corvus

My Lappie would be fine in a townhouse as well. He is a pretty laid back fellow, and very, very gentle and sweet. He's a teddy bear.

I've often thought about the Scotties rolls, but didn't know if they were firm enough to hold their shape once cut up and couldn't bring myself to try. Do they hold together as well as 4 Legs rolls? I tried VIP, but found it was a bit mushy once thawed.

I think she looks great and I've seen her in person. ;) There's a couple around here that have labs and their younger girl would be close to the same age, I think, maybe a wee bit younger, and if anything she is even slimmer. She looks fantastic. The guy jogs them through the park every day, they are well trained, not an ounce of excess flesh on them, well defined muscles... such a joy to see them. Just yesterday I saw the lady in the park with a new pup, just sitting quietly under a tree and holding pup when there were a few dogs around and letting the pup meet dogs when they came by in ones or twos. They do such a great job. I'm looking forward to watching this one learn the ropes. They had their younger girl turning on a pinhead when recalled when she was still a gangly youngster. Warms my heart.

At the risk of flogging a dead horse, there's "aggressive" and then there's "dangerous". For the most part, aggressive behaviour in dogs is designed to avoid injury. Particularly in social situations where the only resource at stake is personal space.

:rolleyes: Again with the weak nerve. I will say this: There is nothing wrong with a dog that doesn't like to be barged. They don't automatically have weak nerve or some dominance issue. Sometimes they just don't like it, you know? For whatever reason. Maybe they don't like to be put off balance around strange dogs. Or maybe they have arthritis and it hurts. Or maybe they are just kinda small like Erik and don't like big dogs knocking them around. A staffy is pretty solid. I don't like it when they barge into me, either. It hurts. I don't like being bumped by people, but no one would say I have 'weak nerve' or a dominance issue if I was having a rotten day and someone bumped me and I growled "watch it" at them. That could have nothing to do with my temperament. And I don't think obedience even weighs in on this issue. I don't care if the dog is DA or not. I care that it injured another dog.

I take it they are talking about immunocontraception. Yes, it is possible. ETA Here's an article that talks about non-surgical sterilisation in dogs and cats and includes a bit on immunocontraception: http://veterinarymedicine.dvm360.com/vetmed/Medicine/Nonsurgical-methods-of-contraception-in-dogs-and-c/ArticleStandard/Article/detail/653147

Both. If I had to do it again I would never use a treat pouch - dogs often become conditioned to it (she has food, I'll listen to her. No pouch = no food = stuff you!) A lot of people say that, but I haven't found it to be the case. I think to some extent always having it with you means you reward more often, and the more you reward the more confident your dogs become that they will be rewarded and the less attention they pay to cues that might tell them whether they will be rewarded or not. I've been microwaving BARF patty meatballs for treats lately. I wanted something healthier because my dogs get a lot of treats. I usually toss some cheese in with it so they get some variety. We also have some dried treats that get tossed in as well, but I prefer soft and squishy. They don't choke on them when they start inhaling them.

Corgis are wonderfully adaptable. I had one in a sharehouse with a tiny yard that was just garden and a cement path for a year and our next door neighbours didn't even know we had a dog. She was fine, although she was happier when we moved to a place with a big, grassy yard. Apparently she missed rolling in the grass. ;) You can't go too far wrong with them. I did all sorts of stupid things to mine and she still ended up being a fabulous dog and everyone loved her. Except my honours supervisor, who was convinced it was evidence that I was a closet monarchist. My Lappie would be fine in a townhouse. He is pretty quiet and laid back and he's super gentle with smaller dogs. Some folks down the road have a BC in a townhouse and you never hear it. My other honours supervisor had one in a townhouse as well. She was a bit excitable sometimes, but settled after a few mad laps. They also had twins under a year old at the time, so I think she wasn't getting as much exercise as she normally did. I'd go something smaller though, just for those moments that the dog has the zoomies or something.

Why is this so hard to grasp? It's not that he 'sorted out the problem' but that he sorted it out with what sounds like uninhibited bites. Erik's 'sorted out' a few problems himself, or tried to, and the dog he sorted out didn't have a mark on them. Both Erik and Kivi have been told off, and the moment they backed off the aggression ceased. They got 'sorted', too, and no one got hurt. So what? I hope they don't get taken to dog parks.

Chasing a dog down and delivering multiple presumably uninhibited bites is not what I call "defending". As aussielover suggested, the response of the staffy mix was over the top for a social animal. I don't think such dogs should be in dog parks because they pose a threat to the safety of other dogs. I think that anyone who has a dog that injures another dog no matter what the circumstances should offer to pay the vet bills or at least stick around to see if the other dog is okay. I can maybe understand the owners just wanted to get their dog out of the park as quickly as possible before something else happened. I certainly would if my dog did something like that. I'd rather give them the benefit of the doubt. For all we know they have been trying to track down the husky's owners now that they have had a chance to collect their wits.

Nothing wears my boys out like a good rumble together in an open area. They spend at least half their time wrestling and chasing each other. Erik wants a Whippet of his very own to chase. There's a Whippet pup called Ricky that comes to our park and E is not the only one that abandons everything to chase him around and around and around. Before Kivi had a friend to rumble with, he went to doggy daycare twice a week. It was just what he needed.

Does that include expecting a completely uneventful trip to the park?

So a dog that draws blood is acceptable? I didn't say anything about acceptable. I merely said a dog being a dog doesn't tend to injure other dogs when they are having a barney. If you want to consider a fight where another dog is injured as acceptable on the grounds that it's "dogs being dogs", then I disagree because I don't think injuring other dogs is typical dog behaviour. I'm talking about physical injuries. A physical injury is a physical injury. As in damage to tissue. I'll make it easy for you and say damage you can find evidence of. I'm hard-pressed to find a mild bruise on a dog. Edited for clarity

I love how people love to come onto these threads and comment that they never go to dog parks. Would you all like a t-shirt, perhaps, that says "And THAT'S why I never go to dog parks!" Vindicated yet again? Does your heart rate pick up every time you see a thread that in some way mentions dog parks as you anticipate another opportunity to proclaim to the world that you are too smart and sensible to use them? Even when no one actually asked you? Or the topic is specifically about what to do when in a dog park? Which you never go to... :D Some of us use them a lot and just don't have a lot of troubles with them. No one ever asks us how we do it. It's not pure luck. Before anyone gets defensive, I'm just poking fun. I've been watching too much Hungry Beast and learning about hate-following. Ask yourselves, are you hate-following? ;)

Yet, I go to dog parks and dog beaches nearly every day and have for the past 3 years, and I could count the fights I've seen without bloodshed on one hand. I couldn't count the dog fights I've seen with bloodshed because I haven't seen any. I've seen one dog with a leg wound after a fight, but never saw the fight. I don't expect fights to happen at dog parks, and rarely see them happen. I think some dog parks have a higher incidence of aggressive altercations than others, but for the most part I have not found fights to be very common. I am always aware that they can happen, and I take steps to calm everyone down if I think we are inching from "unlikely" to "moderately likely" to occur. Incidentally, I've been warned a few times by dog park regulars that have had trouble with a particular dog. It is always a dog and owner new to the park, and they never seem to stick around, even if they seem to think there's nothing wrong with their dog's behaviour. I suspect they know there's something wrong with their dog's behaviour deep down and stop going to the dog park. I know one dog that got into a few harmless arguments in the dog park and is now walked past it on the streets instead. Most people don't like dealing with fighting dogs.

They do, who says? Roger Abrantes, off the top of my head. I'm sure I could find more if I looked. If this wasn't the case, we wouldn't even be able to have dog parks. And I sure as hell would never take my dogs to them if there were even a 50% chance that fights would result in injury. Kivi's good at keeping out of trouble, but Erik not so much. He's good at asking a bit too nicely for a dog to leave him alone and then exploding after the dog ignores him for about the fourth time. I think to some extent we do have to take responsibility for our dogs' tendencies as well. Erik might fly off the handle if a dog knocks him around in play, but only after he's done a lot of wincing and crouching and ears down and looking away and "I really just don't like that" signals. I am really not interested in whether him flying off the handle is appropriate or not. It's not what I want him to get into the habit of doing, so I do my utmost to step in before it gets to that. And I damn well reward him when he communicates in non-aggressive ways. And the couple of times I have been too slow I have apologised to the other dog owner. I could have stopped it if I'd been a bit more alert. It doesn't really matter whether he only did it because the other dog was ignoring him. If he had a shorter fuse there would be certain breeds and mixes I wouldn't let him play with at all. As it is, I move him on pretty quick if he starts playing with a staffy type dog. They often start knocking him around and almost always ignore him asking them to stop. I don't blame them because they are what they are, but I'm not going to stand back and let Erik feel pushed into provoking one and then if he gets himself into trouble, say that he was behaving appropriately. He was, but it won't help him, will it? It's hard to do something if a dog barges right into your dog, but if you see a bouncy staffy mix barreling towards the dog park, well, I'd be calling my dogs in close to me. Wouldn't you? Erik likes to stand between my legs and does it on cue. It's hard for most dogs to barge him when he's got a leg on either side of him. It tends to tone down play situations that are getting too physical as well.

It's basically what cues an animal to behave in a particular way.

But is that emotional state or arousal? I used to refuse to train my corgi with food because she would be silly and would not be able to learn around it. I now have a food obsessive Vallhund and I think I just didn't know how to teach my corgi how to think through her arousal. Or else my Vall is just exceptionally good at it all on his own. :p A distinct possibility!

A "blue" doesn't usually involve injuries that warrant a vet visit. That's really NOT "dogs being dogs". "Dogs being dogs" have blues that are mostly noise. A dangerous dog by definition is likely to cause damage, which this dog did. How can you say that is not dangerous? The husky had to go to the vet!

No doubt I'll get flamed, but I have seen that many staffy type dogs fire up at other dogs telling them 100% appropriately to leave them alone.... I am bloody careful around them. That said, I've met plenty of staffy types with good bite inhibition so when something does happen no one gets hurt.

Dr Sophia Yin has a video that shows her 'rewarding' snarling, and how the dog soon stops snarling because his emotional response has changed: Personally, I'm careful what behaviours I reward when my dogs are under threshold. I reward disengaging from the object of their focus and looking at me. I don't reward things like snarls because if my dogs have got that far they are over threshold and I'm just concerned with getting them to calm down. It's kind of a complicated subject, but I think an easy rule of thumb is that you can't reinforce negative emotional states with food. If a behaviour is driven by a negative emotional state, then 'rewarding' it with food is not going to increase the occurrence of that emotional state. Food comes with its own positive emotional state, which is antagonistic to many things, including fear and play. Bite work isn't usually reinforced with food for a reason.

Mine smells like dead animal on a regular basis, though! He has a talent for finding revolting things to roll in/eat. I think the coat is pretty high maintenance. Mostly mine only sheds twice a year, but he needs brushing every few days and when he gets the runs it's pretty awful. I find long, black hairs in all sorts of unlikely places.

This is a myth, toughgirl27. Maybe Cazwah can post the link to the article on thebark.com. We reinforce behaviour, NOT emotional states. Emotional states drive behaviour. Feeding a dog in a negative emotional state absolutely can create a positive association towards the thing that previously made the dog fearful or aggressive. Once their emotional response to that trigger is changed to a positive one, we usually find that the undesirable fearful or aggressive behaviour vanishes. This is called counter-conditioning. More information here: http://www.theotherendoftheleash.com/thunder-phobia-in-dogs

Probably not! :D As long as you don't go rewarding behaviour you don't want. And you can't really reinforce an emotional state, so if he's scared, then giving him treats probably won't make him worse, same as when you're scared, getting a chocolate doesn't make you feel more scared. Most of the time aggressive behaviour stems from fear in one way or another. Sometimes it sure doesn't look like it, though, especially if you have a proactive little dog that has this "I'll get them before they can do something I won't like" attitude. They will look confident when they are acting aggressively, but if you put distance between them and the scary thing, all the anxious body language comes out. If you're ever in doubt, getting more distance between your dog and the thing he's barking at is a good first step. It can just take things down a few notches and give you both a chance to think and take things more slowly.

Hang in there, Astrid.