like someone tried to beat the puppy out of him. A firm voice "No" was sufficient to teach him what we didn't want him to do. I have no experience with puppies, but there is no way I would hit any of the adult dogs that have been in my life.

[momPaws]

just my humble opinion...I would never spank, hit or in any way use physical force on my dog. When we got her she was not socialized well and I got several dog books and used their behavior modification advice.
She would have 'temper fits' and what worked was a 'time out' (like a kid). We would sternly say NO and put her in a room away from the family for even 10 minutes. According to the books...what dogs crave is your approval so the loss of that or human companionship and approval is a big negative to them. It worked- she stopped her bad behavior with just NO after a while. Boy did she hate to be separated from us. That was even hard for us to do with that cute little puppy. But to hit a dog- NEVER. I think that would either teach them to be mean or fearful of humans. In my humble opinion. There are experts here who know much more than I.
PS- We did do the obedience school thing as Davet said I believe that more of what that did was to teach US how to teach the dog.

[ShelbysMom]

Never, never hit a dog, and especially a puppy. Tone of voice and consistency works well. Most dogs won't look you in the face when they've done something wrong. I have held Shelby's snoot and made her look at me and sternly said "No". That is about the harshest discipline I've ever inflicted.
Hitting and spanking will surely ruin your dog.
Be consistent and have patience and you'll have a great dog. It doesn't happen overnight.

[DeVon]

will show you and the dog how to handle situations..tone of voice will help a lot...now here is where i will again get into trouble but when ever a dog snapped at me on the table he got an unwelcomn smack...shook the clients up but i said now watch and the same dog never snapped back at me...i do not say to do this but when your trying to ecxamine a dog and you are not in control you might as well forget it or got to sever restraints...but again an obediance trained dog will never have to be disciplined other than tone of voice and a pointed finger..

You're not in trouble with me. We did the same thing at the clinic where I worked with a rap on the snout of a biter (with two fingers extended, using the fingers to rap on top of the snout). I remember one bichon in particular who was very snappy, all we were doing was combing him out (we were NOT hurting him), he bit, got rapped, and never did it again and we brushed and combed another 30 minutes. Always worked for me.

[ragsjpause]

My dog was obviously hit a lot when I adopted her ten years ago.
I have met many dogs in the absence of their owners as well.
I agree that tone of voice or your own agressive manerism works with most dogs. Dogs seem to know how you feel about them intuitively.
For biting/ snapping , I swipe with two fingers under the jaw, so the dog won't develope a fear of a friendly arm coming at them for petting.
For other problems like chewing up the doors.... like mine did when I got her, ... no decipline is helpful at all, but rather fixing the situation and finding what will calm her. .. I had nailed metal on the door frames which helped the door but not the dog. Eventually I found that she just really needed to be able to see out the window, so I built a platform for her to lay on and see out the window while I was at work. With the radio playing.

[davet]

daughter raised her and i knwo she was never hit, however she grew up with to overbearing dogs and this put her at the bottom of the heap..lots of time people will accue the former owner of beating their g=dog but this is rarely (obviously ther sare some cases) the cas...every litter has a peck order ie top puppy and bottom puppy and those in between...the dog at the bottom of the heap will show this "cowardly" symptons the rest of their lives...i think this is what sassie was..if i pat my leg for her to come over she will lower her head like i am going to whoop her, but if i reach for her to scratch her she is finek,the old usuall roll over on her back to let me know i forgot to scratch her stomach..

[momPaws]

I could almost apply this pecking order psychology at work
...interesting after all it kinda is like a pack of 'wolves' (ha,ha) - can you tell I work for the govt???