Who Pets Your Puppy or Your Dog

WHO PETS YOUR PUPPY

Or Your DOG

By Ed Frawley

PODCAST

Reasons for not allowing people to touch your dog:

In both my basic DVDs, Your Puppy 8 Weeks to 8 Months and Basic Dog Obedience I advise people to not allow strangers to touch their dog. This has generated a lot of email questions so I decided to write this article to expand on the reasons and exceptions for this policy.

To understand this you must first understand what I expect from a relationship with my dogs. I want a dog that sees me as the center of its universe. I want my dog to focus on me and I want it to ignore other humans (and animals).

I don’t want a dog to look at other people as “PETTING MACHINES.” In other words I don’t want my dog running up to every Tom, Dick, and Harry and expect to be petted. I want my dog to accept people but be aloof to them. I don’t want my dog to be suspicious or aggressive to strangers (unless I tell them to be this way).

We carry this concept into our home where we have several dogs that are trained by a different family member.

We expect our personal dogs to completely accept other members of the family as pack members.

Basic Dog Obedience

The Family and Your Dog

1- Family members don’t train or play with another family member's personal dogs.

2-Family members can greet another member's dogs with a pat on the head when they come home but they don't gush over them.

3- Family members can even feed the dogs, but they simply put the food down. They don't try and take food or bones away from a dog of another family member.

4- Each member of the family can take all the dogs outside to pee and poop. But we don’t PLAY with each other's dogs when we do this. It's treated in a sterile exercise. In other words, go outside - do your business and come back inside. No games or play while outside.

4- The PLAY and training comes from the person who is the leader or handler of the specific dog.

When we walk our puppies and people try and pet our dogs we politely but firmly ask them not to touch our dog. If questioned, we simply tell them the dog is being trained as a service dog.

As long as you are not trying to disguise a dog as a service dog and take it places normal pets don't belong, there is nothing wrong with this.

A year ago I had a number of aggressive threatening emails from a disabled attorney who had a dog. She disagreed with this concept. She thought I was breaking the law when I told people this was a service dog in training.

I basically told her to pound sand. As far as I am concerned I breed working dogs. How my dogs react in strange environments is information I use in my breeding program. This woman could not bring herself to admit that she was wrong.

I recently recieved a second email from another disabled attorney. This email is below (with this said I want to point out that my web site is not a source of legal advice}:

Hello,

I own two 2 1/2 year old German Shepherds. I was just browsing your site because I plan on ordering some of your products from you. But I am emailing because I wanted to comment on the "aggressive threatening emails from a disabled attorney who had a dog" who thought you were breaking the law by telling people your dog was a service dog in training in the "Who Can Pet My Puppy" article.

I am an attorney, I have a ADA recognized disability AND I used to have a Golden Retriever as a service dog. I am very familiar with the laws regarding a service animal. You are NOT breaking the law by telling people your dog is a "service dog in training." The attorney who wrote you was wrong.

The ADA defines a service animal as any guide dog, signal dog, or other animal individually trained to provide assistance to an individual with a disability. If they meet this definition, animals are considered service animals under the ADA. There is nothing else in the law. PERIOD. Nothing in the law as to what kind of animal, nothing in the law as to how animal is to be trained, nothing in the law as to who trains an animal, nothing in the law about what type of assistance the animal is to provide. (This is a very good thing since there so many different ways an animal can be trained and so many different things an animal can be trained to do.) The only thing required is – an animal, specifically trained, to provide assistance, to an individual with a disability (the disability is usually looked at as an ADA recognized disability, however, there are some cases where the disability is not recognized by the ADA but the animal is still recognized as a service animal.)

What is missing from the law, important in your situation, is any discussion on how an animal is to be trained or who is to train the animal. In addition, what is missing is ANY definition as to any defintion or special status for a "service animal in training." Therefore, you are completely correct in stating that as long as you are not holding out the animal as a "service animal" and taking advantage of the status and special privileges for a "service animal," you can say that your animal is a "service animal in training" to your heart's content.

I hope that my comment was not too convoluted but I felt I just had to write because I am appalled that an attorney would tell you anything different. I cannot think of a reason why another attorney would tell you something that is so against the letter and spirit of the ADA laws.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding this, please feel free to contact me. I will provide further clarification for you on this point of law – free of charge!

Sincerely,

Tom Sawyer

Your Puppy 8 Weeks to 8 Months

When to Re-think this program:

There are very few RULES in dog training and my“no pet” concept certainly has exceptions.

If I have a puppy (or dog) that is a little leery of strangers I allow people to come up and toss the pup a treat, or I may even ask them to hand the dog a treat. I always ask that the treat be offered on the flat palm of their hand. Some dogs are not very polite in how they take food from the hand and I don't like accidents.

I may even allow people to pet a shy pup just to show the pup that there is nothing to fear.

But as soon as my pup is no longer acting scared with strangers this all stops and we are back to the NO PET POLICY.

Some pups go through what's often called a fear stage, these dogs need this approach. There are also times where young 10 to 12 month old male dog go through a goofy stage in life where they need the learn that there is nothing to fear in strangers. Most outgrow this problem.

So my point here is only to point out there is nothing in dog training that is set in stone.

How to Raise a Working Puppy

SERVICE DOGS:

The question often comes up about service dogs. I am asked "Isn't this philosophy counter- productive to service dogs? "

The answer is "No - it does not have to be".

Potential service dogs can (and in my opinion) should be raised with the NO PET POLICY. The difference is that the handler can train the dog that it is allowed to go to strangers when the handler gives it a command to go get petted. This can be done with MARKER TRAINING. (click here to read my article)

The handler also has to be able to stop the dog and RECALL the dog from being petted. This work can be started at a very young age when the pup is going through the groundwork (click here to read my groundwork article).

Ground Work to Becoming a Pack Leader

eBook

PROBLEMS WITH THE NO PET POLICY

The biggest problems I have seen with this no pet policy is with family members who have not bought into the program.

There is no easy answer to this one. In my opinion this is a serious problem that can only be solved by you and your family.

I can tell you this - if you work this out and follow these concepts you will have a dog that accepts you as a pack leader. Your dog will also get along better with your family because it clearly understands its rank within your family pack.

Dogs that are raised like this are easier to train because they don't get mixed and conflicting signals from being trained from more than one person in the family.

New dog owners need to understand that training and handling are two different things. Family members handle a trained dog when they take the dog outside or for walks, but this is not training.

For dog training to be clear it must be presented to the dog in a BLACK AND WHITE method that is easy to understand. Allowing two people to train the same dog adds a lot of GREY into the process and this just adds confusion and confusion leads to behavioral problems.

If you have a puppy and you don't already have my 2 1/2 hr DVD YOUR PUPPY 8 WEEKS to 8 MONTHS I recommend that you consider it.

I also recommend that you get my 4 hour DVD titled BASIC DOG OBEDIENCE - I tell people to get them both at the same time because you have more to learn than your dog. Even though your dog is only 8 weeks old and the information in the Basic Dog Obedience DVD may not be used for several months, the time to start to educate yourself is now - and not the night before you start distraction training.

I compare this to a school teacher who does a lesson plan for class the night before she has to teach - it's not the best way.

Thanks for listening and good luck with your dog. Take advantage of the rest of the information on my web site.

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