Is this Domiance?

FourIsCompany

Have you never had a willful dog? One who asks, "What's in it for me"?

I have a hound.  What do you think?     He's acted this way since I met him at 6 weeks old and he bit my nose. 

FourIsCompany

Did you read the first post?

Absolutely.  The difference is, I don't play the games the dog wants to play.  I set the rules for the game.  My dog doesn't.  Play begins and ends when I say, not the other way around.  

When Xerxes was continually testing me, much the same as Gaia did as well, I would simply refuse to play their game.  I would begin my own game.  My game was doggy pushups.  Whoever played the game got attention.  Whoever didn't play the game got NO attention.  

FourIsCompany

Not all dogs obey every command, even though they know them well. You may not have experience with this. but catering to the dog by finding a command he's willing to follow isn't the way some of us want to go

No, but catering to the "testing" dog is playing the game that they just made and following the rules that the dog has established.  I don't play that way.  I established early on that a "sit" has to be 100% reliable indoors.  A 100% reliable off is also a necessity.  My dogs know this.  My cat even knows the "off" with 100% reliability. 

With a self-serving dog, it's not a test of "alpha-dom" it's a test of stubbornness.  If the methods that one is using to motivate this dog to follow commands aren't working, then one needs to find other motivators that work with better reliability.
 

Dgriego,

I don't question your competence at all.  I'm simply trying to provide a different perspective.  I know what it's like to have a "hard" dog.  But further than that, imagine if Hektor was also "soft" in that he could shut down quite easily.  That's what I deal with every day.

 I have had to become super creative in my approaches and hopefully that comes through in my posts. 

I completely understand about having a dog that disregards it's own safety-after having an Akita in the family for 10+ years.  It's never easy when situations pop up that should be easy to handle, but for one reason or another the underlying reasons for the behavior are hard to identify-and thus necessitating creativity in the approach to solving the problem.

 For an example, my dog LOVES the chair, the couch and the bed.  But the second that I indicate that I'm going to sit on any of them he'll literally fly off of whichever.  I worked pretty hard to get him to this point-mostly by doing what I stated in my post. 

Xerxes

You were not one of the few that that was directed at. Your input is appreciated and considered. Your hounds have some similarities as in they are independent.

 Hektor listens and responds well to me, he does not always listen to the DH or he responds slowly to DH and he responds even more slowly to one of my sons, the other gets responses similar to mine. He and I are the true dog people in the family, the DH and the other son just do not get it and most likely never will. They love the dogs but they would be equally happy in a home with no dogs. Josh and I would die in a home with no dogs.

 I think that the big problem is the inconsistency of other family members. I work with Hektor over a weekend and get him back in shape, during the week they allow him to slip and this results in him arriving at the conclusion that this behavior is okay and thus we start the cycle all over again. Because he is stubborn and willful the results of the inconsistencies are more apparent than with Gunnar since Gunnar just wants everyone to be happy and will do whatever is asked of him, so to allow him to slip does not cause the issues that it does with Hektor.

 My family is getting better, mainly because I have preached that Hektor requires their consistency for his own safety. He has the potential to hurt someone and everyone must be consistent in how the handle him and he must know that a command from any family member is to be obeyed. Gunnar running out the front door and greeting a strange dog is not much of a problem; Hektor doing it is scary if that dog should react adversely to his approach. Gunnar slipping up and jumping on someone entering the house is easily addressed and no big issue, Hektor doing it scares the crap out of people.

anyway thanks for your input

dgriego

 I think that the big problem is the inconsistency of other family members.

Yeah, that's a big ouch. You get left doing remedial work to make up for their actions. One of the things I always say about why I love dogs is that often my dogs are the only family members who listen to me.   Heh.

What I found with Ivan is that it did get better with time, but there was no turning point. It was slow and steady. Honestly, if Ivan hadn't been a threat to my own safety, he'd have been a great dog - the kind of dog that makes you a better owner/trainer because they are so smart and willful. Such a shame the litter lost their mom so early, and were broken up too soon.

Hektor reminds me a lot of Ivan's great parts. I didn't always enjoy those parts, but I loved them, if that makes sense. 

snownose

spiritdogs

Call the dog - he doesn't come   He gets reeled in gently, but I show him the nice tripe he could have had if he had simply come when I called, but I don't give him any.  I let him get distracted again.  (This can take a while - after all, it was tripe).  Then, I call again.  Dog comes to get the tripe, and he gets it for 20 seconds!!! (Count - it's a long time to reward a dog).  Dog learns "when I hear the come word, she might have something really good for me". 

 

What if the distraction is a bigger reward than the tripe ?

If a dog's recall is not fluent it does fall apart if there is a significant distraction.  If it is fluent, it is not going to extinguish in the presence or absence of distractions.  To make the behavior fluent in the first place requires us to work around distractions that are, at first, mild - so that the dog is set up for success.  In my example above, I don't mean that we allow the dog to be distracted by something huge, only that I am waiting for his attention to be drawn away from me & the tripe momentarily.  To teach a good recall, we need to make sure that the dog is responding quickly and reliably without distractions first. Then, the distractions are gradually increased, both in terms of difficulty and distance, so that the dog becomes fluent at each level, only increasing the difficulty when the dog performs reliably at each level.  We do not just let heavy distractions surprise the dog - the trainer should control each training session and gradually increase the distraction without the dog having many "misses".  When you do that, the dog is so conditioned to respond that he does so despite distractions.  He has learned that there really is no choice, but it's been a pretty painless and gradual lesson.

Dog_ma

What I found with Ivan is that it did get better with time, but there was no turning point. It was slow and steady. Honestly, if Ivan hadn't been a threat to my own safety, he'd have been a great dog - the kind of dog that makes you a better owner/trainer because they are so smart and willful. Such a shame the litter lost their mom so early, and were broken up too soon.

Hektor reminds me a lot of Ivan's great parts. I didn't always enjoy those parts, but I loved them, if that makes sense. 

Dog_ma I would love to hear more about Ivan as I have heard you speak of him from time to time but I do not know the full story. If you have time and are willing I would love to hear more.