Am I as stupid as I feel? - Page 1

I wanted to clarify some things: first of all, I didn't think very hard when I replied to the "is this good or bad" post.  I did not mean to condone the ill behavior of a dog.  I also didn't know that this is not the first control issue that this poster has had.  I was thinking that the GSD was alert barking at the person, not trying to do harm or had already had his owner in court in the past.

And about Peppers, let me give you a scenario and exactly what he does in the situation: someone knocks on the door, he runs to the door barking, I go to the door and he gets behind me.  If I go out, I leave him in the house, if I let the person in, I put him in the bathroom which is right across from the door.  He never offers to attack or bite the person at the door and goes readily into the other room without hesitation.  The reason I put him away is that he will continue barking until the person leaves and the only person that ever comes in my house is my boss and I don't want to talk to her over his barking.  And she hardly ever comes in my house, I think she's come in once or twice since I've been working there.  And he is a blue heeler, also known as an Australian cattle dog, Queensland heeler and New Zealand heeler and they are typically very territorial.

Once after I first started at the ranch, the other gal who used to work there let him out of the kennel.  The only two dogs in the kennel house were mine and she had no business even being in the building and I had told her that before this incident.  They both had food and water, but she thought they needed more.  He was growling when she went for the door and as she opened it, he jumped and hit it and then ran out of the building to my house which at that time was up the hill from the kennel.  She tried to catch him, but he evaded her and never offered to bite.  He was loose with her and others there for hours before I got back and he never left my house.  She didn't try to call or anything and when I did get back, she didn't even tell me what had happened rite away.  So I go toward my house calling and he comes running as fast as he can to me.  He followed me back to where she was and never offered to bite her even though I was livid.  He also rides safely in the front of a truck with other people there, he will paw them for pets but doesn't bite.  Once he was in the cab of the truck I was driving and one of my partners jumped in to move it without thinking about him being there.  He was startled, but didn't even come near her.  He will make a big show if he is in the truck alone and someone comes up to it but I can leave the doors open and he will never get out or pay any mind to anyone walking by.

I have mentioned on this board that I don't know a thing about protection training.  I have had Peppers for three years and have been able to call him back every time I have needed to and have had no legal trouble (I have never had any legal trouble, dog or otherwise).  This is why I ask questions about training and where I might go for info.  I have very little Internet access and no access to clubs so I rely on books and occasionally this board.  I have a pal here in Lassen that trains, but he's about an hour away, works weekdays and since I can't hear very well, I don't like talking on the phone.  I wrecked the truck that got any kind of mileage and I can't afford to drive my mom's old Chevy unless I have to and I never need to go anywhere on weekends so it makes it hard to visit with him.  But don't worry, the dogs are well fed and UTD on everything.  And when I am working, my pal is about two hours away.  Is that sad enough??? ;-)  There's a good obedience class in Klamath Falls that I want to take Peppers to next fall as we just don't get out much and I think that would be great for him.&nb

Sorry about the no topic posts, I accidentally hit enter a couple times.

And one more thing regarding Peppers: he is afraid of kids when they move around him quickly, but doesn't try to bite, he just shies away.  He has been around kids off and on since I have been working at the ranch.  Sometimes after work, I'll take my partner's kids and any of their friends/reletives that are over for tours to meet all the horses, sheep and cattle that are around headquarters.  The first time we did this, Peppers was pretty unsure, but he settled down and never offered to bite them.  I know I said I don't like kids but I do make exceptions as most of these kids have never gotten to feed lambs or calves or anything like that and it is great for Peppers.

Thanks!
~Krystin

Karly-  If you are interested in personal protection training and you have a trainer an hour away that is not really all that far to drive.  Many folks drive 3x's the distance just to get to the nearest club.  My suggestion is to either travel the distance or try finding someone who will come to you and you can just pay their expenses.  Or you have the option to send the dog to an experienced trainer who can keep the dog for training.  This can get expensive BUT if it's what you really want and do not have the time or resources to do it yourself then IMO it's worth the investment.  At least you'll know it's been done right IF you send the dog to someone reputable and highly respected.  But even in that situation you will still have to find someone to train YOU to properly handle the dog and help you maintain the training. 

The only time you should feel stupid is when you receive advice from some of the expereinced folks who've made their mistakes and learned from them but yet you continue to ignore their recommendations.  There is no such thing as a stupid question when you are trying to learn about something new to you.  This is how we learn.  Stay humble and people will extend the help.  Best of luck.

Hi Krystin...I too have an Austraian Cattle Dog...and they are a great dog...but once again...not for everyone...The one I have is a female named "Catte"...She is a real "pain in the ass"...but at the same time I wouldn't trade her for anything...They are a very different type of dog even though I'm very used to training dogs and mainly German Shepherds and Working Dogs...Catte is very dominant and really tries to bully everyone...but at the same time she is very close to me...I have 18 acres and when I'm out working in the field...cutting grass or doing other work...I wouldn't want any other dog out with me...During  the summertime and it's fairly warm out...she will go under a tree or something for shade...but everytime I stop the tractor and/or get off it...She's right there beside me and I know would help me if I got into some type of trouble...

Let me know if I can help you concerning your dog or maybe we could just swap stories...

~Bob~

Karly,

Hi. I don't think you are stupid, sometimes this board will make you feel that way though.

Just some observations on the info you provided. This biggest one I see is right off the bat. You say your dog goes running to the door, but gets behind you when you open the door.

Next you said you put the dog up because he continually barks when people are in the house, even your boss who comes over every day.

Then the scenario, with the kennel. The dog bit or bumped someone while in the kennel and then ran away.

Now the biggest problem. He is scared of kids, and gets nervous when they run around.

I could go into my opinion on the casue of these behaviours but in a nutshell this is not a dog with what we who do protection call "good nerves". Your dog is not confidant, is not defending you or your property. It is defending himself because he feels threatened. Even when there is not threat.

DO NOT DO PROTECTION TRAINING OR BITE WORK WITH THIS DOG!!!!!!

These are the absolute worst kind of dog to do bitework with and any knowlegable, ethical, and legitimate trainer would tell you the same.

I am not bashing your dog. I am giving you advice to help you from getting sued. I trined about 5-6 cattle dogs when I worked for an in-board training facility. I lived on a cattle ranch for a year and EVERYBODY up there had one. They are fun dogs, very smart, and easy to train. Some can be little hard asses, most of those I have seen are very shy towards people though. I have seen some take on wild range bulls head on but were nervous as helll around people. They were bred to argue with cows, not people.

Get your dog out to a good obedience trainer. ( look for someone who uses counter conditioning) look it up on the internet and then ask them to explain it so you know they know what they are talking about. If you can find an agility club try that. Anything like this wil give your dog confidence and make them a better pet.

Good luck

 I agree with everything Get a Real dog said (counterconditioning, agility to build confidence etc) but I have a question for you Getarealdog. You say DONT do protection training. With hearing more on this dog I agree not to do full on protection bite work with this dog...HOWEVER, don't you think it would be good to get some control with a turn on/off switch/out command? It would very much depend on the trainer (which it's not always easy to find a reputable one of course that would do it right) but it seems to me giving her more control of the dogs mouth would help. 

I for instance have a malinois type mixed breed (who the heck knows what he really is, kind of mali and shepherd looking, he was a rescue). Full obedience training, started at 4 months old (he's now 10)and went EVERYWHERE with me. Was going to be my "purely positive reinforcement trained dog" though I gave up on that at a little over a year when it took me forever to fix some of the problems we were having (like chasing squirrels and the clicker specialists said I was to click looking away from squirrels etc, 6 months later we had made very little progress and I had had enough, but I digress). Anyways, he was an awesome obedience demonstration dog but doesn't have the best of nerves. He's my chicken dog basically. Anyways, just a slight background on the dog. I also had a schutzhund dog at the time (though the dog really was pretty serious in a lot of ways) and we lived briefly in an apartment complex. My brother had come to visit and when he left nobody remembered to lock the door behind him. I was sitting in the front room there and had some guy just walk into the house. The big dog was in a back room in a crate as it was bed time, and this little mixed dog ran up and was jumping up and down barking in this guys face (a true bark and hold). The only problem? he had no out command! I tried and tried to call him off (and remember, he was very obedience trained, but had never been trained in this scenario and was pretty aroused, we had never trained for anything like it and it was a pretty huge distraction apparently). The guy stood up against the wall (he kept saying he was sorry, he had just walked into the wrong house). Every time I tried to grab the darn dog he would try to move away and then come back, I was worried that if I missed or something he was going to nip the guy. Finally I managed to grab him and lift him up and tell the guy to get out (then I got the dog into a down and calmed down etc). After that I did some fun prey stuff with a sleeve, taught him the bark and hold exercise with call off and out. I can turn him on AND off, and I feel MUCH more confident with him because I know that he knows the commands and that I have better control over him and his mouth. Would we have done full on protection training with him? no I don't think so. He doesn't have the nerves to handle it. But he COULD learn some basic exercises to give me a little better control of his mouth. (he did go on to get a BH by the way, to teach my mom how to handle the pattern:-) can't go on, he's terrified of the gunshots so can't even move on in ob). We also spent years working on counter conditioning and increasing confidence etc, he is pretty well under my control. He's at the age of 10 loving doing herding. 

So while I agree not to do full protection training (including defense type stuff) with a dog like this, don't you think that with certain dogs in certain situations, being able to KNOW you can call the dog off in a real situation is a good thing? 

 BTW Karly, I didn't think you were stupid, just didn't know something:-) (I didn't look at this thread before now or would have said something). The stupid people are those that ask, then when they don't like your answer they get hostile. 

 one big difference is that you said you had a Sch dog and had done alot of OB training with the dog you had. So you had knowlege, experience, and access to good training. You did not really give examples of your "nervy" dog, but I bet he was a little stronger than this cattle dog.

I guess my advice on the protection training was absolute without seeing the dog. However, the info provided i believe was honest, with good examples, and gave an accurate description. That combined with a decent amount of experience with the breed, gives me a real good indication of the dog's temperment. additionally, I never do "half protection" the dog is either fully trained or not trained at all. "Half-protection trained" or an "alert dog" are saftey hazzards in my opinion.

I am always a "safety first" guy. I will always sway to the side of safety. A dog with weak nerve and an inexperienced handler is a bad combination. Cattle dogs can often be little punks. I see this dog as one that will gain confidence through the bite-work. When a dog like this gains confidence and learns they can drive away the threat through aggression, they easily become  fear biters.

Fear biter = innocent people getting bit and lawsuits for the owner.

Just my humble opinion.

Take care

 ok makes sense. I know cattle dogs too, and you're right, they can be punks. also, yes I did have experience as well as fairly solid obedience training before this happened. (though obviously not good enough or I would have been able to call him off the guy in the house), then again, if someone was invited to my home he would have been fine. Green handler on green dog with no good trainer nearby not a good combo I agree. I was just asking because it seemed like a pretty blanket statement. 

I think your def and my def of trained protection dog may be different. Yes, my little mixed breed has issues. For instance, noises, At 10 he finally can live with himself (after a WHOLE lot of training), but it used to be if you even opened a 3 ring binder and made that clicking noise, he would hide under the table shaking for an hour. He USED to love kids, but then I battled with neighbor kids teasing through the fence that I didn't know they were doing and he doesn't care for them now...then again, I NEVER let him around them, don't have any of them myself, and if/when he was in public he was under full obedience control. (look to me and ignore the kid no matter what, and I stopped taking him in public so much when I noticed he seemed more worried working around them). Not that he ever did anything to any of them, I just didnt' like the tenseness I sensed from him. From a young age I worked very hard at bite inhibition, (I don't really do that with my protection dogs per se, but I had Maverick before I ever got serious about bite work). So in some ways maybe he was stronger some ways maybe not. I also knew what I was getting into ahead of time (I do have both sport dogs, and a dog I'm working more in personal protection, will do even more with him once he's at least got a sch1 on him, I just want the title, but he's not the easiest sport dog). 

From my point of view, I did not do actual real protection training with the dog. No real threat. It was all done in prey. The dog loves tug and we made it all about playing the game. No definite threat or anything of the sort. Also, I know how to handle dogs like this, and know how to keep people safe. But to clarify, there was no learning to aggress at the threat and get stronger that way. It would take a knowledgeable decoy to help that along and not turn into a fear biter in my opinion though. Maverick liked the guy that helped me, in fact he LOVED the game of tug and the exercises themselves. Run into the blind, bark to get the chance to play, at the same time, he was a weird dog, when I did play with him at it some, he decided that he only wanted ONE sleeve. Would have nothing of taking any other one. If you tried to trick him he would run up, smell the sleeve, and walk away, or go lie down, or once he even tried to sniff every other sleeve laying on the field, found the one he wanted and took it to the helper. (there also wasn't a whole lot of work ethic there, it WAS all about the game, no real seriousness. BUT, he knows what bark to get something he wants means, he knows how to turn off the barking, he knows how to call off even when he REALLY wants the toy (and by virtue of that I would feel more confident if he did corner someone in my house again (ya never know) I could at least know that he understood what the heck I was talking about when I called him off. He also learned to spit out whatever is in his mouth when I say to out, and to wait calmly there. BUT, I do think not everybody can or should do that. I just was questioning the blanket statement. (you'll notice in my posts on the other thread I said to get the dog evaluated by a good helper before even considering it, and that was before this dog was described in detail and showed this kind of stuff. Forgot it's a cattle dog too:-)