Obedience Training In Brisbane

[spanky]

I posted this in general, but as Badboyz pointed out, I'll probably find great advice by adding it in here...

Can anyone recommend an obedience club / class / school / saving grace that operates on the southside of Brisbane, around the Mt Gravatt area. I'd prefer to use positive techniques, but am open to using correction if the instructor is experienced and can teach us what is and isn't correct. Don't mind if it's at night or on weekends. This is for both my dogs.

Main issue - both dogs see me as a resource, my presence is what starts most of the fighting.

Bit of info about the dogs - Griffin is a 7yr old male french bulldog that I bought home in February as a rescue. He has bonded quite strongly with me. Callista is an 18mnth old female frenchie that came from Melbourne to join us in June.

Griffin - he has a history of not liking larger dogs, particularly male. For the first few months I didn't see a sign of this, apart from raised hair at the dog park when we first arrived and when new dogs arrived after us. I controlled (attempted to control) by getting him to focus on me until he'd calmed down. He ended up having a moment with a staffy, just noise, so I cut back his visits and tried to go earlier when there were less dogs, this was fine, but he ended up having another noise fight with a GSD and at that point I ceased dog park visits. I did a basic obedience course with him when he first joined us and I've kept this up, probably not as much as I should though.

Callista came directly from her breeder and has no concept of obedience. At 6mnths she paralysed her back half and while she has recovered, there is a reamining weakness. We've been quite soft on her because of this (not a valid excuse I know) and also we have always seen the issue as Griffin's (again so wrong). She has picked up sit and is slowly learning other commands, but she is pretty disobedient on most things.

From day one Griff has been very protective of me and to a lesser extent my OH. I had a behaviourist visit within 2 weeks of Callista's arrival and while we have seen some progress, recently we back-tracked pretty bad. They do fight and it does on occassion draw blood... not anything serious, the equivalent of a graze... but where Callista used to avoid and we were controlling Griff, now Callista starts and finishes everything.

We saw the behaviourist again last week, this time with a Greyhound (aren't they just the nicest dogs) to address Griff's response to a strange dog. Since it was a girl, no issues. My two however had a tussel (started by Callista) and our new program recommends getting Callista obedience trained to assert my OH as the leader and then I can start to become involved in her training also.

I'm not sure what else I should add, apart from the fact that my OH has opted out of doing the training... so I've asked the behaviourist to help me without him involved.

So yeah... I'd love a training club recommendation. Griffin is fine on-lead with other dogs around him (as long as they don't get close enough to sniff) and he doesn't bark or pull to get to them, just hates them near him (in reality near me).

Both dogs are lovely on their own and I don't want to make Callista a timid dog around others (I'm still taking her to the dog park and she's slowly becoming more confident) and I don't want to ignore her because of Griff. I'm willing to make the time to do this, but really need help from a trainer that can keep me on track and correct my bad habits.

Edited October 14, 2008 by sparky