Most Popular Q&As

Dear Cindy, My dog is only a 6 months old GSD but with drive like I never seen. Her parents were both German imports from working lines. Setting my transmitter at #100, I barely get a reaction... and I mean barely. I made very sure the electrodes make good skin contact. The transmitter only goes up to #128, although I haven?t gone higher yet. Should I consider returning unit for a slightly more powerful unit? Aloha, Capt. Howie

Can you tell me where to buy and how to store my pseudo drugs?

What is your position on this puppy narcotics training program being promoted in Texas by the Texas Police Canine Association?

Hello Ed, I am a out of K9 school for just over 1 year. My dog is a German Shepherd patrol/narc dog. I am having a problem with him alerting, scratching AFTER he locates the narcotics. I am reading him to the point where I know when he locates it. After he locates it, he walks away from it and shows little or no interest in scratching so I do not give him his reward which is a towel. I've heard that putting the towel (reward) in with the find will increase his scratch? What do you think...

My dog, which is now 4 years old, is a lab mix whom we adopted from a shelter. Since she was a puppy (Mattie) she has exhibited signs of weak nerves. We always attributed her aggression toward people as acts based out of fear or lack of trust. She has also exhibited problems wanting to dominate relationships with other dogs and, in doing so, displayed signs of aggression. As far as we were concerned, we had raised and trained our dog very well. She follows all commands with the occ...

We had a very unfortunate accident happen last Sunday evening. Our neighbor's dog bit my husbands face. I would like to give you a little history first. The dog is a German Shepherd. She is 3 or 4 and has been spade. They have another dog that is younger than she is and is a male. He is part lab, part chow. I should also mention the German Shepherd has been to obedience school. Last November the wife was home alone and asked me to come over to see some new furniture she just...

Dear Ed, Hello there from Australia and thank you once again for your invaluable advice and information provided through your web site. A while ago you advised me (via email) about training my German Shepherd. Upon purchasing your Basic Dog Obedience video and applying the training techniques within, I am thrilled to report overwhelming improvement in the discipline and relationship with my dog as a direct result of that video. Thank you 1 million times over!!! Zach is just over 2 ...

I have a 5 yr old Old English Sheepdog. We purchased this pup from a private breeder who I now feel, gave little regard to temperament. From the very beginning, he has been a "nervous" dog. When Barnaby was 6 months old I took him to a local basic obedience class. During a session of 'meet your neighbor,' where the dogs were allowed to sniff each other, he lunged and pinned the other dog to the floor. I soon realized that all dogs were considered the "enemy" to him and avoided cont...

We have a lot of chickens that are allowed to roam freely on our acreage. We got a dog last fall, and he is now about 8 months old. He is neutered, 1/4 miniature pinscher 3/4 jack russel. We had the original batch of chickens before we had the dog, and he treats them with respect, especially because the rooster chases him. We have a newer batch of half grown chickens that are more skittish. Unfortunately, he killed one of the small chickens today. We scolded him sharply, but I'm no...

Good Evening, We are raising two females at my home. One is a pit bull and the other is a mix which we were told had pit in her but we don't see it. We have two small children, 11 and 7 years old. We are currently having a problem with what we think is dominance but we aren't sure. We had our mix pit (named Daisy) first and have had her since she was a pup. She is now 1 1/2 years and we got our 4 yr old pit less than a year ago. They have been in three fights since we got Lexi (the...

Hi Ed, Earlier this year I emailed you with a raw-feeding question, via a Yahoo Group (I think), and of course you were nice enough to respond! I'm sure you don't remember me, but anyway, the raw feeding is going great with our four dogs. :) Only by accident did I come across your Leerburg website today, while Googling for information on the dominance issue we are now having with our two female littermates, 14 months old, lab/chow mix. I only made the connection that you ...

Hi, I have a 5 yr old neutered rottie with a strong prey drive and or dominant behavior. I had him trained when he was 2 since he was showing aggressive behavior towards people. Now he is very obedient, I can stop him from a full charge attack (on people or other animals) BUT when left alone he kills. To date he has killed about 10 cats and dogs, numerous snakes, rats, birds and he even tried to take down my horse when I first got her. I have three kids 6,5,3 and he is absolutely g...

Dear Ed: I have 6 male dogs, all neutered. One GSD/Sharpei mix, two pit rott mixes, a Leonberger mix, a yellow lab mix, and a cocker-doxie mix. For the last 2 1/2 years we have been experiencing dog fights. They are always when I am with them, not my husband, and they are usually about toys or food. How do you recommend that a single person break up a multiple dog fight where they are "packing up?" I have used pepper spray with some success and am now going to get smelling salts, b...

We have a 3 1/2 month old rat terrier mix. While it seems we have broken her of her "mouthing" biting she is aggressively biting more frequently. When she has been aggressive with me (growling, etc) I have taken her by the scruff and told her "No" or "Settle down" in a very stern voice. We have 4 kids ages 4-11 and she has bitten each of them several times and in an aggressive way at least once. Sometimes they have "deserved it" because they were bothering her at inappropriate times but j...

Thank you for your website-it's terrific. >My German Sheppard puppy was very bitey and we used your website's recommendations to curb it. He's mostly grown out of it at 6 months BUT whenever I put his leash on or off his mouth is all over my hands/forearms. Not aggressively but very annoying. I've tried increasingly harder corrections (No! or a hard pop on the leash) and this will work but only for that instant. The next time he's biting me again. Any suggestions to help this? Thank you...

Hi, Absolutely love your work! Thank you so much! I have a new Siberian huskie mix that is 10 weeks old & we crate him every night. I have been getting up after about 4 hours to let him out to pee & poop outside in our back yard, but I would much prefer to sleep through the night. I'm a diabetic with a bad cold, & this has exhausted me. My question is, when do you think I can sleep through the night & just let him out in the morning? Thanx!

Hi Cindy, We have a 5 month old German shepherd puppy named Gunnar who we are currently crate training. We have your DVDs on establishing pack structure and basic obedience training as well as the Common house breaking mistakes eBook. Using this information we were able to train Gunnar fairly quickly using a small crate. We only had to clean it up twice due to accidents in the first month. However when we moved him to a large crate when he no longer fit into the small one he has be...

While reading the articles is very inspiring I feel the need to ask a more personal question: How do I train our dog to stay off the furniture (when we're not home & at night)? He doesn't try to get on the furniture while we're home (thus indicating that he 'knows' he's not allowed up) and when we come home he is very submissive and has the 'oops!' look on his face. We've tried the sprays that are supposed to stink the boundaries into him to no avail. What else should we do? For now we ju...

Our 8 year old pomeranian eats the "personal" items our of the bathroom trash can. Is he too old for this and is there something we can do?? Please help.

I love your web site! But I have a question for you about one of your products. I have a new GSD, approximately fifteen months old. He's from working lines, and has never lived in a house before. Everything is going very well, except for one thing. He barks! I'm crating him while I go to school, and this is when the problem arises. He likes his crate very much and enjoys being in it when I'm with him. But as soon as I close that door and leave, he barks all day long. According to m...