Why does my dog listen to my partner and not me? A Comprehensive Guide

Why does my dog listen to my husband but not me?

Below are likely reasons why your dog listens to your husband and not you and what would make them more likely.

If your husband is the one that feeds and exercises your dog, it would be very likely that your dog listens to him because your dog wants food or exercise. In this case, it would help to try being the one to give it food and exercise sometimes.

It might also be the case that he has trained your dog to listen to him. This would be more likely if he tends to reward your dog when it does listen to him with a treat. In this case, it would likely help to try giving your dog positive reinforcement training yourself.

It might also be the case that you have inadvertently encouraged your dog not to listen to you. If you tend to give your dog things such as toys, treats or other rewards, when it does not do what you say, it will likely continue doing it since it is rewarded.

It might also be the case that he interacts with the dog differently in terms of his body language and your dog is more responsive as a result. This would be more likely if he tends to be calmer around the dog and uses training to get it to listen to him instead.

Below are some things to consider to help figure out the main cause.

If your dog did listen to you in the past, it would help to consider what else happened when your dog stopped listening to you. If it stopped suddenly, it could be due to a change in how you interact with it, you stopped being the one to feed or exercise it or because you started rewarding it when it misbehaved.

If your dog does listen to you sometimes, it would help to consider what is different when it does listen to you. For example, if it does listen when you interact with it in a certain way, such as by being calm, it could be the case that it does not listen when you are loud around it because it is reacting to your energy.

What to do about your dog only listening to your husband

Below are some options you have when dealing with the behavior.

If you are not the one that normally feeds or exercises it, it would likely help to be the one that does feed and exercise it occasionally.

As mentioned above, it could be the case that it has learned that it is rewarded for not listening to you. Instead, it would help to avoid giving it rewards when it does not listen and to reward it when it does listen.

It would also help to give it training so that it learns to listen to you. It would help to start by training it to do simple things in an environment without too many distractions and then to build up from there.

Why Won’t My Dog Obey Me?

The first thing to do is to be totally honest with yourself. Is there any chance youve been inconsistent or unclear with the dog? Like children, dogs can be quite clever in determining who they can mess around with and who they cannot. Sometimes a child will behave, but when grandma steps in, the child gets pushy because he knows that grandma closes an eye or even two. If your hubby asks your dog to sit and does not allow your dog to do anything else until that rump touches the ground, your dog will be likely thinking, “Okay, the rules are strictly in place with this guy, no fooling around.”

If you ask a sit and your dog does not comply but instead goes to bark at the door, and you just shrug and think “whatever,” your dog has just scored high against you. Your dog will know that when you ask a sit, you very likely do not mean it. It could also happen that you casually ask a sit and then the phone rings and Rover learns that your sits are just an option. This doesnt mean your dog is being dominant, just as a child isnt being dominant when grandma comes by. The more correct term is opportunistic. It also doesnt mean that you need to be harsher. You can still be a wonderfully positive trainer, as positive doesnt mean permissive!

But in some cases, both spouses are quite consistent with the dogs. These female dog owners have made a commitment with their spouse to be consistent and benevolent dog parents. They really care about their canine companion and work hard to ensure that the rules are the same and must be followed. If you belong to this category, and you can be totally honest about your consistency, read on, as there are other possible causes for your dog’s selective hearing.

Teenaged Dogs

Did you know dogs also go through a teenage testing phase? Most dogs in shelters are abandoned around the age of 18 months, which often coincides with the peak of testing behaviors.

Well-trained dogs respond well to both sexes.

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Why doesn’t my dog listen to my partner?

This is quite a common complaint amongst dog owner couples and families, they say that their dog only listens to one of them. It will only respond to or obey one person and ignores the other person, or misbehaves when the other person is not there. The good news is that this common issue can be resolved quite simply by going back to basic training, positive reinforcement training works best long-term.

Whilst it is true that the dog may bond more with one person in the family, that doesn’t mean that I won’t listen to all of them. It is also possible to accidentally train your dog not to listen to you, but this can be resolved with time and patience. However, there are common factors about why the dog only listens to one person.

The first three on this list are the main ones. The person who has done the majority of training, being consistent with the training, and taking the dog out will have built a more solid and trusting bond with the dog than someone in the household who hasn’t really spent as much time with the dog. You do have to be very honest with yourself, have you been consistent?

Likewise, someone who is inconsistent with training will not have reinforced what they want the dog to do. In fact, if they give up when the dog doesn’t do as it is asked, they are actually teaching the dog not to listen to them. The dog learns that they don’t really want them to do what is being asked, so they don’t have to listen to that person.