Perfect Dogs!

Nikki is a pretty good girl usually, she's as lazy as a greyhound while in the house and just wanders around outside.  She does have her issues though...her most annoying is barking at the doorbell.  I don't have a problem with a few warning barks, but she never stops [:@]  It's like her chest gets full of growls that she just can't keep in.  She knows it's a "no-no" because she tries to hide it and she gets the most shameful look on her face, but at the same time there are little growls coming out of her all the while.  We've tried so many different methods of training her out of this, but none have worked.  Once she sniffs the person at the door she's fine unless they go into another room and then walks back into sight - if it's anyone who is slightly scary looking (usually big tall/burly men) she'll erupt into howls all over again.  Another of her minor issues is that her recall isn't the best (UNLESS you have a treat and she knows it - then it's instant).  But she's irritatingly slow when it's time to take her out to potty before bed.  She's usually all comfy in her bed and does NOT want to get up.  You have to stand at the door and call her and her little eyes will open and she'll stare at you and not move.  Then you call her again and she'll keep staring.  And after a few more tries you finally have to give an exasperated "NIKKI!" and ever sooo slowly she'll get up, streeetch out twice, walk over to her water bowl, take a nice looooooong drink and then sloowly walk over to you.  I swear she does it on purpose [>:]

Cairo is fearful of other dogs and, while he's never hurt one, he gets snarly around them.  If we let him go up to another dog he gets stiff and will snap if that dog does anything to encroach on Cairo's precious space.  If I try to pet another dog Cairo gets huffy and will go after it.  He's never been in a fight before so I don't know how much of this is just for show (I suspect a lot of it is), but needless to say we don't let him interact with other dogs.  It's a real shame really because if he *was* ok with other dogs he'd have a ball at the dog park.  He LOVES playing with Nikki and I think he'd really have fun running in a pack of dogs.  There was ONE incident when we were first testing his dog park manners when he got friendly with a little terrier mix and they played chase for a while and it was just the sweetest thing.  But every other time his manners are not nice enough to allow him to be at the dog park. []  He also has to copy Nikki at EVERYTHING, especially the barking.  When she growls at anything, he howls tenfold, so whenever the doorbell rings in our house...cover your ears!!

ETA:  THEY BOTH EAT CAT POOP.  And barf.  EWWWW.  If they hear a cat wretching they come running like someone rang the dinner bell [:'(]  Oh and Cairo will occasionally bring something dead into the house.  One time he did a wonderful job of being sneaky about it...he waited at the door all patient like so I let him in and he walked nicely past and into the living room, and I noticed his lips looked ever so slightly different, so I paused and watched him for a second and he started moving his mouth around and slowly dropped a delicious mouse head onto the rug.  Mmm.

OK here goes;  All related to being too happy, too friendly, too big & powerful, and too high of energy!  If he were 20lbs and not 95lbs it wouldn't bother most people (still me though!)

• goes insane when people visit -its a love thang but he is way too big and way to powerful to get that excited!  And no matter how long they stay, he stays excited.  Work continues.....
• still pulls on walks about 10-15% of the time - again too big and too strong to deal with
• mouthy when he plays - sometimes, gets too excited (there's a theme here) and that's when it starts
  
• selective obedience - ex. his recall is great ...unless he doesn't want to 'come'
• crotch/butt sniffer especially women (first male dog I've had and don't know if thats what its all about but its a nuisance)
• likes to lick people - surprisingly some people don't like it [&:]
• overall I which he wasn't so hyper, that seems to be his main issue and although its better than when he was 6 mos old, at nearly 18 mos old he is still HIGH energy!
  

Prince....where do I begin. Such a beautiful boy but I swear he has the most ANNOYING habits. He is obsessive/compulsive about spinning in circles. When he is excited, nervous, anxious he goes round and round and round in circles. I have not been able to train him to stop. He was either tied up for a majority of his life or in a small pen or something...I just don't know what causes a dog to turn around and around like this. He is extremely dominant with other dogs. He loves to play but is a little *too* rough and demanding. He whines. All the time. When he's hungry, thirsty, needs to go outside, wants to come back in, sees another dog/animal, wants attention. NILIF and clicker training have not helped with a "quiet" command when it comes to his whinning. I guess at least he doesn't bark all the time.
 
Macy - Poor girl. Wasn't socialized nearly enough when she was a puppy. She is very very very scared of new people and doesn't have the best dog manners with other female dogs her size. She is good with small dogs though. But is scared of anything new. And she is not good with kids AT ALL.

Maggie barks at people and wont quit. She especially likes to bark at my brother's friends, who are always over. I think they encourage her though.  She likes to eat things off the table. She is not very good in the car. And she hates to have her nails clipped. Oh yeah, she is also slightly mouthy when playing with me or my brother, but not whith anyone else.

Jezebelle will not stop barking if someone comes to the house. I've really been working on this, but she just does not like anyone in the house. I've had to have a repair man out three times the past three weeks, and she has met him, he's fed her treats, but she will still growl and bark at him like he is the boogey man. Even if it is real good friends, she won't settle down. She also does this while we are in the car when she sees someone walking down the road. I try training as a distraction, and it works to some extent, but it is rather embarassing that she won't hush.

Keela is a little food pig. And I do mean PIG! All food has to be kept picked up when we go over to my mom's because she will inhale it in just seconds, and no matter the 'leave it' command - she goes deaf.

But they are the BEST snugglers and comforters when things are rough![]

They both fart. Like, 20,000 times a day, and it reeks! Wyatt is all about food, all the time. Kaiser whines a lot, and has leash reactivity problems. Wyatt wont let me clip his nails, and Kaiser's hair is on everything i own.

Seven is awful about leash walking. For such a small dog, he can pull like a mad man. We are working on this, but it seems like a long road! Do they make halti/gentle leaders for smushy faced dogs? He also farts alot! He can be "grouchy" when he is sleeping on the bed and I ask him to move, but with NILIF, he is getting better about it. If left out of crate when I'm gone, he will chew anything he can get his mouth on. He does have a lot of goods, though! My favorite being most Bostons I've met can be barky, but I have never heard him bark once. Brenya is still too new to know what her issues are, so far, we're just working on housebreaking issues, staying off of counters, out of trash cans and not everything on the ground is your toy to chew on! []

I am so glad to see this thread. Sometimes I feel so inadequate on this board when I read how everyone (I know it just seems that way) is so good at training their 'perfect' dogs. So I'll confess that my dog is far from perfect and I am far from a pefect trainer.

From worst to annoying:
Aggressive towards puppies (under 6mon)
Barks at dogs when in the back yard
Thief (food off counter, treats from pockets, hats & mitts)
Paws for attention
Only 100% compliant if he gets a treat

Gosh this thread makes me feel better! Gingerbread is a very good dog, but he does have a few issues and they've made me feel like a bad dog owner. [&:]

Gingerbread's issues:

-His dirty little secret is that he's been a poop eater. I've fixed that one about 95%, but it drove me NUTS for a really long time.

-He very frequently (like right now) sniffs around the carpet for any little thing that he can pick up and eat. Like an occaional piece of pine shavings or hay for my guinea pigs, carpet fuzz, stuff like that. All I can do is manage it by vacuuming frequently. But it's annoying because I'm constantly having to watch for things on the floor and making sure that he didn't get something that accidentally fell and could harm him. I'm a little bit of a neat freak so it's amazing the things that he's found on occasion. I feel like the poor little guy is so bored and I'm not doing enough for him. [&o]

-Outside of our apartment he pays very little attention to me. At the store, on walks, etc. his obedience is "so so" because he's so distracted/excited. Also my fault because he doesn't get out enough.

-The other thing about him is that he's somewhat like a cat. He knows what lots of things mean, but they aren't "commands" to him so much as suggestions. I've always enforced everything 100%, so this is just a personality quirk of his that I have to deal with. It makes me mad when sometimes I've called him over and he's looked at me like- no thanks. [:-]

Max just assumes that everyone he meets loves him to pieces (not necessarily) and wants him sitting on their feet, leaning on their legs, putting his head in their lap, etc. If we pass a car with the door open for any reason, he takes it as an invitation to go somewhere.
 
Joyce

Wow, I'm so excited by this thread that I don't even know where to start.

Let's see, Grady...has horrible recall, if he gets away he goes deaf & that's it.  He's gone over the horizon.  He's also a beggar boy.  He's getting better about greeting people & not jumping on them.  He's got social issues but we're working on that as well.  He also barks at people passing by.

Positives: he's an awesome snuggler & is funny & I love him very much.

Aspen: For the most part he's a good dog.  He has marking issues.  He marks in the house.  No matter how many times I take him out he's got to claim things as his.

Positives:  he's so darned cute.  He's also Grady's spokes dog.  If the boys are outside & want to come in, Aspen barks & they both come in.  If Grady's out by himself he'll just sit quietly by the door.
 
Oh, I forgot that they both love to hassle Bubba.  Poor Kitty.  Grady is getting "leave it" but Aspen goes deaf.

Oh boy!  This will be long.
 
Thor, Thunder, Theo and Shadow sleep in their crates DOWNstairs.....right below my bathroom.  So if I get up to use the bathroom, I get a yodel fest mid-stream.  Not fun at 3AM.
 
Sheba is still a bit reactive, but much improved.  She insists on barking at the plow guy which wouldn't be HUGE, especially since it's only one small bark,  but he comes between 4 and 4:30 in the morning. And now and then this sets of the aforementioned yodel fest.  Oh, and she likes to bury goodies in my danged waterbed.
 
Tyler has a bit of an issue with stairs...and he has to have a completely clear shot before he'll attempt them and once in awhile, he'll whine and cry for someone to come walk WITH him down the hall to the bedroom....again, usually in the middle of the night.  Oh, and every now and then, he'll join me in my recliner and curl up on TOP of me.  Did I mention he's about 85 pounds?
 
Theo, smallest in stature, seems to be afflicted with "short mans syndrome" and will try to bully everyone else and when they put him in his place, then he rolls over on his back and yips and screams like a little girl.  He's also very stubborn.
 
Thor is ball obsessed and will continue to drop a slimey ball on me no matter how long I ignore him...he just keeps picking it up and dropping it back on me, again and again and again....he still now and then gives me a heavy duty nose nudge, but thats improving.
 
Shadow wants to be so far up my butt that I may name a hemoroid after him.
 
Thunder is a bit of a bully sometimes, trying to push the others around, and he and Theo periodically clash because of that.  Never dangerously, but enough to annoy me.
 
All that said, they are giant babies and snuggle buns, pretty obedient and well behaved little heathens.  And, they like my cooking.

ORIGINAL: glenmar

Thor is ball obsessed and will continue to drop a slimey ball on me no matter how long I ignore him...he just keeps picking it up and dropping it back on me, again and again and again....he still now and then gives me a heavy duty nose nudge, but thats improving.

Shadow wants to be so far up my butt that I may name a hemoroid after him.

 
Glenda, this had me cracking up!!![sm=rotfl.gif] Copper and Shadow could be buddies! 

I think they have company with Grady too!

Scout is still a little leash reactive towards dogs. Sometimes it's as subtle as just an alert body stance, and sometimes it's barking and lunging.

Ditto on this one.  If he didn't have this, he'd be dang near perfect![]
Except of course for THIS one below.......

Well Crusher is still convinced that he is a toy breed.

I think that secretly Kato would love to be carried around in someone's pocketbook!!