I agree, you establish a relationship, and set rules they can live by before the bad habits develop. A new dog does not know the rules, it's easier to train "right" in the first place than break bad habits later. I'm all about giving a dog time, but at the same time we have to move forward. Just letting a dog go wild without any direction is setting him up to fail later and only adds to the frustration of the trainer down the line.
Jax is shy and I understand that, but at the same time we have to move forward to help him overcome his fears. Unless he learns it's ok and those items won't cause him any harm, I would only be reinforcing those fears and he learns that's acceptable behavior.
I wouldn't teach my son to swim by throwing him into the deep end of swimming pool, but I would strongly encourage him to sit on the steps of the shallow end, then move forward once "he's" comfortable. That's exactly what I'm doing with Jax to help him get past some of this and he is responding well. If I saw him completely shut down at any point, I would back him off but I'm just not seeing that because we start at the "shallow end" first.
I didn't take Jax and forced him on that bridge with the bikes, we spent almost an hour starting at 50 feet away watching bikes and joggers and me watching his reactions. We moved forward in about 10 foot increments, when I saw him relax and loose his urge to lunge, we moved forward. After an hour we went on the bridge and you saw the results, not entirely comfortable but he did ok and much better than when we started. I bet I could take him to that bridge this morning and we could start at 10 feet this time or maybe he would walk right on without fear. In any case he stopped his lunging.
If you never see your dog do anything wrong, you can't correct it. Unless you find the failure points you can't help them move past it. If you ignore it, it will never get any better. If your dog needs to learn a correct way to behave, when is a good time to start? It's a no-brainer to me, get a dog and start training and conditioning right away, the sooner he knows the rules and get's past his fears the better everyone will feel, including the dog.
Jax is shy and I understand that, but at the same time we have to move forward to help him overcome his fears. Unless he learns it's ok and those items won't cause him any harm, I would only be reinforcing those fears and he learns that's acceptable behavior.
I wouldn't teach my son to swim by throwing him into the deep end of swimming pool, but I would strongly encourage him to sit on the steps of the shallow end, then move forward once "he's" comfortable. That's exactly what I'm doing with Jax to help him get past some of this and he is responding well. If I saw him completely shut down at any point, I would back him off but I'm just not seeing that because we start at the "shallow end" first.
I didn't take Jax and forced him on that bridge with the bikes, we spent almost an hour starting at 50 feet away watching bikes and joggers and me watching his reactions. We moved forward in about 10 foot increments, when I saw him relax and loose his urge to lunge, we moved forward. After an hour we went on the bridge and you saw the results, not entirely comfortable but he did ok and much better than when we started. I bet I could take him to that bridge this morning and we could start at 10 feet this time or maybe he would walk right on without fear. In any case he stopped his lunging.
If you never see your dog do anything wrong, you can't correct it. Unless you find the failure points you can't help them move past it. If you ignore it, it will never get any better. If your dog needs to learn a correct way to behave, when is a good time to start? It's a no-brainer to me, get a dog and start training and conditioning right away, the sooner he knows the rules and get's past his fears the better everyone will feel, including the dog.
