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March 15, 2010

Michael Ellis' Lecture on Operant Conditioning
This lecture was filmed by Ed Frawley at Michael's school in California.

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Unreal Lambskin Pet Bed
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The Power of Training Dogs with Markers DVD

The Power of Training Dogs with Food DVD

The Power of Playing Tug with Your Dog DVD

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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: What can I give my dog for discomfort due to hip dysplasia? The vet mentioned a anti-inflammatory/pain killer, which we used but then stopped due to possible affects that can impact the liver. Do you have any suggestions?

Hi there,

I am a fan of your website and I have 2 West-line German Shepherds. My female will be 3 years old in March and the male will be 2 years old in Feb. My female has hip dysplasia that recently started bothering her within the past 6 months. When taking her to the vet after two opinions, we were told to do surgery and said it would not be a sure fix. The vet mentioned an anti-inflammatory/pain killer, which we used but then stopped due to possible affects that can impact the liver. This would not be a problem if the dog was much older, but only being almost three I have a difficult time with this. I was wondering what you recommend that we can give her? Could you please let me know... we love our dogs so very much!!

Ed's Answer:

Julie,

There are too many variables here. Without seeing the x-rays, I can’t really comment too much.

I do agree that RYMADYL is a terrible terrible drug – I would never use it for anything.

In the summer months you should make an effort to swim your dogs. This helps muscle them up without stressing the joints. You can try some of the Chinese herbs we carry.  They work very well for us and our dogs – remarkable on one of our older GSDs. I have copied Cindy into this she will send you the items we use.

Regards,
Ed Frawley

Cindy's Answer:

I give all 3 of these supplements to our older dogs, and they all have pretty severe joint issues. I give the 2 tablet products twice a day, and the Syn Flex once a day. It’s made a world of difference for these dogs. One of them is 14, one is 11 and one is 10. I think you’ll see a positive difference in your dog within a few weeks, although I saw a difference much sooner with my own dogs. The vet that formulated them says it may take up to 20 days to see full effect.

Acute Trauma
Soothe Joints
Syn-Flex

I hope this helps. Cindy

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

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Question: My 12 week old puppy has been fearful of steps and today she ignored my command to approach the steps. I gave her a number of corrections but she just cowered and yelped. I need some advice on how to address this.

Hi Ed,

Wanted to thank you - I am a big fan of your web-site and DVD offerings.

I wanted to ask your opinion on a particular stumbling point I am having with my mastiff puppy who is now 12 weeks old.  Its the steps, she seems afraid of them, and despite my coaxing with food markers refuses to follow a come command to follow me down them or even go to the top of them. Which until today, I've passed off as something she will overcome. However, it has becoming more and more apparent that she recognizes and obeys the come command in the house - with gusto (as I have been marker training come, sit and down) but refuses to come outside of the typical training period - like at the top of the stairs, or when we go outside (and she tries to lead me back in the house) and refuses to come and follow me to go on a walk. Often a 1or 2 collar correction works to redirect her, for the walk - but today she ignored the command to approach the stairs. I escalated the collar correction to a 4 and she yelped but still refused.  Then a six correction made her cower back to the door and yelp so I stopped, waited and just picked her up placed her on the bottom step and had her navigate down.

I'd appreciate your advice on how you would address this, as I fear I'm messing it up.

Thanks,
George

Answer:

First of all, are they open steps?  If so, they can be very intimidating and scary! I would NOT be using corrections for her. Correcting for fear is completely unfair and will destroy her ability to work through it.  It will also destroy her trust in you as her leader.

Many puppies that will go up steps, will be afraid to come down so realize that going up and coming down are two very different things to a pup. Keep that in mind as you work with her.

I would get a VERY GOOD working knowledge of marker training, and work with her on things that build her confidence.  

I’d recommend The Power of Training Dogs with Markers and The Power of Training Dogs with Food.

Don’t expect her to go up all the steps or come down all the steps. Whenever I’ve encountered a puppy that’s worried, I take her to the very LAST step and lure them with food. Most puppies can do ONE. Once she’s doing one with confidence, then carry her and ask her to do TWO steps. This may take 5 minutes or it may take a week. Don’t rush her or force her.

I’d start by teaching her to go up, because that tends to be easier for most dogs. Going down requires more coordination.

Use the same type of thinking when you take her outside on leash, no force. Make sure she’s really hungry when you work on these things or the food will have no value.

No more corrections for anything, but especially no corrections for being unsure. That will ruin a dog’s self esteem completely, maybe for life.

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

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Question: I have a 4 year old dog that I have trained in agility and she won’t listen to me on course. I also have a younger dog that I am doing Schutzhund with and I’d like to do agility with her also. Our trainer feels that if we are doing Schutzhund with her, we shouldn't do any other kind of training because she will get confused. What do you think?

Hi Cindy,

We have a 4 year old German Shepard. We took obedience classes with her when she was young and did agility with her as she grew up. We have a bit of an attention problem in that when she get excited about an activity she feels she no longer need my guidance. I am trying to be polite but actually she is not. She blows me off. I tell her she is being rude and that is not acceptable. If we are doing agility lets say we will start off okay, but she get excited and runs her own course. She runs  every piece of equipment and does not come back to me until she is finished her play time. I have been told to take her off the course as she can not use the equipment if she does not listen. I am them to take her back to doing a piece of equipment and getting a reward then another and then getting a reward. Brake it down so that she learns that in listening is fun. We have been working on it but making very slow progress. Tunnels are the hardest. Any piece of equipment near a tunnel in her opinion can not be taken on its own. In practice I can get her attention and bring her back to me or on to another piece of equipment, but when we put it together for a full course she loses it. Didn’t know if this is something you might have a suggestion about.

We also have a 20 month old Shepard and we thought that we might like to try agility with her. We have started Schutzhund training with her and our trainer feels that if we are doing Schutzhund then that is all we should do. He feels that it is confusing to the dog. He feel that we should only concentrate on one type of training. We love to learn new things and would like to do both or even other training with our dogs. How do you feel about this.

Cathy

Answer:

If you are clear on your training, there is no reason that a dog can’t participate in multiple sports. Unfortunately, most people leave too much “gray area” in the dog’s foundation so it makes it confusing to the dog.

From your description of your 4 year old dog, I would guess that your dog doesn’t have a clear idea of what the rules are and you haven’t properly taught her to be engaged with you. Telling her “she’s rude” doesn’t mean anything to her. I would stop doing agility with this dog right now. Otherwise all you are doing is letting her practice the same bad behavior over and over.

I have a few recommendations for you. Start from scratch and teach a communication system that you can use no matter what sport you choose to do. Dogs need to learn to engage with you to get what they want, and if they don’t engage with you then they don’t play. It’s very simple but a lot of folks have trouble sticking to it. Give up the idea of actually doing agility right now and go back to teaching her that to get what she wants (agility) she needs to follow your direction.

I’d read this article on marker training.

I would then recommend

The Power of Training Dogs with Markers
The Power of Training Dogs with Food
The Power of Playing Tug with Your Dog

Don’t get ahead of yourself and let her run off leash on a course, because then if she makes the wrong choice you will have reinforced her for blowing you off again.

Retraining dogs like this can be a very long and tedious process, and if you aren’t consistent you may never fix it but just don’t get in a hurry and spend the time now working on the foundation of engagement. It’s really the only way. You have to make playing WITH you more fun than running around like a wild woman.

I’d also do all of the same work with your young dog, because the foundation for Schutzhund, agility, obedience, ring sport and search/rescue is all the same.

You can go to our streaming video page to watch Michael Ellis’s lectures and some training clips.

I hope this helps. Cindy

For more information on this topic, see our Q&A on Playing with Your Dug or Schutzhund.

*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

Dog Bite

We are always looking for photos of people who have been bitten by their dogs while trying to break up a dog fight. If you send us photos and the story on how the accident happened we will put them on our website with the hope that your mistakes will help other people realize how dangerous it is to try and break up a dog fight the wrong way.

Dog Fight:

A stray dog ran up to me and my dogs while on a walk. I am 9 months pregnant and my dogs reacted in a protective manner. They have never been in a fight in the 4 years I have had them. Silly me tried to break it up. Luckily it was my own dog that accidentally bit me and he instantly stopped the fighting.

Cindy's Response:

I'm sorry that you were bitten, but your dogs getting in a fight almost certainly had nothing to do with you being pregnant. This is one of those myths that gets passed around, there is no truth to it.  It probably had more to do with the fact that you didn't offer them leadership and guidance about what to do when faced with this stray dog. 

Ed has written an article about being attacked by stray dogs.

We also have an article about how to break up a dog fight without being hurt.

I hope your wound heals up quickly,

Cindy

Testimonials
See Previous Testimonials

Hi Mr. Frawley,

Thank you for your sound advice via free eBooks! 

When my 5 wk old Siberian Husky pup showed signs of really being sick w/ explosive diarrhea I panicked, didn't know he was really that sick. Of course, this happened on a friday night  and still had the weekend to go when no vet could be contacted. I began searching the web for help as to what I could do to get him regulated and stop the flood of running brown water that was squirting out of his rear end. I  found one of your free eBooks, "Diarrhea in Puppies," read it and made a midnight run to the local Walmart for supplies. We got through the weekend by following your advice found in that eBook and got him to a vet on tuesday. The vet did all the tests you suggested and prescribed Albon  just as you said would happen. I started him on a bland chicken & rice diet w/ a little pumpkin in it. It's been almost two weeks and he's finally started to make snakes instead of puddles.

I hope, I'm not stepping over any protocols by directly emailing you this big "THANK YOU" for your eBooks.

I'd like to start using your training methods for training our Siberian Huskies we have two  female 16 weeks and male 7 weeks, they are very smart as you know and could be trained like a German Shepard. I'd like to train my male to be a home guard, by that I mean stay alert and bark to alarm me if something isn't right. Where would you suggest I start using your methods to get them on the right path?

Best of Regards,
Louis

Ed's Response:

I love to get emails like this. There I a lot of satisfaction that goes with helping people with their puppies.

I have walked in your shoes more times than I can remember in the last 35 years I have bred dogs.

The best advice I can give on training is to become an expert on marker training. You can start with my article. Study this work.

Then here are the DVDs I recommend:

The Power of Training With Markers
The Power of Training Dogs with Food 
Your Puppy 8 Weeks to 8 Months

In this order.

Frankly I would not do a lot of work until you have studied the correct way to do this. It’s 100 times harder to fix problems that people create with bad training than it is to train a dog the right way right to of the shoot.

Regards,
Ed Frawley

Leerburg's 2010 Seminar & Mondio Trial

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Trial: Saturday, June 26th and Sunday, June 27th

Come Join Us in June

If you are looking for a fun dog sport and you would like to learn more about the Mondio Ring, come and join us for the seminar and trial. There are fees to audit the seminar, but there is no admission fee to come and watch the Mondio competition on Saturday and Sunday.

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A list of Michael Ellis Seminars

http://michaelellisschool.com

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