Okay I should start with some exercise and loading the mark before anything else.

Thank you

The other thing I would highly recommend is to get the owner interested in learning to 'read' his dog. To begin to understand what cues his dog is giving him that he is going to bark, or bolt, or lunge, or bite, or snap, or anything else that the pup is doing when it is acting out.

Also, if you can help the owner figure out how to play with his dog, how to share fun time together, and appreciate the pup's good qualities.

Dogs are emotional, and they read our body language for emotional cues. When they see they please us, that helps them to have confidence that they are okay.

Patricia B. McConnell's book, "For the Love of a Dog: Understanding Emotion in You and Your Best Friend" is helping me have a much calmer, happier relationship with both my pups (young and old). It is amazing how much they respond to my energy and how much I can change the tone of the energy we are sharing (from tense and anxious to relaxed and humerous).

Jenny, I've enjoyed reading your advice over the past few weeks. Would love to see a video of your training!

Yoiks! It probably looks pretty haphazard. I am usually walking two dogs at once, throwing in little response games as we go, trying to make sure both dogs get enough attention. The worst moments are when I have leashes wrapped around my legs, or both leashes have dragged out somehow between my legs and as I pull then forward they are whapping me from behind!

I have to say, the combination of thinking about the history of the domestication of dogs (they are really far removed from wolves in their social adaptations); thinking about the emotional life of dogs, and how similar their facial expressions are to humans when they are expressing emotion (thank you P. B. M.!) and Leslie McDevitt's fine tuning of reading the dog and clicking and treating for wanted behaviour in very simple exercises that build into a strong bond of understanding. These approaches are driving my practice.

Of course, for a late night walk I have Jethro on his prong. But tonight when we came across a coyote trail, I tried something different. I saw his hackles go up and his nose go down and I stayed completely relaxed. I stepped gently on his leash and said, in a matter of fact tone, "I don't want to go that way." And then I waited until he lost interest in the scent within the range of his leash (not much distance) and lay down! This is use of the idea of desensitization - as in - if we smell something long enough, we can't smell it anymore and we lose interest. If there is no fresh scent, there is nothing to maintain the arousal level.

In the past, I really freaked out over the whole coyote thing, and Jethro is super sensitive to emotion, so he figured it was an even bigger deal than he already thought.

The beauty of tonight's walk was that we were a few blocks from home, that used to mean running a gauntlet of reactivity up to the front porch. Instead, Jethro's mouth was hanging slightly open, he was walking on a loose leash, and we were powering our way home and onto the porch with nary an interruption.

Gosh it feels soooo good!

Unfortunately he has decided that since I do not have the magic pill to make her a wonderful pet actually having to train and exercise her is not his thing. It makes me kinda angry since I gave up time that I could have used working with Izzy. What makes things worse is the fact that I just found out is that he got the pup because he saw me walking Izzy everyday and I guess decided it was easy to have high energy dog with no outlet I feel guilty for helping even though Unintentionally decide to get a puppy because I made it look easy (even though it really isn't as he found out at the expense of the pup)

people want fast results.Sometimes you have to give the dog a quick fix. like jumping up. i encourage a dog to jump up on me i make it a game. when he jumps up i knee him (not to hard depending on the dog) i stay positive i tell him good boy, then encourage him to jump up again and again. about the 3rd or 4th time. The dog things i hate this game and quits jumping i remain happy, the dog has no pressure on him. the owners see there is hope for the dog. most what more training i did a quick fix different problem on a JRT with quite a few issues they told me a dog pysh and a trainer w/ a clicker tried to help him. the owners were excited and last i heard the husband who couldn't touch him was walking him nightly Show the owners something postive about the dog they will come around

Yep, there are indeed some quick fixes, and I've been known to quick-fix jumping up that way.

I can use my dogs as examples, and often this is enough to keep the owner excited and engaged, but when it's not, I'm not "above" a quick fix where it's needed to keep an owner from giving up ... losing interest. That owner may not be what we would wish for, but s/he's what we have to work with.

But if the owner can't/won't commit to some kind of exercise/structured outlet, no quick fix is going to remedy that situation. JMO!

I do believe that the old axiom about matching the energy/drive level of the dog and the owner is very important.




eta
Fortunately, exercise = tired dog, plus the magic of a lure-and-marker "sit" are often just what the doctor ordered.

Again, JMO.

Edited by Connie Sutherland (07/07/2011 07:11 PM)
Edit reason: eta

The problem with this is I did not tell him he had to teach the dog to hard ob just the basics of at least taking her for a walk for 30 min instead of keeping her in the garage and how to keep her from jumping but it takes work to keep a dog behaving and he did not have much of a commitment I guess .
He already got rid of the pup last time I talked to him

He sounds like the kind of owner who almost any other owner is better than.

Bad sentence structure, but you know what I mean.

Sounds like good news for the pup, maybe he will have an owner that cares. Disclaimer: On dogs jumping up, Do not use the above method on protection trained and/or aggressive dogs they may eat you...