Aidan

I can understand your frustration but that is just more of a reason not to smack a dog. Making a dog less likely to return to you in that situation is surely the opposite of what you would like to achieve? He won't know your reasoning, only what actually happened.

I once had a class for aggressive dogs where each handler owned two dogs. In each case, the 'other' dog was normal, friendly and sociable. Whilst no owner is perfect and different dogs need different behaviours from their owners, it's hard to blame the owner when they have proven to be capable of raising normal, sociable dogs as well. So I really hate it when I hear "dogs aren't born aggressive, they're made that way by their owners" and the like.

That's true, I'm on two football teams so I know. Dogs smell better too.

That's the key. There's not much you can do that will have any real benefit when an actual storm hits, or the actual nail gun is going off.

I, and many other professional dog trainers here, have trained dog aggressive dogs without using collar corrections. If you are uncomfortable with this person, look elsewhere until you find someone you are more comfortable with. On the topic of dogs being let through doors, on the couch etc - it will make absolutely no difference to how your dog behaves around other dogs. It may be a practical matter, for eg you can't be letting a dog aggressive dog bolt through your front door and endangering himself and others.

I've always used systematic desensitisation to deal with this sort of issue. The key is to condition strongly enough to see physical signs of association before you increase the stimulus. I think that is often where people can go wrong, they don't condition properly. Think of Pavlov, he was measuring how much drool the dogs were producing. This sort of anxiety can sometimes be helped by tryptophan supplementation in conjunction with a small carb-based meal (protein <20%). About a level teaspoon of "Good as Gold" (horse supplement) for a dog Micha's size, with breakfast. Also add some B-vitamins, I use Brewer's Yeast. While we know that if a dog's diet is deficient in tryptophan they will suffer anxiety, we don't know that increasing tryptophan will improve the situation but sometimes it does. In any case it's cheap and it's just food. If it's bad and on-going, medication can help. Some of the better herbal preparations can also be effective, e.g St. John's Wort is something I have positive experience with. I quite enjoy Kava myself but have never tried it with a dog, it has been used clinically before though with success.

I would advise that you hire a professional if you wish to attempt snake aversion training. It is not difficult to desensitise the dog to the collar, but it must be done so that the dog does not come to view the collar as a cue to avoid snakes (the point is for the dog to avoid snakes while NOT WEARING THE COLLAR). Only one collar is required, and the trainer should be able to provide it. You may also require a few "dummy collars" which are not active. Any training is done in a CONTROLLED ENVIRONMENT to ensure efficient and effective learning. Also for the welfare of both the dogs and the snakes used in the training procedure. If a wild snake comes into your yard, so long as your dogs avoid it the snake will generally avoid them. A reptile expert can advise which snake species and times of year they are more likely to be aggressive in your area.

A friend of mine has had two dogs from Macklin. Their conformation is not great (although they lean towards my preferences), but their temperaments are fantastic. Confident, even-tempered, easily trained dogs. One of them had more drive than the other, but she was not what I would call high drive.

People come to my classes (which are specifically for reactive and aggressive dogs) to seek instruction. I do not use check chains, so they are not used in my classes. I have never had a dog that "needed" a check chain, or a dog who didn't respond to my methods. That said, my classes are geared specifically towards using +R methods and if they resembled a typical obedience club then a lot of dogs would not be able to learn efficiently using +R in that environment. I don't agree with those who think it is too "rigid" or demonstrates a lack of competence if a club won't allow check chains. Do what you do best, and if you think there is room for improvement find someone you think you can learn from and listen. Back in the days when food and clickers weren't allowed in clubs those of us who wanted to use them either offered to run a class using +R or left and formed our own group. Unfortunately, a lot of people did this without respect for those who didn't have the same opinion, including myself, but I think most of us have got over ourselves now.

Is he a smaller guy, or does he have a back or shoulder injury? Check for a legitimate reason first. Where handlers can be overpowered or injured by a dog I will have them use a balance-leash attached to either a front-attaching harness or head halter and collar. The harness or halter isn't used, but it's there if the dog does decide to pull for whatever reason. I would be very interested in any documented cases of injury to a dog caused by a head halter. I don't like to see them used unnecessarily, but I'm not aware of any documented risk associated with these devices. This surprises me, but this is what I know. Collars, on the other hand, have a long history of contributing to injury (through misadventure or misuse).

So do I!! I cringe whenever I hear of it, being that I was working at the facility which bred the first ones... all those years ago..and was looking after them.. and thinking how terrific a job we were doing I thought they were being produced by the Guide Dogs? Who now call the breed that they developed "Australian Service Dogs"? Don't quote me on that.

Some supplementary cooked meat, liver and eggs wouldn't be a bad idea, the protein is more readily available when cooked. He's only young though, let him grow as slowly as he needs to. Along with some of the exercises mentioned here, playing tug is also a good option to thicken up the neck and front end. Don't forget, lots of good quality REST and SLEEP as well. One thing bodybuilders do a lot of is sleep...

As a competing strength athlete I must admit I see gym balls as being a bit faddish and limited in application, but doing this with dogs takes some skill as a trainer and provides a really good "mental workout" for the dogs.

Maybe Im just cranky today and taking things the wrong way then We all have days like that, no hard feelings. Google books is like the ultimate library, if you've never got lost in there before you might take a while to emerge. P.S I'm a high-school drop-out so you're a long way up on me!

Thanks Aidan, I had no idea there was such a thing as google books! Oh boy, we'll see you in about 6 weeks then?

If you do a search on Google books you can get a very good idea of his writing style.

If you use rope, be aware of the possibility of rope-burn (i.e don't put your dog in a situation where you may have to grab the rope while he's running). My Black Dog tracking line has never let me down.

If he won't swap for a treat, use a second tennis ball. Only throw it when he has dropped the first ball, you might need to make it "come alive" first, just don't throw it until he has dropped the first ball. Then you pick up the first ball and repeat. Another tip: toss the ball behind you so that he is always running through in a line. This way you will automatically get him coming in closer and not stopping out in front of you. More tips here (article on tugging, but same principles apply): http://www.clickertraining.com/node/727

That's not uncommon, it's more to do with what the pup is conditioned to respond to. Behaviour works like this: Antecedents > Behaviour > Consequence We dig the furrows amongst this complex web of pathways in the brain by repetition of A>B>C. You become a large part of that "A", if your husband isn't there giving the cues while pup is being trained then he isn't an "A".

Go for it! Service Dogs are taught to do this and they don't become problem chewers or retrievers because once the kinks are sorted out the behaviour is under control.

Wow, that's amazing! Danes balancing on gym balls... Danes with rippling 6-pack abs balancing on gym balls what's more!

Awesome! Good news for everyone, especially the pups. You gave a couple of links to articles, I agreed with lots of things they had to say. Some of it was overly-simplified and I cannot imagine this approach giving the best outcome if they are hard and fast rules but my area of expertise is not puppies.

He has some great philosophies, I don't like the way he sets about achieving them though.

None of those rules are hard and fast. Play fighting is useful, dogs learn from it. I would never separate dogs just because they are play-fighting. I would also prefer dogs who can eat together and don't resource guard. I also like to be able to train my dogs together, stuff that they already know. In fact, the more they can do together, the better - so long as they aren't "attached at the hip" and so long as they pay attention to you FIRST. There's three in my house and I'm telling you from personal experience, it's not that simple. There are ways around it. I will have my dogs do long downs while I'm watching TV, for e.g Think you can train a 1 hour long down with two dogs who will fight? Not quite true unless I've missed something. You've put down a deposit on two pups. I would honestly give up one of the deposits.