jacqui835

You said "I have a doberman, and when he goes to the park, strange kids come up and want to play with him. They literally jump on him, take sticks away from him, pull his tail, sometimes half whack him with the sticks etc. He loves little kids. He sits and waits for them to throw the sticks even though he's bigger than them. He loves them to chase him, and he runs with the stick in his mouth looking back to make sure they're still following, just running slowly. We watch him to make sure he still looks like he's having fun, and we teach the kids on how they should approach dogs. The parents always comment on what an excellent temperament he has, but they don't know he's a doberman because he's red with a long tail and floppy ears, and when we tell them they are always surprised" Well you certainly supersized your story if thats all that happened. Perhaps you should have prevented the situation from half stick wacking to NO stick wacking. This is how accidents happen, particular breeds get a bad name and children get injured. Re read your post. Children should NOT be chasing any dog but you encourage it, then you go on to say you teach toddlers how to approach dogs? Poor confused toddler may end up with severe injuries some day and a poor confused dog may get the green dream. Children should not be chasing a dog? How about you reread my post. If they stop chasing he comes back to them, it's a game and the dog knows it, initiates it and enjoys it. The kids always meet the dog first, and then the games begin. But that said, there have been several occasions when I've been at the dog park, particularly when he was a puppy, that kids literally just hugged and patted him without any introduction. He has never had a problem with it, and short of avoiding, oh, I don't know the world, I don't see how it's possible to ensure 100% that these sorts of situations won't arise. My old dog was no where near as tolerant, or interested in playing with children and so these sorts of things didn't happen. With this guy though, if you get to the park and there's kids, he's always overjoyed. Of course though if you know you have a less tolerant dog, well you wouldn't risk it would you? And of course we don't just wander off and leave them unsupervised, I am constantly watching my dog to see where he's at, physically and mentally, but I'm not going to keep him isolated just because there is always the chance something could happen, or tell everyone to leave him alone. I sometimes wonder what some of the people on this forum actually do with their dogs. They don't take them to dog parks, they don't let them interact with strangers, strange dogs etc. I guess you know your own dogs and what they will and won't tolerate/enjoy, but you don't have to attack everything that is different from how you raise your dogs. I would never let anyone or anything hurt my dog, and my dog knows it. If you have ever seen kids and dogs play, you would know what I'm talking about, and it seems a lot of the other posters here do understand.

Bit OT, but since a few people commented on what I said, just wanted to clarify. The kid was a toddler, he could barely lift the stick and he was trying to throw it, but instead was hitting the dog half the time. Not hard or anything, dog didn't even seem to notice half the time. And both I and the childs' father stopped him and helped him to throw the stick properly, but he often relapsed because he wanted larger sticks. Dog loved interacting with them and the family told us they had owned Akitas in the past, so they liked large dominant breeds. Was just making the point that if you're going to have young kids and a dog, odds are things like that will happen - stepping on the dog, pulling the tail and other bits, throwing things at the dog etc even with supervision - just watch youtube to see what I mean, and thought it was useful to know that the working breeds can be fine with it and families in general, it just depends on the individual dog and the family.

I have a doberman, and when he goes to the park, strange kids come up and want to play with him. They literally jump on him, take sticks away from him, pull his tail, sometimes half whack him with the sticks etc. He loves little kids. He sits and waits for them to throw the sticks even though he's bigger than them. He loves them to chase him, and he runs with the stick in his mouth looking back to make sure they're still following, just running slowly. We watch him to make sure he still looks like he's having fun, and we teach the kids on how they should approach dogs. The parents always comment on what an excellent temperament he has, but they don't know he's a doberman because he's red with a long tail and floppy ears, and when we tell them they are always surprised. He is also a guard dog and goes mental if he thinks anyone or anything is threatened. I'm 23, I have no kids and neither did the breeder, but if you get a dog from a good breeder (took me 5 years to find mine) and you put the effort in (training sessions every day, NILIF etc) I don't think the breed makes much difference to how good they will be with kids. He is extremely easy to train. He also lives with 2 cats and has never had any issues with them. He has a very high pain threshold - doesn't notice when he has needles at the vet etc and that makes him good with kids too. I prefer working dogs to gun dogs because working dogs, and esp the protective breeds have one interest in life, that being people. They don't typically become obsessed with chasing birds or balls or anything else. But I would also say that to maximise a working dog, you need a dominant personality. I have seen how quickly my dog determines whether someone should be listened to or not, and whilst he's never been aggressive, he is completely deaf and even a bit rude with people who are do not sort of give off those dominant vibes. Eg my mother. He loves her to pieces and is always practically ecstatic to see her, but, he will not listen to anything she says. He will always lean against her, get in the way etc (and he's a big 40+kg boy so he really gets in the way), but she doesn't seem to mind this and it works for her lol. She hugs him when he asks for it and feeds him when he looks at her etc, not the way to raise a working dominant breed if you want to have decent control. If you can be dominant, go the working breed or the retriever - whichever you prefer on looks or whatever. If you can't, go the retriever. Or some other smaller breed even.

It could possibly be a lagotto - how about you check with the owner first as to what the dog is before abusing her? For all you know, she might have gotten it as a rescue/pound dog. Absolutely. Please don't make pedigree dog owners and breeders look like a bunch of Nazis. The guy is a designer and has certain things in mind for his photos shoot. Who is anybody to say which crossbreed he uses? As for "flooding" someone's email inbox with anything - isn't that harrassment? Sorry but I just don't think either idea is sensible. Agreed. If you want to educate people you have to get and keep them on side... Given what they're doing here, I fear the 'flooding' approach is likely to be ineffective.

Just like me and chocolate...

When I first got my dobe I was told many things by all the concerned neighbours etc. Firstly that dobes always turn on their handlers - guaranteed. Heard lots of stories of this happening to friends of friends. Secondly that this was likely to be because of the fact that his brain would continue to grow after his skull finished making him go mental. I now know it's because he has brown eyebrows... Desexing will resolve behavioural issues by itself is one that gets me every time. My sister owns a Papillon and really does believe that it speaks French On the family ones, if you get two puppies from the same litter they will get along and won't fight...

I own a working breed - doberman, and I think he is fairly decent at problem solving. For example, he knows he is allowed to chew his toys. He also knows he will get into trouble for chewing something that is not one of his toys. So, he takes several of his toys, and places them on the desired object. Then, should he happen to accidentally chew the forbidden object, it's very hard for him to be punished. His other problem in life is that he loves cat food. Now eating cat food is one of the worst sins he can commit as far as punishment is concerned, and for this reason, he won't even look at it when people are around. But say the people are out, or upstairs and the cats aren't anywhere to be seen. Cat food is gone. I very much agree with the point though that how we raise them has at least something to do with it. He is always looking to me for guidance when something stumps him. Say he can't find a toy when I threw it, or he wants to get somewhere but the way seems blocked. But if I think he should be able to solve it, I will simply say some encouraging words and perhaps offer limited guidance until he starts looking properly and figures it out himself. You can see how satisfied it makes him when he does succeed. When it comes to obedience training though, he does switch off a bit. It becomes all about response and observation - but in a way that's problem solving, because he knows when I ask him to do something, if he can work it out and do it, he will be rewarded. If the problem is he wants a treat, he knows the best way to get it is likely through pleasing me. I think dogs have realised that when it comes to problem solving, humans are probably going to beat the dog 99% of the time, so the way to get the reward the fastest - ie to solve the problem most efficiently is simply to aid the human and ensure they know what they can do to be of most use. I think this because my dog will only really attempt to solve a problem if I act like I want him to engage directly, and he is fantastic on picking up on my signals and understanding me. Dogs are team players, and I think they understand that being different we have different roles in the team.

The small dog you had as a pup, it wasn't an italian greyhound was it? They don't bark much, and they're very cute, but not really a family dog as they're a bit delicate and probably more one person dogs. I also do not like poodles, my OH is a poodle lover, but no matter how many I meet (including the one owned by his family), they just don't do it for me. I know a few people who I think are in a fairly similar situation to you, and they have staffies. If you find the right breeder, and really commit to putting in the time and effort - it seems easy before you have the puppy but you really have to know you can continue to do it every day for the rest of the dogs life, I would probably say a staffy. Puppies are cute, but they are very very hard work. It is hard to win over someone who is not terribly keen on dogs when said dog is eating parts of the house and peeing everywhere. It is also hard to train a puppy if everyone is not consistent, and this can be hard with kids, especially if the parents are not entirely dog savvy themselves and/or unable to supervise 100% of the time. I'm not saying it would be impossible, but, I think the only reason I was able to deal with my dog as a puppy and raise him into such a nice boy was because I was a uni student, and had so much time for him. I would not take on another puppy unless I had that kind of time. Rescue dogs are wonderful things for the family to experience too...

Omg we have a cat who does stealth attacks in the night too! During the day, he's the sweetest thing but god help you if you have to go to the toilet at night... If you don't turn all the lights on, you're in trouble and he doesn't hold back. Absolute worst excuse I've ever seen (and don't usually admit it) but they get a new puppy, and end up replacing their current dog. My mum had some work acquaintances who had a dog who was at least 6-7, but when they got a new puppy, they decided the old one should stay with the parents until the new one could settle in. He never came home, because supposedly he didn't like the new puppy, and when the parents moved he was surrended.

Lol he has a very expressive face! Gorgeous boy, I love the feel of freshly clipped dogs lol feels so soft but they do look very handsome with the long feathery coat.

2nd the howling thing, if I howl or sing (well try to) my dog tries to join in after a while.

That one actually breaks my heart Just so horrible. I can't even imagine how people are able to do that. I always want to reply to those ads and ugh I don't know. Suppose there's nothing really you can do

I love seeing the assistant dogs. We have 2 at my uni and the other day I saw a cute black lab in the supermarket. They're just incredible dogs and I also think they add to the mood/atmosphere of any place the way any well-trained dogs would do. I'm one of those people though who think dogs are about as dirty as children and neither are anything to worry about... edit: changed guide to assistant in light of this thread

Sounds like you're doing a great job with your pup. And don't let the, 'are you sure that's a lab' comment get to you, people just accept and even expect dogs to be badly behaved. I have a doberman and just the other day, someone asked me what he was whilst they were patting him (and he was being his usual beautiful self I might add), and when I told them, they were like, oh aren't those the vicious dogs?

Gorgeous looking dogs Strike a real chord with me because Jazz is the exact same colour as my dobie boy :D

I absolutely love pugs, I think they're one of the most attractive dogs (and I'm very much a big dog person). But when I go to the park, it's easy to tell the pugs from the pug crosses. Pure pugs can not run the way the crosses can, they make terrible noises when they breathe and the owners all joke together about their snoring problems and how they need to be carried on long walks. I buy pure breed and cross breed dogs, but only from healthy, tested lines. Sometimes you like certain things about a breed, but other things - health/breathing/spine problems in the case of the pug, make it totally unsuitable for you and since the pure breeders actually breed for the flat face and and double curled tail that cause all the problems, you can feel like you're left with no choice. I can understand why someone would want a pug cross, because I am one of those people. I think what you should try doing instead is ensuring that they check that the parent animals are quality and have been tested for health problems. Promote responsible, ethical breeding, but don't judge someone too quickly for not wanting a pure bred when the breed has obviously been bred for looks at the expense of health.

My 40+kg doberman has showers with me. He loves it and has been doing it forever, though as he's gotten bigger, there's been less room for me. Especially now that it's cold, he's wanting in every day and I have to stop him from washing too often to protect his skin (and so I get a few nice showers lol).

Don't believe so. Staffies are shorter and fatter. At the park I go to, there is a guy with an am staff who is huge, but he's still fatter/stockier than another dog that the owner claims is a pitbull. The pitbull looks identical to Caesar's Junior, and is a sweet though intense dog. It is taller, still muscular but leaner.

Hey, first of all, if that's Pablo in the little picture there, he is one cutie... I have a few questions though. Firstly, does your dog challenge you in any other ways or does he respect you as leader? Does he walk properly on a lead, behave around meal times, obey you etc. When you say you catch him in the act and put him straight outside, do you also tell him no and ensure he understands that you disapprove of the behaviour? Do you have him trained to go on command? And do you give the command when you take him outside? I have an entire male too and I can tell you it's possible to train them not to mark in the house, but you do need to ensure your dog knows you're the boss, with no doubt, and then also that they again have no doubt about what you do and don't want them to do.

Yes, I agree with some of the other posts in that, if your dog respects you as alpha and doesn't challenge you, he should cease the behaviour if he knows you strongly disapprove of it. Distraction techniques are fine, but they only work so long as there is something more exciting to do whilst the dog wants to pee on the bitch, and for this reason I think you need to take it a step further and really ensure that he knows you're not going to accept that. My boy is entire and has never peed on anyone, but he did once have a go on my sister's clothes. I caught him in the act and I did give him a whack. I didn't hit him hard, it was more to indicate to him that this was something I felt strongly enough about that I would take action against him if he continued to do it, and fortunately it's been entirely successful. Not sure about peeing on your dog though lol. He would probably be able to tell it was you, but as a member of your pack, he may feel he should be peeing on dogs too as that's something your pack does... If he's not challenging towards you, he may copy the behaviour to show his support and to strengthen the message to outsiders. My dog has certainly copied me doing crazier things

Errr your aiming for a healthy dog - so what only purebreeds deserve to grow to their full potential? Cross or not he's still a very large dog and I would wait. Vets dont necessarily provide an unbiased view on this by the way You're putting words in my mouth! The OP is not aiming for a standard or type as it is a cross breed - therefore there is no way of knowing what the mature dog is supposed to look like. Black Bronson - You put up an interesting argument and talk about the "only genuine reason" - can you point me to any studies/ literature about this? It goes against what I have been told by people very experienced in dog behaviour so interested to learn more. I will try and find some studies, there are a quite a few, but also from my own experiences with entire males over the years mostly GSD's, I have never encounted any "entire male behaviour" issues that you commonly hear about. I have been involved with several fear aggressive GSD's that were desexed to supposedly cure the problem that made them more unpredictable in their aggression, definitely didn't fix it without specialised training. If a dog is well obedience trained entire or desexed IMO makes no difference to their behaviour or controlability. Many believe that entire males will fight........I know that with GSD's a dominant bitch will fight the boys, far worse than entire males working out who's boss???. Without training, I am yet to see a major behavioral issue corrected by soley desexing alone. I would be interested to hear from others who perhaps have??? I have a huge male doberman x rottie (almost 50kg now) who I have no plans to either desex or breed from. I would tend to agree that desexing is unlikely to resolve any problems by itself, but that said, there was a guy down the park who used to own a swf male. Every day, he would let it off the lead and it ran far into the distance - like could barely see it on the horizon if at all, and he had no way to get it to come back. I thought it was crazy, but he claimed that because it was small it didn't matter. That's beside the point though. At about 4 years old, he got his dog desexed. He still didn't do any training with the dog and it still didn't listen to him, but from then on when we saw them at the park, the swf dog stayed much much closer to him. In this instance, I would struggle to identify anything else that could have been responsible for this change. The dog was no better behaved, but it no longer wanted to roam so arguably, desexing alone removed that issue for him. For the OP as well, so that you understand, a vasectomy will not change your dog in any way except remove his ability to have children. He will retain his sex drive etc, so certainly an option, but it would depend on what your reasons were for wanting to desex in the first place.

There are a million and one threads here about people going to off-leash parks and other dogs running up into their dogs faces while the owner says "Oh but he's friendly". Those threads never end well, regardless of the dog's intentions. I'm interested in this, and taking it ever so slightly off thread, does anyone here believe there is no way in the world their dog would not attack (ie provoke an attack) another dog ? I am pretty sure most of us feel like we know our dogs well enough to say that it would simply never happen to us. Put it this way, there aren't too many threads on DOL of dog owners who come in to tell stories of their dog ripping apart another. So, given our dogs are animals, do you feel that you could 100% guarantee your dog would never provoke an attack on another in 'everyday' circumstances (ie no injury, bitch on heat, bitch defending pups, whatever) ? Or perhaps it's not that simple. I feel I could bet my life on my dog never starting a fight. But, that's not to say that I don't think he would ever attack another dog, or even a person. He has had dogs try and and attack him, and whilst he defers to me, I know that if I wasn't there, or couldn't solve the problem, he would defend himself. Dogs, and particularly small ones have pulled on their leads, snarling at him and I can get him to ignore that, but the truth is, if a dog launched a serious attack at either me or him, I think there would be a good chance he'd attack back, and probably cause some serious damage. He is a doberman, and one from working lines at that. He has had extensive training and that continues every day, but he is protective and confident and he doesn't back down or show submission or fear to aggressive dogs or people, he will just follow my lead. "That said, we'd kinda like to assume that people who let their aggressive dogs off lead with awful outcomes, never thought their dog would attack either." - this has not been my experience. Anytime in all of my years of keeping a dog (which has been my whole life) when a dog has attacked, the owner has known their dog was this way inclined. They have excuses of course, but it's never been the first time. Most of the stories on these threads seem to indicate the same.

I have a doberman a bit older than your boy, and he too loves to play with everyone. He is huge though, over 40kg, and although I'm a regular at the dog park (we go about 5 times a week), every now and then a new owner of a small dog shows up, and they freak out at the sight of him and all the other large dogs. He has never gone too far, left a mark on anything or even made a dog whine but very few owners meeting us for the first time will believe that. I train him every day, and in these instances, I can tell him to leave it, and he will and we just move on to another section of the park. What I struggle to control though (because I know if I address the dog the way I would if my dog was the one carrying on that way the owner/s will be angry at me) is the other smaller dog who is often very keen to play with him. This is the only time I put him on a lead, so that there can be no doubt about who the instigator is. It has been my experience that the people with the biggest issues are the ones who don't really know what a dog is, and certainly don't understand that they are in possession of one. For the most part, small dogs have no difficulty defending themselves and controlling the larger dogs around them. Our park is run by a chihuahua and a little yorkie looking thing... About a week ago, there was a maltese terrorising everything at the park, it would aggressively chase huge dogs until they rolled over, and then stand there barking over them constantly until distracted by another dog. The people who did try to stand up for their dogs got horrible looks from the maltese owner so seems to me there's a bit of a double standard operating. You know your dog, if you know he would never hurt another dog and you have decent control over him, I see no reason for you to have to put him on a lead. I would just move away from the dogs with owners that don't want their dogs to play with large dogs and ignore them. My dog has heaps of friends down at the park with whom he loves to play, and I wouldn't deny him the experience simply to entertain someones' irrationalities. Edit: There is one huge xbreed thing at the park that charges up to all dogs, big and small alike and actually bowls them over. This I find to be completely unacceptable and when the owner failed to discipline his dog for knocking mine over, I had to step in to ensure my dog knew he could rely on me to defend him and didn't have to take matters into his own hands. All I did was tell the dog no, and confronted him until he sat down in front of me, and the owner was actually both very apologetic and grateful. He said he wished all the owners did that, but I told him that's a bit unreasonable and dangerous and that if he's going to have his dog off-leash, it needs to come from him. The dog doesn't come near us anymore. But if your dog is stopping at a respectful distance before reaching the other dogs, that's very different. If you think he's coming a bit too close, I would keep him on a lead for a while and instruct him on how he has to introduce himself to other dogs. Consistency and patience are your best friends.

My current dog is still very young (just over a year), but prior to that we had what we were told by the pet shop was a pure mini foxie. Well I think he was actually a jack russel whippet type cross, he is still the fastest dog I've seen to date. We got him when I was like 5 so I don't entirely recall, but he was fed mostly food we wouldn't eat (the gross stuff in the fridge) and cheap dog food in the beginning. Later in life he got My Dog because we thought, given the price, it was the good stuff. He lived to be 17, had a heart murmur his whole life, no vaccs, never desexed. Up until about 3 weeks before he died, he still ran around and chased rabbits and birds etc. After that, the family bought a very expensive rottie from a breeder who had tested for all the usual things. She was fed premium dry dog food and fresh raw meats and bones. She died at 6 I think it's genes.

I'm posting on behalf of a friend who got a puppy maybe a month or so ago, so I don't know all the details but I do know she's getting desperate. They got the puppy at 8 weeks, and it is now about 13 weeks I think. The issue is that he still goes to the toilet in the house all the time, even though they catch him in the act, tell him no, and take him out to the toilet every couple of hours. He sleeps all night, and has since like the 2nd night he was home-from about 10pm until 6-7am, and never has any accidents then. But during the day, he will pee on anything, anywhere. Sometimes he goes outside to the toilet, but not always. Sometimes he pees on the seat he's sitting on and continues to sit in it :s He will pee on command, but he will also go in places he has been told not to go before. He came from a breeder and he doesn't pee in his bed. He has also been given the all clear at the vet. I don't have any more advice for her, because well, having watched her and listened to her, it seems like she's doing everything I did and my dog was toilet trained in a week. Their puppy is otherwise very obedient, well socialised and trained. He happily accepts pats from strangers and introductions from other dogs and basically seems to live by the assumption that everyone is his friend until proven otherwise. But they're still going through several rolls of paper towels and odour destroyers a week... Are some puppies just really hard to toilet train or is something going wrong here?