Simply Grand

Here's my boofhead in a blanket

Oh so exciting! Can't wait for baby news :D

If I were them I'd be checking pounds and shelters. If I came across an unattended puppy tied outside shops who was there for any length of time I'd be tempted to take him to the RSPCA as abandoned. Hopefully they learn a valuable lesson.

Yep, there is yet another 4-5month old working breed pup I've seen at the park (the three Quinn has disciplined have all been mixed working breeds - seems to be a spate of fear aggressive adolescent working breeds around!) who I really worry about. She belongs to a young girl who has no clue what she's doing unfortunately. The pup is clearly terrified and is doing all she can to get the other dogs away from her (growling, barking, snapping, would bite if close enough I think) and every time the girl seriously punishes her - smacks her, yells, jerks her of the ground by the leash, pins her to the ground by the neck - and I can just see that she's teaching this pup that yes indeed other dogs are AWFUL to be around but she isn't to give any warnings I've been planning how to step in a bit and help her but I haven't seen her lately unfortunately.

Really interesting topic PME :) For me it depends so much on the dog AND what else is going on with their communication, especially body language. Quinn is brilliant at communicating with other dogs, she has a real ability to read them and convey her own messages, appease, give space when needed etc etc and she's very good at teaching boundaries to puppies. Interestingly though she doesn't really growl. She's pretty patient with general puppy annoying-ness but if a pup shows behaviour that is too inappropriate (foster puppy coming to close when she had high value food, several fear aggressive pups at the dog park growling and snapping) she will very much use her body language, head position, eye contact and lip lifts to warn (it's very clear what she's doing) and if they don't heed her it will be a swift, firm "rrggh" as she pounces, puts them on their back and stands over them. She doesn't put her mouth on them or make much sound but just stands over them until she's satisfied with their response then let's them up and all is well again I've seen her do it to four different pups now, including Sneezy foster puppy, and it's amazing to watch. I trust her instincts and behaviour completely but I know it could be scary for a puppy owner who doesn't realise what's happening so I'm very careful about giving her free reign to do it. Riley on the other hand is pretty bad at dog communication. He will sometimes growl at another dog if he's uncomfortable but you can see he lacks confidence, his body leans right back when he does it, he often lifts a paw and he moves his head around wanting to look away but being unsure. I've worked a lot with him on changing his association with other dogs and teaching him alternate behaviours to staying there growling at them when he's uncomfortable, and I try hard to step in before it gets to the point of growling but if he does start it I step in straight away and steer him away from the dog and give him something else to do because he clearly isn't in control of the situation.

Unfortunately you do kinda need to grow eyes in the back of your head if you want to modify a reactive dog's behaviour! With her reactivity at the house, could you try engaging her in some active training (heeling, stopping to sit, direction changes) before you even start? So you get her engaged and focusing on you before you open the door? Then you're again preventing her from rehearsing the undesirable behaviour. I think you could be having trouble with her back chaining because you're not catching her early enough. She doesn't need to start reacting in order for you to implement your training strategies, you can start when she's well under threshold when you know or suspect a trigger is imminent.

:laugh: sorry I just realised what I did! When I said SG, I was referring to Susan Garrett (MRB has been doing recallers)! But that was a bit silly of me considering Simply Grand had just posted :laugh: Sorry for the confusions BC Crazy! In case you re interested, Susan Garrett doesn't like saying 'leave it' because commands in themselves are often reinforcing (we have paired them with reinforcement so often) so in effect you may be rewarding the dog getting distracted by saying 'leave it'. Some dogs learn these behaviour chain very. very quickly. It was why I asked you whether you might be recalling Stella when she is rushing towards another dog, as if you do this Stella might be deliberately running towards a dog so that you can recall her and she gets a treat. Hahaha, I figured out who you meant after initially going "huh?" I see SG's point, Quinn does that with jumping on people, because I've rewarded her for not jumping up when she greets people if she decides she might like a treat she'll run towards them, NOT jump on them then run straight back to me expecting her reward :laugh: I don't mind "leave it" but I think it might be difficult to introduce with Frosty at this stage because she already has an established high value for other dogs (either positive if she likes them and wants to play or negative if she doesn't like them and wants to aggress). She becomes highly aroused when she sees other dogs now and her brain will be very active trying to figure how to react so to override that with a cue once she's already seen the other dog will be difficult. I'd concentrate on teaching a behaviour pattern that avoids engagement with other dogs at all (as opposed to seeing the other dog then having to focus on the cue Mrs RB is giving to "leave it" then responding to that cue). So Mrs RB, you'd need to be on high alert for other dogs all the time and initiate a behaviour pattern that is incompatible with reacting to the other dog before Frosty has a chance to register that it's there, and reward her highly keeping focus on you. Then you're also preventing the reinforcement she gets from interacting (positively or negatively) with other dogs. Once you've desensitised her to other dogs a bit, taught her an alternative behaviour and built a reward history for paying attention to you under the distraction of another dog you can start to re-introduce some interaction with other dogs, build her confidence and teach more appropriate greeting behaviours. At the moment I don't think she's seeing you as part of her relationship with other dogs which means she's left to fend for herself, resulting in her either aggressing or running up and grovelling, neither of which are the behaviours of a confident dog. Sorry for the probably confusing post, it's so much easier to talk about this kind of stuff in person!!

Mrs RB, it seems to me like Frosty isn't getting anywhere near enough consistency from you. Reactive dogs (well all dogs really) need YOU to set the boundaries and should not be interacting with other dogs unless you are controlling the situation. For a reactive dog, sometimes being able to decide for themselves whether to approach other dogs and other times not, sometimes being given opportunity to react and other times not, and sometimes receiving consequences after reacting and sometimes before is highly confusing and counter productive to changing behaviour. Reactive dogs need a consistent, practiced pattern of behaviour at every controlled opportunity you have so that in those unpredictable situations they have that rehearsed behaviour with you to fall back on.

As soon as I glimpsed that pic, before I read your post, my iinstant thought was " oh, that face " I like ears though :)

Oh Ronin loves it! How cute :)

These stories are so cute. Love Spud waiting in the ute :laugh: I remembered another one from back when I only had Saxon. We had gone to my parents house and my step dad wanted him outside while we ate so I put him out the back on the deck. In a total stupid human moment I blocked off the top of the steps down from the deck without even registering that the side of the stairs was open and Saxon could just walk straight on to them. I went back inside and as soon as I left him Saxon went straight down the stairs, out of the back yard and around to the front door where he scratched at the window next to the door until I came and let him in :laugh:

I came home one night the other week to find the house full of smoke Someone (Quinn I assume) had somehow knocked over the little oil column heater I had been leaving on as my house is freezing during winter, the oil had leaked out and started burning against the heat of the column heater. Thankfully the circuit breaker had tripped and the power had gone off before things got worse. Anyway, in my panicked realisation that I needed to find the source of the smoke and make sure the dogs were ok I left the front door wide open. I realised there was no fire then instantly realised the dogs had run off after I'd opened the living area door and determined that they were ok. I ran back to the front door and there they all were just sniffing around the lawn in the unfenced yard. Multiple crises averted, phew! And no more heater for the dogs

:laugh: love the other adult looking indignant about the silliness.

All such great things! My main things, and what I say to classes are 1. Consistency 2. Patience and fridge locks, definitely fridge locks!

Riley was hilarious when I brought Quinn home, he was soooo excited and he kept looking from her to me with wide eyes like he was saying " oh my god you got me a puppy!!" :laugh:

Here a couple of phone pics of Quinn with Sneezy on her first or second day here: ETA Grumpette, love little Dee peeking around the tree :laugh:

All three of mine plus foster puppy had Nobivac C3 at 6 wks and C5 at 10 weeks, all of them I started taking out including to dog parks from 11 weeks and I never had any problems. However, 4 dogs isn't exactly a comprehensive sample! And of course I don't know whether they were actually exposed to anything so I don't know whether the vaccines worked or they would have been fine anyway.

SW, I don't think you need to worry too much about Wilbur's excitement with the puppy, he won't need to be neutralized to her as he does with other dogs because they'll be living together so there will naturally be some neutralization/pack mate relationship developing. She'll be super exciting at first of course and they may well love playing together but because they are together all the tome it won't be like seeing a new dog out and about. I too have just brought each of mine in as a new pup and let them meet the others and it's been fine. With mine size difference wasn't an issue as the older ones are small dogs but with Sneezy foster puppy I still just let her meet Quinn, who was bigger, and there were no issues. Maybe do have Wilbur on lead at first but I suspect a Lab puppy raised around that many other Labs will cope fine :laugh: As far as focus on you guys rather than just each other, I've had no problem with just doing separate training sessions with each of them (both casually and actual obedience training) and using NILIF all the time with all of them and while they are definitely a strong pack they will still each switch attention back to me when asked.

Yes, vexacious. I'll be blunt. The naffin' energy going into this dog & rehousing might mean another deserving dog whose family played by the rules is left in grave need of help. Sorry but it's bugged me. People are blinkered. Yep. And I also considered pointing out to all the people complaining on the page about evil council killing dogs that Hugo's owners, by allowing him to be out so many times then seized, held for so long and going through all the fighting had undoubtedly caused the death of other dogs in the pound because Hugo was taking up a kennel all that time and a large amount of time and money went into their one case. I didn't bother saying it that as I figured I'd just be banging my head against a wall.

RSPCA ACT has made changes to its operating procedures since the new CEO started there, with a specific aim being reducing the number of dogs sent to DAS. Sounds like it could be working sarsaparilla.

They pop up on Gumtree from time to time too.

Fight you for any "spares"... *grin* T. Maybe she'll have 14 and there'll be plenty of spares to go around! If she does I think we'll both have to put our money where our mouths are Td ;)

Ooo, if there are going to be 11 you'll have some spares, I suppose I could take one off your hands allerzeit :p

Nice! Trouble is when I buy things like that the dogs look at it once then go back to playing with empty cardboard boxes and plastic bottles *eye roll*

Awww Emma Beautiful.