Your opinion. She may be sitting by your chair panting, watching you, trying to be on the lookout for a correction given for no reason she can understand. You've heard of Stockholm Syndrome?

I am trying not to insult you, to respect your feelings, but Maria...2 people who are involved in an incident can perceive it completely differently based on their experiences and paradigms. Can you not see that it's infinitely more likely that human and canine do not have the same understanding of what they experience at any given moment in time?

May I suggest a book to you, Maria?

Its my favorite dog book ever, and I think all owners should be required to read it. The title is "The Other End of the Leash" by Patricia McConnell

http://www.amazon.com/Other-End-Leash-Patricia-McConnell/dp/0345446798

You can probably get it at your local library. Its a very interesting read. Fast and fun, too. (I read it three times in a week :grin.

I believe that the section about dominance would be particularly interesting to you.

Even if you decide not to keep your current dog, I think this book will help you if you decide to get another dog.

Another interesting book to check out if the library has it is "Jelly Bean versus Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde". I'm not crazy about the training in the book, or the writing style, but the over all message of the book will clue you in to what some of the board members here are talking about.

Maria, my pups have more structure then my adult dogs.

 Quote: maria martynchik

Well, Ideally I want her to be my dog, why do you guys think I've got her?

there is NO bond with her. I find her cute, but that's about it.

I don't "tell" myself that I don't trust her. Once cannot really stop the thought process, no matter how one tries. it's just something I feel, without any deep thinking about it at all.

I am really upset with her, not talking to her, keep her in the crate and take her out on very short walks, and NOT liking her now

I am exhausted, and afraid she will injure me on her "bad hair day".

I barely pet this dog a couple of times in the last month, and we have not played together for god knows how long.

she has been sitting in this damn crate for over 2 weeks now and does not seem to be much better

I don't resent her. I don't get angry at her either, just .... kinda always expect a bite.



"There is NO bond with her. I find her cute, but that's about it."

Look, there is no FAULT here. This is just not the right place for this dog.

The first page of the first thread said "one more week, we already decided."

"Dominant-aggressive" peppers the threads .... almost every post.

There is no point arguing about that (and I realize that I'm not there), but I haven't seen one event ... not one ... in these threads that says "dominant-aggressive" to me.

In one sense, the dominance question doesn't even matter: The way you perceive the dog (monster, creature, scary, handler-aggressive) just cannot work.

There is no character assassination about it. As you said, 'I don't "tell" myself that I don't trust her. Once cannot really stop the thought process, no matter how one tries. it's just something I feel, without any deep thinking about it at all.'

This cannot, just CAN NOT lead to successful re-training. Nothing to do with your character or personality or anything else about you personally. It's completely counterproductive to argue back and forth the way it's happening. Bottom line, IMO (my very strong, and experienced opinion), this is a wrong pairing.

Eval, yes. IME, the people doing breed-rescue evals are experienced. Health check, yes. Keep a dog who frightens you and who you dislike? No.

PLEASE don't interpret this as a slur against you. You tried to adopt a dog in need! I applaud this with all my heart!

But it didn't work, and the best thing for the dog is to be rehomed. This is the caring and responsible thing to do, in the completely aboveboard way outlined.

http://akita.rescueshelter.com/California

http://www.tikihutakitarescue.com/home.cfm


I've posted this three times. Maybe three is a charm.

 Quote: Connie Sutherland

the best thing for the dog is to be rehomed.

I've posted this three times. Maybe three is a charm.

One can only hope.

 Quote: Connie Sutherland

Oh, I meant to ask before: I know getting an e-collar came up very early and was immediately shot down as being a very bad idea for this dog, but as far as you know, has anyone used an e-collar on her .... ?

 Quote: Maria Martynchik

.. No, never before she had e-collar on.

Not by you or previous owners (as far as you know), right?

As I re-read the posts, I read some descriptions of behaviors that I have seen triggered by improper e-collar use.







Edited to add:

Never mind. I realize that you can't really know for sure about previous owners, and you clearly stated that you have not used an e-collar with the dog.






Edited by Connie Sutherland (04/16/2011 07:17 PM)
Edit reason: eta

"She must respect us first"

Respect is earned.
What have you done to earn hers?

"After this week is out we will get the person mentioned ..... to come out, pay him to check Yume out."


Doing an eval as an individual trainer/behaviorist on a dog with this kind of baggage of such emotional public discussion .... many might prefer not to get involved in a situation with so much back-and-forth in the internet history .... I don't know who this is and I'm not privy to the PM conversation, so I may be completely wrong ..... but an Akita rescue might be the best starting point.

OK.
So, that sounds EXACTLY what we have been doing the whole first month, and the whole last month. In between there was strictest part of groundwork. Last few weeks it was different. I wake up, she is still in her crate. I take my meds, take her out, potty breaks we have are about 30 minutes, then we go home. Than she is either with me in the kitchen (chilling on the floor while i cook) or in her crate, then I eat while she is in her crate, then she eats, and we go for a super-long walk (up to 2 or even 3 hours if I feel much better that day) with a backpack (she carries bottles of water, travel bowl, something warm for me or a snack bar). We go through busy streets, and usually walk home through the park or close to the park where its very chill and nice. She is allowed to go potty when I see she wants it (she starts looking certain way at me and "asking" :-)-that's when she really has to, and pees immediately. She knows "Get busy". We make stops where we play (I started carrying a toy/a big stick for chewing and playing with), we also learn while we play. We came up to the dog today, I told her "Leave it", and when she finally stopped looking at the dog and looked at me, I pet her and gave her to hold a toy. Then we have another potty break later and a longer walk in the evening. Now I introduced another backpack walk at about 7 P.M. Yesterday she was much better because she was very tired. During the long walks and when its warm we always carry water. I do not let her sniff dogs when the backpack is on. Actually, she only said "Hi" to two dogs this month, I carefully see if the dog is not going to fight, if its a male, very mellow and friendly, older etc. She is fed at about 8 o'clock second time. she is with me in the room in between or in her crate chilling, depends on the day, when we walked, what is going on in the house. We played today in the house, and she got so tired that on the walk she was not her usual super-active self. ON the contrary, it took soooo looong to get home because she was tired and took her sweet time to walk :-) (good for me). We stopped at my husband's bar, she got water and I got Coke. I played with her there, made her down-stay and we messed with the tug toy (she loves to chew it, I don't let her tug it from me, just hold it and she chews, I am trying to teach her "Gently"and she IS trying not to accidentally pinch my hand with her teeth. At night, she is invited to stay with us a bit (no running in our room, just a down-stay for now) before she goes to sleep in her crate that we keep in the living room. We only started this recently because previously she has proven to NOT be trustworthy and we had to go thru groundwork for a month.

I don't understand.

What does it mean...I can't see this trainer because he will start talking to people on this forum? Why? Should I see another trainer, who has no idea about this forum? I can, I just got a number from a pet store owner and I already contacted a good trainer awhile ago who agreed to train Yume 3 months ago, so should I do that? I simply contacted a trainer that was recommended to me, and now even this is wrong?

Is there a "right" with anyone here? Or is there only "wrong"?
I see one right " I applaud to you because you rescued a dog in need". Thank you! i'm actually grateful. ONCE there was a positive thing about me. I was called an abuser, irresponsible, cussed at, many people mentioned how do I dare to talk about such things as financial difficulty and disease that we struggle with every day-not just me but my husband as well, and how whiny I am etc. etc...
There were attempts to convince me that dog needs an evaluation-we tightened our belts and agreed that yes, we will do it, took the advice. I was told she needs a bunch of med. exams/tests and we have not planned it right now, but again, we will have to cut on my medical care but we'll do it because WE CARE FOR her, which might be such a surprise to you because you seem to be used to consider everybody else an incompetent, ignorant brute (really?) and it looks like only professionals should be allowed to have dogs. We took that advice about the tests too, I have no idea how we are gonna do it yet, but we will.

People who consider all these things easy are not the people who care more-its the people who can afford it, and love to tell others who can't how bad they are. Trust me , WE care a lot more for our animals simply because we are prepared TO GO WITHOUT when they need help.

Are you prepared for that? I don't mean you won't be able to go to the restaurant on Sundays. Are you prepared to go homeless in order to keep your pet? What about hungry, like me and my mother did in order to vet and feed my sick dog, to get medicine and injections for my chronically ill second dog, to pay for 10 of her surgeries when she got cancer? How far are yo prepared to go?

I was also told by someone that "my dog is looking at me panting because she is afraid of me hurting her"? Are you alright??? How would you like hearing that, say, that your children watch you because you are afraid you will smack them upside the head?

I was told that my dog is fearful. This subject was explored for 15 pages, Then, when i actually started to watch obsessively where she might be fearful, I was told that she is NOT fearful. I was told that she is not and never been dominant when any person who knows only basics about dogs can see that, and then was told that all of her behaviour patterns are dominance signs..also signs of vision and hearing loss, that her one leg might be shorter than the other, hips cracking, etc. etc. haha. I mean Jesus, can we stop blaming me for every move she takes, even GOOD ONES, and really think a little before anything is typed???? Now I can't talk to the trainer because the secret is out that I have a problem with my dog and he might have read a top-secret forum???

I described our plan. If this trainer is on this forum (Is he?) and doesn't want to help us, there is plenty of trainers out there, right? We'll just pick one of them.