Obedience Q&As

Hi Cindy, I'm sure with all the emails that you get, you might not remember me, but you and Ed have been a great help to our family. Your advice, videos, products, and web site helped us to raise a beautiful, well behaved Lab. Jake is now six years old and has been on a raw diet (your exact weekly menu) and the vitamins you recommend since he was about four months old. I know that as cats and dogs get older, they need - and should have - less protein in their diets. As dogs fed a raw d...

We have a 5 month old Doberman, and a 6 year old Doberman. Both are house dogs, but we're also raising the puppy for protection work. Our breeder made us aware of your website, and I must say, it is wonderful!! I've had many dogs, and felt I knew how to train them. But your system of marker training is incredible! It has opened my eyes. Thank you for such a complete and thorough training system and website. We're following your DVD on raising a working puppy, and incorporating the advice y...

Cindy, My one year old male has been trained with markers since 8 weeks and has always had an excellent response to the "come' command. As summer has arrived, we have been spending a lot of time in the yard (off leash). Suddenly, when I give him the come command he will start to sprint in circles around the yard. He knows it means time to go inside and he doesn't want too. The stronger my voice gets the faster he runs. I remember in one of the videos it said not to correct a dog for ref...

Hi, I accidently tripped onto your website and was absolutely appalled at the fact that you advocate using these items. I would love to see how you would feel if they were used on you! Electric shock collars are banned and unlawful in most of the UK, as they are cruel and harmful punishment to dogs. The fact that one poster on your forum is using the prong collar on hairless dogs is disgusting and no wonder one of his dogs is reverting back to aggressive behaviour!! How can you call yours...

Can a dog be reconditioned to enjoy working through marker training if its previous owner used compulsion training? I have an adopted dog who I believe was trained using compulsion and is very timid or cautious when training, I can tell she is afraid to make a mistake. I adopted her at about 1 year old, she looked pretty neglected, but is smart as a whip. Thanks, Sharon

Cindy, I have written to you in the past about my high drive Doberman who last summer fractured his patella while hiking with him in the woods. I had asked you about what to do about him chasing everything that moves. I do use an e-collar with him for previously he had gotten into the habbit of chasing bikers and joggers in the woods. That has ended. You had told me to use the leave it command for ANY chase behaviour which I can control at this point. But I feel like I am always saying it,...

Dear Ed, I wrote to you before sometime ago about herding GSDs. I have a very young bitch who is quite promising in herding with strong schutzhund lines and herding lines in her pedigree. She is working a two sided border rather independently on a long line, but from time to time she is still breaking in on the sheep. In herding, it is acceptable for a grip on the sheep when appropriate, the problem we have is, Janna our girl has a great grip and in the proper places on the sheep. She is a...

I was told that if you feed dogs raw meat, they will become vicious and kill animals. Is this true?

Cindy - I first started feeding a raw diet to my black lab based on what I read from your website. I recently started feeding a raw diet again, and have a question based on what I've seen so far. I just started and am on the 5th day. What I have been doing is feeding the remaining dry dog food in the morning, and then cut up deer meat in the afternoon. The dogs stools are REALLY foul smelling and come out in a big blob of gelatinous looking material. Today, I looked closer, and t...

Hi Cindy: We are breeders of Labradors and are planning to build a kennel and expand. I am very interested in going all natural with the dogs as we have with our cattle but don't know where to begin. Can you recommend and resources to me?

I have received the products that I ordered. I have been reading the Natural nutrition book since yesterday and I am anxious to get started. My two year old lab is on antibiotics and steroids because of severe itching. He is on the last few days of this and I want to get him onto the natural diet as soon as possible. I do not want to have to use this course of action again! Do you have a suggested source for the digestive enzyme for dogs and for the non-dairy probiotic? I want to help my w...

Hi Ed, I have been reading about natural food options for our canine pets on your web site with great interest. My house and work dog both appear healthy and happy but I see little things that bother me about their commercial food diet. With that in mind I wanted to share a little insight that I have. While in college, I, like most students, would work anywhere to make tuition money. A job that I held for nearly 5 years was in a medium size slaughterhouse. On any given day w...

Dear Mr. Frawley, I have combed through and searched information on my specific question over your website, and I have not found one that deals with this question, I even looked up some that may go over a similar scenario and answer this, but I haven't found it. I apologize if you have encountered this before. I have a year old german shepherd that i purchased naively from a so-called "breeder." I was new to the GSD world, and it is as much my fault for not being more inform...

Cindy, I am soon, be getting a GSD pup which I intend to train and use for SAR work. I am receiving conflicting information as to how the dog should be raised on a day to day basis. People who have a large number of dogs, ie. (far too many to keep them all in the house) say that after the initial socialization process, I should kennel my dog, taking him out 3-4 times a day to train and play, followed my an hour or so in the house, to learn indoor manners. I'm told that this ...

Cindy, I have had a German Shepherd for 8 years and thoroughly enjoyed him, and have loved training him. I have been able to put a toy or food over to the side and he will focus on me and work like crazy, knowing that he will eventually get it. Showing that he can engage and refocus even when there is something he wants, and he knows its just 10 feet away, in clear view. He has been un-demanding in the house, waiting until I can go out, play or train. I guess you would say he is n...

Hi Cindy, I have a 13 week old female German Shepherd. I have the Michael Ellis DVDs, and overall she is doing great with them. Currently we are on the engagement stages still, and she is doing better and better, but still has some focus issues. She stays focused most of the time, but I have to watch her closely or sometimes she will check out and it takes direct interaction to get her back (Eg, food passing nose, small pop on leash, etc). Note that this is in familiar environments...

Hello, We bought a 3.5 month old GSD pup for the purpose of training for narcotics detection/tracking work. When we chose her out of her litter we checked temperament and drives. She is a very bold, strong headed, intelligent girl. She had somewhat a short attention span but was very enthusiastic over treats, toys and handler praise. She loved to hoard her toys, chase them and tug a little. We tested with and without her littermates and breeder around. I have been working on...

Cindy, I spoke with Dona today concerning what direction to take in the training of a boxer puppy. My wife and I have no children, live in a house in TN, and both work full time. This will be our third boxer with Kasha passing at 13 in Oct of 2009 and Magnus is 9 and has excellent health. We own several retail furniture stores and Magnus is a regular 'employee' at the stores. I personally trained both dogs using a book that advocated the same techniques Ed uses for obedience and pr...

Hi Cindy, First I want thank you the hard work you, Ed and the rest of your team all the long hours you must put in to make this world a better place for dogs and their handlers. I was lost trying to do training with the new fad of trainers using halties and other training methods that were not working. I had a young mal and she was a handful. I stumbled on your site and was saved from daily frustration. Between you and Michael Ellis, I now have a wonderful SAR wilderness dog. My ...

Cindy, My husband and I are working with our GSD who is still just a young puppy on things like beginning bite work, basic obedience etc. We intend to work with a professional in the future on protection work. However, right now I have one question as I am not new to training but new to protection work. We are using English words for come, down, sit, and stay. We plan to use german commands for bite, watch/guard, etc. My question then is that I am not sure if the speak comm...