Stupid BP Owner

[voodoolamb]

Dogs have developed in such a way that they can pick up on commands and gestures. Such as pointing.

Oh I'm familiar with dog psychological development and evolutionary history. I know several researchers in the field on a personal level. They keep me up to date on the latest studies. I am familiar with how to apply the research into real world tasks I have put more than a handful of titles on my own dogs, fosters, and other people's animals.

The smack was not really an intentional thought process, for sure. If you read, it was more of a desperate knee-jerk reaction. I wasn't really looking to deter, but to get to my snake, which if I had not smacked the dog (which did push him) the snake would have been in the middle of a tug of war. As I mentioned, the puppy is not very well trained, and doesn't always listen to commands.

My issue is less you intinctively smacking the dog away from your pet and more so about you actually referring to smacking the dog as 'discipline'.

And here you are admitting that it wasn't even a thought out process. That means it was not appropriate discipline. Period.

I can't even imagine if he were a bigger dog. Most assuredly, yes I would have a dead snake on my hands.

Wouldn't need to be bigger. Just more driven. My small belgian import descended pup would have bitten you and gotten the snake in about 30 seconds. He would have taken the slap as you inviting a fight. Responding to the pressure with more pressure of his own. He is a magnificent drivey dog with a lot of defensive and fight drive. He also will not mind anyone but his handler. You could beat him over the head with a 2 by 4. He wouldn't listen to you. Instead he'd just be all "come at me bro!"

The kitchen is NOT a dog space. The dining area is NOT a dog space. My dogs, my parents dogs, knew better than to go into either of these rooms. And dogs should know better than to come up running at me for fun. That is poor discipline. If I were a threat, that's a different story.

That worked for your family. Unless your roommate specifically trained the kitchen as a no go space what your parents dogs were trained is irrelevant.

I feed my dogs a diet of raw meat and bones. They eat it in the kitchen as that floor is easiest to sanitize. The kitchen is a dog space here for sure.

Snake on the floor would have been thought of as food.

It doesn't matter how many dogs you have worked with, I know for an absolute fact that there are so many good ways to train and interact with a dog. And anyone who has owned a dog, has been around dogs, works with training dogs, would and should know this.

There are right ways and wrong ways to train a dog. Can you please name a source of a reputable trainer who advocates hitting as an appropriate discipline method?

Go read the 2009 study by Dr Herron published in the Journal of Applied Animal Behavior.

The study concluded that adversive training techniques results in aggression. Interestingly enough the technique that resulted in the HIGHEST percentage of aggression towards people - at a whopping 41% of the surveyed dogs - was...

Striking the dog: Hitting or kicking.

Hitting dogs results in bites. Yay science. I really didn't want to turn this into a dog training discussion - but these forum posts stick around forever. You never know who is going to stumble across them. To let your statements that hitting the dog was appropriately disciplining it... that is simply DANGEROUS advice.

Is it? I didn't keep him on the floor with the dog... I picked him up and thought being physically out of reach would help... I mean I wasn't dangling him in front of the dog, I had broken the line of sight on the dog's end and the dog was being calm and was sitting like a good boy, calmed down and was far enough away. Snakes are near sighted, aren't they? So he wouldn't be able to see him at that point??

Sight isn't a snakes strongest sense. Scent. Heat signature. Vibrations.