Simply Grand

I know nothing will change your mind Amax but a prong collar is not the ONLY way to train a GSD. Yes, they have breed specific traits but they are still dogs and the science of behaviour still applies. Plenty of GSDs can be trained with a head collar or a flat collar or whatever tool. Anyway, skip, as I said, you're doing a great thing, hopefully you can convince your friend to seek another opinion, but also remember, it's her responsibility ultimately, not yours :)

Skip, I think you're doing really well trying to help your friend. And absolutely, confident walking of the dog will help. It doesn't quite sound like they've found the right solution for this particular dog and owner though. Pulling on the clothes and whatever the issue is with balls, it sounds a bit to me like she's not quite on top of it. Which is fair enough, a strong willed dog, especially a guardian breed, is quite likely to push the limits but also needs plenty of stimulation to be happy! Her current behaviourist may be really helpful, but I'm not sure about tying a frustrated adolescent to the clothesline personally...maybe another opinion would be valuable? Others have mentioned K9 Pro, I've not had experience with them personally in real life but have heard good things, and have great respect for huski on this forum (Bec) who works there. Could be worth trying to get your friend to contact them :)

Is Sid deaf? I never knew that. Assuming that is what you mean, there is a deaf Dally who comes to our local dog park sometimes, I know full well she's deaf but I always talk away to her like I do to all the other dogs :laugh: I catch myself and feel like calling over to her owners that I do know she's deaf, I just can't help myself

Deidre is the owner/breeder of the sire of my Aussie Shepherd. She also owns my girl's sister and currently has a litter from her. I actually haven't met her personally but she mentored my girl's breeder through their litter(s) and they did a great job, and the parents were definitely much loved pets :) ETA - and they definitely did all the relevant health testing of my girl's parents and provided me with copies of the results.

Hah yeah I have always talked to the dogs but find myslef talking to random object like the fridge etc as I go about my day. I think it is hereditary... i always thought mum was nuts when she did it, and now I am turning into her haha My family all think I'm a bit ridiculous with how i talk to the dogs, but i think they appreciate it! I had one of my pet sitting clients with a rescue dog that used to be used for breeding in a puppy farm. The dog was always very anxious, and the lady was getting to the end of her tether. She ended up getting a "pet psychic" to find out what was wrong (interesting option!) The psychic told the owner that the dog was scared of being abandoned, and never knew if the owner was going to come back when she went out to work etc. The owner was instructed that she needed to make sure she told the dog the schedule of the day, and when she would be home so that the dog wouldn't worry. Apparently, this made a huge difference, and it was part of the instructions while I was looking after the dog that i had to let her know i would be back in the afternoon etc etc :) From what I recall, Little Gifts had a similar experience with her Tempeh, worked for her too (hence Tempeh gets told all about the plans for the day :) )

Wow, great progress Terri I'm really impressed with your progress, she sounds like such a good dog to work with :) Now that she's getting the hang of it I'd look at changing your reward schedule a bit to start to show her that now you want a little bit more from her, not just stopping when she feels the pressure on the lead but actually not getting to the point of pressure on the lead. So I would do lots of mark and reward with treats when she is doing nice loose lead walking - so not when she hits the end of the lead and stops but while she's just walking along. Then reduce the value of the rewards she's getting for stopping and coming back to you when she does hit the end of the lead - so rather than a treat every time for that she gets just a 'good girl' and now we walk on. You can mix that bit up, so when she does it in a low distraction environment you can even just start walking again without saying anything (which is rewarding in itself, moving's more fun than staying still!) and use praise while she's walking along nicely. You still want to give her the higher value food reward fairly regularly when she stops and comes back to you in higher distraction environments so she doesn't slip back to pulling being more rewarding for her. So you're using your different levels of rewards to show her yes, that's good that you're stopping when you feel that pressure, but what I REALLY want you to do is maintain that nice loose lead :) You've had pretty quick progress really so far so don't put too much pressure on yourself or Didi!

that cracked me up, I can just imagine it!

Definitely true. We also don't actually know whether the person has had one lesson or ten at this stage, so they may well need a different trainer but maybe the current one just hasn't had a chance yet.

Exactly! A head collar (whichever type) isn't supposed to be about correction or 'fixing' anything in itself, it's to allow a handler who doesn't have the physical strength to hold onto a dog the leverage (as huski said) to hold the dog in position so it can't lunge and can't self reward by pulling. That's all. The rest of the training is basically the same as you would do teaching any dog loose lead walking on a flat collar or anything else. And yes, without that training a dog can easily learn to pull through any tool.

Yes, good point. Skip, do you know if the trainer recommended something? I certainly agree now's the time to make sure they have really good help learning to control a GSD! And I do worry about people using a tool like a head collar without understanding all the additional training techniques you need to use with it.

We don't actually know what the current trainer and behaviourist have advised though.

Oh, sorry I don't know why I thought she wasn't food driven! I think it's from reading that you've been using the game of fetch with her, I thought she must be more toy focussed. Do you do much in the way of self control and settling exercises with her? I wonder if you could teach her more of a calm, focused state rather than the really alert, drivey one it sounds like she is generally in at the moment. With shelter dogs we often do a lot of things like leave the food, wait at the gate, stay, and even the 'do nothing' exercise, which is literally attach a lead, human sits in a chair with a foot on the lead so the dog can sit and stand but not jump around and then ignore the dog for as long as it takes for it to really stop trying to do anything and just lie down and relax. One session can go for an hour and the reward the dog gets then is calm attention (pats and praise). The aim of all of these is basically to show the dog that you can try whatever you like but all I'm going to do is cover the food/close the gate/put you back in stay/ignore you until your brain calms down. This is in conjunction with other more 'active' training of specific behaviours but we find that the self control stuff helps them slow down their reactions a bit so with things like prey drive / reactivity to moving things you have longer to catch and distract them because their brain has learned to slow down and think a bit before reacting. Helps with dog aggression too.

The Petlife Halti brand head collar is a different shape to the Gentle Leader so could be worth trying too. If your friend is comfortable using a head collar AND knows how to use it properly I think it would be more useful than a front attach harness on an already pulling GSD.

He relies way too much on "energy" IMO and whilst he may be able to get away with it most of the time, he endangers other people by telling them to do the same thing. I bet there are a hell of a lot of close calls and even bites that don't get shown or publicised.

BCC, sorry I haven't read back through to remind myself, but are you hand feeding Stella? As in she never gets any food that doesn't come from focussing on you? It's a way to build value in food for non-food driven dogs, as well as focus on the person who provides that food. Whatever other drives they have, food is very primal for dogs and unless they are really unwell they will eventually work for it. It can be a long process but if it isn't something you have tried it may be worth looking into.

Can I post this on the Canberra Lost Pets Database Facebook page, if it isn't already?

They seem to be a bit nicer than some of the privately owned rentals too, newer, better maintained etc, and more secure for you as a tenant so if you can get one, I would do it. Jerrabomberra (next to Queanbeyan, right outside Canberra but in NSW) has quite a lot of them I think.

Did they go ahead with speying her Tess? Or are you waiting til she's finished this season? Either way, I agree that it's a good idea to keep feeding them separately and keeping a very close eye on them together for a while yet until all the hormones settle down and they adjust to the pups being gone so you can see how they interact when life goes back to 'normal' :)

Happy birthday Renae! She sure is a tough little lady. They are so adorable sharing that yummy cake, I love Miah's face in the first pic, it's like she's saying "but, but, but... can I have some cake?" :laugh:

I wonder whether losing your older boy just around the same time she was attacked made the impact of both that much more on little Allison? Not that there was anything that could be done to avoid that timing unfortunately Have you seen a good veterinary behaviourist for options to help her? There may not be much left to try but a vet behaviourist can sometimes recommend a combination of medication and a behaviour modification program that helps in severe separation anxiety cases. Regardless of that, I would think bringing in an easy going male could work quite well with your two girls. I personally think the individual dog is more important than gender but it can be hard to know exactly how they will fit in especially with a puppy so if you can take out one risk factor of females together then why not :) I had two desexed boys who had a very settled relationship between them and when looking for a third, who would be a larger breed, I went for a female as I thought there was a better chance of the boys accepting a larger female than larger male if it chose to assert itself over them. Of course that's exactly what happened, at 5 months old she decided she might like to be the "boss" and I think the boys definitely accepted it better than they would have from a male.

I moved from Canberra to Queanbeyan a year ago to find somewhere affordable that would take three dogs. I found that there were many more pet friendly rentals here at the time than actually in Canberra. And there are heaps of dogs around, every third house has one and you see people walking them around town all the time. Very convenient for the airport too :) Oh, and as mentioned, you wouldn't need a permit for more than three dogs. Different atmosphere to Canberra though, more country townish, so if you're looking for something a bit more metropolitan after Darwin you might want to go closer in to one of the Canberra town centres (not that it's anything like a 'real' city :laugh: ). We shall have to have a welcome doggy get together when you get here!

It really just doesn't occur to many people that it might be an issue. I'm pretty sure I must have given treats to other dogs without asking when I was new to the world of dogs. People tend to feel mean if dogs are there looking cute and they don't give them a treat too, and they see no harm in it. It's not really their fault, they genuinely don't know any better. I agree with Yonjuro that the best thing we can do is try and politely educate. Re. the airlock entries, I think they are essential and they have them on all the local dog parks here but quite a few times I've seen several people go into the airlock with their dogs together. It scares the cr*p out of me, unknown dogs and humans in such a small space together, either on lead or being put on lead, with no escape route. Again, people just don't realise the risk

Thanks SG, I agree the best thing is to take your own dog away for the immediate vicinity. Our job is protect ours first. Yep. And really, a lot of situations escalate really fast because as soon as there's a bit of growling all the over-aroused dogs and screaming humans rush into the fray and escalate things. If everyone learned to call all the dogs away right at the start, many problems could be avoided I actually remember a fight not that long ago when I had 4 dogs at the park (my 3 plus foster pup) and all the dogs bar mine were nearish the entrance as a new dog entered - there was a slow motion period where I could see the conflict brewing but none of the dogs had made a sound yet, it was still all sniffing. I used that slow motion second to call my four straight to me and scoop up (15kg) foster puppy. By the time I'd done that the fight was on. I would have loved to say to the other owners "trouble's brewing, get your dogs" but there wasn't time for both Definitely preferable than trying to pull what would have been an additional, pack driven, group of four out of the fight though. I think it's really important (and i know other DOLers talk about it too) people understand those kind of dynamics between their own dogs and other people's Good discussion thread Yonjuro :laugh:

Good boy Ronin :) my most valued move at the dog park now after 5 years of regular attendance - my dogs don't get in the middle of groups and ANY tiny sound of conflict between ANY dogs and I immediately recall them and get the hell out (well, away from the crowd). However much I often want to assist, I know keeping my dogs away is the best thing I can do.

Oh dear. Apparently someone brought not one but her TWO in season bitches to our local dog park not long ago. The guy telling me about it said all the other dogs were being really weird and kept scuffling and it was only as the woman left that she said "oh my girls are in season, maybe that had something to do with it..." I commented she was lucky she didn't get anyone's dog killed.