Fruitycake

Monty tried the barking for attention thing at one point (though it was when we were watching TV). We just had to ignore him completely.* If you talk to him, get up at his command, try to calm him down by petting him, you're being trained by him that when he barks you give him attention (at least that's what he's thinking - "I bark, I get attention = this works for me!"). At most I'd give him one statement and only once: "No" or "Nope, go to your bed" and then ignore all else from him. (Actually, it was a little more than that: Monty'd had some seizures and it seemed that they wiped his mind clean of everything but his name - *everything* was new to him again! - and his bark wasn't his big-boy-bark, it was a high-pitched puppy bark. From a 75 lb, 1.75 year old greyhound we got a squeeky high pitched bark. We tried to ignore, but I couldn't take his little tiny puppy bark coming at me from such a big dog, and I laughed at him. Every time. It was just so ridiculous. I think, actually, that's what cured him of it. He'd get very a disgruntled look on his face and heave a huge sigh and go lay down on his bed again. But I don't think that'd work in any other situation....)

Allie does the spin, spin, spin, shift to stance, spin, spin, backup, spin, backup-to-the-left, backup-to-the-right... obnoxious dance nowadays. Monty and I just pray that she doesn't get distracted and forget what she was going to do and have to start again in a new spot (because it's COLD out there these days!). Monty just "bellies up to the bar" (he doesn't like stepping into the snow, so he just gets as close to the snowbank as possible) and squats. His concern is that his urine ends up in only the exact, totally perfect, spot.

Many people, even long-term dog owners, do not understand the huge variety in dog body language. I can understand the OP's nervousness around her dog, but I would also say that the dog was likely giving signals that the humans weren't reading and he kept feeling like they had to escalate them to be "heard." There are some great videos out there on dog body language, (Calming Signals: what your dog tells you [by Turid Rugaas], The Language of dogs: understanding canine body language and other communication signals [this one is very intensive and over two hours]) and books with good illustrations as well: Canine Body Language: A Photographic Guide Interpreting the Native Language of the Domestic Dog is one, and Canine Behavior: A Photo Illustrated Handbook is another. The entire family, if they are going to keep him, needs to learn canine body language so they can see when they're pushing him (or any dog) out of their comfort zone before someone gets hurt. If the OP doesn't feel safe and feels that they need to keep the dog away from the family, the dog should be returned (with the accompanying warning about his space--...I won't say aggression, but more of a "space-defensive reaction" when people get too close). If the family can all be trusted to allow the dog his space (which shouldn't be on the couch with humans, at this point in time, or maybe ever!) and all learn that he has his triggers and that they need to pay very close attention to any signal that he's getting uncomfortable and they need to back off immediately so he doesn't ever feel pushed into defending himself ever again, maybe it might work. If he feels threatened by people getting their face too close, then faces must never get close. If he doesn't like people leaning over him, no one ever leans over him. It's a hard situation all around right now. He has learned that he might not be "heard" if he tries to talk to you in whispers (small tensions or body language that is subtle), so now he has learned to go immediately to yelling (lunging with teeth) at you. Since this is the third "teeth" incident, he's been "taught" that his attempts to use body language didn't work, his growls didn't work, his snapping and inhibiting his bite didn't work.... I really don't think this is the house for him, because there are too many people and they don't seem to be hearing him so he's being taught that he has to get more violent in telling them he's uncomfortable with the situation. (If I were in a house where people ignored me for trying to hint that I was uncomfortable by trying to give body language clues, then they yelled at me for telling them outloud I was uncomfortable (growl), then they continued at me when I tried to push them to back away (snap), I might haul out and just punch them some day without trying all the intervening steps that are ignored or I get in trouble for. And every time that jump happens to violence, the more likely it will advance even faster the next time. THAT finally got a reaction I needed - people backing out of my "tension zone" - so now I know something that works with these people!)

? Since the full moon merely means that the moon is on the opposite side of the earth from the sun, which causes increased tidal pulls - do people also expect this when there are new moons (sun and moon on the same side, likewise increased tidal pulls)? From NOAA National Ocean Service Education site http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/kits/tides/tides06_variations.html The moon is a major influence on the Earth’s tides, but the sun also generates considerable tidal forces. Solar tides are about half as large as lunar tides and are expressed as a variation of lunar tidal patterns, not as a separate set of tides. When the sun, moon, and Earth are in alignment (at the time of the new or full moon), the solar tide has an additive effect on the lunar tide, creating extra-high high tides, and very low, low tides—both commonly called spring tides. One week later, when the sun and moon are at right angles to each other, the solar tide partially cancels out the lunar tide and produces moderate tides known as neap tides. During each lunar month, two sets of spring tides and two sets of neap tides occur (Sumich, J.L., 1996). Sumich, J.L. 1996. An Introduction to the Biology of Marine Life, sixth edition. Dubuque, IA: Wm. C. Brown. pp. 30-35.

If you train with treats, you could try doing the "maintain location next to me" training in the house. I have been known to do that with our other dog, Allie, because she was as dedicated to pulling as your dog is (though she weighs ~40 lbs and doesn't have the power behind it). It can be used to make the location of "next to you" a great place to be (and always give treats from that side, even for other things, so it is always reinforced). I even feed her initial 8 kibble or so this way, by standing next to her bowl and giving the treats to the side that I'd like her to stay on more often before giving the green light to dive in. I have been doing this with Allie in the house, no leash or anything (but she does know I have food and does know it's training time), and even when on walks she has spontaneously plopping in next to me and checking in with me. On walks I don't give treats (Monty wouldn't move from my side if I had food, and there'd be no pottying on his part), but I do acknowledge her with a "hi Allie, good girl" and then actually send her out front again (she has a "lead on" command, which I use when the path is too narrow for 3 of us or she's lagging behind). My husband hasn't done a bit of this, and has remarked that she's doing the same with him and has found it both interesting yet slightly frustrating (her leash is 7' and she ends up tangled in it if he's not careful).

The potential problem with using the "pennies in the can" punishment idea is that if there's any element of fear in the reaction already - it's not just excitement or predatory drive for little prey-sized dogs - it has the potential to increase the fear and the reaction. I'm a nervous dog and I see something that makes me more nervous and when I try to protect myself there's an unpleasant, loud, sudden noise right near me, sure as shootin' I'm going to be more keyed up and upset if I see another dog or the same dog again. The sight of the dog that makes me upset also makes scary noises happen near me. They are more dangerous than even I had thought, so I'm going to have to up my game. Keep them even farther from me so they can't make me more scared. I know it takes a while to counter condition a dog that is reactive (I have one who is reactive toward other dogs, too, and her reactivity is fear/defensive), but scaring a dog that might already be reacting defensively may increase the stress associated with the source of the dog's discomfort. She's pretty good with most dogs, and there are some dogs that can run up to fences and bark and snarl at her and she looks at them with no reaction whatsoever, but there's one dog that scared her once about 3 years ago and she still hates him. She's less reactive than she used to be (grumbles and huffs instead of growling and barking when he's walking across the street), but it took time and a lot of work to get her to this stage, and she can be calmed by getting her to do something other than focus on the object of her fear/hatred. Sit, down, nose-touch, etc. is now possible, so she is loads better than when I'd have to nearly drag her behind a car to block sight of the dog. And then she also gets a "good girl" and pets (at first it was treats, luckily she would take them outside if they were good enough). And it's easier to train a dog to hand gesture commands than to verbal, and sight is so very important to our sight hounds, so I don't think the dog is going to tie the noise to their reaction necessarily, but more to what they're seeing.

We have our dogs both trained to the "wait" to eat command, and it did take Monty a while to get it. It might be easiest to tell him to "wait" and block access after you've put it on the floor (put yourself between him and the food, either full body block at first if need be or just block access with a hand, or have someone else there holding his leash so he cannot get to it). Wait until he stops trying to get to the food and even the slightest settling back from it or stop focusing on it and then give the release command and let him go to it. We use a hand wave in front of his face when we've put in extra special nummy stuff with his food, to reinforce the wait command at those times that it is so extra hard to wait to eat. We eventually got to the point where we would hold a couple of kibble back and give him some as treats by hand when he'd look at us instead of the food, before actually releasing him to get the bowl full. Now he (and Allie) will look longingly at the food, but then both focus on us and wait for our release to dive in. There's a pretty good video about this kind of approach, called "it's yer choice" by Susan Garrett, a dog trainer who uses rewards-based training in Canada, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipT5k1gaXhc and Susan Garrett has a blog where she does some discussion on her training approaches, too.

Instead of saying "No, no no no!", work on training him to do something specific to a command. If I randomly saw you doing something that I didn't like and just told you "no" (assuming that you know that "no" means you're doing something I don't want you to and that you should stop), what would you choose to stop? If you were really excited and doing lots of things (pulling on the leash, wagging your tail, bouncing up in the front, doing play bows, tossing your head, etc.) which part of that activity do you not want him to do? It's a kind of advanced concept. Does "no" in that situation mean stop doing absolutely everything? Stop moving, stand still, freeze? [ETA: maybe training a "freeze" command would work if this is what you want him to do.] Work on getting him to learn things to do, instead of relying on the very generic "no" and you may have more luck. Train a lie down, train a "get a toy" or train a sit or gentle approach or something else you can capture or get on command with big or "boring" people and then work on generalizing to the children. (That said, I am glad that you have someone happy to meet new people. Our Monty is excited from a distance but then turns into spook central when he gets within about 2 feet.)

First of all, I'm sorry that your dog was injured, and also sorry that the cat was injured and potentially killed. A bad situation all around. The first issue may be that the cat felt trapped by the greyhound, maybe it thought it was safe under the shrub and got scared and attacked to defend itself. It could have been a perfectly "reasonable" decision making process for the cat at the time. If it was capable of making decisions with a huge (to it) predatory animal snuffling where it was. Just like humans, animals have different thresholds for freeze, flight, or fight. It might not have felt it could have gotten away by running, and maybe it's initial urge was freeze and hope the animal went away - but that didn't work and then flight was out of the picture. Just a thought. But there is also the chance that it was rabid. This would be a concern of mine. I think you need to post information that your dog was attacked by a cat in the area, fought it off, but the rabies vaccination status of the cat is unknown at this time. Let your vet know as well, maybe animal control/the park people. The damage to your dog may mean that the cat must be euthanized and tested for rabies. If it is found to have rabies, people would need to be warned and asked that if they had interacted with a cat of [whatever] description in the area that it tested positive for rabies and they should be given the vaccinations just in case. (Was your dog on leash at the time? Is it usually prey driven outside, as it sounds like if your husband was carefully watching the one cat further down the trail? You may have to step up your own "scanning the environment" skills to prevent something like this from happening again. It sounds like his vision of the close cat was obscured by the shrub, and maybe in the future blind areas like that should be avoided...just in case. But then, I am a "worst case scenario" person, and I'm always super vigilant already. This would make me super paranoid.) Wishing your dogs fast healing, and your husband and you good luck!

That nearly caused a mouthful of water on my keyboard. Thanks for the laugh.

My dogs wait at the door before going outside, which is a safety issue instead of an "alpha" issue. I want to know if there's a rabbit or squirrel (alive or dead) or cat or something nasty on the steps before the dogs go out and get it. It also helps because I can make sure that everything is settled before one or the other gets to go out (someone's stepped over or on a leash, etc.). Mine are release-able individually, though that did take a while to train the non-grey (It took Al a long time to learn that when I say "Monty" I am not saying "Allie and Monty"). A quiet "neh" and pointing to Al would get her to sit again and let him go through first.

They are used to routine, and it is modifiable, but I have to say that if I ate my last meal at 5:30 and had nothing until early morning, I'd be hungry too. But that's just me projecting, I am sure that dogs can mostly learn to deal with it. But in our house, our dogs have 3 meals: 7:30 AM, 6:00 PM (after we eat dinner) and the last small meal at around 9:00 PM. Monty likes to go out by 7:00 AM, and if it doesn't happen because of our schedules (trying to sleep in on the weekends), he'll get restless and whiny. On weekdays he gets walked around 6:30 AM, so the routine change is on our part, not on his. You can modify a schedule to be more consistent to what you want, but I think expecting a dog to walk early some mornings and sleep in on others, on a random (to them) schedule, is asking a bit much.

A nudge and a consistent verbal cue just before it to indicate that "I want you moving forward now" is a good idea. Monty's is a "boop" (to step or two forward, just a shift in position), and a "too slow" (if he's stopped to sniff something and I want to move on after having given him a chance, to say we're moving on and walking), and "nope" (when it looks like he's going to try to stop, and I just don't let him). For Boop and Too slow, I tell him about a second before the physical manipulation begins, the "nope" is when he angles his head a certain way or shifts slower and I don't slow at all and make him get back on pace. The commands won't be instantaneously understood, but you don't have to bark them or say them gruffly, I just like to give the dog a chance to learn that sometimes I want him to do something without needing to resort to physical manipulation and if you train him that the command means a certain action will follow, they'll get it. And eventually they'll hear it and will move before you need to resort to any manipulation at all.

Monty hates the "boring" everyday areas that we cover on our walks. He's up for a great long walk (we've done over 7 miles before) and he only starts to do the pouty "sooo exhausted I can't even drag myself along" bit when we start to get within about 3 blocks of home. I've checked his reaction when turned away from home when he's doing this and he perks right up. For him, it's 99.985% psychological. I'd bet that at least part of your boy's actions are somewhat the same.

He'll adjust, just give it time. Monty adjusted like a dream to our second adopted dog, but gets exceptionally woeful if we bring a third dog in the house for babysitting or fostering. Oh my goodness can that dog pout! Mournful looks at us, huge put-upon sighs, lagging at the farthest back he can get when being walked.... The thing is he's just fine after a couple of weeks - now. The first dog we took care of for a longer period (4 weeks), Monty pouted the entire time the dog was at our house. Then with the second, he pouted for about 4 weeks (we had him for 9 weeks) and then was fine. With the third dog, he just gave us the eyes and huge sighs for a couple of days (that dog was here for 2 weeks). I think the fact that we made the new dog adjust to what we had going already really helped him get over his funk. Monty's premier bed is his bed, and others were added for the additional 4-footed ones. We'd encourage the other dogs to choose an alternate bed over his, so at least that part of it was still the same. And feeding routines were always the same, too.

Sorry your boy's arrival was delayed, and I hope his leg heals up well (with no increased chance of arthritis in his advanced years). Maybe he had been given one last chance to show if he had "what it takes" and gave a good showing and he wants to give him another chance to compete. It is sad for you that his way to you was delayed, though.

That sounds great! I like how quickly Skye is learning (and reinforcing *you* with her quick reactions too!).

What great news! We have dog training classes where I work (in education), and the professor of it absolutely loves Sophia Yin's works. And you can do it. Just take a deep breath, and continually tell yourself that you're a student and that you're there to learn and improve. But I bet you're already doing great work and will show those other people a thing or two! Yay for you!

That mental picture of Brandi stamping in your garden is a riot. You need a video camera so the rest of us can enjoy it too!

Our command at our house is "about face!" I'm sure the neighbors think I'm weird.

I wonder if the "kibble takes longer to digest" idea comes of the fact that much kibble mass is vegetable matter, which is usually fed to omnivores or herbivores - which *have a longer digestive tract to digest it* I don't know that I believe that your body thinks "hmm, this is kibble, so I have to slow things down a bit" and the next meal thinks "oo, raw meat, I'll just hurry this along". But I am not a physiologist, don't have any sort of degree in comparative nutrition, and haven't read any studies on this. So I just wonder if it's just misconstruing things based on digestive system length and assuming the food means the speed changes.

My cats did the same thing as your dog when first offered raw. I don't think they understood how to pick it up and move it around to chew it (and weren't totally convinced this was actually food). Also, they prefer things closer to room or body temperature, so they're spoiled now and get things gently warmed under warm water. After they figured out how to do it, they became expert and enthusiastic eaters! (Monty, our grey, took to it immediately though. He understood that it was food and it was good.) As with any change in food you can see "output" changes until their body gets used to things. Keep an eye on it, and as others have mentioned try to avoid "enhanced" meats (packages will say something like "with x% saline solution" or something). It sounds like you're well on your way, though!

I'd like to say that the way you're handling his "gentling" is the absolute best way to train him to like humans (at least his humans). It is a form of training, because he's learning along with you. It sounds like he found the perfect home...even if he isn't allowed into the sitting room.

If you ask them, it's because their little one "thinks he/she is a big dog" - it doesn't matter that their little fluffy (or not so fluffy) could be innocently trampled if a bunch of big dogs started playing rough around it and it got underfoot. Or if it decided to try little bossy-britches attitude toward dogs that don't like it and got snapped at (which might not harm a bigger dog, but might do real damage to a tiny).

The dog park in our area has some rules that I think are a great idea: no food/treats allowed. They've also said no toys, but that one is pretty much ignored (a lot of people will come in and use the "Chuck-it" to exercise their dogs). That one is probably on the rules so that if there is an incident over a toy that the person who brought in the toy would be at fault and could be fined.