kendalyn

Maybe instead of giving him a stern verbal correction when he does this, you could put him in a down stay instead. It sounds like you are trying to combat aggression with aggression and I doubt that will work. He growls at you, you growl back, and his only choice is to either back down or up the ante. Apparently he's not going to back down. Next time he growls at you, try giving him a command (I would choose down but you could try another one). But don't use that tone of voice like you are reprimanding him. Don't sound really upbeat either. Just give him the command very matter of factly. Have him stay there for a little while and then praise him like crazy when you let him up. [quote name='StarFox']I do yell allot not at him but just in general could that be part of the problem?[/quote] It might be putting him on edge. I would try and decrease yelling in general just in case it's bothering him. You also might want to make sure he's not in any pain for some reason.

Ear infections can effect more than just a dog's hearing. Bad ones will wreak havoc with a dog's equilibrium. Laurel could have had problems sensing where she was in space when her ear infection was bad. I can see this making her kind of wacky.

Woah! Yeah, now I see why the grooming on newfs is so expensive! :o That's really too bad about that poor dog. :-(

[quote]$100.00 dollars every 6 weeks[/quote] That's an awfully expensive grooming! Our groomer charged about $35-40 for my Standard Poodle and I would think more is involved in grooming a poodle. Why is it so expensive?

Congratulations HF!! Peaches is one lucky pup :P

Awesome idea on the Kevlar! I've never used one but I could love to. If I were going to buy a canoe, that would be it. :) Doubling is probably a good idea with the dogs along. It will give you a little extra assurance as portaging a canoe is mostly a balance issue and not weight. I wish I could go!!!!! I've only ever been to the Boundary Waters canoeing. I love it up there though. If you haven't been, think about planning a trip. [quote]I want to do the Bonfeild-Dickson portage in Algonquin sometime - 5250 m or 1043 rods I think. I am so not doubling that one, one trip. [/quote] Holy Smokes! 320 rods = 1 mile so about 200 rods = 1 km. That's longer than any portage I've done. Yeah, most surely a one tripper. How much more do you feed the dogs when they're on trail?

[quote]the prospect of travelling into the bush, sometimes carrying a canoe that may way up to 70lbs plus all your gear and food, paddling and travelling as much as 18k/day and having no toilet, somehow puts people off.[/quote] Hey I am more than ready to join you! As long as you guys don't pack Farina in for breakfast. That stuff makes me puke! Do you guys use an aluminum or wood canoe? I've used both and while the woody is way prettier, I'd rather portage an aluminum any day of the week. [quote]You must also learn to use these words: thunderbox, cathole and open-air-lat.[/quote] We always call it a biffy :lol: I've heard of thunderbox and open-air-lat but never cathole! I'd take both dogs. It would be a good warm up because 5 days on trail is a relatively short trip. Do you keep them on leash during portages? Will they pull on the leash? If so, who handles the dogs while you're portaging? I'm assuming it's not the person carrying the canoe. I'm fairly decent at portaging a canoe but I don't think I could handle it with two dogs pulling on me. Of course, maybe you're excellent at it and can handle both... About how many rods will your portages be?

How about PMing the rest of this conversation DAL and Baileysmom? :wink:

I'm 1.62 m. My boyfriend is much taller (1.89 m) so I can wear anything I want. :-) I hate heels though so I don't wear them anyway...

The CGC is basic obedience so it's not that hard depending on the dog and of course depending on the tester. I have seen some dogs that have their CGC that are really not very well behaved. I don't know how they passed. [quote name='doberfanatic']the hardest part for us was getting her to ignore other dogs. [/quote] Buck could get his right now if he would be quiet around other dogs! That seems to be the hardest part for him as well. :roll:

[quote name='desertlady']I would like to see some better more universal standard of asessing dogs (ANY dogs but yes especially pit bulls) as to whether they are dangerous before adopting.[/quote] These tests are usually not great predictors of what happens when a dog is outside of a shelter situation. Dogs in a shelter are stressed and surrounded by strange people and dogs constantly. It's not a good environment for testing. In addition, the tests themselves are often biased. [quote name='desertlady']As I said before it is not the breed, it is what people do to the breed. And there's some tragic realities there.[/quote] And as I said before, dogs of any breed can and are mistreated. You can't assume that just because a dog may be a pit bull that it automatically is going to be trained for aggression. Pit bulls generally are not effective as guard dogs or protection dogs anyway. Am I mistaken in thinking that you just recently got a dog that came from a shelter and than was subsequently mistreated by the person who adopted him? What makes your dog safer for you to adopt than a pit bull from the same situation?

[quote name='desertlady']A 1 year old purebred PB is up for adoption in the local pound. The card said he was a stray, so how can they know he was not agression trained?[/quote] What does this even mean? What is aggression training? At one year old, this dog is basically still a puppy and most likely will do fine in a home situation. [quote name='desertlady']I don't want THESE people releasing adult purebred pitbulls of unknown history into our community.[/quote] Why not? Pit Bulls are often inherently dog aggressive, but should not be people aggressive. There is a huge difference. All someone needs to do is foster him for a little while and see how he does. My guess is that he will be fine and very happy to be out of the shelter. Would you be more comfortable with him being adopted if he weren't a pit? What dogs would you be happy with the shelter "releasing into the community"? :roll: [quote name='desertlady']And maybe I will get bonked over the head for saying this here, but I would rather they PTS in this case NOT because of his breed, but because of the sadly real possibility that slimy people have already ruined him because of his breed.[/quote] This is just another way of saying that you want him put to sleep because he is a pit bull. Do you really think people can't "aggression train" (whatever that is) another breed of dog?

Buck wears his collar all the time. I won't take a chance of something really weird happening and him getting lost without his collar and tags on. It's the only way someone would be able to help him get back to me. I've never seen Buck even come close to having his caught on something. [quote]One day she removed the collar and saw that there was no fur under the collar, and that it was red, raw and bloody.[/quote] This most likely happened because the collar was too tight, not because the dog was wearing it all the time. I would probably reconsider the collar thing if I had another dog because I think it's much more likely for something to happen when two dogs are together with collars.

That's really scary! I hope the vet figures out what's wrong and Perry recovers quickly.

It's hard to tell exactly what breeds this dog is. He looks like a pit bull/shephard mix. Heavy on the pit bull side. I doubt he's going to be that big. Probably 50-60 pounds is my guess, but who knows :-) I'm working some overtime on labor day so maybe I will see if I can buy her a helpful book. Otherwise I'll print some stuff out from the internet and give it to her along with a "congratulations you have a new puppy" card. :D

Once my vet said it was OK to give Buck a baby aspirin for pain. Buck weighs about 50 pounds. If your dog is much smaller, I would break it in half.

people who have good intentions about their dog, but are clearly either clueless or misinformed about what they should be doing? I have a co-worker at my internship who just got a puppy two months ago. He is a pit/shephard mix and he's about 4 months old. She usually brings this dog to work with her because she doesn't like to leave him alone because he chews things. This is the start of my questions. I've never really had a young puppy. All of our dogs have been about 6 months old when we got them. This co-worker doesn't confine the puppy at all when he is alone (never more than 2 hours she says) and just accepts that fact that he is going to chew things up. She says it's what puppies do and you just have to let them grow out of it. Will this really work? I'm mainly curious here because none of my dogs have ever been chewers and I've never had a young puppy. Here's my second question. She really wants this dog to be well behaved and polite and to her credit she is trying to train him. But she really has no idea what she's doing. When I've seen her try to work on a command with him, she basically drags him around by the collar and uses no praise at all. It's not mean or anything, but I can pretty much guarantee the dog isn't learning anything. I asked if she wanted help once and she said yes, but I could tell she really didn't want me to interfere. I just made a few suggestions. So far she hasn't taken them. So am I just obligated to shut up since she hasn't asked for any help and I'm pretty sure she wants to do this on her own? Should I recommend some books? I don't want her to think I'm trying to be bossy or condescending, but she really does need help. Has anybody else had a situation like this before?

Another Shar-pei right!?! [i][size=6][color=red]I'm so excited for you!!![/color][/size][/i] :D

[quote]You have two APBTs? You have them in your house and seperated. How do you accomplish this. [/quote] I can't speak for Sashagirl but if I wanted to keep two dogs seperated in my home I would use doors, crates, close supervision and solid training.

The more you try to justify this, the worse it sounds. How many dogs do you have anyway?

[quote]What do you mean?[/quote] Not many people here think keeping a dog chained outside with a big heavy metal chain attached to a car axel buried in the ground is a good idea. Frankly I think it's cruel. [img]http://members.fortunecity.com/tbulldogs/0af1d010.jpg[/img] This picture is very sad.

Poor thing! She should have been taken inside when the weather started getting bad in the first place. :-?

Check out this website: [url]http://www.dogsdeservebetter.com/clova.html[/url] It has lots of tips about how to add height to a fence or otherwise modify it to keep fence climbers/jumpers inside the fence. I know it's really preachy about tying dogs out so I want to clarify that I don't see a problem with what you have been doing with Maya. This site just came up on the search engine and it looked good. :-) Here's another gadget I found that adds height to a fence. It's called a "Top Hat Post". Here's a picture for you: [img]http://www.whiteswires.com.au/images/whitespics/tophatextension.jpg[/img] Add some climbing vines and it would look really nice. :-)

Court, I know you know this, but you are far far far from abusive! Don't even let a thought like that cross your mind! :D I do think that if people are going to be so nosy, they should at least develop decent radar so they can tell an innocent situation from a bad one! :roll:

[quote]People who try modifying aggressive dogs don't try to "dominate" them into submission. Everybody agrees that would be a disaster. Imagine training a wolf by dominating it. Quick way to get killed. It is a mistake to think that because dogs are descended from wolves, they behave like wolves.[/quote] This is my favorite part. I've never agreed with using wolf pack rules and applying them to dogs. Dogs are nothing like wolves and most of our pets have never lived in any sort of wolf pack. I'm am not my dog's "Alpha" anything. He has no idea what that means anyway.