4 Misbehaving Dogs. Please Help?
October 19, 2009 by admin
Filed under Care & Training Q&As
This is important, very important so please read everything. My family and I have 4 dogs. A Male Great Pyrenees, he is 3 years old. A Female Chocolate Lab, she is also 3 years. Two Papillons. The Female is about 2 years, and the Male a year and a half. All these dogs mean the world to me, and I would hate to have to get rid of them. But my parents aren’t happy with them right now. Let me list their behavioral problems, and anything you suggest will help.
Male GP, 3: Attacks other dogs. Our chocolate lab has gone into surgery because of this, and he is threatening the life of our Male Papillon. He has an insane barking issue. Sam is one of the best dogs in the world, most of the time, and in order for us to keep him, it is crusual we fix these problems.
Female CL, 3: She is the perfect dog except for her barking issue. It’s quite bad, and although there is no way we are considering giving her another home, we’d like to fix this.
Female P, 2: She still isn’t house trained and…
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You should contact Victoria Stillwell and Caesar Millan and see if one of them would come retrain your dogs, teach you how to be alpha, and put you and your dogs on their show. You should qualify; your problem is that bad.
3yo-m GP: GP do NOT tend to be dog aggressive, so there’s something that’s happened to change a non-dog aggressive dog into a dog-aggressive dog. This usually is a result of the adult humans in the family (you included) NOT being Good Strong Alpha Pack Leaders and not protecting the dog’s rights, or his place in the pack order. He needs serious work with an animal behaviorist.
GP’s can be barky, so this is not an unusual trait. There are solutions.
3yo-m Choc Lab should be mature by now. If he’s aggressive to the male pap, then he needs serious work with an animal behaviorist as this is not a usual trait for a lab. He may be severely lacking in enough exercise and activities to keep him a happy dog. He’s also suffering from difficulties in who’s where in the Pack Order due to lack of a strong Pack Leader.
Your Pap’s are small dogs. Small dogs are often very nervous, and if the dog is nervous enough, and insecure, the dog will become very barky. This may be a result of being picked on and terrorized by the larger dogs who don’t know their place in the pack. It’s also triggered by a lack of a Strong Pack Leader (human).
You want to fix these problems so bad, but you all caused these problems by your lack of learning how to be Good, Strong Alpha Pack Leaders. You and both your parents ALL need to learn and to do this. I’ll give you links. It’s YOUR job to go to the websites and learn and DO the right things. It’s YOUR job to learn which of your 3yo dogs is the alpha dog.
If your dogs are intact, you should IMMEDIATELY have them neutered/spayed.
Your parents have had it all with the dogs, but are they willing to become part of the solution? They are part of the problem!
These dogs didn’t just zap – suddenly act this way…
They’ve been developing these bad habits slowly but surely and you and your parents have not done the right things yet to deal with the problems. Since you’ve let them develop over a considerable time, I hope you’re willing to be patient and understand it will also take time to undo the damages. This is why I suggested trying to get help from Victoria or Caeser. Their help can speed up the process. If you can’t get them, then find a local animal behaviorist.
YOU can right now enroll in a dog obedience school with whichever dog you believe is the alpha. It will be either your GP or your Lab. GP is alpha male, Lab is alpha female, but one of them is alpha over ALL the dogs. If the alpha dog is treated by you as alpha at all times, you begin to re-establish the pack order. You must ALSO become a Strong Pack Leader. If you go to obedience school NOW with the alpha dog, the alpha dog will start to train the other dogs how to behave properly.
REMEMBER:
The GP is harder to train than the Lab.
Both the GP and Lab should be mature adults by now, but labs tend to remain child-like much longer, so she might not be as mature yet as most 3 year old dogs.
You should join a yahoo group… a GP group for the boy, and a Lab group for the girl. I’ll give you a link to one group. Other’s in the group may also have a lab so the GP group might help with both dogs. Get STARTED -!-
Get a dog trainer. At this point, it’s your best bet.
you obviously have a domionace problem. yes pecking order including the humans in your house. i have probs w/ my 4 dogs almost as bad. don’t get rid of them study the behavior and you will see what the problem is. it’s usually a dominance issue that you are creating?!?! Cesar Milan could pinpoint it in about 20 minutes. I know that myself, yet when you are busy, it’s hard to analyze. It’s mostly lack of attention and exercize, and structure. wish i could help more
First of all the reason all the dogs have a barking problem is probably because one dog started it and the rest followed and picked up the bad habit. You could get a spray water bottle and when they start barking spray their faces. If they like that, then maybe a trainer.
As far as the aggressive dog that attacks, you really have to work with him and watch him. A trainer would most likely be the best bet with this dog. Try to watch the dog and find out if there is anything specific that triggers his attacks. Maybe the other dog takes his toy or something specific happens that he doesn’t like.
Concerning the potty training issues, you are going to have to spend time taking them out every hour or so. Treat them like puppies. Maybe even take treats with you and when they go outside give them a treat. And I don’t know if you do this but if they go to the bathroom inside a stern NO!, put their nose by it, a little smack and immediately put them outside.
I have several tips.
1. Watch Cesar- The Dog Whisperer.
2.My dog is like that. He misbehaves sometimes. We got an empty water bottle and filled it with a few pepples/rocks. Then when he does something bad, shake the bottle at them.
3. WARNING: Do not throw it at them. Thats abuse.
Tips:
1. Be strict, but not too strict.
2. Make sure you’re dogs are loved at the same time too.
3. DO NOT Kick/Hit your dog hard. They’re behavior will get even worse and you’ll get fined.
I hope I helped you.
Tell your parents it’s not the dogs fault they haven’t trained them right, that sounds like all they need.Barking issues can be fixed by buying a small birdhouse lookalike from petsmart or any big pet place, It lets off a sound we cant hear but it will make the dogs be quiet, cost is about 45. The attacking behavior is due to someone not showing him he has no dominance over any thing in the house. Once again your parents fault.house training also your parents fault, help out by taking it out every hour or so.
Spay and neuter all of the animals if you haven’t done so already. That will cut down on some of the male aggression. Be consistent with the one that needs house training (use the crate training method…you can Google it if you aren’t familiar with it). Find out why the other female is barking all the time…does she see something she feels is a threat? Does she want attention? If all of your animals have behavioral problems like this, it’s the owner, not the animals causing the problem. Take the animals to training classes or have a professional trainer come work with your animals if need be.
these dogs are poorly trained, and to some degree poorly socialised
there is signs of you disrupting them from finding a natural hirarchy which would have lead them to live peacefully with eachother (likely from lack of knowledge on your part, breaking up figths that wasnt really bad figths)
rigth now with fed up stressed out parents, and 4 dogs who all need a lot of training and in some cases reahbilitation, it sound like you got too much on your hands
it may be best that you actualy at least temporarily gave up one or two, maybe foster them out to some responsible family members?
each dog willneed training on its own, and time and attention
you need help of a trainer and posible even behaviouralist (this can come to cost money here)
the most severe one is the male GP, he probably will need weeks maybe even months of rehabilitation, and he should be starting this alone away from the stress of the other dogs, then gradualy socialised again.
i am sorry but it sounds like you are in over your head, and this is not a better situation for your animals to be split apart, Sam actualy would majorly benefit from it, he need the peace and quietness, alonetime to calm down with being the only dog at first untill he can be sorted out.
The aditional situation of barking dogs can be sorted, but also its easier to deal with one or two then 3-4, because they a hyping eachother up.
house training as per normal, if this havent worked its time for the vet to rule out medical conditions, and then a behaviouralist to work on potential other reasons she may be having problems going outside
fact is i dont even know where to start, because these problems is clearly integrated in eachother and is an evil circle, this need to be broken, and rigth now the best solution would be through removing one or two dogs from the equation, to give a better retraining and rehabilitation enviroment that you could control for the remaining ones
they are all young animals, who are in their teens, and two of them also of a type who need extensive excersise.
basicaly here is a lot to work with, and this is not a job for you alone, if you are going to make this work, you need to involve the whole family. But you seriously need the help of a trainer or better yet a behaviouralist, because you wouldnt have these problems if you wherent lacking in knowledge, so you need someone who have the knowledge and can help teach you how to deal with it.
Firstly I’d seperate the dogs into two packs, the 2 big ones in one, and the two small ones in another. This will calm the situation down some, when 2 are out, the other are in and vice versa. The one who needs to go potty need to be taken out every hour and trained in being a good girl when she comes outside. Both the small ones need to be told when they bark inside, …”outside’. This will teach them that the way to get outside is to bark (which will channel the barking into a positive, where they can alert you when they want outside to pee) – all play and barking inside should be redirected outside, they learn this is the apropriate place for it then, and should learn to let you know when they want to go out and be restless.
The two big dogs need to be walked by two persons, take them forest walking if posible, nothing as a good hike, they need 1-2 hours walk a day (preferably in the nigth so they are tired, + half an hour in the morning so they can pee).
You need to find who of them is the dominant one, and teach this one to be a good leader, this means corecting agressiveness with “tsk” “no” and going inbetween when its to full on towards the other. On the other hand you need to from now on recognise this dogs leadership over the other dog to afirm its place (this way you can create a stabile hirarchy, with less conests about who are in what position) – this is done through ALWAYs greating the dominant dog first, giving him treat first…basicaly all acts that are towards them as a pack, reatch the dominant first, and the lesser member second. you also need to learn what is corect corection from one dog to another, and stay out of the situations where the dominat is corectly corecting the other (just keep an eye on them)
positive experience, and things happening corectly is the best way to asert success.
but there are so many but’s and if’s to this situation, and that can come from it…that you really do have to get a profesional trainer or behaviouralist to come mentor you through this
I have a theory….”Never give a dog a chance to make a mistake!”
You have a lot going on here!
GP attacking other dogs! No he does not! Not allowed!
The barking issues with one or more of the dogs. Talk about the Alpha problem here.
If you truly want to keep these dogs I would want to know this..are they neutered and spayed? This is the first problem. Because this is where you should start. Now for the second problem. Are they all allowed to run together at all times? They all need to be kenneled and re trained one at a time each per day. By kenneling them you fix the attack problem. By kenneling them you fix the “not potty trained” issue by not letting her use the house as her personal toilet. No wonder your parents are not happy. If she potties in her area she will not like it either, so let her out often and go to the same spot each time. Try to stay away from the family area and designate a special potty spot for all of them.
I would start by getting as large a crate for each dog as I could find. Put the Papillons in one room and let them out several times together daily to run and potty. Then back to the large crates. By this I mean don’t leave them there to suffer unattended and without training times. As for the barking, when they start barking in their kennel, cover them with a large sheet, close the door and leave the room. Do not give in and talk to them or give them commands. When they are quiet, come in, pet them and take them for a walk.
The lab needs his own space too and training time and walks on harness and leash. Also cover her in her crate if she barks. The GP will need a really large area to call his own. Not many people can buy a crate large enough for this large dog, but I am hoping you can.
Take out one dog at a time, spend some time training each one by itself. These dogs have been enabled to do their behavior problems by the family. This has to stop. this is why most dogs end up in the pound..No training.
You can train each of these dogs if you ask for help from a mentor, take your time…reward these dogs for good behavior and keep them apart until they each learn respect for the people feeding them and the home in which they live.
Get a simple training book, they work if you try…..I challenge you to get these dogs back on the right track.