A good friend of ours has four dogs, little bulldogs who are unruly and high energy. Our friend and her husband have elaborate systems for containing them and separating them (certain subsets of the four dogs are particularly volatile and must be avoided), and essentially the main thing you notice when you enter their home is that these dogs take up so much of our friend's life with their exuberant craziness.
Recently she reached a point of despair and found a powerful dog trainer to visit her dogs. I stopped by that afternoon, and the dogs looked shellshocked. Far from jumping up on me and licking me, as they normally would, and whining and whirling about, they were lying scattered on the ground, staring blankly into the middle distance with a stunned expression.
My friend was gleeful. She told Lola and me about the trainer. "He said, 'You're letting these dogs make all the decisions, and the problem is they don't make good decisions.'" Lola and I nodded. The dog trainer forced the most aggressive dog to sniff the most bullied dog's butt, making the bully to act like a caring pack member. When he and our friends walked the dog, he scolded our friend. "Don't say good dog! These are not good dogs! They are assholes!"
Our friend laughed and laughed. The dogs laid still, evidently processing their morning of discipline, their reign of misrule sadly coming to a close.
2 comments:
I have often heard its not the pets that need training, its the owners
learning that dogs don't believe in democracy and prefer a benevolent dictator,top dog made me have to step up and be the big mama fuck master here,and it is a position i really didn't want..have assumed,of course with a squirt bottle always on hand(the act like they have been waterboarded.this owner has been trained now
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