Obedience Q&As

Hi Ed, My name is Niamh and my husband, Glen, and I own a 70 pound neutered bitch named Sena. To explain our situation I will give you a little background on us. I had a previous dog, Grady a male neutered black lab/rottie cross. Grady was a huge dog and at age 12 and at 120 pounds he had to be put down. Grady was put down quite suddenly due to failing organs. He was a gentle giant who in his senior years didn't want to do anything but lay at your feet. My husband and I went out tw...

Hi, My 4 yr. old German Shepherd and constant loving companion, bit me. I had placed a bag of garbage containing a turkey bone on the floor. I heard him chewing the bone from the garbage and went over to him. He growled at me, which surprised me greatly. I then spoke firmly to him and reached for his collar to pull him away from the bone. He growled again and bit my wrist. It was one quick bite and I pulled away and ran. He has been quite humble ever since. I was shocked. I thought...

I was searching the internet this evening and came across your site that had many questions and answers regarding fear biters and the like. I am struggling with a decision that I fear I know the answer to and would like to ask your opinion. My wife and I adopted a dog at the local shelter about three years ago. He is a Norfolk Terrier Mix we believe. The dog was days away from being put down and we took him home and have loved him extravagantly ever since. He was in the pound for biting an...

Mr. Frawley, I am hoping you can help us today! We adopted George from a local shelter 15 months ago, he is a German Shepherd mix, about 3 or 4 years old. From the beginning he has showed dominance towards me when he found food outside, going after me with a strong, viscous bark, but has always let me take away his food if I have given it to him. Since then my husband and I have given birth to a beautiful daughter who is now four months old. We have tried some training and met with...

I am writing to you about our 11 yr. old Lhasa Apso, Max. I have had him since he was 8-9wks old. As a puppy, he seemed to be afraid of strangers or anyone who tried to pet or touch him. He would scream and back away. I tried to socialize him, when people would come in that would play with him & he finally started coming out of his shell. However, about a year later he started biting the groomer & they informed me they wouldn't have him back. I had a dog trainer come into our home & work with...

I have been on your web site a lot and have learned a great deal. I know that you are in the protection dog biz and my pup is really not considered for his breed a protector I have a 5 month old Siberian Husky Male (Alpha of the Alpha's) What I want to know is in your experience do a lot of people mistake this breeds behavior for aggression? I am working him on a prong collar and have made some great steps forward. I have him in a formal obedience class and well those trainers need help b...

I am at a lose as to where to turn regarding dominance and aggression issues with my dog. As a young puppy, somewhere between 6 mo. to 1 year she was placed in the yard of an auto body shop. She had a doghouse and was fed regularly, but that was about it. My boyfriend visits this shop often and developed a relationship with the dog (I believe she is part Chow & part Keeshond). When I purchased my own home he asked me to take her in. At that time she was 3 - 4 years old. There is also an indic...

Hello--I learned a lot from reading your web site. My dog and I need help. I think my dog has "fight drive," to put it nicely. He otherwise is a very good, well-trained, obedient, Rottweiler, but when he gets angry he is practically unstoppable. It's a problem for me, mainly because he attacked me yesterday. I was picking some dried scabs off his face ...I know it didn't hurt him because the scabs were practically falling off. He was growling, and I was warned, but I couldn'...

Hi, I'm a "new dog owner"(My dad had a dog while I was alive and she eventually became my dog, but she didn't need any training.) We put her to sleep and I bought a Golden Retriever puppy. She's approximately 6 months old. She's pretty good most of the time. She took a beginner's obedience class and is pretty well potty-trained. The major problem is that she is aggressive. I was hoping I could tell you about it and you could give me a suggestion. When I give her a pig's ear, or some other...

Dear Mr. Frawley, I just adopted a 5 year old toy poodle. Her previous owner was an elderly single woman who kept her on her lap and had her sleep on her bed. She's a good dog. She gets along well with my 1 1/2 year old miniature poodle. My only problem is, how to get her to sleep in a crate and out of my bedroom. She connected with my husband and would love nothing more then to sleep in our bed. I managed to get her off my bed and onto a day bed but I rather she spen...

The issue at hand is my roommate and I have 2 different views of dog training. I see it like "the dog does what I say or deal with the consequences" and I can be rough. I don't mean to be rough but it has always produced good dogs in the past. His view is "let the dog do what it wants without consequences" when it involves others. He views it as good socializing and the dog will get better in time. We don't listen to each other re:dog training because we differ at the very basic philosoph...

I hope you don't mind questions. I have a dominant female Greyhound X. She is very dog aggressive and will bark and nip friends that visit on a hit and miss basis. We have done obedience classes and she is about 70% on sits and downs. Her stays are 20% and only with treats. I have no idea how to convince her. We got her from the pound a year ago and she is 6 years old. We let her sleep in the bed and she is less then 4 feet away when we eat. I like her sleeping with us. What should...

We have a lovely 7 month old Beagle who is a great dog who loves other people and dogs and will willingly shares her toys and food. She is not allowed on the bed or settee but when she does get on there and we go to lift her off she growls quite badly her tail is underneath her and she has snapped. The only other time she does this is when she has something she shouldn't have i.e. a sweet wrapper, lolly stick or sock etc. We do have a young child and are not used to this sort of behavior (our...

Dear Ed, I just finished reading some letters on your website and liked your answers. I have two dogs...one a chow/lab mix and one full blooded chow. The full blooded, Pride, lunged at me the other night and darn near scared me to death. We got him when he was six months old. We've had him for 1 1/2 years and he has never done this before. He growls a lot, but my husband says that is his way of talking. Sometimes I agree, sometimes I don't. Anyway, my other dog had jumped up and ta...

Dear Mr. Ed Frawley: I found your website on the Internet, and I was hoping you would be willing to help with some advice or maybe a referral to someone who would be able to help us. I am sorry to say that we are having a problem with our Jack Russell Terriers. We have a 5-month-old male Jack Russell Terrier who we bought from a friend who bought him from a pet store called "Just Puppies." We have had our male dog for about 1.5 months. My husband bought me a 12-week-o...

My girlfriend is sharing a house with 2 other girls. One of the girls owns the house, and she also owns a Vizla (a 3-year-old dog from a rescue). I understand the dog was abused by a prior owner. The dog has bitten the owner twice, once in the hand (about two weeks ago) and on both her cheeks (two days ago). After the first bite on the hand, the owner sought advice from a dog trainer that advised her to assert an alpha roll by ignoring the dog, not feeding it for a couple days, and then h...

We have two dogs, a 7 1/2 year old female rottweiler mix (neutered) and a 7 year old male rottweiler (not neutered). We have had both since they were puppies and both were raised as outside dogs. The male is very dominating toward the female and will push her out of the way any time we try to pet her. He is also very aggressive towards our neighbor's dog (a toy poodle) and rushes the fence when it barks at him. He refuses to mind anyone but my husband and is therefore very difficult for m...

Hi Cindy, Let me start by saying I love your website and the changes you made to the streaming videos are excellent. I have purchased various DVDs and equipment and thanks to you I have a very obedient and happy dog. I hope you can help me with a problem that just occurred with my 14 month old female GSD. She has good nerves and a wonderful temperament. She can go anywhere with me, experience different situations, meet other dogs and people without a single change in her behavior. She i...

I have a problem I hope you can help me with. I have a 7-year old female GSD and a 14 week old male GSD. About 4 weeks ago my 7-year old attacked the pup over a rawhide and broke his jaw. I normally don?t give my animals rawhide, but the pup has a biting/mouthing problem and this helped. (He was taken away from the mother at 3 weeks of age by the breeder with a bad injury and left at an emergency vet. That is where I adopted him). My female showed no signs of bite inhibitors during this i...

I found the information on your website to be very helpful-particularly about dog fights. I have two male (neutered) Jack Russell Terriers. They have been together since one was 12 and the other was 8 weeks old. We initially questioned having two males-we had always heard that JRT's of the same sex would fight to the death if given the chance. But when we introduced the younger dog to the older one they immediately took to one another-the older one allowed the younger one to sleep in his ...