poodlefan

And if at any stage in this process, something goes wrong, your son will be needing the services of a good microsurgeon IF HE'S LUCKY Your son is a child. He isn't the pack leader of anything and won't be for years. You are. Your job is to keep your son safe and to supervise at all times and separate otherwise. I'd tried to be polite but I'll be blunt now. You are endangering your son by encouraging him to handle your dog's food. STOP IT. If you don't want to take my word for it, go read the dog attack statistics. The most frequent targets are boys aged under 4, they are bitten on the face and head and food is a very frequent feature of attacks. Family dogs are the most frequent aggressors. Your dog should be able to eat her meals without interference and to have a nice bone in the backyard in peace. For pity's sake, forget all the crap about dominance and pack leadership and keep your child AND your dog safe. If you want to do something like this, teach puppy to sit and drop and then teach your son the cues. He can reward for obedience with treats but only undersupervision.

Please stop this practice. Feed her in her crate. Children should be taught to leave a dog alone when it is feeding. They don't particularise this behaviour and you'll be teaching your son that he can do this with any dog, any bowl and with your dog with any food. This is an unsafe lesson to learn. Teach your son to leave your dog alone at feeding time. The best way to 'drain a puppy's energy' is games and training. She's too young to be walked any distance for some months yet. Is there a trainer or a dog training club you can get to. You need this dog effectively leash trained before she gets too big.

Glad you added that qualifyer siks. If working dog folk want to get themselves bit that's one thing. Any pet that's bitten its owner seriously doesn't have much of a future. ;) Can't see how patting a dog in a high state of arousal is is going to make it fearful though. Must be a GSD thing

As a growing pup she needs the correct balance of minerals etc. IF you decied to use roo meat you would then have to provide bones, offal /veg to balance everything out .Some fat and gristle is GOOD for dogs, as is RAW bone,and offal. Now, a little trick. When she is asleep .... or outside .. put her meals on 3 little plates or in 3 saucers/bowls whatever. have them sitting in a cupboard.. and simply grab one at mealtime! NO anticipatory carryings-on :p I do recommend you start her on THIS at mealtimes ;) Roo meat is too lean to be the bulk of a dog's diet. For a growing pup, it also won't provide enough energy. My dogs don't even like it. Feed her in her crate. Make her sit outside and wait while you put the food in THEN release her. Keep her onlead to ensure the wait initially. You can use dinner and her crate as a method to train self control. Rewarding lack of self control (any jumping or yelping) will increase the behaviour. How often a day are you feeding her. I feed my babies 3 times a day from 8 - 12 weeks

Its fine providing you're not reefing her head off. I think of it as the equivalent of a half halt on a horses reins.. its cue to focus on the job. I actually find rapidly wiggling the lead from side to side (Pat Parelli style) just as effective and I do this (making the clip rattle) if one of my dogs tightens the lead.

And what a person who asked for advice deserves is not to be told something that might put them in danger. There is no vendetta. There is only this: IT IS DANGEROUS TO GIVE ADVICE ON DEALING WITH AGGRESSION IN A DOG YOU HAVE NEVER SEEN ALL GERMAN SHEPHERDS ARE NOT ALIKE. ALL GSD HANDLERS ARE NOT ALIKE. AGGRESSION HAS A RANGE OF TRIGGERS AND THERE IS NO ONE SIZE FITS ALL APPROACH TO DEALING WITH IT. Lets not turn this thread into a 'working v show line' GSD debate or pretend that there's something unique about GSD aggression that makes any experienced GSD owner be able to prescribe a cure without ever seeing the dog. If you think this was about positive vs negative reinforcment then you have clearly not read my posts no those of quite a few other posters. Your sarcasm about stuffing dogs with treats is not only insulting but misplaced. I have kicked and strung up GSDs who have targetted my dogs. Not a treat in sight on those occasions . :p

I posted in your other thread. I suggest you ask the Moderator to combine them.

No other poster actively disparaged trainers recommended either.

Yep, you can. But in the example I posted you'd be weighing up being bitten against being dragged across a busy road and/or you dog mauling another. I know which option I'd pick in that scenario. Or lets change the situation and suggest that your large dog lunges (unexpectantly and aggressively) at a child. Do you choose to A. get a handle on that dog and quickly, possibly get bitten in the process, or B. Let the dog attack the child?? In emergency situations we need to make quick decisions. JMO However this advice wasn't given with the caution that the dog can redirect. On the contrary it was specifically stated that the dog couldn't do so. Hardly balanced advice and not prefaced with any "in case of emergency break glass and use" limitations. Yes, in emergencies we do need make quick decisions. That's how I found myself with someone else's GSD on its hind legs hanging from its collar. I figured that was preferable to having it hanging off one of my dogs. And the moment the owner snatched the dog from me and loosened that lead, he wore his dog. :D Can't say I really had much sympathy for him. My first post in this thread to Fiona politely asked her not to post this kind of advice and explained why. She immediately questioned my experience with aggressive dogs (implying her was superior and it probably is) and away we went. She started the pissing contest and it rapidly became apparent she was facing into the wind. :D

So you have said your bit and Fiona has said hers. The OP has read both and has the brains to weigh up the situation and make a sensible decision. There is no need to keep personally attacking Fiona because she has a different opinion to you. The only thing that will achieve is to get this thread deleted. Given the advice dispensed early on, that's probably not a bad thing. I shudder to think what might happen if Fiona's advice was actually followed.

I'm notorious for it... Sorry.

It was suggested as a method of managing the behaviour until a professional was called in. It was a potentially disastrous suggestion and any trainer worth a damn would never have made it. Perhaps. But she didn't claim to be a professional, just said that she had 20 years of breed experience. It's up to the OP to make the right decision. Knowing that in an ABSOLUTE EMERGENCY (as in your large dog is about to drag you across a busy highway and maul a SWF on the other side) that you can take the power out of the dog by lifting him up by his collar is not such a bad thing. We can all go on to say "The dog should be muzzled/seperated from other dogs/see a professional, blah, blah, blah" But what if the OP doesn't do that? What if tomorrow there is an owner with a large GSD about to attack a smaller dog and the owner has no idea on how to stop it? I'm not condoning Fionas method, but I wont disagree with it either. You can also have the dog attack you. At least two of us have seen it first hand and Aidan posted a rather splendid example. LMS: Garry is either cavalry from another forum or another of Malsrocks's personas.

It was suggested as a method of managing the behaviour until a professional was called in. It was a potentially disastrous suggestion and any trainer worth a damn would never have made it. If I sound a little hot under the collar about it its because I get rather upset when I read advice that can see a dog put its handler in intensive care and leave other dog owners and their dogs at risk. Fiona gave two guarantees in her advice: 1. That it would work 2. That the dog could not redirect its aggression onto the handler. Neither of those is a sure thing. You don't mess with people's safety on a pet dog forum. What people want to advise on a 'working dog' forum is no business of mine.

Because Fiona implied that she knew best and that her method was a surefire guarantee to work. And it was potentially very dangerous. Here's what she said: When folk start sprouting that kind of rubbish its time to step in and provide some cautionary advice.

A dart doesnt' work fast enough. OC spray just plain doesn't work. Safety of the police officers has to come before safety of the dog. A tazer sure beats a bullet anyhow.

Of course all the trainer would have to do is ask the owner rather than charging in blindly. "Any medical issues" is a pretty standard question on a dog trainer's list. I think its nothing short of common sense to see the dog, talk to the owner and doing some evaluating before slapping on a check chain and triggering the dog to aggress. No decent dog trainer of of any quality likes working blind. Its not good for the insurance premiums or the medical bills. And of course the trick as a professional is not to f*ck someone's much loved pet for life by basing your advice based on dogs other than the one in front of you. Not all dogs of all breeds have the same temperament, triggers or reactions. And any trainer worth a damn knows it and acts accordingly.

SpecTraining: Very diplomatic of you Garry. Given that Fiona assured us she had this situation sorted based only on the dog's breed and a few paragraphs from the owner, I'd not let her darken my driveway anytime soon. I took my dog to see someone who spent quite a bit of tiime observing him and talking to me about him before even venturing out to the training field. Anyone who'd give advice without taking a full history is someone I'd not recommend to anyone, REGARDLESS of the training method they use I don't care how much experience a trainer has if they're prepared to start "correcting" my dog when they don't know a damn thing about it. For example, I'd say its relevant if the dog has a congenital malformation in the vertebrae of the neck. Wouldn't you? The road to hell is paved with good intentions and my guess is that trainers who don't know what they don't know have laid a fair few of those pavers. :D

Don't expect me to say yes if you don't have your dog focussed on you and under effective control. If there's one thing that will make me cross the street its a dog straining on its lead to get to mine. Its not natural body language, I can't read it easily and neither can my dogs. I'm with RSG. If I don't know the person and the dog, most of the time I'll say "no thanks".

Pups shouldn't be coping experiments. You might be undoing some very unwanted learned behaviour if the experiment fails. Talk to them.

How do you know? My fear aggressive boy does EXACTLY what you've described.

As surprise gifts? Absolutely not. As a considered purchase with the full knowledge and involvement of the recipient? Maybe. One pup would be enough by the way. And please look beyond appearance to pick the right dog. 65 isn't dead you know There are older folk than that competing in agility and obedience.

Or semi-consciousness. Dogs learn so well in that state. Look at the body language of the owners watching behind.. .don't they look comfortable with what's happening NOT. That behaviour become unrelated to the presence of the other dog and completely about the handler giving leash corrections within seconds. I'd lay odds Shadow is a wolf hybrid. Completely unpredictable in terms of responses to correction. At one stage that dog's muzzle was on Mr Millan's stomach. He's lucky it didn't' gut him.

I love it when folk look all helpless as their dog's toilet at shows... "oh dear, nowhere near a scoop, I'll have to leave it".. I offer them a nice plastic nappy bag to pick it up with.

You can't do either of those with a dog on a head harness. Head off to obedience and learn to teach him how to walk on a loose lead. You need to learn how to get his focus rather than correcting him for focussing elsewhere. Hopefully a good obedience school can teach you.