pipppy

shekina, thankyou for the tips. We are already following most of those, I even eat my breakfast most mornings sitting outside with him and give him none of my food. However he has usually had is breakfast about an our before, so, does this still count??? The one we are having huge problems with is rushing through the door ahead of us, or if he is to stay out we have a foot wrestle trying to get him to back off. We had some limited success (it didnt last and he worked out he would rather try and get in than have the reward) using reward for him to stay back, and some succes using the spray bottle so he didnt try to get in, and as for stay, well when it comes to going in the door he just wont stay at all and generally as soon as the door is open he is there on the spot, under our feet, the teenagers struggle to keep him out at all sometimes. SO, if you, or some other kind person could give me a quick lesson for dummies on which is the best method and how to exactly get him to wait for us to go through first that would be very helpfull. I realise whatever we do we will need to reinforce over and over again but so far anything we have tried has lost its effect after a day or two, even with reinforcement. Thanks in advance!

Well, on the 1st day yes there were a few tussles, and he growls when playing alot (the insutrctor wasnt at all worried she said he is just vocal when playing, but the main thing was he was trying to, and succseeding in the end, mounting them. Then the other night there were some other, older pupps there and one of them, about twice his size, straight away went for Billy, we eased them into playing together and good I thought he needs to be put in his place, they had a few tussles, i wasnt too worried but by the end of the night the bigger dog was letting my pup mount her also. I know this isnt sexual behaviour, hes only 12 weeks and was fixed before we got him. One other much bigger dog was there and Billy tried also to mount him, but this pup was 5 months old and twice the size and was having none of it, kept swatting him away, and Billy (my dog) was whimpering like a baby when he couldnt get his way. Also if he is engrossed in play with one pup and another comes along, he barks and tries to shoo the other dog wanting to join the fun away. When he wants to join in on others playing he jumps on one of thier backs and, well, its embarrassing, but its like he says here i come, everyone do what I say. He also always manages to get in the position where the other dog is on its back and he is standing over them while playing. I must say though that I have no Idea of what is NORMAL puppy play, rough or otherwise, maybe that is my problem, you know it takes a bit of getting use to all this bum sniffing and stuff. LOL. The instructor wasnt too concerned but she did say he was the dominant pup in the class, she didnt say that in a negative way, just sort of matter of fact. The older dog idea would probably be a good place to start, I have a friend whos dogs would be perfect for that. They are very well trained, bigger, older and very social.

Hi Everyone, new here and i have spent hours reading all the usefull info, its great. We (family of 5 including 3 teenagesrs) have a 12 week old germ shep x cattle. we have had him 3 weeks, we got him from RSPCA. He is a great little thing, and as we have not had a puppy in our lives for some years we are learning as we are going. From what I have been reading around the place and from talking to others it seems he may have a dominant personallity. We have started basic training using food rewards, he sits drops, comes( most of the time), shakes hands & waits very paitinetly for food (not through choice but we have taught him this in the last few days). His puppy nipping we have mostly got under control, with the help of a water spray bottle and lots of yelping, it only took a few squirts and he seems to have learned quite easily not to do it, but I can tell he still wants to and still gets a few unexpected ones in there. LOL> He is not always obedient and can sometimes bark back at me if i discipline him, never hitting him or anything, just if i talk sternly and look him in the eye, he will either wander off or lay flat with his head on his paws looking back at me like he is ready to pounce or sometimes barks at me. What should we do when he barks back at us? He also tries to put it over the teenagers with a varying degree of success. He only likes his belly rubbed when he chooses, he only likes a cuddle mostly when he chooses, usually because he just cant/wont sit still, and when he is in the house he wont sit still for 1 minute unless we give him some tasty morsel to chew on, he spent an hour at my feet last night hooking into a lovely pigs ear....but as soon as he loses interst he goes silly and i cant calm him and end up putting him in time out. During the day he is mostly outside, but, on average I would say we spend about 3 - 4 hours out there with him (between the 5 of us he gets lots of attention!). Today, Saturday the only time we wernt out there basically was when he was sleeping and we kept away to let him have his rest. At night he sleeps in the laundry and we dont hear a peep out of him for about 8 hours. He has been going to puppy preschool and has it all over all the other pups, he goes straight up to them and demands to be boss, and they all seem to give into him. Are we expecting way to much of him, is he just being a normal puppy or should we be doing more to let him know who is the boss. If he is going to be dominant, is that such a bad thing, and what should we do now to keep that in check for the future. Thanks for taking the time to read, we really love this little guy and want him to part of our familly and get things of to a good start. Thanks in advance for any feedback.