Skye GSD

Steve Courtney from K9 Pro is coming to Perth - Saturday October 12th (Training in Drive) & Sunday October 13th (Life Skills & Relationship Development). Anyone interested in attending, please pm me with email address and I will forward the information. There will be handler spots and spectator spots but spaces will be extremely limited so please advise asap. Steve will also be available for private consults on the Friday.

I would like to ask "how many of the above posters have ever received an intentional-bite from a large breed dog??". The reason I ask is that until you have, you would have no idea of the damage that can be inflicted with just one bite, let alone a sustained attack. A nip during training or a puppy bite that can draw blood is NOTHING compared to an intentioned bite. I know this as I broke up a fight between my daughter's GSD and my own GSD - the bite was meant for my dog but unfortunately got my hand in a full pressure bite instead. After an operation, six days in hospital and to date six months of physio, the nerve damage is still there and will possibly take 12 mths or more to mend. The thought of a sustained attack on anyone by any large breed dog, let alone three, makes me go cold! Irrespective of breed, the dogs that attacked this man (and the person that came to his aid) have no place in our society. My utmost sympathy goes out to the jogger - his physical injuries sound horrific, let's not forget the mental ones that will be there as well.

Unless the import laws for dogs have changed in NZ, all dogs are subject to quarantine upon arrival so you would not have your dog with you for your holiday anyway. There is no quarantine period for dogs coming in to Australia from NZ. We brought our GSD with us nine years ago from NZ and the cost was $1500 - one way.

Invest in a dog pen/run - that way you can give him all the toys/kongs etc.. and know he is contained so he cannot destroy things that are not his.

I totally agree with Cosmolo - keep working on his focus at home and if you have it there, take baby steps to the front yard, down the street, then to an oval or training ground with minimum distractions. If at any stage along the way you lose his interest (and I don't mean he has to be looking at you the whole time!)just say "sorry" and head home again. It took me eight months of baby steps to get back to a club scene and to say this was fustrating at times is an understatement but it worked. For some dogs their highest reward (or fear)is distractions or other dogs so you need to minimise these while you work on your relationship outside the home environment. I, too, spent more time outside a training class than in it so to take a step back and concentrate on just our partnership has been the best thing I could have done.

Wow that is amazing in these temperatures - lucky dog and lucky owner :-) Returned in dubious circumstances with change of collar and not hungry but hey!! - awesome outcome.

Words fail me re this tragic situation. Huge hugs from WA.

Alpine - Siberian Husky - FOUND and returned to ecstatic owners six long days later

Just in case anyone is in the Bunbury/Dalyellup/Capel area my granddaughter's dog is missing - any sightings would be greatly appreciated. Alpine is a 10yr old, speyed Siberian Husky.

My post was not intended as an advertisment but merely to show where we have come from. I commend hankdog and others on here that are seeking to improve their dogs (and their own) lives and sometimes that journey takes us in many directions. I was also not referring to hankdog taking Jake to offleash parks - merely that it is something I can never do with Skye. If there was any suggestion I would give it would be to eliminate all contact with other dogs until the focus/obedience has been trained at home, front yard, down the road, park with no distractions then the outskirts of a training club - all this takes months of training but is totally worth it in the end.

I would be avoiding all other dogs and concentrating on focus/obedience. Make yourself his sole source of fun and forget trying to sociaiise him until you achieve control. My girl was extremely reactive to the point where she would bark and lunge at another dog from across the oval. I contacted Steve Courtney from K9Pro and with the introduction of a prong collar and his Loose Leash Walking program, eighteen months later Skye is now the poster girl at my training club for what you can achieve with strong leadership. Every week we have owners turning up with reactive/aggressive dogs that have been "expelled" from other clubs due to their disruptiveness and I feel their pain because I have walked that same road. It is not something that can be fixed overnight but through baby steps. Patience is not my strongest virtue and there were some days on our journey that I thought we would never get a handle on it but when people tell me I can't do something (several trainers told me to give her up to the police force as she was too strong for me and I would never make a pet dog out of her) my determination kicks in. I will never take Skye to a leash-free park or beach but she does have other dogs that she "plays" with on a regular basis. I should also add that Skye is now trained in a group situation on a martingale collar. She will always have a reactive streak if pushed by another dog but the bond we have created over the past eighteen months is nothing short of awesome compared to where we have come from and a simple "leave it" command is enough to stop any unwanted behaviour. Hang on in there - change your behaviourist if you are not seeing any improvement or getting any encouragement. You can buy all the books in the world but to spend money on a good behaviourist with an open mind to training is, in my opinion, the only way to go with dogs like ours.

100% :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: Totally agree. I personally know two women who have GSD's that can be over-reactive and both have admitted that they have had to drop the leash to prevent themselves getting dragged. This totally infuriates me as I believe if you cannot take the steps to control your dog (ANY DOG) then you shouldn't have one. We all have a right to walk our dogs without the fear of being rushed or attacked. However, it appears a lot of these dog attacks are coming from loose dogs that are escaping yards and I believe all dog owners (and prospective dog owners) should have to be licensed and premises checked for adequate containment/housing.

Well said Grumpette

I am still upset after watching the interview on TV last night. My husband is retired and has a maltese/shitzu who he walks every morning. Fortunately we don't have many problems with loose dogs but I am always warning him to be on his guard. There will always be the people who debate the small dogs vs large dogs behaviour but it does not permit an owner to condone any attack on another dog - irrespective of size or breed.

Adrenalin takes over - most people would do what they could to save their own dog - I know I would, even if it meant getting bitten myself I could not stand by and do nothing. The TV interview with the owner was heartwrenching.

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/wa/15315134/grandma-bites-vicious-dog/ My worst fear in meeting unleashed/roaming dogs. So much sympathy for the woman, who will have nightmares for years to come, and her beloved dog.

I cannot help but wonder how this would all have played out if the victim had been a child of a prominent AFL player?????

I don't think we should judge the father's comment too harshly - he was obviously in shock and people usually come out with statements that portray their mindset at the time. God forbid it ever happens to me because my statement would probably go along the lines of "give me a gun and I will personally kill that ********** dog - and the ******* owner is next in line". But we are not in that position and hopefully never will be.

As a BT owner I totally agree with you and I do exactly what you do. I don't allow my dogs anywhere near unknown dogs - people probably think I'm very unfriendly but when another dog is coming the other way, I move as far away as possible. While I'm very confident of the temparament of my dogs, I still don't take chances because it's not worth it. Totally agree with above comments - unknown dogs with unknown temperaments = recipe for disaster. So hoping for good recovery for the poor puppy and his owner. My GSD can still be reactive and I have lost count of the number of times people have approached me with their dog with the common greeting "my dog is friendly" to which my reply is always "mine is not!!". Not always a good line to make new friends but they usually get the message.

Bull Terriers are not that big but they are extremely powerful. I was so upset seeing this on the TV news as it highlights the dangers that new puppy owners can put their dogs in to without realising. Just because your own dog is great with other dogs (or it is a puppy) does not guarantee its safety around other dogs. I am not an advocate for BSL but strongly believe that there should be dire consequences for owners of dogs that injure others. No mention of what the offending dog's owner did to help the poor girl and pup - only hope he comes to the party and pays for vet & doctor bills and then seeks help for his obviously dog-aggressive dog.

We have a Maltese/Shitzu de-sexed bitch (18mths) and she humps the end of my bed cover that reaches to the ground. She will stop as soon as I catch her (verbal or tap with foot usually does it...lol!!) and I have never seen her do this to anything else.

If he is ball mad then I would suggest buying a magnetic ball from K9Pro and attaching (by pinning the spare magnet) on your left shoulder. Use this as your training aid by tugging in class or a training scenario and with the use of a long line, you can play fetch. Skye was neither food nor toy/ball driven in a class situation but found the "button" with a flirt pole and tugging. It has taken 12 months but we are now back in to a class situation and training with tug/magnetic ball and food around other dogs. If she does lose focus then I up the reward system with tugging. She is also trained to retrieve the ball or tug from my shoulder but only after completing known commands and being released to get her "reward". Ziggy is only 11 months old so I wouldn't be expecting total focus in a one hour class let alone a two hour one.

I understand that most of us are working with professionals and I ,for one, do not handle delayed gratification easily. You think you have a handle on some small step that you are taking and try to push the limit only to take three back and have to start again. I have also made many mistakes on our journey and will no doubt make many more so I in no way mean to demean others who have done the same.

Guys - I run the risk of getting shot down here but I cannot understand why you would even contemplate taking your dogs to a dog park or any park that is frequented by other dog owners where you would run the risk of putting your dog in exactly the reactive situation you are trying to control. I know where you are all coming from and we each have our own problems which, although lumped together as "reactive dog owners" (or special needs dogs as was the handle we got from a breed specific club!!),lends itself to different training techniques to get us over these hurdles. Skye was so bad that she would bark and lunge at another dog across the other side of the oval and there was no way I could walk past another dog on the other side of the road. With the awesome guidance of Steve Courtney at K9Pro I am now assisting in a class situation with Skye on a down stay (not tied) while I help individual puppy handlers. To achieve this I refrained from all dog interaction and concentrated on focus. Without it, your dogs cannot learn and it has taken us twelve months to get where we are today using baby steps. Even now, Skye can still react to the odd dog but because we have spent so much one-on-one time together, I can read her and stop it before it escalates. I have no desire to enter a dog park for exactly the reasons everyone has stated on here - other people have no idea what it is like to own a reactive dog and we really shouldn't blame them for that - there was a time when we didn't either. It is up to us to manage our dogs and not put them in a situation where, should it go pear-shaped, you can guarantee we will be the ones with the dangerous dog label.

My daughter's GSD caught her foot on a shorter fence with same palings - she stood up to look over in to the alfresco - and fortunately I heard her yelping from inside and managed to set her free with no injury. I would hate to think of a dog caught 6ft up.