[Sunghee Kim]

Thanks Sharon,

I have myself watched the videos and understand the leadership and corrections. The dog bites me or the owner when she can’t get the reward fast enough after sitting or when she just doen’t want any training.. My dilema here is that I can’t really teach the dog phase 2 because I’m not an independent dog trainer but working for a company. So I can’t go off their curriculum too much which is of course based on positive reinforcement and negative punishment. I could only give the owners my opinion and information. And they didn’t feel comfortable doing it themselves.

Here is my question though, is their fear of messing up their puppy with Phase 2 training legitimate? When a layperson does this training, is there any downsides to this approach?

[Sunghee Kim]

Thabks Judy,

I mentioned the leadership building and refered them to this website and the videos. I’m sure they are trying to put boundaries by excercising the leadership but that doesn’t seem to help reduce the jumping issue (I assume the results are not expected to be immediate though).

 

I also mentioned ‘phase 2’ training with starmark collar or halty but the owners are concerned that they would worsen the situation by not doing it right themselves and considering the fact the their dog is quite attitudy. I think I can say I understand ‘phase 2’ training quite well but as somebody without proper practice and sufficient training with that method I don’t feel quite comfortable to convince them to do ‘phase 2’ training.

But while talking with the owners on this matter, I found out that the dog does listens to the owner quite well if the owner has the clear control of the resource such as treat or toy. But she gets very pushy if she has even slightest chance of getting what she wants. So I thought ‘phase 2’ training might not be useful if the owner doesn’t even foresee the event and give the ‘sit’ command, for example, a stranger walks by the dog out of blue and she jumps on people.

Is it still just the leadership issue? The dog sometimes tries to bite me in my belly or thigh during the training..

[Sunghee Kim]

Thanks again Sharon,

I have watched those videos about phase1&2 sit but I didn’t quite think about applying it to teaching greeting manner until you mentioned it. I will try it!

[Sunghee Kim]

Thanks Sharon,

I found the video on pros and cons on each training tool. It is very good to know that head halter could cause a neck injury if used incorrectly. I think I will hold off on the head halter.

I and the owners keep working on the method you mentioned: ‘sit’=’greeting’; ‘jump’=’no greeting’. But that seems to have limitation on real life application since it is not so easy to ask everyone on the street and visitor to wait for the dog to calm down. Even if she calms down for a few seconds before she gets to say hi, a second after the person pats her she jumps.

Is it supposed to take as long as she grows out of it with the training? Also if it’s a big dog, it could carry some risks of getting somebody injured until the dog fully understands the manner..

[Sunghee Kim]

Sorry for the late reply. But thanks Mike for your advice. I have read the leadership and anxiety section of the self help. And I’m trying to intervene between the dogs whenever there is a competition over some resource. Also I ask one of them to leave either a toy or a bone that they stole from the other one, and I take them myself without forcefully taking it away from her.

I also body blocked Zoey off of Jessie when she tries to wrestle Jessie as Jessie is just slowly starting her day. Zoey gives up a little better now when I tell her to at least in the morning when Jessie just woke up.

I will keep this updated if new challenges occur. Thanks all!

[Sunghee Kim]

Thanks Sharon. I’m happy to hear I am doing the right thing.

I have worked on ‘here’ as a recall and ‘place’ to give each other their space. Funny thing is that each one responds to one better than the other command. I’ve reinforced ‘place’ quite strong with my first dog Jessie and the new dog Zoey just comes right away even to her name but not to ‘place’ command. I just need to work on the weaker command of each dog separately.

Now we have Zoey’s crate in our living room but not so next to Jessie’s crate. Both of them kind of know to go into the crate on command. I think I will put them in the crates when they’re getting bones from now on or at least separate them far away from each other.

One concern though. Zoey actually doesn’t do well staying in the crate. She cries and barks. I’m working on crate training her, but I wonder if it’s a good idea to have their crates in the same area where Jessie (who is very well crate trained) can hear Zoey’s distress.