I was asked lots of great questions on my phone-in on Tuesday evening, which means there’s plenty of useful training advice amongst the answers I gave.
An interesting theme ran through the session which was about dogs starting to question their owners about “who’s in charge” as they came out of the puppy stage (particularly between 1-2 years old). So there lots of advice on how to take the control back from a dog who’s trying to assert their leadership.
It was a great session – and I look forward to running some more with you all. We've broken the session down into sections, and described each question so you can pick and choose the ones you'd like to listen to if you're short of time.
Teri had adopted a rescue dog who had some strong traits. She was highly protective and increasingly aggressive and recently snapped at a 3 year old child. Out on the walk she was now trying to attack other dogs too. Teri was coming under pressure to have her put down.....
Jesse’s miniature Daschund mix Nero, came to her suffering from separation anxiety, destroying furniture and scratching doors whenever they left him alone. With some hard work Jesse had solved that problem, but after a number of significant changes at home, Nero was showing signs of anxiety again and Jesse was wondering what to do now....
8 month old dog Pippy was starting to test her owner Mark, having been really well behaved up to this point. Suddenly she was starting to pull on the lead, jump up, chase and bark at birds in the garden and steal socks and underwear....
Pepe the Spanish Water Dog was increasingly aggressive and now had to live downstairs away from the family for most of the time. He had been away to boot camp and was an obedient dog and yet he had bitten her daughter and step son and would attack anyone that came near her....
Ruth was trying to manage a difficult situation with her 3 Dobermans, since two of them had a nasty fight and she couldn’t trust them to be left together. Ironically it was the youngest Doberman that was causing the friction. Ruth was feeling guilty about having to cage one of the dogs at night...
When Lola’s played with other dogs she was always trying to dominate them. Her owner was wondering how she could stop Lola behaving in this way....
Adele wanted to know the best way to deal with her dog barking in different situations, which included in the garden, when clients came to Adele’s house and at particular things on the TV. Adele had also had a traumatic experience with her dog when out for a walk, and was trying to build her confidence before starting to walk her dog again and was looking for some advice on that too.... (There’s a bit of interference on the recording of this question to start with which is a great shame, but hang in there, it does disappear after a while!)
