Lunges at moving cars
#229642 - 03/02/2009 10:23 AM |
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My 8 month old female GSD lunges at moving cars when on walks. She will notice them from far away, fixate on them and lunge and bark at them when they pass by. when I see a car coming I try and put her in a sit stay, but she ignores me. I try to get her focused on treats, but she has no interest. When she lunges I pop her leash and tell her no, but it doesn't phase her. I want to stop this dangerous behavior. any advice would be appreciated. A
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Re: Lunges at moving cars
[Re: Melissa Swarbric ]
#229643 - 03/02/2009 10:26 AM |
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Instead of distracting her with treats, can you try a nice ball on a string, or a tug?
This is most likely a manifestation of prey drive (oooh, look at the shiny, moving thing. I wanna chase it!) Treats don't really satisfy her prey drive, but a tug or a ball might, and that may work to redirect her.
At 8 months old, if you cannot bring this under control any other way, I would consider a prong, only because of the seriousness of the behavior.
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Re: Lunges at moving cars
[Re: Aaron Myracle ]
#229644 - 03/02/2009 10:30 AM |
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I will try using a tug to try and distract her. right now I have a choke chain, but not sure I am poping hard enough - it is hard to pull hard enough for the proper correction. I will consider a prong. Will using a prong make her agressive, because it causes pain?
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Re: Lunges at moving cars
[Re: Melissa Swarbric ]
#229645 - 03/02/2009 10:41 AM |
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A prong causes FAR less pain than a choke chain.
Try it on yourself and see. It took two weeks for my choke chain bruise to go away.
Please throw the choke chain in the garbage, it will harm your dogs neck. I know this because it happened to my dog. I cringe whenever I read that someone is using this horrible thing on their dog.
I only use prongs on my dogs now.
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Re: Lunges at moving cars
[Re: Melissa Swarbric ]
#229646 - 03/02/2009 10:41 AM |
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read this article:
http://leerburg.com/fit-prong.htm
You're actually doing more damage to the dog popping him with the choke collar, especially if you are pulling hard (as you stated in your last post)
Prong collars don't cause pain when used and positioned correctly. You can go into a store and test one on yourself if you would like to know what it feels like.
Try distracting her first. Thats' what worked with my dog. He had/has a bad infatuation with lights, so when we were walking down a heavily car travelled road at night he would be constantly tracking the headlights of each car. The ball worked for me. I held it in my hand and when i saw a car coming I would show him the ball (holding it up by my face so he would focus upwards) when the car passed without him looking at it I would praise and drop the ball for him to catch.
I slowly phased out the ball, now when he see's a car coming he looks up at me.
Don't complain....TRAIN!!! |
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Re: Lunges at moving cars
[Re: Melissa Swarbric ]
#229648 - 03/02/2009 10:42 AM |
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Using a prong will not make her aggressive, and in fact is much kinder to the dog than a choke chain.
As you have discovered, it is very difficult to give a proper correction on a choke chain. Even when a proper correction IS given on a choke, it is harmful to the dog's neck. Because of the construction of the collar, all of the force of the correction is delivered to one focal point on the dog's neck- the spot where the chain passes through the dead ring.
It's the equivilant of jamming the dog in the neck with the end of a wooden dowel- a ton of force, all in one very tiny spot.
With a prong collar, you will find it much easier to give a proper correction, and the force will be spread evenly across the dog's neck.
Make sure you time you corrections properly, and give them properly. Dogs that are corrected in a "nagging" manner (tons of little corrections, or simply being pulled around rather than corrected) learn to ignore corrections, and in fact become even worse behaved once the corrections start.
With lunging, though, she'll do all the work herself.
If you think she is going to lunge, give her a slight amount of slack to lunge in to. When she hits the end of the leash, she'll correct herself. She'll learn rapidly not to lunge at cars, without you having done anything but hold the leash.
CORRECTIONS MUST BE ADMINISTERED FROM A LOOSE LEAD.
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Re: Lunges at moving cars
[Re: Aaron Myracle ]
#229654 - 03/02/2009 11:00 AM |
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I will stop using the choke chain immediately and begin using a prong collar. What can I use as a backup collar other than a dominant dog collar with the prong/
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Re: Lunges at moving cars
[Re: Melissa Swarbric ]
#229655 - 03/02/2009 11:01 AM |
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I really recommend the dominant dog collar as a backup.
It's sturdy, the right length to work with the prong, and doesn't have a tendancy to tangle in the prong.
Leerburg sells the DD Collar and Prong together as a package.
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Re: Lunges at moving cars
[Re: Aaron Myracle ]
#229657 - 03/02/2009 11:10 AM |
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I use a martingale collar as a back-up to the prong and haven't had any issues with it tangling or anything.
Teagan!
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Re: Lunges at moving cars
[Re: Aaron Myracle ]
#229660 - 03/02/2009 11:14 AM |
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Alyssa is right... dominant collar.
When you give a correction with the prong, the dominant dog collar does not tighten all the way nor does it do any correcting. It is just there for backup, in case the prong pops off, which it has a tendency to do sometimes. And because it is fabric, it does not catch on nor interfere with the prong collar.
I even use a dominant collar with a flat collar, in case the dog ever decides to try and back out of his flat collar.
Anyway never mind all this just yet. Try walking the dog with a ball or toy first and see if that helps (Squeaky toys might work well). You may not even need anything more than a flat collar for her. Let us know how she goes.
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