Jigsaw

He's been a handful since day one this dog, indulged and spoilt. Boundaries are given with threat of a stick. When people believe that they are experts and that your opinion has little value it gets a little wearing to keep trying to educate them. :rolleyes:

Thanks for your answers everyone. I really didn't think this idea would fix this problem. Previous suggestions I have made to help other behaviours (such as jumping on people - dog is GSD and a big boy) have been met with, we tried that it didn't work, I know they didn't try them. They will not desex the dog, they don't desex their males and they want to breed him at some stage. Out of interest and learning would you go about reducing this type of human guarding in a similar manner to how you would reduce any other resource guarding? I'm really interested any ideas you might have.

These people and family have had dogs of this breed and others for so many years etc that it's very difficult to try and give advice to. He has been to obedience but is only just starting to "listen".

Certainly keep her on a bland diet until you get to the vets. You could ring the vet for advice if you can't get in there to see them. Most vets are happy to speak to you on the phone when they are free of consults. Though they are likely to say to get her in ASAP. Puppies don't have a lot of reserves to fall back on when they get sick. Does she know when she needs to poo or does it just come out suddenly? She's still only a baby yet so may take a while for her to get the idea of housetraining. My dog was 6 months before she didn't have an accident inside. Please don't smack her if she has an accident inside. There are a lot of threads on DOL about housetraining if you do a search.

When talking to a friend today they mentioned their intact male almost 2 yrs is starting to get a bit jealous when other males interact with her (usually guard type barking with hackles up). I told her that this is behaviour they really need to watch especially as they have young grandkids. She said they'll fix it by putting him over a bitch, that usually settles them down. I've never heard of this before - has anyone else heard it before or done it? I'm not convinced it's a solution myself, so was wondering what others thought?

Get yourself a duck!!! Putting them on a long line so you can reel them in?? You'll have to find something that is more interesting than the ducks to bring them back!

What a sad situation to be in for poor little Turbo, lucky he's got you to go to at this time. I would imagine he is feeling a little disoriented at the moment, a new home. Give him some time to come to you, perhaps try to give him a treat when he comes to you. Try not to force him into coming to you let him come to you. I think he would probably be on 3 feeds a day at the moment, small amounts of mince with vegies. Maybe someone with some more accurate amounts will come in and tell you. Just as a thought you wouldn't know who his breeder is? They may be able to take him back if needed, even for a short time. There is a coolie rescue person on the Sth Coast I think I'll try and contact her and direct to DOL and see if she can help you out as well.

If mine doesn't have a ball, will watch others with ball and wait for opportunity to dash in and pick it up. She doesn't voluntarily give it up, you have to wait for her to "throw" it for you. We had to do a swap the other day as a poodle stole her ball and wouldn't give it up for anything and owner said he'd get bitten if he tried to get it out of her mouth. So we got their manky tennis ball as a swap. Her favourite game though is to get the ball and then tease the other dogs to chase her as that's the most fun. But we have discovered it's not just tennis balls, we were doing some training down near the rubgby oval and there was one guy with one football there and as soon as she spotted she was off, it didn't help that he then kicked the ball. Unfortunately she has balls of all sizes at home, tennis, volley balls, soccer balls and rugby balls, so any ball is hers!

Thanks for the clarification! I'm hoping to go and watch a trial soon. I think the next one near to me is in March, maybe a trip to Sydney is due! Whilst I don't go to a club I have been going to sessions with a private trainer who has 4 dogs in his class of all different levels. This has been a good start for us and a great help with distractions, we're just on hold for the moment with the heat.

OK, I'm going to be the dumb one here and ask what is probably an obvious answer but what does "lead out" mean? I can figure everything else out! And the SIT STAY and DOWN STAY are done as a group exercise! I bet that's interesting sometimes!

I've got one of those leads, except I call it a double ended lead or police lead! Very handy! Clicker training is very good (you can use your voice instead of a clicker too). I highly recommend crate training. I use a martingale collar, also called a limited slip collar. As Nehkbet said a treat bag is important to stick treats in and the phone and the doggy doo bags otherwise my pockets get overwhelmed with stuff! Although I haven't stuck my phone in with the treats - yet!

Train Barkly to fetch the beer for you! He could also cook the chicken in the microwave and when you're in your hammock he could push it for you! Um though couldn't you try and tape a barrier to your bench, like a cardboard box around the edges, now we can see a pic of it? You could put bells on it so you know when he is trying to get up there! He is so very cute though!

After having my dog at a petsitter for 2 weeks over Christmas by someone who didn't give a lot of leadership, I was a bit taken aback by how quickly her behaviour in general had gone downhill when she came home.

Good question Squeak! I'm looking at doing CCD this year hopefully and since I've never trialled need all the help I can get! At the moment we're not going to a club. My dog is too easily distracted at the moment by other dogs and if there's a ball around forget it, so we're starting slowly on the distractions.

How much fibre is in cardboard?? Guess you'll find out soon! At least shredding and eating the boxes would have kept him off the couch for a while! Try plastic crates next time!

What about putting some large cardboard boxes on the couch to block his access? Not very exciting compared to some of your other proposals I'm sorry!

Some great refs on the net http://www.deafdogs.org/training/ to help start you off too! Good luck with your training. I have a vision impaired pup which has its own challenges sometimes! Nothing wrong with her brain though!!!lol

I got Dog Tricks by Mary Ray, Justine Harding for Christmas - it was in Dymocks. I also have 101 Dog Tricks: Step by Step by Kyra Sundance, I think I got this one off Amazon. Both have pictures and step by step explanations, use of clickers, rewards. Different tricks in each book with some cross over of basic tricks.

What about training to put things in a basket/bin? Take your socks off! Leg weaves! I got a Dog Tricks book for Christmas - can you tell?lol Dog Tricks by Mary Ray, Justine Harding.

I had a nipper and somewhere here on DOL there is a thread I started about my pup. She not only nipped but jumped and nipped and then played tug with my clothes. Consistency in the method you use is probably the best thing. I found holding my pup by the muzzle only excited her more and she would chase and jump at my hand immediately afterwards. For MY pup's nipping the best method was yelping and turning away for about 30 secs, then redirecting play to a toy. She's just over one now and she now has a lovely bite inhibition esp playing with other dogs. Occasionally if very excited she will mouth (usually if there is rough physical play with my teenager) but play is immediately stopped and she's given a "time out", but this is now an extremely rare happening I'm happy to say!

Robert Stabler is a veterinary behaviourist (just to clarify the OP).

My aim is to get the dog to understand what I want it to do in the most clear, simple (hopefully fun) and quick manner I can for that dog! If the dog doesn't learn it's something I'm doing wrong I would think. I have one occasion when things of a personal nature happening in my life crossed over into my training and I raised voice and my dog simply shut down. A valuable lesson for me.

One example for me is I take her for an hour's walk, lots of off leash running around, tired in the car, goes straight out into the backyard when we come home (she doesn't wee or poo on a walk very often so's busting when we get home) and barks her head off!!! Working on impulse control and calming behaviour but it's not easy or quick! Often just leave her on leash when we get home now to try and stop the behaviour.

But what about when your dog only barks when outside and you're inside? Stops barking when you open the door! Certainly not close enough to mark and treat. Not having a go at you Anita, just frustrated with my dog's barking! Although I think most of hers is overstimulation as she was good for a week and then 5 days of windy weather and she got worse!

Depending on what your 17 year old is studying for HSC and his committment to that and what he wants to do after the HSC would have a bearing on doing a course IMO. HSC is stressful enough for most kids regardless of their ambitions, adding the stress of a course which has regular assessments due (both NDTF and Delta have these) might be a bit much together with the workload of HSC. I don't know your Mr 17 but I have one of my own (lol) and if he was interested in this sort of thing I would probably direct him to more to trick training, formal obedience and agility first to see if he likes doing that sort of thing (if yours hasn't already!), so its more of a fun thing for him during HSC. Taking his brain in another direction from school work sort of thing. If he likes working with dogs perhaps working in a kennel during holidays - hard work, minimal pay but lots of dogs might give him an idea too!