On my recent trip to Breckenridge CO I noticed a few things. First of all, the city itself is vastly dog friendly. There are parks for the dogs, water bowls outside many of the shops, a few stores that allow dogs and almost every patio was dog friendly.
There are dogs at every turn being walked by their owners, hanging out at café’s and part of some of the shops. Many of the shop owners had dogs of their own that came to work with them and hung out all day. A few of what seemed to be the city workers had dogs with them as well. None on leash yet they hung out around them while they worked. All of these dogs with the exception of a few (obviously tourist dogs) are extremely well behaved no barking, lunging, jumping, or food stealing. And the biggest thing is not one dog asked for attention or expected to be pet or touched. Why is this the case?
So, I posed some interesting questions in my last post and I hope many of you thought about those questions. Just about everyone I know would love a dog like these. But how did that come about? Let’s just say it wasn’t out of luck but instead a different way of thinking about dogs, how they are supposed to live with you, and teaching them what is expected.
The first thing I noted with all the local dogs in Breckenridge was that not one dog acknowledged strangers in a positive or negative way. They just went about the business of walking down the street with the owners or hanging out. Not one dog went up to a stranger to get pet or any type of attention and rarely made eye contact with strangers. All the dogs were very calm ALL of the time no matter what breed they were. Why? In my opinion, these dogs learned from a very young age what was expected of them. They also had rules, boundaries and limitations and my guess consequences of some sort if they did not follow through. Dogs learned to respect not only their owners but also everyone around them.
The people also have a different mindset about their dogs. Dog are dog and there are certain things that is expected of you being a dog. You will walk on the ground, you will follow me, you will sit when I say sit and so forth and so on. The local people of Breckenridge that owned dogs did not stop and have people pet their dogs, they did not make this social hour when they saw another dog, and for the most part they did not have their dogs have interactions with other people. In their mind if they were out walking or sitting at the patio eating dinner the dog was supposed to mind its own business and just be with the owner no matter what they were doing. Owner Expectation of the dogs were high.
The other significant thing I saw was the fact that there are SO many places that were dog friendly. Almost every patio was dog friendly and you could have dinner with your dog. Most of the stores on the Main Street were dog friendly in regard to having water outside their doors and in some cases allowing dogs into the stores as well. There were so many opportunities to practice the good behaviors you wanted. And as we all know practice makes perfect and this is true in the dog training world as well.
So, the question is what expectations do you have for your dog? What is your mindset about your dogs? Are they dogs, furkids, or even more than that your babies? Do you like the behaviors your dog has? And if not, how do you change that? How do you get to those goals? If you don’t know the answer to the how do I get there that is where I come in. If you are serious about changing your dog’s behavior but need help, please feel free to contact me. The basis of this article is nothing more than to make you think and start observing what other areas or cultures are like in regard to living with dogs. You can learn some very interesting things if you just open your eyes.
