koalathebear

Thanks to everyone for the kind words :rolleyes: Elbie is a handful (several actually) and certainly keeps us on our toes but he also has a very beautiful personality.

We have been worried about possible aggression given his response to the harness in the car, but in almost every other single situation he is very non-aggressive and during the last couple of car trips, he has shown marked improvement in his behaviour.

wizzle: when will see see Genevieve in action on youtube? She must be sooooooooo cute. I adore cavs - there was one at our puppy class and we have a little guy named Caleb in our obedience class who is just so adorable and lively. He's so little but he acts like he's a big dog - all confident and happy.

Thanks wizzle, you're a sweetie. Things are heaps better now - I guess I just wish I had discovered the thread I linked to a couple of months ago when I was feeling so down and being made to feel like such a bad Pet Parent

One of the reasons I refugeed over to DOL was because the posters at the US forum were just so judgemental about people who leave their puppies alone for the day when they go to work and I felt it was unfair given that my partner and I are very careful in how we look after Elbie and don't do things without considering things first.

You're right that the majority of dog owners MUST have to go to work. We have to find the money for those endless dog beds, toys, assortment of treats, leashes, dog tags and gazillion other pet accessories somewhere ... :rolleyes:

Thanks for your kind words. We know that we DO face some challenges with Elbie (as you know from other threads) but he made some huge progress today in the car (with the help of a calf hoof and a piece of kangaroo jerky) and since we had our visit with the behaviourist, he has been very respectful around doorways and just been generally much more respectful and well-behaved. We are very hopeful that we will be able to make car travel a stress-free time soon and after that our main challenge will be trying to teach Elbie how to be calm when meeting new people and encountering new environments. He is the most hyperactive bundle of energy you ever saw ... Nonetheless, we are very happy with our little puppy. Every day he learns something new and makes us laugh.

I'm glad to hear that Genevieve is so well-adjusted. It's always reassuring to hear the 'good' stories as well as the bad

I go back and read old threads sometimes to see if I can glean anything useful. I realise that every single question I've asked seems to have been asked a thousand times before. I feel sorry for "old-timer" DOLers who must get soooooooooo sick of reading "help my puppy is biting/jumping/barking/growling/not toilet trained/crazy/hyper/eating poo/chewing everything" cries for help :rolleyes:

For instance, I found this post which raised a lot of debate about the whole 'leaving puppy alone' thing. That being said, the puppy in question was 10 weeks old and Elbie's likely to be about six months old when he's truly left 'alone' for 8-9 hours. He's had a lot of practice runs so far and doesn't seem to be particularly destructive or bored, nor does he seem inclined to jump fences or run away.

I wish I could get him interested in his home alone ball but I suspect that what he will do while we're at work is:

1. sleep

2. look for scattered kibble in the grass

3. dig holes in 'his' section of the yard

4. gobble his kong

5. run around the yard

6. sleep

7. sleep some more ...

For other people who are members of the BDOC in Canberra, do you know when the good times are to use the facilities? Looks like Thursday evenings and Sunday mornings are out because of obedience classes. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights are out because it's used for agility classes ...

We haven't taken Elbie off-lead except at the BDOC little off leash area and we're thinking of continuing there for a bit before trying one of the more 'public' dog parks. He's usually quite shy around the other dogs but today he went quite well and handled being chased around by a little Bernese Mountain Dog, a labrador and a bunch of other big dogs. Even though he was a bit disconcerted by a large classmate who pinned him - he recovered well and went back immediately to sniff so we think he's all right.

So ideally we'd like to go the BDOC grounds when there are some dogs but not heaps and heaps of dogs around ... We haven't been members long enough to be told what the gate combination is yet We were the first to arrive today and had to wait there until someone opened the gate.

magstar and BritannyMay: Thanks. He's a lot of hard work but a very lovable little dog.

hopenfox: Thanks for letting me know. The butcher cuts the bones in half so the marrow is reachable so mostly all Elbie does is a lot of 'scooping' of marrow with his teeth, licking and gnawing on the softer bits of the bone. He doesn't seem to be biting down hard on anything. We take the bone away after a day - but we'll definitely keep an eye on him. We'll get him lamb flaps today as suggested by persephone - if only he didn't eat them so fast

persephone:

Elbie says hullo to his Auntie Persephone. Also, his ears are still quite floppy - I just took the video at that angle so that his ears looked more kelpie-ish

Don't want to scare you koalathebear but I have a 3 year old dog who still excitement/submissive wees

:p

Fortunately for us, Elbie's wees are growing extremely rare ... But thank you for the warning

niques and persephone:

Thank you! I will definitely add some photos soon. We've really been very preoccupied with our little boy's behaviour lately that we haven't been keeping up with the photos.

persephone:

Bones ... We agonised for ages about the marrow in bones issue I googled and googled about to marrow or not to marrow and on the day, I think there were more 'marrow good' articles so we let him have the marrow ... We will probably give him a giant marrow bone (with marrow) very occasionally as a treat. I'll probably sometimes scoop out the marrow as suggested because I don't want him to become a fatty.

I tried the lamb flaps (our local butcher gave us a bag for free to test them out on Elbie) and he LOVES them (he loves all food ) but they were seriously gone within minutes!!!! He was able to play with the bone for 9 hours so we were very disconcerted when he seemed to inhale the flaps :D

It's so hard to find any consensus on what's safe/not safe. We gave him rawhide chews (regarded as dangerous) under very close supervision but he has learned how to soften them and untie the knots so they aren't very safe for very long. I read so many hideous stories about bone choking and throat/stomach damage so we decided to get him a huge one that he couldn't choke on and eyeball him as he gnawed on it

wizzle

The tricks help a LOT to take the edge off Elbie's hyperactivity around mealtimes. When he was very young, he used to sit there staring at us intently and literally quivering with anticipation - sometimes he'd whimper, sometimes he'd even drool a little bit! It was very cute but not very calming for him. These days because he's running through tricks, he's very focussed and calm and we don't have to worry about his manic behaviour.

As soon as he sees that we've finished our meal, he comes trotting up in expectation of HIS meal and when we run through tricks with him, you can almost see the wheels turning in his head as he tries to guess what we're going to ask him to do. He's very funny because sometimes he'll do a bunch of tricks in anticipation of what we want him to do so before we've even asked him to do anything he'll be begging, spinning, rolling over and doing 'are you shy'

One time, he was anticipating all the things my OH was making him do and my OH said: "I must be too predictable, he keeps doing things before I say it or as I'm saying them."

Me: "Why don't you ask him for a drop and an are you shy?"

OH: "Spoilers! Don't say that aloud!" Sure enough, when my OH looked back towards Elbie he was already dropping and doing the shy gesture on the basis of our conversation.

In terms of the tricks we have taught Elbie.

He came to us at 8 weeks with a very strong sit so we didn't have to train that. The drop took us a little bit of time because his butt used to pop in the air when we tried to do that. We've now turned that into 'bow' so he does that very nicely now

For "beg" basically one of us sat behind him and one of us sat in front of him. When my OH said "beg", he'd do the "beg" gesture while I put Elbie's paws into a beg position. I only had to do it a couple of times. His first attempts, he was jumping up and balancing on his back legs but now he does a very nice seated beg which is very cute. Sometimes it looks like a double high five or like he's having a panicked spaz attack as his paws flail a bit.

High five: I put him in a sit and sat in front of him. I put my hand up and lifted one of his paws to touch against mine. I did it a couple of times, then said high five and he learned it very quickly.

We read online that it's good for dogs to obey hand signals as well as voice for if they get deaf when they're old so we have taught Elbie to obey hand signals for all his tracks as well as voice commands.

'wave': he just learned of his own accord one day. One day, he was looking at me, I lifted my hand at him and he stared at me intently. I'm not sure if you've read Paddington Bear but he's always described as being very good at giving a 'hard stare'. Elbie has a very intent, considering stare. On that day, he stared at me and my upraised hand and then lifted his paw in response.

It made me crack up and my OH was laughing because at first I called the command: "We come in peace" but I changed it over to 'wave'. Because I praised and gave him a treat for the wave, he now does it on request.

go backwards: Elbie walked backwards quite naturally so we just had to capture the behaviour. When we walk towards Elbie with food/a toy he'll automatically back-up. If you look here you'll see instructions.

rollover: For rollover, we just scanned youtube for the different videos and found the technique that worked for us. It took us a while because Elbie kept nipping at the treat instead of rolling over. Eventually one day he was in his dog bed and when we called his name, he rolled over towards us. We praised him a lot and gave him treats and made him to it several times until he got it down pat on the mat. Then he did it on the ground. Our theory was that he didn't really want to roll on the cold, hard ground at first :D

spin: we found a spin on

that worked for us. You can see Elbie in action in this thread. He does very very sedate spins now but he used to do crazy, athletic demented spins that made us laugh soooo much - I kind of miss his demento spazzy spins.

'are you shy': This was a very difficult trick. DOL forum has this post. Unfortunately the tape or peanut butter on the side didn't work for us at first because it kept falling off Elbie's fur. He's short-haired so we couldn't use the peg option.

We found

and Elbie learned it really quickly although we got through a LOT of sticky tape. My mum thought it was hilarious because she was there for the sticky tape days.

We're still not able to get him to crawl without a bench or do a 'drop dead'. When he drops onto his side, he automatically wants to roll over for a 360 so that will take some more work.

As for the tricks, everyone says that you're supposed to get the behaviour you want first, perfect it and then give it a name otherwise the dog might just give you a sloppy version and think that's good enough. We've been lucky with Elbie - we actually give it the word almost right from the beginning because he usually only takes a few times to associate the word with the behaviour.

Hope that helps! Please feel free to ask any questions. I'm not an expert by any means but I can certainly tell you what worked for Elbie. What helps is that Elbie really seems to find it fun so for him, learning tricks seems to be almost its own motivation and reward. Sorry for the length of the post!

Thanks MM - they're small successes in the scheme of things but we had a setback with Elbie's progress recently which preoccupied us so much that we weren't really focussing on the positives :D He is a very good dog and learns quickly.

As for being outside, Elbie is very much an inside dog, too unfortunately. Canberra winters are very cold and lately it's been rainy as well so I don't blame him for not really wanting to be outside. Some things we did:

1. Like Marley, Elbie would and will still occasionally whimper and bark to be let in. Some of the sounds this dog can make! Like you, we didn't let him in until he's quiet. We worried that he might think all he has to do is carry on, then go quiet and then we'll reward him by letting him in. So usually what we did was either left the room or if he could still see us - we'd just ignore him. He's carry on for a bit but then eventually plonk himself into a sit/drop and turn quiet. Once we felt he'd almost forgotten about his desire to come in, we'd let him in. Our worry was that when we're not home, he might expect that he can be let in by barking and barking so we're training him to think that if he's quiet, he MIGHT be let in.

2. We only put him outside for short bursts of time initially. Half an hour at first, then an hour, then a few hours. It's important to make the backyard an interesting place for him to be. For Elbie he prefers to be with us, but he's very food and toy-motivated so things we did were:

(a) at mealtimes, scatter part or all of his kibble in the grass so he could forage for it.

(b) if we were going out, get a kong, fill it with peanut butter and kibble and freeze it

We set up Elbie-Cam so that we knew what sorts of things he was doing when we were out - was he bored/upset? What did he like playing with etc.

We also put toys in the yard - he knows the difference between 'inside toys' and 'outside toys' so doesn't try to bring them in or out. One of his favourites is an empty plastic bottle - he'll run around with that for ages. He has cloth tug toys and balls but for some reason that bottle makes him happy

Finally, we also fed him a portion of his meals outside. From a very short time after we got him, Elbie has always been 'working' for his meals. This was partly because we wanted to be treating him for his tricks/training but we didn't want to overfeed him so the best time to focus on training for him was at mealtimes. At every single meal time, Elbie will:

- sit, drop, stand, go backwards, beg, high five, spin, shake hands, rollover, do an 'are you shy' and wave several times

- have his harness put on and taken off

- have his leash clipped on and be walked around for a bit

He works for every single bit of his food, even if it's just making him keep his distance (1 metre) and wait for it until we give him the okay (after he looks up at us). We're lucky because he's already a very focussed little dog who looks up at us a lot.

Hope this helps a bit

1. Elbie had his first giant marrow bone the other day. He LOVED it. We got the bone from the butchers shop next to Pet Barn at the Belconnen Markets because one of the sales assistants who owns a kelpie recommended the place. They gave us a HUGE bone for $5 and they cut it in half for us so that Elbie could get to the marrow more easily. I cut off all the fat and any bits that looked vaguely dangerous and choke-able. Accordingly to my OH, it kept Elbie entertained for more than 9 hours! He chomped out all of the marrow in the middle first and then spent the rest of the time gnawing on it happily. He was gnawing it under supervision and seemed fine with it. I know that it's all right to leave the bone for more than a few days, but just to be safe, we threw it out after one day. We still have the other half in the freezer.

We will definitely get more bones from that butcher because Elbie enjoyed it so much. We're very conscious of the choking hazards - which was why it took us so long to get around to buying a gone for him - but as mentioned, we supervise so it should be fine. We took it away from him a few times when he was gnawing on it, but he just gave us a placid: "Why do you want my bone?" look and waited until we gave it back to him. I'm so happy he's not thingy about his food despite being crazy about eating.

2. One of Elbie's puppy teeth fell out today. The first one we're aware of. It's possible that the bone chewing might have moved it along. We found a little bit of blood on his toy badger yesterday and also on his raw hide bone. At first we were afraid he had cut his mouth while chewing on the rawhide so inspected his mouth - he was very funny standing there patiently with his mouth open as we peered around inside his mouth but we didn't find any cuts or anything. Do puppies gums bleed when they lose their puppy teeth? There wasn't a lot of blood, there was none today and Elbie seemed in good spirits.

3. We have been trying to get Elbie to use his outdoor kennel. The days are cold, I've already gone back to work and OH is going back soon so Elbie will be left on his ownsome in the yard during the day. We were worried because while he shivers with cold, he hasn't wanted to use his kennel and he prefers to curl up on the doorstep outside the kitchen - even when it's cold and rainy. We bought straw and a comfy dog bed that looks like a mini trampoline to put into the kennel. Elbie seemed to love it and we coaxed him in the kennel a few times on the weekend and he lay there for a bit. Alas, he wasn't going in there of his own volition. Today I received an email from OH announcing that it was cold and rainy and although at first Elbie had curled up wet and shivering on our back door step as usual, eventually he vanished into the kennel and all that could be seen was one small white paw. It's great news for us because Elbie should be much warmer in there than on the back step.

4. Corvus mentioned that we should teach Elbie to touch his nose against our hand so I put my palm up and he immediately stuck his cold wet nose into it I repeated it a few times and then said: "touch" and he seems to know what's going on. With these tricks though, he always looks at me in a very perplexed and puzzled way as if to say: "What's this all about?" He loves to learn new things, though. Now if we could get him to crawl without the aid of kitchen benches He doesn't seem to grasp the concept of crawling when there's nothing to crawl under.

5. His stays are getting very good. I'll ask him to stay in one room, go wandering off into another room while he's in a drop position or a sit and then after a wait, I'll call him in. The first time I did it, I saw his head poke around the doorway curiously to see where I had gone but now he knows that he's going to be called, he just sits and waits even though I'm in a different room.

6. Elbie has overcome his aversion to toileting in the rain He now trots outside, does his business in Poo Corner and then trots back inside again. For a while he didn't like it or worse, he'd get confused and wee in the courtyard because it was all wet anyway, but now he seems to know what he's supposed to do.

7. To our delight, he now sleeps through the night so no more late night dog duty in the freezing cold. Even when he drinks water late at night, he seems fine about holding it.

8. For a while, Elbie wasn't drinking water from his outside water bowl when we weren't home. We'd come back, find his water bowl outside untouched but he'd come dashing into the house and start drinking the water from his inside bowl thirstily like there was no tomorrow. We took the inside bowl away so that he had to drink all of his water outside. At first he was quite reluctant but my OH discovered that giving him warm water made him more inclined to drink the water so he's now fine about drinking water outside and we don't have to worry about coming home to a thirsty puppy.

Harness/leash gnawing and Car Anxiety challenges remain but we are working through them gradually.

Oh, and you sooooo need to read this thread

Bwahahaha that post is awesome. I'm reading it now - and it should TOTALLY be a sticky post so that daunted newbies like me don't feel so bad

Err I wasn't even talking this post which was a pretty gentle and caring one. I was thinking about some other posts where newbies have been mauled and run away forever.

SBT123: I am pretty certain I have never been mauled by you

I remember a post on a different forum (actually the one that made me come running here) where a very panicked young girl (think she was a teenager) had been given a 5 week old puppy by her aunt. She had absolutely no idea what to do with it - thought that all she needed to was spread newspapers in a room and leave it there. Worse, she was going on holiday for a week and thought she could keep it locked in that room for the week with just an aunt coming in once a day to look in on the poor puppy. The posters on that forum immediately started shouting her down:

1. puppy too young why have you got a puppy that young

2. of course that's not the way to toilet train the pup

3. of course you can't leave it on its own blah blah blah

4. what kind of person are you to get a pup that young and then leave

The girl defended herself a bit feebly at first, explaining it was an unsolicited gift etc etc but in the end, she was so upset, she deleted her post and never came back. Clearly she had no one in her family who had the first clue about pup raising and I really worried about the fate of that girl and that puppy and wished that people had been kinder to her so that she could have been given some advice about what to do.

wuffles:

Ava's probably too boisterous for him but I'd be happy to let Elbie meet Satch offleash as he will most likely ignore him.

Thanks heaps for that offer. I think it would be very good for Elborino to meet Satchmo one of these days - as long as you don't think my bouncy dog is going to piss him off. Let me work a bit more on his calmness first before I inflict him on your beautiful boy.

poodlefan:

What worked for my little girl was agility and me protecting her from encounters that made her uncomfortable. She will ask to be picked up if she's not happy with other dog's behaviour and despite what so many folk will tell you to do, I do pick her up. She hasn't got a dominant bone in her body.

My other boy who was fear aggressive is similarly protected - kept away from overly friendly or dominant dogs and no bad encounters has boosted his confidence.

You have no idea how relieved I am to hear that:

1. even someone as experienced with dogs as you are has had to deal with a dog with temperament issues - for some reason I just assumed all your dogs would be perfect models of doggy deportment and placidity; and

2. the temperament issues should be something that can be worked through with time and effort.

Elbie's been heaps better in the last few days so I am hoping that with continued hard work on our part, he'll be able to settle and become a calmer doggy.

Your puppy definitely won't be able to ring a bell in the beginning so you're going to have to go with the indoor puppy pads option or the one that's hard work i.e. go outside with him during the night.

We got Elbie at eight weeks and we took him outside to toilet after every meal and drink.

At night, we crated him and we woke up every two hours to take him out. We took turns at "dog duty" - for some reason it was always cold and rainy when it was my turn ;) We set an alarm.

Then it was every 2.5 hours/3 hours. Then it was 4am and 8am. Now he sleeps through the night - sleep at midnight and he's taken out at 6.30am when I get up for work. He actually sleeps for another couple of hours after I leave because it's still dark and we trick him into thinking it's still night-time _{That's because he's spoiled and gets a hot water at night to snuggle up to and at 6.30am we make another one for him so he thinks it's still night-time ...}

A lot of people laughed at us for getting up so frequently but Elbie's very trained now. He toilets on command, he goes to the right spot and he barks once to be let out for his toileting Just have patience.

Also, there's no weirder feeling in the world than standing out there waiting for your dog to wee/poop and praising him effusively for it :p Then again, my OH used to be the biggest squeam in the world and these days like me, he's expert at cleaning up poop, commenting on its consistency and so forth...

Congratulations on getting a new puppy soon

If people get a little blunt about their advice, bear in mind how many times the scenario outlined above plays out in homes all over this country because the signals a dog is sending out loud and clear get ignored. And its not just dogs that pay the price when it happens.

I know and I wasn't actually talking about you - I always find your posts very thoughtful and helpful in my Elbie matters

I guess my worry is that in some cases, the thin-skinned poster runs away and the only casualty will be the poor dog because if the owner isn't getting the advice from here, he/she might be getting it from somewhere less desirable and the poor pup ends up devolving and ends up at the pound or worse :'( I just think if we can keep the person here and talking - maintaining a line of communication - there's more of a chance at finding an approach that works.

MM - hang in there. Like you, I sometimes feel really bad for many of the newbies who come here asking for help and are made to feel like really horrible human beings (at worst) and really bad dog parents (at best). I cringe sometimes, especially when I see posters who clearly need all the help they can get being chased away from probably the only place they're going to get sensible advice and support :p Even the most expert 'dog expert' had to start somewhere and a lot of people I've spoken to have told me that they made mistakes with their first dog - and probably even with their later dogs.

It's sort of happened to me, too and early in the piece I felt so bad I deleted the bookmark to the DOL and tried to find a way to delete my account ;) Then I decided that I really want to give Elbie all the best possible chances that I can, swallowed my pride, tried to get a thicker skin and continued to read, post and ask for help.

The people here are very knowledgable. Many of them are actually very kind and understanding. For the most part, I REALLY don't think that the people posting are trying to be unkind or patronise you. For the most part, I believe that most people are trying to be helpful and don't realise/forget that a new puppy owner can feel quite sensitive and raw.

I'm not going to deny that there ARE some posters at DOL who can sometimes come across as arrogant/uncaring and just a bit patronising but I'd prefer to chalk that up to the fact that they're probably kinder to doggies than they are to people and in their haste to protect Canine Welfare, they forget that advice is usually most palatable when given with sympathy and understanding rather than grrr grrr grrr

I would understand it if you decided to leave but I would be sorry if you left because I think that you and little Marley can learn a lot of stuff from this place and it's harder to get the same sort of informed discussion and advice offline. You clearly love your puppy and want to do the right thing by him otherwise you wouldn't spend so much time here reading up, asking questions and wanting to learn more. Do not be deterred by adversity!

*big hug* As someone who also has a naughty and lovable little cross-breed doggy of dubious parentage, I have nothing but sympathy for you I wish you all the best with little Marley.

Well to be fair, I think that it should be totally understandable and fine to vent one's frustrations/anxieties to people who understand. I think it can only be a good thing if people can get things off their chest here and be made to feel that others have been there before them and that it does get better.

Telling people to suck it up and "didn't you know what you were getting into when you got a puppy" isn't really THAT constructive or helpful when someone's all stresed, sleep-deprived or anxious. When you're in that state of mind, what you want is a pat on the shoulder, a bit of encouragement and constructive suggestions and advice.

While there are some people out there who might always be able to be brave, positive and unflinchingly correct in their conduct no matter what winds of adversity buffetthem ... others like me will falter now and then and it's nice to know that we're not alone :D

I don't think people who vent are saying they're not giving their pups a chance or that they want to return their puppy ... it's just that primal scream feeling you get when you have had enough sleep or puppy is being a little brat It passes ...

Just my 2c ...

Teach Elbie to target his nose to your hand. It's super useful and you can use it to take his mind off things that worry him. If he's concentrating on targeting your hand he can't be glancing all around getting stressed about his surroundings. And if you reinforce it enough you can use it to get him to move places he thinks he doesn't want to go to and so forth.

I didn't know there was a "happy" wee and a submissive wee. Thought it was all the same.

Is that the thing where you have a stick and the dog touches the tip of its nose to the tip of the stick? I was at a loss for how to keep him entertained last week so taught him how to do that even though I wasn't quite sure what to do with it after he learned it

As to the wee varieties - I've assumed that they're different given that in puppy class they were so emphatic about the fact that happy wees were because the dogs were excited and happy. There was a huge boxer puppy named Lloyd and he was definitely happy and not stressed/submissive when he wee'd as he came in the room

Some dogs like Elbie are just naturally submissive and how they deal with that is pretty individual. Maybe confidence building would help? One of mine is very dominant and the other somewhere in between, so I may be completely off the mark...

Our of curiosity - what sorts of confidence-building exercises do you recommend i.e. what's worked with your babies? Elbie seems fine in class and is quite sociable with other dogs - but you saw for yourself that he wasn't very happy in the offlead section of BDOC that one time when he was surrounded by all those big dogs :D

Being roughly greeted by strangers to the house would definitely trigger an uncertain pup KTB - you're nipping those sorts of greetings in the bud and that's good. What is it with people who thinking roughing a pup up is fun for the pup??

I actually get a bit annoyed about it. Generally Elbie calms down quite quickly and will sit and drop but will get wound up again by people who will handle him quite vigorously and make their voice kind of crazy Weirdly enough, some of the worst culprits are 'dog people' like the vet's nurses at puppy classes and teachers at dog obedience classes who will do a rough to robust greeting and totally excite the little thing. One of the nurses would go up to Elbie when he was minding his own business and deliberately wind him up even though we were saying: "Errrr - if you make him excited, it's your own fault if he wees on you."

I guess some people think that's how you're supposed to 'play' with a dog? Fortunately most people who visit the house do comply with our request that they ignore first before they greet and that made the weeing frequency drop to almost nothing...

As to wigglebums - I wasn't aware that it was also an appeasement sign but Elbie is definitely VERY happy when he goes into wigglebum mode. He loves my mum and he sniffs her socks with glee and his little bum wiggles around like crazy.

She mentioned that she had seen a "truly stressed dog" the day before who had taken some time to settle even after being removed from the stressful situation and so the fact that Elbie immediately looked so placid made her think he was just chucking a tantrum. It's sort of consistent with what the instructor at obedience class (breeds and trials border collies) said to us i.e. that Elbie was just having a tantrum.

For us, we're still going to plod along with our original approach which is to keep working away at desensitising him. I'm even pondering plonking him in the back with a bone (while the car is still parked in the carport) because he loves bones so much and maybe he'll get used to just lying in the backseat.

I got the impression was that a tantrum was him wanting attention and being a brat and the latter was that he was genuinely stressed/upset. In any case, we're still handling the situation carefully but it's a relief to know that he's not terrified or scared or anything

kavik: This sounds so wrong but I'm so glad that you've also experienced a situation where your dog has tried to bite you because sometimes I've felt like there was something really weird/strange and extra horrible about the fact that Elbie tried to bite us/bit us even if it wasn't a very hard bite Sometimes I read posts and I marvel at and envy people with totally non-bitey dogs and wonder why I ended up with a mouthy puppy ...

I think the restraint thing is definitely a factor. He didn't like his collar at first but is now pretty chilled about having the collar put on him and never attacks it. The leash he's fine about us putting on him but when you walk him with it and he notices it, especially if he gets tangled - he starts attacking it and growling like a demon. Dog obedience trainer said it was a tug desire and we should use it, behaviourist said no tug games for Elbie were recommended.

The harness is mixed. He'll sit or stand very quietly to have the harness put on him now but you can tell he doesn't like it and because the harness loops over his right leg, the longer it takes to put on, the more likely he's going to squirm. Still, we put the harness and leash on him every meal time so he is letting us put it on him without too much fuss.

We also put the leash on him and take him out the front door and then bring him right back in in an attempt to minomise his excitement levels. Sometimes I'll walk with him in and out the front door four times and then head back into the yard. The problem is, Elbie generally knows when it's 'for real' because I'll bring my bag/jacket/keys etc I might have to make my acting more convincing

We had the same issue as you about tangling. The first harness had a strap that was too long and Elbie would fall down the footwell, the second looped into the seatbelt and he grew very tanged and upset and then wriggled out of it. Worse, Elbie learned how to press his paw on the seat belt release to let himself out

My OH has now modified that harness so that Elbie doesn't get tangled anymore, he can't release himself and he won't fall down the footwell. So now the only thing is getting him calm in the back - which I think is going to take a lot of "sitting in the car going nowhere" and treating him to getin and sit quietly.

Thanks for everyone's kind words.

I felt very exhausted and disappointed with myself on Sunday and was blaming myself for not knowing that Elbie needed more structure - but given that the negativity is a bad thing in itself which Elbie can pick up on, I've shaken myself out of it.

Also we've been working diligently with Elbie on the respect issues - we are making him give us space at meal times and around doorways - all without treats/praise or any form of visual/vocal cues. He's doing very well with food space. He has always been good about waiting for his food but that's with verbal cues from us, so now he's just doing it automatically with us being silent.

He's much better around doors and stairs - although he's still quite excitable around the front door and has habit of dashing up stairs first. His progress has been very encouraging - he's a smart little boy and he seems to be picking things up quickly - holding back and giving us space and only coming through the door when invited. Doing everything non-verbally is very difficult for me

persephone - the car issue was very baffling to the behaviourist. She thinks it's a tantrum and something that Elbie's putting on rather than real stress. She popped him in the backyard and he calmed down immediately, which is apparently something that he wouldn't do if he was genuinely stressed. We're going to continue working on desensitisation of the car and car travel but if that still doesn't work - we'll try a crate given that she says with working breeds, the motion of the car can overstimulate them.

She picked correctly that the things that Elbie chooses to be naughty about (harness, leash, towels etc) are the things that we place a high value on so we're working at making those things look worthless - at the same time, we're pumping up the value of his toys so that they're more attractive and able to distract/entice him when needed.

We're also holding back on the treats and the praise right now and making him do things for free - except for 'tricks'. His 'punishment' for inappropriate behaviour is a time-out which consists of tying him up for a couple of minutes. We don't want to use the crate as his sin-bin, nor do we want to pop him outside so the 'punishment' he seems to understand is that we tether him to the kitchen railing. It's only for 1-2 minutes and under our supervision - although we have to avoid making direct eye contact. He seems very aware that it's because he has been naughty. It's still very early days but we are very hopeful that we'll be able to work through it.

Did your diagnosis come with a treatment plan?

Alas no. Well for the 'happy wee' in our home, it's pretty easily fixed - if visitors don't do the 'wooba wooba wooba cute puppy' thing where they wrestle and rile up the puppy, he'll calm down of his own accord and he won't do a happy wee. We don't really have a solution for the 'I'm in a new and exciting place, I must wee' version although he hasn't wee'd at obedience class despite being quite excited before class.

I'm at a loss about the submission urination thing, though because as far as I could see, Elbie only piddled when he was excited and happy. e.g he never did it when he was being slightly bullied by bigger puppies at puppy class etc.

Elbie's five and a bit months old and he gets excited when visitors arrive. For a couple of people (my brother and my dad), he'll do a happy wee We assumed it's because he knows from previous visits that they'll play with him and be his buddy. At puppy class and obedience class, they told us it's not uncommon for puppies to do a happy wee when they're excited - there were quite a few happy wees during the beginning of puppy class. The happy wees are largely managed now because if the visitors ignore him and let him settle, he generally will just bounce around and there will be no unwelcome wees.

The thing was yesterday when we had a trainer come to visit, Elbie did what we thought was a happy wee but after a frown and a shake of the head, it was diagnosed as 'submission urinating' that is apparently caused by fear/being overwhelmed/being stressed by a situation.

The thing that puzzled me was that from what I could see, Elbie was not afraid or overwhelmed, he was just really happy to see a visitor. I could tell because when he's really happy, he doesn't just wag his tail - he does this hilarious thing where his entire bum wiggles so much it's like his tail will fall off.

So - how to tell the difference?