Recommended Q&As

Cindy, I had emailed you quite a while ago with a question about a GSD female that used to love tugs and bite work, but suddenly stopped. You mentioned seeing the vet and chiropractor, which I did but still didn't seem to fix the problem. What it ended up being was a hormone imbalance, she had a "deformed" ovary. She had been left intact until this past week, and when performing the spay the vet noticed the problem. It was very large and misshapen. It was biopsied and was not cancerous, bu...

My 8 month old male Standard Poodle has recently challenged me by biting twice. We adopted him from a family that neglected him during the first 16 weeks of his life leaving him unsocialized and with some behavior issues. When we brought him home at 4 months, he had severe seperation anxiety if left alone and will bark excessively non stop and still does. We try to take him on walks and to dog parks as much as possible, he gets along with other dogs great but he is still very shy towards stra...

My puppy is a boxer mix. He is about 4 months old and is very playful and friendly with everyone. The problem is excitement/submissive urination. He will run up to someone with his tail wagging, but when they pet him he pees. I have raised 2 dogs now by a Koehler method with positive reinforcement. They were great dogs and eventually did not need to be on a leash to continuously heel and immediately sit when I stopped walking. Neither of those dogs had a urination problem though. He is ...

I've had my 7 year old pitt mix since she was 4 weeks old. I took her through obedience classes and she follows commands nicely unless she is excited about visitors. She's never been aggressive towards anyone. The only aggression I've seen is towards other dogs who approach us while walking and towards a friends toy poodle who constantly harassed her. Up until now she's been great with my son who is 16 months. He loves petting and hugging her and I truly thought she liked it as she's a...

Hi Cindy, I have a 4 1/2 year old GSD that I got as a 2 1/2 year old. She absolutely goes nuts over the vacuum cleaner. thought she was afraid of it until I read on the site that her behavior is likely due to prey drive. That makes sense because she has a very strong prey drive as evidenced in play and her interest in chasing squirrels (which she doesn't get to do because she isn't off leash anyplace we might encounter them). Do you have any suggestions on how to train her to know the vacu...

I adopted a 5 y/o male Rottweiler 3 months ago who occasionally nips other dogs, children, and even me. He is a neutral dog - submissive to me (pack leader) but neither submissive or overly dominant towards other dogs/people. The family I got him from had a 2-3 y/o little girl and he is obsessed with small children when I take him to the park, especially little girls. He gets excited and stays close and keeps a close watch on them. He did a very gentle nip to a little boy who was running and ...

Hi Mr. Frawley, I checked the training articles and discussion boards. Forgive me if the answer is there somewhere. My dog seems to care less where or what he steps on. He carelessly steps on my feet when walking near, running by, or even coming up to and sitting in front of me. It is not all the time but frequent enough that I want to stop this because I just do not like it. I have trouble thinking of a way to accurately correct this when the incident occurs- he steps on and off of my foo...

I'm working on building drive and focus with 1 year old German Shepherd. She has trememdous intensity. When we work with the tug toys we are at the stage where she will wait (sit) until I give a release command to try and grab the tug, and she will also out-it when requested. She will also stay seated as I walk away, and come to get it only when released. As I ratchet up intensity (by darting the tug in front of her so she has to work really hard to grab it) there have been one or two times w...

We have an 8 month old Golden Retriever that is training with a prong collar. We are happy with the training results, but hate the dark ring and the broken hair that results from this collar. I have been on your site and wanted to know if you think the curogan collar might be the answer for us. Thank you.

Hi Ed, I have a three and a half month old Newfoundland pup and have recently ran into some problems while training her on the down command. Up until this point she has been very easy to train, learning sit in just a few minutes and generally being a very well mannered dog. I'm using a 12' training line and a prong type collar as well. She understands the down command but simply does not want to perform it and even bit me a couple of times while I have administered corrections. I have been...

I do not understand why the chain choke collar can cause neck injuries and the dominant dog collar doesn't. I have seen the DVD on the dominant dog collar, and I understand about the value of keeping the collar right behind the ears, but it still seems to me that it is a "jerk and release" action, just like the chain choke collar. Is it the placement on the dog's neck the difference? Or the fact that it will give "softer" jerks? I'm not getting the mechanics of the difference. Thank you.

If I am feeding a raw diet, how much bone should I be feeding my female during pregnancy and after she has her litter?

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...

I have a pure bred beagle that got an english bulldog pregnant, which belongs to someone else. I would like to have one of the puppies since they are also my beagle's puppies. The owner of the bulldogs has told me that they are going to sell the puppies and will not be giving me one. Do I have any rights to the puppies?

Hi. My family is having a problem with two of our dogs being aggressive. My mother and father have four dogs in total. One is a female we've rescued from a shelter. We have an older male dog who is very gentle, then we have two younger males (they're about two years old). Recently the two younger males have become very aggressive. They've attacked the older male dog about three times, nothing too serious but it was enough that we took Drake (the older one) to my sister's for a little wh...

Ed and Cindy, Having just read your Dumb & Dumber Q&As I can see that you are not particularly tolerant of stupid questions, but I hope you will treat this seriously since it was a very upsetting event. I have a 5 year old Amer. Staffordshire Terrier (almost 80 pounds) that is very loving and gentle and we were spending a weekend at my daughter's in-laws cabin where several families and their dogs were present. In addition to my dog there were two Maltese and a Black Lab. All of them ge...

Hi! We have a 1 1/2 year old beagle and his breath just starting smelling really bad like rotting meat. He is on an all raw meat diet, do you know what may be causing this smell? Thanks! Britni

Hello Leerburg Staff. My question is about what seems to be crate aggression. I have read many articles on your site and now I am trying to find one about crate aggression but have been unlucky. I can't be the first person with this issue, maybe I am looking under the wrong article headings. Anyway, I have bought a GS puppy and have not let the puppy interact physically with my other dogs, just through the crates. My 4 year old Lab tries to attack the puppy when she is in the crate if he goes...