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Really glad you like it, will get onto the rest now

Here's one to start with -

Have you ever done flyball with them? Just a thought as it's brilliant for satisfying drive and it involves something small and fast

I'm another who's glad you asked - I'd never even considered something like this, but it's always good to hear what you should avoid in regards to training.

why do you give her opportunities for YOU to fail? You condition her not to listen? Sounds like any punishment you do is 1) not correct for the dog 2) very mistimed. teach the dog that she has to wee before bed time and remove water after last wees. Keep the crate doors locked all the time and no dog can enter anothers crate. Again - no opportunity. She wee's because she's letting you know she's the boss around there and if you think you're going to be boss your wrong. If you cannot be consistant then do not expect the dogs to take you seriously. If you say something you give them one chance to comply or there is an immediate consequence to not respecting the leader. You've been given a lot of great advice but I think this post is the most useful in the thread. It completely outlines what you need to do and it's simple I practice NILIF as best I can with my dogs but their recall isn't brilliant and it's good to be reminded that I should work on it - and that it's not impossible to improve. Good luck with it!

I'll have a go at a few of these tomorrow (later today)

Sorry, I think you misunderstood me. It's not that she's not food oriented, she loves her food, the problem is just that as Nekh mentioned above, she simply ducks in and quickly snatches the food, meaning she's essentially being rewarded for doing nothing. We have tried toys before which were a bit more successful, but again, we have been consistent enough with them - will definitely try to incorporate them somehow, maybe once she's become more confident onlead?

Thanks PandaGirl, that's interesting. We just followed the vet's instructions - trial her for a few weeks and take her off it if we didn't notice any change. Nekh, obviously we didn't expect it to fix her, I know better than that But it didn't result in any change over a period of 3 or 4 weeks, so I stopped it. I'll test the lead method tonight when my dad comes over and let you know how we go. You're welcome to come for a visit, bet you'd fall in love with her

She doesnt trust it wont happen so what is perpetuating her fear? After 12+ months a dog should be able to relax so have a good look at what happens and if she makes attempts what do you do. If you fulfill a dogs expectations the behavior will continue. It can be as simple as _> I expect visitors cause me stress -> ooooh I dont know how to behave, should i get a pat or not -> I feel stressed -> visitors have caused me to stress!!! OMG I will avoid them dogs brains If you put her on a leash and simply ignore her stress responses. Lead her - visitor is here and you sit here and behave. Only comfort her when she starts to relax. She will pull out her typical responses, avoiding looking at them, trying to move away but do not let her. Be a reasonable distance from them as well. She should gradually run out of 'make them go away' tricks and settle. Then when the visitor leaves dont let them talk or look at her, walk her out of the room. I dont see why K9 force couldnt be in on something like this as well as he would know the right canine body language to use to help her feel at ease in a situation as above. Unless she has massive issues then get a veterinary behaviorist and meds. It's hard to explain really. Often we'll be sitting at the kitchen table having tea and biscuits and if she's out, she hangs around Mum and me but gets fairly close to my dad. Mostly she'll just sit or stand near him, observing what he does - she gets very close to him, but as I said I don't think she's ever directly approached him. She's always interested in him, just doesn't want to interact directly with him. Again, we just carry on like normal, if she were to approach him we'd praise her, but for now we just carry on having a conversation, etc. I'm definitely going to try putting her on a leash whenever we have visitors, I think it sounds promising. So when the visitor arrives, I clip her on the lead and have her by my side - do I tell the visitors to completely ignore her? One issue I can see occurring is that people seem to have a listening problem in that they don't We have actually spoken to our vet about this who prescribed Valium or some similar drug which we tried her on for a few weeks, but it didn't seem to result in any improvement so we stopped it. Also, Michael will be seeing Steve in October so I'll remember to bring it up with him then. Chelsea does have a fairly high prey drive, though more than anything else she loves cuddles Affection (from my mum and me) seems to override food or prey for her and while she has bonded well with our other dogs, Scarlet in particular, I'd be pretty confident in saying she's happier being with us. In regards to the giving the other dogs more attention trick, we have tried this in the past, but again haven't had much luck with it - however, that was when she was either offlead or in her crate. So do you think we should try it with her onlead and she'd eventually approach people? She is undersocialised which is obviously our fault, my being unwell prevents us from socialising at all really, so we've sort of been trying to make do with any opportunities that arise. Thanks again for the help, I'll get Mike to have another look at this and see what he says

Jen, thanks for the help, to be honest I think I'll steer away from using food in this situation for now, we have tried it in the past and it didn't prove to be effective Nekhbet, I hope you don't think I'm being rude, just want to correct you on a few things- - Chelsea is put in her crate 90% of the time when we have guests over (I should have made this clear) - she's not left to run around feeling confused or nervous as I don't think it's productive. She's occasionally left out when my dad comes over (he doesn't live here) as she's slightly more comfortable with him. - Our leadership is fairly strong, I don't think the problem is that she doesn't trust or respect us. - We don't get stressed or nervous when she is, we always remain relaxed and casual in these situations. - I agree, the behaviour has gone on too long, however we have attempted to correct it via various methods, we just haven't had much luck. Anyway, thanks for your suggestions, I will get my dad to take her for walks, that sounds like it could be promising. In regards to the suggestion of putting her on the leash when we have guests, I'm not sure how helpful that would be. Going off past experiences, forcing her into situations she doesn't like hasn't been effective - what do you think? She's met Shmoo more than once, she's actually babysat Chelsea, hence why she's more comfortable around her. I'd just be worried that a flat out stranger acting excited and such would freak her out more than relax her. In your experience, does persevering with it help or could it make the anxiety worse? I'm happy to try it, I'm just not sure whether pushing her is helpful or not. Also, we've seen Steve and I've taken a course of his on behaviour and temperament - I think I asked him for any suggestions he might have for Chelsea though he wasn't sure if he would be able to help. Might have another chat to him if your (or others') suggestions don't work out I agree, using food isn't helpful (one of the things we've tried in the past) as she reacted exactly how you described above. Thanks for your help, it's much appreciated. EFS. ETA: Michael thinks he saw a slight improvement when he was down here and interacted with her, but he was only here for 3 weeks, so it was very difficult to monitor any changes :/ She'll basically do anything if she has to (such as walk on a lead with a stranger), but it never results in improvement. I guess we haven't been persistent or consistent enough.

I'm seeking advice about what to do with Chelsea (Husky) in regards to her fear of people. We've no idea what her background is but she's terrified of essentially everyone aside from my mum and me. She's okay with a few female friends - seems to be less scared of women than men and also responds better to shorter people - but certainly not what I would call comfortable around anyone else. Since we got her - think we've had her about a year and 2 months now - she has improved with my dad slightly, though she's still very nervy and scared around him. She will come a lot closer to him than she used to, though she never directly approaches him. I get the feeling she would like to approach people, in fact when Shmoo was up a few weeks ago we had her call Chelsea in a sing-song voice and encouraged her by being playful and silly and she actually got very excited which she'd never done before so that was a good improvement. Generally when there's a stranger in the house and she's not in her crate, she'll stay rigid and alert the whole time and won't take her eye off them. So I do think she's keen to interact with people, there's just the fear that something bad will happen if she risks it. In general when we have guests or someone come to the door, she's put straight in her crate as it's her sanctuary. To clarify- When in her crate- When we have guests and she's in her crate, she'll curl up into a corner for about 5 minutes and then lie down, mostly facing away from the guest - sort of as if to say 'I won't acknowledge you're there, I'd rather pretend you're not'. However, when out of her crate- she runs around the house almost the entire time without taking her eye off the stranger. I should also note that she does do some soft woofing if she gets startled by someone but has never been fear aggressive. I'd absolutely love to fix the problem, or at least improve it, as she's got the most wonderful personality and as I said before, I'm sure she wants to interact with people but is just too scared to risk it. This is just my summary of her behaviour, possibly my interpretation is incorrect? Sorry if the above post didn't make much sense, I find her behaviour very hard to portray. All in all she's very scared/nervous of people she's not familiar with but does take some interest in them (as opposed to running away and hiding). Any advice or suggestions are welcome!

Glad I made someone laugh, it's a rare occasion

I just had another thought, have you ever given her Rescue Remedy to help with how stressed/anxious she gets? You could try giving her a few drops every night before she's put out for good. We started giving it to Chelsea, our Husky, before we went out for long periods of time and it's really helped. She would completely destroy her crate if we left her for a few hours and that's basically stopped now. That's just another option to try if you're not keen on crating her. If you really don't think continuing to ignore the behaviour is helping, though, I'd give the crating a shot - it can't hurt and I'd be confident that it would be more effective, particularly because you can cover it up. As I said on the first page, covering it with a blanket seems to be very effective as it settles them down, plus it's less stressful for you.

Just found this, grats Erny, Mandela is absolutely gorgeous! Though I think Bert would've been more fitting

Hey, just had a thought, have you noticed whether the position he sleeps in affects the snoring? Also, does he have any sinus problems? If he's a bit clogged up, maybe antihistamines would help?

I would highly recommended crate training - from my experience dogs adapt to them very fast and hard ones can take a fair bit of damage without being destroyed if she protests to being in one initially - I can't imagine she could do any damage to her nails if they're kept short? Have you tried covering up the crate when she makes a huge fuss after being put in it? I've found it really settles them down and stops any whining. Crate training's very easy, if you're unsure of how to go about it I'm sure I or a lot of other members could post something explaining it. Good luck with it - as Michael said the only other way to really remedy it is to continue ignoring the behaviour until it ceases, though I'm not sure how effective that is with full blown separation anxiety (provided that's what the problem is).

I think it is fairly similar, though possibly less advanced. If you were wanting to do more, you'd be better off with Photoshop or Paintshop Pro :D

Thanks again for your help Malisa, it seems to be entirely gone now, so who knows what it was Obviously nothing serious but I'll keep an eye out in case it returns - would still like to know what it was.

Thanks Malisa, it's still around today and someone else mentioned Neocourt to me so I'll look into it. One of our Goldies used to get hot spots and to be honest it doesn't really look like one, but I will keep a look out for changes. Out of curiousity, does it look like a rash caused by Ivy? Turns out we do have some in our back yard.

Can't imagine it would be a burn, she's never been near an open flame...possibly a chemical burn but I imagine that would cause a lot of pain? Doesn't really look like a scratch or scrape, all I could think was a rash from some sort of plant but I don't think we have any ivy or things like that :/

Just discovered this large-ish red spot on Scarlet's thigh/stomach and wondering if anyone has any idea what it is. We put some of this on it and will try some Paw Paw if that doesn't seem to make any difference. It doesn't really seem to be bothering her, but would still be interested to know what it is, particularly if it gets worse-

Really glad you like it ;)

For sure Had fun- ETA: Oh, with their breeds- Okay, that's enough

I'm gonna do one for Cassie too, just cause I love her dogs

Hope you like it It's a bit different, I just tried some new things, don't feel like you have to use it. I can change anything if you'd like me to (top one is .jpg so very high quality and a large file size, bottom is .gif so a bit lower quality but much lower file size too)-