Hello fellow dog pawrent. 

I’m Chetz Togom and today I’m going to share with you 3 types of dog parenting style.

This information is important because if you don’t know which type of dog parenting suits you, you will be confused as there are tons of dog training information out there.

Some dog trainers will say this, the others will say that, but which one should you pick?

You’ll also feel frustrated because if you’re using style that doesn’t resonate with your personality, you won’t be able to be consistent with the dog training.

This happened to me more than 10 years ago when I rescued 5 abandoned puppies.

At the time I only found one type of training method and because it doesn’t align with my personality, I couldn’t be consistent with the training.

But thank God, I continued learning new methods and found one that suits me.

To know which type of dog parenting style suits you, all you need to do is to recognize which style feels good to you.

Now let’s begin with the first and earliest dog parenting style, The Punisher. 

This is the first dog parenting style I learned. 

In the beginning, the method  felt alright to me.

If you spent time growing up in Asia like I did, then you are probably familiar with this type of parenting style. 

The Punisher uses fear and intimidation to make a child or an animal follow the behavior they want.

It focuses more on stopping unwanted behavior by using aversive techniques. 

Although these techniques work most of the time… it often will result in frustration, sometimes guilt to the dog parent. 

Or in short, not a good feeling.

And even if you feel good that your child or dog follows what you want them to do, I bet it doesn’t feel good for the child or the dog.

If your parents didn’t use The Punisher method, remember the time your boss or your client asked you to do some nonsense thing, and although you hated it, you still had to do it because you needed the money. 

Did it feel good? It didn’t, right?

Up until now I could still remember what my grandmother did or said to me when I didn’t want to go to school. 

I was 7 years old at the time.

She said, “MY (that’s the nickname my family gave me). 

MY, if you don’t go to school, you’re gonna get married to Mickey”. 

Mickey was kinda like my grandfather godson. 

He was also around my age. 

I grew up with my grandparents, so whenever Mickey visited us, not just my grandparents, but my uncles and aunties would also tease me. 

I can laugh about it now, but at that time I really hated it.

But did I go to school? 

You bet I did.

I turned out great, but remember, every child and every dog responds differently to whatever parenting style we use on them.

Now let’s move on to the second most common Dog Parenting style, the Rewarder.

While the Punisher focuses on punishing the unwanted behavior, 

the Rewarder focuses on rewarding the wanted behavior and ignoring the unwanted. 

If you were to attend a conventional dog training class right now, the dog trainers would teach you to use either the Punisher, the Rewarder 

Or a mix of both methods to solve your dog behavior issues.

Since a lot of people consider their dog as a family member now, more people would want to train their dog using the Rewarder method.

However, when they couldn’t solve a more serious behavior issue like excessive barking or reactiveness to other dogs, they would turn to the Punisher method.

A lot of people would think the Punisher style is better because it would stop the unwanted behavior faster.

But it’s actually more dangerous especially if you’re a new dog parent or your dog is a large breed like german shepherd or rottweiler. 

Like I mentioned before, every dog is unique and the way they respond to pain is different.

A dog who barks at other dogs might stop barking if you use an electric shock collar 

Or if you spray his face with water every time he barks. 

But does he still worry or become stressed whenever he sees another dog? Yes he does! 

And now it becomes worse, whenever he sees a dog, he feels pain or uncomfortable.

So next time when he sees a dog, he won’t bark or growl, he would just attack without any warning.

I’m not going to go into great detail about these two types of styles since it’s the most common, and you probably already know about it. 

So now let’s explore the 3rd type of dog parenting style – a very rare type which I called The Mindful.

The Mindful parent uses a more holistic approach in preparing THEMSELVES AND THEIR DOGS to live harmoniously with each other, and also other beings. 

There was a study in Sweden that shows dogs often mirror the stress level of their owners.

The researchers also found that there is no major effect of the dog’s personality on long-term stress. 

However, the personality of the owner had a strong effect on the dog.

Animals, like us, are energy. Everything is energy. 

Animals get anxious because they pick up the energy that we project.

The Mindful dog parent will focus on the root-cause of the unwanted behavior, which might not only come from the dog, but the owner themselves.

They use a new type of dog training method called concept dog training or game-based dog training.

This 3rd type of dog training method looks at concepts like optimism, arousal, proximity and grit.

For example, if your dog barks at other dogs or noises, is it because he’s pessimistic? 

Easily aroused? Easily frustrated? Or all of that?

Once the mindful dog parents have some ideas of which concepts cause the unwanted behavior, they use games that correspond to that concept.. to play with their dog.

For instance, if the dog is pessimistic, they play games that help the dog to be more optimistic.

If the dog is easily frustrated, they play games that will help the dog become more tolerant to frustration.

While all these games are fun for the dogs, a mindful dog parent also plays games or does things that are fun for them.

Remember, our dogs mirror our stress level and our personality affects them.

So whenever there is behavior issue with the dog, mindful dog parents will look at both, themselves and their dog.

They also make sure they take care of their own well being because, when they’re happy, their dogs are also happy. 

Happy people and happy dogs don’t cause problems.

After learning more about dogs, and looking back at my experiences with my own dogs, I do notice that when I got my shit together, my dogs not only have less or no unwanted behavior, they are also healthier. 

And this is why I’m here. 

Although I love dogs more than humans, I strongly believe in order for me to help dogs, I need to help their owners too.

So I’m not only going to share with you my knowledge and experiences on concept dog training.

But also how we, the dog parents, can stay calm and not be affected much by all the negative things that are happening on around us.

In short, I’m sharing life skills for both dog parents and their dogs.

If you feel that you resonate more with the Mindful Dog Parenting style, do stay tuned to learn more.

Join my Facebook Beasts Barn community to share stories and benefits with others experiences living in harmony with their dogs.

However, if you feel this is not for you, click the unsubscribe link so your inbox won’t be full with unwanted information.

We live in an information age. 

Sometimes too much information does more harm than good.

But no matter what you choose, I wish you a blissful life with your dog!

Have a great day and remember all is well.