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Hi Judy and Allie,
Thank you! Yes, I did read through the leadership section! Luckily, we already had most of them in place (Sorry, I should have written it in the previous post!). We have an old cat that we do not want the dogs to bother, so we have very strict house rules in place. I think Heidi’s issue would have been so much harder to fix if the rules weren’t there. The dogs are all caged inside the house. Only the well behaved adult dogs are allowed to roam freely once in a while and take a nap with us on the sofa with invitation. The dogs are mostly trained/exercised individually in the yard. I think the problem with Heidi was that my mom wasn’t displaying leadership when they were out in the yard. Unlike the other two pups that we have, Heidi did not cause havoc in the yard, so it was very tempting to give her too much freedom without structure (leave her alone to be free while mom has a cup of tea…). Naturally the overall amount or training and attention that went into Heidi decreased quite a lot as a result. I thought the worst that can happen was for Heidi to turn into a badly mannered dog. Never did I think it would cause her to turn into a bitey dog! Now, I make sure to spend at least once a day training Heidi in place of my mom. I do quick paced trainings where Heidi has to be alert and focus on my next move. There’s not a trace of bitey-ness in Heidi anymore. Overall she is calmer and on top of that she is starting to turn into a dog doughnut(dog shaped like a doughnut) when greeting me. We never saw her doing that to anyone before!
I really wish more trainers out there talked about leadership and dominance.
