gooeydog

Do you have a carrier you can put her in so someone can carry her down the steps and outside for a break? 12 hrs is a long time for a young pup to be crated, and as she gets into adolesence, she's going to have even more energy. Is she "soiling" he crate, or is she holding it until you get home? At 4 months old, she should be getting big enough to negotiate the stairs. Put a leash on her (use a flat collar, not a "training" collar of any kind), and let her try it. Go at her pace, and if she starts going too fast or losing her balance, use the leash to steady her. Try to find someplace with just a couple steps at first, and work your way up to a full flight of steps, then two, then three, then four. If you really can't find some way to get her outside for a break during the day, look into getting an ex-pen for her in your room. They're bigger than most crates, so she'd have more room to play/exercise. If there's not room in your room, and you have a yard, you can buy/make pens. I thnk a lot come in 10' x 10' (about 3m x 3m), and have a roof and a door. They can be padlocked, and she'd still have more space/stimulus than in the crate. Saying "no" isn't going to work to stop nipping, because that's just giving her the attention she wants. In effect, you're rewarding her for nipping you. Grabbing a dog by it's muzzle can do any of several things for a nipping dog... it can stop the dog from nipping. It can make a nervous dog even more nervous or handshy. It can result in a person losing a piece of their face. It all depends on the dog and the way it views its owner.

:( 150 dogs killed in electrical fire... [url]http://www.ktul.com/showstory.hrb?f=n&s=60712&f1=loc&f2=loc&z=0[/url]

First you need to get her more used to going up/down stairs. That way you can get someone to take her out once for you while you're at school. Does she destroy things when left loose at home or while you're sleeping? If not, start letting her out of the crate while you leave for short amounts of time, and work up to longer times. If she would be allowed to sleep on your bed, you can hook a leash to her (only use a flat collar for this), and put the handle on your arm. This will keep her from getting out during the middle of the night without you knowing. If she's not allowed on furniture, a 6-10 ft leash will be long enough for her to sleep on the floor beside the bed. These suggestions are not a good idea if you are a heavy sleeper, and sleeping on the bed may not be good for dogs with dominance problems. If you can get her used to going up/down stairs, you could set up a run right outside your door (if you don't have a fence), and the lady could just walk her down and hook her to the run for a little while. This would give her a chance to "go" and to run of a little energy if she needs to. Duck probably is getting so excited when you pet her that she starts mouthing you, and since she's gotten away with mouthing for a while now, she's started mouthing harder. There are several ways to deal with this. 1. You can "yelp" everytime she mouths you too hard... this supposedly is what the mother/siblings would do in the same situation. It works well in some cases. 2. You can ignore her when she starts nipping/mouthing. Just keep doing whatever else you were doing, and pretend that you're unaware of her presence. This method works well on most dogs, but it can take a while before you see any improvement. 3. You can give her "time outs" when she nips/mouths. When she mouths you, give a "marker", like saying "too bad", or "oops", then put her in her "time out" area. This can be either a crate, a room, or put her across the room in a sit/stay or down/stay. The "time outs" should be short, only about a minute or two. This method also works pretty well for most dogs. 4. You can redirect her onto a toy/tug when she starts mouthing/nipping. When she nips, say "no", and immediately offer her a toy/tug. When she takes the toy, praise. This method works well for dogs who like toys or have high drive, so I don't know how well it will works in your case. * By "When she starts to mouth/nip", I mean the instant her teeth touch you skin. If you wait until she's been mouthing you for a while, you'll only confuse her. She's probably running away from you when she has a chewy and you touch her because she thinks you're going to take it from her. Behavior like that isn't much of a problem right now, but can develop into food aggression if it progresses. The "trade game" works well to get some dogs used to you taking things from her/touching her when she's eating. Give her a chewy, a few minutes later, walk up with another chewy (of the same type), and "trade". Take her chewy, and give her the other one. this way she'll see that you walking up to her, doesn't mean she's going to loose her chewy. "Trade" her once every time she's got a chewy, until she's completely used to you taking her chewys from her. Another way to do this if she gets "attached" to one particular chewy and doesn't want the other one, is to simply take the one she has, praise her, and give it back again. Repeat this the same as the other method, until she's comfortable with you taking the chewy. How do you make her like her crate? There are several ways to do this too (seems like there's always several ways for everything :roll: ). First way: just put her in there... she'll eventually get used to it. Second way: give her a treat/tons of praise every time you put her in the crate, and basically ignore her for a few minutes when you let her out. This makes going inthe crate seem like fun, whereas getting out doesn't seem like as much fun, because they get nothing. This works for some dogs, other like their freedom a bit too much. Third way: Start this on a weekend... Close the crate door. She's not allowed in there. Put her favorite treats/toys in there, but don't let her in. If she still doesn't seem overly interested in going in there, then you get in it. Go in the crate, sit down, and shut the door (note that this only works if you can fit in the crate :lol: ). Act like you're having a great time in there, and that outside of the crate is no fun at all compared to inside. (This sounds really boring, but you'll find things to do. Read a book, do homeworks, play video games, whatever.) She'll probably want to go in there, but don't let her in. Spend about a 1/2 hr at a time in there, a few times that day, and leave the "fun" toys/treats in there(with the door closed), then open the door later. She'll probably go right in. Don't let her take the toys/treats out of the crate, they are "crate toys", and stay in the crate. She'll probably figure out pretty quickly that the only time she gets those toys/treats is when she's in her crate. Tiring her out... see if you can find anyone in your area with a friendly, playful dog, and set up a playtime for Duck and the other dog. How old is Duck? If she's over a year, you can run with her (under a year their joints aren't closed and they can be damaged), or have her run beside you on a bike. Long walks will tire her out. Obedience, or any "mind exercise" is very tiring on a dog, so you might want to do some work on that. You may find that as she gets older she'll play with toys more. 20 mins a day isn't enough for a young dog. You may find that she gets tired quickly if she young (I don't remember exactly how old she is), so you might have to break up the play into several different sessions.

I wrote a post earlier, but it disappeared right before I posted it :o so I'm trying again... All our dogs like chewy bones and stuff (when I get them from the bulk bins at petsmart I have to bury them in the dogfood bag for a day or two though, because Goo doesn't like the way they smell). They like stuffies too, of course they don't stay stuffed long :o Joey's learning to play fetch, so he's gotten pretty interested in "his ball", but other than that, him and Casey aren't really interested in toys. Goo likes pretty much anything with me on the other end of it. Some of the toys she plays with by herself, but most of the time she runs around teasing me with them, in an attempt to get me to play with her. She's had a few she really liked, a hideous latex (I think) octopus (Joey chewed a hole in it, so it's on top of my bed waiting to be fixed), a cow that moos (also on my bed waiting to be fixed), and a big latex ball (she's had it about a year, and it's got so many tears from her and Annie playing tug with it that I think it's about "dead" :o ). The toys that last the longest for us have been kongs, the "rhinobone" (a big black bone made by nylabone), the ball I mentioned above (I think it was called a "clutch ball"), some stuffies (not sure why those particular ones are "saved"), and the orbee ball seems to be ok so far. Annie likes balls... any balls, especially if they squeak. She likes the tug rope too, and we made her a springpole. She also likes most of Goo's toys, which occasionally causes conflict :roll: . Annie won't just play with a toy though, or chew on it. It has to be moving. She also sleeps with her ball sometimes. Goo knows the petsmart bag too... when I come back from there, she runs out like, "what did ya buy me?". I "trade" the toys sometimes, usually all Goo's big toys are out in my room (which is blocked off by a board that none of the small dogs can get toys over), and most of the smaller ones are in a big plastic rubbermaid type box. Then when I notice the dogs are getting bored with the toys they have (or that they're destroying them all), I take some out of the box for them, and put the others in the box. Well one day I left for a few minutes, and Goo apparently decided that she wanted her "moo-cow" from out of the box, because when I came home she was laying in the middle of a huge pile of toys, with her head on the "moo-cow". I've since noticed that she figured out how to get the lid off the container, so I keep all her favorite toys out of it and on my bed. :roll:

It's easier if you have a big fenced yard too, which we don't. It's big, but only parts of it are fenced, so we have to be careful letting the dogs run down there.

It depends on the exercise needs of the dog... but here's what we do with ours. In the morning, my dad takes Casey & Joey out before he goes to work (about 6:00), then I get up and take Goo out before I go to school (about 7:00), and my mom takes Annie out before she goes to work (about 8:00). Then when I get home at 11:00 I take them all out again. Usually in the afternoon, I take the 3 small ones (Annie, Casey, & Joey) out to play, either at the field or in the backyard. Then in the evening, I have to do something with Annie to tire her out, and sometimes I take the little dogs for individual walks (around the block or something). Depending on the weather, I either take Goo outside to play/train for a while, or we stay inside and play (it's hard to keep up with her when it's raining and I'm ankle deep in mud :lol: ). She follows me all around the house, though, and if I'm just sitting around the yard, she's with me, so she's not stuck in the house all day. Before I go to bed, all the dogs get fed and taken out one more time. In winter it's really hard to get all of them exercised before it gets dark, so we do more stuff in the backyard/house, but in summer we sometimes spend hours in the field. Casey and Joey are about average energy dogs, Goo needs a little more exercise, and Annie needs a lot. It really depends on your dog's individual needs. :lol:

What kind of toys do your dog(s) like best? What toys hold up the best, shred the easiest, etc? I figure that with all the people on here, plenty of different toys have been "tested" :o

I posted there... don't know if it will do any good, but I tried anyway :lol:

:o Such violence in the world today :lol:

[quote name='Smooshie']FRUSTRATING trying to bang sense into someone like that,isn't it Goo??? :-? <sigh>...and therein lies the difference between a [i]responsible[/i] dog owner...and one that acquires a breed solely for [i]status[/i] :roll: The responsible owner spends all his/her time ensuring their dog does NOT show unwarranted aggression...while the [i]status[/i] owner spends all his/her time finding ways to [i]encourage[/i] it :x[/quote] I haven't been that mad in a long time... it just really got to me that when I'm working with my dog to [i]stop[/i] defensiveness toward people, she's actually [i]encouraging[/i] it in hers. When I warned her that if the dog bites someone, it might end up going in for the "big sleep", she said to me, "they can't do that, she's my dog". :roll: The dog has shown signs of dog aggression (not out of control dog aggression, but enough that she should be careful), but she [i]still[/i] takes it up to the school to let it run loose (even though the dog doesn't listen well off leash). Then if the dog kills someone's little fluffball, there will be more "fuel" for BSL around here. But it doesn't matter, because they can't do anything to "her dog". :roll:

I think Goo's is a large, this new petstore had them (only one size), and when I saw that they had a guarantee, I figured I'd try one. So far it's holding up pretty well, even though Joey (Chi/termite mix?) got ahold of it the other day. Goo's favorite part is actually the bungee, strange dog :roll:

Galileo bones are good, Rhino bones (big black rubber bones sold in petsmart) are pretty good too, from what I've heard. You also might want to check out Planet Dog toys... their website is [url]www.planetdog.com[/url] They give a lifetime guarantee on their orbee ball, if your dog eats the ball (the bungees aren't included in the guarantee), you can bring/send it back and they'll give you a new one. I just got Goo one, and it's still intact (it's the one she had in the pictures I posted a few days ago), but she's not a real "destructive chewer". She usually just throws her toys around and shakes them (and we play tug a lot too), but if I ignore her when she's trying to get me to play she ends up "taking out her frustration" on the toy, and I get to clean up the "remains" :lol:

[i]Everybody[/i] around here thinks their dog is "protective". Of course, when a person even looks at the dogs, they "tuck and run" :-? My friend recently told me that she wishes her rescue pit bull (friendly with everyone, has the temperment a pit bull should have) was more like my dog Goo (not the best representative of the breed, temperment-wise, altough she's gotten/is getting better). I was more than a little mad about that, and carried on for a while about why anyone would want a "protective" dog (and just how fun it is to have one :roll: :-? ). She also said she wished the dog would growl at people sometimes... sure, why not just hang a sign on it that says "I'm vicious, Shoot me". :x :o :o :o

I tried to dremel our dogs nails once... on the third nail of the first dog (Annie), the dremel died :o Not sure if I did it wrong or if the dremel (it was my aunt's boyfriend's) was "faulty", but it died. :lol:

See if you can put and eye (I?) hook (those little round screw things) into a wall or fence, somewhere where theres not a lot of things to distract/excite her, but that you're both comfortable (outside my not be the best place, unless you want to deal with the weather changes). You can tie her to the hook to keep her in place, use a flat collar and a leash long enough for her to move a little, but not enough for her to get away from you (I use a 2ft leash), and the wall/fence will keep her from circling around and getting away. If that's not enough for her to let you groom her, you can smear some peanut butter on the wall and she'll stay busy/distracted licking it off while you groom. Keep the sessions short, if she's getting fidgety, it's been too long. Giving treats every few minutes throughout the grooming may also help, and you can eventually "wean her off" the treats if you want. A better way to do the grooming may be to do a little every day, that way she doesn't have to stay still for so long, or let her have a few breaks during the grooming. As she becomes more comfortable/calm, you can lengthen the amount of time you groom until you reach a point suitable for you. These are just my suggestions, and may or may not help you :lol:

[quote]If your dog freaks out, with it's hackles raised, it's back end lower than it's front and acts "skittish" while barking up a storm, that's not protection, that's fear.[/quote] I agree, but a lot of people think that when a dog acts that way, it's being protective. They end up encouraging fear aggression, and then wonder why the dog bites someone. I was trying to point out that that kind of behavior isn't really protective. Sorry I wasn't more clear in my post :oops: [/quote]

A well bred, well socialized pit bull should [b]never[/b] show aggression toward humans. Some pit bulls [b]will[/b] develop dog/animal aggression (of various degrees) at some point in their life. Pit bulls usually start "turning on" (this is a term you will hear often, it means that the dogs have started to show animal aggression) between 1-3 yrs, although it can occur earlier or later. The change may happen over a period of time, with the dog becoming increasingly less tolerable of other dogs/animals, or it may seem to happen overnight (hence the term "turning on"). The level of dog aggression can vary from simply growling at strange dogs within a few feet of them, to literally screaming everytime they see a dog, no matter how far away it is. Often, there are no obvious warnings that a dog is going to be dog aggressive, it just happens one day. A prospective owner needs to be prepared for that, and realize that there may come a time when they'll need to keep their dogs seperated from each other. This doesn't mean that pit bulls can't make good pets. Also, just because they are animal aggressive does not mean that they will be aggressive toward humans, the two types of aggression are not in any way related. If you want a dog that will guard, a pit bull is not the dog for you... if you want a dog that will protect, a pit bull is most likely still not the dog for you. Pit bulls should be friendly towards people, and many will treat strangers like long lost friends. Will some protect their owners? Yes, some will. Some won't. It's not something the breed was particularly intended for, nor is it something their reputation really needs. If you decide you do want a pit bull, and can live with the possibility that they may not protect you, you may want to check with rescue groups. They usually have young adults, so you can have a better idea of their temperment, and whether they'll suit your needs or not. [url]www.pbrc.net[/url] <This is a listing of adoptable rescue pit bulls across the US, there are at least 500 on there, so you stand a decent chance at finding one that suits your needs. A piece of advice about protective dogs though... often the dogs that put up the biggest show of "protectiveness" will be among the first to flee when things go bad and you expect them to protect. Or they'll bite someone they percieve as a "threat", and end up either being shot or pts at animal control because they bit someone without substantial provocation.

[quote] hope for Sterling's sake that he HAS turned himself around....but WHY leave that website up???? [/quote] Hope for Sterling's sake that he didn't adopt her (him?) to guard the pit bulls...

I think the point most people here are trying to make about these dogs is that the more "extreme" a dog appears, the less functional it becomes. An example, working GSDs have very different structure than conformation GSDs... the extreme angulation of the conformation GSDs hindquarters lend itself to all sorts of structural/joint defects (hip dysplasia being one of them), as well as taking away from the dogs overall working performance level. The working GSDs, while maybe not as [b]athletic looking[/b] have body structures more suitable for working dogs than most "conformation bred" dogs. Something kind of the opposite of this is present in performance bred APBTs (whether it's weight pulling or any other demanding sport)... they have been bred with little regard as to looks, and much importance placed on performance. If you look at these dogs, you'll see that most are not as bulky as you would expect, many are rather "lanky". They don't have particularly "extreme" or "strong" looks, but their conformation is very well suited for hard work. Olde bulldogs are pretty extreme in looks, but that hasn't helped their structure and soundness. The "out" elbows [b]look[/b] strong, but in real life can actually decrease strength/stamina in a dog. It also increases the chances of elbow dysplasia. Those are just some things you might want to consider... :lol:

How does he know the dogs are gamebred if they're of "unknown breeding"? :lol:

[quote]I also said "well bred" which means gamebred (cause a pit not gamebred is just another cur).[/quote] Maybe in your opinion gamebred means well bred, but in all honesty, a lot of gamebred dogs aren't the healthiest/best tempermented dogs, so I wouldn't exactly consider them the only well bred dogs. For all your experience, you seem to be forgetting that very few APBTs are truely game, and all that the term "gamebred" means is that they are from breeding of game dogs. There's not really any rules as to what makes a gamebred dog, everyone just sorta makes them up as they go along, especially BYBs and "wannabe dogmen" (see Hmmmm... :lol: ). Many gamebred dogs are curs, many dogs from untested lines show some degree of gameness... it really makes no difference. [quote]We have 32 dogs at the moment and are expecting 3 litters to be hitting the ground soon. [/quote] That's pretty sad that you have to produce that many pups to get a few decent ones out of the group... maybe you should invest in some "better bred" dogs :lol: So where are the 20-ish pups from the next month going (oops, wait, that's 20-ish before you cull out all the curs, right?)? Since the dogs never leave the dogyard, I'm sure they're real well adjusted and stable :o With all those pups, you must just be handing them out to whoever comes along, what a great thing you're doing for the breed. And here I was wondering why people hate pit bulls so much :roll: [quote]I only have experience, several years I might add, with gamebred full-blooded APBTs. Dont deal with ANY curs.[/quote] I think you're in denial... Like I said before, there are plenty of curs out there that are "full blooded" (actually the correct term is purebred), gamebred APBTs. I bet you deal with curs every day :lol:

I haven't seen much bitework at all in person, but from what I understand, the use of the stick depends on the dog. I think the stick is only introduced when the dog is confident in the bite, and it is used in a manner not to damage the dogs confidence. I suppose it would also depend on the handlers, some may be more "nurturing", whereas others may really push the dog to see how they respond.

What a nice crop job on the male APBT... I can't help but wonder how that happened. They consider themselves ethical breeders, but they have probably close to 50 dogs, which they keep in 12'x12' kennels. :x It also concerns me a little that they have a double dapple dachshund as a breeder, and the other 3 breeders are dapples, so any pups produced by them will be double dapples (double dapples often have eye or ear problems/deformities, and many have other problems as well, some lethal, so ethical breeders won't purposely breed two dapples). The APBTs are definitely not breeding quality, and how can Chihuahuas be mini?

[quote]Most well bred APBTs will attack a dog regardless of where he is at (his territory or someone elses).[/quote] Not most. Some. Many well bred APBTs are confident enough that they won't fight another dog unless there is a clear threat/challenge. Not all are like that though. [quote]Keeping the pit in a fence is a responsible way of confinement.[/quote] A fence with a hole in it? I don't know if you read that part, but I bet if the dog had wanted to get out, she could have.

Most people who are really serious about fighting dogs are pretty good at avoiding being caught. They don't let many people into their "circles". I think that's part of the reason so few people are caught (the other reason is that dog fighting isn't a real high priority for the police when there's so much other crime).