five-of-the-best-irish-dog-breeds-550fdeae5447dThe Principle of Inspect / Respect

Your family pet needs to know that you have a standard and expectation of their behavior. The Principle of Inspect / Respect places your dog on notice that the concepts of Basic Obedience are important to you and that as the Alpha / Pack Leader, you are going to hold your dog accountable for that Basic Obedience “Trained Behavior” that you witnessed in our Train the Trainer, Turn Over on the day you picked your dog up.

After the initial Two Weeks of Follow up with your dog, upon arrival back at your home, you are going to be practicing the Principle of Inspect / Respect. Watch your dog’s behavior to see if he is behaving at the level of the Basic Obedience, if he is you praise your dog and provide physical affirmation (high excited voice and lots of petting), if not then you use your strong voice and provide a correction using the training/pronged collar. Remember that the correction is a popping of the leash and that the correction must be stronger than the dog’s distraction if your corrections are half-hearted or weak, they will not be affective and your dog will continue to challenge you and not behave. This Principle of Inspect / Respect is used throughout the dog’s life.

All dogs, like people, are free agents and decide how they will behave based on their motivation. Dogs are not robots; they behave based on the attitude of the Pack Leader. If the dog sees that you do not care, the dog will not care. The mistake we make is the assumption that the dog has forgotten how to behave and needs to be retrained. The truth is that if the dog is left to its own in the area of behavior, and like people, the dog will fall to a level of obedience or performance that is not acceptable and is outside of the behavior expected from a well-trained dog. Inspect / Respect allows you to Praise your dog for good behavior and correct your dog for behavior that is less than acceptable. The result is a dog that behaves consistent with Basic Obedience because they know that it matters to you and the rest of the pack/family members.