Aidan3

I have never seen or heard of any problems with lunging dogs in head collars. However, front-attaching harnesses are more user-friendly as most dogs accept them willingly. They don't offer as much leverage, but they offer enough in most cases unless you are injured or really tiny.

Breed standards, breed descriptions by enthusiasts, and people's opinions of breeds are often romanticised and are rarely objective or applied in context.

Two things: 1. kibble is fine but only if your dog is hungry enough, most people would recommend a "treat" such as cooked chicken which is a bit more special 2. don't pause between click and treat, the data is very clear that the less time between click and treat the better. The exception is when your dog "clicker-savvy", and for practical reasons you need a pause. Otherwise, no pause, deliver the reward as soon as practical.

I know you said there was no trouble between them - but the stance of that Staffy is exactly when I go and grab Boonie away - maybe I'm overracting but I reckon that Staffy is on high alert. could just be a trick of the photo in this pic. Would I be reading the language of dogs wrong by acting this way? Depends a bit on the give and take. Not many dogs could negotiate a staffy posturing like that with the required diplomacy.

Here's a good blog: http://www.grammarblog.co.uk/2007/08/its-not-easy-being-a-grammar-wizard-3/

We'll always see more trouble in popular breeds, if for no other reason than there are more of them and we tend to remember the bad experiences more than the good ones. That said, I definitely see more reactive GSDs than other popular breeds, but that just could be the way that referrals work (GSD people tend to know other GSD people).

Separate them until you have spoken to a professional. It is very helpful to give them some breathing space, a friend of mine calls this an "emotional detox" which I think is a good description. "Crate and rotate" is a good strategy if your dogs are crate trained.

You don't think they should look after the safety if their workers in what can be a risky work environment?

They make great pets if you are devoted, experienced, fit and aware of your surroundings when you take them out with you, which if they have their way will be frequently; rain, hail or shine I met one of Cairo1's recent dogs and knew one of her old GSDs quite well, worth PMing her.

A friend of mine has a couple of Macklin bitches, lovely temperaments but I'm not a huge fan of the conformation personally. I would recommend looking closely at temperament and health first, particularly in the GSD. Once you find lines with consistently suitable temperaments for your family you might change your mind about colour (once you fall in love, colour becomes less important to you than when you started looking). Black is not uncommon, so you might even get exactly what you are looking for.

where can I get one :D I have a spare elk, I'll mail it to you. thanks, it will come in handy for the puppies If they get stuck inside for a few days, I can't offer any advice, but do keep a journal of the event for our entertainment.

As in "Nightmare on Elk Street"?

where can I get one :D I have a spare elk, I'll mail it to you.

Sorry, should have PMd, going completely off-topic here

I can't answer for corvus, but I would use the flirt pole. If he will take the flirt pole, he would almost certainly also play tug but you might need a certain level of fitness (you become the "pole", the rag has to move the same way, always away too, never toward - they are descended from wolves - remember? ;) ) You would start in a low-distraction area then when he does it 4 times out of 5 trials (cold, from the start of a new training session), then introduce a distraction - systematically, set him up for success. If recalling around other dogs is Level 100, start at Level 1, then move to Level 2 etc It doesn't matter if you're doing it with food or an e-collar, you aim for 80% (success 4/5) before moving up, reward each time he gets it right until he's 99% at Level 100. If you can do this without a long line or corrections then you are doing it right. I do use a long-line and I do reel them in, just be careful not to end up with a dog who needs to feel a gentle tug before they respond (as I'm sure you're aware). I would also have him taking food around other dogs. Sorry - call me stubborn, deluded or up-myself, but I would. I cannot tell you how many times someone has come to me and said "my dog isn't food motivated". Unless your dog has a terminal disease or is in the category of dogs that really should be medicated for anxiety, he is food motivated and I will make it happen (without deprivation) 100% of the time. It's just a matter of easing them into it. Once you get them started, you will usually not have any problems. But just use the flirt pole, there is no reason not to.

I'm so sorry, Mags, that is truly horrible.

Thanks for the link. I really don't mean any offence to you, Jackie, but that blog was a string of logical fallacies that somehow lead to a reasonable conclusion - a conclusion which was wholly compliant with the APDT position statement that they had just spent the rest of the blog trying to discredit (using logical fallacies).

An elk.

If they really want something in your house, that is probably true. But I think most crims would overlook a house with a dog if the house next door didn't have one, or the house with the alarm if the house next door didn't have one. You hear a lot of stories about crims who case a street and make notes which houses have dogs, alarms etc I'm very confident with dogs and I would definitely decide against breaking into my house

Do you think that wolves and dogs are a more meaningful comparison than, say, dingoes and dogs? Which one is the wild type? As far as I can tell they both are, but wolves and dingoes are different again. If you're going to compare dogs to an ancestral type for whatever reason, why pick wolves over dingoes, NGSD, Carolina Dog etc? Or we could just study dogs Seems like a winner to me! There is some fascinating research on stray dogs, and it really highlights how adaptive dogs are. Forming a pack may not be so much innate as it is adaptive. If it infers an advantage to form loose associations or no associations at all, that is what dogs will do. There are a lot of parallels in other social constructs that have been studied such as language, gender etc

Dogs are a good deterrent. However I would never advise for someone to get a dog like they were purchasing insurance. Dogs need a considerable investment of time, money and affection.

People's understanding of wolf behaviour is largely guided by inaccurate or even grossly fallacious reporting, too. In any case, dogs live in completely different environments.

Tell me more, have you seen these lines working in Qld, Joe? Any dogs in particular I should be looking out for?

Good find!