first lesson: dogs don't speak english. they respond to nonverbal language, a good portion of it so subtle most will never notice. they also respond to tone of voice.
so if you tell your dog to come to you when you are super pissed off he's going to think to himself "hells no i'm not going near you". if you're lucky he could be a super obedient dog and come anyways, but in the pea brained mind of most stupid dog owners, one would probably scold him anyways, even though he did what you asked him to do even after you made an ass of yourself for yelling at him for something he did who knows how long ago and will never make the connection that you are yelling at him for something he did in the past versus what he just did or experienced with you in the last 1 second.
yes, dogs live in the moment. even if you point at a mess(i.e. bathroom break or chewed up fill in the blank) he made 5 seconds to two days ago he will never realize that the act of what he did was wrong, he will only determine that you + me + my "mess" = bad. so this is especially important if you want to house train your dog. because if you do yell at him enough for a mess in the house he will never do anything with you outside either because you+me+my mess=bad, it doesn't matter where you are.
some of you might be saying well my dog knows when he does something bad because he looks guilty. well congratulations of anthropomorphizing too much! dogs don't feel guilt. they are just way more awesome at reading body language than you. so he knows that you are upset about something before you even realize it and is scared of you because he knows what's coming next. so congratulations also on being that scary, crazy and unpredictable person in your dog's life.
so like i said dog's live in the moment. you need to reward or punish within 1 second to get your point across to your dog. and thanks to cesar milan, i'm guessing most people will overdue the punish part and still be that scary, crazy and unpredictable person who now jumps to conclusions in your dog's life. because grabbing your dog's collar and rolling him over on his back is the absolute last warning in dog language after at least 5 prior ones, not the first.
this rant is brought to you in part by a-hole in petsmart parking lot who yelled as his dog for 5 minutes even after the dog obeyed him to get into the car. good job, a-hole, now your dog thinks going out with you sucks, obeying you to get in the car sucks, and oh yeah being along for the car ride sucks too. don't worry though, you aren't alone, millions of other dog owners are just like you.
