fuzzy82

That is silly, it's not like the options are breeder vs pet store/byb. There are rescues and shelters that you could go to, heeler x's seem to be pretty common.

I see nothing wrong with mixing breeds for the sake of coming up with a new breed. Of course I don't agree with the designer dog fad, the only way I could accept it is if they have a plan and do the necessary health testing. But that's how a lot of breeds came to be, so we can't say it should never be done.

I always cover my puppy's crate with a sheet or blanket, it makes him heaps calmer. On his first day here everything good happened in the crate, he was fed treats and meals in there, played with his toys, encouraged to go in for a pat etc. We didn't close the door at all until nighttime when he was put away (the crate is in our bedroom). He was pretty tired from his big day so he settled pretty quickly, no issues with it at all. Since then he gets put away in his crate for a couple of hours twice a day, both while we are home and while we are out. The first couple of weeks he would cry a little bit for a few minutes and then settle down. Covering the crate was a huge help in getting him to settle in there. Now he loves his crate. He gets a special crate only treat when he gets put away in it. When he hears me getting it out he runs to his crate and sits in it waiting for me to give him his treat and shut the door. He is never put outside on his own, whenever we are out of the house he is crated. We work from home so normally it's only 2-3 hours at a time, but we occasionally go out for 8-10 hours and he is crated the whole time. He is perfectly fine with that, and I also know people whose dogs are crated at night and all day while they are at work. Dogs sleep 16 hours a day anyway, so they just sleep in their crate and are awake in the afternoon/evening when they are let out.

When he starts pulling and won't respond to treats he is 'above threshold'. There is no point trying to teach him anything in that state. To work on it, you need to keep him at a distance where he is below threshold and gradually decrease the distance between you and the other dog. When he is focusing on you, or looking *calmly* at the other dog without pulling, he gets rewarded. If he becomes unresponsive you are too close.

Tugging can be trained, as well as playing in a strange environment. Of course it's easier if the dog loves tugging to begin with, but I wouldn't rule out a dog just because it doesn't like to tug. It's easily trained with a clicker and treats, and then it becomes self-reinforcing.

Not really, but I have been known to say 'go to daddy' when referring to my hubby. I do use baby lingo with all the cats and dogs, and they respond really well to it. Like my JRT x, he gets his nose in a twist if we tell him he has to do something, or if we stop him from doing something, but if I pat him and speak nicely to him he will run over and do it, or stop doing it when asked. My poodle x isn't like that, she stops doing stuff when she's told off.

Actually, Crufts doesn't care much about health and welfare, as long as the dog meets the breed standard then it's all good and that's the most important thing. I think that doesn't promote healthy breeding at all, and it's more important to breed for health that for breed standard looks. Doesn't apply to all breeds of course.

I have taught my dogs to not pull towards a scent, they sit facing it and look back at me, and I release them with 'go sniff'. I did this by simply asking them to sit any time they started pulling towards a scent and then they started doing it on their own. My dogs walk around sniffing everything in reach, I don't care. The only reason we are walking is for their mental and physical stimulation, so it seems unfair to demand that they walk next to me most of the time. That being said, they do walk next to me on cue, I just don't ask them to on walks. The only requirement on walks is that they walk on a loose lead.

I use 'drop it' for dropping what is already in his mouth. His reward is usually to get the object back, so I say drop it, he drops object, he gets a treat or a scratch, then he gets the object back. So he's much more inclined to drop the object, because he knows he doesn't ALWAYS lose it. Leave it is for stuff he's just looking at or moving towards, things he can never have. Once I have told him to leave something, it means 'don't ever touch it, ever', so I wouldn't use that to practice with toys etc.. If it's something really smelly it's better to get him before he picks it up. So I would work on 'drop it' and let him get it back most of the time. Then when you do need him to drop something, he will do it because he thinks he's getting it back. Then you can remove the dog or remove the yucky thing and be on your way. It will still work, because most of the time he gets the object back.

I disagree, I think one of the most important things a dog can learn is bite inhibition, and the only way to learn it is to let it mouth you as a puppy. Dogs are always mouthing each other in play, it's natural and good for them, and 99.9% of the time there is no harm done, except when one of the dogs was simply taught 'never' to bite as a puppy, and so never learnt bite inhibition. I let my puppy mouth me. He used to be rough, now he's gentle all the time. It never hurts. As a result, he's also super gentle with both the other dog and our little kitten. Our kitten will pounce on him and grab him and bite him, and he will just nuzzle her and he's mouthy when he plays with her, but he never bites her and has never hurt her. Eventually he will learn that he should never mouth humans, but if he ever lashes out at a kid, bite inhibition will kick in and he will not do any damage.

But docking and cropping are NOT done as a preventative, they are done because they 'look good'. And it was originally done for looks, not as a preventative. I know people with boxers and dobes that don't have any trouble with their tails or ears, so just because someone has one that keeps injuring its tail doesn't mean they should ALL be docked. My cat keeps injuring her tail too, but I'm not gonna have it cut off. If you really hate the tails and ears so much, breed them differently. Breed for strong tails that don't get injured as easily (even though I am not convinced that their tails are more easily injured, it could be an individual thing that SOME dogs are more prone to tail injuries regardless of breed) and breed for upright ears. Why breed for floppy ears and then have them cut off? Wouldn't you want to avoid cutting off body parts if you can?

Dogs don't generalise well, so chances are he just doesn't realise he's not supposed to pee in this house. Just go back to basics with him, supervise, take him outside regularly and reward when he goes outside.

Really? Try telling that to Husky owners :-). People who don't like dogs (for whatever reason) have the right to walk down a street and not encounter an off leash dog. I would love to see dogs being more a part of the family, but I draw the line at letting them roam everywhere off leash! I have a dog that was used as a breeding bitch at a puppy farm. She doesn't like off lead dogs approaching her. I don't want to live in a society where I can't take her for a walk down the street without a "oh, he's friendly" off leash dog approaching her. This is where dog owners can be their own worst enemy. Instead of asking for something with a little restraint, we want our dogs to go everywhere. All the time. Off leash. And then we wonder why people balk. ETA: I don't want our roads paved in shit like Paris either. Give me Finland any day! They don't "run around everywhere" because they are off leash. They usually walk calmly 2-5 metres in front of their owner, and stop when asked and return to the owner when asked to. They are really not offensive at all despite being off leash, no more than any trained dog on a long leash would be. And they ignore strangers, they are not allowed to run up to strangers, that would not be accepted at all, because like you said it could be someone who doesn't like or is scared of dogs, or a young child etc etc. If another dog was approaching they would call the dog to them and it would walk in heel position until it was determined whether meeting the other dog was ok or not. Dogs do not run wild over there just because they are off leash. That is the whole point, they CAN be off leash because they behave the way they should. Your opinion is influenced by the Aussie dogs you have met. Where I am from dogs are not allowed inside cafes. They are allowed outside cafes as long as they are quiet and calm, and on trains/buses, and of course you have to clean up after them. Even if they poo on the pavement, it doesn't matter, because it gets picked up. People generally don't pick up dog poo around here, I see dog poo regularly whenever I leave the house, that never happened when I was living in Europe, another thing I noticed when I moved here.

I agree with this. I am not from Finland, but where I am from the attitude is generally the same. A dog is seen as a big commitment, not just something to stick in the backyard.

I don't know what it is, but Aussies in general seem to have an aversion towards keeping dogs inside and taking them to training classes, or training them in general. I am European originally, and in Europe 99% of dogs are kept inside with the families, even during the day when the family is at work. Most dogs are trained, a lot of them are taken to training classes from an early age. Clicker training and crating is much more popular over there than what it is here in Australia. Here, when we walked past a dog we usually get lunged at or the dog pulls like crazy to get to us. In Europe, dogs are walked off leash and ignore all strangers and other dogs, and are generally much more well behaved. If your dog isn't trained in Europe, you would be embarrassed to be seen in public with it, and other dog owners would frown at you for not bothering to train your dog. Don't know why, but that was one of the first things I noticed when I moved here.

Life is so much better with dogs. I loved it when I adopted my adult poodle x, she was so calm and well behaved, so I thought why not get a puppy. That was a bit of a disaster, I actually hated him the first two weeks I had him because he's such a whirlwind and he was constantly misbehaving, but then I worked out a daily routine and did lots of good manners training, and now he's my little baby and whenever he misbehaves it's just funny. It does piss me off once in a while when he does something really bad, but most of the time when he looks up at me with that happy innocent look on his face I can't help but smile and tell him he's naughty while also giving him a belly rub.

I think ear cropping is ridiculous, why not just breed the dogs with upright ears instead of breeding them with floppy ears and then mauling them to get the look you want. Personally I think boxers and dobes look heaps better with floppy ears, and I like rotties to have tails. I heard a woman at the vet's talking to another guy in the waiting area last time we were there, the guy had commented on her older dog having a cropped tail, and she said she had a younger one at home with an intact tail and she didn't like it 'because it's just not the same' and his tail 'keeps hitting me when he wags it'. Yeah, good reason to cut off a dogs tail, wouldn't want it to hit you when he wags it!! Personally I think I prefer upright ears on dogs, I like that they can move around the way they were meant to, but I have a poodle x with floppy ears and it has never occurred to me to cut them off to 'improve' her looks.

Depends on the reason for barking. Barking during play is fine, barking out of fear can't be 'corrected' you need to fix the fear issue and the barking will be fixed as well. Barking because he's being naughty or excited doesn't need correction, you simply teach an incompatible behaviour, like 'look at me' and reinforce heavily and practice it a lot. He can't bark at another dog if he's staring at you.

For training classes and on walks (high distraction) I use cheerioes, cheese, kabanas, ham etc. Something really yummy. For training around the house I use commercial treats, which is usually either cat treats, puppy rewards (love 'em is the brand I think) or the liver treats that you break into smaller pieces. For my puppy I can also use his dry food, but my adult dog won't work for her regular food.

We do basic obedience at an agility club, and we all use clickers and they're always talking about shaping stuff, which is good. Personally I clickertrain and shape stuff at home, and avoid negative punishment as much as I can (no positive punishment is used). But the other people in our class are just the ordinary dog owner and I think they only use clickers because they are told to, and I have seen some of the smack their dogs for lunging at another dog, and some of them are a bit harsh on their dogs. Up to them of course, but I don't really agree with it. Anyway, no one in class argues with any of the things that are taught. In puppy class we talked about lifestyle things like waiting at the door and for food, but in basic obedience they haven't dealt with that stuff at all. It's only if someone specifically asks that the trainer gives advice on it. Otherwise we do sit, down, stays, recalls and loose lead walking. They also give us some notes at the end of each class which have a weekly trick in them. They say trick training teaches the dog how to learn, but the way they do it is silly. The notes use moulding for teaching the tricks, and that is also how the trainer demonstrates the tricks at the end of each class. This week's trick is 'roll over' which the trainer demonstrated by pushing a puppy over and then rewarding. I agree that trick training is beneficial for the learning process, but I don't think moulding a trick teaches the dog to think. I shaped my puppy to roll over, which really made him think, but didn't take longer than about 20 minutes, so it's easy enough to do.

Thanks

It's the underground stuff that JRT's were bred to do. I don't actually know that much about it, as I have trouble finding info on how exactly the trials are done, but from what I can gather they build tunnels (fake burrows) and the dogs go in as if they were hunting.

They have them at Bunnings.

The puppy is not "attacking". It's a puppy, they bite and lunge during play and to get what they want. You WANT the puppy to bite you, it's the only way it can learn bite inhibition. It's only when it's older and knows that human skin is delicate that you want to eliminate biting. Alpha rolling is pointless, you need to TRAIN the puppy to do what you want it to do. Even trainers who use the alpha roll don't recommend using it until the dog is an adult. Puppies are NOT dominant, they are babies.

My puppy is crated when we are out, he has been crated when we are out and at night since day one, so it doesn't bother him. He's crated 8-10 hours overnight, and usually 4 hours during the day, 2 hours in the early afternoon and 2-3 hours in the evening, then he's up for a few hours before he's put away for the night. When we occasionally have to go out and are gone 5-6 hours, he's perfectly happy to sleep in his crate. Our other dog is loose in the house when we are out, she usually just sleeps on her bed in our bedroom.