Eddy, do you have advice about stopping possessivness over toys? I don't have issues with my dogs letting me take things from them but Willow's pretty possessive about her toys. I would just hate to see this behavior escalate if there is something I can do now to break her of it and I'm just not sure how to do this if she doesn't care that I take them from her. Dakota occasionally takes them but she steals them back and he just doesn't care so he isn't teaching her no. Except the one incident with the squek toy and I haven't re-introduced it back yet. Plus, I know if another dog came into the mix, they may not be tolerant like Dakota.

I'm gonna backtrack a bit here... bear with me. :-)

harrise wrote:

To me it sounds like he's bored with it. Part of the perception of this breed's hardheadedness is how quickly things wear on them. Are you in the same general area every training session? Same lead up and routine beforehand? Same time of day? Same rewards? Do you have a rhythm that's become predictable in your commands? Are the commands conveying the same frustration as your post? There's a lot going on here that we can't see or help with, and then you have another person involved that only increases the factors involved.

Put me in the "stick with it" club.

I am firmly in the "stick with TRAINING" in general. I'm not giving up on him. We're training all over the place and whenever we're around him. We use our formal living room, the family room, the yard, kitchen, and mostly out on walks - we almost never go the same route twice. Chris tends to walk him right when he gets home, I tend to wait until after dinner, but he always gets a walk and we always feed him... not in that order, not always at the same time, it sort of depends on the day. Lead up/Routine beforehand... not really. We do practice Nothing In Life Is Free - we have him sit or down and wait before letting him in or out. He does a short series before we give him his dinner or any treats. We DO have a routine before we go to bed, so when he's wiped out on the floor while we're watching TV, he knows to get up and go to the door, where I let him out, while Chris replaces the plastic runners on our sofa (so the cat doesn't pee in the cushions). He does his business, comes back to the door and sits, then I let him in and he goes to his dog bed in our room. I typically go get my toothbrush and sit in the floor with him, petting him for a minute or two while I brush, then give him a cookie, go spit, rinse, and go to bed. We mix up the rewards frequently. He gets the "life reward" of getting to go outside, or go for a walk, or getting to come inside, or love and pets and praise as well as one of a wide variety of treats when a life reward isn't offered. Our cues aren't really that predictable - we tend to stick with what he knows, which is sit/down and wait. We also work on Leave It and Come. On walks, we're primarily working on Heel and walking with a Loose Lead ("Don't Pull"). My cues are generally very upbeat and positive. He's a rockstar when it comes to doing these things when he knows there's a little treat (or a life reward) waiting for him at the end of the repetition or series. No pulling on the leash, means we move forward. Continued pulling means we stop or walk in the opposite direction. Sitting by the door = get to go in or go out, etc. Begging for our food never works, EVER (breaking him of this habit is really hard though - we're considering teaching him a Place cue during meals). Begging for a walk means he gets NO attention and has to wait until he stops whining and sits or lays down and is calm. Chris and I are consistent across the board with these things and there is no frustration - it's just the way life is and he knows this. When I give him a Kong, or the Wubba, or squeaky balls, he'll frequently come drop it in my lap - same with his antler or with stuffed animals. I'll hold them for him for a minute or two, let him nibble at it, squeak them or play with it, then toss it for him to play with on his own. I can take whatever I need to from him when I need to (take the plastic squeakers out of his mouth so he doesn't eat them, etc.) and there are no issues. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe it's not a guarding behavior. I dunno. That's why I figured a behaviorist could help us pinpoint what triggered his fear/growling/snarl/biteyness and work through it.

harrise wrote:

The guarding/snapping/snarling at people thing is addressed from day one with any dog here. I assume that they will display this behavior and I actively train find their thresholds and to desensitize them every day. With the bone, if I were to approach and receive that behavior I would lure the bitey end to one side and grab the bone from the other. But I'm fast and I know how this breed moves very well (my guess is that most people would get bitten doing things my way). I suppose you could start with the bone in your possession, but for me I want that behavior so they understand why I'm pissed. Then the bone is used to teach the dog to accept the human factor. If he wants it, he only gets to chew on it while you're holding it and it's instantly gone if any part of the mouth touches your hand (I throw in a "HEY!", but that's me). Once he's approaching softly and chewing gently with awareness of where your hand is, we move on to letting him have the entire bone for maybe two seconds before it's taken away. If the behavior is there, go back to hand handling the object. If the behavior is absent, I would let the dog have it and go away. Then when he's done with it I would grab it and use it again for the next training session, gradually increasing that two second time up to a few minutes.

I guess we're on the same page with all of this except for the bolded part. I try to set him up for success as much as possible. Creating situations where he's unhappy with me goes against what I would consider positive training. His snarly/growls have always been addressed AS THEY HAPPENED. In the incident with the bone/yard, the bone was picked up and taken away. He was kenneled and while he had been roaming the house free during the day while I was at work, he was locked in and isolated. The consequences of his action were no bone, no freedom, no attention, and no cookie when I left. He hasn't snarled/snapped/growled or shown ANY sort of nastiness/disobedience toward me since that incident, except for when I was following the trainer's "Paces" homework, which was making him perform a series of commands (15 sits, about 5-10 paces apart while walking at a heel the whole time) with no reward or positive reinforcement. If he didn't heel, yank him back. If he didn't sit, use my hand to push him to the ground (read coercion & aversives). He didn't bite/snap/growl at me, but he did snap at Chris (1st time EVER) when Chris told him to sit, gave him a second, he didn't, so he reached down to push his butt to the ground. This was in the presence of the trainer... This is why I think we'd do better with someone else and a different style of training.

What we've had so far has been an obedience track and "treatment" of aggression, by establishing dominance and punishing/forcing him to do what we want. There's another way, using positive reinforcement and negative punishment (removing something good for bad behavior).

harrise wrote:

In my house this is done all day long with a variety of desirable objects until everyone can safely approach. Of course there's more to it than that, but I assume that you're not about to get physical if the situation deteriorates at the beginning. I'm around my dogs CONSTANTLY all day, a pillar in the foundation of their daily existence. Our bond is very strong and I feel that affords me more leeway in how certain behaviors are extinguished. I would never treat a dog that's not mine as if it were and that's where you need to find your comfort in a trainer.

I agree. Unfortunately, I can't be around my dog all day, every day, but even so, I feel like my bond with my dog IS solid and I am confident I can find ways to safely extinguish unwanted behaviors.

harrise wrote:

This is a serious trait that puts the dog's life at risk depending on who might be present (ask Jenn about crazy people hunting you down on the internet because of a vendetta against your dog). We have too many children and people coming around for that behavior to ever show up. That is why I deal with it more harshly than most people would. If it were just me and Lindsay with one or two dogs I would probably take a much softer approach.

Again, I agree wholeheartedly. This is what finally drove us to seek the help of a professional. Outside of three incidents that all involved being removed/moved in the presence of a highly desired object, Nikolai has never shown ANY sort of aggression toward other people or kids (or our cat for that matter). In situations that stress him out, he prefers to walk away or pace.

harrise wrote:

Regardless, when you find your trainer please keep us informed on progress.

Thanks, I will.

From that it sounds as if there is no problem here. I went back and read some more and I missed the part about him sitting on your foot being dominance. That would end any relationship with that trainer for me. My dogs walk in front of me, they step on my feet, they trip me up, they jump on me, I let them have the upper hand in wrestling sometimes... That's a bunch of crap talk there, in my opinion. Dominance, pfft.

Based on the slightly clearer picture here I would say that you don't really have a problem at all. With the descriptions you've given here's what I would have done that day: I call the dog and dog doesn't respond. I go to retrieve the dog to find he's immersed in chewy bone time. Standing at the distance where the dog first lifts his head from the bone, I kneel down and give the recall command in a soft tone. While holding my hand like something is in it, I back up and coax the dog towards me. The trick here is to keep his attention on you and not let him look at you then back to the bone then look at you again then the bone... Once engaged in my actions, I would start playing around and tricking him back indoors. I've done this before with EXTRA high value items like dead squirrels. I expect trouble approaching dogs in certain situations. You just missed a couple of signals, I don't see a major issue now.

*big smiles* I'm glad to know we're not all that different here... thanks so much for the help and advice, Eddy (and everyone here). I really do appreciate it.

Next order of business: officially dumping this trainer, getting my money back, and finding a new professional to help ME recognize these situations better, then desensitize and counter-condition my dog... and maybe work on tweaking his recall so it's better... and have some fun at the same time.

Have you called Mindy Jarvis yet? I really think you'll like her!

cmanding wrote:

Have you called Mindy Jarvis yet? I really think you'll like her!

Not quite yet - I'm still trying to extract myself from the Dog Nazi.