Let's talk dogs

[Phil Thien]

The purpose of this thread is to exchange dog raising/training philosophies.

Roy [Rogers], my approx. 12 week old beagledor (half beagle, half Labrador) is doing terrific.

I have fed all my dogs table scraps. From chicken to steak to beans to whatever. YES, I give them their regular diet of dry dog food. But I supplement with scraps from the table.

I have two teenage daughters, and their schedules often change at the last minute. If one of them calls and says she is eating at a friend's home (for example), we often have leftover chicken (or whatever) that I will dice up and use for training.

I'd rather use little pieces of chicken or beef than dog treats because I'm concerned with the amount of salts and other chemicals in dog treats. I'm not so concerned with filling his little stomach with chicken, though.

Do you guys feed table scraps?

I've been working on the sit/stay/come/down/stop eating my shoes commands at this point. He's still young, but doing pretty well. I can see the stubbornness of the beagle, for sure. But he is getting it.

My previous dog (Rudy the black lab) had quite a vocabulary and could even handle commands like "go hide." He'd find a spot where he couldn't see me, assuming I couldn't see him. If I could see his tale or something, I'd say "I still see you" and he'd find a better spot. Smart dog.

I'm looking forward to 16 weeks, when Roy can have his rabies shot and then go to the dog parks. He has lots of energy, and we're going on 3-4 walks a day (approx. 3-5 miles in all). But he would love to run and play with other dogs. And they just opened a dog park across the street from work (which is only 2 blocks from home).

How much do you guys walk your dogs?

I haven't figured out how to sharpen him yet. What would be the optimum bevel? Is honing required? What about the wire edge?

He starts the night in his kennel. He sleeps from about 8pm on, and at about 10pm will just walk into his kennel and flop. When he wakes up at about 4:30am, I take him outside, let him do his business, and then take him to the bedroom where he sleeps next to my bed.

You guys use kennels? I never did until previous dog. I only used it for about a year. Once dog could be trusted in the house, he had free run. Roy will probably be smaller so I might be able to keep his kennel, if he gets very attached to it.

Training-wise, I had a friend that years ago told me to assert my dominance with staring contests. When the dog catches my eye, I stare back at the dog until it looks away. If it takes more than a few seconds, I calmly say something like "are you looking at me?" That is usually all it has taken to get the dog to break eye contact.

It takes a while. Male dogs don't give up easily. But it has usually worked well, including on Roy.

Anyone else have any good training tips? I have a friend that encourages clicker training, but (I know this will sound weird), I don't want that kind of relationship with the dog. Boy, this is weird, but I want the dog to grow to be more of an independent thinker, not constantly trying to get my approval and a click.

For instance, I was walking him yesterday on his retractable lead and a lady says "he will never learn to heal that way." Well, he is young, has lots of energy, is curious, and full of life. I don't want him to heal yet. I want him to run around and have fun.

My previous dogs all healed when I wanted them to, but I typically let them run around like lunatics unless I saw people coming the opposite direction or something. They bascially ran from one tree to the next, marking if necessary.

If I saw an old person approaching (for example), I'd have them heal and often they'd just heal all my themselves, knowing the command was coming.

I've started taking him to work with me. He has been spending a half day, then one of my daughters comes and gets him for a walk and something to eat. Starting Wednesday he will be there all day as my family is out of town for a few days. I'll take him for a walk myself at noon. A long walk to work, a long walk a lunch, a long walk home, and a long walk after dinner. Good for me, too.

Anything I'm forgetting? Tell me about your dog, and your training methods.

[Greg Peterson]

I let my dog lick the bowl clean of any yogurt I may have left behind. Aside from that, she gets bits of beef, chicken or turkey. She likes apple and blueberries. I do not give her any foods (other than aforementioned yogurt) that have been processed, nor do I give her foods that are poisonous to her (grapes, raisins, chocolate, onion...to name a few).


She definitely works the room with greater than normal vigor when a rib eye comes off the Weber. She has good taste I guess.

[Leigh Betsch]

Dog training is a huge subject, much bigger than I care to type about. I've owned and trained at least 15 hunting dogs and trained a handful more for others. I have one in the training routine right now. I'm far from an expert but I have had some success at it. I feed only dog food, quality stuff that's healthy. Recently I've used clicker training (goggle it, started with dolphins) to get my young pups in the training mode. I abandon clicker training for the classic type dog training at about 6 months. But using clicker training I can guarantee that I can take a smart dog and have him sit, stay, laydown, walking at heal off lead, by the time he is 12 weeks old and never hurt or even raise my voice at him. But once the serious bird dog training starts and the prey drive is awakend, that is another story, take a lot of repetition and set up do get a dog 100% reliable. A lot depends on your expectations.

[Lori Kleinberg]

I use to feed my dog table food along with her regular meals, but I noticed she would throw up alot. I decided to cut out the table food and that made a huge difference. She was not happy with the change and let us know. Now the only time she usually begs and carries on for table food is when we have company for dinner (I guess she is hoping to find a sucker).

As far as training went, it was a long, slow process, but now my husband and I are two of the best trained owners a dog could ask for.

[Rich Engelhardt]

Our dogs have us trained pretty well also.

[Bill LaPointe]

Dogs have a much larger vocabulary than many people realize. Last I heard about 200 words for a bright pooch. Anyhow, the clicker is great for a young dog, makes basic training much faster. I do best with a young dog's training first thing in the morning, after morning business. They are hungry, and would sell their soul for small pieces of broiled chicken. My avatar learned one basic command a day, in about 10-15 minutes using the clicker and chicken. After the first few months they will start training you.:) Normal food is good quality dog food, but both dogs have trained me to share my morning cookies and an occasional table scrap.

[Belinda Barfield]

"Properly trained, a man can be dog's best friend. " ~Corey Ford

I finished a novel last week and the main character was a dog trainer. Having unsuccessfully attempted to train a Golden Retriever, some of the training methods in the book made a lot of sense and I with I had known them when. One tip was that puppies love to play, so they need lots of regularly scheduled play time. Also, if you find a puppy with something it shouldn't have (such as one of your shoes), you take the object away - telling the puppy "this isn't yours", and give him/her a toy, or rope, or chew bone - telling him/her "this is yours".

Have fun!

[james glenn]

My little girl (she is just like a child without the after school activities that require travel) is on a strict diet of venison and chicken due to allergies that result in
scabs on her skin. It took a long time, many vets, and a bunch of money to figure this out. But now she is healthy and happy. Granted it costs a little more
for her dry foods, but even when we get another dog I can't see not using the better quality, more natural foods.

As for training, we did the crate thing while out of the house for about a year till she was accustomed to us being at work and now she is free to roam the
house for the 12+ hours we are gone and never has any issues (jinxed myself now). But it takes the time to let them and their bladder grow fully before this happens.

As for the rest, it all took much time and repetition. Even now her hearing is impaired by the woodchuck, rabbit, and whatever other hole her head fits into.

[Bob Riefer]

I'll have to check out that clicker training.

Here's how it went with Piggy, my black lab (if you can conjur Marley from the popular book, you have an idea)... Was a poor recent college graduate that just HAD TO HAVE a dog for the first time in my life. My girlfriend and I (now my beautiful wife of 10 years) could afford either the dog or the crate... we got the dog with the plan to get the crate on an upcoming paycheck. We exercised him like crazy, treated him like our kid, took him everywhere with us, never did any formal training at all (I believe Grateful Dead bootlegs were also playing in the background at the time). Meanwhile, we both worked full time, so the poor pup developed severe separation anxiety and no manners at all. Sweetest dog on the planet, but just a big galoot.

Piggy has eaten shoes, tried to eat a light bulb, scratched his way through his share of closed doors, tipped more garbage cans than I care to think about, rolled in gross stuff, eaten entire boxes of frozen pizza (including the box) etc. etc. etc. Let's put it this way, to this day, we don't leave things such as birthday cakes unattended on the counter top for even a minute. Yes, I admit it, we were bad doggy parents.

Well, piggy's getting pretty darn old now. A thrown tennis ball elicits a raised eye brow, perhaps a yawn, once in awhile he'll walk to it and fall asleep on it. ha ha. Good dog. I wake up every morning to find my boy out in the hall way petting his doggy. He's had a stay at home mom and kids for the last 6 years. He's become better behaved with age, and gets to come on vacations with us again now that we don't worry that he'll eat someone's couch. Now matter how sore he is, he's always at the door when I get home, wagging his butt off and clearing cofee tables of their contents in the process.

Piggy deserves the table scraps I give him now. He's a senior citizen and can enjoy a little piece of chicken or pizza crust. He won't do anything on command other than bark at the mailman. He's the first dog I ever owned, and I'll cry my face off when "the day" comes.

---
Our next dog, likely coming up this year so that Piggy can help us train him on what it means to be a nice doggy, will be raised much differently (although some Grateful Dead bootlegs will likely still be part of the program) in terms of discipline, but if I can get lucky enough to have half as lovable a dog as Piggy, we're blessed. We plan to crate train, and since my wife is home full time, the pup will get a morning lesson from her, and an evening lesson from me. The kids will be involved in training too. I need to dog to take commands from any of us. I'll definitely look into the click training too.


199419

[Bryan Morgan]

We have a border collie and a border collie/chow/lab mix. Dogs are animals and the humans are the masters. Thats how I raise my dogs. I don't treat them like they are a child or a human. They rarely get table scraps and only then if its meat or eggs, and never "from the table", its always placed in their bowls. I rarely hit them because you have to do it just at the right moment or they won't understand, plus its not really necessary. Both of my dogs went through their "initiation". We get our dogs from the pound so we have to establish our dominance quickly. Theres an important part that they will never show you on the Dog Whisperer because people would complain, but they do it too, and have been sued when it didn't go so well. Basically you just flip them on their back and grab their neck and be loud and dramatic. When you feel them submit you can let go. Every year or two you have to repeat this. We don't really walk them because they chase eachother and play fight all day long. Rough life... :) We are stern with them but that doesn't mean we don't hug and play with them too. They are always in the house or following us around like little shadows, very curious about everything. Sometimes I talk to them and explain it just to see how they react and they turn their head sideways and look at what you are talking about, almost as if they understand (I doubt they do, but its funny anyway). I don't let them in the garage while I'm am doing any woodworking because they become non-stationary obstacles and pose a danger. I've watched the Dog Whisperer a lot and have read his books and his methods do work quite well. We've taught these dogs a ton of tricks and they learn them very fast. All your standard sit/stand/roll over, jump, stay, twirl, etc. plus jumping through hoops and cones and stuff. They aren't good enough to compete and I don't want to do that anyway, I just want them to have fun. They won't catch frisbees though which kind of sucks. They are smart enough to know each others' names so I can tell one to go get the other and they will trot off and bring the other one back. The only real problem we've had is they like to dig these little beds for themselves in the lawn, perfect for breaking ankles. I can never seem to catch them in the act so its hard to educate them about it. Also, they sometimes bark and I put a shocking bark correction collar on them. Thing is, they are so smart they won't bark while its on but they know they won't be shocked when its off so they will bark. Usually I just go to a window or door and look at them and they will stop, they know its not right. They like to kill anything that comes in the yard and are excellent guard dogs. They've killed many cats and opossums. They tolerate children but don't really like them as my crappy neighbor kids used to get up on the fence and shoot them with their airsoft bb guns. I've always had border collies or german police dogs... dogs I can train. I can't stand stupid dogs or barking rats.

A training tip for those of you who feed your dogs from your table and have begging dogs you wish to stop. Get some hot peppers and keep them with you. When the dog comes to beg for food pretend to give them the real food but give them the pepper instead. Only takes a couple tries and your dog will be cured... unless it really likes hot peppers... and then you'll have a whole other set of problems. :)

[Bryan Morgan]

"Properly trained, a man can be dog's best friend. " ~Corey Ford

I finished a novel last week and the main character was a dog trainer. Having unsuccessfully attempted to train a Golden Retriever, some of the training methods in the book made a lot of sense and I with I had known them when. One tip was that puppies love to play, so they need lots of regularly scheduled play time. Also, if you find a puppy with something it shouldn't have (such as one of your shoes), you take the object away - telling the puppy "this isn't yours", and give him/her a toy, or rope, or chew bone - telling him/her "this is yours".

Have fun!

I had a golden retriever years ago. It was nearly untrainable. I don't know too much about the breed but we didn't have any luck with it. The same methods I use with border collies work fine. My neighbor now has a golden retriever that has charged me and my wife a few times (it did understand what the business end of a Glock 17 means, lucky for him) and barks pretty much 24/7.

[Steve Costa]

Siska is our Siberian Husky, . She is a gentle dog and has a very mild temperment, thanks to a lady who has been breeding Huskies for 35 to 40 years. She is stubborn & independant. My wife and I have been very well trained. We walk her daily for a couple of miles and then have play time (think scratch & bite) in the front yard. We have never tried to get her to heal but she sits & lays down when treats are offered. We came to the conclusion several years ago that obedience training is for children, dogs should be able to enjoy their journey through life---heresy to some, but this how we want our dog to live.

[Jerome Stanek]

200225My daughters puppy just went through a class and is going to the agility class now next will be the water rescue class