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Dona, Leerburg's Office Assistant, with Leerburg's office dog CJ.

Story Contest!
Enter for a chance to win a $25 Leerburg Gift Certificate!

Do you have great stories about your dog? Now is the time to enter Leerburg's Story Contest. Email your story to Cindy about
How Your Dog Changed Your Life
We will change the theme periodically. Click here for more information.

A Michael Ellis School Student, Lindsey Sommer, Training her 12 Week Old Puppy Part 2

*At checkout, enter coupon code OCT22 into the comments section at checkout to receive savings.
An email will be sent after you have placed your order specifying the new total.
This special is valid for TWO DAYS ONLY Thursday, October 22nd, 2009. 12:01 A.M. to
Friday, October 23rd, 2009 at 11:59 P.M. Central Standard Time.
Order must be placed, received, and be dated for October 22nd or 23rd.
Orders placed before or after these dates will NOT be given the price discount. No Exceptions!

Have a Question on Dog Training?

Have you checked the Leerburg Discussion Board? It is one of the most active dog web boards on the internet. The Leerburg Web Board has over 13,275 Members with over 165 forums and 212,000 posts in its archives. The web board also has an excellent search engine that only searches the web board's 212,000 posts.

This Week's Featured
Question & Answers

Our newsletter will always contain several featured customer Q&As from that week.
Have a question for Ed & Cindy? Try the Leerburg Search Engine. This search engine was written specifically for Leerburg by our in house IT manager. Our search engine is specific to Leerburg and only searches leerburg.com and the Leerburg web forum.
If you can't find the answer to your question by using our search engine, you can email Cindy here at Leerburg at cindyr@leerburg.com If you have your spam filter on, make sure you set it to receive our replies!!!

Question: I made the mistake of getting 2 puppies from the same litter.  We’ve decided that one will live with me and one will live with my girlfriend.  How much should we let them play together?

While searching for training information for my 2 new litter mate pups I came across your site and learned that I had made a bad decision. I know you hear the story time and time again that people think they will get a playmate so that the pups will keep each other company during the day...we had no clue how bad of a decision that was until we saw your site. We have decided now that the best option would be for my girlfriend to take one of the puppies to her house and I will keep one here. So now the question has become "How much time do we allow them to spend together?" Should they only see each other to play once per week for about an hour, should they see each other for about an hour daily, or should it be even less than that? What is your recommendation?

I ordered your 8 weeks to 8 months video and I will be following that for their training. I look forward to getting it in because though I messed up in the beginning... I want to do the rest right.

Thanks,
David  

Answer:

Whenever I’m raising a puppy, I don’t allow him to “play” with other dogs of any age until he demonstrates to me that he will come to me when he’s called with one command no matter what he’s doing.  If he won’t do this, then he’s not ready for off leash interaction with other dogs.

A lot of people don’t want to do this, and that’s fine but you run the risk of setting up your dog to always think other dogs are way more fun that you are.  This means that to later train him to leave this scenario you’ll likely need to use a pretty strong correction to get your point across.  I’d rather establish a habit in my dog from day one that I’m always the most interesting thing around, so that means lots of repetitions of coming to me without a super high level distraction like a litter mate or other dog. 

This could mean my dog is 6 months old before I allow him interaction with other dogs, or it could mean he’s 2 years old…it all really depends on the dog and your skill as a trainer.  I also only let my puppy around trained older dogs that I know will basically ignore him at first.  You let your pup go with another pup and it’s likely to turn into a free for all that is way too much fun for the puppy.   I can be a lot of fun for my dog, but I find it hard to compete with another puppy in the fun department!

I hope this helps.

For more questions on this topic, see our Q&A on Raising 2 Dogs at the Same Time.

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Question: My dog doesn't respond to marker training so how can I correct her from unwanted behaviors?

Hi Cindy,

I have a 14 month GSD female from an expensive kennel.. Shipped to me at 9 weeks. She was spayed after the first heat. She has a huge play (prey) drive and a very low food drive. She does respond to markers. Sasha is on a raw meat diet shared with Embark from Honest Kitchen. She has a good appetite. Because markers are ineffective, what is another form of correction besides the ecollar which I use infrequently. the behaviors I want to correct are: indifferent recall, jumping on and/or being aggressive with strangers.... not mean but scary to them until I get her calmed down.

Thanks,
James

Answer:

You've got me confused. You say she has low food drive BUT she has a good appetite. That doesn't make sense. If the dog has a good appetite then you should be able to use food for marker training, you just may not have made sure she's hungry enough or found a high enough value treat.

I wouldn't be so fast to write off marker training.

Have you read this article on marker training? I'd also recommend these 2 videos; The Power of Training Dogs with Markers and The Power of Training Dogs with Food.

I think you will find that if you follow the outline in these videos your dog will respond very well and the need for corrections will be much less frequent. She just needs to learn to engage with you.

We are also just getting ready to release The Power of Playing Tug with Your Dog. It's the follow up DVD to the 2 I list above.

If your dog is engaged with you then you'll have her attention, and the behaviors you want to address will be much easier to deal with and you can use rewards to reinforce good behavior instead of just automatically correcting her for things you don't want her to do.

You can always go to corrections but I HIGHLY recommend this system first.

Learn to use the search function (located in the left hand corner of every page on our website). Simply type in your search terms or key words and you will be directed to articles, question & answers, free streaming videos and posts on our forum.

I hope this helps.

Cindy

For more questions on this topic, see our Q&A on Markers.

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Question: I want to use your bottle feeding formula for my litter of puppies but I can’t find corn syrup, can I use glucose syrup?

Good Morning,

Thank you for your puppy formula. My APBT just had 12 puppies 2 weeks ago and we are using your formula on the 6 largest ones so that the smaller ones can get a full tummy of moms milk. We tried the powder formula first and they hated it. We thought we would struggle until I came across your formula on the net. My questions is "I can't find Corn Syrup but I did find Glucose Syrup which says its corn based, is this the same and is it ok to use?"

Ivan

Answer:

A replacement for Karo or Corn syrup is listed on the bottle feeding page

****If you cannot find Karo or Corn syrup where you live, you can do a Google search for “substitute for Karo syrup” and get some options.****

When I Googled “substitute for Karo syrup" here is what I came up with- 1 c Karo can be subbed with 1 c white sugar and 1/4 c hot water (cook it to dissolve in the water best you can get it to. Depending on the recipe, if you need the sugar to be completely dissolved you might need to add a bit more water).

For more questions on this topic, see our Q&A on Bottle Feeding.

*If you have a training question – write Cindy here at Leerburg at cindyr@leerburg.com

*If you have your spam filter on, make sure you set it to receive our replies!!!

*Our newsletter is a big success and we would like to send out a huge THANKS to our wonderful customers! Since beginning this newsletter our volume of email has greatly increased and you may have a longer than usual wait for a reply to your question.  We will answer; it just may take us a bit longer than you are accustomed to. In order to speed up this process, please condense your questions to a paragraph or two. This will make it MUCH easier for us to answer in a timely fashion. Your questions are important to us and we always appreciate receiving them.  If you have a medical issue or emergency, please consult with a health care professional right away. We can’t diagnose or treat sick dogs via email. Also, try using the search function on our site - it now searches the site AND the web board. Thank you. Ed & Cindy

Testimonials

Hello Ed,

I just wanted to tell you how totally impressed we are with your service.

We ordered a few items (well, $500 or so) Oct 5th and it was at our door on the 8th. This is to NORTHERN ALBERTA, CANADA!!! I have never received product so quickly even when ordered inside Canada.

We were worried we would get our new GSD puppy (Phoenix) on the 17th before the order got here. Our previous baby, Caesar, was a purebred GSD who had to be put down in early July at 3 years old with renal failure.  His kidneys were under developed and he fought for about a year before losing the battle.  Very hard on my wife and I as he was truly a special friend.

Next week I will be ordering some DVDs as we do want to employ many of your training methods.  We are determined to feed Honest Kitchen but have been unable to find a Canadian source although their website lists several dealers who do NOT carry it.   Honest Kitchen has yet to answer emails with supplier info.  I am on the road a lot (rural - remote area bread man) and I know my wife will not do raw.

I would love to hear your honest opinion on Orijen and/or Ancana kibbles as both are Alberta made, supposedly reasonable quality and available in our northern location.  I would switch off daily with Honest Kitchen which I would have to bring up from your site.

Warmest regards,
Bob

Leerburg's Affiliate Program
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Learn how to become a Leerburg Affiliate!

Upcoming Michael Ellis Seminar
Check out the pictures from the recent Michael Ellis Seminar
and the upcoming seminar dates!

ANNOUNCING
The Michael Ellis School for Dog Training

NOW OPEN!

More details on courses, course content and dates available on the web site.

http://michaelellisschool.com

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