Ask a dog trainer

You fessed up as to how you are failing at this in your question. If I told you that I d give you $100 if you could keep him from shitting on the porch, do you think you could do it?

 

I totally believe you. Bassets are notorious for both of these things that you speak of. Your best bet is to socialize him with normal stable dogs. If you believe that your other dogs are unstable, meaning that your pack is unstable, then find other folks dogs who are well behaved. And get to work setting rules, training, giving disipline with your other dogs so you can have a well balanced pack that can positively influence any unstable dog that socializes with them

 

Yes exactly. Excitement causes bad behavior. Your best bet is to ignore the dog when she is excited and only give affection to a calm stable mind. My general rule is this: On a scale from 1-10 with 1 being minor and 10 being major, rate your dogs behavior. If your dog displays behavior from 1-5, ignore it. 5-10, correct it with some type of disipline-consistantly-everytime she bites. The disipline needs to work. If you are nicely asking her to stop, it wont.

Google a product called pet convincer. It works

 

I would never claim to be better than Cesar Milan. He is one of the best. BUT, I definitely do not suck at this. The fact is that a dog is a product of their environment. The only reason a dog goes bad is because the human is doing it wrong, when someone else takes over and does it correctly, they change. But, you have to have the balls to face an aggressive dog and control their aggression. I have never met a dog that I couldnt help. But, what exactly does help mean. Does that mean that this asshole of a dog is now a happy go lucky labrador. Not at all. That means we have learned how to control him and supress his aggression so that he can stay safe for the remander of his life. That does not mean that we can just go back to doing the things we used to do caused everything is fixed.

 

This is a classic case of a dog who needs some obedience taught into him so that he can learn to listen to his owner instead of chasing distractions. You need to set up the situation and then teach him to ignore it.

Put the dog on a 15 foot leash with some type of correctional collar on him (pinch, choke, martingale). Have someone drive the 4 wheeler past you. When he chases, just let him hit the end of the line. It probably wont stop him, but it will show him he has a boundary. Then do it again. If he tries to run and hit the end of the leash again, turn around and take one step in the opposite direction. He will hit the end of the leash harder because of your reverse movement. On the third repitition, when he runs, turn and walk in the opposite direction until he is whipped around and following you. From here on out, each repitition you increase your speed until on your last repitition you are running in the opposite direction. By the time your done with this exercise, he will be walking right by your side, listening like a good boy instead of chasing distractions.

 

Your welcome. That is the very first part of my obedience course. Distraction training. I will do this technique with every distraction I can find. Other dogs, cats, motorcycles, bicycles, bags of treats, bowls of food, kids, The door bell( this can be done with a 6 foot leash instead of a 15 since you are indoors). Most people will claim that their dog will sit and down, but will they do it in the presence of these distractions? If you dont have thier attention in the face of these things, then your obedience does not work, and what good is it.

 

Reasonortreason,
Happy to have you. Maybe i can learn something from you as well. Definitely step in where ever you like. I will respond better later but I'm on my phone right now .sorry

 

ROT,
Im self taught, so i definitely dont mind if you sit in and I definitely will enjoy your wisdom, However know that my methods may be different than your mentor's. I have learned that the saying is true that if you put 3 dog trainers in a room , the only thing 2 of them will agree on is that the 3rd one is wrong. Dog training is not a science like the positive reinforcement people would like to tell you. it is an artform. We dog trainers try things and repeat what works. This creates folks who KNOW what works and sometimes we can be stubborn about other peoples methods. I say this because i would like to avoid all argument over techniques and try to keep our thread here as friendly as possible. I can totally be guilty of this. I know my methods are solid so where i do like to learn new things, i have a hard time swallowing bullshit that i know wont work. All im saying is I'll do my best to be cordial.

Im a problem solver. I come in, tell people what they're doing wrong and get them started (through solid obedience work) on correcting their relationship. I do not do agility or police k9 work although someday I hope do dive deeper down the hole into these fields. I have played with my border collie a bit with her agility, however my knowledge is definitely lacking in those areas. Hope I can learn from you here. I do basic obedience and advanced obedience. Lots of e-collar work.

I agree with all of this. My approach would be long line training to get the dogs attention. I do not use a short leash to teach 'heel'. I use a 15 foot leash and constantly move in the opposite direction that the dog wants to move. This creates a situation where the dog keeps hitting the end of the line. Soon he realizes that you are unpredictable and if he is going to keep from hitting the end of the line he is going to have to constantly watch you and move with you. I stay 100% silent during this process. No talking, no touching, no eye contact. This teaches the dog that even when I am not paying attention to you, you need to be paying attention to me. Then after I have worked silently for about two weeks, I will finally praise the dog at the exact moment that he is heeling perfectly (This part would have to be done with physical praise since your dog is deaf). This marks the behavior very effectively because it is such a drastic change from what you were doing. This would gain you the attention that you need to train a deaf dog. The dog would become used to having to check in with you constantly. An ecollar with a vibrate sensation on it could also be taught as a 'focus' signal. E-collars are very useful with deaf dogs. Im curious if your method is different. Does your trainer use a long line to teach heel? I will not move to a shorter leash until my dog is heeling perfectly next to me with a 15 foot leash on. Most trainers think you need a short leash that gets popped with a 'No Heel!". I think this method is counterproductive, because you are are having to give your attention to the dog and remind him to heel. This works at first, but down the line, the dog gets desensitised to the correction and just waits for you to remind him to heel. Also, I do distraction training first. Well not first first. I do one week of attention training with no distraction, then on week 2, before sit, before come, I get the distractions out of the way. I put a long line on and when they pull towards a distraction I run in the opposite direction. A couple of corrections and your dog will no longer be distracted with that specific distraction. I then send the owner home with homework to distraction poof the dog for an entire week. Distractions are: Dogs, cats, birds, squirrels, boowl of dog ffod, treats, squeeky toys, people walking by the house, the doorbell, kids, smells, motorcycles or other loud engines, ect... By week three, we've got a dog who will not leave the owners side as long as anything is hooked to him and watches and moves with you evry move. To know if your dog has been distraction poofed enough, there is a test. Find a square building and stand with your dog on a leash. Then have another dog/owner combo (that the dog doesnt know is there) walk around the corner. If the dog looks at you, its time to move on. If the dog pulls or acts like a fool, then we need more repitition.

My obedience will not work in a real life circumstance if distraction proofing has not been effectively accomplished. So, i will not teach anything else until I have this done first. Its the Koehler method and its what i believe in