surchinmy
Ultra ALPHA
Nov 19, 2004, 9:55 PM
Views: 2808
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Hi ...
Issue A: "... He growl whenever we try to touch his food bowl while he's eating and he did snapped at me once when I try to remove his bowl. He's feed twice a day and sometimes we did hand-feed him too but the situation never improved. However, I'm surprise he did let our other dog to eat his food from his bowl and never attempted to protect his food. Besides, he's also very independent, smart and alert. Most dogs are afraid of loud noise i.e. thunder, fireworks but not him. He knows the command "sit", "stay", "heel", "hand" but I guess he always wanted to challenge us thus barking at us when we commanded him to do something ..."
Issue B: ".... The situation got worse when we adopted a female dog. Eventhough he's fully toilet trained, he'll pee and poo everywhere just to get our attention. He's 9 months old, feed twice a day but he'll poo 3-4 times a day especially when we ignore his barking or walking the other dog. I've try walking him first before walking the other dog but he'll still bark non-stop. He was neutered when he was 7 months old and we thought his attitute will improved but it remains the same ..."
You dog has strong protective/possession instincts ... These instincts will show themselves with food, toys, other dogs and even sometimes other people ... and you have basically 2 issues that overlap ... and you will probably have to work on both simultaneously ...
I suspect that you will need to address the issues at the same time ... and improvement in Issue A will also improve Issue B
The first step is to arm yourself with enough information and knowledge about having a multiple dog household ... There are many books available that help with this ... Try checking these out:
www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0793830885/qid=1100839814/sr=1-10/ref=sr_1_10/104-5877680-2223923?v=glance&s=books
www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1891767062/ref=pd_bxgy_text_1/104-5877680-2223923?v=glance&s=books&st=*
www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/189176702X/ref=pd_bxgy_text_1/104-5877680-2223923?v=glance&s=books&st=*
Alternatively ... many dog training books have one chapter on dog heirachy & reaction to other dogs within the pack ...
ISSUE A: Food Possession
There are many various methods to teach & recondition food possessiveness ...
Getting a handle on your dog's food possessiveness is VERY IMPORTANT ... Once you can get a dog to recognise that YOU can handle its food - a whole host of other potential issues/difficulties/problems ALSO get sorted out ... Because, if a dog allows you to handle its food - then that shows that the dog recognises you as its leader and almost immediately ... issues of dominance & heirachy are also resolved or at least reduced substantially ...
The basic method to recondition food possession will involve the following steps:
(i) You must first teach the command ... sit & wait ... Also remember the very process of training is establishing responsible leadership - regular training sessions almost always helps in a general and effective sense!
(ii) Make the dog sit & wait ... Put the food bowl down ... And you must teach the dog that it CANNOT eat the food until you give release command ... "OK" ... This part of training will require use of collar & leash.
Train the sit, wait & release ... with the command "NO".
(iii) Once you are sure your dog has learned the sit & stay well and only eats on release - you must REINFORCE this until your dog will do it 99 times out of 100 ...
Then you will have to progressively ... teach the dog to let you handle its food ... Everytime the dog growls ... the command NO is given and the food taken immediately AWAY! ...
Once everything has calmed down - you offer the food - and repeat all over ... If the dog has to go hungry - then so be it.
I know you mentioned that you have tried this before ... BUT you need to start AGAIN ... using correct teaching methods ...
As previously mentioned - stray/rescues - are often very intelligent and strong-willed ... so you must be FAIR but VERY FIRM ... when you give command - expect the command to be obeyed EVERYTIME ... Your dog will push you, but you must remain firm and consistent ... CONSISTENCY is the key ...
Dogs find it easy to understand 'yes' and 'no' - it's when owners introduce the 'maybe' & 'sometimes', that causes confusion!
Do remember ... reconditioning a dog can take weeks and months - but it must be done (if you wish a peaceful household) ... and you must do it very gradually and slowly ... Reconditioning is unlike normal training ... in reconditioning you are teaching a dog to OVERCOME an established habit to replace it with a new condition - this is always slow patient work!
And there are many variations to the basic techniques - it is not possible to set out all the various methods for reconditioning in this post ... and some methods will work better for some dogs ... you will need to experiment ...
Get a good dog training manual ... Suggest you check these out:
www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1888047054/ref=pd_sim_b_4/104-5877680-2223923?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance
www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A383ABZY40JIYO/ref=cm_cr_auth/104-5877680-2223923?%5Fencoding=UTF8
As a start - to understand reconditioning - check this thread ... www.puppy.com.my/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=108691;search_string=reconditioning;#108691
ISSUE B: People Possession
To effectively deal with this issue ... you need to learn and understand how dogs see themselves, other dogs & people within a household with more than one dog ...
There is more to this than just the usual being alpha or being assertive etc ... the entire relationship between dogs & people and other dogs can be very intense and complicated ...
Once again ... we go back to carrying out basic training to establish a relationship of responsible leadership.
What is also important is (a) deciding which dog is higher in ranking (b) and then you must handle the dogs according to the order of that ranking ... And to do this - you have to let the dogs together and let them sort it out themselves ... you need to recognise the ranking they have established ...
For example: If the male dog is higher in ranking than the female dog - then you must always treat the male dog first, walk the male dog first etc ... and this must be consistent with all matters (and not just who gets to go on walks first)
... If you don't keep the order, then complications can arise.
The fact that your male dog allows the female to eat from its bowl, is significant - your male dog probably has no issue with the female dog (and that they have probably already sorted out their positions vis-a-vis one another) - and your male dog only has issue in its relationship with you and/or other humans in the household ...
If your female is an adult, then I suspect that given the opportunity (when you let the dogs together) - your female may actually help sort out the situation for you. The adult female dog may teach the young male dog how to behave.
So ... overall ... get as much information & knowledge as possible.
(a) Commence basic training with both dogs.
(b) Sort out food possession with male dog.
(c) Allow the dogs to interact one with the other to sort out their positions within the household - Allow the dogs to settle issues between themselves ... if they growl at each other in the beginning - its okay ... If you are not sure about this, get experienced doggie people to give you a hand.
Once they have settled issues - then you handle the dogs accordingly.
Always be fair but firm and consistent with both dogs.
Cheers
(This post was edited by surchinmy on Nov 19, 2004, 10:19 PM)
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