Jump to content

Advice on what to do with my dogs please


jessica1983

Recommended Posts

I too love Gsd's, im far from being an expert but it sounds to me like she believes she is the Alpha dog. I had the same problem with my bitch, she wouldnt come back on recall, practically did what she wanted. My brother gave me some advice and it seemed to work. Everytime she ignored me whilst out, I had to pin her to the floor on her back, hold her there until a couple of minutes after she stopped struggling (the struggling usually lasted a few minutes) telling her "No" and making sure we had eye contact, then let her up and carry on with your walk, I only did this about 5 times and it seemed to work, she then thought of me as the Alpha dog and came back when called. Give it a try, you cant lose anything :)

 

If I did that my dog would be too terrified to ever come back again :(

Link to comment
Share on other sites

chases other dogs. when the dog stops she goes about her business but when the dog runs off to do whatever she chases it again till it stops and so on tilli end up having to put her on the lead.

 

You do realise that GSD's are still 'shepherds' - aka they have the herding gene, right? Sounds like she's going back to her roots and trying to herd dogs when they try to run away from the 'flock' :hihi:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Jessica

 

Have you tried hand feeding them both? Iv read this recently on the great dane owners forum as one of my danes is only 14 months and occasionally starts to copy skyes bad habits and we have to go back to basics with her.

 

basically, they say that you should hand feed your dog its meals for a week so they see you as their leader etc. Iv started doing this with bella and so far she is starting to respect my wishes again.

 

here is the thread

 

http://www.greatdaneowners.co.uk/index.php?/topic/1375-handfeeding/

 

it wont help your problem specifically but it may help you regain more control over both dogs.

 

good luck with this :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

she seems to think she is ten men and chases other dogs.

 

It would be better to keep her on the lead until she can walk without feeling the urge to chase other dogs, your dog should see you as its provider and not master, good behaviour is rewarded by treats, petting and talking to her and bad behaviour is rewarded by giving a firm NO. If she tries to get to other dogs whilst on the lead, a firm NO to show your disapproval and if necessary turn round and walk the other way. That’s assuming you have taught her what NO means. :)

 

And everything Medusa says.

Meet our Bonnie she’s the one being licked.:)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I can totally sympathise, my dog runs off after other dogs and then barks at them until they relent into chasing her, SO embarrassing.

 

It's a really hard problem to deal with. A lot of people just say 'keep it on a lead' but in my experience that doesn't help. I followed advice of someone on here who said don't let your dog play with other dogs, the only way to do that was to lead her whenever there were other dogs about and try and distract her from them with treats. This resulted in her becoming hugely stressed and nervous of other dogs to the point where she was going ballistic, lunging, barking and growling whenever she saw one.

 

Definitely the wrong way of going about it in my case. I visited a behaviourist who advised the total opposite which was to have her off lead running with other dogs as much as possible, so now every day I drive out somewhere I know there'll be other friendly off lead dogs for her to run about with. Finally she is calming down a lot and with that is a bit easier to control.

 

I would advise trying to teach your dog two things - 'LEAVE' and 'WAIT'. The leave is obvious and the wait command can be a lot better than trying to call the dog back. In my experience, having your dog turn it's back on another dog to come to you is something they don't want to do. So you teach wait which just means to stop and literally wait until you catch up to them at which point you can put the lead on or whatever.

 

I've also found teaching heel for a treat very useful as I can try and have her to heal until we get close to another dog then I can say 'go play' so she can meet them without having galloped the entire length of the field at 40mph :rolleyes:

 

I've only made a bit of progress so far, we've got a long way to go, and it's all been done with tasty food treats (always something really good and varied e.g. bits of roast chicken skin, bacon rind, cheese etc) so I guess that won't work for you, does she like a game? Maybe using a tugger rope or ball as a reward/distraction could help?

 

What happens when you take her out on her own? Or maybe if you had them off lead one at a time or only have them both off lead when there's no one else around?

 

Hopefully I'll be less completely and utterly skint soon and I'll be taking mine to group obedience class as I think that's the next step for us now :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Its not hurding I really am telling you. Hurding they don't run 100mph and be way ott with the other dog till it submits. They are tryin to dominate every dog they come across espesh bonnie. Its not nice to see and I know if it was my dog they were doin it too I'd crap my pants. Two large shepherds bounding over.

She doesn't take treats when were out no matter what it is or how nice it is so can't do that.

If she carries her frisby this behaviour doesn't happen. Marley still goes over to dogs to say hello but he's a big softy. So ill just have to leave thhe ring in her mouth all time which is a shame cus she should walk without it and behave.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

dnt be too hard on yourself all dog training is really jus good management of behavioural probs i think no matter what ppl charging you ++£s per hour say. if carrying the frisbee stops the behaviour who does it hurt? thats obv her distraction rather than food just use what works for you i say

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.