Hi Steve,

This is Melissa ******** Thanks for all the great emails you send out. They are great. Speaking of training... I was wondering what you might recommend as far as a few training issues that I have been having. I have sent them for training and have also had someone come to the house. If their is anyway you can give me a few helpful hints, it would be a big help:

Thanks for asking! I wish you could come spend a couple of hours with me, we could fix most of this very quickly.

Walking on a leash - they still pull a lot. Never play tug-o-war, give fast jerky corrections. They are not supposed to hurt, they are supposed to capture attention so you can redirect them. I am not a fan of pinch or prong collars, I don’t use choke chains, just a flat collar with sharp tugs.
The girl just loves to jump up on the back door when she is ready to come in. This also takes correction with a leash or remote collar as it happens, but you can teach the dog to sit at the door before it opens and that will also eliminate the behavior.
Digging That’s the hardest one, usually giving them other things to do works, not giving them unsupervised time outside etc. One thing that helps is fill up the holes with their dog waste and they avoid that spot in the future, sometimes though this just moves the hole they are digging. If it is always the same spot such as digging under a gate, you can lay some chicken wire down then cover it with a few inches of dirt. This hurts their pads when they dig and makes a physical barrier
Also, when they know they have done something wrong, they won't come. Always, the golden rule is never punish a dog that came to you, it teaches them not to come to you. If they have done something wrong it is up to you to go catch them. Also if you didn’t catch them doing it, their attention span can’t relate to why they are being corrected, but never ever correct a dog that came to you, always praise them “Good Here!” or “Good come!” then they will always have a strong here command.
They also still love to fight, but sometimes it gets a little to rough. How can I stop them? By being a very strong and dominant pack leader, don’t allow it at all, when things start to escalate, send them to “Their place” which may be a dog bed etc in opposite corners of the room.

I also remember you saying that you will travel to train. At what age would you recommend that? I hope you can help me a little. It has been a lot of work training them. Generally the stuff done before one year of age builds foundation for later formal stuff. Young puppies can learn all the command set, but it has to be repeated nearly daily to stick, whereas when we work older dogs they retain their learning a little longer between sessions.

Thanks,

Melissa

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Steve
Dobes are like potato chips, you really can't have just one...

I like the idea of having this bit in the forum. I am doing daily training with Grendel but still have not decided which way I want to go with it, Schutzhund or AKC. So far I think that my training will benefit in both but because I have never been involved in either sport I will have to learn the routines before I move to more technical commands. I was wondering though,Do you think that a dog raised indoors with the family works as well as one that stays kenneled? Also, I have been to meet the local Schutzund clubs and have decided that all the arrogant and unfriendly Schutzund people must have relocated to my town. Do you think that is possible to earn titles on your own?

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I found that bit about house dogs vs kenneled dogs very helpful, as I have been struggling with that as well. My dog, Si, and I really love working and training for Schutzhund, but if I know that, with my personal living situation and the bond I have with Si as my everyday, everywhere companion, if I was forced to choose between a working dog who stays kenneled and an indoor house pet, I'd have to choose indoor family dog. I'm very happy to hear I can have both to an extent!

As far as training questions, I have a couple. Osiris, call name Si, will be 18 months this week. We should be ready for a BH in a month or so (hopefully!), but he will be a ways off from a ScHI as we are backing off from any protection work for several months. The protection work we have done has been basic, about once a week. It has involved building his drive, getting him to bark, focusing his aggression toward the tug, then the puppy sleeve with a full firm bite, getting used to physical contact and closeness to the helper while on the tug or sleeve, and my learning how to hold him and circle him once he has won the tug or sleeve. He has shown high offensive drive and bark when doing this.

-tracking: I've been out with my club a few times to learn the basics, but unfortunately my schedule conflicts with club tracking times so I've been doing it on my own so far. First, tracking is my least favorite part of training because it is so time consuming. It seems like it takes me anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour to lay a track that he runs in a couple minutes. Any suggestions? Am I an idiot? Do i just need to suck it up, because that's the cost of having a good tracker? He tracks very well and stays focused but rushes through the track. His food drive is through the roof and I use food (Bil-Jac or hot dogs) every 3-5 steps to lay the track and, I bait the turns heavily. I do heel-to-toe steps; is this right or should I use steps at a natural stride? Should i do several shorter tracks, a couple medium tracks...? Second, I still work his articles separately from the track except I always end with an article. When and how should I introduce them to the track?

-the BH: As I mentioned, we decided to back off any protection work for several months, because as of right now he would not pass the temperament test involving the joggers, bicyclist, car, etc. He does well heeling around the group although he is a little nervy, and the club has been very helpful in working on this. Unfortunately, he has recently started going nuts over joggers, motorcycles, bicycles, golf carts, groups of people walking, people pushing strollers, and sometimes pedestrians in general. His reaction is much more pronounced when he is riding in the car, and if walking, when the person/people are in close proximity and coming towards us. I'm confident I can resolve this behavior when walking on lead, but in the car is a different matter. I recently had to downsize to a car that doesn't accommodate a crate; if he was always crated in a vehicle I could have probably avoided that problem all together. I'm thinking that this vehicular aggressive/protective response is also a dominance issue and has reinforced his view of pedestrians, joggers, bikes, etc as prey/fair game. This is especially so because (and I'm really kicking myself for this) when it started a couple months ago, it was just motorcycles and I thought it was rather funny. I noticed it slowly escalating and now it is not so funny when I'm in traffic and he goes berserk if the people in the next car make eye contact with him, much less speak to me or him. Even less amusing, I know if the windows were all the way down (and he wasn't tethered in the back) he would gladly jump out and chase down whatever or whoever he was barking at. I'm fairly sure HE wouldn't be sure what to do once he got there, but the very idea is gut wrenching. Is allowing a Schutzhund dog to be a backseat passenger a big no-no? I don't want the on/off lead work we do training him to be neutral to joggers etc to be undermined by this car behavior.

Here is the link to the thread on housetraining:
http://www.dobermanplace.com/forum/yaf_postst12_HouseTraining.aspx

As to the other Questions, every trainer has a different way of getting the result, I think what you are doing is working, I think a dog can be a good schutzhund dog and my best friend, I now believe however in crates in the vehicle which I was against at first. I always did SAR and my dogs always rode with me. After starting bitework however I came out one day and my Zenny had eaten my leather wrapped steering wheel, the blinker/cruise control, the seatbelts etc. I learned my lesson. Everyone had warned me about this ahead of time, but I didn't believe Zenny could ever do something like that. Now none of the dogs ever get a chance.

As far as tracking, sometimes it slows a dog down to go back to baiting every step again, sometimes just holding them back with the lead, everyone likes a different method and they produce slightly different results. On articles I prefer to work them in the front room away from the track until we are tracking really well, then I just put them there, no fanfare just a new piece to the puzzle.

As far as vehicles, it's time to start using corrections to bring the behavior back in line, that is not acceptable.

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Steve
Dobes are like potato chips, you really can't have just one...

Love the story! So true to life, you really couldn't punish her, and it really was one of those Ah Ha moments that makes you realize what you ought to do next time. That insurancecompany is fantastic! Who was it?

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Steve
Dobes are like potato chips, you really can't have just one...

Love the signature line!!!!

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Steve
Dobes are like potato chips, you really can't have just one...

No hand signals are allowed in schutzhund sport, some AKC events it is hand signals only. There isn't a universal set per se, but each venue has some similarities. I try to stay away from hand signals and use voice only since I primarily do schutzhund sport now.

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Steve
Dobes are like potato chips, you really can't have just one...

I think it's a great idea to teach them so long as the dog does not depend on them, they must respond to either a vocal or signal alone then it is both impressive and useful

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Steve
Dobes are like potato chips, you really can't have just one...

Thanks for finding us! We hope you feel welcome here! I don't start any formal training until about a year old giver or take a little, because I am a lazy trainer and it takes so much more work to work with young puppies. When you start later, they have a longer attention span and pick things up so much faster. It is easier on them as well, so don't get carried away trying to teach them all the tricks now. As far as reversing the fear issue, time can make up for a lot of it, but it is still healthy for a dog to know when they are really in trouble as long as they don't start submissive urination as that is another mess to clean and another bad habit to break. It is hard to raise puppies as you are seeing, I woulnd't add another one to the mix until you feel comfortable with the first and feel like you are reaching your goals. Adding another one to the mix just ads more variables and trouble and splits your training time. That's just my two bits :-)

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Steve
Dobes are like potato chips, you really can't have just one...

The extra time is very valuable, you can work on anything you would like to, but don't get too serious, still allow him to be a puppy. There are some ear crop threads if you search the box, but keep him busy and he will leave his ears alone for the most part, they get over it pretty quickly. Also elevated bowls are great but more for relif of the cervical vertabrae, feeding smaller portions more often and limiting activity after meals will prevent bloat or stomach twists.

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Steve
Dobes are like potato chips, you really can't have just one...