Suggestions for Coke ** NILIF people look at pg 5 **

Never met a dog that doesn't benefit from a good amount of mental stimulation.......

rare_bear

"Coke is not a sport dog at all, he's happier lounging on the couch or just playing fetch so he requires very little mental stimulation."

Boredom?

So which is it?  He's stressed by too much mental stimulation, or bored by a lack of?  I'm not following your posts....  Compared to Kenya, Coke is far more interested in fetch, running, playing with other dogs, and going for long walks.  He is not interested in rally, formal obedience, therapy training, Schutzhund, etc.   That is what I meant by mental stimulation, relative to Kenya who is in training 2-4 times a week and competing almost every weekend.  He's like an average family pet.  He requires a few hours of exercise, some mental games like toys, a few short training sessions each day.  He gets far more restless if he doesn't get enough exercise than if he's not doing mental stimulation like training.  Kenya is the opposite.

Liesje, I can't stress how important it is to have a good recall ......please, for sweet Coke's sake make that a priority......I would hate to hear that he got run over by a car because he got away from you and just bolted without looking back.......beginners agility can wait.....do it now before you get another dog.....I always feel all things should be tied up before starting a new project......

snownose

Liesje, I can't stress how important it is to have a good recall ......please, for sweet Coke's sake make that a priority......I would hate to hear that he got run over by a car because he got away from you and just bolted without looking back.......beginners agility can wait.....do it now before you get another dog.....I always feel all things should be tied up before starting a new project......

Oh it has always been the priority.  We have worked on it since day one, and his foster family worked on it before that.  He can be off leash (he used to go on hikes with them), just not around here b/c we live less than a mile from the busiest street in the state.  That's not a gamble I'm willing to make.  My friend invited us to the private dog park (huge piece of land but totally fenced) so we're going to work on it there, we just haven't set a date yet.  Again, we work on it a little everyday, but I can't force a dog to recall, it's just a matter of working at it and working at it, upping the distractions.

Tonight we had a big BBQ outdoors and he did really well.  He didn't try to get away and we did our daily training with everyone outside, and with food.  He did some recalls with us for his dog treats. 

I'm thinking of getting a whistle so that he can hear it better and we can practice more consistently when we take him to the fields where we run dogs off lead.  He has this squeaky toy that's really loud and annoying so maybe he will think the whistle game is fun. 

 I deal with this kind of situation all the time at the dog park. (I go almost every day with Eko, for 1-2 hours). Eko isn't a bully, but dogs come in who are. Like Coke, they aren't bad dogs, they are simply excited dogs who need boundaries. At our park, the owners of these dogs often don't provide those boundaries, and it gets highly annoying. So I've learned to take control of the situation. (Liesje, you are not that kind of owner. Not at all. You're the kind I love - someone engaging and working with their dog).

With bullying dogs, the best approach is to stop the behavior when it gets over the top. Bullying = no play. The key is to not remove the dog entirely, or they won't make the connection as well. For milder bullying, body blocks work well. They send a message. I do get in between the dog with the issue and whatever dog is being bothered. I do this for  Eko as well as with other dogs.

If body blocking by itself is too mild, I add verbal corrections with the body block. If that isn't getting through, I *will* grab the collar of the obnoxious dog and make it pause for a short time. If the dog were mine, time outs would probably be longer, but I'm not going to hold onto another person's dog unless a real fight is imminent.  In those rare cases I take the dog to the owner.

If Coke were mine, I would let him play with all sorts of dogs. When he crosses the line, grab him and give him 30 sec to 1 minute time out. The motivation is that he wants to play. If you have to grab him by the scruff, do it. He'll live! And he'll learn that certain behaviors mean play time stops. Other behaviors mean play time continues. The more time this happens in a play session, the more exposures he has to the lesson. And the faster he'll get it. You can also praise when he's playing well with dogs he wants to dominate.

I see this technique work frequently. With more pig headed dogs, it can take longer, and even once they "get it" they can occasionally forget themselves.

Don't worry. Coke can learn to deal with this. Recall is important, but I don't think recall under the amazing excitement of rough play is going to be the solution.

Its interesting - Shepherd mixes tend to be the biggest bully offenders at our park, followed by labs and large lab mixes.
  

Dog_ma

 I deal with this kind of situation all the time at the dog park. (I go almost every day with Eko, for 1-2 hours). Eko isn't a bully, but dogs come in who are. Like Coke, they aren't bad dogs, they are simply excited dogs who need boundaries. At our park, the owners of these dogs often don't provide those boundaries, and it gets highly annoying. So I've learned to take control of the situation. (Liesje, you are not that kind of owner. Not at all. You're the kind I love - someone engaging and working with their dog).

With bullying dogs, the best approach is to stop the behavior when it gets over the top. Bullying = no play. The key is to not remove the dog entirely, or they won't make the connection as well. For milder bullying, body blocks work well. They send a message. I do get in between the dog with the issue and whatever dog is being bothered. I do this for  Eko as well as with other dogs.

If body blocking by itself is too mild, I add verbal corrections with the body block. If that isn't getting through, I *will* grab the collar of the obnoxious dog and make it pause for a short time. If the dog were mine, time outs would probably be longer, but I'm not going to hold onto another person's dog unless a real fight is imminent.  In those rare cases I take the dog to the owner.

If Coke were mine, I would let him play with all sorts of dogs. When he crosses the line, grab him and give him 30 sec to 1 minute time out. The motivation is that he wants to play. If you have to grab him by the scruff, do it. He'll live! And he'll learn that certain behaviors mean play time stops. Other behaviors mean play time continues. The more time this happens in a play session, the more exposures he has to the lesson. And the faster he'll get it. You can also praise when he's playing well with dogs he wants to dominate.

I see this technique work frequently. With more pig headed dogs, it can take longer, and even once they "get it" they can occasionally forget themselves.

Don't worry. Coke can learn to deal with this. Recall is important, but I don't think recall under the amazing excitement of rough play is going to be the solution.

Its interesting - Shepherd mixes tend to be the biggest bully offenders at our park, followed by labs and large lab mixes.
  

Yeah I'm not quite comfortable taking him to the dog park yet, not until there's a consistent way of giving him time out when he's being inappropriate.  Often, he is the one that gets bullied, I guess it all depends on the dynamics.

I will try more body blocking and see if that sends the message.  Last time, I grabbed his hips and pulled him back.  I have grabbed him by the scruff before (in fact, just did since AGAIN my FIL walked out the door leaving it wide open).  I think I'll also try leaving a longer line on him, just not attached to anything else.  Then if I can't get in for a grab at least I can promptly pull him back so he doesn't learn to ignore the "no!"

Yes Coke is a large mix!  Probably some shepherd of some kind (Aussie?) and retriever. 

Boredom is EXTREMELY stressful and I can understand his frustration being manifested as "so-called" bullying.

It will be "interesting" to hear about how things go when you add a 3'rd dog.

rare_bear

Boredom is EXTREMELY stressful and I can understand his frustration being manifested as "so-called" bullying.

It will be "interesting" to hear about how things go when you add a 3'rd dog.

LOL, my dogs do more activities than pretty much all the dogs I know and a lot of the dogs on these boards.  If you'd like to come and observe our daily routine and let me know where they are getting bored.... 

First thought,  you are comparing apples to oranges  Playing with a boy is waaaaaaaaaaaaaay different from playing with an older Bi**h.  They simply don't take any crud they do not want to. I count on  my girls to set the limits in all play. If 15 month old nearly 90 lbs Zion gets too pushy the Raptors  about  60 -70 pounds and nearly  2 years old will pack and punish the dickens out of him.  Is Coke altered? any idea when that happened? at what age?  A late nueter can play a bit of havoc with latent issues.   Ay 13 Jasmine will playy with the 6 month old puppy as long as it is her idea when she is done it STOPS, a grumble or snarl pops out,, he becomes submissive and she head bumps him then wanders off for a nap.

Try teaching the EASY command and making him play on lead while you adjust his attitude, If he gets too rough play time stops , if he keeps it Easy play continues.

Bonita of Bwana

In his younger (and less socialized) months, Oliver would bully occasionally as well.  My trainer suggested the long leash and body blocking as well.  It took a little while, but eventually he caught on that Mom is watching and too rough means I don't get to play and do "watch me" exercises.  Now when he gets a bit overexcited in play, he'll pull himself away from the situation and look for me.  I give him the "good boy" praise each time.  It really gives him that nanosecond to take a deep breath and then get back to more appropriate play.  But, dang it took patience to get him there!

On the other topic of recall, we still struggle with this a bit.  He is great as long as no high value items (cats, squirrels and furry others who "need killing";) are in sight OR if we are in our normal places.  Furry things or new places, his brain sorta shuts off.  To combat this, I've made it a point to take him to random places so we can walk around and practice his attention skills.  Sometimes, this means not even getting 10 feet away from the car, doing attention work and then getting back in and going home.  He is getting better, but he just requires more repetition than other dogs I've trained.  Hopefully the outcome of this will be a dog with superb recall in any situation and a higher level of patience for myself!

Good luck, I follow your posts and know that you put a lot of effort into your dogs!

I wish Justin could come over so we could try these things!  Hopefully class is not rained out on Monday and we can try again.  We did have a 10 week old puppy over last night and Coke did pretty well.  He was a little over-excited at all the people (oh an the FOOD), but he gave the pup some space and did a lot of sniffing.  When he wanted to play he would charge over to Kenya and get her going.  A few times the puppy got in on it and his parents pulled him back, but mostly it was the puppy running into the play and the pup never did any yelps to tell Coke to stop.  They thought Coke was too rough but my SIL who is more experienced with dog play said it was fine and they should not have pulled the puppy out, especially if he never yelped or indicated he wanted out.  He would play bow and pounce on Coke's nose.  A 10 week old Basset play bowing is quite hilarious! 

don't take this wrong, but I think you have a serious relationship problem with both of your dogs. You report Kenya has no play or food drive, and Coke runs away from you and has no interest in "playing" all sorts of things like obedience, rally, etc. with you. Dogwise just put out a new book by Pat Miller on how to play with your dog- maybe you should check it out and stop the serious training. Dogs who don't enjoy playing with their owners more than doing anything else are of concern to me.

Sounds like a pretty successful play session!  Hang in there with him.  Sometimes the baby steps needed are a LOT smaller than we want.

I think that it is the adventure of owning a rescue dog, learning their skills and their quirks.  I got Oliver when he was three months old, but I suspect he may have been separated early or not been socialized enough as a very young pup.  The first few months were a trial with him because he had very little bite inhibition.  No amount of making loud noises, yelping or ignoring seemed to work on him - if anything it agitated him further.  I finally put on some heavy sweats and employed NILIF - biting me makes me leave the room and ignore you until you calm down.  It worked, but I have a shredded pair of pants and a top that prove it didn't happen overnight. 

mudpuppy

don't take this wrong, but I think you have a serious relationship problem with both of your dogs. You report Kenya has no play or food drive, and Coke runs away from you and has no interest in "playing" all sorts of things like obedience, rally, etc. with you. Dogwise just put out a new book by Pat Miller on how to play with your dog- maybe you should check it out and stop the serious training. Dogs who don't enjoy playing with their owners more than doing anything else are of concern to me.

When did I say Kenya has NO play or food drive?  If I said she has NO drive I mistyped.  She was fetching a ball yesterday and worked for a grilled brat this afternoon.  I guess there is a miscommunication b/c when I mention Kenya's drive I am thinking of it in terms relative to the drive of a really good working line GSD.  Relative to that, she does not have enough ball drive or tug to make a good Schutzhund dog, not NO drive.  You can develop it all you want, but a certain amount of it has to be inherent in order for the dog to be successful at SchH.  We do a little agility together every day and she has enough prey drive and ball drive to chase balls and fetch stuffies with me.  She trains for food for a few minutes every other day but does not have enough food motivation to work for it when she is stressed.  She just does not have the right temperament for SchH which is why we do rally, obedience, agility, and herding.  And yes, we have playtime everyday as soon as I get home.  Toys, both dogs in the yard for as long as it takes until they get pooped.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfpe2wcBXg4 

Coke likes playing period, as in, fetching, running around chasing us, tugging.  He's young and energetic so something like rally or obedience just doesn't hold his attention like a good hour of fetch games or some tug.  I don't think a dog HAS to be focused on formal dog sports in order to be considered a playful dog or bonding with the owner.  Yes, he would much rather play ball with DH or play with other dogs than participate in rally exercises.  If that makes me a bad owner, so be it.