[Chris]

And now we have a new development. I work late so I tend to stay up late, my girlfriend goes to bed pretty early. The last three nights or so when I was coming to bed I walked by his crate and he let out a fairly vicious sounding growl and bark. Each time I call his name and that’s the last I hear of it. Initially I thought he was startled out of sleep and thought there was a stranger, but he should know my scent from that distance I would think, or at least understand that’s when I come to bed, since that’s what’s been happening since we got him.

[Chris]

Hmm, I think it’s mostly when there is a community plate and everyone’s around the table and a lot of commotion. He also growled at our friends nine year old a while ago when  was standing in front of an appetizer plate. And just now the little jerk growled at me when I tried to take some garbage out of his mouth. Mostly he’s been very good lately, but setbacks like this are frustrating.

When we play fetch he has a tendency to get the ball, take it behind me, kinda knock it out of his own mouth, and then frantically go after it again. I’ve been using treats to teach him “drop it” and making progress. But it seems like his tendency is not to want to give something up once he has it.

[Chris]

Thanks Mike! He has definitely been a lot better since we started taking him on play dates over at my friends house. They have a dog and several acres to run around on. We were reluctant because he’s generally very aggressive to other dogs on leash, but they ended up sorting it out pretty quick and it did wonders for his attitude. We’ve also been getting a little more structured on walks, making him wait to cross thresholds and such, and I think that has really helped.

Probably the issue we’re most concerned about is that if we have people over and serving food, he’ll sometimes growl at someone and we have to separate him. We think it’s resource guarding. Not sure how to fix that. We’ve been very disciplined about keeping him in dog space, off the bed and couches and not feeding him people food.

[Chris]

Heh, well the guy at the pet store said the day after we adopted him, within the next month or so the true dog will come out, and I think that’s happened, lol. When we first got him home he never made a peep, even though black mouth curs are supposed to be quite vocal. And he’s still pretty quiet, but he’ll bark more at passing pedestrians from behind our fence, and at the cat if he finishes his food first, and he still growls and lunges at pretty much any other dog that comes too close. But most of the time he just follows us around or looks kind of bored, waiting for us to play with him or go for a walk, which we try to do a lot of.

Last night he was probably the most difficult yet. We got him a nice bed for the living room in addition to his crate in the bedroom, but now he doesn’t want to sleep in the crate, so when we fenced off that section of the house he started going after shoes and blankets and making a general nuisance of himself. I eventually locked him the crate for the night, which I have mixed feelings about; I don’t want him to think of the crate as punishment, but at a certain point he’s gotta do what we say. He even growled at me briefly when I tried to handle his paws, which was a first. Should be interesting when I try to cut his nails.

 

One question I’ve had is whether I need to have him doing all the phase one commands in order with high success rates before moving on to phase two. I feel like without many corrections he may not have enough structure, and this may be contributing to somewhat bratty behavior at night (grabbing any sock, shoe, blanket within reach, jumping up on the bed, etc.).  Also do I have to go in order with respect to fading off hand signals and moving to a variable reward schedule, adding in extended stay, or can those overlap?

I just did a much stricter walk than we usually do, giving him little leash tugs when he got to far ahead or behind and when he didn’t stop with me at crosswalks. He seemed to be in a much better state of mind by the end of it.

On the plus side, he’s pretty good at sitting with a bit of extended stay, I’m slowly fading off the hand signal on the down. Got him coming pretty consistently. Next we’ll do place and climb and we’ll be getting somewhere! Also did some crate training today to make him a little more eager to get in there.

Also got one of those starmark collars, but even 21 inch seemed to be too tight (he’s got a beefy neck), so I ordered some links for it today.

[Chris]

Ah yes, I have read that, although I’m not sure what the “exercises” are. All in all I’m doing fairly well on the chart. We control food and rest areas walks, etc.. I initiate games of tug and fetch, and he’s generally been better about releasing the toy. I make sure to get them back one way or another, but he does get a little mouthy when he has them, so I’m not eager to put my hands in his mouth.

Just now we had an odd incident. He lay down near the cat, which we psyched about. But then jumped up… not sure if the cat did something or who started it. Then took him into the back yard and he spent several minutes sprinting around and growling. Tried to play some fetch with him but he pretty much ended up playing with himself, losing the ball and then frantically going after it again. Seems like a lot of pent up energy, but we do walk him about three times a day. I think I may need to get a bike leash or get in better shape!

Now he’s chilling on the floor of the bedroom.

[Chris]

Thanks Judy! I have seen the pyramid, but I haven’t really found an area where each section is expounded upon. I guess you just click the link at the bottom of each section and it takes you to the next? Anyway, I’m looking at the stuff on body language now. Definitely good stuff to know! 🙂