Staffie

thanks guys; much appreciated! good (better) dogs here we come

Hi I've been looking through all the posts on trainers for behavioural issues & notice a lot of people referring K9Pro who look fantastic, but I can see they're based in NSW. Does anyone know of anyone like this in Melbourne who they have used? Ideally north/west suburbs. I've been having a look on google but it's hard to know who's good as I don't know anyone who has used any of them. thanks

I have two staffies (a 6 year old male and 8 year old female). 90% of the time they're lovely together, thick as thieves, but that other 10% is not good; she is always the one who starts the fight; she'll try to sit on him (he's much bigger) and head butt him etc. Most of the time he moves, ignores her or rolls over on his back and it turns into a game - he's pretty mellow - but lately (last 12 mths) when she pushes him too far he just launches at her - this has resulted in a few minor scrapes and then recently a pretty serious bite which happened in the middle of the night. When I left them in a kennel earlier in the year the owner said he had to separate them as they ended up in a huge fight and they both had a lot of scratches/cuts. I take her to the vet regularly and after the last fight he suggested splitting them up - he said it's not normal for a male and female dog to fight if they've been raised together so I need to stop the fighting. I have tried a few things like buying a second dog bed (they had started to fight in the middle of the night) and making sure I'm not paying too much attention to the male dog as I thought jealousy was a factor, I tried them sleeping in separate areas but they whinged all night until I let them in together & then they got into bed and went asleep rolled up & I know I can't separate them but it's still pretty hit and miss. I get home sometimes and there's a scratch and I don't know if they've fought. Anyone else ever have this issue - maybe with this breed - and have any solutions? thanks

Hi..depending on how North you are... there's a huge off leash park in Coburg..not sure of the street name - it's next to Visy on the road behind Bunnings. There's an old velodrome in it which is fenced off and there's plenty of room for a few dogs to run amok and it's not somewhere people would take their kids to so no issues with things like that! There's a small carpark out the front and it's a fairly quiet area at the weekend (next to a few panel beaters etc).. ta