Most Popular Q&As

I have a 5 month old dutch shepherd. He is the second ds I have owned. He sleeps in his crate and does not get fed from the table. He is wonderful on a leash when we go for walks. I am working with him to come when called and releasing toys with food reward. The only problem I have is there are times that he becomes aggressive and bites at me. An example is when I am watering plants and he grabs and attacks the water hose. if I take the hose from him, he bites my hand. I was trying th...

We've had our new puppy for a week and she is being crate trained; spends all her time either in her airline crate (at night), in the wire crate in our living room when we're watching TV, or in an ex-pen (that's been closed up a bit since I don't have enough room in my office to fully open it). My office is carpeted and not very comfortable (cheap carpet) so I have a fleece blanket set up in the bottom of the ex-pen with the blanket past the edges of the ex-pen to help keep it in place. So...

Ed! In looking - mainly by fluke - in the 'questions/comments' in the sar section - just under Patti Thompson's pic of Deja working Fresh Kills.....a person talks about their 10 month old training in air scent. You replied that "10 months is way, way, way too young......". Uh - since when? I've been training air scent for almost 20 years now and always start them off extremely young - including my dog from Leerburg lines - and all have been exceptional air scenting dogs. I'm talking 4 mont...

Hello, We have a male Golden Retriever who is turning one year old next week.? He was neutered at 7 months of age and we have had him since he was 8 weeks old. With the help of your videos on Establishing a Pack Structure and Dealing with Dominant dogs we have for the most part an obedient dog who stays and comes on command. Walks well with us and responds to verbal correction when he wants to wander toward other dogs or to sniff around. Unfortunately he has tendency to get very agg...

Hi Cindy, We have a 4-month-old Caucasian Shepherd puppy and he displays uncontrollable dog aggression to unfamiliar dogs. I have read that this breed of dog is very independent and does not have the best recall. Having owned a protection-trained Malinois and a German Shepherd, I am amazed at how intense this puppy can be. He lives with an 8-year-old male German Shepard and a 10-year-old female Border Collie. They all get along although his "puppy play" can be rough. We socialize him at...

Hi Cindy! How are you? My questions are: 1) I heard you don't vaccinate your puppies and dogs at all at Leerburg. Is that true? 2) Is it ALL vaccines or do you give SOME vaccine/s? I think we have some REQUIRED vaccines here at Houston,Tx 3) Do you reccomend the heartworm PILL that is recommended monthly by vets or not? I just bought a lot of videos from you guys because I am purchasing a working GSD, and will be buying more in the future. Have a great day! Thanks a lot, Mark

Cindy, I've made great strides with my dog, thanks to your advice. She displays only brief, calm interest or indifference towards the chicken coop and defers to the cats in the home if they growl, hiss, or run away - no chasing, fixating, etc. Thank you! A new issue has cropped up: yesterday she began to guard high value treats from me (bison or beef bones), growling if I approach, and even snapping to deter me. These treats are new, but 1 week ago I could approach or pet her when she wa...

Welcome home, Jeff! I can't believe how much he sounds like Ed. Loved the video of you and Rush biking. My large dog has a high prey drive, but he does great biking. Just in case, I use a Walky Dog attachment so he can't pull me over. But as much as my dog loves running with the bike, I come close to quitting every day. We live in the city, and I've lost count of how many times unleashed dogs have come after us. I hear this from other bikers and joggers all the time. It's always a diffe...

I have just found your webpage and have been reading a lot of the articles and I find it very interesting. My problem is, I got 2 female pups about 6 weeks apart. They are now 10 and 11 months old. Before I got the dogs, I asked my vet for advice about getting 2 dogs and what age would be best to get them. She told me to get them as pups and let them grow up together. They are both crossbreeds and I got them from a rescue center. They were both getting on great. When the first one had her...

I have 2 year old high drive female GSD. Her favorite toy is a ball on a rope. I used this to train her and also for many hours of tug. She will do anything for that ball. The problem is she will not out the ball without a struggle when we play/train. When we walk back into the house she will drop it immediately at the door on command. I have tried freezing up, but she just pulls and pulls. She will out a tug or a sleeve, but not the ball. I'm assuming I need to start over somewhere with the ...

My Schutzhund 3 male is 5 years and will not out in trials. In training we work with electric collars but the dog is trial wise and will not out in a competition. What can we do?

My question is if you mate a black German Shepard ( female ) and a white German Shepard both AKC would there be any negative results? Also Some shows do not allow white shephard's and why?.... In my order to you I also wanted to know if you could give me some advice on how to prepare my 8 week shepard for police/patrol duty as I am in LEO school now and in three years I would like to be a K9 Deputy. Our Department does not have K9s as of now, however as our county grows maybe in three yea...

I have a question regarding a client that has a 5 year old un-neutered American bred GSD that is a fear biter. This dog only goes after females, usually young and they are always showing fear towards the dog. This dog has bit several times, only breaking the skin. This dog has had "protection training" from a very questionable trainer in the area...very defensive oriented, from the old school. The Jack Healy method out of US K9 Academy. This dog is nothing but a poorly trained guar...

Dear Cindy, I have a 5 year old female GSD who has always been fearful aggressive, terrified of every one (except my mom and me), noises, and objects. If she can't run away from some one then she will bite them. When someone is in the house she will either hide in bedroom or hide behind me. I've had a 12 and 10.5 year old before her and now a 9 month old who never had this problem. I'm very experienced in training dogs, non-professionally, but do not know how to fix her to make her...

Hi Cindy, Do you advise that pet owners go through the Marker Training DVD before E-Collar training? Is marker training a "prerequisite" for e-collar training or are they completely different? I have one of the dogtra models that a trainer advised me to purchase, but after reading Ed's article on e-collars, I realized she was teaching me to use the "escape training" method... so I quit going to her and want to follow the Leerburg DVDs. I purchased the e-collar training dvd yesterda...

I've signed up for your message board, but as it takes a few days I wondered if you could get me started in the right direction. Our European bred Shepherd will be five months old on the 14th. We got her at 3-1/2 months. We are doing well socializing her with people, but when she sees another dog, she strains and lunges with all of her strength to get over to them while barking VERY loudly and aggressively. Our trainer (who uses many of your techniques similar to your puppy ...

Hi Cindy, My name is Annette. I recently got a 8 week old ( now 14 weeks ) Doberman pup. I plan on doing schutzhund with her. I am brand new to schutzhund. I became interested in the sport after watching a few trials and seeing a couple videos of her mother doing protection work. The breeder had the pups evacuated before she sent them to their new homes, to make sure the right pup would be going to the right homes, as some new owners wanted ob and two of us wanted working pu...

I have a cocker poo that we love dearly (weights 28 lbs) that eats paper and clothes. We have tried everything-behavior training, lemon juice, etc. If you leave something down for a second he is off and running. I use a walker so it is difficult to get to him. He is also bad when he goes with his dog walker trying to grab paper in the street etc. I even had a nutritional study done but he was fine. I am terrified that he will get ill. Recently a friend left her denim jacket on the couch for a...

I hope you can help me with my new German Shepherd puppy. When we got him he was 7.5 weeks and a he's a very aggressive chewer and biter. I've had a german shepherd before and do not allow puppies to bite and chew on anything but their own chew toys. I have never let him bite me or chew on me because he is "cute and little." We constantly were correcting him and telling him "no." One night my husband and I were playing with him rolling a ball around while he chased it. He went to the door...

Where do I start. Maxx is a Black Cocker Spaniel that I rescued when he was 6 months (now he is 23 months). I rescued him from being put down. Maxx is very aggressive and I don't know what to do. It seems like he doesn't want to be around anyone by me. He is very selfish and doesn't even want anyone or another dog to touch him. Examples: When I put Maxx out to go to the bathroom (he is very Obsessive Compulsive) he always goes to the bathroom in the same place in the yard which is a good ...