Obedience Q&As

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.

First, let me say all of your videos/articles on engagement have made my life much easier, but I've run into something where I'm stumped, as is everyone at the dog school where I take agility. My 2-year-old Pit runs great for me at home and everywhere, except our dog school, where she will run for everyone but me. When I walk in the main agility ring with her, she stops and looks like I'm about to beat her. I can do my engagement exercises with her and get her engaged and playing with me,...

My compliments to you both for such an informative website! I have a 6-month-old high prey drive GS female. I've been doing the marker training since she was 9 weeks old with excellent results. I've purchased several videos including the "Tug" and "Retrieve." I've used the food throwing and rewarding inside and outside with great results. She will bring the tug back promptly inside without a leash, outside on a long leash, but when off leash outside she will stop about 3 to 5 feet and ...

Hi Cindy, Your training DVD products look terrific. Let me give you our background (wife and I). We have had dogs in the past but never trained them to do any more than sit or fetch. Our shepherd mix is 13 and not doing well. We will probably put her down soon. I just got an 8-week-old Belgian Malinois girl. Her father was a police dog and mother a personal protection dog. I am in the military (guard) and my wife will be a stay at home wife after this school year ends. My desire is to ...

Hi, I'm trying to find a answer to my GD that has decreased his like in eating raw. He is going to be 3 years old in June. I got him when he was 4 months old as a rescue. He had demodex mange and was yellow from all the mess they had him on trying to treat the mange and his GI problems. I put him on raw and has been doing great ever since. He was never a big chicken eater. I went through the necks, back, thighs, leg quarters stage. That is he would eat it for a while, then not like it a...

Hi, I have watched both The Power of Playing Tug with Your Dog and Advanced Concepts in Motivation. I am a couple of weeks into implementing the techniques with my own dog and I have a question about growling--is it good or bad that she growls when we tug? If it's a bad thing, how do I address the issue? When I release the tug and run away from her she comes charging back to at me--she will even jump towards me with the toy in her mouth. She growls while we are tugging, while she is jumpi...

Good Morning, We are raw feeding our 5 month GSD. He absolutely hates sardines. We have tried food processing, blending, whole frozen raw, chopped raw, and mixing them with all sorts of foods. No results. Any suggestion would be appreciated. Thanks. Ron

About two weeks ago, I made the switch over to the raw diet for my 3 dogs. The two older dogs I switched cold turkey but the young Malinois, I am switching gradually. I am giving them raw veggies & fruits, ground meat, fresh chicken with bones, some yogurt, some cottage cheese, occasional egg. Plus I bought the Honest Kitchen product you add meat to. They love me!!! I have never had this much excitement at meal time. My question is with regards to possible low blood sugar. My two older do...

Cindy, I bought your Nosework DVD and I trained my dog. He did well in the first session, but the second session, he started using his eyes to search in the drawer spots. For example, when I put the food in spot 3 after several times in spot 1 and 2, he just immediately went to three using his eyes and not his nose, then after that he lost interest. What should I do?

I got a 6-month-old male German Rottweiler I got from a good breeder when he was 10 weeks old. We set up a crate that with a doggie door that goes outside. So basically, he is in and out all the time. I try to put a collar on him (since we got him) but he fussed too much. He runs away, uses his mouth to warn us... does a hand bite but doesn't bite down (I yell loud no). Since he goes in his crate, it is not a good idea to have his collar on him all the time (strangulation) so we take it o...

Hi Cindy, I have been teaching competition obedience, rally, agility and puppy foundation classes for 17+ years using mostly positive training methods (reward based) training. Over the years, I have had to take a client's dog and show them something; like a collar correction or how to help the dog into the down position (just to name a few things I've had to show the owners). I have had much success with mostly all experiences showing clients how to handle their dog better but occasi...

You had stated that to train puppies to do protection/Schutzhund, play is important. Tug-of-war and fetch ball are recommended. Now it is said to play tug with them and let them "win". But isn't it a contradiction because if you let them win, then in their minds, they just became Alpha. How can you become pack leader and let them win and play-train for protection? Thank you