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  • Dog bumping into humans at park!!

    My 3 year old lab loves the park in our neighborhood. He is extremely well trained with recall, sitting and calming down, and many other things. But I think I have to stop taking him.

    When he is playing with another dog or running in general, he won’t notice a person is there because he’s having fun. And he will see them too late and body slam the person. This hasn’t been too much of an issue it doesn’t happen every time. No one falls over and I take him home immediately if it happens because I feel horrible. But recently an older woman was at the park and she fell. Thankfully she was okay, but I’m mortified if she wouldn’t have been. One wrong fall and not only would she have gotten hurt but she could have sued or something and forced my dog to be surrendered worst case.

    I truly don’t know what training options I have here. It happens so fast I can’t recall quick enough. People usually say it’s totally fine but I don’t want to risk it. I’ve tried long leads and warning people not to come in our zone but people don’t listen. He’s great with play and lives off dog interactions and I’m so disappointed if I have to take this out of his routine because it’s his favorite part of life.

    submitted by /u/No_Sandwich_9897
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  • Help making a dog less timid.

    My dog doesn't have a problem with other dogs, in fact she loves em' she's always excited to meet them. When they try to wrestle though or move too fast or whatever she seems to freak out, she doesn't bite them or anything but tries to run away, sometimes she hides behind me. Usually the owner will take notice and tell their dog to back off if they're being too much, if it's just a dog being a dog though I try to walk away from her to not reinforce this anti social behavior, or to not end up coddling her.

    She's never responded aggressively, except for one time but that was after a stockier dog kinda ran her over and freaked her out when she was younger, some dogs came up to her after that and she started baring her teeth while trying to hide and at that point I took her out of the dog park to walk so she could relax. We came back about half an hour later and she was noticeably more timid but she had no resentment towards dogs, she played like a normal dog but only with smaller breeds while shying away from the bigger pups.

    I'm guessing that's the root cause, so how can I go about safely building her confidence back up? She can't play with the small breeds forever, the world is full of other dogs! And I'd like to see her run and play happily

    submitted by /u/ichbinfive
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  • Early public access training

    Early public access training

    This is Koda. He is in training to be a psychiatric service dog. He wont start task training until he is 1 year old (we'll be training with an organization that specializes in service training) We've gotten alot of pushback that malinois aren't suitable/cant be trained well as service dogs/will have agression and anxiety issues in public access. These is a clip from our training session today. I have two more showing different training scenarios but I don't know how to post multiple together. Overall Im welcome to hear anything you have to say. We are learning together. So what do you guys think about our public access training so far?

    submitted by /u/Other_Panda246
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  • Our dog has to stay in a crate post-surgery, how do we help him relax?

    Our dog is having a really rough time post-surgery. We'd appreciate any help y'all can offer!

    We have a very anxious 8 year old pit-cattle dog mix. A lump formed on his arm that we needed to remove (it was bleeding all the time and cancerous). They also had to do a skin graft as a part of it. But there have been some complications in his recovery. He was unable to lay still (even on so many meds), and some of the stitches came undone. The vet couldn't stitch it back together because of the tension on the skin graft, so we've shifted to open wound care. But this means keeping him in a crate whenever he's not eating or using the bathroom. The rough parts is that he's never spent time in a crate before this.

    He's been fighting through his meds and barking a lot (like hours non stop) even after he's gotten water, food, and an attempt at the bathroom. We can't stay with him 24/7, and are worried that checking on him too much will reinforce the barking. But also, it feels wrong to do tough love (just letting him bark) for too long.

    The other challenge is that he usually pees outside, but to limit his movement, we're trying to have him use the bathroom on pee pads on our deck. But it hasn't been working, so he's been peeing in the crate (we're trying to check often enough to make sure he isn't sitting in it too long).

    Does anyone have any advice for how to help him settle and/or use the bathroom on the deck? It seems like there are no good options, and tbh were going a little crazy. Any help is appreciated!!!!

    submitted by /u/tafeld
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  • Foolproof leash training method? Help 😭

    I have a 7 month old mixed breed (23 breeds, mostly herding and companion) and she’s great. Crate trained, potty trained, all good things. The only thing we’re stuck on (other than the playful mouthing which gets really frustrating) is leash training. We’ve tried SO many things, and the only thing that has helped is a front clip harness. We’ve tried practicing indoors, treats for leash slack, consistency, all of it and none of it seems to stick. She zigzags all over to be sniffy which is fine sometimes but she never really turns it off and the leash seldom has slack. Does anyone have like a foolproof slack leash method?? She’s smack in adolescence and it came at us like a truck so we’re struggling 😭

    submitted by /u/Striking_Nobody362
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  • My puppy is on a nap strike and attacks me like crazy

    First time poster, month long lurker! I got my pup a month ago from a rescue. She was listed as a beagle but is a little mutt that I think includes lab, beagle/hound, and maybe some terrier but could be anything else too as the rescue didn’t have much info. She just turned 17 weeks and is such a sweet angel. But she recently has taken to refusing to nap!! I literally can see the redness in her eyes from exhaustion. She gets so tired and overstimulated and does not know how to regulate herself so ends up going into puppy attack mode and will literally drop a toy to attack me. Yesterday I had friends over and she nibbled at them but seemingly only is chomping down hard on me 🙂 (she broke skin a few times and my arms are lined with bruises lol.)

    I just need to know is this normal teething behavior? She’s lost a couple teeth and has new adult ones growing in so I know she’s prob so uncomfortable. But the nap refusal is killlling me because she becomes so unpredictable and honestly a little scary!!! She’s thankfully on the smaller side (haven’t weighed her this week but is getting close to 18 pounds probably) but I obviously do not want to be accidentally training her to be aggressive. I’ve tried lick mats, kongs, peanut butter, long sniffy walks, frozen teething treats, sitting outside, training session, treats, physically holding her, but the past few days she’s been awake for like 5 hours at a time before she finallllly chills out enough to sleep. I take her out to potty at least 1x an hour and she’s really good with letting me know when to go out so it’s (typically) not that. Yes I am crate training her but she also seemingly has isolation distress and will bark nonstop when she’s crated to the point that she gets herself all riled up again and we start from zero 🥲

    She finally just fell asleep after a marathon 4 hour session but I know the second I move she will wake up and want my attention 😌 I love her to pieces and just need to know that she’s not exhibiting some concerning behavior!!

    submitted by /u/kmcginger
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  • Adding a second dog to our house

    We currently have a 5 month old Rottweiler and are currently looking at a 1.5 year old German shepherd to bring home. We are having cold feet because everything says you shouldn’t bring a second puppy home before ours is old enough, but it doesn’t say anything about an older dog. We think an older dog could benefit our puppy as he continues his training and we also want a second dog at some point regardless. The gsd we’re looking at already has some training and was very well mannered around us on the meet. We brought our Rottweiler with to do a meet and greet and they did great. We are just looking for some guidance on the situation as our trainer didn’t necessarily tell us it was a bad idea either. We are wanting to do as much due diligence as possible for both our puppy and the other dog to make sure our decision is right.

    submitted by /u/Fusious_
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  • Leash training tips for large puppy?

    I am around 125lbs and rescued a GSD/APBT mix as a very tiny puppy. Embark predicts that my pup will be 71lbs fully grown, but I’ve heard mixed feedback on the accuracy of their weight prediction. Even so, he is 18 weeks now clocking in at 30lbs, and I’m already having some difficulty getting him under control on the leash. He is not very engaged with me once we are outside, or even inside for that matter. We have briefly touched on some leash training basics, like rewarding him for checking in with me outside and impulse control. When he pulls me too hard, I stop until he looks back at me, then keep walking forward. He gets the idea at some point and stops pulling so much, but he starts pulling hard again eventually (I assume once he is tired, so I should probably end our walk at that point). If you have any tips on how to move forward they would be greatly appreciated!

    submitted by /u/Overall-Ask-874
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  • Leash training tips for large puppy?

    I am around 125lbs and rescued a GSD/APBT mix as a very tiny puppy. Embark predicts that my pup will be 71lbs fully grown, but I’ve heard mixed feedback on the accuracy of their weight prediction. Even so, he is 18 weeks now clocking in at 30lbs, and I’m already having some difficulty getting him under control on the leash. He is not very engaged with me once we are outside, or even inside for that matter. We have briefly touched on some leash training basics, like rewarding him for checking in with me outside and impulse control. When he pulls me too hard, I stop until he looks back at me, then keep walking forward. He gets the idea at some point and stops pulling so much, but he starts pulling hard again eventually (I assume once he is tired, so I should probably end our walk at that point). If you have any tips on how to move forward they would be greatly appreciated!

    submitted by /u/Overall-Ask-874
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