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Post by willow on Jun 27, 2005 10:59:35 GMT -5
Maybe I should have expounded on the issue more.
I just think it is important to lay a good foundation in obedience first, and have your dog rock solid, before entering any dog in any sport where they will be required to be off leash, so that they can be controlled at all times, and especially with dogs who tend to be aggressive.
And, you did not actually ask for advise. You were just venting about your dogs unpredictable behavior, and I should not have offered advise where it was not asked for. I apologize.
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Post by Am on Jun 27, 2005 16:38:19 GMT -5
No, don't apologise Willow. I appreciate your advice, since you probably know more about this than me. Yeah, I agree that basic obedience is our problem. And the reason I'm frustrated is because Monsta has been behaving so well the last couple of months, but now judging from his recent behaviour it seems that he's not really any better than he was when I started with him. It's like this horrible catch 22 situation; he's never going to improve his obedience round other dogs without being in situations around other dogs, but when he's in those situations there's always the chance he's going to flip his lid and hurt someone's dog. And it's not like I can even avoid the problem by keeping him on leash - the number of daft owners who let their uncontrolled offleash dogs rush up to us on walks never ceases to amaze me. Anyway, I've just found out about a new trainer in the region - expensive, but this one is apparently not PP - so I'm investigating taking him there. Cross your fingers for us folks...
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Post by sibemom on Jun 27, 2005 18:30:19 GMT -5
Ok well I am going to offer advice here even though I was not asked either You say you can never get that rock solid behavior unless you expose your dog to these types of situations and can never know when he is going to flip out, I think I quoted that pretty good. I must disagree with this. There are many dogs out there who have never been in social situations with other dogs and behave quite nicley when put into those situations. I know that your dog has shown these undesirable trates that you are trying to correct, but trust me this all goes back to teaching the dog to IGNORE other dogs and be attentive to you and only you no matter if the world blows up right under him. You have to have that in place before you can enter into the situations you are talking about. In time you are going to know what triggers him, and be able to do an intervention before any dogs get hurt. Now there is also the possiabilty that your dog might be one of those that can never be trusted off leash, it happens more times then I can count. I just do not agree with the fact that you must expose them to things in order to controll them. I have had many dogs that were never even socialized with other dogs other than the ones that they lived with. Them something would come up and we were smack dab in the midst of many dogs. My dogs were fine because I layed the foundation well. My dogs are taught that I WILL HANDLE THINGS, so that means if loose dogs come running up to us, my dog goes and sits behind me, and lets me deal with it. With my GSD that was a chore to teach her that, because she wanted to take on any and every dog that came near her. Now she gets it, and it's automatic. I wish you luck and hope you find a trainer that can help.
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Post by Am on Jun 27, 2005 19:33:35 GMT -5
Nope Sibemom, I love advice. Bring on the advice! ;D I think I must have explained what I was doing with him really badly though, sorry, so I'm going to try again... I taught Monsta a "watch me" command a couple of months ago. I practiced at home for a while, asking Monsta for a watch while my partner or friends tempted him with toys or treats, and only giving him the reward when he focused on me instead of the distraction. Since he's got good at that, I've started to ask him to watch me when we are anywhere near strange dogs. And I've been rewarding the heck out of him with his favourite toys whenever he watches me instead of focusing on them. It's not invariably successful, but over the last month or so he's got heaps better at ignoring strange dogs. I've been able to walk him close to dogs he's previously growled at without him reacting aggressively, and even been able to work him off-leash for short periods at our obedience school with him staying perfectly focused. Is that the kind of thing you're talking about? The point I was trying to make is that teaching the behaviour is one thing but using it in real life is another. He might be great at focusing on me in familiar surroundings with familiar dogs, but if we don't practice in gradually more challenging situations how will I know whether he's going to be able to do it when I need him to? Though I fully admit that I probably pushed him too far this time, by letting him off leash with this strange dog too close, when we were in an unfamiliar surrounding. I should've gone with my gut feeling rather than listening to the PP instructor who was telling me to trust my dog... Are we kind of on the same page, or am I missing something here?
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Post by Aussienot on Jun 27, 2005 20:13:24 GMT -5
I think we're on the same page. And I agree that off lead work was too maybe much of a leap at this stage in his training. In agility, I was told to "trust my dog" and the philosophy was that making mistakes was part of learning. In obedience, I was told to never let my dog fail.
They are mutually exclusive training methods. The reason I pulled Finn from group ability until I had better off leash control is that the risk of a "mistake" was too great.
Agility is a drive building exercise and you need to be able to keep him in prey drive and pack drive and out of fight drive. A soft natured social dog can get by, and even excel in agility with lesser control. A dog aggressive dog needs rock solid control and it's not easy to combine rock solid control with drive training using the purely positive methods common in Agility.
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Post by willow on Jun 28, 2005 7:32:13 GMT -5
I absolutely agree with Sibemom and Aussie. Nicki's reply above was also excellent.
As Nicki said, not all dogs "like" all other dogs and to try to socialize them into accepting/liking all other dogs is a lesson in futility and very often has the opposite effect. That is why with my puppies and older adopted dogs, I make sure they are exposed to a lot of people, but I am very, very cautious about exposing them to other dogs, because as Nicki said, it isn't natural for adult dogs to accept other dogs outside of their "pack".
You can train your dog to ignor other dogs, but as Aussie said, you cannot do it with PP methods in agility, no matter how hard PP trainers try to convince you it can be done. I'm not convinced it can be successfully done under any circumstance, because a dog has to know there is a consequence for his bad behavior, i.e. attacking other dogs. With PP, eventually the reward of attacking another dog will be greater than all the "watch me/treat" drills you have done and the result could be disasterous.
I know if I had my dog friendly dogs in a sport...any sport, and an aggressive dog attacked one of them, put bluntly, I would nail the owner to the wall. There is no room for "error" where the safety of myself or my dogs are concerned, especially if the owner had previous knowledge of his dogs bad behavior around other dogs.
I also understand that it is difficult to accept that you have an aggressive dog, but in most cases once aggression rears its ugly head, it can not be "cured" or "fixed", by exposing your dog to other dogs, it can only be managed.
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Post by Am on Jul 6, 2005 21:05:29 GMT -5
He had another case of the growlies at agility class this week, so I decided to withdraw him pending further obedience training. Hopefully we'll be back next year! I figured we'd be safe still going to obedience club, where he's been doing so well - however this week he got attacked by a big spaniel type thing. We're sitting there by the training grounds, waiting for our class and minding our own business while some more advanced dogs are doing "big dog" training out of sight behind us. All of a sudden one of these "obedient" dogs breaks loose from its owner, and jumps us from behind - neither Monsta or I say it coming. Grabbed my dog by the face and ear, and wouldn't let go until one of the instructers ran up and chucked some water on it. My poor boy spent his obedience class acting fairly depressed - as did I. I felt terrible about not being able to defend him from this other dog. But HONESTLY - this dog was in the ADVANCED class, working with its owner who is also a club INSTRUCTOR. How the hell can it get loose to attack my dog?!? Sometimes I think the Gods are laughing - can I do ANYTHING right with this dog?
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