LoginTraining dogs the Woodhouse Way 'makes them more aggressive'
By Fay Schlesinger Daily Mail
When Barbara Woodhouse ordered us to bark out ‘sit’ or ‘walkies’, we all obeyed.
But perhaps we shouldn’t have followed her lead so faithfully.
Experts now believe that ‘ dominance’ dog training methods championed by Mrs Woodhouse in the 1980s do more harm than good.
Efforts to gain the upper hand could actually cause aggressive behaviour, they said.
Sit! The way Barbara Woodhouse trained dogs (above) could make them anxious
The late Mrs Woodhouse became a household name with her TV series Training Dogs the Woodhouse Way.
She famously said that there were ‘no bad dogs’, only owners who lacked experience at asserting the pecking order.
Her ideas have been carried on by those such as Victoria Stilwell, who presented the family and pet counselling show It’s Me or the Dog on Channel 4.
But the researchers at the University of Bristol rubbished the idea that dogs always try to assert dominance over a canine or human ‘pack’.
Therefore forceful control by owners simply frightens animals and leads to anxiety, they said. The team spent six months studying interaction at a Dogs Trust re-homing centre and re-analysing data from studies of wild dogs.
Dr Rachel Casey, senior lecturer in Companion Animal Behaviour and Welfare, said: ‘In our referral clinic we very often see dogs which have learned to show aggression to avoid anticipated punishment.