So I got a Dog... 
She is great except she doesn't come pretrained. She is raw and with a number of bad habits and quirks.
She is teaching me so much about how to deal with people. No one comes pretrained. I thought they did for some reason. I thought you just tell people what you want and they will come back to you with it done better than you could do it. I know a little Naive. But you have to understand. E and I started this church with are bare hands everything we did we had to learn the hard way... We had to grow up fast or we failed. So wouldn't you expect others to think the same way? (I am not bashing my team here... they are amazing... What i am saying is that Good leadership is all about realizing that you have to be clear with what you want.) My dog knows a couple words... Outside... that one we are still working on... Potty... I think? Sit... kinda (we have only had her four days)
She has learned them because we constantly say them and when she performs well then we give her a treat or affirmation. How is that not like people? Everyone needs to hear things again and again and then get praised. Affirmation begets correct behavior!
The old school kind of discipline for dogs is... roll a newspaper up and beat the tar out of the dog until it is so afraid it doesn't repeat the behavior. As I was Reading in my Training beagles book they said that negative attention is the same in the dogs head as positive attention... So the magazine i used on my first dog 20 years ago really feed the dog fear and mistrust of me. How amazing is that like the new leader. They need to be encouraged on good behavior and spend more time on the good and less time addressing the bad.
Bad behavior has to be addressed but it cant be addressed with the same or more potency as positive behavior.
Now i wonder if this is the same with a kid? I grew up with the spare the rode spoil the child concept... My but still burns some days from my upbringing... But what if we tried this model of behavioral training on kids? but i am not going to use treats because i don't want my kid to get fat and associate food with good behavior. TO many of us already associate the two. So what can i use to encourage the kid? Praise? Toys? Adventure?
I have 20 more weeks to figure that out and until then... Daisy! Good Girl!
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