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Are we door mats?

Buster's picture
Thu, 06/14/2007 - 08:42 — Buster

Please tell me your thought.

Buster's cousin Elliot, a 15mth toy poodle, literally walks all over his owners, if they are sitting on the lounge he walks over the top of them and climbs onto the back of the lounge and practically sits on their heads.
When they are in their bed he walks up and down their bodies as if they are his mattress to get where he wants to go.

Is this a dominance issue and should they try to prevent it or is this just normal behaviour?

Comments

Thu, 06/14/2007 - 09:08 — Aidan
Aidan's picture

doormat would be a good description

It's certainly not 'normal' in that we wouldn't consider it to be normal for a dog to literally walk all over us. On it's own it's not harmful, but it does demonstrate that Elliot's owners are not setting appropriate boundaries and I wouldn't be surprised if other behavior problems surfaced (if they haven't already). I mean, you could train a dog to walk on you and still have other boundaries and the dog would be just fine - but why would anyone train that? Free massage? :-)

If a dog isn't asked to live within boundaries, then what you might call a dominance problem develops. I hesitate to bring the 'D' word into it because most people have learned all sorts of fanciful, often useless and frequently cruel ways to 'bring into line' a 'dominant dog'.

Sometimes these dominance cures work for the mere fact that the owner is actually setting some boundaries and ensuring that the dog lives within them. Essentially a 'dominance problem' as it is usually described in the popular dog training literature is simply a failure to train appropriate behavior - nothing more and nothing less. Real dominance, as it occurs in nature, is never a problem - it is a solution and it works extremely well.

But back to Elliot... It's certainly a rule in my house that dogs don't walk on people. That's a job for the cats.

It's also a rule that dogs sit before leaving the house, that they don't jump up on people (even if their intentions are honourable), when asked to leave a room you do it immediately, you come when called, if I say "shush" then there's no point in barking any more, the baby gate mustn't be jumped over and that the baby is nothing to get excited about.

Dealing with this specific behavior problem (if it is a problem for Elliot's owners), it's simply a matter of not letting the unwanted behavior happen (e.g, close the bedroom door or use a crate) and reinforcing alternative behaviors (like laying on a mat or in a crate). I am constantly amazed at how quickly dogs pick up a change in the rules, but don't expect the change to occur overnight all the same.

Regards,
Aidan
http://www.positivepetzine.com