kyliegirl

photos of echo who is now i think 6 months? I stopped counting lol!

well its odd since he has seen the moon before, only now he has decided that its the death star of the universe. will try to give him a toy/bone when the moon is up to distract him

Just wanting some advice here, has anyone ever had a situation where their puppy or dog is a fraid of the moon? Echo appears to be entering his next fear period and this morning it was quite obvious he was acting scared and terrified and staring up at the moon. He is 6 months now so I think he is entering his next fear period, but how do I convince Echo its nothing scary when I cant actually take him up to it to show him.. ATM I am ignoring the behaviour and acting like nothing is a big deal but is there another way I can convince him that the moon isnt trying to kill him?

I have a tailed dobermann, Initially I was unsure about the tail as I had always seen dobes docked, so it was unusual to say the least. My biggest concern was the stories I had heard of dobermanns tails being very long, frail and whippy making them prone to damage. Fortunately so far I have not had any of these issues with Echo, his tail is a little thin at the end, but I would definitely not say its whippy, infact his tail is carried in a similar position to a Maltese's tail where it stands upright and curls towards the back. When he wags the tail seems to maintain the curl. I must admit I do actually like how the tail is carried and I have gotten quite used to how it looks. I doubt we would have any situations where his tail would be damaged with the way he carries it. as for being cruel, not cruel.. I wish to not comment on this, it causes too much debate.

I have a dobermann and we brought him a weatherbeeta coat for winter, the only issue is no matter what we do, unless he is supervised he WILL rip the coat off, I regret buying a velcro coat, shouldve been buckles.

i never got into flyball, i like the idea of agility but I dont know if I really could get into it. Echo would be amazing for agility with his stamina atm lol. Gosh I took echo for a walk today and he was great, I let the neighbours kids pat echo today, i felt pretty sure he wouldnt be an idiot about it and thankfully I was right, he sat down, pulled his ears back and had the most submissive and gentle behaviour ever, never once tried to jump up and even when they all smothered and surrounded him he stayed very calm and gentle! I ended up needing to pry him away from them to continue our walk, they wouldnt stop lol, Echo was also beginning to get a little upset with them telling him to sit in their high pitched voices making him very confused and he started to whine. Also stopped at the nice mans house on the way back(unfortunately he tried to jump at this bloke, maybe its a big person thing?) for pats and a chat.

thanks all for the reassuring info KTB you are right a dobermann is like a kelpie, if i run him, he would keep running until he dropped dead, dobermanns are extremely fit dogs their body is an athletic body and they were bred to be athletes. While a bike run will really get him running (no doubt he would LOVE this) it will not tire him out. just check out ths dobermann running for a good example of their stamina

he is nearing 6 month mark now, I know he is going throught he crazy adolescent stage, I just hope as he matures (LOL??) he will be a little calmer We are trying to work on calming him, but its a little hard when the loopy bugger goes "ZOMG ITS PLAY TIME!!! ITS PLAY TIME!!!!" lol. I cant blame him though, hes a baby We do currently see a trainer who has been great so far, may get some tips from him on other methods to exert his energy. I will have to remember not to over exercise then to prevent the 4 walks a day thing lol. I doubt we could ever manage that. I originally thought of attending agility etc, but honestly I don't think I have the time nor will to do such sports as its not really things I could get into. I am happy with a family home dog who is trained to an extent with some trick training here and there.

I love the pictures of hoover and albie on the bed, so cute! the treadmill is actually our human treadmill which we bought for us years ago I would like everyone's opinion on this - I am concerned about how much energy Echo has, it seems everyday his energy levels get higher, I am beginning to wonder if I will be able to meet his requirements, he has some really high drives, he absolutely loves to tug and he is nonstop moving and running around, he is destroying anything he can and is digging holes everywhere, I play/walk him daily and the walks are over 5km atm with running here and there, then the treadmill, I am actually quite a laid back person so I do worry about not being able to give echo what he needs, I would hate to see him go insane because we cannot meet his energy requirements. I try to mentally challenge him daily but even then he still keeps going. Some days I wonder if I got the wrong breed <_< the Dobermann has always been my dream dog and I was pretty sure I could handle the temperament of one, but I did not expect Echo to have the energy and drives that he has, If I let him off-lead he would be running nonstop (I know because he does this at the dog park). I do question myself daily if I made the right choice, I am fine with all the work etc and try my best to do my best for Echo, I just dont know if it will be enough? What do you all think? what more can i do to bring down the energy? I am not keen on doing any dog sports for the moment, nor have the time to with work and art etc. I do not really want to attend obedience etc atm either, its just not what I plan to get into atm, I planned to later in life but for the moment its clear its not something I am up for doing.

dandy willow is adorable! good luck on the training! here's some more of Echo on the treadmill, mind you this was after a 20 min walk, run at the dog park and then afterwards we had a huge play session of tug for 20 mins. video of loose lead on treadmill treadmill walkies

I think Echo forgot to attend this meeting when they announced this He is quite the opposite lol

I had mostly been looking at pembrokes they are quite a nice intelligent breed, from what I have read alot easier to train and handle. If I could have two dogs then I would probably wait until Echo is a bit older before considering another puppy lol! my OH would probably die if he read this

a slight brag, Echo has been going amazing on walks now, he no longer pulls and will follow gently when both me and oh walk together with him also been thinking my next dog will be a corgi, they seem like a nice breed that would also match our lifestyle. I highly doubt my OH would approve of 2 dogs at once lol!!

Oh yeah, Echo is my dog and my sole responsibility, I would never give up on him and the thought never crossed my mind to rehome. My biggest problem atm is gaining attention when the man and his dog down the road are in view. I get upset-frustrated every-time he gets excited when he sees the man down the road and refuses to even acknowledge me (it frustrates me to tears because this guy has no real idea about dog behaviour and will approach and start talking in a high pitched voice at echo in the weirdest excited manner causing echo to go from manageable to uncontrollable because he drives his excitement to the point he is uncontrollable and stupid and then he encourages it even more and then allows echo to jump on him and do whatever he wants while I am trying to regain control) I have tried avoiding this bloke, but he literally lives just down the road with his dog, its inevitable that he will come out deliberately with his dog offlead and try to get them to interact and play when I don't want Echo to play with his dog when we are walking. I dont know how to stop him seeking out this guy and his dog for attention and to start paying attention to me, I am at a loss.. I made the mistake of letting him play with this mans dog, and letting the guy give attention to echo the way he did, now I am having the hardest bloody time extinguishing the behaviour. I am at a loss. Everytime this happens I feel extremely disconnected and upset with Echo and upset that I have no solution, to the point I just want to sit in the bedroom and do absolutely nothing for the rest of my life. My Oh walked echo today and he said that the guy drove past him and slowed and hung out the window doing his excited high pitched "oo echo come here echo! ohh yeah come on echo your a big cute boy!" which caused him to go absolutely nuts trying to get to the guy while he drove off in his car, much to my OH's frustration. Seriously, this is getting out of control.. As I said I really want to enjoy him, but I am having issues like the above which make me feel like there is no connection between us at all I do let him do what he wants, to just be a dog and enjoy his antics like his crazy bone throwing dance in the yard and his zoomies, these i like to see him do.

thanks for all the heaps of help and info, it does bother me that we haven't connected yet, I really want to, I want to bond with him and be best friends, but it just hasn't worked like that yet. I might have high expectations, I do currently do the nilif program with Echo and a few small tricks, as I said he is slow so I havent tried to rush it, trying to work at the pace he is going.

Erny- I think maybe you are right, I have tried to keep training sessions short between 1-5 mins, it adds up to 20-1 hr a day we do. I will try to introduce more to him. huski- I have done some shaping with him, but honestly it does take him a very long time to learn something new atm :p it took him 2 weeks to finally get "drop" and he is still learning spin after go knows how manny sessions. He also doesnt seem to offer anything new for me to click for peresphone- I try to do just that, we noticed he loves holding and carrying things so we get him to carry the newspaper to the door, we havent tried anything else, thanks I will start looking for more things to encourage. jacqui- I am in no way afraid of Echo, nor afraid of his behaviour or personality, he is a very surprisingly confident and head strong puppy, but I am well prepared for that. I hope soon we will click, for now I guess I will work on trying to get some shaping done. hortfull - I thought that would be obvious that we would be patting, hugging and scratching Echo? Of course we do all this, I give him belly rubs, hug him and wrestle with him, I play hide and seek with him and play with toys with him. We still have problems with him jumping on us so for the moment I cannot say I can just lay down or sit with him and pat him as he is really a firecracker atm. Thanks everyone for the info so far, I am going to try harder on being more interactive. I guess I feel that I am also failing him so I am having a hard time connecting with him for this. I have made some mistakes along the way,one of them I really have no idea how to combat or fix and every time it happens it leaves me frustrated and disconnected with Echo. I have no idea what I can do to encourage him to offer behaviours, I tried the box and he loses interest in it or he ignores the box just sits for 20 minutes staring at me and waiting for attention/food. He is a slow learner, some things he picks up a little faster but others take ages which make it hard to introduce new tricks as I don't want to confuse him with similar actions for new behaviours.

well atm everything is training for us, we always do regular sit/drops and have been doing recall and place along with stand on two legs etc. So on average its about 20 mins to an hr of training each day. Should I be pushing him more with training? I thought the pace we were going was good for him as I am trying not to have him shut down on me.

wow I am glad its not just me then, I guess I will just need to give it more time.

oh he will be with us until he dies, I just dont know why we cant connect :/

I have had Echo since December and I am still waiting for that connection. I don't exactly know why it hasnt yet, every other dog in my life I have felt a connection but with me and Echo it just isn't, I neither love nor hate him. I spend a lot of time with him, every day I wake up, bring him out of his crate outside to pee, prepare breakfast for him, then later I spend around 20-30 mins organising which toys to give him and preparing meals in his treat toys that I have chosen and hiding them in the yard for him, at the end of work I take him to go for a walk, then home we play a game, dinner is fed and I let him rest an hr before playing a game with him for another 10-20 mins, then he goes to crate to bed. On Saturdays and Sundays I spend a lot more time training and playing outside with him and when not around him I will actively seek out new toys or buy more raw food for him or figure out other ways to entertain him. Yet with all the stuff I do to keep him happy and entertained I still cannot seem to get that connection? I am not seeing any sort of connection between us, I think he considers me the same way I consider him, which is we are of neutral ground to each-other. Is there something wrong with me? I have no issues caring for him, walking him, grooming him, feeding. I don't mind spending the time prepping his raw meals or organising his monthly raw diet into bags. Maybe the connection will eventually come. But I am worried it wont?

hapy birthday pepper! congrats to hoover, clastic and mars on bronze! Echos coat arrived today! This should keep him warm in winter

oh and heres some pictures! crocodile impressions his regular carrot, he still loves carrots! Echo being "placed" on the bed and was given a carrot to eat, koda decided to check it out still shiny! what are you doing? food? Yes please! what do you mean getting big? no way!

lots of hugs and wishes for your puppy, i hope your little one pulls through

Sorry I havent posted in a while, I have been quite flat out. But some good news. We introduced the e-collar as a training guide for echo starting saturday, and I must say it has been for the better! such an improvement, he no longer ignored my oh, has stopped biting and jumping at us, he now doesnt try to make it a game when told to not bite us by going "nah nah ZOOMIES" and barking at us, he now knows he is no longer in charge and doesnt push us about ( he was really pushing us around the last few weeks and was staring to ignore us and act like he was the boss). his leash walking is now getting better again and his attention and learning abilities since using the collar seem to have shot up significantly. He now comes back when told, now releases the toy when told and is learning "place" (to sit on an object that is different from the rest of the environment) and "here" (recall) he learnt "out" (release toy) in one session and now he really absolutely loves tug since its all "get it" "out" "get it" "out" he loves it and his enthusiasm to work now shows, when he plays tug now it sounds like i have a bear on the other side lol! The past few nights of sessions has shown an amazing change in Echo's behaviour, he no longer looks half interested in training and shows alot of confidence and eagerness for the next command. Honestly I don't think we could have ever gotten to this level of enthusiasm with just the clicker, I think Echo needed a sort of balance between positive and negative reinforcement to push him along a bit. He has shown no negative reactions to the collar, while it bothered him at first, he has since taken it pretty well and is quite chilled about it all.

no pictures from me, instead videos of echo. His training on the treadmill has gone very well, he now really enjoys it, he runs up onto the platform and waits patiently for it to start. I tried to walk on it today with him watching and he decided that this was not on and ran up on the treadmill and then proceeded to try to push me off so he could have it all (I of course got off as I was going to fall on top of him if I didn't) to which he happily took the center. here is a short of his treadmill work Treadmillin Echo and a video of him playing with his buster cube. It broke at the seams one day when he knocked it off the roof of his kennel D: So I had to tape it up. buster cube play