I think I may be going about it all wrong.
My daughter and grandson are living with us, and my grandson has a dog about 7 months old. He's very intelligent and good natured. I really do like having him around.
He has a couple of bad behaviors that I need to fix, and I'm not having much luck. He's not my dog, so I can't just arbitrarily put a shock collar on him though that might be negotiated.
Twice, he has put teeth through a 2' exercise ball that I use for exercise therapy. Those aren't super expensive, but they aren't free, either. He also likes to sneak into the front room and curl up on one of the soft chairs, which is strictly forbidden.
Recently I caught him in the soft chair, and had a recently destroyed exercise ball close at hand. It's soft, and couldn't really hurt him, though you might be able to crush a fly with it. So I flogged him with that. The point was to make him think he was getting killed without inflicting pain.
Yesterday, I was inflating the replacement ball. He took one look at that and quickly slunk away. He may be over his fascination with exercise balls.
Today, he was back on the chair so this time I applied a small amount of toe as I kicked him outdoors.
I don't want to actually hurt him, and I don't want to turn him into a cowering dog. The discipline I've applied leaves him shaking, and I don't like that, but so far, it just doesn't seem to "register" with him. There must be a better way.
Ideas?
