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Old March 11th, 2006, 11:04 PM
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OntarioGreys OntarioGreys is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Woodstock, ON
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Quote:
You certainly may disagree, but no good breeder would sell siblings to buyers and for good reason. You have greyhounds. These are not greyhounds. These are GSD mixes - two spayed bitches - and can be much more aggressive, territorial and intolerant than greyhounds and are quite capable of fighting to the death.
I have had dogs in my life for close to 50 years now, my father had blueticks and redbones bred for hunting, I have had a couple of my own hounds(Red and Duke), 2 of my own GSD's(Sheera and Hobi) , a lab(Jazz) , a dobe(Jesse). a couple of mixes(Rats and Carla), 2 cockers(Brody and Buddy), and 2 eskies(Nikki and Babes) as well as the greyhounds(Sunny, Callie and Maya) I was also sole support mother raising my child alone from 9 months of age, he is now grown and I have 2 grandchildren, and I have also fostered dogs, I have worked with trainers and also had a friend who was an animal behaviourlist and had a degree in animal psychology(passed away from cancer) also have a friend who was a GSD breeder up to a few years ago. I have always had an avid interest pack dynamics and language and
in dog training, and over the years I have collected a small library, that interest started when I met Charles Eisenmann in the 1960's( owner and trainer of the dogs who played in "The Littlest Hobo" along with London and 3 other shepherds 2 of which London sired{they all lived together in the same house} at the time he was promoting a new way to train dogs, which laid the ground work for the gentle training methods that exist today)
, my parent bought me his first book "Stop, Sit, and Think"
So you are right I own greyhounds how can I possibly know anything about GSD's and give advice Many of the dogs I owned were adopted as special needs due to behavioural and or medical problems and I aslo raised a few from pups, much of what the owner is describing I has seen and dealt with. And maybe just so you know greyhounds can get into some nasty fights too usually because they can become very competitive, so when adopted out they all go to their new homes with a muzzle, and the owners are warned if they let their greyhound run with other greyhounds to use a muzzle.

[QUOTE not all dogs are meant to be best buddies - and now we have lost good time in finding another home and potentially a child gets hurt.
[/QUOTE]

I agree with your first part, but what she has describe about the dogs behaviour does not suggest an agressive dog but one that has too much energy and therefore is taking playtime too far, therefore annoying the other dog. I do understand that safety needs to come first and foremost which is why I recommended the muzzles. I am by no means telling her to keep the dog , and I am also not telling her to get rid of it by telling her she can' t manage her time to work with this dog, just because she has children. Heck considering she brought 2 puppies into a home when her children were aged 9, 5 and 3 says a heck of a lot about her character and her determination to make things work, and she has done several things right already with regards to training and trying to teach the dogs that people are above them in the pack, she deserves to see what work and options are available, from there she can determine if it is something that is feasible for her situation and make a decision from there.
Quote:
You don't use children as bait to teach your dog manners by spraying water on her.
I am not suggesting to use the children as bait, I said supervise the interactions and correct. And spraying a dog with water can be an effective training tool as it breaks the dogs attention and puts the focus on the person trying to correct, especially when a dog is too excited and worked up to listen. When I introduced a cat to my 3 dog household, when one tried to chase pack instinct kicked in, for the cats safety I needed to teach the dogs not to chase in the fastest possible method, my one grey has very high prey drive but seeing that I could break his focus from cats at my vets office I felt strongly that he was cat trainable, within 3 days of using the spray bottle to correct the dogs ceased making any effort to chase, within 2 weeks the cat was snuggling up to my high prey drive grey to sleep, during the first month the dogs were muzzled and interactions between cat and dogs were closely supervised that was 4 years ago all has be fine.

the NILIF training will help to teach the respect , my advice was not meant just to pick one idea and put that into practice, the owner if she chooses to keep the dog needs to protect(muzzle), correct(spray bottle), train and provide sufficient mental and physical exercise so the dog is not becoming overexcited.

Quote:
This dog thinks everyone is under her - not just the kids, and she is willing to use her teeth to maintain her role in the house. Not a good scenario
Reread the behaviour-- of the way the dog is behaving with the children, what she is describing is excitable play biting, would you recommend the dog be gotten rid of if it was acting the same at 3 months of age?


Play nipping does not necessarily mean dominance or aggressiion , my most recent grey is a spook and very submissive both to animals and people, part of my way to build confidence and to help further her trust so she would not see me as a threat while standing was to play with her by running around the yard and letting her chase me, when she got overly excited she play nipped, because of her fearfulness I could not use spray bottle tactics with her, because of her submissiveness and fearfulness, turning around to look at her and sternly speak to her would set her into a panic, so I had to use the least threatening way possible to let her know that nipping was an unacceptable part of play by the turning my back on her and ignoring, it only took a couple times for her to understand. For a dog like Biscuit, this method would take a lot longer and she might even try nipping while being ignored to regain attention, which is another reason why the spraying method would work better with her.
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