Looking for advice from dog trainers/ behaviorists pretty please

[HorseFeatherz NV]

He was a perfect doll when you visited and wonderful with the chickens, ducks and geese.





I thought he was a wonderful ambassador for his breed.

 

[aubreynoramarie]

Wow thank you! That feels really awesome to hear! <3

 

[Jamie_Dog_Trainer]

Hmm ok at the moment of the growl when he's sleeping and someone touches him. Gosh, see I am trying to give a solution to the entire problem of his fear. Just ONE of the growling incidents are when he's sleeping. There are numerous other situations when he growls and lots of other times when he's afraid. Fear is his issue. Not growling. He's growling as a means of communicating his fear.

So the solution to his fear is behavior modification. That will take care of his growling. Period. (if done correctly, systematically, and with lots of time and practice)

Ok so what would I do if he growled at me when he's been startled awake. I would make this situation happen again and again. But to modify just this one thing I would have a good food reward handy and (while hes awake) touch him on the flank with the word "touch!", then when he looks or even startles IMMEDIATELY give a food reward before he even has time to process what is going on. The touch, your voice command and the food should happen (nearly) at the same time. After practicing this over and over and over, and when you KNOW he's understanding that touching his flank he gets a peice of cheese or hotdog. I want him to think the touch means hot dog, not startle. Repeat training with other body parts, head, leg, tail, belly.

Then you start when he's sleeping, next to you. Have him on leash and put in a movie and have your food reward handy. Watch your movie, wait till he loses interest and falls asleep. Gently say Touch! then touch, then shove that food in his mouth before he can consider growling at you. Repeat, repeat, repeat. This is behavior mod, but only for this scenario. It doesn't touch on the role leadership plays in behavior mod, and I can't stress enough that roll that can be learned and solidified through Behavior Mod.

The first thing you can do is stop touching him when he sleeps though, seriously. If you want a fix for this you have to do some pre-training like i outlined.

 

[aubreynoramarie]

Thank you!!!!

. I will have the boyfriend read that when we get home so we can get on the same page.

Thanks everyone

 

[aubreynoramarie]

Oh and sorry didn't answer your question, no he's not a generally fearful do and there aren't numerous situations where he is afraid. Mainly it's the sleeping thing. Sometimes when we go to the pet store he gets tense, and he is afraid of hing that lean against walls, such as a picture in a frame. If his ball rolls up to a picture leaning on the wall he barks at it then very carefully retrieves said ball and runs away. The latter two things have not resulted in growling, just the sleepingthing and he growled at me one time while I was givin him a bath, then all the otthertimes afterwards he just gets tense with ears back ( but loves to hucklebutt around the house after said bath). He gets tense like that when exciteable dogs are around him too, which is why it was established that he is insecure.

I know the thing that happened with the trainer as a pup was fear based. She was clipping his nails and he freaked. We have never clipped his nails agan just because they've never needed it, they wear down. And when he's at the vets he gets happy and excited in the office, but very tense when examined. Has never growled at orbitten the vet thigh.

 

[aubreynoramarie]

Once again sorry for the typos! I'm on my phone !!

 

[Jamie_Dog_Trainer]

LOL its ok.

forgive my fast typing and hard to understand way of saying a lot of things. Sometimes i re-read my posts and go "wow, no one is going to get what I am saying".

 

[aubreynoramarie]

Hahaha sometimes this phone runs words together or corrects words with completely irrelivent words or I won't hit the button hard enough and I'll miss letters and I just think to myself " people are gonna think I don't speak English very well..."

 

[Jamie_Dog_Trainer]

LOL I hate that about typing on a phone. I sent my sister a rather long text one day. I was using my Itap program on my phone, you know, the program that automatically places a word it thinks you are typing. Well...her response was "care to translate that and get back to me?" I read it and the word "dont" was foot instead twice and a couple other words didn't make any sense either. LOL

 

[aubreynoramarie]

I'm glad someone feels my pain!