Dog Owner Chat v4

[Cardinal]

Extremely annoyed. We took our honeymoon and had our neighbor watch Lucky and Sardonyx, there was no problems there. My daughters grandmother watched Sentry and uuugghhh. Never again. I toldee her point blank and multiple times that her had to be supervised as he would escape her yard... she immedaitely left him alone outside and he... le gasp... escaped. Three seperate times. As if the first time wasnt proof of concept. Told her to crate him in a bathroom or other secure place away from stuff he could pull into his crate. He would get into things, she had to crate him unless being supervised. Well. He ate 3 chocolate poptarts and multiple brownies then didnt bother calling me. When she did crate him it was in an unsecure place and he drug a bunch of crap into his crate.

I just dont even. I got him back bloated and covered in a hot rash over his muzzles, arm pits, ears, and feet. -___- Luckily today hes much better.

[warmblood]

Okay so I need help with some training. I've tried training Lucky to hold things but when ever he does he bites down super hard and I've tried the easter egg trick on Kikopup's youtube channel but he just breaks them every single time. I have no idea how to soften his bite. I've asked other dog trainers and they said I could try wearing him out first, so I tried this and it still didn't work. He won't hold spoons or forks at all :T

Hmm, perhaps you can give him something soft to hold in his mouth. Not something that will break if he bites too hard but something that will perhaps collapse or turn to mush if he does. Try teaching him the cue "gentle". I'm not sure if Lucky bites during playtime but if he does, say no and introduce gentle. I'm for positive reinforcement but sometimes you do need to decline. It's not really a easy trick to explain for me, because I can't even remember how I taught Kato to respond to this cue, aha. But Lucky is a very smart dog and I'm sure he'll be able to pick it up quickly. If he can learn this cue I am positive that it will stop him from having a strong grip.

[Marley.&.Me]

@Imzadi83

he kinda had to dive a bit for it because he first pushed it down under the water my little.... "bright" dog. 😂😂
i was gonna take him today and on a bike run but shoot i've been horribly sick last night and today ):

i hope this blows over soon

oppie has been glued to my side all day

[Wishful Thinking.]

I WANNA SCREAM. I am so mad. I took Jasper outside to work on some training like I have been doing, and he was doing great and enjoying playing in the grass. UNTIL this lady came out with her rough coat collie OFF LEASH. The dog ran up to me and Jasper, I hardly had time to react. Jasper is afraid of bigger dogs, he was terrified. He started growling and lunging and trying to bite the other dog. I stayed calm and offered him sandwich meat in the hopes he would relax enough to eat it but he wouldn't and I just moved in circles putting myself between him and the other dog holding his leash as hard as I could. The lady took her sweet time coming over and calling her dog away. I was SO MAD but I didn't yell at her because I didn't wanna make Jasper more afraid.

I have been working very hard on training him to not be reactive over other dogs and I was making some serious progress and then this happened. I just hope this experience didn't undo all that progress. Luckily I believe I handled it fairly well. I stayed calm the entire time, didn't yell, I held his leash which is attached to a harness so he wasn't experianing any pain from choking, I offered him his treats so I focused on him instead of the other dog and I put myself between the two of them (the other dog was friendly so I didn't feel there was any danger to this).

This incident would have gone extremely bad if Jasper wasn't muzzled though, so THANK GOD he was. If he wasn't that lady would probably be rushing her dog to vet and I'd probably be in the hospital covered in bites. The lease to these apartments clearly says DOGS HAVE TO BE LEASHED WHEN OUTSIDE. This would not have happened if she had LEASHED her dog >:l

After the incident I stayed put with him. We stayed in that area for about 5 minutes. I didn't wanna drag him back to the building when he was still acting nervous and I didn't want him to think he was being punished as he'd done nothing wrong he was acting out of fear. After about 45 seconds after the dog was out of sight, Jasper relaxed and I feed him the rest of the sandwich meat I had with me, pet him and let him roll around in the grass. He was back to his happy and calm self when I brought him back inside. I also gave him more treats and pet him when we got back to my room.


@Awakening Souls - thank you for the responce and advice, I'll check out the link in a bit c: and it's a shock collar, I didn't wanna get him it at first but he probably would already be kicked out of here if I didn't. His whining is sometimes more like ear piercing screeches, I'm sure everyone in this building and probably the next building over can hear it and the shock is the only thing keeping him from doing that. He can and will whine non stop for hours :c

[awakening souls.]

@Awakening Souls - thank you for the responce and advice, I'll check out the link in a bit c: and it's a shock collar, I didn't wanna get him it at first but he probably would already be kicked out of here if I didn't. His whining is sometimes more like ear piercing screeches, I'm sure everyone in this building and probably the next building over can hear it and the shock is the only thing keeping him from doing that. He can and will whine non stop for hours :c

no worries!

yeah, i understand using shock collars to correct behavior and big whining/barking/growling issues, but i just can't stand owners who use it on their dogs for EVERYTHING. my friend uses a shock collar on her dog as a normal collar. she doesn't just put it on during training, and her dog is actually the sweetest lil' thing in the world. when he begs, she presses the button. when he scratches at the door because she hasn't let him in for half an hour during extreme weather, she presses the button. it's honestly so unfair and i've told her time and time again to just STOP. he's not a bad dog and he's not really doing anything wrong... he's already trained and doesn't have any temperamental problems. uggggh. but yeah, i understand why you use the shock collar on your dog. have you tried other collars that are non-electrical, like ones that blow air or emit a loud sound?

[warmblood]

@wishful thinking poor you! Irresponsible dog owners are so terrible. I think you handled it very well too. However I don't think that offering him treats while he is doing something you don't want him to, because technically you are rewarding him. It's different with easily frightened dogs and they are effective in calming them down but for some dogs who aren't acting aggressively in self defence get the idea that they are being good when they try to attack other things or if they attack things they'll get treats. Not trying to bash your training or anything, but you know I'd just watch out when using treats during this sort of thing since some dogs will get the wrong idea

[Cardinal]

@wishful thinking poor you! Irresponsible dog owners are so terrible. I think you handled it very well too. However I don't think that offering him treats while he is doing something you don't want him to, because technically you are rewarding him. It's different with easily frightened dogs and they are effective in calming them down but for some dogs who aren't acting aggressively in self defence get the idea that they are being good when they try to attack other things or if they attack things they'll get treats. Not trying to bash your training or anything, but you know I'd just watch out when using treats during this sort of thing since some dogs will get the wrong idea

Thats actually not true. You cant reinforce fear behavior. Using rewards when fear or aggression are involved changes the under lying emotional response to objects, people, or situations. Counter conditioning and desensitation are methods widely used when working with fearful or aggressive dogs.

https://youtu.be/sI13v9JgJu0 sophie Yin is awesome and worked with a jrt that would bite, its super cool to watch the dogs emotional state change throughout!

[Marley.&.Me]

so i got oppie this today


he barks uncontrollably at everything.

someone came up to me the other day at my apartment outside saying "your dog barks way to much " there was two unpleasant words in that sentence that they said. hopefully he'll chill out with this

[Cardinal]

I wouldnt use that. The dog cant pant to regulate irs body temp nor drink or eat. Barking is a training issue. Train him to bark on command then pair with a quiet command.

[Wishful Thinking.]

@Awakening Souls - that is unfair to treat that dog that way, I agree it shouldn't be used like that. I haven't tried anything else but I may look into these. I only use the collar on Jasper when I leave him alone and it really only goes off when he whines really loudly.

@pills - I understand what you mean and I used to believe that to. However I've come to realize that treating is a good idea in these situations. He didn't actually eat the treat during what was going on but it would have been good if he did. The trainer I've been working with with him has told me to do this and explained why. She should it associates seeing something that makes him nervous with getting a positive reward for seeing it. Instead of him thinking: dog = fearful thing that may attack me, he thinks: dog = I'm going to get rewarded with good food. Doing this has been working well with him. Before I started working on him with this when he saw a dog or even some people he'd react by lunging, whining and/or biting, now for the most part he doesn't lunge or try to bite and he's even starting to stop whining as well. He sees people and some dogs and turns to me looking for his reward and with people now he is responding to basic commands. If I had decided in this situation to not reward him and give him any some of punishment he would probably jump to thinking that he only gets rewarded for the dogs being far away. Or that the dog is causing him to be punished.