New Clients

tx_cowgirl

Honored Member
Staff member
(Kinda long...sorry!)
A coworker/friend of mine recently asked me to work with their 4(yes, 4) dogs. We started a couple weeks ago and everything is going well. I would, however, like some input on keeping the OWNERS on track. Their main issue is simply that she and her boyfriend are on two completely different pages. The boyfriend has a favorite dog, and he is ridiculously blind to his misbehaviors. In his eyes, this particular dog needs no work at all and the rest are all terrible. (Ironic, because he's the one that needs the most work! Lol.) Love is blind.
Although I don't buy into the alpha theory, I do think that there needs to be a clear being that shows leadership. They don't have one, canine or human, in the house at all. All of the dogs constantly try to dominate each other. When I dogsat for 4 days for them, NO attempts to dominate each other AT ALL. Completely different dogs. I was clearly on top, without really doing anything, and there were no tiffs, humping, possessiveness over toys, or really any other misbehaviors.
Anyway, so here they are...

Kedo--JRT mix. Super crazy--I love him! Lol. Very high energy, and everything he does is full throttle. He's a ton of fun. He is very possessive over toys with the other dogs(in the presence of the owners), but we are working on it and he is getting better. Kedo is the bf's favorite and he lets him get by with A LOT. He's a major jumper and a face licker in an incredibly annoying kind of way. Very in your face, and quite frankly, rude. But, I *hope* I've gotten bf and gf on the same page. He is improving.

Dexter--Italian Greyhound/Daschund mix. Formerly abused. Working on building his confidence mainly. He's the most advanced of all the dogs. I have a separate thread about him(Interesing New Student).

Dakota--Weim/GSP mix-they got him from me! ^^ Kota boy is very ball obsessed and has trained his new owners to be ball throwing robots. They say that he cannot relax and calm down for even a few minutes, but I brought to their attention that every single time(literally) that he brings them a toy, they throw it. If you ignore him, it only takes a couple of minutes and he will go lay down. If you keep throwing, he keeps fetching. He can't stop himself unless you make him stop by refusing the give him any attention of any kind. He's also very dimwitted, so everything he does is slow. He is doing well, and is actually very easy to work with--just a little dumb. :) Very lovable.

Freya--Weim. Freya is a new addition. She is very high energy and looooooves to play. Since moving in with them and their toy-loving dogs, she has discovered the joy of fetching. She's a little scatter-brained but will be really good in time. She has pretty much no training of any kind, so she's a tad bit behind the other dogs but is catching up quickly.

As I said, the owners need a little help staying on the same page and staying on track, and not letting the dogs do literally everything they want. With just the owners there, all of the dogs do a lot of humping, arguing over toys, and are extremely pushy. With just me there, they are model citizens. I honestly was surprised in the dramatic change. Kota boy lived with me for a year, so he knows I'm not going to cave for anything and he's not going to push me around. The others learned that just in the first day, because when they were persistent I was too. (I.E. when they jumped on the furniture, I told them off...even if they jumped 10 times and I had to say it 10 times. They were going to stay off. They were rewarded with praise and petting when they did get off. When they continued to bring me toys when I was tired of playing, I didn't cave. When they got nasty with each other, none of them got the toy. The toy was mine before it was anyone else's. Used this carefully so as not to make them think they needed to defend their toys from me. They didn't get attention of any kind no matter how many times they jumped on me. Etc, etc, etc...)
The dogs are all doing very well over all; my concern is just the owners staying on track and mainly the bf not being a pushover. I wrote down a lot of notes for them and I'm working a lot with them together to help them see what changes they need to make. I understand it's going to be difficult for them because they do have all four dogs in training at the same time and they all need a considerable amount of work.
Any tips on people training? Lol!
 

srdogtrainer

Experienced Member
Oh...That's a hard one! Maybe teach the BF how to teach some fun dog tricks to get him into training mode. This way you don't have to concentrate on the "perfect dogs" bad behaviors but teach him how to make his "perfect dog" better. Then hopefully when he gets the idea of how to train he will also teach some obedience etc.
 
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