Adrienne

Hi Jonathan, Interesting behavior! It almost seems like he has learned to wait for your wife's permission to go outside or he has become too dependent on the push. Something similar happens with dogs who are trained to sit by pushing on their backs rather than letting them perform the behavior on their own. This method of training has been abandoned for various reasons and a main one is because it is challenging and time consuming to get the dog to eventually sit then without the push. Here are some ideas that come to mind: -Just to play it safe, make sure there are no physical issues that may have caused some reluctance to go through the flap. Sometimes dogs may have achy joints or they may develop visual problems and these can interfere with their ability to hop outside the door. -Try to troubleshoot whether there may be a fear of the flap. It could be he is a little bit hesitant of going through the flap, but is then fine when past it, so he just needs that "push" or treat incentive to get past that part. So it may help to tape the flap up and see whether the flap may be part of the problem. If that's the case, let me know and we can troubleshoot this issue further. -Hide goodies around the yard. We can start placing super smelly treats scattered around the yard (initially right by the doggy door outside). Place these treats around when your dog doesn't see you, it has to be sort of a surprise. Then tape the flap so it stays open. Hopefully your dog will smell the treats and will hop out of the door on his own rather than waiting you to toss one. Once out, he should start eating the treats by the door and then he may find some other treats scattered elsewhere. This treasure hunt game should make being in the yard rewarding. Make it a habit for the first week to leave several goodies hidden (or even new toys) around the yard so that your dog looks forward to going out. Then, we can start gradually lowering the flap and start placing goodies every now and then instead of any times during the day. Making dogs find treats sometimes yes and sometimes no makes the act of searching for them quite addicting, sort of like playing slot machines in Vegas. The biggest issue though with this method is that we many end with a dog who will want to go out often just for the sake of searching goodies and not strictly to do business. Sometimes, as they head out to search for goodies, they forget about going potty only to pee or poop once inside. So this is an important potential drawback to consider. The good news is that treasure hunt games are fun for dogs and they help keep them mentally stimulated. However, we also need to think of the big picture. With fall and then winter close, we may be back to square one with you dog not wanting to go out. If we keep on hiding treasures around the yard every now and then, can that be enough to surpass the unpleasant feeling of the brisker air or cold sensation of snow on the feet? This depends on how aversive that may be perceived and how rewarding the treats are, and over all how these balance themselves. There are other things we can try to do to ameliorate the situation such as: Trying dog booties Letting your dog wear warm dog sweaters Shoveling a path to his potty area Make playing in the snow and rain fun: play games, toss treats, and feed your dog tasty treats Just thought to provide a few ideas, I hope this helps, Best, Adrienne

Hi there, Welcome to the forums! I would definitely suggest to skip the pinch collar due to potential for negative effects and for a pup this young. If this is a very young pup (younger that 5-6 months), a regular collar may work best as you introduce the basics of leash walking. If instead, this is an older puppy that already is starting to pull with force, you may find the use of front-attachment harness helpful. Side note: Never keep a puppy or dog wearing a collar inside a crate! There have been sad accidents this way. Make sure to read these basics to get your pup used to wearing collars: Put the collar on right prior to feeding the pup his meals, or right prior to playing with a new toy, or right prior playing some brain games or training or right prior exploring in the yard, or right prior having some fun guests over. Then, right before these enjoyment activities are about to end, we can remove the collar before the pup returns to focusing on it. The word before is emphasized here because we don't want to be late and have to wait for the pup to stop trying to take it off on his own to remove it. Tip: Try to put the collar on before mealtime and keep it on during the meal. Remove it once your dog is done eating. With time, the collar will become a cue that food is coming! Just like a bib! And before your vet gives the green light for walks, (after completing vaccinations usually), start conditioning him to giving in to leash pressure, here's how: Sit on the couch while he is wearing his collar and leash. Gently tug a bit on the leash and at the same time show him a kibble from your hand. The moment he gives in to the leash pressure moving in direction of the kibble, praise and give him the kibble. Rinse and repeat several times, until he gives signs of knowing that he should give in to the pressure rather than oppose to it. Then, try this same exercise standing up. Walk a bit away from him and gently tug a bit on the leash and show him the kibble from your hand. The moment he gives in to the leash pressure moving in direction of the kibble, praise and give him the kibble. Next raise criteria, and start showing the kibble in heel position next to your knee. Follow the instructions in this guide: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/obedience-101/heeling-attention-heeling/ Hope this helps, Happy training! Best, Adrienne

Thanks for the additional details, they are very helpful! This sounds like a case of resource guarding. Dogs prone to resource guarding will act protective towards food, toys and owner's attention. We must also consider that your older dog has been the only resident dog for a good three years, so sharing the home now suddenly with a boisterous puppy who all she wants to do is play, explore and have fun may feel overwhelming, especially since your older dog is not very active or playful to begin with. Dogs like routines and get set in their ways and a new puppy can be felt as an interference that adds stress to their lives. Now, older dogs are often expected to teach the newcomer good manners and put the puppy in her place, but not all dogs are cut for this job. Sure, it's true that there are excellent teacher dogs out there, dogs who are able to correct puppies without harming them physically or at an emotional level, but in many cases, too much responsibility is placed on older dogs who aren't always cut for the task. From your description, it sounds like your puppy is being emotionally impacted by your older dog's corrections. You describe your puppy as frightened, growling and being fearful, often moving out of the way and steering out of trouble, such as when your other dog is being given affection. Now, as tempting as it may be to scold the older dog for growling, it's best to not do that. We want your older dog to continue "using her words" using her body language and vocalizations without physically harming the puppy, however, we may want her to tone down a bit her reaction. At the same time though, we must also think whether the puppy has been starting to engage in more pushy behaviors as of lately. At five months old, she's nearing adolescence which is a time when pups can start getting a little more bold or daring. Perhaps she's trying to see if she can get away in stealing some morsels of food from your older dog's food bowl or some toys and your older dog is escalating her reaction to further prove her point that there's no leeway. Sometimes, owning two female dogs can be a challenge, especially when the younger puppy reaches 12 to 36 months of age, but this varies from one household and another and there are many factors to consider. Here are some thoughts for your situation: -It would be important to take some steps to prevent things from further exacerbating. I like that you have been putting your dogs in different locations during meals. This should help your puppy relax a bit more knowing that your older dog won't go steal her food. Your puppy will also be prevented from going to your older's dog food bowl. So keep doing this. No dog should be trying to steal each other's foods. Mealtime should be safe for all parties without worrying about each other. -On top of this, it would be important managing your dogs' environment further to prevent mishaps. So as much as possible, avoid giving toys when they are spending time together and avoid giving preferential attention (such as petting) to the dogs when they are together. You can give them attention though when they are separated. This helps prevent hard feelings, and studies have shown that dogs can feel jealousy too. -If we wanted to work directly on these issues, it would be possible to do some behavior modification, but since there is a history of one dog attacking the other and the potential for injury, it would be important having a dog behavior professional guide you through for safety and correct implementation. Here are just a few examples of behavior modification. If your older dog doesn't want the puppy near when you are petting her, you can do the following exercise under the guidance of a dog behavior professional: Have a helper hold your puppy on leash and practice walking the puppy at a distance while you are petting your older dog. Every time your helper moves with the puppy towards you and your older dog (without getting too close), praise and feed your older dog high-value treats. When the your helper moves the puppy away, you would stop praising and feeding treats. This would be repeated several times, to the point of inducing what's known as a conditioned emotional response, where your older dog will start looking at you happily upon spotting your puppy coming close. The goal here is to clarify that great things happen contingent upon the puppy approaching. From dreading your puppy near, you want your older dog to look forward to it. This technique is based on Jean Donaldson's Open/Bar Closed/Bar method. At some point, your helper can try walking the puppy closer. You would always feed treats when the puppy comes closer, and stop feeding once your handler turns with the puppy and they move away. Rinse and repeat several times. The work would continue, gradually progressing until you can have both dogs sitting and you can pet your older dog and the puppy can be nearby, and then, you can even progress at a point where you can start petting the puppy briefly and giving your older dog treats as you pet her. If your older dog ever seems uncomfortable with this exercise at any time or starts growling or getting tense, then this would be a sign that she's over threshold and not ready for that level of closeness yet. Here is an example of behavior modification done for dogs who were fighting over my attention. In this case actually, if you watch the video carefully, you'll see that the white and black terrier mix was attacking the beagle every time I entered the room. This dog didn't want the beagle to greet me and get attention from me. https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/dogs-fighting-over-owner/ -Your younger puppy can benefit from some obedience training that can turn helpful to avoid any potential conflict. Don't put your older dog in the position of having to constantly defend herself. You should also ensure that your puppy listens to your older dogs' requests to be left alone. So train your puppy how to leave it, lie on a mat and come to you when called. Teaching a positive interrupter will also come handy when you need her to back off from your older dog. Here are some guides on how to train these: How to train your dog to lie on a mat How to train your dog leave it How to train your dog to come when called Train a positive interrupter. A positive interrupter consists of a smacking noise that tells the dogs to stop what they’re doing (interrupter) and to look at you and come to you for a tasty treat. See Look into My Eyes from the Brain Training for Dogs course to learn how to teach the smacking sound. -There are activities that can be particularly bonding among two dogs. One of them is walks. If your puppy has finished all her vaccine boosters and the vet gives you the green light, take both puppy and older dog on walks (one handler per dog) or even on fun hikes. Car rides (where both dogs are restrained by a harness) can also be a bonding activity as both dogs get to enjoy time together but without getting in trouble. I hope this helps! Let me know if you need any further assistance. Best, Adrienne Disclaimer: Any time you notice aggression among dogs in the household, it's important to enlist the help of a professional. This is to ensure correct implementation of behavior modification and for a matter of safety. Every time dogs have minor disputes or serious fights, there are risks for injuries to both dogs and their owners (through a re-directed bite).

Thanks for the additional details, they are very helpful! I am glad you planning to work on this issue considering that behaviors dogs often display such as following you around, being overly attentive to every move you make and crying when you leave a room where he can't follow you, can all be early signs of the beginning of separation anxiety. So we want to tackle this sooner than later, before it has a chance for progressing and establishing. It's excellent that your dog is young, since, when dogs are young, they are more malleable and open to learning new things. Secondly, if your dog hasn't rehearsed the crying behavior for too long, you have the advantage that the behavior hasn't become too ingrained. So these are all advantages on your side. In an ideal situation, we want to establish a relationship with our dogs, where they develop a strong attachment with us owners, but should feel comfortable (or at least tolerant) being left alone too. So when we get up to leave a room and our dogs are sleeping soundly nearby, ideally, we should expect them to either care less and keep on snoring, or open their eyes and watch us (perhaps in hopes of us grabbing the leash or some goody), but soon go back to sleeping again if nothing particularly exciting is going on. So how do we gain a balanced relationship as such? I like to treat cases as such, taking a multi-faceted approach, tacking it from different angles, considering that dogs who are clingy and cry when left alone, greatly benefit from brain games and exercises to increase confidence. So here are some suggestions: (please note; any text in blue that is underlined is clickable) -Engage your dog in fun brain games! Make it a habit that while you are around, you provide your dog with some games to entertain himself. These games encourage activities that foster some independence and fun a bit away from you. Make a treasure hunt by hiding his kibble around the home and letting him find it, let him play the Muffin game, challenge him with the Bottle game. Teach him also how to get goodies outside a Kong and how to get a portion of his meals out of a Kong Wobbler. These games and puzzles not only keep your dog's mind busy and stimulated, but they will also come handy for those times you must leave the room. -Desensitize To Your Movements. Is your dog hyper-vigilant to every movement you make that's suggestive of you getting up? Like for instance, does he wake up and look at you the moment you lay the remote on the couch or you place your hand on the armrest as you get ready to get up? Does he lay by your feet so that he always knows what you're about to do? If so, you have a dog who is sensitized to your movements because he has associated them with you leaving the room. So how do you solve this? Simple, you aim to de-sensitize! Desensitization is a behavior modification method where the goal is making the dog less concerned less concerned about a trigger or situation. We do so systematically, in such a way of not letting our dog go over threshold. So in this case, we want to help him get used to us leaving the room in baby steps. Therefore, in the case where we are sitting down on the couch and then getting up to do something in another room (where our dog is not allowed) it may go like this: We place our hand on the arm rest but don't get up. We do this several times, until the dog seems to care less. We then place our hand on the arm rest and this time we get up, but then sit back down. We do this several times until the dog seems to care less. We then place our hand on the arm rest, get up, walk a few steps and then sit down. We do this several times until the dog seems to care less. If the dog tried to follow us initially, we will do this until he stops following. We then place our hand on the arm rest, get up, walk a few steps and touch the door knob of the door, then we return to sitting on the couch. We do this several times until the dog seems to care less. If the dog tried to follow us initially, we will do this until he stops following. We then place our hand on the arm rest, get up, walk a few steps and touch the door knob of the door, open the door (without stepping into the room), close the door, then we return to sitting on the couch. Do this until your dog seems to start getting bored. -Create Positive Associations. Because the exercises above start getting more challenging for the dog as we get closer to leaving, at this point on top of desensitization, we may want to boost things up by adding counterconditioning. Counterconditioning is a behavior modification process that aims to create positive associations with triggers or situations the dog feels anxious about. A good goal is to create what's known as a positive conditioned emotional response to our departures rather than the dog dreading it. So back to our exercises, resuming from where we stopped, we now start leaving the room for very brief absences, taking baby steps and preventing our dogs from going over threshold. If our dog starts crying, this is sign we are progressing too fast and need to take a few steps back. So we place our hand on the arm rest, get up, walk a few steps and touch the door knob of the door, open the door, toss a couple of treats towards our dog (this is the counterconditioning part, where we create positive associations-leaving=TREATS), take a few steps in the room, close the door, stay in the room for a few seconds (as our dog eats the treats), then we return to sitting on the couch. The goal here is to make great things happen when we leave the room. So tasty treats are contingent upon us leaving the room. Once we are back to the room, the dog should have finished eating the treats- so by doing this, we make it clear that all good things stop once we are back inside. This method is based on the open/bar closed/ bar method created by Jean Donaldson. At this point, we should gradually increase the time we spend in the other room, however, if we do this, smart dogs will come to realize that the exercises are getting harder and harder, and this may cause anxiety. So it helps to mix in short absences with the gradually longer ones so our dogs won't predict a pattern. Therefore, we may leave for 2 seconds, then 5 seconds, then one second, then 6 seconds, then 2 seconds, then 7 seconds, then three seconds, then 4 seconds, then 1 second, etc. Let's though keep things brief for now. While we do this, we need to consider that we should toss more treats (or toss them farther away) when we leave for longer, and less treats when we leave for shorter times. We must therefore carefully coordinate things, so that during our brief absences, as we are out of sight, our dog eats the treats, and then, when we are back, the dog is done eating. - Build Anticipation. Of course, at some point you may wonder, how can I progress to longer absences, such as when I must leave the room for like 5, 10,15 or maybe even 20 minutes? In such a case, we would feed the dog some longer lasting treats such as a stuffed Kong. When you are ready to do this though, make sure to build some anticipation. So when you have the chance, prepare your dog something really good and make sure he sees you. For example, if you are preparing a stuffed Kong, make sure he sees you open a jar or peanut butter (let him even sniff the jar if you want to), smear a layer in the bottom on the Kong, then crush one of his cookies, and let them stick to the peanut butter, than add some canned pumpkin, make a layer of that, mix in some of your dog's kibble if he likes that, and then close everything with a dog cookie lodged well at the top. At this point, your dog should be dying to have that Kong, but you're going to leave it out of reach for a bit and hope that your dog is trying to access it and getting impatient to have it. At this point, give him the Kong and leave. Estimate how long it may take for him to finish it, and then only, then return. If you want to kick things up a notch, also train him to lie down on a mat when he eats his Kong. -Use Remote Monitoring If you can monitor your Dalmatian through some remote monitoring gadget while you are in the other room, this offers you the advantage of knowing when you can return. Nowadays, technology has gone a long way. There are even great cameras that allow you to talk to your dog and even deliver him goodies while you are away. One such camera is the Furbo camera, which has rave reviews from many dog owners. - Foster Independence. On top of the above exercises, it helps to encourage your dog to become more independent through obedience training and even some fun games. For example, train your dog to hold some sit/stays and down/stays and reward him for complying. Then progress to sit/stays and down/stays with you out of sight. You can even make this a fun game of hide-and-seek. Where you ask your dog to stay, you leave the room and hide, and then release your dog to find you. - Increase Your Dog's Confidence. Dogs who follow you around, struggle to cope with your absences and suffer from separation anxiety are often insecure dogs who benefit from a confidence boost. This may turn out helpful: exercises to boost confidence in dogs. Also, it has lately been suggested that dogs who tend towards separation-anxiety issues may lack good impulse control and frustration tolerance. Here are ways to increase your dog's level of impulse control. So these are just a few suggestions. I hope this helps, Let me know if you need any further assistance, Best, Adrienne

Sounds like a plan. Let me know how things work out, I am always here for more troubleshooting. Best, Adrienne

Sounds like a plan! Keep me posted. Best, Adrienne

Thanks for the additional details, they are very helpful! Since this whining is happening when you are leaving, I am assuming you are recording his behavior and watching what he's doing remotely or when you come back. It is good to monitor a dog's behavior while we are away so to get an idea how they are coping with our departures. Your puppy is very young, so these youngsters tend struggle when they must be left alone. What they often do is emit distress vocalizations when they're alone as they are very vulnerable at this age (in the wild) so their instincts kick in. If you haven't read this yet, can find several exercises here on how to help your dog adjust to the crate: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/video-archive/love-the-crate/ Now, if he is crated two hours after being crated overnight, it could be he isn't very eager to be in it again. Sure, he may be playing hard just prior, but the last place he may want to be is in the crate again after an overnight stay. Puppies have lots of energy and they have a strong need to explore, socialize and play. So we may need to take some steps to overcome this crate aversion and there are several ways around it: One is to rather than giving him a treat to go in, we can try to give something that lasts longer so to keep him more occupied. So we can maybe stuff a Kong with some peanut butter mixed with some kibble and crushed dog cookies and then freeze it overnight and offer it to him when we must leave. There are many frozen Kong recipes on the Kong website. This can hopefully keep him busy for a good half hours so he's doing something rather than crying and hopefully past this time all the licking and chewing has tired him out. We can also leave some other safe chew toy or maybe get him a Snuggle puppy behavioral aid in hopes of reassuring him. This looks like a plain stuffed animal, but it emits a heart-beat like sound and produces warmth which should remind him of life in the litter with his littermates and mom. Other things that can help is covering the crate with a blanket (to create some darkness) and playing some calming music. There are also calming aids under the form of pheromone plug-ins. Make sure your puppy has has an opportunity to pee/poop before being crated. If not, it can be he's crying because he has to potty and doesn't want to pee in the crate. If things don't get better by watching your recordings, you may have to try another option. Perhaps, we can try to place him in an exercise pen setup where within the pen are several pee pads/fake grass litterboxes on one side and the opened crate (with the door latched open with a clamp or rope to prevent it from closing), toys, food bowl and water bowls on the other side. This allows your pup to move around and play rather than stay crated. Record how he does with this setting. If he does well, most likely he just wanted more room and enrichment since he was just crated a couple of hours prior. A night in the crate followed shortly by a work day alone (if that's where you're headed when you leave for good) may be a lot of time for a social species as growing pups. I hope this helps, Keep me posted on how things go. Best, Adrienne

Hi there, Welcome to the forums! Aussies can be a handful when it comes to energy levels and needs for mental stimulation. It seems like your yelping was initially working and he was acting sort of apologetic about it, but it seems that as he's growing, he is looking for more interaction and engagement. Yelping may work with some pups, while others may get more overstimulated by it. This is why more and more dog trainers are recently moving away from this approach. Most puppies and dogs learn better when we offer them alternate behaviors to engage in rather than us concentrating on how to suppress unwanted behaviors. You can find the following exercises helpful: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/bite-inhibition-games/ You can also work on refining your pup's biting with these exercises which you can incorporate in your daily training: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/train-dog-take-treats-gently/ Here are more tips to tackle puppy biting: Make sure to catch him before he has a chance to bark and bite. Timing is important considering that once a pup has started biting, he'll be too focused on tugging and biting to easily distract him. Please note that most of these exercises require you to carry treats (or toys) in your pocket or treat bag for most of the day. -When you expect him to come towards you to bite, as soon as he is close to you, freeze (become motionless) and offer him a stuffed Kong. You can stuff it with some peanut butter mixed with some kibble and crushed dog cookies so he has to lick to get it out. Freezing a stuffed Kong makes for a longer lasting puzzle. A Kong Wobbler/ Buster Cube filled with a portion of your dog's daily allowance of kibble can also come handy once he learns how to get the kibble out. - When you notice he is about to bite as you walk around, you can also try to engage him with toys that add movement into the game such as a tennis ball tossed in the opposite direction (make it extra fun!) or a flirt pole (stick with a stuffed animal attached one end). The goal is to find a way to make these toys much more interesting, rewarding and fun to interact with than your body. Dogs bred to herd may enjoy chasing large balls used for the sport of Treibball. --Redirect to an interactive game with you. As soon as he approaches you, ask for a sit and reward by tossing one piece of kibble/treat. He'll likely eat it and come for more if he perceives them as valuable enough. Repeat several times. This makes your dog tired, provides an outlet for chasing instincts while you incorporate some fun obedience. Here is how to train sit, which is an incompatible behavior compared with biting (a dog in general cannot sit and bite clothes at the same time). Here's a link on how to train sit, of course start in a quiet room first and work your way to making sits very fluent. Initially, as your dog is learning to sit, you can just toss the treat without asking for a sit as soon as he approaches you. https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/obedience-101/sit/ -Alternatively you can redirect to an empty water bottle with no lid filled up. Most dogs cannot resist the crinkling sounds produced by chewing on these. They make an economical. temporary chew toy. Always monitor your dog when chewing if your dog tends to ingest things and consider that excess chewing can make some parts sharp. To make the bottle even more interesting, fill it up with a portion of your puppy's daily ratio of kibble so your puppy will keep busy trying to roll the kibble out. You can read more about this fun game here: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/high-school/the-bottle-game/ -Targeting is also a great option to divert a pup's biting to something else. You can train to target your hands when you are sitting, and when you are standing up, you can use a target stick or a ruler and reinforce targeting with his nose with treats/kibble tossed at a distance. https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/preschool/targeting/ -Make sure you provide outlets for pent-up energy. Games, training, exercise and opportunities for socialization should wear her out and provide outlets for his basic needs. With brain games that allow him to chase things and get rewards out of them (like kibble out of a bottle or a Kong Wobbler) she should seek these games more and more which can turn your legs pretty boring after a while because she gets more out of these activities when she's bored/frustrated/overstimulated. The main goal in getting a puppy to stop biting is to teach that it's boring playing with our bodies and clothes because there are far better forms of play out there. So move less and make your toys move more. Wriggle them, toss them, provide toys that release food. With their strong urge to bite and play satiated with other forms of play, soon, pups should outgrow the habit of chasing legs and clothing just as they outgrow the habit of chasing their tails. You may have to try several of the above options and see what works best. Redirection to a rewarding treat-dispensing toy or game that uses treats should be moderately easy at this age if these activities are made rewarding. Teaching an alternate behavior is also important because dogs cannot misbehave if they are busy targeting or sitting! It may take a bit of time though to teach these alternate behaviors fluently but it is sure worth the time and effort. By providing outlets for his energy and needs for mental stimulation and reinforcing appropriate behaviors, you should eventually start seeing a decrease in the biting behavior. Keep track of it so to measure whether things are getting better with time. If things are going well, you should have created a new routine where your dog looks forward to interacting with you in positive ways because of all the fun and rewarding activities you provide (which don't involve biting). Since you noticed a lot of barking and biting after coming inside from play or after coming out from the crate, it could be your dog needs some calming activity to chill down his excitement a notch. Try to offer activities before he has a chance to rehearse the problematic behavior of barking and biting. So as soon as you open the crate or come back inside after playing, even before he has a chance to bark or bite, try to put his energy to good use by asking for more productive behaviors such as some training and offering brain games like the muffin game, targeting, airplane game to just name a few. I hope this helps, Keep me posted on how things go!

Hi there, Welcome to the forums! Good to hear he is doing OK when you leave for the day and he's spending time in the yard. Recording his behavior is the right thing to do so that we can have an idea on how the dog is doing when left alone. A little whining and howling followed by sleep for the rest of the time is good. It shows that he is trying to re-unite with you initially, but copes well once he realizes you aren't coming back home any time soon. I have a few quick questions: when you are leaving him behind a closed door or baby gate is that for just a few minutes at a time to run some quick errands or are you gone for good for even half hour to hours at a time? I am asking this because some mechanics change if we aiming to cover for just some brief absences or longer ones. in other words, what is the final goal you would like to prep your dog for? Also, how long is he left alone during the day? And if you do work for most of the day, is it when you return home from work and you must go in the other areas he doesn't have access to that he starts to whine? I am asking this because many dogs struggle a lot when they are overly enthusiastic about their owners returning after being home alone and they must be left alone again (even if just going to another room to shower or change clothing). Thanks for the extra details! Best, Adrienne

Hi there, Welcome to the forums! I would need some more details in regards to your situation as there can be various dynamics going on when we introduce a new puppy to a home. How old is the dog you have had for 3 years now? How old is your puppy right now? What breeds are your dogs? if you are not sure, is there a big size gap? Can you describe more in detail your older dog's aggressive behavior? Is she biting, posturing/growling/showing teeth? When your older dog attacks her does it happen in a specific circumstance? What is your puppy exactly doing when she attacks? What fearful behavior have you noticed in the puppy? Is she just keeping distance, avoiding her totally or is she cowering, shaking, peeing from fear?

Hi there, Welcome to the forums! You own a mix that can be particularly nippy (particularly heeler) and some pups can be very rough with their mouths during play. I used to be a fan of yelping and saying "ouch" or other verbal expression which were often recommended by trainers, but this method comes with some flaws. Some dogs get more excited by our animated reactions, so I find that yelping or expressing our displeasure works mostly for the most mellow pups with mild forms of nipping followed by some consequence. On top of this, if we just use an "ah-ah" some puppies will try to bite more just to get us to engage with them again. Sort of like the puppy thinking:"How fun, my owner is like a big squeaky toy, every time I bite he goes "ah-ah!" instead of squeaking. I want to see this reaction again!" So I am no longer much a fan of verbal expressions used on their own, unless they are accompanied by some clear consequence that tells the puppy that if he bites hard he will have lost his playmate (who will move out of the room), but once again it seems to work only with certain pups and often leads to pups attaching the the owner's legs upon leaving the area. Timeouts also come with several flaws, but they have their place. I think a time-out area works great in the case of a puppy who is starting to nip because he is cranky and is in dire need of a nap. Puppies need to sleep quite a lot as they have a lot of developing to do. Sometimes, they have a hard settling for a nap because they are just overstimulated. So in this case, we are providing a place to relax and doze off. Having chew toys can encourage the pup to gnaw before falling asleep since chewing helps release endorphins and encourages relaxation. In the case of a puppy biting because hyper and in need to drain exercise, putting him in a play pen or other timeout area as a consequence in hopes of diminishing the biting behavior falls under negative punishment (removing something or access to something the dog likes contingent on the problematic behavior). In other words, we are basically depriving the puppy from our company/attention and freedom to spend time around the house/room, contingent upon his biting behavior. This is not a major deal, but it can have some unwanted "side-effects." For example, the puppy may associate the play pen (or other timeout area) with social isolation, so next time, the puppy may play hard to catch or he may nip if we are dragging him by the collar. Or perhaps, the puppy feels our anger/frustration and this triggers him to bite more. On top of this, after being released from the area, he may act super excited again and nip again, meaning that he may end up being put in timeouts repeatedly, but never learn alternate ways to interact with us. Not to mention, this method requires perfect timing, if we don't take the puppy quickly enough to his time-out area, he may not associate this consequence with the undesired behavior. While timeouts may come with side effects, we can make some compromises to ameliorate things. For instance, we can make the timeout area extra appealing, we can place blankets and chew toys there so the dog doesn't perceive it as punishment. To ensure the correct associations form, we can verbally mark the undesirable behavior with a "too bad! or "whoops" or "ah-ha" (so he knows in a timely manner what behavior granted the time-out) and we can escort him there calmly without showing any anger or frustration. We can gently guide the pup with his collar as we use a treat as a lure and then give the treat once he is inside this area (always remove collars when in a crate or left unsupervised). We can then start fading the sight of the treat by holding the treat in a pocket and giving it only once he's inside. So if we think the puppy is cranky, we can certainly use this strategy. If the puppy instead is hyper, we can try to catch him before he nips (or just quickly as possible) so to prevent too much rehearsal and try our best to redirect to other activities (hand targeting, play with a flirt pole, sitting for a tossed kibble, sits for tossing a ball etc.) I find that dogs do best learning what we want them to do rather than suppressing their behaviors. Puppies thrive on training and mental stimulation in the form of appropriate play and enrichment (brain games). Balancing this out correctly is important to reduce the incidences of nipping. So if you have a puppy who is nipping a lot, I encourage trying to engage him in alternate behaviors that are far more rewarding than the biting behavior itself. Of course, this won't cure the biting over night, but you should see improvements over time. You may therefore find these exercises helpful: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/bite-inhibition-games/ You can also work on refining your pup's biting with these exercises which you can incorporate in your daily training: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/train-dog-take-treats-gently/ Here are some more tips. Make sure to catch him before he has a chance to bite your body parts or latch on your clothes. Timing is important considering that once a dog has latched on, he'll be too focused on tugging and biting to easily distract him. Please note that most of these exercises require you to carry treats (or toys) in your pocket or treat bag for most of the day. -When you expect him to come towards you to bite, as soon as he is close to you, freeze (become motionless) and offer him a stuffed Kong. Now, it sounds like this works to distract him but he gives up on it fast if he can't get the cookie out. In such a case, we can try to stuff it with some peanut butter mixed with some kibble and crushed dog cookies so he has to lick to get it out rather than trying to dislodge things. A Kong Wobbler/ Buster Cube filled with a portion of your dog's daily allowance of kibble can also come handy once he learns how to get the kibble out. - When you notice he is about to bite as you walk around, you can also try to engage him with toys that add movement into the game such as a tennis ball tossed in the opposite direction (make it extra fun!) or a flirt pole (stick with a stuffed animal attached one end). The goal is to find a way to make these toys much more interesting, rewarding and fun to interact with than your body. Dogs who love to herd may enjoy chasing large balls used for the sport of Treibball. --Redirect to an interactive game with you. As soon as he approaches you, ask for a sit and reward by tossing one piece of kibble/treat. He'll likely eat it and come for more if he perceives them as valuable enough. Repeat several times. This makes your dog tired, provides an outlet for chasing instincts while you incorporate some fun obedience. Here is how to train sit, which is an incompatible behavior compared with biting (a dog in general cannot sit and bite clothes at the same time). Here's a link on how to train sit, of course start in a quiet room first and work your way to making sits very fluent. Initially, as your dog is learning to sit, you can just toss the treat without asking for a sit as soon as he approaches you. https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/obedience-101/sit/ -Alternatively you can redirect to an empty water bottle with no lid filled up. Most dogs cannot resist the crinkling sounds produced by chewing on these. They make an economical. temporary chew toy. Always monitor your dog when chewing if your dog tends to ingest things and consider that excess chewing can make some parts sharp. To make the bottle even more interesting, fill it up with a portion of your puppy's daily ratio of kibble so your puppy will keep busy trying to roll the kibble out. You can read more about this fun game here: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/high-school/the-bottle-game/ -Targeting is also a great option to divert a pup's biting to something else. You can train to target your hands when you are sitting, and when you are standing up, you can use a target stick or a ruler and reinforce targeting with his nose with treats/kibble tossed at a distance. https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/preschool/targeting/ -Make sure you provide outlets for pent-up energy. Games, training, exercise and opportunities for socialization should wear her out and provide outlets for his basic needs. With brain games that allow him to chase things and get rewards out of them (like kibble out of a bottle or a Kong Wobbler) she should seek these games more and more which can turn your legs pretty boring after a while because she gets more out of these activities when she's bored/frustrated/overstimulated. The main goal in getting a puppy to stop biting is to teach that it's boring playing with our bodies and clothes because there are far better forms of play out there. So move less and make your toys move more. Wriggle them, toss them, provide toys that release food. With their strong urge to bite and play satiated with other forms of play, soon, pups should outgrow the habit of chasing legs and clothing just as they outgrow the habit of chasing their tails. You may have to try several of the above options and see what works best. Redirection to a rewarding treat-dispensing toy or game that uses treats should be moderately easy at this age if these activities are made rewarding. Teaching an alternate behavior is also important because dogs cannot misbehave if they are busy targeting or sitting! It may take a bit of time though to teach these alternate behaviors fluently but it is sure worth the time and effort. By providing outlets for his energy and needs for mental stimulation and reinforcing appropriate behaviors, you should eventually start seeing a decrease in the biting behavior. Keep track of it so to measure whether things are getting better with time. If things are going well, you should have created a new routine where your dog looks forward to interacting with you in positive ways because of all the fun and rewarding activities you provide (which don't involve biting). For the reaction to the collar adjusting or lead fixing, this can remedied by feeding a tasty treat when you need to adjust the collar. You can practice this ahead of time, so you're prepard for when you need to do the real thing. Equip yourself with high-value treats Call your dog and slightly touch the collar Feed a treat from your other hand as you touch it The moment your dog is done eating the treat, remove your hand from the collar Repeat several times, until upon touching the collar your dog looks at you for treats Add a few criteria: put your fingers under the collar, give treat, then from a distance, call your dog and when he arrives, touch the collar, and give treat. Attach the leash and give a treat, detach the leash and give a treat. With practice, your pup should start looking forward to having his collar touched because of all the great associations with treats. To protect your hard work though, please avoid the following: If you must crate your pup do not grab him by the collar. Rather toss a treat inside the crate or tell your dog to "crate up" and give a treat/stuffed Kong as a reward. If you must stop your dog from getting a hold of something, don't grab by the collar. Instead, train your dog the "leave it" command (see the course instructions in obedience 101 on how to train this) Finally, a word of caution: Please consider that it may be sometimes difficult differentiating rough/obnoxious puppy play from true aggression with an intent to harm without seeing the behavior. If this behavior has an aggressive component, it would be important seeing a dog behavior professional using force-free behavior modification for safety and correct implementation of behavior modification. I hope this helps! Let me know if you need any further asistance, Best, Adrienne

You are very welcome! Keep us posted. Best, Adrienne

Hi Julie, Welcome to the forums! There may be various views on this, but I tend to gravitate towards the no meeting other dogs. This is for various reasons. I may be a little biased because I am often asked for help to remedy for dog-to-dog interactions gone wrong. I will list some of reasons why I am against these meets and greets here: -All dogs are different. Many people imagine dogs as being super social beings, but the truth is, there are many dogs who barely tolerate other dogs and some who even get defensive when "Rover just wants to say hello." So it's not surprising when certain dogs may growl or snarl when other dogs on leash get too close to them and start sniffing them all over. These dogs though aren't necessarily bad, they may just feel the need to correct dogs who are too overly enthusiastic and maybe a little pushy too in their approaches. -The impact of age. Puppies in general tend to get along with other pups so most of the time they are having a great time. Things though don't always stay this way. As puppies mature, and reach social maturity, between 12 and 36 months of age, they may start becoming standoffish and may no longer tolerate certain types of interactions and play. For instance, some dogs, as they mature, may struggle with dogs who get into their space and lean over them or who place their faces too close to theirs. -Possible negative encounters. Of course, you never know what that other dog your dog is so eager to meet may truly feel. Perhaps, he's a dogs with a history of being reactive towards other dogs and the owners have invested a lot of work to get him to tolerate other dogs. Maybe he has a bite history. Maybe it's a dog who is overly protective of the owner. Owners of such dogs may be therefore constantly scanning their environment for dangers such as other dogs approaching. Here's a fact: it can sometimes take just one negative encounter to un-do all the hard work these owners have invested in getting their dogs to trust the world around them again. Keeping a dog away from meeting every dog on walks therefore is the safest option as you many never know what type of dog is on the other end of the leash. Sure, it all can go well, but why risk it? Nobody wants to witness an ugly dog fight and the potential for paying expensive vet bills. -Leashes getting in the way. When two dogs meet on leash, there are risks that tension on the leash causes dogs to assume unnatural postures which can trigger a fight. For example, if you hold your dog tight on leash when he meets another dog, the tight leash may cause the dog to hold his head higher which can be perceived as confrontational. On top of this, a tight leash prevents dogs from "talking with their bodies" and exhibiting natural social behaviors and calming signals, meant to calm the other dog down. This increases the chances for a squabble. For instance, many dogs like to meet in an arc, which allows them to circle nose to bum, but a tight leash forces them to interact frontally which is not the preferred way to meet. Dogs therefore need the total opposite; they need a slack leash so that they have the opportunity to display their body language properly. Leashes may also get tangled, creating panic in dogs as they are suddenly prevent from moving freely. Panic behavior, along with restricted movements may cause both dogs to fight. On top of this, if you are tense when your dog meets other dogs, that anxiety risks traveling all the way to the leash, making your dog potentially anxious too. -Reinforcing poor leash manners. Here the thing: when you allow your dog to meet other dogs on walks, he'll come to expect to meet all dogs. That day you won't, may lead to your dog getting frustrated. Barrier frustration is the name given to the phenomenon of dogs who want to badly meet other dogs but can't because they are restrained by a leash. This leads to barking and lunging from the frustrated potential greeter. Most dogs who are allowed to greet other dogs on walks, start pulling and maybe even whining and barking as they can't wait to go greet the other dog. Here's the problem with this: although it may be fun watching Rover make new friends, every time he gets to greet pulling this way, the pulling behavior and vocalizations are all reinforced. This means that these behaviors are going to strengthen and repeat. Being dragged by your dog on walks is certainly not pleasant and can lead to possible injuries and falls. On top of reinforcing pulling, when you allow your dog to go meet other dogs on walks, unless he's calm and chill, you are allowing your dog to rehearse out-of control, overly enthusiastic behaviors and its associated emotional responses. If your dog gets to meet other dogs on walks, unless you adhere to certain rules, there are chances that your dog will to always look for dogs on walks and get excited about the expectation. Dogs who instead aren't allowed to meet every dog on the street, are more relaxed because they don't have any expectations about having to closely interact with any four-legged Rovers and there's less social pressure. -Health considerations. Last but not least, when you let your dog get up and close to another dog, there are risks for transmission of certain diseases. You don't know what's the health status of the other dog, so your dog may get in contact with a variety of viruses and diseases. However, it goes without saying, that we don't want to give dogs the wrong message that encountering other dogs on walks is bad. For instance, if every time you see a dog coming close to say hello, you give a correction or tighten the leash and walk in the opposite direction, you risk teaching your dog that other dogs are bad and are best to be avoided like the plague. So what's the best approach? Often a middle ground works best. Yes, it may be best to not allow on leash encounters on walks, but we should be prepared in case the inevitable happens. There seems to always be a chance for dog owners with retractable leash who can't control their dog who is excitedly heading our way, or our dog may meet a dog who has popped around a corner. In such cases, it is best to be prepared. Here are some general guidelines. Keep it Slack. Avoid letting dogs meet head-on, they do best meeting in a curve. Both dogs should be granted a ton of slack so they can display their body language properly. Learn how to circle the dogs around each as they meet in an arc in their nose-to-bum encounters.. Think of it as this way: if you have reason to keep the leash tight it's because something is not right and perhaps these dogs shouldn't be meeting in the first place. Set the Rules. Set the rules for the greeting, informing your dog that you will allow him to say hello on your conditions. Therefore train your dog a "say hello" cue that informs him he can go meet, and a "that's enough" cue that tells your dog to move away and pay attention to you for a tasty treat as you walk away. -Keep it Brief. A brief meet and greet that lasts no more than a handful of seconds (5 seconds max) should be enough. This is important. Many squabbles among dogs occur when dogs are sniffing for too long and one dog grows impatient. -Avoid Yanking the Leash. Telling your dog "that's enough" and moving away with you works better than yanking on the collar to stop an interaction. When we do that, the pressure applied on the dog's neck area in combination with the abrupt associated movements may spark a violent outburst. Also, it's important to consider that, if your dog have a history of meeting other dogs, and now you decide you won't allow it, you may experience some extinction bursts along the way (behavior getting worse rather than better). This means the pulling to go meet will increase, and if you allow to meet at this point, you will have reinforced persistence. If you stick to your plan and not allow to meet though (keep distance from the other dogs so to keep your dog under threshold) eventually with time, the pulling should gradually decrease and extinguish. So when you don't let your dogs greet other dogs the first times, make sure to reward your dog for sticking to you with high value treats. You want to reward ignoring other dogs and give your dog something to decrease frustration.

Hello and welcome to the forums! Milo is a cutie and he looks very smart and attentive to his surroundings! This bright and alert boy seems to be showing similar signs of what dog professionals refer to as "suburban dog syndrome." In simple words, these are dogs who live in rural or suburban settings, where things get pretty static overtime. These dogs don't get to see many people and other dogs as dogs living in big towns and cities, so when these dogs see humans under the form of delivery people or when they are walked and encounter a person or other dog in the distance, all alarm bells are set off, as these stimuli turn out being perceived as "superstimuli." Now, in Milo's case, he got used to seeing people and dogs in walks, but because his walks were suspended for some time, he has now started perceiving people once again as "superstimuli" to react to. So yes, I agree with you, he seems to have regressed and there is a such a thing as "desocialization," that is, the phenomenon where a dog who was previously socialized, starts to lose some socialization skills due to lack of continued exposure/conditioning. Interestingly, more and more dog behavior professionals are seeing a surge of cases of reactivity (even in dogs who were super social before!) due to the recent COVID19 lockdowns. Three weeks may seem like a relatively short time for us, but for dogs that's quite a stretch of time as they perceive time different from us. So it can certainly play a number on dogs, especially those who had a history of being reactive in the first place. So how can we tackle this issue? I would start by familiarizing with some basic behavior modification methods based on desensitization and counterconditioning. In desensitization, we are aiming to present stimuli (triggers, in this case, people and other dogs) at a level that don't cause your dog to get upset. It seems like Milo would benefit from this since he seems to have become "sensitized" (that is, he has become more sensitive, thus more reactive) to seeing people. You can read more about desensitization here: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/desensitization/ At the same time, we also want to change his emotional response towards triggers, with the goal of making great things happen when he sees people or other dogs on walks, versus him dreading seeing them. This can be accomplished through counterconditioning. You can read more about counterconditioning here: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/counterconditioning/ At the same time, it's important ensuring your dog is kept under threshold as much as possible. This prevents your dog from getting stressed, it prevents rehearsal of the problem behavior and also helps you progress through behavior modification. Here are signs of a dog going over threshold and tips on how to keep him under: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/threshold-levels/ Now, we can start laying a foundation of all this through some Look at That exercises. I see you have a lovely large window, so if Milo tends to bark and react as people are walking by, you can try to practice this exercise below several times throughout the day. When you cannot dedicate time for this, it would be important to prevent access to windows. https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/university/look-at-that/ Then once you have a nice response, you can move on to practicing the same exercise in the yard (if you have people walking by the fence) and then on walks. Make a smacking sound with your mouth upon him noticing triggers and feed tasty treats. Since he sounds over threshold on trails, I would start taking baby steps, so start practicing this downtown. Feed tasty treats he loves every time you spot a person or dog on walks at a distance. If they are too close, change directions, here is a guide on emergency u-turns https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/emergency-u-turn/ Go very gradual. Since he seems to charge at only certain people, unless you can identify what these people have in common (walking fast? men? wearing hats? sunglasses or face masks?), I would cover all basis and just keep feeding tasty morsels every time a person pops up until you can get a conditioned emotional response (happy body language at the sight of people approaching). Now, on trails, things seem to get challenging so I suggest not walking there until your dog is doing super well on walks downtown. It sounds like on trails he charges as people are walking by and there's not much wiggle room for distance. So we may have to stick to the edge of the trail as much as possible with your dog preferably on the closest side to the edge of the trail. Also, we need a certain continuity here when it comes to treat delivery. So we can try the open/bar closed bar method (link below) where you feed several treats in a row as you walk past the person. The goal is to feed several treats as the person passes by (open bar) and stop feeding treats when the person has passed by (close bar). This gives dogs the clear idea that treats happen contingent upon people being around. https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/open-bar-closed-bar/ You can also train lovely attention heeling as you walk by the people. This is more advanced, thus, requiring more time to train, but it would be a nice routine to train eventually as he learns to associate people with goodies being delivered: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/obedience-101/heeling-attention-heeling/ Remember: setbacks can happen in behavior modification. In other words, it can happen that our dog was doing well and then he starts charging again. This is a sign we have progressed too fast and need to take a few steps back (often giving more distance) and work at lower levels of exposure. For particularly nervous dogs or dogs predisposed to aggression, please enlist the help of a force-free dog behavior consultant. Skip any dog trainers using corrections, as this is the last thing you want. If every time your dog sees a trigger and barks or lunges, and he's corrected for barking or lunging, he'll be on edge more because now, on top of fearing the trigger, the dog fears the correction that happens when he sees the trigger. In the pet friendly stores, once again, we need to make sure he's not put to the point of acting anxious and being over threshold. So you may start will very brief visits where you go inside just at the entrance, feed some tasty treats and then exit. Keep doing this until he seems more comfortable. Keep it short and sweet. Then progress to going inside, maybe buying him some tasty treats and then opening a bag of them feeding some of them there on the spot or feeding him a treat at the register. I don't know how your pet stores are, but most in my neck of the woods have complimentary dog cookies at checkout. I hope this helps bring Milo to the point where he used to be before. Let me know if you have any other questions! Best, Adrienne

Thanks for the additional details, they are very helpful. I am glad to hear that she has improved a lot with the "drop it." This exercise may look like a simple obedience command, but it works on many levels. In ideal situations, and when taught correctly, it conditions dogs to learn that, when they have an item in their mouth, and they give it up, we are offering something better. When training this, I look for what is called a "conditioned emotional response," where the dog looks forward to us approaching, and their face is happy, their body is relaxed and maybe even the tail is even wagging a little bit in anticipation for some goodies they will get in exchange of the items dropped. Now, in the drop it section, there is a little warning. It says ""if your dog shows signs of aggression such as stiffening, growling or showing teeth, please stop training this exercise and consult with a professional. " The reason for this disclaimer is that resource guarding involves more behavior modification rather than regular training. In training, we are primarily teaching dogs to "operate" to perform desired behaviors (sits, downs, tricks etc) that are reinforced by us. Sure, we can also change some emotions while training, but this is often just part of the package, it's not our primary goal in most cases. In behavior modification, we instead aim primarily to work on changing a dog's emotions, although there can also be some elements of training incorporated within it at times. So we are looking at two different areas of specialty, and therefore, in the case of a dog with a resource guarding issue we need to take a different approach and therefore we need to consider many additional things other than just training a dog to drop. -For instance, we may start by not asking to drop yet, but work more on creating positive associations (counterconditioning) with us approaching tossing goodies when the dog is in possession of a resource starting from a distance. -It's not only though a matter of mechanically tossing goodies, but also making sure that the dog is comfortable. So we need to be careful in reading the dog's body language to ensure she's not over threshold. It may take some time to master observational skills to the point of recognizing the most subtle signs suggesting that a dog is getting stressed and is about to go over threshold. -On top of this, it takes a certain level of skill and expertise to make important decisions such as whether it's time to progress or take a few steps back in the process. Baby steps are needed to prevent set backs and progress smoothly without stressing the dog (desensitization). Also, it's important to find the most suitable management options to ensure safety and prevent the dog from rehearsing the problematic behavior when behavior modification is not being actively implemented. -When swapping toys or edibles we need to be absolutely sure that the item offered in exchange is truly higher value than what the dog has. This therefore takes perceiving things not from our perspective, but from the individual dogs'. For instance, if a dog grabs a bone from the table, we may think of offering in exchange a liver treat which may seem higher in value, but we don't consider the fact that a bone is a long-lasting delicacy and the fact that dogs get to scrape off little bits of meat off of it while laying on the floor, brings back deep ancestral instincts of the past and this may increase its value. Therefore, once the dog gobbles up the liver treat, he may go back to looking for his bone with a panicky look on his face. This little upset feeling may look like nothing major, but it can lead to the dog thinking twice about relinquishing something next time. -All dogs are different and all situations are different. It's up to behavior professionals to create a behavior modification plan that is custom-tailored to fit the dog and the household's needs and particular situations. This takes place through a detailed history taking and assessment often keeping as well into account the dog's medical history, considering that certain medical conditions may lower a dog's threshold for aggression. I know that petting a dog while eating or putting our hands in our dog's dish may seem like a reassuring way to prove to ourselves that our dog comes to trust us, but in some cases, we risk the opposite. We may only teach the dog to become tense in our presence. Just like us, our dogs cherish to eat in peace and I am sure none of us would like a waiter serving us a bowl of pasta and then sometimes sticking his hands in it. On top of this, we may never know how a dog reacts to anything that startles him and a hand coming his/her way out of nowhere may cause an instinctive reaction in defense. I rather would just walk by at a distance and toss a few treats in the bowl or just nearby (aiming well!) than just merely putting the hands in the bowl with no specific purpose other than expecting the dog to tolerate it just because we are humans and they are dogs who must tolerate everything we do. You may find it interesting reading how Jennifer worked on her dog's resource guarding with the help of a dog behavior professional. Of course, this is a customized plan and therefore implemented for her particular situation so not to be interpreted as a recommended approach. The same goes with the scary biting episodes you are describing. This sounds more like something requiring the intervention of a dog behavior professional (like a board-certified veterinary behaviorist DACVB or certified applied animal behaviorist (CAAB) for a thorough assessment and customized plan based on observations. From your description, I cannot find a clear antecedent ( common trigger that evokes the biting behavior). The first episode could have been an attention-seeking behavior considering that just prior to that you were giving her a belly rub and then stopped and started walking around. Perhaps, there may have been some low frustration tolerance as well (some dogs just don't cope well with good things abruptly stopping). If this theory was correct, then, in the second episode, the biting would have occurred when your husband stopped playing/interacting with her and then the other episodes would have happened as well when you stopped interacting with her. Yet, these latter episodes don't put together the puzzle pieces as neatly as we may want. They seemed to have occurred for no particular reason other than walking around the yard or doing leash work. Sure, there are other possible triggers such as a dog simply with too much energy and not knowing how to burn it, which may lead to rowdy, play aggression which in some dogs seems like true aggression. Or a dog who just can't come to accept people walking away and maybe some herding instincts mixed in (which may be possible if he has some herding breed mixed in with pittie). Some dogs get hyper and nippy when tired, so she may be cranky like a cranky toddler misbehaving. If she hasn't napped enough reaching the deep REM stages of sleep (when dogs paddle, wag and even howl/ bark in their sleep) enticing her to go in the crate to enjoy a long-lasting chew (that she can finish in one setting) and settle undisturbed may help. Many dogs nap after chewing. There may also be some elements of anxiety or overstimulation. Being in a shelter is very stressful and those stress hormones tend to linger for some time and must go out in some way. With some very stressed rescues, I have seem them go through stages where they acted super hyper, bouncing off the walls, acting crazy, nipping, mounting, scratching and chewing and then, right after these bouts, they seemed to have several days of acting calmer and getting some nice deep REM sleep. Then once again, they had another stage or two of these hyper behaviors followed by calmness to a point of finally getting more and more moments of calm. Management in a case like yours would entail trying your best to reduce these episodes. Here things get tricky since we might not know what the exact triggers are. It seems like you have identified one: playing or interacting with her on the floor (many dogs get overstimulated when we get down at their level). So yes, avoid doing that. It seems like being in the yard is another place that triggers her "episodes." Perhaps, she perceives the yard as a place release all her pent-up energy/anxiety or frustration. Dogs like routines, and so she may have come to associate the yard with this behavior and hence she keeps repeating it over and over. We can try to break the cycle by establishing a new routine that greatly outranks what she gets by biting you. However this is a delicate situation since she also resource guards toys and possibly food and most of these activities involve them. So to play it safe, the intervention of a dog behavior professional is needed so to find the most suitable activities for your specific case. Ask your professional whether once out in the yard, you can safely offer these alternate activities, perhaps offer them while you stay behind a door or separate fenced area. -Turning on a dog bubble-blowing machine. These machines emit bubbles that taste like bacon and many dogs go crazy keeping themselves busy popping them. -Doing a treasure hunt game by scattering some kibble around the yard before you let her out and then sending her out to search. Here's how to teach this: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/elementary/the-treasure-hunt/ -Asking her to sit and then providing her with a Kong Wobbler to scavenge for her meal rolling it around the yard. -Asking her to sit and tossing her a stuffed Kong to work on (avoid getting near her, unless your behavior professional suggests tossing goodies her way and the once she's done swapping it with a higher value item) -Offering a bottle filled up with kibble/treats; https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/high-school/the-bottle-game/ -Offering a muffin game: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/elementary/the-muffin-game/ Once she is done with these activities, be ready to provide something else to do so to prevent her to go back to biting because there's a vacuum of time with nothing going on. So maybe swap between different activities. The more we provide alternate activities that outrank the biting behavior, the less she should rehearse this problematic behavior. It's important to measure how much her biting behaviors decrease over time and determine what the next step is. If she is ever regressing, we need to take some steps back and do some troubleshooting. As seen, this is a delicate situation. We don't know exactly what may be going on and a behavior professional would be important on so many levels, safety being the most important, especially if she is aiming for the face. acting aggressively and you have children around. Muzzle training would be important. If there are no professionals in your area, some will be willing to travel to you. Some cases may require just a few visits, and then follow ups can be done through Skype and phone consults. I hope this helps, Adrienne Disclaimer: Behavior modification comes with risks and often required the expert guidance of a professional for correct implementation. If your dog is acting aggressive please enlist the help of dog behavior professional for safety. The information provided above are only examples of behavior modification not to be interpreted as specific recommendations.

It does happen that sometimes dogs may not be that play or toy motivated and this may occur because they may be too concerned about other things going on their lives. It could be they lived in fear in a tense world and perhaps they were exposed to people who frightened them, and therefore, they live in a state of learned helplessness. As dogs learn more to relax in their surroundings, and build a foundation of trust, they may come to learn about playing. We can help them, by reinforcing behaviors (praise, provide things your dog loves) that are associated with play such as play bows, play faces, carrying toys and shaking them or simple exploratory behaviors such a peeking through a hole, walking under a table or finding toys or treats hidden under a towel. We also may try offering a variety of toys and see what kinds of texture/features the dog shows some interest in. Praising her for interacting with the toy (investigating it, sniffing it or mouthing it, carrying it) may help too if she isn't too intimidated by praise. We can try, as mentioned, rabbit-fur toys, but also long toys shaped like animals that encourage shaking side-to-side, a crinkly bottle filled with treats (remove the lids for safety), bouncy balls, flirt poles, toys that you can fill with treats (Kongs, Kong Wobblers, Buster Cubes), snuffle mats, squeaky toys etc. Rotating the toys can help increase interest. Also, watch her closely: does she seem attracted to birds? Do her eyes brighten up at the sight of squirrels? Is she attracted to rabbits? Sheep? Any interest in these animals can help us find more suitable toys/games based on her preferences. See whether she's interested in looking for you when you hide. See if she likes to chase you around. Toss balls making funny sounds as you launch them. Act silly and see if she responds, but pay attention as some dogs may be intimidated by our tones or movements when we are acting silly. Working with fearful dogs is a work in progress. With training them, it's necessary to take a multi-faceted approach, tackling their fears from different angles, where we aim to lower their anxiety (less full intensity exposures, calming aids), lay out a foundation of trust, and increase their confidence. These dogs like routines and stability. Here you can find some exercises to increase confidence in dogs (keep using a verbal marker rather than a clicker if she's scared of the sound of the clicker) https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/exercises-build-confidence-insecure-dogs/ Here are some threads on separation anxiety: Here are some tips for dogs anxious in the car: When training her, you can also use life rewards to reinforce desired behaviors (for example, for recalls, call your dog when you are ready to put on her leash and take her on a walk-the prospective of the walk acts as a reward) or when you are going out in the yard, call her so that she can join you out if she loves the yard, you can also do sits by the door and reward the sit by opening the door (see Open Sesame brain game in the Brain Training section). To use life rewards, compile a list of the thing your dog loves doing naturally and then use those things to reinforce desired behaviors. Does she love chasing balls? Does she love running? Does she like to chase you? Feel free to post some things she loves and I can post some ideas on how to utilize these things as reinforcement. Finally, something to point out is that the value of food as reinforcement for behaviors can be built. I have worked with several dogs who weren't interested in food initially, but who started associating food/treats with fun learning and engagement to the point where they started finding even low value treats and even kibble more interesting than before. Since you mention that her interest in treats has gradually grown, it could be that one day we may go from not always eating treats, to eating them more often than refusing them, up to the point of almost never refusing them if the upward trend keeps going. Let me know if less looming over her seems to helps. Maybe try training her as you're calmly sitting on the couch with her nearby. Keep me posted please. I love the picture of her sleeping on her side nice and relaxed. We want to see this sleeping position more and more as it's the position mostly associated with restorative REM sleep. It's a sign of a dog starting to feel comfortable in her surroundings. Best, Adrienne

Hello and welcome to the forums, I am so sorry to hear you have been going through this. I wished shelters would conduct more careful and thorough assessments of the dogs they are re-homing. However, here's the thing: many rescued dogs go through what is known as a "honeymoon period' during which they may behave differently initially and may only start showing their "true colors" a few weeks later. So unless the shelters had volunteers fostering this dog in a home setting, they may not be fully aware of certain behavior problems. While they do assessments for resource guarding, the results are not always as accurate as one would like. It would be insightful determining what may be causing this behavior in the first place so to know how to tackle the issue correctly. Are these behaviors happening mostly at night? Has she had a thorough medical check up? If yes, have you mentioned this behavior to the vet? What training collar are you using exactly? If so, how is it being used? Were there any toys nearby you when these episodes occurred? Can you find any common factors in the episodes you describe? This may turn out being a difficult case, especially if this behavior is happening when no particular trigger can be identified or if the dog's aggression/anxiety has generalized so much that the initial trigger can no longer be recognized. Since there is aggression and biting, your best option for safety is the intervention of a board-certified veterinary behaviorist of Certified Applied Animal Behaviorist or some other experienced dog behavior professional (not a simple dog trainer). The use of force-free behavior modification would be important considering that most aggressive behaviors are due to underlying anxiety. In the meanwhile, if you decide to undertake this route, it would be important playing it safe and doing your best to avoid these episodes from occurring in the first place. It may be also important to start muzzle training for safety. However, being that she has recently lunged at your face, you may need to train this under the guidance of a dog behavior professional to play it safe since muzzle training puts your face close to the dog and some dogs aren't comfortable with this. Disclaimer: Behavior modification comes with risks and often required the expert guidance of a professional for correct implementation. If your dog is acting aggressive please enlist the help of dog behavior professional for safety.

Hi there, Welcome to the forums! Sounds like she hasn't inherited much from Labs who have a known reputation for always feeling hungry and having a bottom-less stomach! We can't blame her though, it sounds like she had a tough life and is still dealing with some remnants of her past. She's super lucky though for having found you and it's great to hear that she's moving forward and starting to come out of her shell. Cases as such can be very rewarding. In general, when we have a dog who is a bit finicky eating food or treats, we want to firstly make sure that everything is absolutely fine in the health department. You mention she is heartworm positive and that alone can be a cause for feeling a bit off. The American Heartworm Society lists decreased appetite as one of the main symptoms of heartworm disease. On top of possible medical issues, once having those ruled out, we need to consider the dog's emotions. With a past like hers, there may be emotional repercussions. Stress, fear, anxiety or excessive excitement/over stimulation may too play a number on a dog's appetite levels. Here's the thing, when dogs are in a fight or flight situation, stress hormones circulate through the dog's body, leading to a variety of physiological changes. Among such physiological changes are included increased heart rate, increased respiratory rate and increased blood flow to muscles (so the dog can sprint into action). Affected dogs also undergo changes in their levels of blood sugar (it surges for a burst of energy), while also experiencing an inability to focus, lack of impulse control and a lowered threshold for aggression and biting. Also, since during a dog's fight and flight response, blood flow transfers from the dog's skin and intestines to their muscles for action, appetite suppression is a common consequence. On top of this, dogs who are stressed or fearful are too occupied to focus on the source of their fears and eating may be the last thing they may want to do since they don't feel safe. So we need to evaluate whether there may be something too distracting going on. Perhaps she's a tad but worried about you looming over her to get her to sit. Some dogs may not like to take treats from our hands. With rescue dogs there are many possibilities. It could also be that, since you are using treats to help with separation anxiety, the treats may have come to assume some negative connotations. It could be she has mixed feelings about them. "So tasty and good, they come after I perform a desired behavior, but they also sometimes predict that my owner will soon disappear." Something like this may happen if you give treats before you are leaving the home and she's too worried about it. Other reasons why some dogs may be finicky around treats can be because they are simply full (just like us, after eating at a buffet, the last thing dogs may want is more food), or maybe there may be something wrong with the treats, and then some dogs may get a little spoiled if we feed them people foods from the table. So after looking at several possibilities, here are some ideas: See your vet to exclude medical problems. If your dog is ill or not feeling 100 percent well, she won't find treats appealing enough for training. If your dog is stressed, fearful or overstimulated, reduce exposure to the things that worry her. Try to train her in the comfort of your home and then aim to working directly on the issues that may be causing her fear. https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/helping-fearful-rescue-dog/ Make sure to ensure the treats are not stale, check the expiration date, look online whether there were any recent recalls. Some dogs (especially, the most finicky ones) do best being trained at times away from meals or on an empty stomach. If your dog is shy taking treats from you hand, try tossing them. If you are still at the luring stages of learning (using a food lure in front of your dog's body to get her to sit or lie down), you can try a different training method such as capturing. I explain this briefly in the video below: Try using toys. Some play-driven dogs may find toys as irresistible as the best tasting treats. For example, many scent hounds or sight hounds may go crazy for toys made of rabbit fur. Small terriers may love squeaky toys. Labs and goldens may like toys that resemble birds or ducks. These are just a few suggestions for general dogs who are not too eager to take treats. Let me know more details if I haven't covered your specific situation. Like for instance, let me know if the not -taking-treats behavior happens at a particular part of the training. Like when being used in the luring stage (when you are using a food lure to get her into a sit or a down) or when you are rewarding after the sit or down has happened. I can cover these possibilities more in detail.

Jennifer provided you with great management suggestions! The guide to train the emergency exit can be found here: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/emergency-u-turn/ I would suggest adding a twist and making it a fun and rewarding activity so that you dog comes to form positive associations upon spotting dogs. Sort of like "oh, a dog! Now we turn around quick and I get fed some tasty treats as we walk away!." This can also help you stay focused on the task rather than tensing up and thinking "Oh-uh!" Practice this a lot at home before moving on to walks and and on walks practice with dogs in *safe* situations first at a far distance. Another option is training your dog to stay behind you when a dog approaches fast leaving you a bit unprepared. Simply drop treats behind you and stand up tall in front of the approaching dog and tell the owner to please give space and get control over his/her dog. To make this behavior fluent you can practice in *safe* situations at a far distance. I always like to have a back--up plan (or several) if worse comes to worse, and a dog ends up coming fast your way and you are caught unprepared. You can carry a pop-up umbrella to block any lunging dogs. I personally like to carry with me a can of Spray Shield, which is a citronella spray designed by a dog trainer that is meant to be sprayed from a decent distance.

Hi there, Welcome to the forums! It's nice to hear he is sleeping in for 6 hours at night no problem. That's pretty good for a pup of this age. Are you crating your puppy when you leave the home for good or just running errands around the house? Where are your other two dogs kept when your ausiedoodle is crated? Are you crating him shortly after he's let out in the morning? These extra details will be helpful, thanks!

Hi there, Welcome to the forums, Every time a dog is perfectly house trained and starts having accidents in the house, it's important investigating what may be going on. One important place to start is making sure the dog is not having any underlying medical problems. Therefore a vet visit can help exclude or rule out this possibility. Once we have an all clear from the vet, and no medical issues as play, we can then assume that something from a behavioral point may be taking place. This article points out several possibilities: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/sudden-house-soiling/ I would also add the possibility of the doggy door accidentally closing on him or getting stuck or something scary happening in the yard. Also, is he actually urinating for the purpose of emptying the bowel or is he urine marking? Is he neutered? https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/urine-marking/ Where is he peeing exactly every time? Does he do it when left alone? After reading through these possibilities, let me know if any of these circumstances sound familiar and we can do more troubleshooting and find out what may be the best course of action.

Sounds like a plan! Keep me posted on how things go. Best, Adrienne

Hello and welcome to the forums! Does a click always mean treat? A click is always followed by a treat. It marks the desired behavior so that the behavior is likely to strengthen and repeat (the core of positive reinforcement training). The click tells the dog:"yes, you got it right, come get your treat." So if your dog perceived it as "come here I've got treats for you" that's fine as long as this happens after she has performed the desired behavior and you are not showing visible treats in a bribe/like fashion (keep them in a your pocket or treat bag). In clicker training, we don't just dole out treats for free (other than during the brief charging phase), we give treats for performance, basically a job well done. If a treat wouldn't follow each click, we would be un-charging the clicker, weakening it and making it less effective. The good news though is that once the dog has learned the behavior at a fluent enough level, we can stop using the clicker and replace it's clicking sound with a verbal marker/praise. Also, we can move on from giving a treat for every correct response to giving treats intermittently. A clicker therefore comes mostly handy for the acquisition stage of learning, once the behavior is learned to the point of fluency, we can ditch its use for that behavior. You can read more the process here: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/always-use-clicker/ If I say "come" she will first run to find a toy, and then come to me. If your dog tends to to run to get a toy before she comes to you, try removing toys around so that you can set her up for success in coming to you directly. If she's a bit reluctant, try to get her to chase you in a fun game. Then, you can praise and reward her with several treats in a row. It is best to not fall in the trap of repeating commands. When we do so, we are just training the dog that the command is no longer "sit" but "sit, sit, sit" so dogs may not sit until they hear us say it multiple times or in a different tone of voice. This is not a matter of a dog willingly disobeying, they just likely truly come to think that the command hasbecome a repeated series of words or said in a certain tone. We also need to pay attention to whether the area we are training is too distracting and what interferes with her training. If she's reluctant to drop the ball, this can be suggestive that she hasn't learned to associate the verbal cue drop with a high-value exchange yet (she may perceive the ball more valuable than the treat) or she may be a bit possessive over the ball (in which case it would be important enlisting the help of a dog behavior professional). I would suggest working on practicing drops with lower valued items at least for now. A ball can turn valuable when it's tossed and we may also want to keep it for her fetching pleasure. So perhaps start with something lower value that she carries around when not playing fetch. A toy (not ball used for fetching) that is around frequently may be an option. The moment she has the toy in her mouth, say “drop it” and show her a treat by holding it next to her nose. She will most likely drop the toy so she can get the treat. As soon as she drops the toy, use your verbal marker or click the clicker and give her the treat. You can toss the treat at a distance so that you can safely grab the item dropped to practice again. Then follow the next guidelines as explained in here: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/obedience-101/drop-it/ If your dog ever shows signs of has shown signs in the past of being possessive (freezing, growling, snarling, grabbing things before you can) please consult with a dog behavior professional for help. I noticed that you said " I was working on "leave it" earlier while playing fetch. She doesn't like to let go of here ball. When she does, as soon as your hand gets near it she darts in and grabs it. When she would leave it alone and not try to grab it before me, I clicked and treated. She then lost all interest in her ball and it took a while to get her to go fetch it and play again. She heard that click, just sat there waiting for treats. " We need to make a distinction here between leave it and drop. Leave it is used when a dog is about to grab something. It prevents them from grabbing it with their mouth. Drop it is for when the item is already in their mouth and we want them to surrender it. So if she has an item in her mouth you say "drop it' if she's getting close to a food or item you don't want her to have or you are practicing not to have, you would use leave it. Once again, best to practice with items that are perceived as lower value for now and that are not used for playing fetch. To avoid confusion, it may also help to work on leave it and drops in different sessions. Here is the section on leave it: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/obedience-101/take-leave-it/ "Sit and down work pretty well, but she's sometimes very slow to respond. " At this point, if she's pretty fluent on sits and downs, you can start raising criteria and get a bit picky. So you can try to just mark/praise the slower sits/downs (no treats) and mark/praise and give treats only for the fastest ones. In other words, reward with treats the higher performances. After several reps, she should soon learn that the fastest sits are those that earn the treats. Just worth mentioning, if you notice a repeated sluggish performance in sitting or doing downs, consult with your vet to ensure there's not something physically going on that may slow her down (achy joints, belly aches etc). I hope this helps. Let me know if you have any further questions, Happy training!

You are very welcome! I am glad to hear you have been working with a trainer. Although I used to use prong collars in the past, I would just like to point out that, since dogs are so adept to forming associations from one event to another, when a prong (or other corrective gear) is being used to deliver corrections, there are risks that the dog may come to associate the presence of bikes, trucks, etc. with the correction, which may potentially aggravate the fear. This has been proven by research. Its use would therefore defeat the main objective of changing the dog's emotional response which is what we are trying to condition here using the Look at That and Open/Bar Closed/Bar methods. Of course, prongs can also be associated with good things (this is why many dogs come running when they see them as they associate them with walks!) but so can negative associations come to form when the prong is used for corrections or when it "self-corrects" the dog when tension forms on the leash. The indoor exercises practiced by the window are meant to be used first so that we can put down a strong foundation. Since your dog seems hypervigilant to the point where he becomes reactive already with triggers at a distance, it would be important to suspend walks as a management protocol for now until we can lay this foundation in place. Then, we can move on to practicing on more foundation responses and raise criteria using set-ups under the direct guidance of a professional specializing in force-free behavior modification. With force-free behavior modification the goal is to use lots of desensitization and counterconditioning so that we can work on building a strong conditioned emotional response which allows dogs to build coping skills and learn to no longer react towards the trigger. There are no corrections as these risk exacerbating the fear. I have worked with many large reactive dogs using front-attachment harnesses (T-touch harnesses and Freedom both give several points of contact) and the halters/ gentle leaders are as far as I would go with aversives in favor of safety. Disclaimer: behavior modification comes with risks. Please work under direct supervision of a force-free behavior dog behavior professional for safety and correct behavior modification implementation.

Awww...here I was imagining a large Labrador pulling with all her force and acting as a nutty rebellious teenager! Well, 11 weeks is good news as you can get her started on the right paw at an early age before things put roots and get out of hand. She might not be able yet to hold longer sit-stays or do too many steps of attention heeling, so you may have to stick to baby steps for now. A hand-held Kong may work best since we want to avoid tossing treats on the ground for now since she's at such a vulnerable age where she hasn't finished her vaccinations. So since she's so young, please make sure with your vet that it's safe for her to go on walks on trails (or other areas frequented by dogs) as we have to watch for infectious diseases such as parvo. These guidelines may vary from one place and another, but most vets seem to agree on avoiding areas with high likelihood of unvaccinated dogs such as dog parks and grassy areas that dogs frequent and rather sticking to safer locations. The American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior recommends puppy socialization classes held with other similar aged puppies and vaccinated puppies.