Wobbly

There's a book by Patricia O'Connell called "the other end of the leash" which explains canine hierarchy very well I think. All social mammals have a hierarchical society, it neccesarily evolved to minimise the risk of fights over resources - the higher status dog gets the desirable resource (if he wants it) and the lower status dogs accept that as the social order, so there's no need for fights or injury over possession of desirable resources. The thing that's debunked is people's erroneous notion that they need to enforce their own alpha status with stuff like alpha rolling and excessive correction. As O'Connell says - hierarchical status is there to STOP conflict, but so many people misunderstood "dominance theory" and bullied their dogs in the name of it. The theory was misunserstood and put people in conflict with their dogs when they didn't need to be. In that way it's maybe good the theory has been taken off it's pedestal, you see so many softer dogs who have had their drive and joy in life taken from them due to over-corrections in the name of misinterpreted dominance/submission theory. But IMO, NILIF and the Triangle of Temptation stuff are still incredibly important for some dogs, dogs are social animals so they absolutely do have a social hierarchy, and the human needs to be respected by the dog as master of all the desirable resources. For the vast majority of pet dogs NILIF and very mild corrections are all a human needs to do to maintain position as the high status master of all resources. TL:DR - Patricia O'Connel - "The Other End of the Leash" - give it a read, it's got really great explanations about this issue.

O hey Glenn, Thanks for all your help, as you can see from my other thread: here you solved a problem that's been annoying me for ages (ofc entirely my fault it happened) so a huge thank you again, for helping me so much with "out", and for such a great day! I am on crutches after that fall, my ankle looks like there's a grapefruit under the skin, so I learnt a good non-dog related lesson on Sunday there too - heed warnings about lumpy ground areas and tie up shoelaces when running around on said bit of uneven ground. I am such a dufus sometimes. XD Anyway, thanks again, Glenn, Ruth & Mel it was a fantastic day, if you hold similar ones in future, we will definitely attend.

Thanks for the suggestion Lab lover, food sort of worked for me a bit depending on where she is on the arousal spectrum, she is incredibly foood driven in most circumstance, but food is generally far lower on her agenda than tug. But.... I do have a really awesome update: We went to the Bull breeeds seminar yesterday, and I showed Glenn Cooke, the trainer there, Jarrah's tugging & explained the situation. We both noted at one point when I had my hands covering a lot of the frisbee when she was being offered it, that she is very deliberately careful about missing my hands. Although she does mess up occasionally, on the whole she does put in a good effort to scope out a good hand-free bite spot (I must've accidently taught her that with my squallings when she has got me XD). All in all that's not actually something we need be concerned about, she's learnt that most important rule despite me. So Glenn showed me how to put just a little bit of pressure on her check collar to make her release. I've always been very careful to not correct her during tug, since I don't want to reduce drive with corrections, but the way he showed me it's not enough pressure to be a correction, it's more like putting a restraint on her, which ofc serves to make her more keen. "D So I can practise that, and after all my surgery stuffs is done (very long recovery period - March/April I think maybe before I can really be leaping around again?), I will arrange a consult with him to make sure we can really perfect our game to be the best it can be. Or maybe I can send my husband along to him with her sooner? Anyhow, either way the prognosis is excellent. "D I am delighted with this outcome. :D :D :D

If they want a truly unpleasant day! No way! Trix & No Angel are awesome dogs. They would have an excellent day with them. It was awesome. 20 little fat head dogs, much waggling and slobbering all round. If the general public could only see what 20 Bullies milling round together is really like - all huge grins and full body waggles - it'd knock away a lot of their erroneous preconceptions. XD It would be a great thing for all bull breed owners to attend, but this was organised as a charity event for a rescue group, so I'm not sure if it'd be a regular thing. Although given that there were 20 attendees, it would seem there's definitely enough interest to run something similar again. If the Govt really wants to single out Bull breeds (and ofc it does, it's bad policy but great politics with respect to voter approval) they would be better to make the restrictions centered on obtaining a license to own the dogs pursuant to an educational program which could include a seminar like that. If they did away with the ridiculous stuff about muzzles, no selling pups & dogs etc, in favour of licenses issued after attending an educational program, they'd get far better compliance in terms of Pit Bull types being registered and responsibly cared for. As well as a bunch of other benefits like organised registered breeding programs that account for proper temperament, good health etc rather than the very hit and miss BYB efforts Bully breed fanciers mostly have to rely on for dogs right now.

:laugh: Me too, my husband always says if I stopped encouraging bad habits he'd make an awesome dog out of her. He really takes issue with the fact that when I'm eating at the dinner table she settles down underneath the table in anticipation of the inevitable tid bits I pass on to her. But I consider this to have been be excellent training for taking her to cafes, he's wrong IMO, she's a great dog, especially in the way she sits quietly under cafe tables. XD I know a few people who have had their dogs tested and the results didn't give them any clarification. I remember someone with a staffy cross who was wondering what else was in the dog got one done, and the results came back as staffy cross, which didn't really shed any light on the subject for her.

Two of the things that drive me nuttiest about not knowing is that I don't even know her age for sure, or her breeding. The age I think I can pinpoint to a few months either side of the actual truth, but breed is far more difficult to ascertain. I oscillate between Amstaff, Pit Bull or Staffy cross, but I'm never able to decide for sure either. I wish the DNA tests were more conclusive so I could finally get a definite answer to that one. Not that it's important in terms of managing her, she is what she is, and whether I know for sure or not doesn't change anything, but for myself and my own curiosity I would love to know.

Of course it's unacceptable for people to not deal with issues in the here and now because of events that may have (or may not have) occurred in the past. In that direction lies only heartache, I don't think you can jump to the conclusion that people wondering about their dog's history will neccessarily seek to excuse poor behaviour because of a dog's past experiences. We're human, it's our nature to wonder, to try to understand the whys & wherefores and discover all the missing pieces of a puzzle. I know for myself I often wonder about my dog's past, can't help it, it's my natural hardwired human inclination to wonder about the unknown. It doesn't affect how I manage my dog (or any other aspect of my life) I determine that her from my own experiences of her behaviour patterns. You'll notice the thread subtitle is, and has always been: "You can never know for sure, but we'll always speculate", And so in idle moments we will always speculate, and that speculation in no way negates the caveat that we may just be way off track.

I won't get another dog till Jarrah's time has come. She's only 5 and a half (I think) so all going well I should get at least another 10 years, maybe more if I'm really careful and lucky with her health. So I've planned 10 years ahead. The dog will be a Bully Breed, probably an Amstaff or Pit Bull, and again I will go to the pound for him/her. This time I'd like to get an older dog, but I said that before I got Jarrah and it didn't happen, so I am aware that may not happen, depends on the dogs who need homes on the day.

Yes, this is exactly what worries me, what if he did genuinely try to find her, but for whatever reason was looking in the wrong places? It's not a really serious fear of mine, but I have to say it has occurred to me. I never answered that guy who asked me where I got her. XD I would hope people don't use the past to justify not fixing problems of today. Both in respect to their own lives now, as well as their dogs. That's a very self defeating attitude to life. I couldn't find Leo's full story, but here's a thread of how well he turned out with Ambervale's nurturing and care: http://www.dolforums.com.au/topic/126835-leo-the-lion-heart-poodle/page__p__2397332__fromsearch__1#entry2397332

Nawim your post is great, I too have worried that Jarrah's former owner will see her and demand her back. Although I think I have a pretty strong case for keeping her given the fact that he left in the pound for an entire month. I remember a newb in the Amstaff piccys thread once asked me where I'd got Jarrah, that poster only had the one post on the entire forum, and I was so worried he was her old owner wanting her back. Probably wasn't, but I couldn't help worrying about it. Management & training would be on a case by case basis ofc. I do think your expectations as to how much you're going to be able to rehab the dog might differ tbh. I've seen some quite miraculous recoveries of dogs who've been beaten coming right out of their shells (it does seem to happen fairly often that dogs ARE mistreated a few of my friends' have had dogs who plainly had terrible histories), but I'm not sure you'd be able to get such dramatic recoveries with a genetically bad dog? I think my favourite story of a dog who did the hard yards but recovered amazingly well was Little Leo the poodle, who many here will remember. Leo was bred by a member here called Sivaro, she found out he was being used interstate as breeding stock at a puppy mill, and after her frantic request for help for him here, another member called Ambervale rescued him. Leo was so terrified and beaten down when Ambervale first got him, but with her care he blossomed into a really happy, smiley little guy who led (and presumably continues to lead) a full life, not unduly affected by his previous rotten circumstances. I'll see if I can find the thread for anyone who's newer and hasn't read it, it used to be a sticky, it's a really amazing story and definitely worth the read.

Wow, what an incredible transformation for Justice. Simply amazing Snook. I don't know whether I would have believed such a turnaround could be possible except for reading your journey with Justice. Truly amazing. I have a friend with a fear reactive dog, the dog's reactivity is a result of a bad experience when he was younger, I wonder if they could effect the same transformation as you have? I will try to get them to read this thread to be inspired by your dedication and incredible success with Justice.

Or a 12 hour whelping during the night, breech births & a trip to an emergency Vet at 2am to get puppy formula to feed the puppies, because the mother doesn't want to know the puppies she's had, while she is still pushing out the others. Then the 2 hour feeds for the runts of the litter, who are too small to compete with the bigger stronger pups. I would have thought that a good whack to the hip pocket would have been sufficient but what they heck, they can have the lot Wow, you just get even better with successive post... The mind boggles. Dear lord, if it does happen, here's hoping everything goes as right as it possibly can in this kind of situation with no hardship inflicted upon the poor dog.

That's a bloody horrific thing to wish on a dog. The pregnancy is not the dog's fault, yet you wish she would suffer? Why are you even on a forum catering to people who love dogs? :/ If they are stupid enough to breed, (hopefully the OP can present them with enough info to dissuade them), I really wish for the best outcome for the dog and her pups.

Obviously it can be difficult to separate genetics from environment sometimes - eg a dog may be nervous due to mishandling, but equally it may be nervous due to poor breeding, it's often difficult to tell why a dog displays a given behaviour, hence the caveat "this is speculation" needs to be applied, which it has been. As I've said I don't know if my dog's happy, outgoing nature is a result of being handled a lot as a small pup and never being mistreated in her former home or whether it's just a happy result of good genetics. I happen to think all of the above applies. I may be wrong, but if so it does no one any harm to speculate. She is how she is, and I manage her in accordance with her current behaviour but that will never stop me wondering why she is like she is. If you own an animal and love it, it's natural to wonder where it's been, what it's experiences have been and why it ended up needing a new home. Unless of course you lack all curiosity, and perhaps Pavlova you are completely lacking in all curiosity, so this probably isn't the thread for you, in which case feel free to not post in it. :) Might explain a lot! XD Hijack away! Your fairy dog sounds very awesome. XD Another thing about Jarrah, she'd never been taught the joys of a good belly scratch. She was incredibly unwilling to roll on her back for a belly scratch at first, it took a while to habituate her to the idea that being rolled on her back was an awesome thing, but I won her over, she's completely addicted to belly scratches now. XD Jarrah's reaction to guys who look like labourers - in work boots & shorts (and one of those fluoro council vests is a huge plus, but not strictly neccessary) is just hilarious. She sees them from a distance, and starts waggling, and if they start walking towards her she starts waggling ever more furiously, till I worry she's going to burst with pent up adoration. She doesn't do it for any other type of person, just labourer looking guys. I really have to get a video of it sometime to post, it's quite hilarious. The labourer-type guys who she targets are always pretty delighted with such a reaction so she generally gets a pat from them, which serves to reinforce the behaviour ever more firmly ofc. XD There's a few other things I wonder about too, but am at a little bit of a loss to explain. She came with some propensity toward dog aggression, although whether that is nature or nurture I really can't say. It was certainly not fear driven though, and as soon as I became aware of it I booked a consult with a behaviourist, and all of his advice has been so supremely effective that I haven't really ever seen enough of that behaviour manifested to really extrapolate. As she's an Amstaff I'm kind guessing that one is more likely to be genetic than anything else.

Volunteering at the local shelter is a great idea, those dogs would be in heaven if someone would come in and pet them and spend time with them.

If they do insist on breeding the dog, ask them to give you the details of where every pup went, so in 8-12 months time (when they stiop being so puppy cute & start getting dumped) you can let them know how many of the litter ended up at the pound, and how many were euthed for lack of homes. Might put them off breeding in future at least....

I know Sheena, I often find myself checking that particular pound because it's where I got my dog. The amount of dogs in there is horrifying, especially lately. I would encourage anyone who thinks BYB is a good thing to take a look at that pound. It's irrefutable evidence of the fact that there just isn't enough homes for the amount of dogs being bred.

It's interesting that they're still attracted to their old bogan owners (or archetypes that resemble those) even though those owners were manifestly inadequate. The loyalty of dogs is really wasted on some people.

I would suggest you take them to the local pound so they can see the reality of their pups likely fate, but that probably isn't practical. Alternative may be to print out a couple of the pound lists from the "Urgent Rescues" section here, and show your SIL & BIL that. Point out to them the vast majority of these dogs will be put to sleep due to lack of homes, and that this is the most likely outcome for any pups they produce. Seeing the dogs' faces in those pound pics, and knowing they will die is very sobering, probably even for idiots like your BIL & SIL. If your own local pound isn't there, Blacktown pound is probably a good candidate for printing out, it's currently filled to capacity, so many of those dogs you see in there now will be PTS. Make sure they're made aware of that. Here is the link: http://www.dolforums.com.au/topic/243430-blacktown-pound-week-beginning-12112012/ Show them that.

In many cases you can never know exactly what life was like for a rescue dog before you got him/her, but it can be interesting to speculate based on the dog's temperament and reactions when you first acquired him/her. I'd love to hear other people's experiences & ideas. This is what I think happened in Jarrah's former life (although ofc I can never know for sure). I got Jarrah from the pound aged between 9 - 12 months (best guess). I think her owners before me weren't bad people, they didn't give her any fears but they weren't good dog owners either - they didn't spend time with her to teach her appropriate socialisation. And they certainly didn't care enough to keep her adequately contained - the ranger picked her up as a stray. She is a very confident & happy dog, always curious about new things and loves meeting new people, so I think she didn't have any really bad experiences before I got her. I also think her confidence & friendliness toward people might indicate she was handled by people a lot as a very young pup (before she left her mum), though this confident friendliness could be a genetic trait too - likely a mix of both I guess. I think a broom fell on her at some point early on, she used to be scared of brooms leaning against the wall, though interestingly she wasn't scared of me actually sweeping. Whatever happened it wasn't bad, I used to throw her fetch toys close to my broom and now she doesn't notice brooms at all anymore. She'd obviously never been in a house before, it was really funny to see her first encounters with ordinary household objects like mirrors & TVs. XD Less fun was the housetraining. She also had no training of any description that I could see. But she learnt all the usual stuff quickly being food motivated so it was never a problem, but it was interesting to me that noone had bothered to teach this bright, food driven dog - it would have been so easy for them to just do it, she's very trainable. Loose leash walking was the only one that took me a long time to get right, due to the aforementioned curiosity. XD She had absolutely no idea how to relate to people when I got her. She acted like people were other dogs - she would jump up and nip HARD to seek attention. Not aggressive at all, just playful & pushy "pay attention to ME" nipping. The nipping really hurt, we were quite bloody & bruised from her the first few days. This indicates to me that she wasn't socialised properly with people after leaving her mum. Noone in their right mind could accept nipping like that from an adolescent dog of her size and strength. It was just too annoying & painful. If her previous owners had ever spent more than a few minutes interacting with her they'd have to have corrected her on this - it was too painful to ignore. It did take me a lot of time, persistance and a water pistol to break her of the mouthiness habit, since it was quite an ingrained habit for her when she came to me. Have to say I don't miss those days at all. Whenever she sees a bloke wearing council worker type clothes, ie flouro vest, work boots & shorts she goes totally nuts with joy. Her tail waggles so hard I worry she might explode. XD So I think her old owner was a labourer of some description who kept her in his yard and went out there to feed her and give her a pat. He was obviously associated with great things in her mind (feeding time!) and so she adored him, but beyond that it didn't seem he put in the time she needed. Also tellingly he never picked her up from the pound - she was there a month - he had plenty of time to pick her up if he really cared. I surmise he was a friendly enough guy he was and never mean to her, but far too irresponsible and lacking in time for a dog. I will never know what really went on for her, but I think I'm probably fairly close to the truth with some of this. Always interesting to me to speculate anyway.

Hey everyone, Thanks for all the tips & ideas, much appreciated. Unfortunately I didn't get to see my regular trainer at training today, I had a small surgery yesterday, so my husband banned me from leaving the house today. I was pretty keen to go to training anyway, but husband can be implacably sensible sometimes. So I haven't yet had the opportunity to talk to her yet. Hey Ally, She is a really fun dog! When I first got her, she was a bit (a lot) overwhelming for me, hectic was definitely the word. She was a pretty tough dog for a novice owner, kind of like putting a learner driver in a ferrari I think. XD With age though (I think she is about 5 & half now) and advice from people more experienced than myself, she has become a really great dog. These days tug is the only thing that really hypes her to those stratospheric heights anymore, her incredible enthusiasm for tugging is positively contagious - she is a really awesome dog. I'm not looking to do any kind of competition, so with the exception of using tug as an emergency recall reward, I haven't used it as part of any training program. It does have great side benefits like ensuring her focus is on me in very distracting environments and suchlike, but ultimately it's simply for fun, it's the bonding/play outlet that we most enjoy together. Her love for the tug does mean we have a world of possibilities for training, and I think I might like to explore that further. Kavik, I guess we can both console ourselves with the fact that the mistakes we've made give us really fantastic opportunites to learn lots in the course of fixing them! XD Noisy, looks like I will be doing the same as you and Boo for a little while. Fetch is not as interactive as tug and so it engages both Jarrah and myself less, but so long as I know tug is in our future, we can happily make do with fetch as a substitute for the time being. We are getting good at our new fetch rules now. Huski, After some consideration I've decided to go with Steve again, we had really amazing success with him before, I might have ended up in a lunatic asylum except for his help (OK that's maybe an exaggeration, but his advice for Jarrah management really made a world of difference for us back in the day when she was a bit uncontrollable). So it makes sense to go with him again. Thinking on my schedule for the next little while, the waiting period is actually good - I have some major surgeries coming up over the next few months (prognosis is excellent but Dec/Jan will be neccessarily quiet for me), so my own waiting period might end up being even longer than Steve's is. I will have to contact my surgeon next week to figure out when I will be all OK for vigorous activity before I can book an appt for Steve, once I get the complete low down on all of the surgery recovery times I will shoot you guys an email. Well in the interim we have our new fetch guidelines to practice to perfection, so we have stuff to keep us busy there, I will keep you updated with any new developments. Thanks again everyone for all the advice & support. :D

A trick I've used is to get a small but very pungent smelling treat (a little dab of blue cheese on a dog biscuit or something). Put that in a small cardboard box and masking tape it up, put the small box in a slightly larger box and masking tape that up, and that in another box, I like to use a big thick box for the outermost one. If you think he needs the encouragement to continue tearing the boxes up you could put a biscuit in each of the outer layers (I'd probably affix the biscuit to the smaller box inside with a dab of honey or something to direct his attention to the next box he needs to open). You can see a demo of the outer box being torn up in the first pic in my sig. XD You could even make up a few of these so you can scatter several of them around. It's only a tiny bit of actual food & it'll be so quickly gulped the other dog isn't likely to get jealous. What does he like? If he likes tug or a particular toy could you tie it to the fence (not the fence adjoining his adversary obviously) and maybe he could play tug with that too? I'd be using all the ideas in the thread so far that you feel won't trigger the other dog's jealousy to see what avenue of distraction suits him best.

Hi Ally, Sorry I didn't see your post before! The problem is we're well beyond the learning stage - we've been tugging like this for years now (I still have all my fingers XD). So this is years of reinforcing bad habits I now need to undo. I am a dufus. I never expected her to take to it so vociferously or I would have been more careful about consistently enforcing the ground rules to start with. You're right about tug and fetch being different, she loves fetch, but it doesn't hype her up to an extreme like tug does. My trainer agrees with you on the sit, and I have now introduced that to our games of fetch. She holds a sit stay very nicely for an extended period while I walk away, turn my back and then come back to her to release her to resume play during a game of fetch now. We haven't been playing tug the last few days so I haven't introduced a sit stay there now. I have had her sit in the middle of games before in the past and she can almost hold the sit, well it's more a squat waiting to pounce than a sit really, she really tries, but gets too keyed up to really be able to hold a proper sit. I think I do need some help from someone who is very experienced, in person at this stage. I am such a derp for letting it get to this. XD

Thanks Erny, you've really clarified things for me. "D I agree with you that a dog who has learnt how to play tug properly is very safe. But I guess the issue is that I haven't taught her properly. I built the drive without laying down the ground rules. She hasn't learnt that accidentally grabbing a hand stops the game. She hasn't learnt a start or an effective stop yet. When we first started playing she was quite hesitant to tug, so I didn't think she had much in the way of innate drive. I didn't want to risk suppressing drive by being pernickety about rules. What a mistake. I think my trainer has Jarrah's best interests as a pet in mind and is being careful to err on the side of caution. She's a very excitable dog - not so many months ago she shook my husband so hard in a game of tug he strained a muscle in his shoulder very badly. She is very enthusiastic about the things she loves. XD Taking my trainer's caution into account, and your thoughts as well, I am now thinking that while I probably don't have the knowledge or experience to lay the ground rules down effectively by myself at this point, it can still probably be done. I would really love for us to be able to continue playing tug, the idea of having to give it up really saddens me, but I will need someone experienced to start us off on the right foot and to oversee our progress. To make sure we get it right this time. My trainer is very good, but her fields of expertise are obedience, agility, fly ball etc. I'm not sure if she's confident she could give us 100% reliability on rehabbing my mistakes here maybe? At least, she didn't suggest any routes for rehabbing the issue. I will see her on Saturday for our group obedience class, so I will ask her what she thinks about rehab methods then. If she is not 100% confident in the matter I will try either Steve Courtney or Glenn Cooke. I saw Steve Courtney when I first got Jarrah fresh from the pound about 4 years ago, and his methods of fixing the behaviour problems she had then worked incredibly well, and I know he is also very experienced in working and teaching dogs in drive, so to get his help is a very appealing option. The difficulty in that ofc is that he's always so heavily booked I may be waiting a looong time for an appointment. The other potential option is that we are going to a seminar by Glenn Cooke in about 2 weeks, I believe he also has experience in the same field, I think for my purposes he would be a very good candidate to help us too. The wait may not be as long as it would for Steve. Thanks for your input Erny, I appreciate it a lot. I think maybe with help I might be able to get the ground rules firmly cemented so we can continue to play tug without any worries. What do you think?

Well it's taken me a few days to post this because I'm not really sure what to think. So I took Jarrah to the private lesson, with a trainer who is really lovely, she conducts our weekly group obedience classes, her field of expertise is agility & obedience, (her dogs have tonnes of letters after their names XD). So I showed her Jarrah's tugging. I decided to use the synthetic tug which I consider to be a medium drive toy (frisbee being high drive & a ball she has continual access to being low drive). So Jarrah did her tuggy thing, and we got some good outs from her using food (she is a very food driven dog too - I'm lucky like that, she's easily motivated by toys or food, either works). Anyway, our trainer's advice is to not continue to play tug with Jarrah. She said normally she encourages people to play tug with their dogs, but not in our case as Jarrah got far too excited as the session wore on. . I think the main issue in her mind is that Jarrah gets so aroused she does seem to lose a bit of control and may not be careful enough about where she bites in her excitement, and if she misses the tug and gets my hand it could be dangerous. She has gotten my hand before when we've been playing, but as soon as she realises she has flesh rather than fabric she lets go immediately. But that initial bite down can be a bit hard (not bleeding hard, but still ouchy). I see my trainer's point - if it's someone else playing tug with Jarrah and she accidently gets a hand in her excitement, even if she does release said hand immediately it's still open to misinterpretation by the owner of the hand, and that could be bad for Jarrah and me. Anyway after that we just concentrated on outs with fetch, which went very well. We are well on the way to consistent outs in that area anyway. So yay for that at least. So I am pretty sad about this advice because tug is really our favourite game, fetch is fun, but tug is much more interactive and we enjoy it more. Well we have only been playing fetch since then. I'm really torn. We love tug, and I really don't want to give it up, but I also respect my trainer's advice, expertise and reasoning, so a bit of cognitive dissonance going about this one right now for me now tbh. Anyway, your thoughts are appreciated, I may not be able to respond immediately here as I will be away tommorow, but I will read as soon as I can, so any feedback or advice would be great.