Keeping him in his place

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Dog Think
Total Control

In order for a boy to really achieve the depth and scope of a good dog mind, he needs to know his place. If you truly want your boy to be the animal that he is, then you need to give him a proper frame of reference. I'll go into more detail in the later sections, but here are some of the more basic points for prospective MASTERS/owners/trainers to ponder:

The dog must remain on all fours. After all, a dog's dominion is the floor, right? Keeping him on all fours in crucial to the psychology of the thing. Putting him there should be no problem, he may even be eager to do it. As time goes by, keeping him there can become another story. At some point the animal is probably going to get tired of walking about on all fours, or bored, or he may be just plain rebellious. It's during these moments that you have to react immediately then floor him and punish him to reinforce his position. Restraints can also be of good use here.

The dog may not use human speech. When was the last time you heard a dog say something in any human language? This is perhaps the most powerful tool that can be used in building up the dog psychology in your boy's head. Dogs communicate in barks, woofs, yips, and whimpers. Along with body language, these vocalizations should give your boy a more than adequate range of expression to get his point across. With time and practice he will learn to tune the depth, pitch, and other factors surrounding his vocalizations so that he can make them even more highly communicative. Help him refine his technique by punishing anything even vaguely human that passes his lips. Also, the less a boy thinks in any given language, the more readily and easily the animal mentality can grow.

For those who want to add some true depth to the experience of being a dog, teach your boy to avoid thinking in pronouns. Pronouns are the great separators of language; they create an artificial barrier between a person and their world. Without using "he" "me" "I" and the rest in the internal dialogue, a person slowly but surely begins to drop their internal barriers and starts to fully appreciate contact and experience. Doing this little Zen bit will eventually lead to a state of raw and total awareness and non-conceptual thinking -- the state your favourite animals are in their entire lives.

Dogs don't use furniture. Except in the case of a doggie bed, I've never met a canine who had furniture, or a pet owner who willingly let their dog onto the furniture. A dog should live on the floor day and night unless for some reason he has special permission from his MASTER. Attempts to crawl up on the couch should be rewarded with a sharp swat on the rump and a loud "NO", or other suitable punishment. If you choose to let the animal sleep on your bed, put him at the foot where he belongs and make him show thanks by gently cleaning your feet with his tongue as you drift off to sleep.

Dogs don't understand the toilet. This one is not a hard and fast rule, as not all pets or their owners can handle it. Still, when was the last time you saw a dog use the facilities? At the minimum your pet should be forced to raise one leg over the tub or bowl to pee. In addition, you may wish to teach him to squat over the bowl so that he may carry out his other duties. In a more in depth scenario, you may choose to paper train your dog instead, taking into account that you may not always be available to walk him. If you have the space for a secluded outdoor kennel, then all he needs is to pick a corner. If your geography and level of privacy allow, you should probably attempt to walk him often enough to avoid al of this, if it suits you.