based on everything in this thread, i think group classes would probably not be ideal, especially since no trainer i really trust/like offers them i have taken teagan up to my FR trainer to work around the dogs in his kennel.

interesting about your fearful dog. i've been debating taking luc to canine good neighbour (same as CGC) class, but we keep on being away for too many weeks with travel. i'm thinking about it on a go-forward basis - luc and me are good with obedience, but he's fearful, unless i am there to deal with all strange dogs and intercept them. as long as i'm holding up my end of the bargain (i.e., not allowing strange dogs near him) he's fine and stays calm. it's the portions of the test around/near strange dogs that i would need help training him with, and i'm sort of in two minds - i think it would be a lot of fun to do, but i'd also hate to undo the trust luc has in me that he will never have to deal with or be near a strange dog. i wouldn't want him to regress, on the otherhand, maybe it would help him grow. speaking of rambling!!!

I have a friend that has a dog that is selectively dog aggressive and my dog that is unpredictable with strange dogs. After the motivation is good and excercises clear I believe it can be useful to attend group trainings. We both have done it and our dogs have improved. They don´t like strange dogs better but they obey and concentrate in the presence of them and that was the goal.

Jennifer, please forgive me, I do not know the whole story behind
Teagan. My question is, you have three dogs??? One larger and one smaller than Teagan, is that correct? Why is Teagan not aggressive towards your other dogs? You mentioned earlier, you had Luc before Teagan? How did you get the two of them together without fighting? In your picture, the three of them look fine together.

They all get along fine. Luc is basically the same size as Teagan, a bit smaller, but they're the same. She's not good with dogs outside of our pack, but Luc and Neb (the midget) she's good with.

I got Luc first, and then Teagan. Luc is scared of strange dogs and I wanted a dog that I knew who he could socialize with and that would be confident, and she's very confident in a lot of situations. She's a real calming influence on him in situations where he would normally be nervous (like say the subway) but with her, he stays calm. That sort of thing - new and different environments don't phase her one bit.

They can't share a tent together, though - I'll usually wake up in the night to snarling dogs and her chasing Luc around. I think something sets her off - he's in her way, he hears a noise that makes him startle - and she growls or otherwise at him, then he gets upset, and sets off her prey drive and she starts to chase him. I've gotten between them and she's definitely not out to hurt him - but she is a rougher dog, in play for instance, in ways that Luc isn't - Luc doesn't like rough play. Other than tents, she's pretty respectful of his eccentricities and they get along well, they will play together in Luc's special versions of wrestling and she's really good about it (they bump into each other and then he sticks his paw in her face....then he starts to get excited and sniffs her privates, and that's pretty much it, sometimes repeated. She's totally fine with that though and doesn't jump on him to wrestle rough or anything.

I adopted Neb when he was 6 weeks (the rescue adopted out his mom even though I wasn't supposed to get him til 8 weeks). I was really nervous about how she'd be with a small puppy, since she does have strong prey reactions (prey aggression, if that's a kind of aggression), to small dogs. A GSD breeder online told me that there'd have to be something wrong with her mentally to go after a puppy. However, given that the first week I had her we had an off-leash JRT puppy run up to us and she was....excited....I was nervous.

But, she was perfect with Neb from the start. The first day I had him, she laid outside his crate when he was in there and just stuck by him. She was so good by the third day I was letting them play together, and she let him crawl all over her face and hang off her ears and she just lay there with a blissful expression on her face.

He only weighs 17lbs, and they wrestle together - roughly - and she's fine. She is very aware when they wrestle. They play together with toys and she's fine.

I assume she is fine with Luc and Neb b/c it's clear that they're part of the pack. It was very obvious that I brought Neb in, and I think she understands that/respects that. And it was obvious that Luc was existing. I did introduce her and Luc slowly - short positive sessions that gradually lengthened and turned into walks together, and we went from there.

They are all fine together though. It's really dogs outside our pack that she is not good with. Small dogs, she wants to go after, and large dogs, she does not like approaching our yard, or if they're acting rudely, she will go after them (she acts like she's ignoring them until optimum attack distance - I have learnt to read her though). We've also worked on her not staring large dogs down, she is better about that now.

Just a note, I expected Neb to be bigger full-grown than he turned out to be - it's clear the dad (unknown) was a JRT-type dog (Mom was a smallish husky mix). Neb is half the size I was expecting based on Mom. But I didn't want to get a small dog, though it's worked out fine in terms of dynamics. Neb thinks he's Teagan's size

I have a question Jenn,
Why do you consider moving away from using a pinch on Teagan?


If my dog isn't learning, I'm doing something wrong.
Randy

PS.
Can someone PLEASE ask Jaana to do something with her picture!

I still have it, and I still will use it on occasion if I feel we need to.

I started to move away from it mostly from reading a lot of Mike Schoonbrood's comments that people who used pinches for compliance - say, to stop a dog from pulling - needed to work on their training with their dog (train it to heel or walk politely) instead. I'm no doubt grossly paraphrasing, but that resonated with me.

So, since what I've been doing with Teagan for awhile now is trying to give her something positive to do (obedience work) instead of being reactive/aggressive, I'm almost trying to address a lot of her behaviour as something that I need to train her to the appropriate behaviour.

Which isn't to say that I won't correct her, if it's warranted, I will.

On the martingale, I can physically control her if I have to. The walk we saw 4 dogs in 5 minutes for instance, and she broke her heel at the 4th dog and started spazzing out - I basically picked her up with the leash and walked her (the term frog march is in my head though I don't actually know what frog marching is....) so that she had no choice but to go with me (she was lifted up). She calmed down after a few moments and we continued with our walk.

The problem is, of course, that other than the control I just described - it's not like I can issue a correction on the martingale that will hit home.

But so far, it's been okay. Her behaviour lost a little when we moved to prong-less - she definitely had learnt to respect the collar - but we've gained back some of that.

I don't know - maybe it's a terrible idea, given her history. But she can't get out of the martingale collar, and if it comes down to it, I am stronger than her. I've just been thinking that I want her to really learn to change her behaviour, not just comply b/c of the collar she's wearing.

Crazy of me maybe?

Hmmm,
So your concern is her becoming collar wise? For myself I'd say so what if she's wise to it? If she settles better with a pinch collar, it seems to me it would be easier to work on the training you want to do. Much like you say she feels more relaxed in a muzzle.
I take it your working her with markers, I've never felt that markers and pinch collars were mutually exclusive. Don't use compulsion if you don't want, the collar is only there for saftey and/or absolute defiance, as Teagan is want to do.

If my dog isn't learning, I'm doing something wrong.
Randy

PS.
I hope I said all that right.

I think she already is collar-wise.

Yup, I use 'good!' as the marker.

I agree, positive training and prongs aren't mutually exclusive.

While I was using markers, for the times she doesn't obey in the presence of another dog, I do pop her into place (she gets a second chance) (I do this with the martingale as well though the prong is more effective). I don't think it's a matter of her not understanding the command, but of her allowing her reactivity/aggression to take over.

But than I started to think - does she sit or heel b/c that's what she's been trained to do, or b/c she's been trained that a correction will come if she doesn't?

Having the prong on would make it easier to handle her when she does act out.

I've said it before as well, but having her in the muzzle makes it difficult to reward her for good behaviour with anything but my voice or pets. Food is a bit awkward with her muzzle and toys are out. She likes pets and me being pleased with her, but I do miss not having those to use when we're outside working.

Jenn,
IMHO when the dog sits on command (or heels, etc), whether she was trained through compulsion or complies because of positive enforcement the root reasons are the same, operant conditioning.
If I'm trying to change the attitude the dog has toward a behavior, I've found changing the langage rather than the hardware is easier. It just seems to me to be one step forward for every three steps back to trade control for physical restaint.


If my dog isn't learning, I'm doing something wrong.
Randy