My Canine

[thumblessprimate1]

When you leave the house, JUST LEAVE. Don't say goodbye to the dogs (dogs don't say good bye to each other) Don't make a fuss over leaving. Just leave. Saying "good bye boo boo" or something and talking in a high voice telling the dog you're leaving, or similarly stimulating him just ramps up the excitement -- then you leave and the dog is well, still ramped up. That is what leads to separation anxiety.

Yah. I don't do the good bye talk. Actually he's at work with me everyday. I just walk away from him to work outside regularly. He barks for maybe 5 minutes and quiets down. When he hears me, he might start up again. If I pass by him, he' is quiet, but will bark some after he sees me out of sight. Then quiets down. I give him a treat or toy when he is quiet and calm. Then I just leave.

 

[Cattwooduk]

Yeah when I say make a fuss I don't mean rile him up and get him excited. I usually just give her an ear rub and then give her the kong to get stuck into. I only make a fuss of my dog when she is calm when I get home as well.
Some theories say just ignore and walk out, some say it's best to give them some familiar signal that you're leaving. One thing I remember reading was to virtuallg sneak out the house so they don't know you're gone. That just ends up with your dog freaking out when they can't find you!

 

[thumblessprimate1]

He can't see me right now, but he can can hear me coughing or talking. Every now and then he barks for a while or whimpers. I'm waiting for his toy with treats inside to freeze. After training, I'll give it to him during his alone time. The boy has no care for inanimate things while not beside him. I'll keep figuring him out.

 

[GrimLore]

I try not to inhibit his biting too much. I think biting is sort of his life. I only stop him when he bites me or the wife hard.

If you watch puppies playing they get rough and normally stop when the victim yelps - we have trained young dogs to stop the nipping by simply making a loud noise such as an "ouch". I actually works rather quickly...

On another note as the dog gets more and more used to you going and returning the barking will subside. They need time to understand they are secure in your absence and again adjust pretty nicely just being ignored. On that behavior I must admit it does not apply to all dogs but most dogs - I know of only one in these parts that does not seem will ever grow out of it.

Grimmy

 

[Cattwooduk]

If you watch puppies playing they get rough and normally stop when the victim yelps - we have trained young dogs to stop the nipping by simply making a loud noise such as an "ouch". I actually works rather quickly...

Grimmy

I second this - that's how I trained my dog with a mixture of yelping and saying ouch, withdrawing your hand/whatever he bites and then turning away from the dog so they realise playtime stops when they go too far. They soon learn how hard is too hard.

My dog play bites me all the time because I've always played pretty rough with her, but if my girlfriend tries to wind her up in the same way the dog just refuses to mouth her hands etc at all. It's reassuring knowing she only mouths me and isn't likely to do it to the baby! He has grabbed a handful of her fur a few times and makes the dog jump but she just gives him a lick as if to say oi you're cute and all but please don't tug on my fur!

 

[rockm]

Robert can be barky when I walk away, but it'll be minutes before he quiets down. He might play with the toys I leave in the ex-pen or he might go into the crate that I place inside the ex-pen. I now have my own business, so I got an area away from clients where the ex-pen is. It's how I get to take him potty every 2 hours.

I'll defintely try the Kong trick @Cattwooduk. I got this toy that looks sort of like a bowling pin. It rocks back and forth like the old school roly poly clown toys. Anyways as it gets knocked around, it drops some kibble. I got to get that thing going again. He might have lost interest in it. I got to do a better job of rotating his toys. The guy in the leerburg video says he rotates the toys every 2 days.

@A. Gorilla I try not to inhibit his biting too much. I think biting is sort of his life. I only stop him when he bites me or the wife hard.

Inhibiting biting, even if you don't think a bite is hard, is a must. If your dog thinks using his teeth on people is OK and he nips a kid, or even an adult, while out on a walk, or in a public place, they're not going to think much about the intensity of the bite. Explaining that your dog was "only playing,"--or worse saying "he didn't bite him THAT hard"--to the parent of a kid that just got tagged is not somewhere you want you and your dog to be.

 

[thumblessprimate1]

You make good points. My pup usually doesn't seem to be affected when I say ouch. I have to say No and stop playing. Maybe place back into kennel

 

[rockm]

You make good points. My pup usually doesn't seem to be affected when I say ouch. I have to say No and stop playing. Maybe place back into kennel

At that age, simply loudly saying OUCH, getting up, turning your back and walking away can work. Biting leads to "no playing" By the time you get him back into the kennel, he won't know why he's there. Dogs have very bad short term memories. Correction has to be immediate, the longer the delay, the less effective anything becomes.

 

[Sn0W]

Kinda irritates me when so many people think nervous dogs “must have been abused”. Nah...usually just shit genes; it’s what landed them in the shelter to begin with.

It isn't shit genes, nervous dogs don't give birth to nervous dogs. Aggressive dogs don't give birth to aggressive dogs. Pups will pick up from parents behaviour and imitate it. They'll also pick up behaviour from other dogs. My housemates 2 dogs are scared of fireworks, my two aren't bothered by loud noises,

Inhibiting biting, even if you don't think a bite is hard, is a must.

It's not inhibiting biting, it's teaching the dog the difference between what is play and okay and what isn't. Signs of play and how you initiate it is what keeps them from play biting strangers and/or kids.

Kong toys are amazing

Spend that little bit extra and get the kong extreme, the black one. Makes a hell of a difference.

My pup usually doesn't seem to be affected when I say ouch. I have to say No and stop playing.

It isn't what you say, it's how you say it. High pitched and pull your hand away, then just keep doing it if he lunges for your hand. Like Rockm says, standing up and walking away will get the message across too

 

[GrimLore]

At that age, simply loudly saying OUCH, getting up, turning your back and walking away can work. Biting leads to "no playing" By the time you get him back into the kennel, he won't know why he's there. Dogs have very bad short term memories. Correction has to be immediate, the longer the delay, the less effective anything becomes.

From litter observations in Raccoons I noticed they play, get rough, but once one yelps, it stops immediately - no longer play. Later in life I noticed it is the same with puppies, kittens, etc... The abrupt noise, albeit loud works, and it works fast.

Grimmy

 

[rockm]

It isn't shit genes, nervous dogs don't give birth to nervous dogs. Aggressive dogs don't give birth to aggressive dogs. Pups will pick up from parents behaviour and imitate it. They'll also pick up behaviour from other dogs. My housemates 2 dogs are scared of fireworks, my two aren't bothered by loud noises,



It's not inhibiting biting, it's teaching the dog the difference between what is play and okay and what isn't. Signs of play and how you initiate it is what keeps them from play biting strangers and/or kids.




Spend that little bit extra and get the kong extreme, the black one. Makes a hell of a difference.



It isn't what you say, it's how you say it. High pitched and pull your hand away, then just keep doing it if he lunges for your hand. Like Rockm says, standing up and walking away will get the message across too

"It's not inhibiting biting, it's teaching the dog the difference between what is play and okay and what isn't. Signs of play and how you initiate it is what keeps them from play biting strangers and/or kids."

That's basically inhibiting biting. I am very wary of allowing a dog to continue to "play" with humans using their teeth. What is "cute play biting" now CAN become a very different thing when the dog becomes a boundary-pushing adolescent--

 

[thumblessprimate1]

It isn't shit genes, nervous dogs don't give birth to nervous dogs. Aggressive dogs don't give birth to aggressive dogs. Pups will pick up from parents behaviour and imitate it. They'll also pick up behaviour from other dogs. My housemates 2 dogs are scared of fireworks, my two aren't bothered by loud noises,



It's not inhibiting biting, it's teaching the dog the difference between what is play and okay and what isn't. Signs of play and how you initiate it is what keeps them from play biting strangers and/or kids.




Spend that little bit extra and get the kong extreme, the black one. Makes a hell of a difference.



It isn't what you say, it's how you say it. High pitched and pull your hand away, then just keep doing it if he lunges for your hand. Like Rockm says, standing up and walking away will get the message across too

I have a kid's voice. Funny I dont. I I tried yelps. High pitched as I could to no effect. I just put toy up, turn away, and walk away after securing him. I should add that I play near the kennel.

 

[Cattwooduk]

@Sn0W yeah I got the extreme one! The regular one wouldn't have lasted very long.

I think the play biting also comes down to knowing your dogs temperament as well. We had 2 cat's before we got the dog and she's never shown the slightest bit of aggression towards them even when they do the sassy cat thing and randomly try to scratch her just because cat.
We did lots of interaction with friends young children as a puppy as well. She would actually much prefer to play with adults and ignores kids on the whole because they can't throw stuff very far lol

Besides dog training, parents really need to teach their kids to not approach random dogs, and to ask the owner if it's ok to pet a dog they don't know - every parent I've encountered, their kid has asked if it's ok first.
Human - pet interaction is a two way thing and the onus can't be solely on the dog owner if a badly behaved child starts winding up a dog.

I think my dog is generally a bit of a pacifist - once I was walking my dog at night and disturbed 4 guys decking one guy. She just ran over and started growling and barking like hell until they broke up the fight because she sounds bigger than she is. She didn't go near any of them and came straight back to guard me. I've never seen her so much as curl her lip at anyone besides when the vet stuck a thermometer up her arse.

 

[rockm]

@Sn0W yeah I got the extreme one! The regular one wouldn't have lasted very long.

I think the play biting also comes down to knowing your dogs temperament as well. We had 2 cat's before we got the dog and she's never shown the slightest bit of aggression towards them even when they do the sassy cat thing and randomly try to scratch her just because cat.
We did lots of interaction with friends young children as a puppy as well. She would actually much prefer to play with adults and ignores kids on the whole because they can't throw stuff very far lol

Besides dog training, parents really need to teach their kids to not approach random dogs, and to ask the owner if it's ok to pet a dog they don't know - every parent I've encountered, their kid has asked if it's ok first.
Human - pet interaction is a two way thing and the onus can't be solely on the dog owner if a badly behaved child starts winding up a dog.

I think my dog is generally a bit of a pacifist - once I was walking my dog at night and disturbed 4 guys decking one guy. She just ran over and started growling and barking like hell until they broke up the fight because she sounds bigger than she is. She didn't go near any of them and came straight back to guard me. I've never seen her so much as curl her lip at anyone besides when the vet stuck a thermometer up her arse.

That's the thing. I will sound like a school marm shaking her finger here, BUT it is because people DON'T teach their kids how to behave around dogs that I teach my dog that teeth and humans should never meet.

I am acutely aware of this issue since my neighbors are mostly immigrants from countries where dogs are not part of their culture. I also have bull terriers, and have had them for 25 years. I know how boisterous and mouthy bullies are and (more importantly) how intimidating they can be for some people. I want mine to shine as dogs and as representatives of their breed with behavior that shows people they aren't the canine psychos that many believe bull breeds are.

My neighbors' kids, having not grown up with dogs, are extremely curious about them, especially my bullie since BTs are about the silliest looking dogs on the planet. The kids' behavior is WILDLY unpredictable--jumping up and down, screaming to get its attention, poking it with their fingers and sticks, fast movements, running up to the dog at full speed, running in circles around it, more screaming, etc--all of this is good-natured and innocent. They aren't interested in hurting the dog, just make it notice them, so they w can pet it. They also desperately want to make a connection with the dog.

They have no idea how to interact with the animal and their parents don't understand the dos and don'ts of behaving around dogs either. Nor should they. They have no reason to accommodate me as a dog owner. I don't expect them to. I only have control over my dog and how it behaves. I can control the kids while they're trying to interact with my dog, but it can take some doing. Most dog owners will find themselves in similar situations during their dog's life, BTW.

If I had a dog that thought rough-housing and play mouthing were OK, I'd probably be in jail. Kids almost always set off the "play" switch in my dog--and a lot of others--simply by being short, fast and loud. The default setting for bullies (all bullies even 15-year old bullies) is "play".

I also have to mention that I've seen non-immigrant, twentieth generation Americans' kids who have no idea how to act around dogs. They pop up everywhere and in sometimes difficult situations.

It is because of that unpredictability, and the randomness that it arrives on, that I teach my dogs that teeth are NEVER acceptable with humans . I have been around enough to see the misunderstandings between the non-dogwise public and well-meaning dog owners. What a playful mouthing is to a dog owner can be interpreted as an attack by someone who doesn't understand.

The unknolegeable person IS NOT AT FAULT. If something bad happens, It is the dog owner's fault (and the law mostly sees it that way as well.)

 

[A. Gorilla]

It isn't shit genes, nervous dogs don't give birth to nervous dogs. Aggressive dogs don't give birth to aggressive dogs. Pups will pick up from parents behaviour and imitate it. They'll also pick up behaviour from other dogs. My housemates 2 dogs are scared of fireworks, my two aren't bothered by loud noises,

When you see a tucked-tail, head-on-swivel, bag of nerves being walked..... that is not abuse, or learning to be afraid. Certainly not by the gentle suburban folk on the other end of the leash. Nobody could manufacture that out of a solid dog brain. That is a garbage temperament from birth. Some are so bad, it would be merciful to just put them down. Just a sack of stress hormones.

Breeders of performance dogs are dependent on including desirable heritable traits and excluding the garbage. There's a reason dogs have diverged into identifiable "breeds". Genetic inheritance. Not a lot of dogs have the nerve to shove their head in a dark hole and rag-doll an aggressive rodent of almost the same size. Dogs who aren't up to the task never passed on their genes to be what would become terriers. And so forth.

Same with horses in terms of performance attrition and selective breeding.

How is that even debatable?

 

[Sn0W]

Intelligence and willingness to learn. A puppy is a blank slate. Take it away from it's mother and siblings before it's even opened it's eye and it won't grow up to be nervous or aggressive. Puppies are blank slates. Yes you can breed dogs for physical traits and intelligence but nerves, just like aggression, aren't inherited they're learnt. Terriers are bred to kill things, whippets to run fast, collies to herd things, labs to retrieve, dobes to guard. No breed is bred to be fearful or nervous.

When you see a tucked-tail, head-on-swivel, bag of nerves being walked..... that is not abuse, or learning to be afraid. Certainly not by the gentle suburban folk on the other end of the leash. Nobody could manufacture that out of a solid dog brain.

That is a lack of proper socialisation, if any at all. People with no clue how to raise a puppy. Take a baby out and walk it along next to a motorway and it'll be scared of cars. Take it to a playground an let bigger kids run around it and jump over it and it'll be afraid of the kids.

 

[A. Gorilla]

Intelligence and willingness to learn. A puppy is a blank slate. Take it away from it's mother and siblings before it's even opened it's eye and it won't grow up to be nervous or aggressive. Puppies are blank slates. Yes you can breed dogs for physical traits and intelligence but nerves, just like aggression, aren't inherited they're learnt. Terriers are bred to kill things, whippets to run fast, collies to herd things, labs to retrieve, dobes to guard. No breed is bred to be fearful or nervous.



That is a lack of proper socialisation, if any at all. People with no clue how to raise a puppy. Take a baby out and walk it along next to a motorway and it'll be scared of cars. Take it to a playground an let bigger kids run around it and jump over it and it'll be afraid of the kids.

That only makes so much of a difference, and the window is developmentally short where it matters.

You can't socialize a dog INTO being something it's not. You'd also be hard pressed to extinguish other basic tempermental traits if they are genetically pronounced. Like the basic energy and anxiety to get to work.

There are some real basics. Hunting dogs can't be gun shy. Period. Nobody has the time or interest in somehow working around that to any appreciable degree. It's gotta be genetically solid with loud noises. It better show that tendency early and often.

Police type dogs have to have the basic confidence to love filling their mouths with stuff and clamping down. Even if there's a big violent racket going on around it. You might be surprised to see how early and often those traits present themselves too in dogs who are clearly cut out for it.

I do grant, that for a lot of run-of-the-mill pets, you do kind of have to build a house of cards wherein they are exhaustively socialized to accept certain things....because they are just kinda....whatever. "Pets".

But if you get a kick out of terriers, shepherds, catch dogs, or hounds...it becomes pretty clear what instincts are useful, and to what degree you can socialize problems away. Fact is, they gotta be born with "it". The rest is details.

 

[jacob letoile]

There are some real basics. Hunting dogs can't be gun shy. Period. Nobody has the time or interest in somehow working around that to any appreciable degree. It's gotta be genetically solid with loud noises. It better show that tendency early and often.

Hmm, my brother has had 2, not one but 2 elhew pointers go gunshy. It's learned. All the animals on his house are afraid of thunder. It's learned. There may be a genetic predisposition one way or another but it's nowhere near determinate. In fact a TON of work is done when training hunting dogs to make sure they don't turn gunshy. It's been a part of every hunting dog raising and training system I've ever read, never mind followed. Retrievers, hounds and my brothers pointers, he's not as rigorous as I am and both his pointers learned to be afraid of thunder first from his other dog, then went gun shy.

 

[A. Gorilla]

In fact a TON of work is done when training hunting dogs to make sure they don't turn gunshy.

That's like saying it's a ton of work to get any dog to perform/withstand the most fundamental part of it's greater job. If that were true, a dog wouldn't be used because it'd be a pain in the ass. Defeats of whole purpose of domestication; to make life easier.

Analogy: "It takes a lot of work to make sure the terrier doesn't get spooked by dark holes." No, it should not require hard work. It should be a given.

"We're really walking on eggshells making sure this seeing-eye-dog doesn't get spooked by traffic like it used to be...or could be." That should be taken for granted with obvious resilience from the get-go.

This prospective cop dog really hates running cars...let's bust our ass trying to maybe kinda sorta work around that and hopefully MAYBE he won't be too much of a pain in the butt. No. More trouble than it's worth. Find one which isn't a a nancy-boy.

Does it require a whole bunch of hard work for maintaining really basic levels of resilience? Ok, then that particular dog which requires all that hard work to do its job really needs to be removed from the breeding pool. Not a good representative of how things are supposed to work.

 

[jacob letoile]

That's like saying it's a ton of work to get any dog to perform/withstand it's basic function. If that were true, a dog wouldn't be used because it'd be a pain in the ass. Defeats of whole purpose of domestication. Analogy: "It takes a lot of work to make sure the terrier doesn't get spooked by dark holes."
Well, then that particular dog which requires all that hard work to do its job really needs to be removed from the breeding pool.

Don't argue with me, get a gun dog, spend years making it awesome and trust it to genetics to keep it from going gunshy, even better don't bother training it at all, just let it do it's thing. After all it's genetics. It will point, hold and certinly not freek out the first time you fire your 12ga over its head. Get a retriever take it hunting, it's breed to retrieve rite, no need to train it. It would never play keep away it's breed to retrieve, yes?

Genetics is a real thing. Hounds are not pointers are not retrievers but genetics is not everything.