4 Types of Pet Parenting Styles of Dog Owners

Positive reinforcement training for dogs has been recommended for many years. Although there are many successes to this training method, there are still people who prefer to use unorthodox ones. This is the case especially on training your over-excited dog to calm down, since reward system doesn’t seem to work on dogs that are easily riled up.

There are four predominant types of dog owners based on their methods with regards to calming their

dogs down. These are called pet-parenting styles, and you can be either one of them or a mixture of any

These various styles have strengths and cons of their own, but the last style is the one currently favored by dog parents that focus on getting the proper training success. Below are the four pet parenting styles of dog owners.

1. The Alpha

This parenting style is more of the dictator type among the parenting style. Their main aim is to make their pet dog submit by establishing himself as the boss of the household. If you are one of the alphas, you will usually establish yourself by hitting your dog, yelling at him when he does something wrong, jerk the leash when he is not following, and so on.
Although this works on its own, the excessive brutal actions may cause our dogs to be hurt. There are areas in some countries where this type of pet parenting prevails. It is difficult for them to immediately switch to another pet-parenting style since they are used to this method.
Dogs that are able to submit and calm themselves down in front of the alpha are unable to stay calm on their own. This means that the over-excitement problem is still there, he is not just showing it in front of the dog owner.

2. The Spoiler

This dog parent describes itself by the name – spoiler. This is the type where they spoil their dogs excessively. Almost every action and behavior of the dog is reassured, and you may hear the words “Good boy!” a lot.
Unknown to this group of dog owners, they are usually rewarding some of the bad behaviors that their dog is exhibiting. Especially if they are barking loudly because of over excitement. They would just say “good dog, stay quiet” repeatedly until the dog finally calms down.
This gets the dog to think that the good and proper behavior is to bark loudly at anything he feels excited on. Examples of these dogs are those that likes to bark loudly when they are fenced. They can also develop aggression either because of over-concern or over-excitement.
There are also instances that these dogs tend to stay calm when nobody is around. But if the dog owner is nearby and there are passers-by in front of the yard, they would bark loudly with no exception.

3. The Free-range owners

This is the group of people who believes that you can only get either a good dog, or a bad dog. It is mostly up to divine intervention, but you have to love the characters of the dog that was given to you.
These owners don’t supervise their dogs most of the time. Just like how they are called, free-range. They would allow their dogs to do anything. This is different from the spoiler where the bad behavior is reinforced. If you are a free-range owner, you wouldn’t reward even the bad behaviors that are exhibited by your dog.
Dogs that are brought up by free-range owners are usually very excited about things with their life. They express their over excitement really well, and they behave in a very free way that makes them seem free in life. This looks really good in a way. But the hidden catch is that, the dog will never learn to be calm on his own.
The truth is, your dog should learn from you what things are bad and what things are good. This is why they need your supervision, and being a free-range owner is not giving them any of that.

4. The Emotional Coach

When it comes to pet-parenting styles when calming their dogs, this is the one most reliable. As compared to the first three styles, this one doesn’t give the dogs an emotional crutch. This style is centered on the idea that you can control your dog’s excitement.
Technically, the dogs are in control of their own excitement, but you are the ones who command when to be excited. Dogs can be able to tone down their excitement and is a very effective way to help dogs be the leader of their own emotions.
Most dog sled champions use this kind of parenting. As racers, they exploit the dogs’ excitement during the race. When dogs are excited they get faster and vice-versa. The training involves the dropping of anchor and telling them the speed up command.
Now you see, sled dogs tend to increase their speed if ever they feel that they are slowing down – to maintain their pace. Thus, the added weight will cause them to slightly slow down and make the dogs motivated and excited to run faster.

If the anchor is lifted up and the commands “slow down” is heard, the dogs will slow down, since their excitement to run faster is slowly being diminished because they are already fast enough.
This emotional coaching is good when applied to common house dogs since they are able to be in check of their emotions, with just your command. Usually, this emotional coach parenting style is used for bomb-sniffing dogs and some service animals. They train dogs to calm down even while they are distracted or in the presence of lots of distractions.
Imagine what would happen if a bomb-sniffing dog gets excited over something while doing his job. Or when a service dog ran off because of his excitement when he saw a rabbit pass by. It is recommended to be an emotional coach to a hyperactive dog to make himself correct his behavior.