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Ryan, Leerburg's IT Manager, with his dogs Honey, a German Shepherd, and Nappy, a Belgian Malinois.

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Email your story to Cindy about
How Your Dog Changed Your Life
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Hello Cindy –

My name is Gabriel. I have just recently become a fan of Leerburg after having my 3 year male Pit bull obedience trained.

After reading the many articles on your site I realized that leaving my boy with a professional trainer for two weeks was a mistake. But I am still grateful as my boy was in severe need of manners and now has them although I made him submit to someone outside his pack. All future training will be by me with the help of your DVDs and vast expertise.

However, the purpose of this email is in response to the story by Lesley and her dog Anika. My heart goes out to her, reading her story brought tears to my eyes as well as I reminisced of my first APBT given to me by a concerned uncle who gave him to me to occupy my time and keep me out of trouble. I was 17 at the time and that was 25 years ago.

When I took Diablo to his first show I was also informed that his pedigree was of quality lines and was even ridiculed a little by more than one knowledgeable breeder for changing the very well known breeders name on his papers to my name (what did I know). Although it was an unsanctioned “fun” show, Diablo placed first (I still have his ribbon and trophy). I spend the next winter with him and his trainer who came over every Saturday and worked with us and showed me what I needed to work him on until the next Saturday.

Back then, weight pulls were just starting out at the Pit bull shows and I started Diablo training for the pulls. Then one day I noticed he was limping a little and that he had a small knot protruding from one of his wrist joints. I though it was from weight pull training. The Vet diagnosed him with Valley Fever and that it had progressed to the point were it was causing painful bone growths in the joints. He also told me that other than keeping him comfortable, he could do nothing, there was no cure, and it had a 100% mortality rate. Sadly (with a little guilt), I kept him till he could no longer stand or walk without crying in pain, he flinched when given the shot, which made me flinch too and I apologized to him repeatedly until he closed his eyes and went to sleep. Oh man, my heart is breaking all over again. To lose your dog, you best friend and companion. You know when you are young like that, and you’re in your awkward years and the only ‘person’ in the world that understands is your dog, to lose him/her is such a blow.

Like Lesley, he taught me so much about life and living. Responsibility, humility, respect, compassion, remorse, enthusiasm, joy and sorrow, all virtues reinforced by a boys bond with his dog.  So here I sit, a 42 year old man crying secretly at his desk thinking of his first dog, how he changed my life and more than ever how much I miss him.

Hang in there Lesley, enjoy every minute with her. You will never forget Anika.

Diablo, I miss you; you were such a good friend.

I’ll see you when I get there.

Gabriel

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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.
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Question: I have an extremely dog reactive female German Shepherd, and I want to pursue agility with her but she goes nuts when she sees other dogs. Do you have any suggestions?

Cindy:

I have a 15 month old female German Shepherd that is extremely dog reactive.

When I have her out for a walk and she sees another dog she starts screaming – I don’t know how else to describe it. People come out of their houses because they think that a dog has been hurt. She also pulls and is only focused on the other dog. 

This is what I am currently doing to try and stop this behavior:

1. I have had private sessions with a trainer and introducing her to other dogs. She is not allowed to great the other dog until she is calm. Once the initial greeting is over, she is much calmer and the screaming stops.
2. Now, she is in a group intro to agility class. However, she can’t participate fully because of her behavior. The purpose is to get her to work for me and focus on the obstacles vs. the other dogs.  She is able to focus on the obstacles. However, when we first arrive at class and she sees the other dogs, she goes nuts – screaming, pulling etc.
3. I try to get her to focus on me before it escalates to the screaming point, however she has zero interest in anything else – food or toys.
4. We do obedience daily.
5. She gets 2 walks everyday.
6. We play fetch daily

I am so frustrated at this point and don’t know what else to do. There are so many things I want to do with her, but can’t because of how she reacts when other dogs are around. 

Any advice would be very much appreciated.

Thanks,
Melissa

Answer:

I’m going to make a couple of recommendations.  First you need to address the correct way to handle her when she becomes out of control around other dogs.  I’d completely avoid any type of classes that introduce her to other dogs.  This is not going to help your issues and may actually make them worse.  For dogs like yours, they need to learn to be indifferent to other dogs, not friendly with them. You don’t want the reward for any behavior to be another dog, especially if you want to pursue agility or any other dog sport where you want your dog focused on you.

For the dog reactivity, I’d recommend a strict restructuring program in and around the house. Start with our groundwork program and the video that picks up where the article leaves off, Pack Structure for the Family Pet.

For the screaming and out of control behavior, you need to be able to block and stop this behavior BEFORE it escalates.  By the time your dog is screaming, you’ve already missed your window of opportunity to let her know that’s not allowed.  Good dog training is about being one step ahead of the dog and giving the dog something else to do with herself, instead of the negative behavior.  I like to teach my dogs to look at me, or lay down with eye contact on command.  This way if I scan the horizon and see something I know will be challenging for my dog I can give him something to do that he WANTS to do and he knows bring rewards.  In the meantime, you need to know how to manage her when she has an episode of pulling/screaming .

I’d recommend a dominant dog collar and Dealing with Dominant & Aggressive Dogs DVD.

For teaching the focus and interaction with you for future training should be started at home in a no distraction zone. You are literally going to have to teach your dog how to focus and learn first before you can expect her to do this in an agility class. Don’t continue to put her in a class situation until you have a handle on the aggression/reactivity and have taught her to engage and focus on you.

I would recommend using markers to teach her the very basics first.

The Power of Training Dogs with Markers
The Power of Training Dogs with Food

You’ve got a lot of work ahead of you, but if you don’t try to skip any steps and really concentrate on the small details now I think you may be able to get your dog into the proper state of mind.  Just remember to stop letting her rehearse behaviors you don’t want.  This means no more classes that have other dogs in attendance right now.   If you continue to let her practice the unstable and reactive behaviors, you won’t be able to reach any of your training goals now or in the future.

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 Dog Fights.

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Question: Our 4 year old dog is protective of our new baby grandson, do you have any suggestions?

We have a wonderful, caring 4 year old male Belgian Sheepdog. I've done obedience training with him professional trainers over time for general commands (heel, with me, etc.). He can be oversensitive to stimulus. He is great with adults and now is dealing with his first exposure to a young infant (our grandson). He is becoming quite protective as he darts at our other dog if he goes near the baby. He even darted toward me while I was shaking a rattle in front of baby's face. He was going directly toward the rattle but didn't touch me. I having been giving him a firm NO when he does this and sometime insist on down position. He seems to be overprotective. He loves to lick the baby and nudge him to sniff and check him out.  We never allow our Belgian near baby without supervision and after a couple of licks and greeting we tell him to leave it. Any suggestions? I've been raised with GSD,  so familiar  with the instinctive protectiveness. Think our Belgian is over-reacting. Hope our approach will not make this more so. We do say good down and good boy when he listens and "leaves it" (retreat). Thank you for any suggestions. 

Joanne

Answer:

Your dog isn’t being overprotective, he’s being obsessive.  I would stop allowing this behavior immediately.  Many people think a dog is being protective in a good way when in reality the dog is resource guarding the baby, as if the baby is one of HIS possessions.

I'd recommend reading our section on kids and dogs. 

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.

Since you have good obedience control of your dog, I’d always demand he maintain a certain distance from the baby and NEVER allow him around the baby unsupervised, even for a moment. 

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

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Question: My 10 month old GSD drags me when I try to walk her and she barks and sniffs the ground constantly.  I got her when she was 6 months old and her previous owner trained her in search & rescue when she was a little pup, how do I stop this ‘search & rescue’ behavior?

Hi Ed and Cindy,

I adopted a female GSD (then 6 months old) from another family a few months ago.  She is now 10 months old.  Her previous family trained her in search and rescue at a very young age, and I think they did this without even training her in basic obedience.  When we got her, she was practically pulling my arms out of the sockets during walks and sniffing the ground the entire time.  They also taught her to "speak" when she wants something, and now she is constantly whining and yelping for everything and anything and barks at every little noise.

We finally got her to stop going full speed ahead on walks, but I do have to correct her when she starts getting ahead of me.  I am taking her to beginner obedience classes...and she is just horrible.  I know it is not her fault and I am the only one to blame.  I work with her at home, and she does just fine.  But once we are at class, all she does is sniff and want to track around and watch the other dogs.  No matter how much I try to get her attention, she just does not pay attention to me.  Even with food and toys. 

So my questions are:

1. How do I get her to stop this "search and rescue" behavior when it is uncalled for?  Do I just keep giving her corrections? 

2. How do I stop her from constantly being so vocal, loud, whiny, and barky??  Again, just a matter of correction?

3. How do I get her to pay attention to my commands when we are not at home?  It's like she's completely deaf!  Should I just work with her at home until I know she is okay to go to classes (distraction phase)? 

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks so very much,
Janis

Answer:

The behavior your young dog is displaying has nothing to do with Search & Rescue, it’s normal dog behavior when someone takes the leash that they do not perceive as their leader.  My dogs are very well trained, but if you tried to walk them they would drag you like you were water skiing behind them.  They don’t follow directions from people who are not their leaders and many dogs are this way.  Basically it’s a lack of respect.

I’d get this dog out of a group class situation until you get the walking on leash perfect with no distraction and you get the vocalizing under control. She doesn’t pay attention to you for a number of reasons 1) she doesn’t have to 2) everything else is much more interesting and 3) you are asking too much of her at this point in her training.

I’ll make a few recommendations on how to get her to want to work with YOU, and engage with YOU. Until this happens further training will have to be correction based and for a dog this young, I’d try another way first. You can always go to corrections later.

Read this article on marker training first.
The Power of Training Dogs with Markers
The Power of Training Dogs with Food

These will give you the foundation for any future training you want to do. 

You can watch our free streaming video to see some examples of marker training and to hear the Michael Ellis lectures, I can’t recommend them enough.

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 Obedience.

*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

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