Most Popular Q&As

Hello! I'm training my older dog for Mondio, and am wondering about the order of training the send away and the jump pattern with touch pads. I'm not sure if this is mentioned at all in the DVDs, as I do have the Jumps DVD and Send Away DVD, and am still working through watching the Send Away DVD. My dog has a decent understanding of touch pads, but I haven't taught either of these exercises before. Since both use the touch pad as a target, is it better to train one exercise first, then move ...

Hi Cindy, Trying to work on a stay with my 7 month old Australian Shepard. When I get out the long line, my puppy seems to think it’s time for her to go crazy and she starts grabbing the long line and biting it. I have been having no success stopping this behavior and just end the training session. Looking for any advice you might have on how to stop this behavior. I’m starting to think I’m expecting too much to fast with this puppy. I’ve owned golden retrievers in the past a...

Hi Cindy, I'm a veterinary technician and have a solid foundation of canine behavior but I happen to be out of town right now and have a puppy coming in ~3 weeks. I would consider myself skilled in Fear Free and balanced approaches to training...but my question is regarding the quantity of food rewards for a puppy. The back of my brain says their metabolism is so high at that age that you can use treats without discretion (for the most part) and it is only when they reach adulthood that you m...

I have a 8 month old Plotthound which is trained quite well for a hound breed I think, meaning she can focus well on me when I demand it. I do however rely heavily on treats during dog training - my dog gets all her meals during training. Some "friends" have told me, my dog should work for me even without treats (to which I usually answer, that they should work for their employer without pay), and while I do sometimes demand small "rows" of commands before giving the reward, I still pretty mu...

Do you have a recommendation for protective boots THAT STAY ON the dog. I have a 78 lb, 12 year old GSD female who is "toeing under" and needs protection for her right back foot. I know several other owners that have had this problem and have had trouble finding a comfortable boot that will reliably stay on the dog. Any help you can give will be much appreciated. (I own a boarding and grooming operation and would love to be able to recommend a product you may carry that works...preferably ava...

Hi Cindy, Which puppy harness is recommended in Leerburg's puppy training videos, and which size should be purchased for an 8 week old German Shepherd puppy?

Hi Cindy, my 1st DDR sable GSD: She’s now 16 mo, is undergoing her 3rd heat and seems to be blowing her coat in stages. My earlier 3 working line shepherds were West German & all were b & t with stock coats. This little female has had a very thick undercoat. Now it’s all gone & the outer guard hairs are being shed. Please can you give me some idea of how the coat comes back … how long it takes? She currently looks like a coyote! Thanks so much as always!

My 5 year old GSD had a seizure a month ago and was fine but had 3 today. I called our breeder who feels this in environmental since he has never had one before. We are remodeling our bedroom there is drywall dust, old paint. It has been quite a long process since our house is so old. The men working here today were doing some demo and kicked up a lot of old dust from our walls. Could this be the problem? They only lasted about a minute each one and he snapped out of it and was fine. They hap...

We have 3 dogs in our house and a friend is moving in with their dog. Our oldest dog and the youngest dog (golden retriever and chihuahua) keep trying to pick fights with our friend's dog. How can we prevent this? My mom tries punishing them, but I know that there is a better way.

Hello Ed & Cindy, I have a now 17 and a half week old German Shepherd pup (from working lines) & wish to ask you guys exactly what supplements you would please recommend I need to purchase to add to his raw diet? Many thanks

Hello, First, my wife and I wanted to thank you for providing us the information in Your Puppy 8 Weeks to 8 Months DVD and Obedience training DVD for setting us up with a wonderfully trained dog for life. The training has been fun and rewarding, so rewarding we are debating on doing more. We have a high-drive female Doberman that just turned 17 weeks old yesterday. I have been interested in protection work and Schutzhund competition but we don't have any good trainers locally. Also, I...

I adopted a German Shepherd from the local humane society. She is friendly, gets along with my other dogs, loves and trusts people and loves to fetch a ball. She is about two years old. When I try to touch her or interact she gets extremely wiggly and tries to lick me constantly. It seems very submissive but it is hard to deal with a dog that I can't even brush because she tries to lay down and lick my hand. Of course I don't want to yell at her. I need to treat her like a puppy, albeit a ver...

Hi Cindy, My miniature schnauzer delivered 9 puppies on Monday. She was very large before giving birth, so we anticipated a large litter and purchased puppy formula from our Vet. After delivery we were very concerned about this being such a large litter, and wondering if she would be able to care for each puppy. So on Tuesday we got involved and started helping her, by feeding the puppies the formula/supplement advised by our Vet. The puppies hated it, and just whined as we were feeding th...

Hello, I recently used your videos to learn how to train my pit bull mix puppy (my first puppy). We adopted him from the shelter at 6 months old; he is 9 months old now. The videos were extremely helpful. My mom also has a puppy (going on a year old), and we have met 2 times, a month apart, to introduce the dogs to one another. I watched carefully the segment you showed on dog interaction hoping I could determine any warning signs ahead of time, especially since my dog is quickly outgrowi...

Ed, My name is Frederick from Australia. I would just like to tell you my story about my tragic loss and maybe you can share this with people dealing with the same kind of problem. I am a big reader of your website and I read all your articles and QAs. Your teachings have, in a lot of ways, been the foundation of training I trained dogs although I still consider myself as a youngster in the field. I used to own a Bullmastiff dog. We got him from a breeder at 8 weeks old and he was th...

Cindy First Let me thank you for taking the time to help all of us dog lovers, we appreciate it. I have just switched over to RAW this week with no problems in the transition. My 60# dogs are being fed each a chicken leg quarter twice a day. They really enjoy it but will not even touch it until I use my cleaver and chop them into smaller manageable pieces, is this a problem? They are not glutens or gulpers and seem to chew each piece before swallowing. Also would a piece of calve's liver c...

Hi! We adopted a shelter dog around a year ago estimated to be around 4 years old, a female Shepherd mix. She doesn't seem to know how to play with toys, even though she will show some interest in small stuffed toys I toss, she quickly loses any motivation she has. If try to trade or toss her another toy to get her to play with me, she would drop the toy very easily and refuse to get it again. She likes and chooses to play With me, punching and running, play bowing. I just can't get her to ho...

I have recently purchased a replacement Large Guardian Dog puppy as our others are starting to age out of guarding the sheep. This new puppy is half English Mastiff and half imported Gumpr. He is 3 months old now. He is usually good about coming back to me when we are out feeding the livestock (he lives in 1/3 of our small barn 24/7, the sheep are in the other 2/3), but he is getting to that playful/chasing age. If the sheep don't run, everything is fine, but I had one incident where the ...

Hi Cindy, I have a friend that does not live near me so I am unable to physically help her with her new cattle dog puppy. She is having a problem with him constantly tugging at her pant legs and healing her ankles. She has asked for help. I am a trainer where I live. I’m thinking of redirecting the tug desired to places in each room with an attached tug. Also, a slow feed treat ball for him to chase and to keep his brain occupied. I wanted to get your opinion on my ideas and tugs you...

Hi Cindy, I just got an 11-month-old intact male Doberman from Europe who has strong working drives but is also not very socialized. He arrived a few days ago here in the USA and I was warned that he was very dog aggressive, especially with other males. My big challenge is we have a fairly large house with at least 30 windows and 5 glass sliding doors on one side and when he sees his reflection in the mirror, he goes after it with fury. It could be day or night, even while driving in t...