I'm sorry, that sounded bad.
I'm Shortening my phrasing because I hate typing on my phone, and I'm afraid my annoyance at my keyboard is showing thru in my post. I promise its not you I'm short with.

I definitely agree that people should have access to both methods.

The reason I am pinning on what you're saying is because it doesn't make sense to me, and you're adamant that it makes sense. The more I can make you tell me about your reasoning, the more I learn about it, and the better sense I can make from it.

Also, if someone is gonna step up to the plate and challenge my method, ill hear them out, but they better come prepared, whiich you did. I've heard too many fairytale methods pitched my way because it worked once on one dog ever. Call me skeptical, but I like lots of supporting evidence in debates. I'm willing to admit being wrong, but not wiithout being convinced that I was.

K9_Eric wrote:

The reason I am pinning on what you're saying is because it doesn't make sense to me, and you're adamant that it makes sense.

I say the same for you!

I have enjoyed this exchange thus far and I hope it has benefited some other besides ourselves

Went to an offleash dog park today. Spent a third of the time on leash, working on introduction manners and patience and general manners. Let him run in the "shy dog" pen for a while, temporarily dubbing it the super crazy overly friendly to the point other dogs hate me dog pen.
After he burned off some energy, took him back over to the main pen to socialize. He sits before a gate and after a gate. Everyone goes through the gate before him. Worked a lot with treats and diverting attention away from super interesting things. He fixates pretty badly. I really need to bring earplugs next time. My ears are ringing.
I also got muddier than the dog.

Karissa I'm glad to see you've stepped up to the plate to make changes with Dexter! It definitely sounds like he is seeing you as more of the pack leader. I wonder, you said when your son comes up behind him he turns and snaps- is this just with your son? Or does he get startled with you and Eric like this as well?

He at least has been startled by me, when fixated on food, and reacted by snapping at my arm. The reaction is the behavior I want to change first, because of the child. We can handle his obsession with food over a longer period.

How do you plan on correcting his reaction? Also, does he sit and wait for meals or is he free fed? I'm just curious- this thread is really interesting

He sits and waits for meals... Although I believe the bf just left the food there if he didn't eat it right away. I don't approve of that approach. I pick up his food and put it away if he's not immediately interested in eating it. I like to do quick trick training sessions for pieces of food before making him sit for the whole meal.

Anyone can startle him, but the coming up from behind seems to just apply to my son. Though he startles to other scenarios with "big people".

Dogs who are highly aroused by food and who are possessive over food can actually be impacted negatively by sitting and waiting for food or food release. Nothing wrong with running through some set ups and obedience, but there has been evidence to suggest that sitting waiting and fixating on the food while waiting can actually make it worse.

Kristina, it's kind of weird. I'm certain I could take his food bowl away, as long as he wasn't surprised suddenly by me reaching. If he was aware of my intentions, I don't think he would react, or he would at least be giving warnings, instead of snapping.

I basically plan on taking away the high value distractions, and working on surprising him in less stressful circumstances, and rewarding him. A lot. I want him to assosciate being surprised with getting a reward, so it becomes a positive thing for him.

Same with corrections. I'm going to use positive and negative training, heavy on the positive, to show him how I expect him to react to a correction. His walks are excellent opportunities for that. Ill be spending a lot of time with the family trying to drill the concept into their heads and the reasons why. The boyfriend and child need some more education.

Eventually, we will teach leave it, and then slowly pull all this together and start adding higher value distraction to the practice process.

Yes, I can reach in and take food out of his bowl, so long as I don't take anything out of his mouth. Bones and treats are different. I've been working with him when he has a high value treat, talking to him and petting him, slowly getting closer to his head, and praising him for being good. He gives warnings then, in the form of a light growl and freezes, looking at you. When he gets comfortable, he resumes chewing/licking. Ears move accordingly, body tenses/relaxes. I praise him a LOT while doing that, keeping a constant stream of talk going, and leaving my hand on him. No sudden movements, just nice soft calming pets and praise. I've worked my way up to his ruff/forehead before. Cant remember if I got to his cheek or not. If I did, it was only briefly. Then I let him enjoy the rest of his treat.

goaliechick41 wrote:

Yes, I can reach in and take food out of his bowl, so long as I don't take anything out of his mouth. Bones and treats are different. I've been working with him when he has a high value treat, talking to him and petting him, slowly getting closer to his head, and praising him for being good. He gives warnings then, in the form of a light growl and freezes, looking at you. When he gets comfortable, he resumes chewing/licking. Ears move accordingly, body tenses/relaxes. I praise him a LOT while doing that, keeping a constant stream of talk going, and leaving my hand on him. No sudden movements, just nice soft calming pets and praise. I've worked my way up to his ruff/forehead before. Cant remember if I got to his cheek or not. If I did, it was only briefly. Then I let him enjoy the rest of his treat.

Do you do any sort of trading games with him? I think it would make him more comfortable sharing his items with you if he didn't think he was having things "taken" from him and have that be that.

With Odin I would give him a nice tasty bone and then sit a bit away from him with something awesome (like french fries awesome) and trade that way. Or sometimes I would hold his treat with one hand (such as a bully stick) while he chewed. And reward with dropping cheese with my other hand. When we started that I would sit next to him facing away from him so there was no pressure about eye contact and body posturing.

Great idea. I will try that next. I had to remove a stick of butter from his mouth about 2 weeks ago. That was both informative and gross. I ended up with the butter, he ended up ingesting the paper. It was a patience game. I stuck my fingers in his cheeks to make it uncomfortable to hold the stick, and impossible to swallow it. And waited for his jaw to get tired, while ordering him to "drop". Eventually (maybe 5 minutes) I had slobber all over my hands and Dex reluctantly released the cube with a sucking sound. He immediately inhaled the paper, as the butter had melted to the point it just slid off the butter.
I didn't really know what else to do in that situation...he thinks anything and everything on the counter is his for the taking. Prior to Eric being brought in, I would just let Dex finish whatever was in his mouth because I was afraid of being bit.

goaliechick41 wrote:

Anyone can startle him, but the coming up from behind seems to just apply to my son. Though he startles to other scenarios with "big people".

Have Dexter's eyes been checked? It sounds like the dog might have vision problem. Check out this video about an "agressive" Husky that would snap every time he was startled. He was about to be euthanized but was saved by a trainer in Miami. He soon discovers that the dog is so easily startled because he has very poor vision: https://youtu.be/cw85TY1QNzk?t=2m44s

This is a really interesting thread. I agree with Kristina about trading games; they are a very useful way to teach a dog to swap.

A while back I read a study of children that had been admitted to ER after being bitten by a dog. The thing I learned from it is that one of the most common bite scenarios is when a young child approaches a dog when it is stationary. So it is not a surprise if Dexter snaps then; many other dogs would also snap (or worse). As well as training the dog, it's also important to teach the child not to approach the dog when it is still (laying down or standing still). If they want to pet the dog, they should call the dog over to them first.

I often hear people puzzle about how a positive reinforcement approach works to teach a dog not to do something. Often it's by making it so it won't occur to the dog to do that thing in the first place. For example, if a dog reacts badly to someone touching or grabbing the collar (I know this doesn't apply to Dexter), the more traditional way to train it might be to punish it for reacting badly. The trouble with this is that the dog will still feel the same thing - fear or shock - when someone grabs the collar. There's also a risk that the dog will react badly because it now associates grabbing the collar with a bop on the nose.

An alternative approach is to gradually show the dog that it has nothing to fear from it, by associating touching and then holding the collar with positive things (like treats). Then it won't react badly in the first place because the dog doesn't mind when people grab the collar. It's a different approach but it always seems best to set the dog up for success to begin with.

Trying to post a video... Let me know if you can see it. It doesn't show up on my phone.

Found Dexter's "from behind" trigger. If he's fixated and you even touch his tail (i.e. step on, kick with a foot, brush with a foot, put a tiny bit of.pressure on it with your foot, etc) he turns and snaps. Did a short positive training session with him today. Held the treat in front of him close enough he fixated, snuck foot back and put light pressure on his tail. He got a treat when he didn't bite. Even if he startled but didn't give a growl he got a treat and lots of loves, of course. Trying to help associate it in a good way.
Eric has us doing positive training with him on startles from behind (though I think most are tail oriented) and collar grabbing.

Next week Dexter meets Mixie I believe for a lesson in socialization.

I will do a full update on yesterdays session tonight. I try to write with a quality worth reading, and I've been too tired to write anything really worth reading the past few days.

My third session with Dexter and family was Monday.
It was communicated to me that Karissa was having some issues with Aaron, and his way of handling things with Dexter. I decided that for the most part, the dog could waiit it out, and that we needed to have some time to discuss these differences and get EVERYONE on the same page. I spent a lot more time explaining the importance of positive reinforcements for correct behavior, and how to use positive punishment for things he knows by correcting and immediatly treating when the dog responds. We clarified what behaviors were bad manners in public and needed to change, and which ones Aaron still wanted to let his dog do. We really got a little better scope on their indiividual feelings than they let me get in my initial eval. It was a good second discussion with them to have.
After that, I busted out liver treats, and started loving Dexters manners, Lady for being quiet and saying hi niicely, and Baxter for being Baxter.. I took a couple and passed the bag over to Karissa and Aaron, so that Dexter could get fixated on their high value treats that he knew he could get. With Dexter completely distracted, we practiced touching the dog's tail and but, and treating him before he could snap about iit, while continuing to stroke his but or tail. We did the same thing with his collar. We spent a lot of time on this, because I wanted plenty of chances to show them the right timing and when not to praise and reward him.
We found out his tail was a major issue for him, he would snap at the slightest brushings.
After about 15 minutes of that excercise, Aaron and I went on a walk, with Aaron handling his own dog, and me giving advice. Once Dex was about a 1/4 mile in and a bit more calm we were able to discuss in private his personal feelings about the training and such, and I think having a chance to discuss his questions or qualms privately was beneficial toward getting him more involved. We ended discussing that Aaron personallly wanted Dexter to have better manners when he met dogs. He isn't aggressive, but he is very in your face. We agreed Mixie, the lab who would take a charging dog as a friend request, should come up and we can work on the meeting.

I am beginning to wonder if maybe Dexter's tail has been injured. Has a vet checked to see if there is any underlying damage to Dexter's tail?

The fact that he snaps almost immediately upon any kind of contact with the tail makes me wonder if he associates this with pain. If there is an underlying injury there, maybe healing the injury will stop the snapping. Just my thoughts.

That's something that Karissa was going to look into, actually. I meant to say that, so thank you for bringing that up. It seems a lot like he may have had a tail injury. It reminds me of a dog that has been quicked, when you touch its foot. It may be a couple days, she had her wisdom teeth out today and sent me an after picture... I don't think she'll be up to doing anything today

Nothing except cuddling my doggies and spoon feeding myself little bits of ice cream. Lol.
I have to take Dex to my vet to get him on file, so I suppose ill do that sooner than later. Probably not until next week though. My face hurts...

I would suggest finding an acupuncturist or someone who can do a spinal readjustment. My BC had his tail caught in the door and It had to be amputated. He kept going after it (and had to have it redocked) until we finally had an adjustment done. Fixed it.

this is a fascinating thread. I applaud you for all the hard work your doing to train Dexter . If you dont mind my asking, have you guys worked on his jumping up on people issue? I read in one of the first few posts that this was something he does and i hadnt seen it mentioned since (although i could have missed it). I have a big issue with this and im curious to hear what other people have to say about preventing the behavior.

Dexter's appointment was yesterday.
Aaron was tired, I feel a cold coming, and Karissa just had her wisdom teeth out, so none of us were feeling so hot. We recapped on the last week, and there has been a lot of improvement with Dexter's snappyness over his collar and tail. We're going to continue working on that, still, as it never hurts to reinforce it.
On top of walks, we added a couple 15 minute training sessions to his daily routine. Just practicing commands, but still good mental excercise.
It was also time to have Dex meet Mixie. I'm going to be honest, I've never seen Mixie annoyed by a dog until Dexter. He is very in your face, and for some reaon Mixie didn't like the vibes, which usually don't bother her.
We worked on dog-dog greeting. Both dogs were leashed, and Karissa was given High Value treats for Dexter. Once the dogs saw each other and started fixating and pulling, we would back up a little, use treats to get our dogs attention, and then try again slowly. We want to avoid pulling and barreling for the other dog. What we are looking for is the dogs to sniff the ground and show the sides of their bodies. We kept practicing and moving back to get our dogs focus until they finally met and were able to sniff it out. It needs practice, but Dexter did start showing the signs we were looking for. I will bring a new dog next session.

Karissa's new Husky pup comes home, and her little girl dog is in heat right now, so we focused a lot on puppy prep, and decided to skip a week so that Dexter is calmer, and the puppy is a little more broken into its new home.

KibaHope wrote:

this is a fascinating thread. I applaud you for all the hard work your doing to train Dexter . If you dont mind my asking, have you guys worked on his jumping up on people issue? I read in one of the first few posts that this was something he does and i hadnt seen it mentioned since (although i could have missed it). I have a big issue with this and im curious to hear what other people have to say about preventing the behavior.

Sorry for the delayed response, I am still attempting to recover from my mouth being brutalized...
We are indeed working on the jumping thing. Whenever someone comes to the door, I am there with Dexter, trying to divert his attention to me and calm him down. We dont have people over very much, but we are slowly working on it! He mainly does it with new people. If he starts to jump on me, I just say "Off", and he stops mid-jump and sits and looks at me with that cheesy husky grin/tail wag.
I will be integrating treats into working with that too. Strengthening the positive association between being a good boy and not jumping on people...and good things happening. It will be a slow transition, but we'll get there. Just since Eric started posting on here, I have seen a huge difference in Dexter.
And yesterday, my boyfriend even thanked me for making him do training, because HE could even see a difference.
Packleader Karissa: 1. Packmembers: 1. Win win.

Should I post a thread on the training process/progress of my puppy I bring home on Friday, do you think? Anyone interested? The first week and a half will be my training, and my training alone. Eric will come in and (hopefully) do an assesment after that.