Siblings, male is a bully

[DobeMom]

I got a Doberman puppy in December as an only dog (the last of my other 4 passed away a few months earlier). He is high energy and only wants to play. He got a lot of time outs at doggy day care because he was a bully and wouldn't leave other dogs alone.They wanted $40 to train him in addition to the fees for day care and it was too costly so we stopped going.  In June I had the opportunity to get his sister which I did. They play great together most of the time and take turns being the aggressor. There is a doggy door so most of the time they have the choice of being inside or out. They are currently 11 months old and are both intact. Both sleep in crates at night but prefer to be outside their crates. 

Problems:

1. Both have cropped, taped ears. He won't leave hers alone and will grab her ears like they are a toy. She whines but he doesn't let up. Her ears need to be taped for a few more months. 

2. She likes to play but is ok not playing, mostly she just wants to be with me. She can hop over a 3 foot x-pen (he can't). She seems to get tired of his attention and will hop over the x-pen that prevents them from entering a covered patio (I don't want them wrestling on the cement). The only other time she jumps over the open is if the doggy door is closed and she can't get in the house. 

Questions:

1. How do I get her to stop jumping over the x-pen barrier? If I am correct that this is her "safe" spot is there a way to teach her to come inside and somehow (not sure what) setup another safe area for her? I've been removing her from the patio and giving her a time out in her crate figuring if she wants to get away from him that will be a safe option. 

2. Other than crating him I haven't found a way to calm him down. I've taught them to come to me and sit for a cookie when I yell "time out" and that works well. Any other ideas to get him to leave her alone? 

He is bold and confident, she is quiet and sensitive. I live on a busy street and am worried if I don't let her jump INTO the patio area she may decide to try to go over the fence outside of the yard. 

I have a system of rotating throughout the day with one free and one in a crate but my goal is to have them both out of their crates, both calm at the same time and both tired from playing with each other all day. I will be delighted if I can get them both to sit with me while I watch TV. 

Thanks! 

[Adrienne]

Hi Dobemom,

Welcome to the forums! 

Were the ears recently cropped? If so, are the sutures removed and the ends of the ears totally healed? Is your other puppy attracted to playing with your female dog's ears only when taped?

I am not sure I understood well your setting/situation. It sounds like she can jump over the x-pen to get away from him, but you would like to find another way to keep her separated from him other than crating him?

Is the x-pen indoors or outdoors? How does the x-pen relate to the doggy door and patio? Do you have a picture of the setting? Sorry, I am having a bit of a hard time imagining it in my head and don't understand how she might jump over the fence outside or why you need to teach her to come inside. Maybe a picture may help me. This sounds like more of a logistic issue where you may need to find a setting that can help her get away from him and come inside. Do you have any family members that can help you watch one pup while you watch the other and take turns with you? Since these are siblings, they both would benefit from individual attention and training. 

[DobeMom]

Their ears were cropped when they were 8 weeks old, completely healed at this point. There is a cotton ball on the bottom of the post and he pulls on the post to nibble on the cotton ball as well as just grabbing her by the ear post and pulling her. He licks her ears but doesn't bite them when they are not taped.  I added her when they were 8 months so she has only been here 3 months. They played great for 3 weeks after she arrived and then he got a serious head bump (possibly from playing hard on the patio) to the point we had to have it drained and separate them for 3 weeks. When he got better they played for a week and then she went into heat and they were separated for 4 more weeks (except for short supervised play once a day). Now that he is better and she is not in heat I've put x-pens around the covered patio so they have to play on the grass/dirt. She jumps the x-pen to get in the patio. Last night she did it while he was inside crated so it may not be totaled related to him. As soon as I let her in she went straight to my BF (who usually sits on the patio) who apparently has been giving her people food. I'll pay more attention to when/why she is jumping and try to find a way to dog proof that area (the BF smokes out there and leaves stuff laying around) and make sure he isn't rewarding this behavior. She doesn't jump over when he is sitting out there. 

At this point I think it would be most helpful to know if there is a way to teach him to play nicer. I am going through your training for both of them separately. I work from home and she is in my office 60% of the time while he is outside or in the "dog room". She is very quiet while I'm working and he isn't so she gets more office time. Adjacent to the office is a bedroom that has a doggy door that is 100% dog proof. When I'm not on a conference call they have full run of the yard, the dog room and my office. They only go in the rest of the house with supervision because they get into too much stuff.  

[Adrienne]

Thanks for the extra details and the pictures, they are very helpful.

If the biting ears behavior happens only when she's wearing the tapes, then it would be important keeping them separated when she's wearing them. While it's true we can train a dog to "leave it" (in this case leaving the sister's ears alone), I feel that it wouldn't be very fair to interrupt play every few minutes, because he's so tempted to play with that  "unfamiliar thing" on the ears his sibling is wearing. This would take constant supervision (as the behavior may happen often when you're not looking) and perfect timing for him to understand that it's when he plays with the ears that he must stop, so sometimes it's just easier to manage the situation rather than spending most of the day watching and redirecting as needed at a moment's notice. 

I know some dog owners have been able to discourage their dog from chewing on another dog's bandage by applying taste deterrents such as Bitter Apple Spray or Bitter Yuck, but it does't always work and some dogs actually even come to like the taste. 

So since this is a temporary problem, I feel separating them during wearing the tape may work best. I understand that sometimes those tapes need to come off every now and then for resting the ears, and those times may be good for playing (if she's in the mood). Perhaps, since she hasn't played with him as much as before and since he may be less focused on the ears, she may hopefully be more in the mood for play. 

In the meanwhile, during these couple of months that she needs to wear the posts (check with your vet who did the cropping for the exact timeline), you can take advantage to train your dogs some solid responses to specific cues that may turn handy when play starts getting a little rough. Here are some options:

1) Train your dogs to respond to an interrupter cue that tells them to rush towards you for a treat. I like to personally use a dog whistle (but other options are verbal cues such as "enough" or "'that'll do!'') which teaches the dogs to happily break apart and come to you for a treat. After some time, you can also insert a few calm behaviors--sit or down to help them calm down before giving the treat. After some time, a pleasant surprise is that some dogs may learn to self monitor and when things start escalating they automatically break apart to come get their treat!

2) An alternative option if you are looking for longer-lasting time-out is to use a verbal cue such as "chill!" where you redirect the dogs to lie down on their mats where they get a stuffed Kong or some other longer lasting goodie to work on.

3) Clicker training can also help and you can work on capturing calm play. Simply, capture breaks (click/reward them as they happen spontaneously) and shape less intense forms of play. Click when play is at a low level of arousal and use valuable treats. Soon, you may notice that your dogs will start checking in with you every now and then during play.

I understand that keeping two young pups separated may seem like a complicated issue, but there are fortunately many ways you can keep both dogs busy. When we got out Rottie pups they were littermates too, and when getting siblings, there's a big emphasis on preventing sibling rivarly or littermate syndrome and taking steps to ensure both pups develop independently without depending too much on each other. The good thing in your case though is that you've had them together just recently. In any case, here are several ways you can resort to for keeping them separated and chill.

1) Take your dogs on walks with one dog per handler.  Have a household member walk one dog, while you walk the other.  This is a great bonding activity, allows the opportunity for training polite leash manners (see how to train polite loose leash walking in the obedience 101 section) and can help tire out the pups. Ideally, two walks a day that last at leash half hour (ideally 45 minutes) can help.

2) Dog rotations. Have one household member watch one pup while you watch the other and then you swap. If feasible, during this time, you can do training, play brain games or offer some long-lasting chew (stuffed Kong, Kong Wobbler filled with a daily portion of kibble).

3) Car rides. Most dogs on car rides are too focused on watching the scenery to think about play. Make sure they are secured in some way for safety (dog seat belts, car divider). 

4) Crate/kennel time. This is quiet time for chewing a durable toy and naps. 

5) Group training. This means encouraging training despite the distraction of each other in a structured way. Once your dogs are trained to respond to obedience cues during your rotations, then it's time to ask them to respond to your cues in presence of each other. Great cues to ask as a group include recalls, sits, downs and stays. For instance, you can do several recall games where you are at one end of yard and a helper on the other end. You can ask your dogs to sit/stay and then take turns calling them and rewarding them for coming. Other exercises that can keep them busy if they aren't food possessive are asking them to lie down/stay, then hiding  treats around the home /yard and then releasing them to search. Hide and seek can be a great game to play too.  We used to love putting our dogs in a stay and then hide and have them come looking for us!

6) Erecting a baby gate in the home where both dogs can have their space yet stay separated can come handy too. You may need a tall one since your girl is a jumper.  During these times, it can help providing each a long lasting chew so they're busy. 

Finally, I would aim to train your dogs to respect your items in the house. I know it's tempting to just keep the troublemaker out of the house, but when we have time to supervise, it would be extra helpful training the leave it and drop it commands so that they can learn to leave items and drop them when asked to. It certainly helps a bunch as well to remove as many tempting objects as possible and leaving around several tempting toys so that your dogs can make good choices. I find that when dogs are kept out of the home they fail to learn polite manners and therefore end up being kept out more and more with never have a chance to learn. Of course, this takes time and lots of supervision, but if it's possible to cut out a few minutes for training these each day, there's a good return on the investment in the long run.

I hope this helps!

Let me know if you have any other questions or need clarifications,

Best,

Adrienne

[DobeMom]

Thank you for all of the input. Some are new ideas and some I'm already doing. Unfortunately her ears are taped 24/7 for 3-5 days at a time, down for less than an hour and posted right away. This is due to her having a lazy ear that doesn't stand at all when it isn't taped. She could potentially need to be taped for another year (although I'm hoping that won't be the case). I have sprayed her ears with bitter apple and tried bitter vet wrap but he didn't mind it. I've recently switched to a zip tie method which is flatter and doesn't cover the outside of the ear and he is leaving that alone a lot better. 

1. I have already been working on a time out during play. I yell time out and they come and sit and get a cookie. That is going well and can break a situation where I feel he is being overbearing. 

2. I do need to find either a mat or maybe an area where they can be tethered in the same room to learn to lay down without constant play so I can get some rest and TV time. I'm not very good at teaching lay down and stay over there. I can get lay down and stay while I watch but lay down and don't get up for 20 minutes is beyond my training. 

3. I am already doing clicker training with both, hadn't considered doing that during a rare quiet time. Will try it. 

4. Crate time...how much time is too much time? They are both crated all night in my room from 10pm-7am. They are crated if I leave the house (no more than 2-3 hours). I feel like adding to it just for separation/quiet time would be a lot of crate time. Of course I'm used to 3 or 4 dogs that were never crated because they were old and well behaved so crate time makes me feel bad. 

5. I do plan on training them together once the girl gets better. I've been working with Fenwick since he was a baby but just with Riversong for a couple months. It really makes me see how much progress I made with him. 

6. I do have 2 tall baby gates, one to keep them out of the rest of the house and one between my office and the dog room. If they can see each other they stand and play over the gate, eventually knocking it down. I can have one crated and one loose in the room but otherwise he is trying to play with her. Sometimes I can give him a sucky blanket and he'll leave her alone for an hour. 

 

Thanks for all the info. I do need to go back to training Fen to leave it. We were working on training a lot and then got the sister and stopped the sessions. 

When it is cooler and less smokey out I also want to go back to some of the things I did with him before she came. I believe a tired dog is a good dog. We had frequent trips to Home Depot (especially the bathroom with the scary blow dryers), the mall that allowed dogs and I did some urban mushing with him (training him to pull me on a scooter). I think I need to focus on tiring them out individually and supervising the playtime for now. I've looked at all of the sessions...if you have any other games or training let me know. 

 

[Adrienne]

19 hours ago, DobeMom said:

Please see some of my comments in bold. 

"Thank you for all of the input. Some are new ideas and some I'm already doing. Unfortunately her ears are taped 24/7 for 3-5 days at a time, down for less than an hour and posted right away. This is due to her having a lazy ear that doesn't stand at all when it isn't taped. She could potentially need to be taped for another year (although I'm hoping that won't be the case). I have sprayed her ears with bitter apple and tried bitter vet wrap but he didn't mind it. I've recently switched to a zip tie method which is flatter and doesn't cover the outside of the ear and he is leaving that alone a lot better. 

1. I have already been working on a time out during play. I yell time out and they come and sit and get a cookie. That is going well and can break a situation where I feel he is being overbearing. 

That is awesome! It is nice to hear you are getting them to become responsive, especially in a distracting situation such as play. It's important for sibling pups to learn to pay attention to us when they are together. 

2. I do need to find either a mat or maybe an area where they can be tethered in the same room to learn to lay down without constant play so I can get some rest and TV time. I'm not very good at teaching lay down and stay over there. I can get lay down and stay while I watch but lay down and don't get up for 20 minutes is beyond my training. 

You may need to go gradually on this. Baby steps. You may find it helpful to keep each dog on a mat to enjoy some quiet time along with some long-lasting goodie if your dog's aren't prone to resource guarding. Make sure they are far apart from each other and prevent one dog from going towards the other. If one dog finishes first, let him stick around you and not bother the other dog.  Long lasting stuff many consider of a a Kong stuffed in a challenging way (or maybe even frozen if you have hard wood floors and don't mind some mess) or perhaps you can offer some empty, hallow bone marrow bones stuffed with peanut butter (careful that it's not the sugar-free version with xylitol in it, that's very toxic to dogs!) along with some lodged in dog cookies in a way that it's extra difficult to get them out. Always supervise your dogs though when they have these stuff for safety though. 

3. I am already doing clicker training with both, hadn't considered doing that during a rare quiet time. Will try it. 

Clicker training is fun and interestingly it can be quite tiring for dogs when we put their minds to work. 

4. Crate time...how much time is too much time? They are both crated all night in my room from 10pm-7am. They are crated if I leave the house (no more than 2-3 hours). I feel like adding to it just for separation/quiet time would be a lot of crate time. Of course I'm used to 3 or 4 dogs that were never crated because they were old and well behaved so crate time makes me feel bad. 

Night time crating sounds about average. I usually aim for about 8-9 hours at night and then no more than 2-4 hours a day if possible when the pups can't be watched (I still like to keep the crate open during the day and place some treats/toys in them to keep positive associations with it. I don't think you are crating much at all. At their age, I think crating when you are out is important as you're keeping them safe and out of trouble. 

5. I do plan on training them together once the girl gets better. I've been working with Fenwick since he was a baby but just with Riversong for a couple months. It really makes me see how much progress I made with him. 

I love your dog's names, very original! I suggest training individually at first and them bringing them together to proof their training once they are fluent on performing the behaviors on their own. 

6. I do have 2 tall baby gates, one to keep them out of the rest of the house and one between my office and the dog room. If they can see each other they stand and play over the gate, eventually knocking it down. I can have one crated and one loose in the room but otherwise he is trying to play with her. Sometimes I can give him a sucky blanket and he'll leave her alone for an hour. 

Thanks for all the info. I do need to go back to training Fen to leave it. We were working on training a lot and then got the sister and stopped the sessions. 

When it is cooler and less smokey out I also want to go back to some of the things I did with him before she came. I believe a tired dog is a good dog. We had frequent trips to Home Depot (especially the bathroom with the scary blow dryers), the mall that allowed dogs and I did some urban mushing with him (training him to pull me on a scooter). I think I need to focus on tiring them out individually and supervising the playtime for now. I've looked at all of the sessions...if you have any other games or training let me know. 

Knocking down the gate is not good as that reinforces the jumping on it so they'll keep trying to do that. It's best to avoid this situation. Tethering can be a temporary option as you work on something else such as finding a sturdier gate or training "off" where you say "off" and toss a treat to reinforce that before your dogs have a chance to jump on it, in other words, the moment you notice the intent to jump try to interrupt that. You will need to work on your side of the gate with one dog and have a helper work with your other dog on the other side. Rinse and repeat as needed, praise for not jumping. 

I agree that a tired dog is a good dog. We think exercise, but in many cases mental stimulation can be as tiring.  The bottle game can keep dogs busy for some time: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/high-school/the-bottle-game/

I also like dogs to work for their meals using a Kong Wobbler, Snuffle Mats and Lick Mats. 

Putting the nose to work can be quite tiring too. I like to use the treasure hunt game: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/elementary/the-treasure-hunt/

You can also hide kibble in some boxes (among others with no kibble) and let your dog identify the ones with kibble and shred them to get to the kibble. Always monitor and take care that your dog doesn't ingest parts of the box though. 

I think it's important for siblings to go outside to places without each other so they can learn to be independent rather than two "half dogs" so if you have a helper taking one to Home Depot while you take your other dog to another place, that would be great. 

With mushing or any other high-impact doggy sports, consider checking first with your vet, to ensure those growth plates have closed and it's safe to proceed. 

 

 

[DobeMom]

I'm look through all of your games and I also have several of the Ottosson puzzles. They can solve those in under 5 minutes. He had a snuffle mat but he learned to pick it up and shake it. He tried to eat his lick mat so I save it for bath time. I love the treasure hunt game.  I do train them to sit for the baby gate. I walk up and put my hand on it but don't open until both are sitting. They only knock it down if they are each on an opposite side and trying to play over the gate.  

Thanks for all your advice! I feel like I'm doing a lot that is right already and don't feel as bad crating and separating them. I feel like you know them now...here is a picture when they are good puppies. 

[Adrienne]

Lovely pups, thank you for posting their picture. I like to see this level of lovely attention. 

Yes, you are definitely doing a lot of great things for your pups, so you need to pat yourself on the back for that!

Another option for the ears that came to mind is letting your female wear an E-collar (Elizabethan collar), but that may not be very fair to her if she hates wearing it. You will have to see how she does with that and if you can create positive associations with wearing it. With Einstein (my male Rottie), he sort of used to have a blast wearing it when playing with our female Petra as he used it as a "weapon." As soon as we put it on him, he would turn into "super dog" and charge poor Petra using the collar as leverage. Perhaps if she gets the idea that wearing the E-collar equals play time with her brother, she may get to like wearing it somewhat. 

 

23 September 2020 11: