Thread: Dogs - got to love them!

Originally Posted by Bigbjorn

Hard at work doing one of the two things dogs do. Sleep and eat.

Sounds like me now I'm retired.

My 7-months-old Spanish Mastiff is in desperate need of my care and training. No matter how hard we try she just isn't improving. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Firstly, we live in an apartment and yes, we know an apartment is far from ideal for a dog of her size I read about that on https://fello.pet/en/dog-breeds/spanish-mastiff/. We also understand that part of her problems might be because of the small space.

Now let's list the issues we've been having with Jigsaw. (Yes, that's her name- strange I know!).

She barks quite a lot, but usually only when other dogs outside are barking or someone walks by our apartment door, but this is still a problem for us. She is extremely loud and unresponsive to our various shushing noises. In fact, she sometimes barks more when we try to stop her.

She bites. A lot. Jiggy likes to play rough. She is never satisfied with a simple game of fetch or tug of war, whenever we give her attention, she will inevitably start biting within a few minutes. And there's no way to stop her once she has started. You either dart away from her jaws and ignore her as best as you can, or send her into time out; the balcony.

She jumps up onto ALL the counters and tables and tries to steal all our food. We made a vow to never feed her food from the table from the moment we adopted her, but she decided that she was going to steal everything anyway. We cannot have a relaxed meal anymore, it's impossible unless we lock her on the balcony until we're done. She's even gotten into the recent habit of trying to get into the rubbish.

We can't walk her. This is a big one for us. We want to walk her, we want to be able to take her out and not have our shoulders dislocated. We want to give her the exercise she needs, to let her race around a dog park until her heart is content. But she will not let us do that. She has broken countless leads, collars, muzzles and harnesses. We've tried walking her with the Halti harnesses and muzzles but they don't work with her. She has literally nearly choked herself to death- wheezing and coughing from the immense pressure on her neck, but still not stopping! We've tried walking her with treats, trying to teach her simple voice commands, but she doesn't respond.

She loves people and other animals. Too much, perhaps. Our dog has never had aggression issues, she has never tried to hurt anyone. But she just gets SO excited when she meets a new person (on the street or in our home). So excited that she's licking and jumping and wagging her tail for eternity. She loves to play with other dogs that she meets- even when those dogs show aggression. She just wants to play endlessly. Even with the resident stray cats she sometimes comes across, who are quite disturbed by the lumbering giant trying to play with them.

Any advice highly appreciated.

She's bored.

Strongly recommend you find a local dog obedience club and take her for training. She will progress through various levels.

Remember that dog obedience training is as much about training the owner as the dog. Most dogs want to please, but must be trained how to please, which means the owners must learn how to show them.

Many adults seem to have little idea how to think like the 'top dog', which is actually how the dog wants the owner to behave.

We have been through this over the past year with our new puppy, now an adult, attending the Nambour Dog Obedience Club, so I can speak from experience.

The behaviours you have mentioned are typical dog behaviour, display typical pack activities and may indicate the dog is anxious to confirm its place in your pack. The good news is they can all easily be changed with good training.

I have seen owners arrive with totally feral mutts for their first lesson. The trainers single out the worst behaved dog in the group, take control of it, and use it to demonstrate how to train the animal. By the end of the class the dog is eagerly obeying the trainer, who tells the owner to go off and practice all week.

The basic principles include learning how to communicate your wishes to the dog by rewarding desired behaviour and denying rewards for undesired behaviour, until the dog voluntarily does what you want. Its similar to the techniques which also work when raising children, funnily enough.

The best trained dogs don't even need to be on a lead. The owners never shout or raise their voices. In fact, owners may not even need to speak, but just use hand signals.

We haven't reached that level yet, but its impressive to watch the top classes in action.

Remember that you as the owner must commit to the time and effort required to train your dog daily, plus to reinforce the desired behaviour all day. If you do put in the effort, you'll soon be glad.

A well-trained dog happily and eagerly interacts with its master, is eager to please, and becomes content in a clearly-defined relationship.

So I strongly recommend you find a dog obedience club and start classes.