Now I need to go through the book and make a chart so I can check off everything as she learns it before the baby comes. For example, I think that getting the dog to finally follow behind us on a leash has resulted from a combination of demoting her and teaching her the value of a slack leash as mentioned in this book. I have to say, though, that the things we've learned from this book work with our dog much better with other training methods I've tried from people like the Dog Whisperer. I think that the people who haven't been impressed with this book are probably the ones that already had a "dog" living with them and didn't need to go through the process of demoting their dog to "dog" like we have. I really hope all the other training that is specific to introducing her to a new baby is as helpful as all the other training tips have been. By just following the suggestions from the first half of the book, we've created a new dog that seems to really like her demotion from child to to dog.
And she settled down all night in her new place in the living room (not the couch) while we had guests for movies last night. My husband was shocked the other day when she automatically followed behind him on the leash instead of trying to pull ahead. This was a hard-sell to my husband, but our dog has become a different dog since we've demoted her by not allowing her up on furniture and by making her "work" for everything from food to getting to go outside. One of the main ideas in this book is to turn your dog that thinks it's a human into a dog that knows its status as a dog. Still, remembering how she lunges for attack when I have a cat in my arms makes me nervous. However, our vet told us that most dogs that are animal-aggressive are not people-aggressive and visa versa.
The main reason we're concerned is because our dog is so prey-driven with small animals like cats and squirrels. This is a great book if you're worried about how your dog is going to react to a new baby in the house (like we are).
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