She screwed up this time...

[Cindiloohoo]

Quote:
Cindi, you know I love ya..... but "she won't touch anything she got in trouble over for at least an hour"? Only an hour? I prefer the school of thought that the dog either be permanently trained or not ever be allowed to transgress again.

Both of my dogs are kept 2 fences away from the birds. AND the birds are in a secure run. When the birds are free ranging, the dogs are in the house.

That's why I said more traing WITH the birds. It DOES take 1500+ times of the same command before a dog will NEVER do it again. Guess I wasn't clear on that point...I'm high on Benadryl right now. Stupid allergies

The best training is to prevent mischeif, then if mischeif ensues....have a back up security engrained in the dogs little pea brain...like they are only 'allowed' around the chooks with Alpha, never alone. That will make them uncomfortable getting themselves back in that situation to begin with IF the door is left open again etc.

 

[badwolf7914]

she does great with them when accompanied by us, but when she found herself out alone she apparently couldn't help herself. The teens never believe us about needing to stop and close the doors, they still think it was the dog's fault not theirs when they went to school and didn't shut it all the way. So we are planning to make them dig the holes and burry the hen and the mallard duck that passed this afternoon. We're still mad at the dog, but we plan to get a lot stricter about door issues. We already had turned the front door into a self closing one this past weekend and put a new glass door up. The basement one has to get pushed shut or slammed. They get lazy about it. No punishment worked, but maybe seeing one of their ducks dead will sit with them now. the dog was a shelter dog that had been rescued from a field. There is no telling what she had gotten in to before her capture that she may have been longing for when she found herself alone with them. From the looks of things she was only trying to rough house them and one got the dog's teeth sunk in to her neck. The rest were just very wet and shaken up. But, that is not acceptable behavior, so more riggerous taining is in store for her. wish we could locate the missing hen that hasn't returned or been spotted. We've gotten a lot of progress with all of the training we have done with her...she was a holy terror when we first adopted her in April...

 

[BorderKelpie]

I'm sorry you lost birds. It's a horrible thing to happen.
No, it's not the dog's fault as you know. Please make sure the teens don't take it out on her. I'm sure you're aware of that. My DD had a hard time forgiving the dog after a misdeed many years ago. I understand being angry, but she took to picking on the dog about it. I had to try to explain to a very young child about instincts, etc. My DD understands all that now, but for a while there I was worried about the damage to the kid/dog bond.
Pack structure/leadership and obedience training with the precautions you have already done with the door improvements will be the best way to go IMHO.
Also, having the kids dig the holes - brilliant, sounds like the stuff I do for lessons.

(now, off topic for Royd: That wouldn't be a Coolie in that pic you posted, is it? I have two that look a lot like that dog. Beautiful, BTW.)

Best wishes!

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Need to find a way to fix the basement door so that it closes and latches on its own; if you have to slam it to get it to latch, it may be warped or misaligned. You need self-closing & latching hinges on the gate, too

 

[badwolf7914]

Quote:
we have a house we bought fot the acreage. It was cheap and a great deal. We'll rebuild in several years when we can afford to. Oddly after purchase and remodeling we made a discovery that the house is two old mill houses that were put on the land in the late 60s together as one house over a basement. We have jacked up the floor, and tried to fix crooked made doorways in this house, and now it does that on the basement one and the whole wall is crooked. The house were not set level and the back half is set on at a slight angle. So now that the floor was jacked up right the wall and doorway the people had made to connect the houses where the steps are hinder a door properly closing without effort.

way I see it is that my hubby needs to take responsibility as well for knowing that and start closing the basement garage door and move his stuff around so he can. If the door stands the chance of getting left cracked open, then I think there needs to be a barrier in the basement to where she'd only make it down there and not outside.

now here's the interesting part today... this morning I discovered the door to the basement pushed shut as hard as it could go. Interesting what happens when the boy's duck died after yesterday mornings events.