Obedience Q&As

Hello Cindy, My name is Mark, I have a wife and two girls (9 and 14) and I want to purchase another German Shepherd towards the end of 2013. My last Shepherd was killed some 12 years ago and it was hard to recover from that but it is now time to get a son back in my life. My last Shepherd had some basic command obedience schooling but now I want more training and protection skills for my future boy now that I have a new wife and step children. I want them to understand the rules and role o...

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

Cindy, I'm interested in purchasing The Power of Playing Tug to help grow my training with my cattle dog. However, he is 7 years old, had been in an accident with his previous owner, and has a somewhat bad hip. I was wondering if playing tug is hard on the joints? Thank you! Ellen

Hi, If I purchase a digital streamed video do I have access to it forever? Can I then access it from my iPad and iPhone, correct? Thank you for your time.

My wife and I have an 18 week old Bull Mastiff (our last dog was also a BM). We have had him for 8 weeks. We purchased your video on puppies from 8 weeks to 8 months as well as Michael's video on training with food. We also have your Basic Obedience video. All of which are excellent. I have watched and re-watched. Today I ordered Michael's Recall, Tugging and Motivation videos. I read your eBook on marker training and totally agree with the concept and have been trying to apply the principle...

Hello, I do obedience training with my 3 year old springer. When I practice with her she is very motivated and does what I ask. I am in open A CKC. When I go to a trial, she is in her own world and does not cooperate and sniffs and looks away. I have just purchased the Michael Ellis DVD Focused Heeling. I have practiced this a week and I do see an improvement. How long does this take, I practice a little every day? It almost looks that she is not motivated when I go in the ring? Do y...

I have a 11 week old GSD that comes from strong working lines. So far he's one of the best puppies I've ever had. Super smart and catches on to everything very fast. I see you have a ton of videos... And I'm interested in purchasing whatever ones I need, but I'm a little confused on where to start. I was thinking your video "Establishing Pack Structure with Your Puppy." I did notice he's a little more "nippy than other puppies I've had." Can you recommend the videos I should start wi...

Hello, We are a British couple living in Thailand and we own a Thai Dog. We've had him since he was 10 weeks old and he is now 9 months old. After reading up on Thai dog breeds we learned that they are a very stubborn breed of dog and fail to acknowledge commands at times. We live on a gated estate where he is free to run around all day with his brothers and sisters but when he sees us leave the estate he tries to follow us down the road. (The entrance to the estate is on a blind corner to...

Hello! I have a 10 week old female lab (born Aug 26th). When she is playing hard with other dogs and I need her to calm down and listen I try to stop her by holding her back, or grabbing the scruff of her neck. Sometimes she will stop other times when she is really wound and I stop her by getting a hold of the scruff of her neck and pick her up by the scruff of her neck she will twist around and snap at me or my husband. We pick her up and hold her in that position close to our bodies unti...

How do I get my high food drive GSD puppy to except food reward more gently?

I saved a starved, mixed breed, 8 week old puppy out of a ditch about 4 months ago. Now he's a healthy 40lb, 6 1/2 month old, super smart dog. He can sit, fetch, shake, high five, lay down all kinds of things. He would be such a smart, obedient, well behaved dog, if I could get him to STOP tearing up EVERYTHING! He is an outside (half Acre to play on in the country guarded by a wireless pet safe fence) dog with my 4 year old, rescued Bull Mastiff female, who doesn't tear anything up. He is pl...

Hi Ed & Cindy, I am new to training and have an awesome 3 year old GSD. I have recently purchased The Power of Training Your Dog with Food DVD and had a question concerning treats. It mentions using treats that your dog considers high value. I see a big reaction with my Shepherd with hot dogs, so I have begun using them starting this training. My question is, is there ever a time you would go back to lower value treats during training? Or do you always use what would be a high value reward...

Hi Cindy, Thank you in advance for your advice. I very much appreciate the help. I have a 4 month old border collie/aussie and I am thinking about purchasing some tugs for her to play with. She loves to chase a long rope and catch the end of it, and she is very quick, but it is hard to get her to out the toy. Would you recommend using the furry fleece tug (she loves furry animal toys), the synthetic puppy tug or the leather puppy tug? Thank you.

I am training a Redbone Coonhound. While working on obedience, he is responsive to the "here" command but is easily distracted by other dogs. Using an ecollar gets his attention and he will come most of the time. Lately, and quite often, he gets confused with the ticks from the e-collar when he hears the "here" command and gets a correction. This repeats several times. He sits and stays, I call "here" and he stays. I have to bend down and say okay go or praise him. I have probably been too co...

Can a dog get a blockage from raw legs? Someone I know has fed raw for years and her 10 year old male just got sick and died. Vet said it was a bowel blockage? I started feeding this way and now am concerned.

Hello everyone at Leerburg! I feed my 2 1/2 year old doberman female raw (and kibble once in a while, due to limited storage capacity in our little house). The question is: is it OK to only feed the dog once a day, instead of 2 times a day? She is about 80 pounds and I feed her about 2.5-3 pounds of raw. Would it be too hard to digest all at once? I would like to do this to increase motivation during training. She is a crazy bitter and she loves tugging but at times I need to use f...

Hi Cindy, I have several Michael Ellis DVDs purchased from Leerburg and really enjoy them. My problem is I have been working on the retrieve and send away (Michael Ellis way)?but recently, when I tell my female to "bring" the dumbell, she thinks all she has to do is go out and touch it (like in the send away) and come back for a tug reward. She was doing good until now. I think I will quit working the send away until she gets the retrieve down better but I am looking for help to solve ...

Cindy, I have a client who just purchased a super nice male pup from us. They have 25-30 chickens and want to introduce him to the chickens... What would you suggest as the best way to do this? Thanks in advance.

Hi Cindy, All my training and rehab experience has been with dogs over eight months. I have the opportunity to add a 5-month-old working Malinois to our pack. My question regards standardized leash work and pack walks. We walk twice daily on average, a minimum 3.5 miles or 7 miles daily. With a pup under eight months, how much walking exercise can they handle? Not ruining growth plates, or hips in early development? I need advice on daily exercise.

Cindy, Can you tell me how you set up your training sessions? For example, do you work on only one exercise at a time? Do you go over learned behaviors and then teach new behaviors? As a trainer, I do the familiar exercises, then the new stuff, then go back to an exercise the dog does really well, so we can end on a positive note. How do you set up your sessions? How long do they run? How many minutes do your sessions run? How frequently? 7 days a week? 5? 3? Thank you for your input.