My "pet" peeve becomes tragic

Stefonius wrote:

oldmattb wrote:
Watch for the correlation between the dogs that climb into laps uninvited, and those that crowd out the door first, those that yank on the leash incessantly, those that bark despite being scolded, those that "guard" the owner, those that attempt to bite strangers, those that run away when off leash, those that beg and get their way every time.

Despite your waving it all off on some TV guy, these are all related, and they make dogs into bad neighbors, menaces to others, and driving hazards.

I have seen a person driving with a dog in her lap, smoking, and applying eye makeup in the rear-view. Try to top that!

Matt B

X2! No matter what human characteristics you want to ascribe to your little fuzzy buddy, it's still a dog and it still behaves the way it is genetically programmed to behave. Social order is extremely important to dogs and wolves. They need to know where they fall in the pecking order, and if you don't let them know that you are in charge, they will assume that they are.

My dog wears a body harness which is attached to a lead that attaches to a car-seat mounting loop in the center of the back seat. In the event of an accident, she will be just fine.

There is much misunderstanding of dominance theory, pack hierarchy and how canine behaviors relate to the behavior of wolves. Incorrectly blaming behavior as "dominance" is no better (and arguably much worse) than attributing human characteristics to dogs. Here's a position paper on dominance theory from the American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior. Unlike Cesar Milan and his ilk, these are people who really do know what they're talking about.

AVSAB position statement on dominance theory