Dog Walking

kal25

nickiboop I can see it from both sides. I have max a labx 6mnths old. When we first started walking there was another lab that happend to be being walked (roaming free) at the same time. As max had not been long walking I did not have the confidence that if I let him off he would come back, plus the field I was taking him was by the road(felt this was not safe to let him off).
Max has a retractable lead that way he could run about but not too far and I could keep hold of him. The other dog was quite boisterous and they enjoyed playing together, the owner was quite conplacent about his dog and never gacve a second thought about his dog roaming free. The 2nd time we met other dog had max's lead in mouth, other owner said he's trying to free him, I thought he was joking. However, the owner never attempted to make his dog drop the lead and within 5 mins had bitten and broken my lead.
What did the owner have to say about this? 'you should be able to fix it and it's not my fault' what the ??? was my reaction:mad: :mad: . Poor max had to miss out on 2 walks until I could get another lead. The following day taking max at a different time to try and avoid other dog, we met again. Again the owner thought it was not his fault but mine for not allowing max off the lead and perhaps next time I will allow him to run free. Not sure how that works??:mad:
On a positive note I dop walk him through the woods at the back of us and if no one is around let him off the lead for a few mins and increase this time each walk. However, if we see or hear anyone coming he knows to come and have his lead on and sit until they have passed. I think it is about being responsible but allowing him time to play as well.

nickiboop

Jenny,

I agree wholehartedly, however I would never have choosen Mitch, OH brought him home one day. We had agreed to get a dog but where supposed to be getting an older and smaller rescue dog and had spent may weeks looking, OH had a day off work and called me to say he had found the perfect dog and should he get him so I had all of about 2 min to say yes or no.

He does walk to heel for OH, but not me. He will sit and wait to be told to get his dinner and will do this for both of us so really its just the walking problem and OH who does most of the training doesn't see it as an issue

Thanks for all the advice, I will read all the threads again and decide which way to go (I avoided the field this morning and we walked around the block)

shandypants5

nickiboop wrote: »

Unfortunately I will have to walk him sometimes so just giving him to OH to walk isn't really an option!
We have a halti, Mitch has eaten through it twice and hates it beyond all belief! I can't control him on a choke chain( For some reason he walks to heel with OH)
I will try him with different treats, when I tried him in the past I think he was just too exited by being outside !
None of the APDT trainers are anywhere near me unfortunately, I actually live beween York and Leeds so pretty much in the middle of nowhere! I have tried the vets but the only ones they knew of didn't do classes because they couldn't get venues
I will however look into clickers !

I have to say his redeeming feature is hes VERY Good with our 2 year old toddler!

I think Dept free chick hit it right in the head...
The pecking order as the dog sees it in your house goes like this..

1) BOSS ....your OH
2) fighting for superiority...you and the dog both on equal footing till he wins..
3) Underling and needs looking after nothreat.... your 2 yearold..

You need to assert the Pack order more clearly so that he knows he is BOTTOM of the list... (or when the 2year old starts to get older he may be seen as a threat and be fought for position)

It sounds mean but you HAVE to make the dog feel as though he has a proper place in the pack(family)he can have jobs to do like barking at the postman etc...but he MUST KNOW that he is NOT the alpha male.
does he ever steal your seat when you get up?? thats his way of saying I took it from you so I am boss..you have to push him off and assert your rank every time while he is learning his place. NEVER let him win an argument you ARE clever than him and when he learns this he will be SO well behaved you will be amazed..

Labs are Fantastic intelligent dogs..please persevere with him he will be your best freind when he finally finds his place.

If he walks to heel with OH, try both taking him for walks.. you hold the lead and OH says the heel comands.. or he holds the lead and YOU say the heel commands..
This way mich will learn that he is supposed to behave around you aswell..(he allready knows how to behave,he just doesnt see why he should do it for you)

pboae

There is nothing in anything Nikiboop has posted to suggest her pup is being dominant or trying to be an 'alpha male'. That line of training is completely out of date, and was based on poor science to start with.

As DFC also says, dogs do what works for them. If the pup behaves well for one person and not the other, it's because they have learned they can get away with it for one person, not that they think they are weaker and ripe for domination.

I don't agree with a deep tone of voice being automatically more authoritative though. I speak very quietly to my dog, with a high/fun tone and he behaves for me. OH is very gruff with him, and he responds patchily. IM(NS)HO that is entirely due to the amount of time and effort I put in to training him, compared with how much OH does.

My dog knows that if I request something from him, nothing else is going to happen until he does it. He knows that if OH makes a request, that if he avoids it long enough OH will give up and let him have his own way. So he has effectively trained the dog to have a stand off's with him, if it doesn't want to do something.

You could look at one of those occasions and say the dog is being dominant and trying to prove he is more alpha than my OH. No he's not, he's just being a stubborn brat, and he's doing it because OH lets him do it. He can sulk and strop all he likes with me, it won't get him his own way, so he has learned not to bother doing it.

He came to us with a lot of bad habits, and had learned to throw his weight around to get his own way. I have never used punishment or negative training with him (nothing worse than 'ah ah' and a chance to offer a different behaviour), I use purely positive reinforcement. As with any form of training you opt for, the key is absolute consistency.

shandypants5

pboae wrote: »

That line of training is completely out of date, and was based on poor science to start with.

Sorry I dont think I recomended a "line" of training, just basing my recomendations on experience and observation.
I know people who train their dogs,and I know people who are trained BY their dogs (those are usually the dogs that bite people).

I do agre with everything you say though.Positive encouragnemt is the way to go and NO attention untill they do as they are asked.

But sureley thats still the same as I was saying??

pboae

I guess it depends on how you look at it, to me starting from the pack order perspective, and using training as a tool to teach your dog who's boss is coming at from all the wrong angle.

I don't suppose what we think about it matters one jot to the dog, but for the human to make sense of it, the theory needs to be correct (and as has been said it is usually the human that actually needs training).

From your own examples you recommend pushing a dog off your seat if they take it. To me that is not positive training. I would *never* push my dog off a chair, or otherwise physically manhandle him as a training method. If I want my dog to move, I ask him nicely and he moves. But then, he wouldn't get up on the seat without being invited first. This stuff is just good manners, not dominance.

If I need him to do something which I know he won't want to do, I prefer to outsmart him in advance by finding a way to ask that doesn't cause an 'argument' in the first place. E.g. training him to get off a seat using a clicker to teach targetting, instead of training a straight forward 'off'

I'm not sure I would agree with your theory on who gets bitten either. If a person is being trained by their dog, it would have no cause to bite, because it will be getting all it's own way anyway. In my experience the people who get bitten are the ones who don't listen to their dog and either can't or don't bother to read their body language. They force their dog into situations they are uncomfortable with, reprimand them if they growl (i.e. warn them that they are unhappy) and then they are shocked when the dog finally snaps.

shandypants5

yyyyeeeahhhh,,BUT
I know people who have dogs that take chairs and growl snap and BITE anyone who aproaches them... including the owners.

I think when a dog is young you need a little "command" of the situation and show the dog that getting on the furniture is not allowed.
I know you ask your dog nicely and he moves..but a lot of dogs would see that as a game and get on the chair again later... Or not move at all and growl at you.. I am not saying you should hurt him in anyway..but you have to get him off the chair.

not all dogs are the same and I think you need to be firmer with some breeds. labs are easy in my opinion. but you couldnt use the same training you used on a lab on a jack russel for instance, they have diferent priorities..

Lab..wants to be in your good books and eating
Russell ..wants to be chased or chasing...

Only a generalisation ...I know a lot of well behaved Terriers

pboae

We are hijacking this thread, so I will bow out after this one, but if you want to start another thread on it, feel free :-)

When my dog first came to us he would guard anything and everything, including space, and would growl and snap if you even caught him on the sofa, let alone tried to move him off it. His previous owners had beaten him (amongst other things) and rather than teaching him discipline they had taught him to defend himself first and ask questions later.

He moves now through nothing more than asking nicely because I have put hours and hours of consistent training in with him. During training I had to ensure he never had an opportunity to practice guarding, was never able to get on the sofa when we weren't there, and never able to get on it without being invited. That meant physically blocking any spare area on the sofa off all the time, no matter how inconvenient that was to us, and if we forgot and he managed to get on it, then that was out fault for letting that situation happen.

If a dog refuses and sees it as a game, it's because their owner as taught them to treat it as a game. If they growl and snap, it's because they haven't been adequately trained to behave otherwise.

I completely agree that with different dogs you have to think of different ways to actually ask. But dog training is not rocket science, it's just needs consistency, clarity and lots and lots of patience.

foreign_correspondent

have pm'd ya!

marybishop

Nicki - how long have you had him? I ask this because we took on an 18 mth choc lab a couple of months ago and to be honest for the first couple of weeks I really felt I couldn't handle him. I now realise he was finding his feet as much as I was (probably more so as he was the one who'd had the major upheaval). I spent more time and money at Pets at Home in 5 days than anywhere else! I can only walk him with the halti head collar (which he doesn't like but has realised he's going nowhere without it), I found he was still too strong on the body harness and forget it on an ordinary lead/collar!

We're still learning with him and he is with us so don't give up just yet. I've also realised that he gets grumpy with other dogs through fear and not aggression because off lead he's absolutely fine with all dogs and like yours he bounds up to all other dogs to play given half the chance. But I do put him back on the lead if we meet a dog we don't know until they've had a chance to say hello and then take it from there whether I let him off or not.

Now that I've got to know him I love him to pieces as does the rest of the family and we're so glad we got him.

Good luck and keep us posted.