Handsome Shepherd mix Scooter is jumping up on the furniture, wrestling the pillows, leaping across the coffee table and dashing pell-mell throughout the house. Scooter's owner attempts to "correct" Scooter's misbehavior with the following sequence of verbal "commands":
"Scooter! SCOOter! Scoooooter! SCOOTER! Scooterrrrrrrrrrr!
 |
And Scooter's response? Well, let's just say that if Scooter could purse his lips, he'd dismiss his owner with a big fat:
Pfffffftttt !
|
A dog by any other name.... nagged and harassed in this same
fashion, would likely be as totally unresponsive as poor Scooter is to his own name. Because when his owner
continually utters the word "Scooter" in the hopes of somehow eliciting a desired behavior (such as leave it,
get off, don't jump, drop it, come, sit, etc.), that much over-used word loses any uniquely instructive value.
When used excessively and indiscriminately, a dog's name ultimately ends up meaning -- nothing at all!
A dog's name is not -- or rather should not be -- an obedience command or a verbal correction.
So why do we find dog owners everywhere hoping to control their dog's behaviors by speaking the dog's
name over and over and over again, sometimes yelled loudly in an angry voice, other times growled quietly
in a low voice, and then there's the ever popular favorite -- spoken ever so nicely, with an inflection
as if the owner were making a polite inquiry:
"ScooTER? ScooTER?"
Which to the dog in a frenzy of delicious disobedience sounds something like:
"Excuse me for being so rude as to interrupt your shenanigans, Scooter, but if I may be so bold as to inquire if you
would please consider doing something else? Hey whaddya say, ScooTER?" Hunh, Scooty-wooty-ScooTER?
If you're one of the millions of dog owners who have fallen into the habit of using your dog's name as
some sort of universal obedience command, first pat yourself on the back for choosing such a great name
for your dog that you simply love to say it over and over and over again. Then commit that from this
moment forward, you will reserve your dog's name for those moments when it actually does mean something:
"I love you, Scooter" or "You are such a good boy, Scooter." And in households with multiple dogs,
recalling one specific dog with "Scooter, Come."
Now that you're committed to breaking that bad habit of name calling, the next step is teaching your dog
that specific obedience commands elicit specific behaviors. If you want Scooter to ignore the
hand-embroidered pillows, a properly taught "Leave it!" command will do. If you want Scooter to stay at
your side and not lunge forward on the leash, the "Heel" command works every time. Don't want Scooter
jumping up on Aunt Minnie? The pre-emptive "Sit" command will take care of that.
After freeing yourself from the name-calling game, your new command strategy would sound something like this:
Sit.
Akin to reciting the dog's name over and over again, is the common practice of prefacing every command with
the dog's name. "Scooter, Sit!" "Scooter, Heel!" Unless you are calling out a specific dog from a group
of dogs (and all of the dogs are trained to the same commands), there's no reason to waste your breath
(and diminish the effectiveness of concise, well-timed commands) by incorporating the dog's name into each
command. When a dog is properly trained, then the dog clearly understands that "sit" means "sit", and "heel"
means "heel", and "come" means "come", etc. There is no value in further embellishing those commands with
the dog's name. (Along those lines, it also makes no sense to add the ubiquitous "Stay" word; read more
about that in Putting a Stay on "Stay.")
Clarity and consistency are the rules of the dog training game. By tossing in all manner of unnecessary
words (and gestures) in the hopes of eliciting wanted behaviors or stopping unwanted ones, you will
only succeed in muddling your intent and confusing your dog. The end result will be
your dog looking everywhere else but at you in frustrated bewilderment, trying to figure out, "Now
just WHAT does he want me to do THIS time?"
With a surprisingly short list of properly trained and consistently reinforced obedience commands, the endless
litany of "Scooter this" and "Scooter that" nagging and harping can be dramatically abbreviated into a one-word
command that empowers you to generate immediate, enthusiastic compliance from your companion dog. As in most
everything else in life, simpler is better!
You'll find information about custom private training opportunities for you and your dog in our
Client Training department. We also offer
educational and training seminars for owners and dogs of any breed. Please visit our Seminars department for
the current calendar of classes.
