Weasels

Razor scooters. New floor surfaces. Small dogs. Opening out a bin liner. Joggers. Too much attention from strangers. Probably more we haven't discovered yet. My poor little wuss dog ETA: For the little things like the bin liners and floors I just call him silly in an upbeat voice and let him have an exploratory sniff, he's pretty good with those now. For the bigger problems like scooters and joggers I distract, redirect, reward.

I'm completely biased but I thought I'd chime in :D My male kelpie's best friend is a GSD - they have similar play styles and are roughly the same size (although the GSD is a lot more solid), so they're a good match. Kelpies are very easy to train and also likely to be reliable off lead (once trained) as they are bred to take commands from a distance. I recently found out I can put my 15 month old boy in a down-stay from halfway across an oval (very proud). My kelps get almost all their excercise off lead, plus chasing each other around the yard. My girl does run like a whippet Whippets and Iggys are the only dogs that can keep up with her. Plus you can almost always find one in rescue, poor sprockets.

Ugh, I sympathise, my boy does this. I haven't been able to fix it but I can just report what has helped for us. I use a 'hush' command. I put my palm flat in front of his face with a treat tucked under my thumb, so he can see the treat. Usually he gets distracted by the treat and shuts up for a minute, so he gets a 'yes!' and the treat. If there are more barks then the treat goes away. We are still working on increasing duration between shutting up and the treat, but I think he is getting the idea that quietness gets rewarded. And as Spotted Devil said, while he is tied up and I'm working with my other dog, I throw treats when he's quiet. Barking will get him put in a down-stay, then I reward the D/S after a minute or so.

We had a squeaker plain wubba for a while, and it did last really well (but it succumbed to chewing in the end, as they all do). The dogs still have the ball 'head' part that they play with occasionally. It had a kind of 'double' squeak in it though that I found more annoying than a regular squeak. Of course the dogs loved the noise. Eventually we had a husky over to play and he managed to silence the squeak The owner was very apologetic for 'breaking' thw toy but I wasn't complaining

Yep, I see what you're saying, well put. I just hope things can work out for both the humans and the dog involved, even with a shaky start. (yes I think my kelpies, at least, are mirrors. I hear people talk about how their dogs get all symapthetic if they are tired or ill, mine just get more uptight and attention seeking. It's a good motivator to leave the stress at the door.)

As far as I can see that she made a choice to hire a trainer for her pup, made a choice to reach out to her parents for help with her living situation, and made choices to learn more about dogs and seek help on DOL. I don't know the situation with the rehoming (I do vaguely remember the thread), but weird things can happen when there's no family there to bounce ideas off. I know that's the reason why I have a backyard full of polypipe agility jumps. Dogs, like humans, sometimes end up in less than ideal situations and muddle through. I'm sure there are ppl out there who think my kelpies have no business living in the suburbs, but I love them and have their best interests at heart, and I think they have a better life than many dogs languishing in backyards. I'm sure I've made mistakes with them, but we learn and move on. Or maybe I'm just a softie and don't like seeing ppl being upset by the internets (edited for spelling)

Well I'll defer to you on poodle-specific matters. I freely admit I see the dog world through the prism of "ruff tuff working dogs" (who just think they're lapdogs :rolleyes:). I haven't been following the whole story either, but I just think many people flounder with a new pup, not all seek help, so that's a good step HarperGD is taking. I'll leave the flaming to others, not my style. Too many shades of grey here.

Fair enough, but the OP seems keen to learn about dog training and behaviour and do what it takes for the pup, so that is a lot more than the majority of dog owners out there. And she's shown she's willing to call in a professional when warranted, even if did turn out to be a dud in that instance. So I guess I'm not seeing huge red flags for the future of this pup.

Not necessarily. I know a 13 year old poodle that STILL screams his head off when his owner leaves him. It's unlikely to hinder, at least :D

I'll just keep my reply to doggie matters - Harper my OH goes away for variable lengths of time too, and he winds the dogs up when he gets home which is the worst thing you can do for separation distress :rolleyes: Although we never had our dogs as pups, they did pine when he first started going away, and getting crazy about the time he should be home, barking, being noise-reactive, staring at the door and the like. These days they just accept that he'll be back when he's back and are happy to see him when they can (which is pretty much how I see things too). We didn't do anything to train this, they just worked it out on their own. Anyway, after a few deployments hopefully your pup will start to click that your OH will keep coming home, and pupski has you as a solid influence. Increasing age and confidence of your pup should help too

:D Purdie I am so happy to hear you say this. Yay internets! Unfortunately until recently there wasn't much interest in researching dogs because they were seen as 'unnatural' and too common (scientists want to study the cool exotic animals too). This is changing recently though, especially since the canine genome was sequenced, and we are getting so much great science on the behaviour and development of dogs. I am not a trainer but I am a zoologist and have studied dogs and foxes in the past, so I almost take it personally when people disregard all this cool work I'm also a big advocate of tailoring your approach to your dog. I can understand Ali's opinion but by the look of their avatar I'd say Ali's dog and little Harper would not respond the same way to training. I even have to train my 2 kelpies differently though they are the same breed and about the same size! Harper you know your dog better than anyone, don't ignore your instincts

:rolleyes: I definitely have an opinion on this, but to minimise ranting I'll just say this is a good website and has some extra references at the end - http://drsophiayin.com/philosophy/dominance/ I agree with huski, dominance is a way overused concept and smacks of lazy training in this case IMO. Not fair on the good trainers that actually think about an individual dogs problems and how to tailor a solution, instead of just saying every dog is dominant and giving the same solutions. Get a second opinion.

I didn't get charged for checking the chip, the nurse behind the counter had the scanner on hand and just swiped him in the waiting room. I would guess it's the 'seeing if he's ok' (vet consult) part they wanted to charge for. Agree with Persephone I would sooner make a temporary slip-lead to catch the dog than grab a collar. Even my human-loving girl got scared/upset when the vet grabbed her collar the other week (she was fine until he did that).

Fair enough, I'm sure the dogs will take whatever they can get! I have a couple of family members with acreage in SA so I might try to convince them to get some ducks for off-season practice

You just had "http:/" at the start twice

Try

Is it a papered dog? has anyone actually offered her their bitch?

Thanks Piper! Gawler sounds promising, it's good the dogs won't miss out Glad you had a good run

Purdie with respect I think most modern training books are moving away from the dominance paradigm. While accepting that dogs can be dominant over certain things (bones, beds etc.) things like pulling on a walk and going through doors first are better explained by the reward is gives the dog (getting somewhere exciting sooner). I don't feed my dogs from the table because I don't want them begging at the table, and I don't want fur in my bed, but those are just personal choices and I don't think they make my dogs better behaved than someone who does let their dogs sleep in their bed. The theory of general dominance was developed through observations of unrelated captive wolves, living in a very unnatural situation. These studies are now well established to be flawed, and since temprament is the thing we have changed most in the domestication process, applying wolf behaviour to dogs is shaky. Sure, dogs are not humans. They are also not wolves. And humans are not dogs, and I don't think dogs see us as funny-looking dogs either. We have developed a unique bond through domestication, and the fact that we are still muddling through how to deal with this cross-species coexistence is shown by the diversity of advice on this forum Sorry to twodoggies for going a bit off topic! (edited for spelling)

uhhhh..... all I can come up with is JRT x puggle? is that it?

+1 on the professional help. As well as the risk of physical harm there is chance the child could develop dog-fear if something does go down, which could be a lifetime of trouble for the child and the dogs around them. It's also worrying the dog went to a snap without an escalation of warning noises & snarling first.

I love watching border collies herd, they have such a different (and I think cooler) style than the other dogs I've seen (but don't tell that to my kelpies ;) ) Piper what's the general area (north/east/south etc. of the city) where herding training is run in SA? We might be moving to Adelaide in the next year or so and we've love for out kelps to get some sheep-time. We will probably be in the NE hills when we first move back.

chiara I just wanted to add, I think you did the right thing with the kitten, and I'm glad you see that the criticisms aren't addressing the facts of the situation as you presented them, e.g. cat not chipped, council contacted, you didn't keep it, etc. Although if I found an uncollared dog I definitely would and have tried to find its owner by checking for a chip, if I can get close enough. Unlike lavendergirl's situation tho my local vet held the dog on their premises until the owner arrived, so I guess I'm lucky in that regard. I have also found dogs with collars and addresses which is great and I just walk them home, but my dogs don't wear collars normally (are chipped). I do teach my dogs where their front boundaries are as a back-up, as well as having good fences, but I certainly don't assume that a loose dog - collar or no - is anything other than an escaped pet at risk of being hit by a car.

Exactly! Which is why the OP may need to use physical control/restraint ... so puppy is not able to make mistakes/learn bad habits Ah, good point, I was just thinking about verbal control. I like the suggestion of teaching the kids to train the pup on-lead too. My girl is great around kids and the local little 'uns love giving her commands. Sometimes she gets confused and I give her sly hand signals to get her to respond, but the kids are so happy when she obeys. The kids also start to learn that yelling 10 commands in quick succession with no treats isn't a good way to get dogs to do things ETA: I think it's also good mental stimulation for her to work out what the kids want, so it's win-win for both the dog and the children

Excellent, I just wanted to put it out there in case any others can learn from my stupidity!