Dog Training The Easy Way

Mean and Agressive Lhasa Apso

jab177 — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 16:19:18 +0000

Q
How do I socialize a 6 year old mean and agressive Lhasa Apso?He is so mean to my other Bulldog puppy, and he hates kids too. He’s unpredictable.

A
He is very likely asserting his authority on your other dog and children. You have to make it clear to him that it is not his place to do that. You do that but setting rules and boundaries for him. In other words you need to become his pack leader. It is the pack leaders responsibility to decide who gets attacked so if he sees you as the authority figure he will follow your lead. To do this you need to watch his behaviour closely and try to snap him out of his train of thought right at the start of any potential issue. So as soon as he looks at your Bulldog, you need to create a noise to change his focus. Don’t let his brain become fixated.
I would recommend you look at Cesar Millan’s web site and or my blog where I recommend a training programme, which should help. One other point is if he is not neutered then I would definitely speak to your vet and get that done.
I hope that this helps.

How do I teach a male 9 1/2 mth. old Toy Rat Terrier the word no?

jab177 — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 18:14:06 +0000

Q - We just got him last week. He was as good as gold the first week, now he’s gotten comfortable with us and is very curious and into everything. What’s the proper way to teach him the word no. Everything I read about the breed says if you are too forceful with them, they can become stubborn and hard to manage.

A - 1 - Although you may hear/read otherwise the MOST important thing is “never hit your dog”. He will only learn to do what ever you don’t want and then duck. Honestly there is never any situation where smacking a dog can help. Even more important - NEVER hit your dogs nose. It is your dogs primary sense. It will only teach him to get out of your way which is self defeating.
2 - Unfortunately dogs can’t speak English, so he will never understand the word no. You have to speak to your dog in a language he understands.
3 - The way to stop him doing things is to distract him. Use a sound which is short I use “HEY” with my dog. He will interpret it as a bark which he will understand. Only ever use that sound to discipline him so he will very quickly associate your bark with your displeasure.
4 - Occasionally he may become so fixated on something that HEY will not work. So give him a very quick tap/pinch on the shoulder with your thumb and forefinger. The object is just to snap him out of his train of thought, not to knock him over or hurt him. With such a small dog you will only need a very light touch. It emulates a bite. It is natural behavior between dogs and it works.
5 - He should be getting at least 2 walks a day of not less than 20 minutes. It will help prevent boredom.
6 - Make sure that he has some toys. One of my dogs will even stop eating if he hears his squeaky toy, so I use that sometimes to distract him.
7 - I would also consider a course of training. I recommend one and there is a link on my blog to it. This will help the bonding between you and also help set you as the pack leader.
Good luck.
jab177

This Dog Needs Training

jab177 — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 01:06:01 +0000

I have this dog and he is a very loyal dog but he always gets into the trash I mean I don’t walk him all the time but I need to learn how to get him to stop begging for food like when I am eating he bothers me its really annoying and when I’m not home or asleep he gets into trouble example: he gets into the trash and makes a mess!!!!!!!! What do I do???????

Walk him at least twice a day, every day, for at least 20 minutes each. Mostly walk him on the lead, but a few minutes off.
Do a training course. I have a link to a good one on my blog. www.dogtrainingtheeasyway.com. It is very reasonable and you can sign up for some free advice as well.
When he accepts you as his pack leader, he will give you space when you are eating, but in the meantime, prepare his food at the same time as yours, but you eat first. As soon as you have finished, give him his. It may take a while, but he will learn.
Good luck

Dog Attack Question

jab177 — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 00:52:02 +0000

Q - My dog has never attacked another dog but he has never done this before. He is a two year old min pin and when i opened my door he ran out and chased a neighbors chihuahua. In other interactions with this dog, they both growled (the chiuhuahua’s owner said his dog doesn’t like other dogs) but my dog is not normally like this. He plays with all dogs at the dog park, whines to play with dogs on the street and plays with the dogs at all my relatives houses. What could have caused him to go after this dog and will he now do it to other dogs?

A - This is a complicated question because you didn’t see the whole picture. Unless you can see the body language between the two dogs, it is impossible to say exactly why he went after the other one because you don’t know who started it. That said I think the issue that you should consider and address, is why your dog ran out of the house in the first place. The answer is that he believes that it is his responsibility to protect his/your territory against possible threats. You need to make him understand, that it is your responsibility to decide who can enter and not his. He obviously sees himself as top dog. You need to sort this quickly because if you don’t it will probably get worse and he may well do it to other dogs. Good news is, it is not usually too difficult to cure. I recommend a training course; a link to it is on my blog. One thing which should help is, before you open your door, make sure that, not only is he behind you, but also that he is calm and relaxed and sitting or down. Watch him as you start to open the door and if he starts to get up, correct him immediately and get him relaxed before you open the door. Be aware of him while your door is open so that you can correct him if need be. While you have the door open he must never be in front of you always behind you and relaxed.
I hope that this helps.

Power Feeding

jab177 — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 00:32:25 +0000

I overheard a conversation in the park today. I don’t usually listen in on other peoples conversations, but I was having a migraine and I reckon that that gave me super hearing! It really must have been that because my wife truly believes I am deaf. Anyway apparently two women told a third that she should be feeding her dog after she had eaten and this would solve the problems which this woman was experiencing with her dog. Her dog was, incidentally a lovely King Charles Cavalier pup and the lady in question whom I have spoken to many times myself is very nice, but it got me thinking that this is one of the things which every dog owner hears about, because everyone knows that the top dog eats first. But the reality is that doing things like moving feeding times are great but it won’t have much effect in itself. The thing is that all training should start with your attitude. Your dog will instinctively understand your attitude. They can read the energy which you give off. They don’t understand words and they won’t understand moving their meal times in itself because it will give them mixed messages. The place to start is always your attitude, and that means, behave as though you are the pack leader, because if you believe it so will your dog.

How I Structure The Walk

jab177 — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 21:21:17 +0000

They say that a dog should earn his time off the lead by walking properly on it. However I find it much easier to do a lead walk in the middle of the walk. So Toby gets 5 minutes off the lead and then 15 minutes on and then another 10 minutes off, twice a day.

Rain

jab177 — Wed, 28 May 2008 15:21:04 +0000

Yesterday was a rainy day; in fact I don’t recall it stopping at all during the day. It seemed to really affect Toby, because he behaved very strangely, particularly when I tried to put his raincoat on to go for a walk. It is an underbelly coat to keep him a bit dry underneath as he has very little legs. Now he has worn it loads of times before but for some reason he decided that there was no way that he was going out in it. So somewhere between me trying to put it on him and him jumping as high as he could, he got his head and one front leg through the same hole. His coat then jammed tight and wouldn’t go either on or off, and I ended up having to cut it off him. The moral of the story is, make sure that your dog coat fastens with Velcro at every possible join!

Hideous

jab177 — Tue, 20 May 2008 02:22:37 +0000

My post today was to be to advertise a great product, which I have, but I have just received an email from a friend, which was nothing short of outrageous, and is far more important. I checked it out on Hoax Busters and Google and other than it has not been proved that the dog died as a result of its’ treatment here, it would appear to be true. Here are the contents of the email as sent to me. I would urge you to follow the link at the bottom and sign the petition. When I signed, there were 1.25 million signatures.

THIS WILL TAKE A MINUTE OF YOUR TIME AND WILL SAVE A CREATURE – AND HOPEFULLY REMOVE THIS SO-CALLED ‘ARTIST’!!!

Hi all,
this is a very serious matter…

In the 2007, the ‘artist’ Guillermo Vargas Habacuc, took a dog from the street, he tied him to a rope in an art gallery, starving him to death.

For several days, the ‘artist’ and the visitors of the exhibition have watched emotionless the shameful ‘masterpiece’ based on the dog’s agony, until eventually he died.

Does it look like art to you?

But this is not all … the prestigious Visual Arts Biennial of the Central American decided that the ‘installation’ was actually art, so that Guillermo Vargas Habacuc has been invited to repeat his cruel action for the biennial of 2008.

Let’s STOP HIM!!!!!or

http://www.petitiononline.com/13031953/petition.html or just copy it in your browser to sign a petion to stop him to do it again, then digit the name Guillermo Vargas Habacuc to find the petition to sign.

Click on the following link :

http://www.petitiononline.com/ea6gk/petition-sign.html

Please do it.

It’s free of charge and it will only take 1 minute to save the life of an innocent creature.

Please also send this e-mail to as many contact as you can… Let’s stop him!!!

If you want to double check all the above informations you can google the name of the ‘artist’ to see all I have just said corresponds to truth.

Thank you

Great Value Dog Training

jab177 — Thu, 15 May 2008 00:09:10 +0000

Hi all

Today I am reviewing part of the free dog training course which I recommended yesterday.

It is nicely written, easy and quick to read.

The first lesson concerns jumping up and covers the subject very well for a free lesson. It is clear, concise and helpful.

The second lesson is about dogs who won’t listen to their owners. I really liked this lesson as I wish that I had a pound for every time I called Toby and then saw him look up, laugh and then continue to sniff at the same bush that he had been sniffing at for the last 5 minutes. I particularly likes David’s last point about naming your dog.

More soon.

Bye

Dog Trainers Fight

jab177 — Tue, 13 May 2008 18:36:34 +0000

Today I came across an old article about how conventional dog trainers are trying to belittle those with different methods. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/10/15/CMGPHL9D1N1.DTL.
I think that this is a negative and distasteful article which smacks of sour grapes. The conventional lobby seem frightened and I suppose I’m not surprised. Just because someone has a string of qualifications it doesn’t mean that they know everything. I think that Cesar Milan is amazing and he gets results. His system is so simple and logical. The most important thing for me is that the dogs all seem happier after he has been with them.

In my opinion there is a place for both. Cesar does not train dogs as such, he rehabilitates them. Dogs do benefit from training and it also helps the bond between dog and owner.
So this week I am recommending a training course. It is an e-book and audios. For this week, the author is also giving a bonus of individual support and all for $37. This seems to me to be such good value that I am sure that it will be helpful for everyone. He is also giving away a free 6 day training course. Click Here!

Bye for now