Allywil

Here is the Sporn Halter operation for anyone interested:

Thank you, I thought that must have been the case :)

But how does it reduce the pulling tendency without applying aversive pressure with the potential of pain for the dog to back out from pulling, or is that what it does.........ultimately no diffent than a prong collar except that the aversive action of the device is applied elsewhere on the dog's body to create a 'no pull" result?

I get what it is thanks...........so what does it actually do to warrant the use of it? If you get what it is then why are you asking? I understand how it attaches to the dog, but I don't understand how it works as a training tool, perhaps you could explain that too if you don't mind please?

I get what it is thanks...........so what does it actually do to warrant the use of it?

The harness is used in some dogs when forward motion is required without causing a self collar correction and reducing drive. A dog in drive will pull harder on a harness than they will on a collar, the reason I don't understand why anyone would recommend a harness over a collar to train a loose leash walk?

Can't say in all honesty that I have seen trainers who support the use of check chains, prongs and ecollars supporting the use of harnesses as a walking tool.......just responding to Nekhbet's comment who I understand is a practicing dog trainer?

I thought harnesses and halters were an expression of proof used by positive trainers that they don't support collar corrections. Trainers who recommend the use of harnesses and halters like clockwork I have noticed will have their anti check chain, prong, and shock collar section explaining the potential negative effects of inhumane training tools?. I may be wrong in this assumption but harnesses and halters seem to go hand in hand with positive training methods

I think half the problem people encounter with high drive GSD's is sticking one in the backyard period. They are a companion animal who need to fulfill that role and live with their human pack is more the size of it. I have an extremely high drive working line GSD laying at my feet snoozing and another laying in the hallway as I make this post. The right environment for a GSD IMHO is allowing them to be with you.........when the drive kicks in to create nuisence behaviour is separation from their pack.......a GSD is not a good breed to stick in the back yard and provide it with minimal training and behavioural coaching........but is any dog really?

Are you worried about leads and collars breaking and your dog getting loose? Leather leashes with a brass swivel won't break and fursaver long link chain collars are super strong.

That's the right approach to teach them from what I have ever learned, but you have to watch them and be right on it and grab them just as they start to squat and take them outside. If he's messing the couch up, keep him off it for the time being.

Very wise words Snook, you can never fix reactive dogs 100% and in the right circumstances with enough pressure they will revert to their default reactive behaviour. Although vast improvement can be made, a bit like an alcoholic I guess, you can't expose them to the demon freely without being mindful of the potential consequence. You can set a reactive dog back faster than you improved them from a real trigger situation......knowing the triggers to avoid is good practice :)

People talk about loose dogs rushing up and even leashed dogs making a nuisence of themselves and I never really have that problem or believed it to be an issue.......walking GSD's people tend to keep their dogs away from us, cross the road or gather up their loose dogs, but I took a neighbours Spaniel X for walk around our area a few times when they were on holidays and the loose dogs and people with their uncontrolled leashed dogs wanting to say hello were a pain in the butt. I had a young Boxer taking a lady for a walk rush up and jump on this this poor Spaniel's head and knocked her over, a Cattle dog who the lady leashes when she sees me coming with my GSDs, stands there like a stunned mullet watching her dog barking and posturing at this little Spaniel, it was a problem and the owners of these dogs didn't seem to care too much what their dogs were doing, I was shocked how bad it was?

I was contemplating a litter a couple of months ago a "B" litter........my daughter said "how awesome" could we choose his kennel name and call him "Brax" after one of her River Boy favorites on Home and Away :D

I totally agree, except, what are they going to do when the dog's owner and residence is unknown?

We had an incident a few years ago where a dog up the road ran out and knocked a kid off a bicycle. The kid was shocked and had grazed knees but was otherwise ok. His parents made a report to council, the kid described the dog and the house it ran out from and the owner simply told council it wasn't his dog and at that time he was at his sister's place with the dog and had 4 witnesses to verify his dog's whereabouts at the time of the incident. Council said ok then sorry to trouble you?

It may vary with different councils, but unless you can hand the dog to them on a plate, random dog incidents I have never known them to do much in areas we have lived. Even though the offending dog may be narrowed down given that it appeared to be already declared dangerous by the striped collar, it's still likely reporting it will end up in the too hard basket?

I have always found the dog will instictively either bring an item back in prey or run off with it in the opposite direction and the one's who instictively bring it back to the handler are easier to train a formal retrieve. The Schutzhund retrieve is the only one I am familiar with and trained by throwing the dumbell for the dog to bring it back as the basic manouver...........I am not sure of other retrieves in sports, but my dog picks up the dumbell ok from a static position, bit like many dogs on command will retrieve a ball if you tell them "get your ball" they will race off hunt for it around the house and bring it back, all similiar basics I think?

I am sorry in advance if I give offense, I'm really not meaning to, but I find the above to be rather confusing. A dog that loves retrieving is not the sort of dog that needs constant reward. If your dog is losing interest in retrieving once the reward rate starts to drop then I can't see how it is the retrieving that he loves. My own dog, a Kelpie to whom I have only informally trained the retrieve, would literally run himself into the ground before he stopped retrieving the ball, or any other object I threw. I have never rewarded this behavior at all - other than to throw the ball. This is not meant as a brag on my training skills or method - I actually did very little in the way of teaching the retrieve - it is simply a observation on the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic reward. For my own dog retrieving is intrinsically rewarding hence there is no need to reward the behavior other than throwing the ball. A dog that needs a constant rate of extrinsic reward in order maintain its behavior is not a dog that I would say "loves" what he is doing. Itsadogslife, I agree with your viewpoint and for people who enjoy training dogs I always recommend just once in their lives to buy a performance bred dog as there is such a massive difference in the response to all the these basic behaviours. Having said that, training a dog that's not so inherited with natural trait makes a great foundation of knowledge to train a more gifted dog in the future. My youngest dog and I must admit that I have never had a dog as good at retrieve as this boy, but at 8 weeks old in a litter test he worked out that if he dropped the little ball were playing with I would roll it along the ground and he could chase it........the only one in the litter who would bring it back. Retrieve was pure trait in this dog and I have never actually trained it, he just does it instictively. My older dog, same breed, still doesn't retrieve half as well as the young one after countless hours of training, much of these behaviours we seek and put down to training results are in the dog it's self.

Generally speaking, a fear aggressive dog will be more aggressive in unfamilar territory and act more aggressively from feeling insecure of their surroundings. A dog that is more aggressive in familar territory an old trainer told me once is like an extension of territorial aggression as if they are confident and cocky in a territory familiar to them with a perception of who belongs in that famililar territory and who doesn't.......makes sense I guess? Performance issues are noticed along these lines with sport dogs who perform beautifully on their training ground, but take them to a different field to compete and they are off their game a bit until confidence is regained. Another common one is two dogs who live together and are bomb proof in the backyard, great mates and love each other. Take them out in unfamilar territory together and one will pick a fight with his mate and a scrap will develop why are these two dogs who get along great fighting all of a sudden? One of the two will be overwhelmed and insecure being in unfamilar territory that triggers the reactivity. That's one theory anyway

Sadly there is a large proportion of the general public who have a problem with strong breeds, GSD's, Rotty's, Pitbull's etc etc and would like to them all gone, and these type of incidents plays straight into the hands of the faction who hate powerful dogs to use a lever to support their argument against them. One of my GSD's isn't flash on little dogs and cats and I know that, my God I know that, and I know he could harm a little dog or cat given the chance which makes me all the more vigilant not to expose him to the opportunity, so what the hell is GSD doing out on the street at large when the owner knew his dog had a problem with little dogs and rabbits I read in a report? It's time they started to implement prison sentences for owners of dogs who get out onto the street and cause harm.

It sounds like she may be going over threshhold with the excitement of the tug and your trainer's advice is to slow things down a bit with fetch until she stabilises a bit more. Definitely a trainer experienced in using drive has a lot of potential for great obedience even though over driven they may seem hectic, but a lot of good can be achieved with strong drive, she sounds like a fun dog and just takes time to harness strong drive into good use. The solid sit stay you have achieved is good so you can use that nice solid sit, hold the dog there for a minute then release for the tug reward, have a little tug then "out" and when she lets go immediately command sit and make her hold the sit until you release her again for the tug reward. She gets the tug for giving you the right behaviour, if she won't sit or breaks the sit, no tug. I would also put the tug away so it's your tug not hers and for giving you the right behaviour she gets the reward of playing with "your" a tug. Your trainer could be on the ball here after seeing her behaviour, just mention to her that you enjoy tug and would like to use it in her training and see if your trainer has a plan to re-introduce it? Any working dog trainers would be able to help you with a plan to use tug games successfully......in working dogs, the more drive a dog has to tug the better so she most definitely could be trimmed up for controlled tugging with the right training.

This really didn't work for my neighbour. First you have to find a successful trainer whose methods you're comfortable using (word of mouth or keyboard friends). There are a number of successful trainers on TV and not all of them use methods that would work with my dog. Her being as soft as a melted icecream. PS @ Corvus - interesting article but there is another option - I've never successfully taught my dog how to cope with Frustration. Possibly because I'm not very good at coping with it either. What I was thinking, if the owner has already mapped out the training style they require for problem behaviour, how do they know what they have mapped out is the right training style for their specific situation Obviously they are not overly experienced in dog training to require a trainer's assistance in the first place, why choose a training style before a trainer has assessed the dog

Tug and fetch are really two different games and I have always found that a dog who learns to out a tug cleanly will out virtually anything with little training, but a dog who outs a ball reliably generally won't out a tug which is not a fetch item as such. It helps also to have a uniform patten of training everything on the same platform as Erny mentioned earlier, a release word like ok or yes or a clicker after the right behaviour is given, release word or click then reward. When the dog was releasing the "dead tug", the idea is to mark the correct action (the out)and then give the release word or a click which means the dog is allowed to re-engage, have the tug back. You don't need to ramp the dog up with excitement on the out, just calm and smooth repetitions. If you are worried about the dog biting your hands which can happen early in learning, use a tug wide enough and direct the tug centrally into the dogs mouth, manouver the tug so that the dog bites the centre of the tug and thy learn where to bite it. If the dog is a bit hectic, keep it smooth and don't build more drive by tugging hard making the dog fight for it. You can also improve it easily after the dog learns to out to introduce a sit or a down before you release the dog to re-bite for the reward which will slow things up a bit and prevent the dog from blowing over threshhold for random snaps at the tug where hands and fingers can get in the way. Have fun :)

Wouldn't the OP need to know where the offending dog lives to make a report and receive some council action?