Most Popular Q&As

Hi Ed and Cindy, Do you have any articles or other info on teaching dog to respect road/cars or to avoid cars? As a child, my family lost 2 dogs to road and one other injured. Thanks

Hello, My wife and I bought and have watched the basic obedience video, on recommendation from a previous trainer, and absolutely love it. We noticed a number of little problems with our own behavior and have since begun implementing the techniques. I was hoping I could get a little advice on the place command. We have a rescue dog (4 or 5) which we have been crating since she came home. She has always shown strong anxiety while in the crate. She tore her way out of one, and will not...

Hi Mr. Frawley, I checked the training articles and discussion boards. Forgive me if the answer is there somewhere. My dog seems to care less where or what he steps on. He carelessly steps on my feet when walking near, running by, or even coming up to and sitting in front of me. It is not all the time but frequent enough that I want to stop this because I just do not like it. I have trouble thinking of a way to accurately correct this when the incident occurs- he steps on and off of my foo...

My puppy just turned 9 weeks old and she has recently started barking and trying to bite at my legs. I can't decide what it is she's is wanting. It can happen at times when we are doing something she doesn't want to do, like walking away from something she was trying to eat. (which is everything outside). My response is to stand and tell her nope and if she continues I will put her either in her crate or expen. I've also been trying to direct her to playing tug, which she will do some but not...

Hi Ed & Cindy, My Husband & I are in our late 50s & have a 8 month old Rhodesian Ridgeback dog. We have bought videos from you & think you are the best dog trainers that we have ever seen! Brilliant! We thought of attending Michael Ellis course. We saw this site & your training methods 2 months ago so up till then we hadn't done much training at all! It has been going well but we haven't managed to stop his mouthing, biting, jumping & humping. He dosent fit just one catagory! eg: nervous, ...

Hello, I have a dog that has the largest prey drive and the strongest body I have ever had to deal with. He wants to go after every cat, squirrel and small yappy barking growling dog. He pulls all of the time not some of the time even with the prong collar on. I am not strong enough to hold him next to me and walk by me as I have buldging disks in my neck and back. When I try to resist him it hurts me. I have tried the halti collar and it did not work. I also have the gentle...

In the 28 years of living in my home, my next door neighbor has had 4 dogs. Not any problems with the 1st one. The 2nd one they would walk and let poop on neighbors property without picking up. Then that neighbor had to post signs about picking up after your dog. His 3rd dog has bitten me, the floral delivery lady, the post man and attacked the others neighbors lab to the point of needing medical attention. His 4th dog came off their property and attacked my 5 month old puppy while I was walk...

Hey Cindy, I am contacting you because I am a dog trainer and I have recently stumbled across something that I have not encountered before and I am not exactly sure how to correct it. I have a 6 month American pit bull terrier that I am using for a demonstration dog. He is very smart, and attentive. I have taken him through the learning phase for basic obedience (come, sit, down, down stay), so he knows the difference between sit and down. But when entering the correction phase I have f...

I have a 3 month old professionally bred working line GSD. She is high drive with a tenacity to learn. I have both 8 weeks to 8 months and Working Puppy. While both videos are extremely helpful I still have 2 questions. 1. We have "conquered" ankle and pant leg biting and work relentlessly on redirecting with hand biting. Little progress has been made there - but it is the lunging at the face that concerns me most. Once she begins the lunging it does not quit until I leave. She wears a lea...

Hi Cindy, I have a 14 month intact female Rottweiler. She was crate trained, and was relatively neutral in terms of her love of the crate. Suddenly in the last 2 weeks she is obsessed with the crate. There is no food or treat in the crate, and with the bedding removed her behavior is identical. She will spend more than half of the day inside the crate with the door open. She often runs back into it when she is out, with intensity. When she is taken outside her energy is great. Her appetite...

Hi Cindy, I have purchased two videos from Leerburg and I am very satisfied with them. I purchased the Power of Training with Food By Michael Ellis and The power of playing Tug By Michael Ellis. Now, I would like to learn if Michael has any videos on how to teach control my dog when I have visitors to my house. My dog is very protective of my house which I like but I want to be able to let him know when someone is welcome and to turn off his protective behavior once the visitor is clearly wel...

I have a 10 year old son who likes to play with our 4month GSD. The issues I’m having is the puppy wants to bite on him. Even with re direction and giving a bully stick or elk antler chew. I think the puppy views my son as a litter mate. She doesn’t really bite on me but I’m the one training and feeding her. She does it more so with my husband who likes to get on the floor with her and roll around. She does it constantly with my son who likes to play tug with her and he tends to move pr...

Hello, I have an 8 month old akita. I was reading the article about Dog Parks and completely agree. I would not take him to one. I was wondering if you have the same feelings about doggy Daycare. We have considered trying a half day a week. it seems to be well run. They bring in new dogs into a separate area and introduce one new dog at a time starting with the dogs with the best temperament. Eventually they will be in the general area if all goes well. Our puppy has had have very little inte...

I'm a police officer in Connecticut. My police dog is two years old. We just completed 4 months of training and he is doing well. He already has a couple of finds. My question is that sometimes when he is tracking, he will stop to smell animal odor. Sometimes it's so bad, that I have to grab him by the collar to pull him from that spot. He will even lick the area, and taste whatever he is smelling. He's a great tracking dog, but if he smells a certain odor, he will completely stop tracking a...

My mother in law owns a beagle/lab/chow mix who is about 2 years old. Recently, she got another dog from the local shelter and was told by the shelter that she would have to neuter her chow mix in order to keep her new dog. The chow mix was neutered, but became increasingly violent towards humans and the new dog, where he had not been before. He DID calm down about 3 weeks after the operation. Two days ago, a friend of ours walked into the house with me, and the chow mix bit him! It didn't...

I have a 3 year old castrated Anatolian Shepherd, weighs 160 pounds; I weigh 110. I live part time (8 months) in Costa Rica, and I got him as a guard dog. He is great as a perimeter defense dog, because his size and bark are terrifying. Nobody breaks into my house. However, he has unpredictable episodes of aggression to other dogs. Worst with males, but has attacked females. He is trained in formal obedience, and has no trouble on airplanes, crowds, etc. He is great with people, cats, chicken...

Hello, I have a 10 month old Pembroke Welsh Corgi male that seems to be doing very well. He was neutered around 6 months and is usually very obedient. He's been crate trained since 8 weeks old and generally spends 4-6 hours out of the crate over the course of the day in 1-2 hour periods. To me he feels like a soft dog where only a verbal correction is necessary to get him to respond in most cases. A smack on the butt is usually more than enough to correct other more persistent things such ...

Cindy We would like to fly our dog out to CA. for two weeks for our grandson; it was mentioned to us that he could fly with us if he was a service dog or a dog in training. We were wondering if you could share with us any insight to this. Or if their is a way you might know where he could fly. Our daughter is having her second child, and we will be on grandparents duty with the first child. We just love our dog who is mid size. I hope this question makes sense. Thanks, ...

I am hoping you can help me with a problem I am having with my female German Shepherd "Gracie." Gracie is now 14 month old, she knows the basic obedience commands, but refuses to obey on recall. The minute she hears the door she will try to bolt through the door and refuses to come back until she is ready. We will live in a rural community in Fairbanks, Alaska and so far this has not caused a problem, but it is extremely frustrating as well as posing a potential future problem. She does chase...

Hi, I just opened the DVD sales newsletter e-mail on defense drive and it made me continue my thinking on this subject. I have a very weak-nerved dog and if I try to leave him for an out of sight stay he has a look of discomfort/stress and I realize he is not going to get very far in training if he feels this way - therefore, my thinking is he needs to feel different about the exercise... so I have been thinking if I could switch him out of pack drive (which is where I suspect he is since ...