Behavior Problems Q&As

I have two German Shepherds. The older one is 11 years. He looks like the scary and dangerous one. He is a sable and mostly black. His temperament from day one till now is excellent. He is great with other dogs people and children. He know when to bark (door bell) and when not to. The young one is 14 months old. She follows the big guy like a shadow. There are several problems. One is with other dogs. Just some of them. She will want to be aggressive. The second problem is t...

My husband and I have a 14 week old black lab named Marla. She has been with us for 6 weeks. She shows real signs of separation anxiety and appears to be a clingy puppy. She doesn't like to be left alone and when she is out of her crate she follows me and my husband everywhere we go. During the day we put her in her crate while we work, which has been reduced in size so that she just fits and can just stand and move to lay down. Every single day she urinates and defecates in her crate, w...

Dear Cindy, My now almost 4 year-old GSD female, Pepper, whom my wife and brought home as a 6 week-old puppy (too young to be taken from the dam, I know, but there you have it), is crate trained, and has historically been an obedient and well behaved almost 80 pound dog with an energetic, pleasant demeanor and a lot of 'personality' (she is very vocally expressive when commanded to do something that for whatever reason displeases her, sounding remarkably like Chewbacca of Star Wars...

Hi Cindy, My new 2 year old GSD/Malmute rescue is frightened of the crate (possibly used for discipline) for reasons we can only speculate. He is gentle and well-mannered, but our real problem is when we try to leave him at home for several hours alone. He has a "temper tantrum" and the house we return to is a mess. Is restricting him on a leash when we go out a option? Any ideas? Thank you, Alan

Ed, I have an 11 month, almost one year, old German shepherd. Great dog, me and my wife love him to death. I have been working with him a lot on obedience lately and he is very eager to learn. He does a good job, I think he should have been a stand in for the energizer bunny though. The problem I have been having with him is I think he may have a bit of a separation anxiety issue. We have been trying so much to help him with this problem but it seems as thought nothing is working. Gun...

Cindy, I have a 17 month old male APBT, who is intact. He is exercised twice a day. But he has this uncontrollable urge to want to escape my yard and roam the neighborhood. I supervise outside in my fenced in yard, but my gate has a little play in it and a 3 inch space where the latch comes together, this is where he's been able to get his big head out of and his body follows. It happened to me the first time as a surprise. He saw something and went to the gate the next I knew he was out r...

Hi Cindy, I have an 11 year old male neutered Standard Schnauzer. I wish I had found you years ago as this behavior has been present since my dog was a puppy. As a puppy I would notice that on occasion when I would leave the kitchen area where the dog was confined to, I'd come back to find he had urinated in front of the board blocking his exit from the kitchen (he was house trained by this time). He would also do this if I went into the bathroom with my children and shut the door behi...

Hello Ed, This is a question about separation anxiety. I've been over all of the posts on your website and on the forum and I am still wondering what you would recommend as my next step with my dog, given what we've done so far. If you have the time to give me even a short answer, that would be great! I have your Pack Structure and Basic Obedience DVDs. I've been following your rules on pack structure and obedience and have a very well behaved 1.5 year old Australian Shepher...

Hi, I just recently got a 6 month old female purebred black lab. She came from the breeder and was one of the last to go from the litter. For the first 5 months of her life she has been with her mother and other members of the litter. She was primarily an outside dog with little to no restrictions. She is a very loveable, friendly pup but we are having issues with keeping her up while we are at work. She has jumped a 5 foot fence and climbed a 10 ft fence. She cries terribly when w...

Hello, I got your email address from your website. My husband and I have a 4 year old yellow lab who recently started chewing again. We tried to keep her in a crate when she was a puppy, but when we would come home, the carpet was tore up, webbing and nose bleeding. Fairly painlessly she grew out of it for about 1.5 years. She then about 9 months ago started chewing the dining room furniture while we were away and the baseboards in the house. Bought a plastic crate so she couldn't...

Hi Cindy I have a 2 year old neutered male German Shepherd who is very friendly to people and other dogs (we won't talk about cats rabbits, and squirrels at this point) I work full time - so I leave him at home for several hours a day - so it's not like he is used to being with me all the time. I also have a 8-year old neutered male Pembroke Welsh Corgi who lives in the house too - but they are separated when I leave. They get along great - it's just that sometimes Ben (my shephe...

Hi Cindy, I have to do something quick before my dog destroys my house. 7 yr. old mix. She spends most of the day outside. Inside at night and has run of the house(that may be the problem). She has started chewing holes in the walls. I have had them patched but she continues to do it and sometimes in the same place but always in the same room. Any idea why and what can I do? Frantic, Amy

Cindy, I'm sure you've heard this many times before....we have a Doberman who whine. A LOT. Barking isn't a huge problem (he does bark, but not to the point that it's an issue). I've seen the success decribed on the website regarding bark collars. Is there anything similar for whining? Something that would issue a correction for whining, but not for as bark? I see no reason to correct his barks, given that the problem is the whining. The dog does seem to have general SA issu...

Hi There, I have a wonderful 3 year old dog who we adopted from a friend because he was fighting with his sister so much. (They were both adopted from a shelter). When he first came to our home, he responded with growling and barking at anyone who approached us or came to the house. Within a week we had him in training and things improved dramatically. He still gets "cranky" when a loose dog approaches me on a walk but I am able to deal with it and he always remains in his space. I...

Hello, I have a two year old German Shepherd/black Labrador mix who needs a crate to stay in while I am gone during the day. He is about 36 inches long when laying down and weighs 65 pounds. I have tried the basic metal wire crates and plastic airline crates from the pet stores and he escapes from both easily. Even with putting all sorts of locks on it, he still escapes. I am looking at either the full ventilation aluminum crate or the power coated full ventilation aluminum...

I have checked the forums and and the FAQ. I believe I know part of what you will say but I have questions regarding the nuances (if there are any). My 2 yr old cairn mix, who I have had for 2 months, has always had separation anxiety issues but on video camera he seems to get over it after about 20 mins... so I didn't care too much. Every once in a while he will go into the bathroom trash. Just recently I found out he urinated in one of the bedrooms. From reading the FAQ I believe you sa...

Hello! First off, I know you are a very busy person so I will try my best to make my question short! Sorry in advance if I ramble on? My husband and I own an east german shepherd (20 months old) with very high drive. She comes from working DDR lines and we are working toward the CD title, then hopefully onto schutzhund. We use a trainer who was a former K9 trainer & handler and is familiar with the breed. We are making good progress with the training and have been told by nu...

Thank you for all that you do for dogs. I run a rescue that handles 2,500 critters a year. I foster 6 to 10 a year in my home. I take some of the ones that don't fit in well at the shelter. I am now hosting an 18 month old Cane Corso female. She is a crate eating, fence jumping, kennel hanging nut job. Has wrecked 2 crates this week and hung herself in a kennel badly injuring a front leg. A great dog, but does not accept confinement. I read the articles on this topic ...

Hi, I just have a quick question for you! First of all, again, thanks for your web site and videos... they have helped me countless times throughout the years. Next, my question is this: I have a 1 1/2 year old female Belgian Malinois. Due to my obligations with the Air National Guard, this January I will be leaving for school for 6 weeks and I am unable to take her with me. She already has separation anxiety when I'm not next to her (even when she's in the back yard she will try t...

1) I have an Australian Shepherd rescue dog and really was abused. Previous owner's grandparents took the dog when he was not home and took it to a shelter because of how poorly he was treated. When I got him, he was 1 year old. 10lbs under-weight, worms, matted and had been tied to a tree by himself in a yard and took a good six months before we could have him around any men with facial hair at all (previous owner was a large man with a beard). He is also an in-bred blue merle....