fuzzy82

Thanks for that, will definitely check them out. The closest I have found so far is kind of like the k9pro ones, this one: http://www.dtdogcollars.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=DTHUNVPLUS Except it's not a Y-front. The ruffwear ones looks good too, so I will study them some more and see if they are suitable. It's basically just a training/walking harness, he's reactive so I need a handle to grab him and restrain him as people walk past, and the d-ring at the front would be good to stop pulling (despite my best efforts he still lunges and sometimes runs to the end of the lead) and the Y-front is just because I don't like how the strap across the chest looks like it would restrict movement and be uncomfortable. The patch is just so parents don't send their kids over to pat him as we walk past.

I would like it to be nylon, Y-front, d-ring on top and at the front, handle on top and I would like there to be room for an "in training" patch. Anyone know where I could find something like that? Or alternatively, a place that does custom harnesses?

He stabbed the dog in self defence. We don't know his story, he might have a good reason to be afraid of dogs and then some dog comes running up to him, so he defended himself. My dog is super friendly and I let her off leash in a nearby bush areas regularly, but I always put her back on leash if there are people approaching, and I never let her 'say hello' to strangers unless the stranger initiates it. It's just basic manners, you are always responsible for controlling your animal around other people, no matter what.

Yes, I'd love to know the backstory on this one. Just what was happening before the dog started fighting, or does he have a medical problem. Not because of the breed, but because a pet animal attacking several resident adults known to it without an apparent trigger sounds very unusual. Edited: was posting this when the report of the family fight was reported. I guess that's the trigger somehow. Poor dog. It did have a trigger. Dogs are pack animals. Very likely it saw the fighting of the men as an opportunity to join in the fight and gain rank. If humans in the house do not manage to hold the respected position of pack leader, a dog will very well try to be pack leader whatever it takes. Rubbish, dogs do not spend all their time planning how they can take over human households. "dominance" is an intra-species term, and doesn't even make sense when applied to inter-species relationships. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Am8PadXbVYQJ:www.4pawsu.com/dominancemyth.pdf+%22moving+beyond+the+dominance+myth%22&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a

Why not crate him downstairs during the day as well? It's what I did, I have one crate in the bedroom. Doesn't hurt him to be away from you for a few hours during the day.

They didn't used to in Qld (was ok in other states) but Qld do now! You need to register here as an Associate with the ANKC. I would not do any agility or flyball with a dog with knee issues. The stress of training is much the same as the stresses in trialling - you just don't do it as often. It's too big an ask on an unsound dog IMO and is likely to lead to further soundness issues. Have you considered a surgical correction for your pup's knees? Wow, I didn't realise they allow mixed breeds now. Yay:) As for agility, I am very aware of it, but her knee issues are very mild, almost not even gradable by the vet, and we are only doing it for fun and will be doing running contact to reduce impact as much as possible. Also, I believe that keeping her active is better than restricting activity. And yes, they will both probably have surgery, but my poodle x's knees are not bad enough to consider it yet, and my puppy is only 9 months, so I will wait and see how his knees develop and reassess when he's finished growing.

I have just started the NDTF course to become a dog trainer. I also have a Cert I in Animal Studies. My dogs are mostly pets, but my oldest poodle x has done a lot of obedience stuff. I was hoping to do formal obedience with her until I realised they don't allow mixed breeds. Hopefully we can do rally-o. She also starts agility in June, but that will be just for fun, as she has bad knees. My puppy has done a lot of obedience stuff and tricks, and will start agility or flyball when he's old enough. Unfortunately it looks like he has bad knees too, so we will probably only do sports for fun, not trialling.

Tugging can be trained. If he's motivated by food, mark and reward for any tug at all. Soon enough the tugging becomes self reinforcing.

If you've never used a clicker I would start with something REALLY easy. Dogs that aren't clicker trained from puppyhood have trouble offering new behaviours. With my poodle x it took 6 months before she started offering behaviours, before that she would always get stuck in a 'down' and not move for 15 minutes. I started clicker training her when I got her at 12 months. My puppy has been clicker traines since I got him, and I can have a new trick on cue in about 15 minutes, but they have to be pretty clicker savvy to get to that. Even he needed 25 minutes before he would roll over (spread out over 4 sessions). My poodle x still struggles, even though she understands the concept. It can take her several days just to understand what behaviour I want.

I never had any preconceived ideas about poodles because I had a toy poodle as a child and she was the greatest dog ever. Funny, smart, obedient etc. She's the one who made me decide to adopt a poodle x when I got my first dog as an adult last year. (I don't like the show cuts though, I think they look a bit silly). It's only since I started hanging out with other dog people that I have noticed that poodles don't generally behave well, they seem neurotic and nippy and a bit anti-social, which I was surprised at because it's not compatible with the image I had in my head. But of course it's not a breed thing, it's probably a combination of bad breeding and bad training. I did have some weird thoughts about JRT's, that they were completely mad and would not sit still and need hours of mental and physical exercise every day. I had promised myself I would never get one, but then a foster carer I contacted about a different puppy (which had already been adopted out) talked me into adopting a JRT x puppy she had. And now I really love the JRT personality. I realise my puppy might be a slightly toned down version of JRTs, but I would be happy to get a purebred JRT in the future.

I was told my student pack would be sent last Friday, but still haven't received it today. Bit disappointed because I am anxious to get started on it... I have emailed them about it today. Does anyone know the exact location of the block training? I read it somewhere but I can't find it now..

We went to Teamwork at Carseldine last year:) They are pretty good, but don't allow clickers in class for some reason. I also found that they focus more on obedience stuff than socialisation, and because the area isn't fenced in the puppies don't really get to socialise much. At the start of the class there is off leash socialisation, but if your dog needs a few minutes to get into a playing mood, it misses out. (Which was the case with my puppy) But don't get me wrong, I liked the classes there and the instructors are friendly and good. We also did puppy classes at PADS ( http://www.pads.org.au/ ) which I thought were better. They encourage the use of clickers, the instructors are friendly and very good, and the whole area is fenced in and only accessible to members of the club, so it's safer from a disease point of view. Being fenced in this also means that most of the classes are done off leash, so you get to work on off leash control, and inbetween exercises the puppies can run around and play.

I think neutralisation is a bit sad. It's basically saying that the dog doesn't get to have any reinforcement from it's environment (ie having fun) and that all reinforcement comes from the owner. I guess the dog doesn't know any better because it has never experienced anything different, but I think it's sad. Dogs should be allowed to be dogs, and have fun and play with other dogs. They are not robots that hang around for our pleasure. You can socialise your dog and let them have fun and play with other people and dogs and still have a dog that is highly focused on the handler. It's all in the training. And if socialising means they are slightly less focused on me (which I am not convinced of) then I would rather accept that and let them have fun than taking away their fun for the sake of getting them to focus entirely on me.

Right, thanks:)

I don't understand why a 'training collar should be high up on the neck'? The statement has been made twice now.... My dogs wear flat collars around the house, and when possible we train off leash (still wearing their flat collars), if we have to train on leash the leash is kept loose. Why does it matter where on the neck the collar is?

Obi (JRT x) has just turned 9 months old, and the last few days I have noticed he seems to lift his back legs a lot when we're out walking. I probably didn't notice before because I have previously had him on a normal walking lead, but the last few days I have taken him out on a tracking lead, so he's running ahead of me. He does it with both back legs, probably about every 10 steps or so. My 19 month old has mild luxating patellas, and she doesn't do it nearly as much as him. So naturally I am worried due to his young age... Is there a chance they could improve as he grows? Is there anything I can do to help? At what age would they consider surgery on him? I will of course have my vet check him, but a bit low on funds right now so it will have to wait a couple of weeks...

Really? The service in Australia is friendlier and better than in any other country hubby and I have been to. Our experience is that Aussies complain a lot more than other places too. But I agree, definitely write a complaint. I would.

I would have asked the kids where their parent were and then gone and sworn at them. I wouldn't be using language around kids of that age. It's not their fault, but the fault of the ignorant adults who allowed them to be in that situation. I wonder if you have kids and if you would appreciate another adult yelling at them in that fashion. I didn't deliberately loose it at them, I had just seen my 4.5 kg dog attacked by their 40 kg dog, so I was pretty upset. They decided to make a run for it after I asked them repeatedly where they lived and said I wanted to talk to their parents, and I had to run after them to find out where they lived, and I did have a word with their father about it. I didn't swear at him though, I had calmed down slightly by then. If he had been the one walking the dog and not able to control, I would have sworn at him instead. And btw, they knew that their dog doesn't like small dogs, because I used to be an Avon rep for my area, and I chatted to the wife once and she told me the dog doesn't like small dogs and had been behaving weirdly since they moved to this street, and they still let their kids walk it. I don't have kids, but if I did and they did something stupid in my absence I would expect them to get yelled at. I grew up knowing that if there was an adult around and I did something stupid, they would tell me, despite not knowing them. Not like today when people can't handle any stranger correcting their kid for anything, and get their knickers in a knot over it.

How scary:( I lost it at a 12 and 9 year old when they were out walking a big dog they had no control over and it attacked my little poodle x. I swore at them and asked them what the f they were doing walking a dog they had no control over and various other things. I would lose it any time someone's dog attack my dogs due to their stupidity.

Seriously? Aren't you supposed to be a dog trainer? First of all, I would never recommend using pain or discomfort to punish a puppy. Secondly, puppies mouth, it's what they do, it's natural, it's like the stage that human toddlers go through where they put everything in their mouth. Thirdly, the only way a dog can learn bite inhibition is by being allowed to mouth. You only react when they bite so hard that it hurts, and then say 'ow' and end the game, get up and leave the room, use time outs etc. There is no need to use pain and discomfort to train a puppy, and if there is no need, why choose that method?

I actually really dislike luring, I have come to realise it triples the work load of teaching a new behaviour/adding a cue compared to marker training. You pretty much become dependant on either a lure or a hand signal. When I taught my dogs to walk next to me, I just used a clicker and clicked whenever they were next to me. That way you don't become dependant on any body or hand signal, and and the dog offers the behaviour on its own.

Have you tried only putting her in when she's really tired, and then covering the crate with a blanket? My puppy always used to cry in his crate, but putting a blanket over it made a huge difference. At first I had to hang around the crate for a couple of minutes and then sneak out of the room really quietly, but these days I just throw a sheet over the crate and walk out and he's fine.

It's not exactly a new or unknown problem, there are actually some reacue groups that rehome just the blacks. http://www.blackpearldogs.com/ Blacks make up a substantial proportion of greyhounds (I can't remember the exact percentage but it's over 60%) and the blacks have always been the hardest for us to rehome. I actually have a small pile of applications on my desk right now, all of them set aside because they wanted "unusual" or "pretty" or "rare" coloured dogs (sadly, those are some of the actual words used in the applications)- and the current foster girl is just black. The colours people prefer in greyhounds seem to be fawn and blue, in particular, parti colour fawn or blues. We've actually only ever had two parti dogs, one of those was white with black (although she was cat-safe so rehomed very quickly) and the other was white and fawn (the greyhound on the right in my signature) but she failed small dog testing twice and was not suitable for rehoming. It's really quite disappointing that people would still prefer looks over temperament, our current foster is a lovely girl (very intelligent, gets along beautifully with other dogs and she's very people-oriented) but as soon as you tell people what colour she is, the interest in her disappears completely. I actually think black is the prettiest colour on greyhounds... how sad:(

Both black dogs and black cats have a hard time getting adopted. I think it's partially because they are very common and people tend to pick the animal that stands out (say if you have a litter of 5 brown ones and one white one, the white one will be the first to go), and also because people tend to think big black dogs look a bit scary.

I am doing the course too:) I haven't received the package yet, as they had made some typos on the student agreement, so they have just sent me a new one today and said they would put my package in the mail today.