Daria Rylkova
Forum Replies Created
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definitely, having a dog watch you play with another dog or do any kind of training, can be a great way to increase motivation!
Sounds like the wall, blanket eating are attention seeking behaviors- can be reinforced even if the attention you’re giving her is negative.
Is the dominance aggression towards dogs in your own home? younger dogs? all dogs? same breed? different breeds?
The more primitive breeds do show more concern about hierarchy with other dogs, based on my own experience and studies eg: https://dogtraining.world/knowledge-base/dominance-relationships-in-a-group-of-domestic-dogs-canis-lupus-familiaris/
If it’s in your own home, leadership and management are going to be very important. Making sure the dogs don’t ever have a reason to compete for food, affection, resting places, play.
If it’s with other dogs outside your home, you have to have very good off leash obedience and be careful about which dogs you allow her to meet. If you think a dog is likely to challenge her or that she will challenge an older dog, unless they need to live together, there isn’t much reason to have them meet in the first place.
Dominance Relationships in a Group of Domestic Dogs (Canis lupus familiaris)
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definitely, having a dog watch you play with another dog or do any kind of training, can be a great way to increase motivation!
Sounds like the wall, blanket eating are attention seeking behaviors- can be reinforced even if the attention you’re giving her is negative.
Is the dominance aggression towards dogs in your own home? younger dogs? all dogs? same breed? different breeds?
The more primitive breeds do show more concern about hierarchy with other dogs, based on my own experience and studies eg: https://dogtraining.world/knowledge-base/dominance-relationships-in-a-group-of-domestic-dogs-canis-lupus-familiaris/
If it’s in your own home, leadership and management are going to be very important. Making sure the dogs don’t ever have a reason to compete for food, affection, resting places, play.
If it’s with other dogs outside your home, you have to have very good off leash obedience and be careful about which dogs you allow her to meet. If you think a dog is likely to challenge her or that she will challenge an older dog, unless they need to live together, there isn’t much reason to have them meet in the first place.
Dominance Relationships in a Group of Domestic Dogs (Canis lupus familiaris)
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I have heard of that, specifically from the Sympawtico dog trainer. My understanding is that when you have a dog with a genetically high prey drive, it is very important to find appropriate ways to satisfy that prey drive. Eg fetch, tug, flirt pole.
I haven’t personally raised that many dogs, but my assumption would be that if you have a dog with a high prey drive, preventing him from having access to squeaky stuffed animals, won’t deter him from going after your pet guinea pig, if you just leave them loose together.
In terms of concerns about preventing her from stealing and destroying blankets, I think that satisfying the prey drive, leadership and management are key. She should not be allowed to have free range of your house if she is doing that behavior. Toys that you use to play tug with her, should only be available when you are playing with her and you should initiate and end the game, put the toy away. When she is alone, give her something that she can chew on like a raw marrow bone or bully stick to get some of that need to destroy/tear things apart out.
On a personal note, when Ella was a puppy, I did use my old socks to play tug with her and would leave it in her crate for her to tear up. She would for some time after I stopped doing that, bring me one of my socks to play with or get excited when I was putting on socks. It was more amusing than anything, but yes I definitely wouldn’t recommend doing something like that. But that was definitely my fault for confusing her, since I was leaving it in her domain (crate).
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While it’s true that wolves and other wild canines primarily eat meat, the domestication process has resulted in dogs having an increased ability to digest starches compared to wolves: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2013/01/diet-shaped-dog-domestication
You can look at this as: those canines, who had a greater ability to extract nutrients from scraps fed by humans, were more likely to successfully reproduce. Not only do dogs have greater enzymatic ability to extract nutrients from starches, but their digestive systems are longer to allow them to extract those nutrients. This is also breed dependent with more primitive breeds, having less ability to do so.
A dog’s ability to survive on a vegan or even vegetarian diet, doesn’t mean that those are optimal. The only way to test that is with long-term controlled feeding studies, which as far as I’m aware don’t exist to date because they are very expensive to conduct and have ethical concerns. See for review: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/6/9/57/htm
My own personal recommendation would be to at least include eggs- not vegan and to regularly do bloodwork if you switch to a commercial or home-cooked (nutritionally balanced) vegetarian diet. There are certainly dogs who can and do survive on such diets, but it’s not clear if it’s as optimal as a more omnivorous diet. I would not trust a study that only looks at 6 months – 2 years of a diet in a dozen dogs.
There are also a lot of people who say that every human being should be vegan. I know from personal experience that this isn’t the case. Despite taking supplements, it took 5 years for me to become sufficiently nutritionally deficient to see symptoms because I don’t have the genetics to process those nutrients from supplements.
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some ideas:
It might also be helpful to fill out a habitation chart to see if there are times of the day that she tries to initiate playing tug with the plush toys or other objects. You can then take that information and initiate a game of tug at those times (just before she usually would).
https://dogtraining.world/knowledge-base/house-breaking-chart-habitation-chart/
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Sounds like her preference for toys may have changed. If you go slow, you can definitely increase her drive for pretty much any toy, but if you already have an idea that she likes to play tug with plush toys and fabrics, and your main goal is just to play with her for the relationship and exercise, I would make a tug or buy one out of similar materials. As it sounds like you are already doing, make sure that she only has access to those toys when you’re playing with her and that you are initiating and deciding when play ends. She should know both a good “out” cue and a release word to let her know she’s allowed to start/resume playing like “get it.” This way she’ll learn that she’s not allowed to just start tugging on something that you’re holding. Here’s an example of me working tug into obedience with a female husky:
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Really important to emphasize the importance of genetics on behavior! Super interesting how 1 gene can underlie some seemingly complex behaviors, whereas multiple genes can be responsible for affecting simple traits. It’s always genes*environment, but it seems like there’s too much emphasis on “it’s how you raise them” when it comes to the public’s understanding of dogs.
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Hi Jon,
sorry to hear you’re having a frustrating time! What have you done so far in terms of playing crate training games? Are you feeding him in the crate? Only giving access to the best chews in the crate? Putting him in the crate when he’s tired? Does it help if the crate is right beside you? Will he go into the crate if you throw food in? It helps to first get the pup going in and out without closing the crate. You can start by throwing food in/luring and then increase criteria by waiting for him to go in before you toss food in. One trick I really like is putting something really yummy like a kong stuffed with some meat or mix of kibble and meat in the crate 10-15min before he needs to go in and closing the door. Have him outside the crate and build up some frustration for wanting to go in and get at the treat. In general, it helps to frequently take him in and out at first. Does he have a similar response if you go out of the room and he isn’t crated? Feel free to include videos!
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Hi Yossi,
I’m sorry to hear that! When you say that she likes plush toys, but tears them up quickly, do you mean that she tears them up while you play tug or just when she’s alone? Dogs will have preferences for different fabrics/textures/firmness. It’s possible that going through her first heat, may have changed her preference or she had an aversive experience while she was in heat. Will she play tug with the plush toys? What did you previously play tug with her with? Have you you tried leather or sheepskin/sheep wool tugs or even felt tugs (softer texture)? Have you tried back tying her on a harness and teasing her with the tug toy or having someone hold her on leash and restrain her while you tease her with a tug? Using a flirt pole so she has to chase it a bit? Seems like you might have to be patient and ease back into it. Feel free to include a video
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Hi Joseph,
Not silly at all! It’s of course up to you how to use the commands in your daily life, but here is a summary of the two commands as Mike teaches them:
Place: The dog is expected to go to a specific location (bed/mat/towel) and lay down. The dog is allowed to shift position to get comfortable as long as they remain laying down. So if you teach place on a mat at home, you can then also take the mat with you and practice outdoors and use it if you’re sitting outside somewhere or take it to someone else’s home and give your puppy a bone to chew on the mat. You can generalize place to a mat and a dog bed.
phase 1 place:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLHAKyd3hJ8
Climb: The dog is expected to get up on an object and stay on until released. He can do whatever he likes as long as he remains on the object. It can be generalized to mean “jump up on any object and stay on it.” This is a great cue to start with. You can use it to practice leash skills and position changes, even before adding cues to those position changes (sit/down/stand).
phase 1 climb:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FzqAuO7_O4
if you would like to generalize both cues to different locations, you will need to say the cue and then point to the specific location. Alternatively, if you would like to teach place to always be a specific object, that won’t change locations, you can fade away the pointing. You can also have a specific place cue like “bed” and more general place cue. Lots of possibilities 🙂
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Fetch, scent detection games and tug of war would all be great! You’d probably need to have him on a long line while teaching fetch and tug in any case.
have you seen this recent video that Stonnie Dennis made on GSPs? Really great for how to have appropriate expectations:
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Hi Yossi,
yes, if she is still growing, you do want to be careful about running for long bouts at a time, especially on concrete. You do need to get her energy out though. You can also use a long line or flexi leash to give her some more freedom.
When you’re outside, are you still marking and rewarding her for good leash manners, when you haven’t given her a command?
One thing that can happen is that people wait for the dog to pull, to then correct and reward. I would spend more time on phase 1 leash manners, heel, and recall.
It’s not uncommon for motivated dogs to pull through a prong collar, especially if they haven’t had enough training to learn that being near you is rewarding and that they get access to the environment by doing work (premack principle). For instance, you can ask her to look at you or do a brief heel, before allowing her to get to a tree she really wants to sniff.
i would switch to a head halter or harness that clips in the front for now on walks and continue working on phase 2 in lower distraction environment when she’s gotten some energy out.
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Hi Yossi,
It’s normal at her age and amount of time you’ve been training, for you to need to use food. Is she very food motivated? Can you use her regular food for training? eg use her meals during walks?
Is it possible to tire her out inside the house with a game of fetch/tug or in a yard if you have one before going for a long walk? Can you run with her or bike for part of the walk and then walk? It’s definitely hard to expect her to have perfect obedience if she’s full of energy and there are lots of distractions and she’s an adolescent :-). That will get better over months/the next year. The amount of food that you need to use will also decrease over that time.
Living in a city, I found it helpful to teach my dog that she’s allowed to pull on a harness (leash attached to the back), while she isn’t allowed to pull on a head halter or collar. so we might start off going on a run with the leash attached to the harness and then switch to head halter. I would try the head halter, since it can have a slightly more calming effect, than a prong collar.
If you feel like she is sufficiently exercised and her drives have been met, than you can hold her responsible for leash manners or complying with a heel command. It’s definitely a very hard time! be patient and keep being consistent 🙂
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Hi Lara,
To find out the breed, you can always do a genetic test. Here is a review of 3 different brands: https://www.caninejournal.com/dog-dna-tests-reviews/
However, if your dog is a mix of a lot of different breeds, going back several generations, the test will tell you that she’s a mix. So it may not give you a clear answer. Just looking at her picture, it looks like Pepper is a mix of herding and livestock guardian. If you know the basic breed type and can compare to common breeds in the area that she came from, you already have quite a lot of information, without knowing exact breed. Does she have protective instincts? Are there differences in her behavior when she’s at home vs out of the home?
For training, there isn’t one correct order. I think it’s easier if you start with charging the marker, then teaching to pay attention, sit, leash manners, place/climb, leave it, down etc. You can also work on multiple behaviors in the same day, but I would recommend doing it in separate sessions, when you’re first working on new behaviors.