Guilt

Most of the time these trainings fail because people have guilt in their mind to the dog, I am not an exception. Prompt the minute I 'timed out' Samson after he bit Victor, I worried if the dog is alright in a small room by himself, would he gets separation anxiety....bla bla bla. I then have to hit my head myself to clearly look at the big picture, the animal bites anybody is a fault, and has to be corrected immediately, I am the care-taker of this animal and I should take full responsibility to either help the dog to rehabilitation or take care of the situation. It is always easier to run away than sticking by to solve a problem, it is far more easier for me to just send Samson back to the Shelter and get another dog who is mellow. But this doesn't help the dog at all, it would be another major let-down from the human-2-legs dog to Samson the 4-legs dog. So I have to make sure 'Guilt' doesn't exist in my system, what I am doing is totally for the good of Samson.

As I read the book "Be The Pack Leader" from Cesar Millan, at the beginning it states:

---I've got news for you. Every time you humanize your dog and expect him to fulfill the position of an absent child, lover, friend, or parent in your life, you are putting unrealistic expectations on him. You are taking away his dignity, the dignity of being a dog. And a dog is part of Mother Nature, which means he is naturally wired to expect order in his life, to expect that he must work for food and must follow the rules and guidelines of an orderly social system, under the watch of a trusted pack leader.

If your dog was adopted from a rescue organization, you create a story, that he had such a traumatic experience in his past placements that he will never be able to forget the terrible abuse he suffered during those dark, lonely years before he met you. So of course, he will never be stable, and you should not complain, but instead, remain tolerant and feel really sorry for him when he pees all over your sofa whenever you turn the television on. How could you criticize him when he bites anyone who comes near his toy, knowing what he's been through in his short but traumatic life? You decide you have to pay the price to live with an unstable dog, because of everything that happened to him before. You owe it to him.

The truth about dog is, they don't feel bad about the past. They don't dwell on their bad memories. Dogs live in the moment. If they feel safe and secure in the moment, then any past conditioned behavior can be re-conditioned, provided we give our time, our patience, and our consistency.---

Structure, Rules, Boundaries, Discipline and Respect, these are the 5 major goal throughout the Rehab Program I decided for Samson. If he successfully get through this, he will earn his honor to be part of the pack.