What is a “Baby Bubble”? A baby bubble is our concept of surrounding something we love and cherish to protect it from harm.
Think of personal space. Now think of how uncomfortable we feel when someone encroaches on our personal space. After all “Space is Respect”™. When someone invades our personal space, we feel uncomfortable and even threatened. But imagine for a moment, that we are able to use our energy and body to move others out of our personal space without words or gestures. Space is power. We teach our children that no one can invade their personal space without their permission. Thus, if we teach our dogs to respect not only our personal space but that of our babies or children or even other animals, they will learn to yield to us, never out of fear, but rather out of respect for us as their parents or guardians.
So how do you “claim” space from your dog? First, you refer to the “floor rule”. The first concept to remember is that if a dog feels it own something, it will potentially feel it has the right to protect it. For this reason, dogs cannot feel they own anything. They own no food, toys, bones, bed, or space.
Now this may seem very restrictive and unfair but it is not. When we tell our child to go clean his room, what does that teach our child? It teaches our child that he owns a room. If the child feels he owns the room he has never paid for he may, as a teen, tell his parents to go away or never to go in his room. He may even think he has the right to lock the door. Imagine instead telling your child to go to the room you pay for him to live in until the government say when he turns 18 that you no longer have to pay for him to live there. Big difference. Unless your child pays your mortgage, homeowners insurance, grocery bill and utilities, he owns nothing. This does not mean you are throwing your child on the street but they need to understand that they own nothing, but because they are loved and cared for they are always welcome.
