Griffo

You have done a wonderful job with her, she is beautiful.

Sujo, Have you considered contacting the local paper about your situation or at least threatening the council that you will? I can not believe how you are being treated!! Shocking!! Everyone else who is having problems with these off lead / roaming dogs, I would encourage you to take a camera with you whenever you go out so that you can photograph the animal - you shouldn't have to but it might help your case. I have started taking a camera with me and I will continue to. It is very difficult to protect yourself and take a photo at the same time but you never know when the opportunity might arise? Makes me so angry that people will put their dogs in these situations - how hard is it to contain them or keep them on a lead?

Dee Lee, if it happens again do your best to keep your dog tucked behind your back and try to keep yourself between your own dog and the attacking the dog so your dog doesn't get hurt physically. In my experience the worst damage in these incidents are done to the dogs psyche - my dog is on edge the whole time we run past this particular house. I also find that making a huge amount of noise, yelling at the dog in a growl (like you would do to your dog if it was being naughty) and throwing rocks at it can buy you some time. When it comes to protecting my dog i really couldn't care how stupid i look to other people.

Wow these responses really surprise me. The ranger in my area has been so helpful and intent on action. I am surprised that people are having problems like these considering the publicity dog attacks have received in the media of late. The ranger who came to see me yesterday told me that he was heading off to seize a few dogs around the area who have bitten people and they will be put to sleep. One was a rotti who had killed a poodle, another was a pair of dingos who had attacked an elderly woman. I had to report the incident twice, first time the owners were given a verbal warning. The second time I reported it, a fine was issued. However I had given the owners so many chances to do he right thing - I know that dogs can escape accidentally so I tried to be understanding the first few times - but eventually I realised that the owners just didn't give a shit about them harassing other people. The Ranger has encouraged me to take a camera with me to take a photo next time it happens. This will be difficult to do, as most of you know you are too busy trying not to get mauled to think about photographing the incident!!

I actually just had a ranger over at my house this morning taking a statement off me about some local dogs who keep crossing the road to bail me up aggressively while I am running along a local bike path. Even though I have avoided getting bitten by the dogs so far, they took it very seriously and have now issued the owners with a $550 fine. Who knows what would have happened if it had been a child walking past? The ranger told me that if the dog rushes me again then he will keep issuing them with fines and we can even take it a step further and have the dog declared dangerous. In my case the process was very simple and quick with no fuss at all. Some of my family were against me reporting the incidents in case of repercussions e.g. my dogs being poisoned in revenge. I decided to do it anyway because there comes a time when you need to stop being fearful of what could happen and do the right thing. People need to start reporting these roaming dogs before the situation gets to the point where people are attacked - for the sake of the dog and the public. Usually they begin by showing aggressive behaviour and then this progresses into bites and attacks. The dogs from the OP will attack someone else if nothing is done, so good on you for reporting it. It is not your fault and you are not in the wrong. I hope your son recovers ok.

did you get mine erny?

What is so evil about that word?I am happy you see the use of the e-collar as such a wonderful tool, and I agree with you. If someone posted on here it only took me 5 mins with a prong collar and didn't need to resort to an e-collar...nothing would be said.. I am sure. But because someone chooses to use clicker training, condescending remarks were made. I myself am not a fan of clicker training for obedience, but I don't put down someone for making that choice. I choose to educate on why I believe it's not a good training method for all dogs. I do not condem those that choose to use that method. If a method works for a person, I am happy for them. If it doesn't work for them or their dog, I hope with all my heart they seek out an alternative method. May I ask why you take Helen's remark as a personal attack on you, for using an e-collar? Hasn't she a right to her opinion..right or wrong in others eyes? I dont think anyone had a problem with the fact that she's trained her dog with a clicker, i believe marker training is great and i use it with my dog (although i dont use a clicker)... i think it was the way in which the post was written. I dont believe the fact it took her "5 minutes" was a helpful or encouraging comment for anyone. I didnt take Helen's comment as a personal attack one little bit, i dont think anyone has personally attacked her, just what she wrote. A personal attack goes further than focussing on what a person wrote and i dont believe that has happened in any shape or form in this thread. What i did have a problem with is HER attacking one of the best trainers we will ever have on this forum and stating his conduct was unprofessional when it was not in the slightest. He merely wrote what a lot of us were thinking... well it verbalised the first thought i had when i read her post anyway. I think anyone who posts that they "put a prong on their dog and their dog was perfect within 5 minutes"(fullstop, end of post) is an idiot. If that was coupled with some sound advice about the training needed in addition to the tool then that would make it a worthwhile post which could actually help other people. Otherwise it is just a "look at me, im so good" post which can have the unfortunate addition of putting the rest of us down who have tried and failed with that method. I would still like to know why people think of the ecollar as a resort...the original user of this word has not answered that for me, of course it is their right to say that, i dont argue with that, i would just like them clarify what they wrote.

Well said MarkS - I couldn't have said it better myself. It's always interesting to hear the different methods people use. I don't know a lot about the e-collar but it's certainly very interesting in reading the success BP is having. It's also great that the clicker works so well for Helen and I felt that maybe she didn't intend to imply that the e-collar was a bad thing, but just that she was using a clicker and it works for her. Sorry i dont see what was so wonderful and enlightening about your post MarkS. I also would like to know why people seem to think using an ecollar is a"resort"....?? it is a brilliant method of communication with a dog and it is much less confusing than many of the other methods people use before making the huge and horrible "resort" to the ecollar. I will be starting all my future dogs off with the ecollar from the word go. The way the post was written was condescending IMO... "oh it only took me 5 mins to train my dog" such a useless and comment with no substance to it.

Actually Kelpiechick was spot on about my post. I simply made a remark that I haven't had to resort to this training with my dogs (they will come to me when called which was what the post was supposedly about at that point in time). I made no comment about K9 Force excpect in response to a very unprofessional post - in fact when I had posted the only comment he had made was regarding an anti-bark collar which, in reality, I would love to give as a gift to one of my neighbours whose barking dog is driving me mad - I actually had to go back and read to make sure as I only read the beginning of the post and hadn't even read his post at all, I don't know where the argument is. Yeah and your comments were very immature and condescending and you may as well have written "my dog's better than yours". Not everyone has the luxury of an easy dog who will be trained in "5 minutes". And what on earth do you mean by "resort" to the ecollar?? K9Force is far from unprofessional, make a stupid comment then you will probably get an answer you dont like.

There is a german shepherd dog club which operates out of the Hillsborough show ground/ training facility. However, from personal experiences, i would not recommend it.

Congratulations on your hard work and dedication to your dogs, now that is love. I really enjoyed reading your story, and it is amazing that such a huge change has occurred within 3 weeks... it just shows how consistent you have been with your new program and leadership... !! There are a lot of us dog owners out there who breath a huge sigh of relief and thank god for steve otherwise things would have been much different.

I don't think it is as simple as that. The dog knows when the line is on that under any circumstance/condition it has to obey, but it also knows that once the line is removed then all bets are off. To proof your dog you would need to implement the use of an ecollar or very slowly retrain your dog with no line...all over again (at least they'd know the "come" command this time). Starting in a very low distraction area (your back yard) and then increasing it (your back yard with a food bowl in it, your back yard with a gate open, just outside the gate) ... blah blah blah. Once you have started the training outside of the yard to increase the distraction level, this has its risks, especially depending on how pack driven your dog is. You would reduce the risk by increasing distractions extremely slowly... but if it was me, i would prefer to progress a bit faster and have the safety of an ecollar.

Are you ranked above the other dogs in the pack? Unless she is a rank dog then i doubt she would be trying to dominate you... does she accept being the lowest ranked dog in your pack? Has she shown any aggression towards the higher ranked dogs in your pack? It sounds like excitement to me, from when you say she is doing it. If that is the case then she just needs to be taught that jumping up is no longer comfortable.

I think so. There are things you can do to overcome this from happening. I just have to show my dog the ecollar and her behaviour dramatically improves. However at the same time lately i have only been using it or her for barking (for a number of different reasons). With a bit of work tho i am sure this could be fixed tho so she was not so collar smart. However whether it is not a training tool when on her because of her being collar smart, i think not for the following reasons... Although seeing it makes her behaviour improve, she still has taken commands she learnt a year ago when using the collar and applies it now without the collar. also, Although my dog knows that the prong collar is a different collar, she still obeys the "slow" command on a flat collar, i taught "slow" to her using the prong collar. I also taught her a few other commands using the ecollar which she still obeys now when on no collar.

Some dogs learn a sequence of behaviours... i have to growl, put my hackles up, step forward 5 steps... they end up with a whole chain of events which they believe they must go thru to guarantee their safety every time a certian situation arises ... if, heaven forbid, they do not raise their hackles, then the world might come crashing down around them. If this behaviour has worked for them then they will continue on with it, refining it a bit to make it more effective (maybe adding a bite into the sequence...) and it will become a habit. Sometimes it takes a tool like a muzzle to show the dog that the world will not come crashing down if they don't bite.... and they can even have a more positive experience without biting. Therefore having the muzzle on the dog has taken away the opportunity to bite and even given them a positive experience to start tipping the scales. i think it might cross over into being a training tool in that instance.