Most Popular Q&As

I have an 11 month old female shepherd named Tasha. I have never owned a dog before and I've been very surprised at how much work she has been the entire time. At this point Tasha is not very trained and is in her adolescent stage. I've gotten very frustrated with her and I'm looking for your advise because I'm at my wits end now. First let me start by saying that I've not taken as much time with her as I'd imagine I should have. I am a mother of two girls and have only so much tim...

Let me start off by saying that I'm glad with the way you handle some of the questions, sometimes you're very blunt and that's needed to make sure even the clueless get it. You seem very knowledgeable in your field. Now to my story. I have a 6 month old GSD male. we got him when he was 8 weeks and did a good job of socializing him with people and other dogs. He would run up the stairs, play in the pond being out house, sit, lay, walk with us off leash on the golf course staying nea...

I'd like to know if you personally would train one of your working dogs with and electric collar. I'm also curious how you feel about them in comparison to traditional correction with prong or slip collars. If e-collars are the most humane, what is all the fuss about? If anything, what don't you like about this type of training, even in the hand of an experienced e-collar training?

We have a gorgeous black and white german shepherd. I suspect it was the runt of the litter, but she's gorgeous. She is neutered and five and a half years old. She's terrified of thunderstorms and fireworks so we have to drug her. However, that's not our major problem. She gets out of the house and we can't get her home unless I drive our van around the block until she gets tired. She has never attacked anyone but we have a new neighbor with small kids that has called the police on us for bei...

I have a Yorkshire Terrier that is VERY hyper. What do you suggest to correct a small dog?

Hi Ed. Thank you for the continually informative web site. I'm currently doing obedience work with my 7 month old GSD female. She's a fast learner and eager to please, so I don't have much trouble with her. I do take her to training, but I've also ordered some of your videos. She passed her 100 yard down, stay & recall test with flying colors to graduate from puppy class. There is only one problem that I'm encountering that has me puzzled. When off lead, like doing the long ...

Hi Cindy, I have a couple of questions I have been thinking about for a while and would appreciate your input. Firstly in regards to marker training - changing commands and relearning old commands. During the training with my dog I have indivertibly made commands which sound very similar and wish to change them, I have used "with me" as the command for my dog to follow me/come with me, and I have used "watch me" as a look command, obviously there is an area for confus...

Dear Mr. Frawley, Hello, I hope this message finds you doing well. I am writing with regard to Kona, a 7 month old female Vizsla my wife and I own. We clearly failed to establish pack structure with her. The situation now is that she she has had trouble with impulse control and often seems unable to calm herself. She also exhibits aggression toward the leash and sometimes her handler when on walks. This behavior is coupled with constant pulling and disregard for the handler. Taking note...

Dear Ed and Cindy, I have most of your DVDs and I just bought training with markers and training with food. I read that they both work very well together. The question I have is, which do I watch first? Is there one that will help make the other one make more sense to me? I think I will watch both before I do anything with them, but I just wanted to know if there is one that goes before the other to help it all make more sense in the whole scheme of it all. My other questions is ab...

Hi, I just ordered the Basic Dog Training DVD. Our Rottweiler pup is 6 months old we have had him since 12 weeks. We just finished group obedience classes. He learned a little and does follow me around the house and obey some commands " when he wants to." However I don't feel we are developing that bond I had with our last Rott. My wife and I were my old dog's world. He never took his eyes off of us. He always knew where we were and he followed us everywhere. I want to develop that...

Dear Cindy, Wow great web site and great information. I have read, watched and learned so much from all of you. Thank You! I have most of your videos in my collection and watch them over and over. Because of your company I felt confident enough to take on the task of training my own Service Dog. In the past I got Service Dogs from a company that trains them but I never felt that they were the dog they could have been. I use an electric wheelchair because of Muscular Dystrophy. I ha...

I have just one other question regarding the raw diet. As I mentioned in my other email to you, my 18 month old mainly likes seeing chicken in her bowl. Sometimes when I put red meat in the bowl she doesn't eat all that much of it whereas when its chicken she eats it all. Because of this I thought I might try HK just to make sure she got all the important stuff to keep her healthy and add the chicken to the HK. Am I right to think like this or is chicken every night o...

Just a quick question... please give me examples of what you add to the Honest Kitchen. I have 5 GSD's; am feeding Back To Basics to which I add some chicken at the evening meal, but am thinking of switching. Four of my dogs are adults & I have a puppy coming this month. Thanks. Sincerely, Elayne

Greetings, I wrote to you a few days ago and I wanted to first say thanks for the quick reply. I have another question in regards to feeding a raw diet; I have been doing lots of research and discussing the information with my husband. He hates the idea of feeding the dog a raw diet, I have brought the subject up from the point of view as how the dog would eat that way if in the wild, be he keeps telling me that she is a dog and just feed her dry dog food. I also spoke with my vet ...

I have 6 shepherds and live in the country. I have an outside allergy/food allergy question for you and am looking for some advice. 3 of my 6 dogs chew on their feet. I did blood testing for food and environmental testing on one of them twice to see if I could get any information to pinpoint the cause. The results were different for both tests, which leads me to believe its less than accurate (first test showed her positive for duck, second test showed negative). What is your belief on t...

Cindy, love the pics of Rush! I'm not sure who else to ask about this but in various places on your website you + Ed talk about teeth wearing down from bitework and the textures of various toys/ bite sleeves. We have a 2.5 year malinois who does agility. He always has something in his mouth and tugs like a maniac. Anyway, we stupidly let him have tennis balls, which he chomped on and carried around night and day and by age 2 we realized he had obvious wear to his teeth. Consulted ...

Ed, I just wanted to run something by you and see if you have any ideas about what may be going on with our male GSD, Samson, who will be 2yrs old in April. The other day he was walked as usual in the morning w/ our female ? walked fine, and then later in the morning we noticed him limping. He also seemed to be very lethargic, wouldn?t eat much, and was taken to the vet. The vet took some blood and later a urine sample and everything seemed ok. She said he had a slight fever and...

I'm writing on behalf of one of my Shetland Sheepdog puppies - well, now he's almost a year old - whom I co-own but who lives with his primary owners in another state. This puppy has a chewing/eating problem that I am very concerned about. He chews on everything and anything, to the point that he has landed in the emergency room twice. The family has tried keeping him somewhat confined (x-pen) when they can't directly supervise him; they have muzzled him when out of doors but he has liter...

Cindy, I read your article about raw diets on the Leerburg site. I am very interested to know if any of the GSDs at the Leerburg Kennels have been diagnosed with Perianal Fistulae (a non-healing abscess adjacent to the anus). And if so where any changes to the normal diet made because of this condition? This condition is very common with GSDs I am told. My Irish Setter [7.5 yr.] has been treated for the condition for over two years with little result. Because some research i...

I had a few questions about e-collar training. Do you think it is a good idea to use an e-collar to house train a dog? Would you simply correct the dog with the collar when they are actually in the act of using the house to potty with a stern NO! command and then place them outside in the area they need to go potty (then reward when they do go in the right place)? I am figuring that this would teach the dog, if you go potty in the house, you will get a shock.