Let's See Your Dogs!!

Still kicking

 

You should never hit a dog! Keep a leash on her and give corrections with the leash/collar (I don't mean hitting) A tug/correction when she needs it. If she's been an outside dog it's going to take her a few days (weeks) to adapt. Lots of sit/down/stay/here(come) with rewards aka obedience work all the time.

 

We bought two of these and have one in our living room and one in the bedroom. Our dogs seem to love them.

I don't have pictures on this phone but Frank(our male bulldog)is terrified of storms. We didn't know that at first and came home one stormy day to the entire bottom half of our bedroom door having been ripped off. He tore the baseboards off the wall and the trim around the door frame and then once he got a good grip on the door he just tore it apart. He was huddled in our bed and had peed on himself. That was one hell of a cleanup. He also learned how to open all the doors in the house and so a few months ago we came home to the entire contents of our trash can in the living room and he had dragged the dog food container out into the kitchen and ripped the lid off and eaten himself sick. We fed him before we left and were only gone 2 hours. I had to replace the door handle to the pantry because he kept doing it once he realized he could.

 

I disagree. I'm a supporter of spankings. It teaches very quickly.

 

How's that working out so far? We're having a baby this summer and starting really get back to training and working with ours. Trying to figure out best way to keep him off the couch and bed. I was thinking of picking up one those so he has his own "couch".

 

Also interested. Our 100lb bloodhound sneaks on our couches through the night. When she hears us coming down the stairs she hops off and pretends she was on the floor all night. She has her own dedicated loveseat but she's growing out of it, or has already.

 

That's the toughest part. once theyre allowed on, they'll always want to get on there when youre not looking. scat mat may get them thinking twice before jumping up on there though.

https://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&n...qmt=e&hvbmt=be&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_997pfkyfo7_e

 

I'm not trying to start a fuss over differing thoughts but I think Sue gave you good advice. Dogs learn through conditioning by repeating behaviors that get them good results and by avoiding behaviors that get them bad results. It takes a lot of time with repetitive actions and commands done the same way and practiced often. You can use reward obedience techniques or you can use avoidance/punishment aversive obedience techniques. The former reinforces a bond with the animal, something highly desirable. The latter has a lot of downsides and can backfire on you, especially regarding the bond you need to make with the animal to gain its trust. I don't claim to be a dog whisperer but I've done alright by my animal using nearly exclusive reward techniques. Every professional trainer I know relies on those techniques for almost all their training. Even those that train animals for field work and use things like shock collars for avoidance training from a distance do it (when doing it right) because you can't give a command from 200 yards away, not as a first resort but rather to overcome distance and to reinforce proper behaviors. None I know use it as a first resort for training a dog. Punishment can cause dogs to avoid owners, can cause them to growl or exhibit other undesirable behaviors when approached by a human, creates stress in the dog, as well as a host of other problems that have been well documented. Scientific studies have been done that show both approaches can be equally as effective in training a dog, yet reward training doesn't have the negative side effects that occur when punishment is used. I would urge you to read up some and speak to some professional trainers well experienced in dog and animal behavior. You may change your mind or not, but I'm willing to bet that you won't find much support on the professional side for punishment training.

 

That's fine, I wasn't searching for support on it. I don't abuse dogs and never will, they are treated (spoiled) very well. This dog has always been an outside dog and when I took her in she's now allowed inside and on the furniture just as my dog always has been. She's not afraid of me, but she respects me now. She still comes to me, no issues, and listens to the basic commands. The "punishment training" as you say it is something I look to when it's in need of an urgent fix. You can all lobby your side of training, but no "professional reward training" ever works in 1 go. My dog I've had since 5 weeks old went to the bathroom in the house guess how many times...once, ever (except when a medicine made his bladder overactive). I used punishment training and it only took one incident. For this new dog it took 1 incident of punishment training and she hasn't snapped towards him or me since. To each their own, but punishment training works..and it works fast. If you just punish them and ignore them and treat them like they are punished all the time sure I can see the other side effects, but I don't do that. It's a one and done kind of training.

 

and I know a bunch of people are highly against e-collars but they can also be an extremely useful tool too. I had a problem with my dog only doing what she knew was right while I was watching, then as soon as I leave the room or yard, she'd go right back to doing what she isn't supposed to be doing. I got a collar and remote and let her wear the collar on and off for a few weeks without correcting her at all with it. this was just to get the collar disassociated with anything. then I would make sure I had recently taught her not to do something, usually in the yard so I could go in the house and watch out of the window. as soon as she would go to disobey, shed get a correction. her not seeing me and me not being in the area, she learned to assume that it was the action itself that was causing the correction. she immediately would no longer do that action. I started doing it for most everything that I was struggling with and she learned that shes probably just better off listening to me. yes we still have some things that could use improvement but overall it was night and day.

by the way, the correction isn't a shock severe enough to illicit any yelp, or physical injury. its just enough that she feels it. that's all it takes.

 

We also have a e collar for the same reasons. She is trained to not leave a curb unless we are by her side so we like to let her out in the front yard and the community park next door. 99% of the time she stays within her boundaries but every once in awhile she will over step. The e collar was used for threshold training and now when she has it on she knows her boundaries. The shock, is also so small, I can barely feel it. The trainer zapped me so I knew what my dog was feeling. I can get the same results by just using the vibrate function.

 

yup. that's basically the same as me. I like that mine has a tone function too. ive got her trained to come when the tone is used. the damn thing has a 2 mile range so its a pretty nice long leash haha

 

It worked really well actually. But that was only one day. Time will only tell. He is still younge enough that I can teach he not to be on the furniture. The big plus of the elevated bed is that ithe gets the dog off the cold floor. That is the main reason why my puppy would get on the couch.

 

Yep. We have stained concrete floors that stay pretty cool all year round so they would either be underfoot on the rug or wanted to be on the couch. Now they like their beds and are getting better about understanding they need to be invited into our bed/couch. It's a process to teach them but it's worth it.

 

Ya it is a process. He is starting to understand that the bed is an invitation only kind of thing but the couch is a little bit of a struggle.

 

Bath day!!!

 

Wife just sent me this via text. Says the dogs heard a vehicle go by that sounded like my old 4Runner, so they went running for the window.

 

Hard to get out of bed with a cute girl.

 

I don't really have to do it now that she is older but my dog got a swat on the butt no worse then what I would do to my 7 year old. Both dog and kid I am proud to say are well mannered and behaved. You do it when they are young and it takes little force. You find you don't ever really have to when they get older.

 

Every dog is different. Some can be trained while others can not be trained.
The breed has a lot to do with a dogs learning and behavior characteristics.
I'm a lab guy. For every great Lab I've owned I've had a knucklehead Lab too.
If a dog is a knucklehead and can't be trained accept it and let it be.