Puppy patience

[thebookofmeg]

Hey Joneses! A little note about the dog

Comments

[dunfalach]

I love this summary :) I think this goes double for cats. A dog at least has a desire to be pleasing to you. If the dog wants to please you more than it wants whatever else, and has been trained to understand that NOT doing X will please you, it will go with pleasing you. With occasional lapses when the desire for X hits it "in the moment". A cat, with a few odd exceptions, NEVER cares more about pleasing you than anything it wants to do. :>

[thebookofmeg]

Hmm... I can't agree here. Dogs have a reputation for "wanting to please humans," but that's just because they have really good PR.

They are not motivated by pleasing humans any more than cats are. They are not ever going to try to figure out what we want... that's a huge cognitive leap of which they simply aren't capable. Dogs and cats are both lookin' out for number one.

The only difference between dogs and cats is that dogs as social/pack creatures do want to be with their people all the time. And in some cases a human trainer can use that to her advantage, but we're still catering to what they want, not the other way around. That's why dogs jump on people - we hate it. They don't care that we hate it, they just want to be with us, so undesired jumping works out really well for them.

At the end of the day, sure, Indy likes it when I'm happy. But if I'm not happy, he's not going to modify his behavior because of that.

[litespeed]

Hmmmm. I wonder if it works this way for rabbits.

[thebookofmeg]

If it eats and has a spinal cord, you can train it! I bet Cinnabun can learn to do lots of tricks using a clicker and her favorite treats... she's a smart bunny.