Obedience Q&As

Hi Ed, I'm writing you to ask you how to train a dog with no motivation. My name is Jonathan and I have been training my pit bull for PSA. I have done a lot of work with him. His bite work is very strong. My problem is with obedience. He has no toy drive, so a tug or a ball is out of the question. I did all of his obedience with food and corrections. He is a lazy dog so everything he does is slow. The slowness is not my problem, because i know what my dog is and he can't be sped up...

Ed, I have one very quick question to ask you about. I know I can get other peoples input on your web board, but it's yours I interested in. You have been around the block many times, and I'm sure you also know a lot of other top level dog trainers that have as well, but when is the earliest a person should let their pup work with a helper? I have just about every one of your videos on this topic, and I think I know the right answer, be the reason I'm asking you is that there's a l...

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...

Cindy, I am trying to train my dog to heel. I am not going to do competition heeling but I have interest in it and would like to see what I can do with him training wise. He is a one year old border collie/blue heeler mix named Tex. I'm trying to train based on what I saw from the DVD "The power of training dogs with food" and have also watched "Establishing pack structure with the family pet" and "Basic Dog Obedience." I have got Tex to sit next to me and watch and he will do this...

Hi, I am wondering if it would be possible to train my st. bernard to guard my small children from getting too close to the water canal. She is 6 months old and already shows protective behavior for my children. How would I go about training her to do that? Thank you for your time, Rachael

I have been taking my RR to a dog trainer for some help and the good news is the trainer has been stressing the same philosophy as the DVDs I have bought from your website so that makes me happy, however when he was assessing the RR behavior (we are having issues with jumping and biting our hands and clothing) he asked what we were feeding her, I have her on a raw diet of chicken, turkey and beef (and some fish). He told me that the red meat was going to her brain causing too much blood flow ...

I have a number of your videos, but I'm a really busy person so I don't have time to watch them. Can you just call me to answer all my questions? My 2 dogs are fighting and now we got a 3rd dog so I am not sure what to do. Help!

I would like to start off by telling you my story. I live in Concord, NC. I had a four year old pit bull named Kila who just had her 3rd litter of puppies. Here is where the story gets interesting a day after having the pups Kila became very aggressive (this is a dog I raised since a pup that is trying to bite me). We had to have her put down. I got your recipe for the formula off the internet to bottle feed my pups. A week into there little lives they started dying painful deaths one at a ti...

I am interested in pursuing Therapy Dog training (www.therapydogs.org) and a raw diet is not allowed. My 4 month old German Shepherd puppy has received a raw chicken thigh for lunch every day since 7 wks. How to wean off a raw diet? Thanks, Mary

I read your comment on the leerburg web site that you will not breed any more german shepherd puppies with strong working drive for 2007 and 2008, Well I'm going to buy a GSD puppy from a GSD Kennel in canada, its called woodside germanshepherds. if you could check with them for me about the types of puppys they produce. can you reply back to me to see whether they are capable for police service work Johnmichael Musaazi

Dear Mr. Frawley: I don't even know where to begin. I have a two week old puppy that, in my eyes, if anything could go wrong with a puppy, it has happened to her. Her mother only had her, thank goodness. By the time she was three days old she had contracted some type of either bacterial or fungal infection of the skin on her abdomen, the vet wasn't sure. Either way, her skin was badly infected and rotting away. The vet gave me an antibiotic and skin cream. Two days later her ...

Hi, can you help? I have a 5 month old female German Sheperd pup and when she is out on the lead she lets dogs attack her and try to bite her and she just stands there. She does not cower away, she just stands there. Please help.

How can you tell which are female and male? One of my Huskies just whelped her first litter.

My girlfriend has an 11 or 12 year old Bichon dog and it keeps on using the bathroom [number 1 & 2] on her apartment floor every time I'm with my girlfriend on her bed. My girlfriend says her dog never used to do that before I came into her life. Does this mean my girlfriend's dog is trying to make a statement? Does this mean the Bichon is jealous and envious? I'm really starting to HATE my girlfriend's dog because I always have to clean the dog's crap up! Do you think this dog knows I hate i...

Hello, my name's Dean from Australia top site. I owned a German Shepherd who died at the old age of 13 about ten years ago I got him at 8 weeks. He was from old West German bloodlines imported into this country at about 6 months. I was walking him off lead when out of nowhere he launched into a full attack on me grabbing hold of my upper arm and shaking kicked him in the guts but he would not let go. He only had one baby canine left this broke and he lost his grip as I kicked him again he...

I used to have an pure American GSD named Baxter. He has great balance and agility, and he is extremely powerful. I live in Canada and often see elk in my yard. One day he ran away after something and I chased him with my fourwheeler and watched him bring down a 565 pound elk. I had to get rid of him because of this. He had excellent drive and often hunted with me. Never say that German lines are better, I currently own one and will soon get rid of him because he is timid, and is very nippy. ...

My pug had 3 puppies, and 5 days later I accidentally left the door open to where the puppies were, the mama pug came outside with me and while we were out, my adult female doxie killed the puppies. I am worried that there is something wrong with my doxie. I haven't even been able to pet her since this happened. These adult dogs have lived together for 4 years. Last year they had puppies together and after the puppies the doxie got spayed. Is my doxie a killer? Thanks for your help...

I am a security dog handler now. I have a Rotty. Could you give me your thoughts on giving him a live chicken for a kill to increase his prey drive and a confidence builder. I'll let him taste the blood. We are training him on the sleeve. He is 2 yrs. and 4 months old. He is fighting well on the sleeve and with whip work and gun work, we just need to build his confidence up.

Good afternoon, I have been searching for an answer to my question and have yet to find it and was hoping you could help. I have a 6 and 1/2 month old male American bulldog and a 8 and 1/2 month old female American bulldog. I was not planning to breed them, and I had a spay appointment for the female all set until she went into heat 2 days prior to the surgery. My boyfriend accidentally let them outside together, and by the time I noticed, he was already locked inside her. So my question i...

I have got 2 female dogs which fight not all the time, only when they get jealous such as if we put a plate down for one of them and the other one comes over they start growling and then they start to have an aggressive fight. I have read how to separate them but I would like to know would they kill each other if we left them, or is they any training we could teach them to stop fighting full stop. Thanks Letty