Sled dog breeding

[dainerra]

Quote:
what you are doing sounds like a great start. it's possible that she will go back to her normal self once her heat cycle is over. However, I would make sure that she is crated when no adults are home and wouldn't leave the dogs outside together completely unsupervised. I just didn't want you to say "oh her heat cycle is over and she is acting her normal old self again" and trust her too soon. I'd NILIF the crap out of all of them (and the hubby ) There are actually few dogs who want to be dominant over people. Like humans, 99% or more are happy to just follow the crowd and let someone else take responsibility. Yes, like Starfire said, dogs will have their own hierarchy and, despite all the people who will say to the contrary, humans have little say in who is "top dog" As the human, you can reinforce the behavior you expect and you can "back up" the existing top dog if you want by feeding first and other tokens like that. However, if you think Dog A shouldn't be top dog you can't place Dog B in that position by giving special favors - that will only encourage squabbles and fighting. Often, you will find that Dog B doesn't WANT to be top dog and will resist your efforts to show special favor. I've seen that a lot with new dog owners. They bring in a new dog that is a more dominant personality but try to push the older, more submissive dog to be top dog and end up creating a lot of fights. If you have two dominant dogs that both insist on fighting for the position, you can train manageable behavior. Fighting and posturing isn't allowed and you need to redirect them to more appropriate behaviors in your presence. I don't allow staring, humping, posturing and other dominant behaviors between my dogs or towards other dogs. I redirect their attention elsewhere with a strong "leave it" and I expect it to be obeyed. If not, the dog goes into a "time out" and is removed from the situation. Study up on your dog body language and head things off at the pass. A lot of times, I will talk to people who say "Fluffy is always attacking JoJo for no reason. We're going to have to rehome Fluffy." However, when an experienced person watches the dogs interact, they find that JoJo is the one who is actually instigating the fights - Fluffy is merely the dog who throws the first punch. They are shocked at all of the body language and "discussion" they missed between their dogs. Not saying that is you but I bet it could be your husband. I know mine can be pretty clueless about such things.

 

[Starfire669]

YAY!! welcome to agility. My husky does it on days I can run her. my black lab does it to burn fat. My brown lab does competition, and border will soon as well

Last night only my youngest son and I went, but we took the 3 dogs at the trainers recommendation. I was having my son work both Rascal and Sasha at agility. Phantom was watching, then broke loos from me and followed rascal through the tunnel and over the jumps with his leash trailing. Trainer said get in here and work him, lol. I really didn't want to do agility, my back is killing me this morning. But the dog is high energy, athletiic, and fearless. The agility coarse also made him a lot more manageable and obedient, so looks like Phantom wins this round, lol.

 

[Starfire669]

Quote:
what you are doing sounds like a great start. it's possible that she will go back to her normal self once her heat cycle is over. However, I would make sure that she is crated when no adults are home and wouldn't leave the dogs outside together completely unsupervised. I just didn't want you to say "oh her heat cycle is over and she is acting her normal old self again" and trust her too soon. I'd NILIF the crap out of all of them (and the hubby ) There are actually few dogs who want to be dominant over people. Like humans, 99% or more are happy to just follow the crowd and let someone else take responsibility. Yes, like Starfire said, dogs will have their own hierarchy and, despite all the people who will say to the contrary, humans have little say in who is "top dog" As the human, you can reinforce the behavior you expect and you can "back up" the existing top dog if you want by feeding first and other tokens like that. However, if you think Dog A shouldn't be top dog you can't place Dog B in that position by giving special favors - that will only encourage squabbles and fighting. Often, you will find that Dog B doesn't WANT to be top dog and will resist your efforts to show special favor. I've seen that a lot with new dog owners. They bring in a new dog that is a more dominant personality but try to push the older, more submissive dog to be top dog and end up creating a lot of fights. If you have two dominant dogs that both insist on fighting for the position, you can train manageable behavior. Fighting and posturing isn't allowed and you need to redirect them to more appropriate behaviors in your presence. I don't allow staring, humping, posturing and other dominant behaviors between my dogs or towards other dogs. I redirect their attention elsewhere with a strong "leave it" and I expect it to be obeyed. If not, the dog goes into a "time out" and is removed from the situation. Study up on your dog body language and head things off at the pass. A lot of times, I will talk to people who say "Fluffy is always attacking JoJo for no reason. We're going to have to rehome Fluffy." However, when an experienced person watches the dogs interact, they find that JoJo is the one who is actually instigating the fights - Fluffy is merely the dog who throws the first punch. They are shocked at all of the body language and "discussion" they missed between their dogs. Not saying that is you but I bet it could be your husband. I know mine can be pretty clueless about such things.

My hubby is clueless about dog body language. There have been many times I have called the dogs off and he didn't even know something was wrong. I have explained over and over about head, ears, tail, eyes, and how important they are in dog behavior/language. He still takes them out, together and then sits and plays poker on his phone or something. It really irritates the crap outta me. Dawn has never liked Fiona. Fiona don't want to be dominant, she just won't submitt, it's a Rott thing. Fiona has the attitude, I don't care what you do, but leave me alone or I'll tear you apart. So when Dawn gives Fiona the look, or tries to force submission from Fiona, Dawn ends up getting hurt. And the idiot never learns. Fiona is a great dog, when I am taking Dawn out I can give Fiona a voice command to back up and she will. Not so for my hubby, which is why he has to send Fiona, Rascal, and Cheyenne into other rooms or crate them when doing anything with Dawn at this point. Rascal is also voice trained. I also think part of the problem was Dawn loves to go out. I took Rascal, Sasha, Phantom, but left her home, which made her mad. On top of that my hubby had Dawn, Fiona, and Cheyenne loose in the house together while we were gone. We already knew Dawn tried to bully Fiona, and Cheyenne is also in heat so i told him to just keep the 3 girls apart. Or at most put Cheyenne with Fiona as Fiona makes Cheyenne feel more confident. (Cheyenne is a fearful dog, no socialization at all before i got her. Fiona protects Cheyenne, some bond going on there.) He says everything was fine until I dropped the 3 dogs I had with me off and ran after some milk and bread. That's when the fight happened. I usually don't rehab very aggressive dogs, because of the dangers involved with my kids. So when I rescue a dog I never get a aggressive one. I have done fearful dogs, dogs with no socialization, and all were poorly trained.

 

[Starfire669]

I am not a professional trainer. What I know about dogs comes from being raised with them from the cradle. I got connected to 1 trainer doing conformation, he recommended taking my son, who was with me into obedience and doing it with him. So now I have an qualified professional trainer who is willing and in fact eager to help me with Dawn. As soon as her heat is over she and I are going for some 1 on 1 instruction to get her straightened out. Eventually I will have to take the whole pack so he can see the social interactions between them.

My hubby was so clueless about dog behavior he thought the other dogs were starting the fights. Never saw Dawn giving the death look before crap happened. Now he is starting to realize that Dawn isn't his innocent angel.

 

[dainerra]

I'm more worried about bringing fearful dogs into a home with children than dog aggressive ones.
My daughter got in the middle of a dog fight and got a huge bruise on her calf. Thankfully it wasn't worse. Dog aggressive is pretty easy to manage as long as everyone follows the rules. Human aggressive dogs I see no reason to try to rehab - there are just too many great dogs in need of homes.

 

[SternRose]

I am not a professional trainer. What I know about dogs comes from being raised with them from the cradle. I got connected to 1 trainer doing conformation, he recommended taking my son, who was with me into obedience and doing it with him. So now I have an qualified professional trainer who is willing and in fact eager to help me with Dawn. As soon as her heat is over she and I are going for some 1 on 1 instruction to get her straightened out. Eventually I will have to take the whole pack so he can see the social interactions between them.

My hubby was so clueless about dog behavior he thought the other dogs were starting the fights. Never saw Dawn giving the death look before crap happened. Now he is starting to realize that Dawn isn't his innocent angel.

I've seen this with other dogs,
Ok if my tips are going to be any good you'll need to have a mutral ground( inside a warehouse is good) were none of your dogs have ever gone. Is this possible? It doesn't have to be inside but it has to be quite with no distractions.

 

[dainerra]

for the professional trainer to be able to give hints, he really needs to observe them at home. Dogs will interact differently outside their home turf. I would have him observe the dogs in both places if possible.

 

[SternRose]

I've seen this with other dogs,
Ok if my tips are going to be any good you'll need to have a mutral ground( inside a warehouse is good) were none of your dogs have ever gone. Is this possible? It doesn't have to be inside but it has to be quite with no distractions.

Ignore me, lol, I read it AFTER I typed this. I should read first

 

[Starfire669]

I'm more worried about bringing fearful dogs into a home with children than dog aggressive ones.
My daughter got in the middle of a dog fight and got a huge bruise on her calf. Thankfully it wasn't worse. Dog aggressive is pretty easy to manage as long as everyone follows the rules. Human aggressive dogs I see no reason to try to rehab - there are just too many great dogs in need of homes.

There is fearful, and fear aggressive. I have worked with both, not the easiest thing in the world. Rascal was fear aggressive towards dark skinned men only. He loves women and children of any color. I spent a whole year working him, and he now greets all strangers properly. I have to take him out every once in a while as a refresher coarse, but he has come along great. Cheyenne is fearful. She was terrified of grass, humans, other dogs. She is very loving of my family. She is very and skittish around people, she hides behind or between my legs. I never force her to meet someone, and I don't allow people to crowd her. But when she does come out to sniff someone hand, I reward her and make a big deal out of it. Getting her to socialize with other dogs is harder, she does fine with my pack. But strange dogs terrify her. What seems to help is to take her with either Sasha (very well balanced submissive dog) or Rascal (obedient and confident) and go to someone who has well behaved friendly dogs. (Fiona isn't good for this because she is highly protective of Cheyenne, Cheyenne gets distressed and Fiona gets upset.) In this way she has a confidence boost from her pack member, and I know the dog won't scare the daylights out of her.

Cheyenne has never shown any hint of fear aggression, poor thing pees herself. So I am working with her to build her confidence and give her social skills.

However this cap with Dawn has set me back a bit with Cheyenne.

 

[Starfire669]

for the professional trainer to be able to give hints, he really needs to observe them at home. Dogs will interact differently outside their home turf. I would have him observe the dogs in both places if possible.

We both know that. But right now the plan is to work her by herself, see if we can get her balanced again. The pack will get group training at the facility and at home. But since she escalated so fast we are trying to be cautious. If she did get jealous because I left her, then I have to show her some personal time as well. She may not be as confident in our devotion to her as I thought. Usually when a dog goes wrong, it's the owners fault. I did something to unhinge her. Her heat is probably making this worse. I'm thinking pregnant woman syndrome, where the smallest things make her cry type of deal. She is a dog, not a human, but is very hormonal right now. So she will get some 1 on 1 training with me, then we can start trying to work her with some of the pack, then the whole pack. It's going to be a very long, slow process to get her stable again.