BrittanyMay

Onto day two of the TOT. First meal - Whined and yelled and then she settled down to just watching it. After a while I said her name, marked it and let her go. Second meal - much the same. Third meal - looked at the food for a few seconds, no whining, then looked at me. These Danes are quick learners. Day two - this morning she looked at the food for a second, then up at me. She is sitting on her own now when she looks at me, I assume because of the 'wait' training I did with her before I started the TOT. Second meal - she looked straight at me, didn't even look at her food.

Okay, so I am halfway through the TOT article I and I've realised that what I'm doing isn't TOT at all... I'll start the proper TOT when I give her breakfast to her.

Okay so for the toys - Call her to me, but before she grabs hold of the toy, say out and offer the other one before she grabs the first toy. And then for the tug... in the middle of the tug game, say out and offer another toy? I have done some TOT when I first got her, I tied her up, put the food down and wated unil she looked at me and sat, and then I gave it to her. No she waits for the command to eat, off the lead. I tell her 'sit' and 'wait' and then I set the food down, and make her wait for a few seconds, somtimes 30 seconds, usually only like 5 seconds, I tell her 'okay' and walk inside. She gets fed outside when no one is there usually, this was the first time in a while I have worked with her while she was eating.

So I used to play tug with Lacey when she was itty bitty, but recently she started to pull really hard, almost pulling me over sometimes so I would just let go whenever she started to pull. Now when I try and take a toy or item she has randomly picked up that she isn't allowed to have, she started growling and trying to play tug. How should I stop this? If she has something bad for her, I need to be able to get it off her ASAP. If I throw another toy for her, the dope runs over there with the thing still in her gob and trys to pick it up with it still in her mouth, she doesn't drop it. And also I was just feeding her and dropping ham into her food and patting her and stuff, as a request from mum to get her used to being handled while eating, even though she probably won't ever be in a situation where someone else will be touching her while she is eating. I've managed to get her to be fine with someone handling her body and was working on her head. Well I was dropping ham into her kibble, I had my hand in front of her face and could pat her on top of her head, and she was fine, wagging her tail slowly when I was just gradually moving my hand around the side of her face when out of nowhere she barked and whipped her face to the side where my hand was, it was so fast I couldn't even tell if she snapped. As soon as I moved my hand away she was wagging again. What should I do? Seriously rattled my confidence, I could've easily been bitten like that little girl with the Lab.

Lacey the great Dane, twelve weeks...

Lacey is just changing over to Eukanuba at the moment.

Wow, some scary stuff in this thread. I'm glad I live on acreage, not the 'burbs.

I love reading about Elbie's endeavours - he seems like a joy to have around, and you seem like very dedicated owners. Keep up the great posts!