Designer Dog Blogs

by Misschrys81 on 8/20/2009 at 4:13 PM in Training

Lola is Great but she is a handfull. I love her and enjoy her company. I dont how ever have a finced yard and even if I did there's over 40 achers of it so, it would still be hard to track her down. she does come when I call her but only with in a 100 feet maybe . I dont mind her running around but I dont want her to get lost. she know sit , shake and go home . she is almost house broken but using puppy pads proved to be a bad Idea in this studio basment apartment. now that I dont want to by pads anymore she choose to go there still . I tried locking her up in her crate most of the day but that didnt work and she cried to be let out and I felt bad. so she contiued, spanking helped a lot but she still goes there from time to time and now is a little aprehisive when I am by that area and call her. well there is many more days ahead to try to clarify the problem we'll see if she is as good a dog as I hope she will be.
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by sands904 on 8/15/2009 at 7:54 PM in Training

If any of you have caugth Animal Planet's latest dog training show, I am very sorry! I just finished watching my first (and last) episode of 'In the Dog House' with Brad (the incompetient trainer). He is a horrible a$$ who jerks the dogs around while yelling at both them and their owners.

I am currently studying dog behavior in hopes of becoming a trainer someday and am appalled by this show and his techniques. If anyone is using such techniques on your dogs I urge you to reconsider.

I have a very fearful dog who *used* to bark/lunge at other people and dogs but with positive reinforcement, counter conditioning and desensitization we have made huge progress. Logan is now walking loose leash next to me 90% of the time and very rarely reacts to people and it getting much better with dogs. I have been working with him for about 6 months but during the last two months I have begun reading about dog behavior and it has extremely progressed our training. If I had tried yelling at him and jerking his leash he would be even more scared, fearful and stressed.

I just don't understand. We stopped hitting children with a ruler in school because we thought it was cruel and didn't really help so why do we use similar techniques with our dogs? People learn better with encouragement and positive feedback and so do dogs!
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