Questions Answered

Here are my answers to some recent requests for information:

Hi..
I have a 14 month old choc pedigree labador who pulls dreadfully on the lead!! He does get excited and jumps up when greeting people. He is good with my other 2 dogs, dogs he meets on his walk and with children. Just wish he didn't pull and would walk on the left. He favours walking on the right side as my other two walk on the left.. I'd love to take him to he training school, but don't feel I can at the moment.. He also hates having his front paws wiped!!
Any suggestions??

1) Jumping up. I have found the best method to stop this is to walk towards him slowly using small steps just before he jumps. I have used this method very successfully with every dog that has this problem, with some owners saying their dog stopped jumping within a couple of days. Some people say to just ignore your dog, but I have found that following this
advice myself in the past, you just become a jumping post!

2) Pulling on the lead. The normal advice is to tug your dog back every time he pulls, but again I have found that all that happens is that you both end up walking this way all the time: he pulls, you pull back, he pulls, you pull back etc! So here is a very quick summary of what I do now:
a. Start your walk indoors to start with. Get him to follow you around the house and your garden so he gets used to following you at or very near your side. You can use treats and praise to encourage this behaviour. You are not using his lead at this point. The vast majority of dogs will get the hang of this within 15 minutes, so this is a very quick way to gain the confidence you need to carry on to the next stage:
b. Then after he has got the idea to be at your side, you then attach his lead and repeat, walking around your house and garden. Every time there is pressure on the lead, you must stop immediately. Again most dogs get the message within 5 minutes as you are only repeating what you did before but this time with his lead attached and your dog is now used to walking beside you without any pressure on his lead. Now you are ready go outside:
c. I would only work with Bruno at this stage by the way and not to involve the other dogs yet. Basically you repeat the above. If he pulls, you stop, encourage him to come back to you and start again. Now the trick here, as it is far more complicated when you are outside with numerous distractions around, is to get your dog to pay attention to you. Where
everyone fails at getting their dog to walk calmly by their side is that their main objective is to get to the park or wherever. You must make your objective, at first, to get him to walk on a loose lead and that is all. If you don't get to the park straight off, it doesn't matter as you will get there in the end, but at first you must concentrate on walking on a loose lead only. There is a really good book written by Turid Rugaas entitled My Dog Pulls What Do I do? There is also a DVD which shows you how she uses the technique. They are both readily available from Amazon if not in your local bookshop or library. I have
been on Turid's courses and I learnt to how make her technique work properly and I have successfully shown people how to get their dog to walk properly within a few weeks. Yes, it does take some time and effort to get this right, but the results are worth it as you will then have a dog that will always walk properly for the rest of his life. Here is a link to a YouTube clip where you can see the results  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsUcD1Ebfzw.
d. As for walking on one side of you, you need to train Bruno first by himself without the other dogs so he understands this is where you want him to be.
e. Wiping his paws: Have you tried offering him a treat whilst you do it, so he associates it with something nice (the treat) as opposed to something horrible (having his paws wiped)?

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Hi,
I am really hoping you can offer some advice. We have a Hungarian Vizsla who is a one year old. The problem we have is that when he is outside around children he will bark aggressively at them , especially when they come up to him. He would be on a lead when he does this. We have tried to give the children treats but he worringly just continues to bark or snatches the treats off them which puts us off using this in case he catches the child. Some children he scares so much because of the barking so they go away. Recently we have noticed he has done this to a few strangers and its only been to a few random people who come up to him and to stroke him but he is not like this to all strangers and he would be on the lead again. We have recently started using the spray collar to try and get more control on his recall etc but we doubt this will help when it comes to the barking issue.
We would be very grateful if you have any suggestions.
Thanks for your time on reading this.

 When it comes to aggressive issues it is really difficult to give advice by email or even over the phone because it is impossible for me to see exactly what the problem is and if you didn't follow the advice exactly someone could get seriously hurt. However, I would advise the following:
Dogs on leads can feel threatened by strangers because they are not able to run away from what they feel is a potential threat. If a dog is feeling anxious and you or the stranger offers a treat whilst he is in this state you are only rewarding that anxious behaviour and therefore your dog will learn this is how he is meant to carry on and he will only get worse.
There are a lot of trainers who would suggest as soon as he becomes aggressive you should use a bottle filled with pebbles to shake in his face, or tug him strongly on the lead or even put him down into a submissive position on the ground or use a spray of some sort. In my experience, I have found that by using sprays or these other types of
punishment correction techniques, he will only associate strangers with discomfort or pain, which is highly unlikely to make him want to have strangers approach him in the future. Some dogs accept their fate when using these techniques but that doesn't mean to say they WANT to have strangers approach them but they just have to endure, to what is to them, an unpleasant experience, but knowing that if they reacted against a stranger they would be severely punished. Some people like using these techniques because they feel they are sorting out the problem very quickly
and if you feel this way you do not need to read any further! However, in my opinion this does not sort out the problem from your dog's perspective and by doing so and taking the time to try and understand why your dog is feeling anxious you will be better equipped to deal with this problem.

You can use treats to make him think strangers are a good thing but only if he is in a calm mood at the time the treat is offered. The difficulty here is recognising when his behaviour changes from calm to anxious and to only reward the calm behaviour. The best method is to start to reward him when he is a good distance away from the stranger when he is calm and gradually reduce the distance until he thinks getting nearer to strangers is a good thing as he gets more
treats. This method does take time and you will need patience and the ability to persevere to get this right for both you and your dog. You would also benefit from reading Turid Rugaas's book on "Calming Signals" which will give you a better understanding of a dog's body language and how to interpret this body language so you can recognise when a dog starts to feel anxious you will know what you need to do to counteract these feelings and to help him calm down.
There is a blocking technique you can use which can accelerate this process but I would need to show you how to do this correctly.