All -

My family just adopted a 2 year old lab/(boxer or pitbull mix - no one can tell for use) from a local organization. The dog is well behaved for the most part, very loving, interacts well with people/other dogs/cats/etc.. She seems to be quite shy and lacks confidence.

Over the course of a few weeks, she has started to show signs to dominance. She tries to get on our furnature, she has growled a few times, and the other day my son startled her when she was sleeping and she bit him (he is OK).

After this, I located this web page and Ed was kind enough to direct me to some useful information. Right now, I am going through the "ground work" stuff and will eventually move on the obedeince training.

I was wondering if you could help me with some questions:

- I understand that the ground work is about establishing a bond with the dog and establishing myself as the pack leader. How and When do I go about establishing my wife's and children's authority over the dog?

- With the ground work, it is stated that I am only to let the dog out of it's kennel for potty breaks and stuff. At what point in time, do I allow the dog to interact with my family, on and off the leash?

- Is there anything else that I can do to ensure that this does not happen again? I would prefer not giving up on tis dog if possible, or at least I would like to know that I tried everything that was within my power.

thank you SO MUCH for any help you can provide!!

- Brian

Others will answer I'm sure, but here's my .02 cents:

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How and When do I go about establishing my wife's and children's authority over the dog?

After he is accepting you as alpha and is no longer trying to dominate you. Wife and kids should not be interacting with him at all during this time.

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At what point in time, do I allow the dog to interact with my family, on and off the leash?

Again, ONLY after he is accepting you as his leader, and obeying his commands when you give them. At first, when you first start allowing your family to interact with him and give him commands, he should be on leash, with you holding onto it. If he disobeys a command given by your wife, you need to verbally reprimand him, and also give a correction with the leash. This will assert that he has displeased you, and if you've done things right up to this point, he will not want to displease you, so he should learn fairly quickly that the other members of your family are to be treated with as much respect as he treats you. Start with your wife, and when he's doing okay with her, move to the kids.

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Is there anything else that I can do to ensure that this does not happen again?

Keep practicing the "Nothing in Life is Free," or "No Free Lunch" program every day for the rest of his life. The key to this is making sure that every member of the family does everything the same. For example, you can't reprimand him for begging at the table if your wife or kids feed him from the table. You can't reprimand him for getting on the furniture if your wife and kids allow him to do so. Everyone must follow the same rules. If you say no furniture priveleges, then he gets NO furniture priveleges, EVER. Your wife and kids need to understand this.

You can do a <a href="www.yahoo.com" target="_blank">YAHOO!</a> or GOOGLE search on NILIF, or Nothing in Life is Free, and you should get lots of hits that will help keep you on track. This isn't something that's difficult to do once you get in the routine, and you won't have to be as strict once he starts to understand.

Good luck! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Kristen,

Thank you for taking the time to reply and help me out!! You have no idea how much I appreciate it!!

Regarding the off leash comment, are you basically saying that the dog is to always remain on leash until I am comfortable that she is obeying/responding to training commands by my, my wife, and kids and at that point in time, I can remove her leash??

If so, do you have any thoughts on how to transition this? Meaning, sould I keep her on leash for 50% of the time just to transition her?? What about the keanel?? After training should I transition her to a percentage of time in her kenel (as opposed to the large amount of time she is in there now)?

Thank you for the NILIF reference, I'll definitely read up on it!!

Again, thank you!

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Regarding the off leash comment, are you basically saying that the dog is to always remain on leash until I am comfortable that she is obeying/responding to training commands by my, my wife, and kids and at that point in time, I can remove her leash??

Pretty much. Of course, you should remove it when she's in her kennel, but when you're home and she's loose in the house, or outside in the yard, she should be wearing her leash so that if she does try to "test" you or display unwanted, inappropriate behavior, you'll have a way to correct it. For outside play, a long line (15-20 feet long) might be better than her regular leash, but inside I would just let her drag a 4 or 6 foot leash around. Again, she must be supervised so the leash doesn't catch on something and cause her to hurt herself (or break something).

As far as transitioning goes, you could get a short 1 foot long 'tab' as they are called, when you think she might be okay, and just let her wear that around for a week or so before completely removing it altogether. Or you could just stop attaching the leash to her collar. Of course, if she reverts back and starts challenging you again, you'll need to go back to square one until she understands that her bad behavior will not be tolerated.


You can gradually decrease the amount of time she's in the crate, as she starts proving herself. There's really no set way to go about this - it's just whatever you feel comfortable with. If she isn't ready, she'll let you know by 'slipping up' on what you've been teaching her up to that point.

That makes sense!! Thanks!!

So, when she is at this point in time (when she is on a leash, but still mobile around the house) is it OK for my wife to issue corrections when poor behavior occurs, or should I be on the only one issuing corrections??

thank you for this link!! I'll definitely post there as well!!!