Ethan during our afternoon walk yesterday.
Ethan has been training for a month now. He has been training 4x a week every 7-8am in the morning.
He already knows the commands and listens well to the trainer. The time has come that I should be walking with them, learn from how he is being trained, and also walk him myself using the commands he had learned.
He knows the commands and what to do during walks but the problem is, I don't have an authority over him yet.
Dogs should always have a leader. Their social structure is different from us humans. Therefore, they should always have an alpha.
As a first time having a dog, establishing the alpha is an important thing that I always forget about. I thought he would just eventually listen and learn that I'm the leader since I feed him and all that. But it's not as easy as I have thought.
Even when I always correct him, he would still be stubborn and won't listen even though he understands what I wanted to happen. I mean it's normal for their age (he's nearly 6 months now) to be like that, but it's quite obvious that he still thinks he's the spoiled leader.
Upon further researching, it reminded me of the very simple things that I did a lot of times that contributed to him thinking I am serving him and he's the master. You know, things like letting him come in to the house first (instead of me), giving him food before I have my own meal, being at the floor with him... things like those have a very big impact on it.
Those are some of the things that I have to learn all at the same time as well... apart from learning what he should and shouldn't eat, his behavior, and how I should act in front of him.
He would still pull the leash
He gets so excited to have a walk with me that he pulls the leash and most of the time ignore my commands even though he's choking himself. We don't walk as often as before since my problems are stacking up so it's understandable. I need to remember though that I need to let the excitement cool off first before going out.
He gets distracted so much
He usually walk in the morning with the trainer, and in the afternoons with me. I don't know if the streets aren't that busy in the morning but he still gets so distracted and kinda like the environment was new to him. In the afternoon, there's quite a lot of people walking with their dogs, running, cars around, and just busy neighbors.
Trying to be alpha still lol
In some commands, I have his attention and he would follow. But then sometimes he would do something else on his own without my signal. You ain't the master bro!
Walking in front of me
The proper thing should be the dog walking beside the owner, as the dog knows he's not the one leading the walk. In my case, even though I correct him many times, he would still try to walk in front of me.
Asserting dominance in my case sure is a bit of a challenge. He most probably sensed that I'm not that confident yet since I have to be very careful of my behavior since it's my first time having a dog. And apart from being young and stubborn, he sensed it and that's my theory XD
I know I should be confident so the dog would mirror that but I'm already working on it and he's improving with me day by day. Even with small progress.
Anyway, the training will end once he learns how to do it and me too. So there's no need to rush him!
