<p>To lje62–we lost our red-and-white Corgi last December, and now have a 7-month-old tricolor. We also had a lab (until early October–<em>sniff</em>). Quite a contrast between the lab and our first Corgi. Labs are everyone’s best friends. Our Corgi was definitely more wary of strangers. And a little jealous (if you loved on the lab, he came right over and demanded attention too). And DH swears he held a grudge. On the other hand, though, more physically affectionate. He was the one who would have his muzzle right on you if you weren’t feeling well. And no disrespect, but our new Corgi seems more outgoing. He has a lot of personality and looks really athletic. We are in VA but he came from a breeder in OH (long story, but there’s a horse show connection). (The breeder happens to be bringing a female pup to the area next weekend.) (And 0 health issues with our first Corgi, and none with the pup so far.)</p>
<p>We adopted our sweet lab from a rescue group 12 years ago. I happen to be going to pick up another one from the rescue group this afternoon to take for a test drive over the weekend. I really like having two dogs in the house.</p>
<p>Oh yes, there are HUGE differences between breeds. The herding dogs have been breed to work WITH people; retrievers retrieve; the Northern breeds for independence and toughness (now those are difficult to train!); the terriers to dig for vermin of various sizes… Rottweilers were originally herding dogs, as unlikely as it seems (as were German Shepherds).</p>
<p>As for rottweilers, there are some in agility. They aren’t particularly well-suited for it, because their body build is so heavy that jumping is hard on them, but the few that do it do just fine.</p>
<p>As for the excitement piddling, what I’ve always done is take the dog out right before guests come… I’ve known a few poodles with that problem and that’s always been the easiest solution. You can have guests be all calm until the dogs settle down, but as you say, not as much fun. I think of it as “I’m so happy to see you I could just pee!”</p>
<p>I didn’t say that you wouldn’t see <em>any</em> Rotts in agility… just not many. They are bred to be working dogs and have a strong dose of common sense – so it is fairly easy to train them to do things that are useful. But they aren’t highly motivated to do things merely for the sake of praise or pleasing their owners, and they like to maintain their dignity – so it’s not so easy to teach tricks or stunts. So, not “well-suited” sums it up. </p>
<p>That really sums up the difference I’ve noticed with terriers. My new pup has Houdini-like powers to escape from any enclosure. (The whole crate thing hasn’t worked out too well). But she’s very affectionate and follows me everywhere in the house, so she likes any sort of attention and probably would be a natural service dog. So I think she actually will be fairly easy to train to do basic commands and various tricks, but her mind does work in a different way.</p>
<p>Calmom: I was introduced to clicker training when I took puppy obedience with my now-6-year-old standard poodle, who was then and is now hell on wheels. She has a sense of humour that won’t quit and made me get into agility training… primarily so that she wouldn’t destroy the house. (I swear, she spends her spare time thinking up ways to get into trouble… so I try to make sure she has no spare time.)</p>
<p>In any case, clicker training made a HUGE amount of sense to me, especially when I started using it on my students and my kids and found it works there too. (I use a verbal click with students: “yes!”) I think it’s an incredibly easy way to train–and it means I don’t have to jerk my dog around (which I hated and found ineffective) or yell at her (which I hated and found ineffective) or hit her with a newspaper (which I hated and found ineffective).</p>
<p>When I get out the clicker and the treats, the dogs immediately start trying to find out what I’ve got in mind. The other day I trained the younger dog to run across the lawn and around a pole and back to me, just because I thought she had too much energy… it took about five minutes.</p>
<p>OK, I think I’ll try a clicker. The post about terriers being problem-solvers has got me thinking that a puzzle-solving approach to training might be best for my pup. She’s driving me nuts right now because it was pouring rain this morning, so she has all that pent up energy from being indoors - now the rain stopped, so of course she went outside and slathered mud all over her paws, then came in on her mission to spread it throughout the house. But when she started playing with my sneakers (a no-no), I thought about the whole terrier-problem-solving thing and she was quite happy for awhile when I put some dog cookies in a Kong. She couldn’t get the cookies out and then started jumping up on a chair and dropping the kong from on high… and I guess that worked to shake the cookies out! (I couldn’t figure out what she was doing at first!). </p>
<p>One big problem I’ve got with a 12-lb dog is that I don’t want to overfeed with the treats. She only needs to eat about a cup of dry kibble each day – not room in that little tummy for too many calorie-laden doggie treats.</p>
<p>I would note that all physical correction doesn’t have to be jerking, yelling, or hitting. At least with a small dog, sometimes it makes sense to simply pick up the dog and move it with a stern reprimand. And I think sometimes a quick aversive might be the best solution – I’d think the snatch and scold approach to the doggie offense of chewing on an electrical cord makes some sense. (I don’t want the dog to avoid power cords because she’s being nice – I want to instill a healthy fear of them.)</p>
<p>calmom, invest in bitter apple. It worked miracles for one of my cats and the dog. The other cat had to learn the lesson the hard way (she did not mind bitter apple and continued her nasty and very dangerous habit of chewing on power cords).</p>
<p>Oh, yes, physical correction (and newspaper) accompanied by a very calm “no” works. Yelling, cussing, and inflicting pain - don’t. Neither does pleading with the dog to stop.</p>
<p>Actually, electrical cords haven’t been much of a problem. I have tried to eliminate exposed cords as much as possible. It’s my shoes that seem to hold endless fascination. </p>
<p>She also likes to shred paper, but as my paper shredder broke I was thinking that I might put her to work. :)</p>
<p>Our 27 week old puppy decided to collect my shoes and my daughter’s that we had just taken off from an evening out. I wondered what he was doing with them until I saw he had taken them to my daughter’s bedroom and put them on the floor next to the boots she had worn to work. This puppy definitely belongs to my daughter if he thinks all shoes should sit in the middle of the floor!! Neither of my children think shoes should be put away; usually they accumulate in the kitchen until I get tired of seeing them and either yell or move them to their rooms.</p>
<p>If the puppy is chewing on things you don’t want her to chew on… give her a nice bone.</p>
<p>My older poodle LOVES the taste of bitter apple. And neither of my dogs could care less about a “stern reprimand.” I got nowhere until I started to think about what the dog SHOULD be doing rather than what the dog should NOT be doing.</p>
<p>For example:
I don’t want the dog to jump on me, so I trained a default sit.
I don’t want the dog to eat my shoes, so I gave her lots of nice healthy bones. (Good calcium source for growing puppies; keeps teeth clean.)
I don’t want the dog begging in the kitchen, so I trained “go to your mat.”</p>
<p>LOL… poodles aren’t terriers. My pup doesn’t chew on the shoes … she likes to wrestle them. She like to grab the laces on the sneakers in her teeth and shake the shoes and run around with them. She does the same thing with her own toys, or other items of mine she “borrows”. Very big on shaking, tossing, chasing, and running around with things. Loves towels, too. Or her own bedding. </p>
<p>The best thing I can do is take her on a long walk and get her tuckered out… but it was pouring rain this morning, so we had to settle for a short walk in late afternoon when the sun finally came out. I think she goes after my shoes partly to attract my attention, so I suppose the best thing I can do is ignore her.</p>
<p>I have several friends who have terriers–one of them had eight jack russells and two schnauzers until recently–6 of them were fosters. And the trainer I worked with before I moved to Portland has two Airedales and a border terrier. </p>
<p>No, poodles are not terriers. But my older poodle is not “biddable” either. She digs up field mice and eats them whole when I take her to the dog park (which I do, three or four times a week, rain or shine–fortunately, it’s almost 2000 acres so there are lots of field mice). At age 6 she still thinks she’s a puppy. (I also have formal agility practice two or three times a week.)</p>
<p>I give BOTH dogs nice juicy bones two or three times a week–it’s the only way I’ve found to keep them from chewing.</p>
<p>The trainer came on Friday, and it was a very worthwhile experience. I was pleased that my indoor puppy space was laid out properly… no changes necessary. Outside was a different story. My pup is only 3 lbs. so the backyard looks like the back forty to her. The trainer suggested I fence off a smaller area to keep puppy from running wild instead of doing business. She is fascinated by all of the falling leaves, and it was impossible to get her back into the house. Trainer demonstrated a better technique for return to the back door, and it is working very well.</p>
<p>My biggest problem right now is that she is too attached to me, and goes crazy when I leave her, even when we are not in the same room. Leaving her alone for an hour results in a peeing and pooping marathon. I’m tired of the clean-up. I think training her to use the already installed dog door has moved up on my list.</p>
<p>Puppy was assessed as “nervous” which really surprised me. She suggested taking pup along with me everywhere for more socialization.</p>
<p>Even though I have read lots of articles/books, it helped tremendously for the trainer to demonstrate commands and behaviors to me. She is coming again next Friday.</p>
<p>DMD, I took your advice. I bought my puppy a nice, big, juicy hambone. She really loves it! She drags it all around the room with her and keeps it tucked right by her side while she’s busy chomping on my slipper. ;)</p>
<p>Well, right now my darling puppy is all tuckered out and sound asleep… but the thing is, well, I think she has a touch of ADHD. Now, my other grand old lady dog, the Aussie mix who died in September… could spend hours focused on chewing a good bone. But this one seems to have a rather short attention span. (Do they offer special accommodations for ADHD pups at dog-training school? I signed up for the “Beginner” class at Petsmart today – the class starts in 2 weeks.) </p>
<p>I can’t quite get the hang of this clicker thing, either. She’s definitely mastered the eating-treats part of it – and it works really, really well with stuff she already knows. (She sure does have the word “sit” figured out - and she likes “come” too.). Not so good with teaching anything new-- she seems to have figured out that a click has something to do with getting a treat, but doesn’t seem to realize the the click is tied to a behavior.</p>
<p>Hang in there on using the clicker. It takes a while for the dog to get the hang of it. Liking “come” is HUGE! Congratulations. You can try waiting just a brief moment between the click and the treat to help the dog get the idea that the click is a predictor.</p>
<p>Well, the whole clicker thing just seems confusing for both of us. I think she has backtracked with the “sit” since I introduced the clicker – maybe because the word “sit” only means one thing but the “click” can be a reward for many different things. Maybe I’m doing it wrong. She likes the clicker, but I think she just sees it as a noise-making toy I bring out sometime.</p>
<p>I forgot how frustrating terriers can be. My last one was kind of like this too. They are evil geniuses when left to their own devices – my pup can figure her way in, around, over or out of any enclosure or gate, she has extraordinary spatial reasoning skills, she watches t.v., follows the action and barks whenever bad guys or dogs appear on screen – but basic verbal cues (sit, stay, etc.) pretty much elude her. Also I just don’t think she comprehends the idea that she ought to do something just because I say so. She “sits” because she has learned that I am more likely to give a treat that way, she “stays” because she has gotten the idea that if I put her somewhere and glare at her it means I want her to stay put, she “comes” because there is always a big production and joyful greeting – but “down” is simply not a daytime activity in her mind. My Aussie was the opposite - excellent at picking up verbal commands and signals… but rather dim when it came to solving problems like a nudging a door that was slightly ajar in order to get into a room. </p>