Funny how things in life roll along!

Today is the publication of the 2,000th post on Learning from Dogs.  To be frank, I’m staggered.  But it is what it is!

The first post was published on July 15th, 2009.  Ergo, I can’t think of anything better for today than to republish that first post.

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Parenting lessons from Dogs!

Much too late to make me realise the inadequacies of my own parenting skills, I learnt an important lesson when training my German Shepherd Dog (who is called Pharaoh, by the way).  That is that putting more emphasis into praise and reward for getting it right ‘trains’ the dog much quicker than telling it off.  The classic example is scolding a dog for running off when it should be lots of hugs and praise for returning home.  The scolding simply teaches the dog that returning home isn’t pleasant whereas praise reinforces that home is the place to be.  Like so many things in life, very obvious once understood!

Absolutely certain that it works with youngsters just the same way.

Despite being a very dominant dog, Pharaoh showed his teaching ability when working with other dogs.  In the UK there is an amazing woman, Angela Stockdale, who has proved that dogs (and horses) learn most effectively when being taught by other dogs (and horses).  Pharaoh was revealed to be a Beta Dog; second in status below the female Alpha Dog.  The role and natural instinct of the Beta dog is to teach puppy dogs their social skills and to break up squabbles within a pack.

When you think about it, don’t kids learn much more, often to our chagrin, from other kids than they do from their parents.  Nevertheless focusing on giving more praise than punishment seems like a much more effective strategy.

As was read somewhere, Catch them in the act of doing Right!

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Hopefully, you, dear reader, has found the quality of the posts to have improved over time! That first one did leave something to be desired.

Thank you all for making these many posts such a labour of love!

Hugs to all, Paul.