I have an Airedale Terrier (Betty) who's coming up to 2 years old in April. As soon as she'd had her injections we started taking her to puppy classes and began the obedience training. Unfortunately, the school was a bit too far away and the time too late for my daughter, Meg, so we got an animal behaviourist in to train us in how to look after her. Betty was brilliant when the behaviourist but as soon as she'd left Betty would completely ignore my commands. Things just seem to be going from bad to worse and I'm afraid we will have no choice but to get rid of Betty if we don't get things sorted. Despite our best efforts she'll chew/pinch anything she can including food, Meg's toys, gloves. We never leave her alone anymore (except in her cage) in case she destroys any more furniture as she's worked her way through the kitchen flooring, the hall carpet, the table and chair legs, chewed holes through the wall, etc. On top of her chewing she barks incessantly. We can control this a bit while she's in the house but once she's out in the garden there's no stopping her and it's getting to the stage where the neighbours are commenting. But the worst and by far the most serious problem is that she's started biting! She used to mouth quite badly when she was a pup and we did manage to put an end to this after a while but recently we've had workmen in the house and so far she's nipped 3 of them, she also jumped up at people passing the house as we've been leaving to go for a walk and probably would have bitten them too if she'd had half a chance.

On the plus side she's brilliant with my daughter although they can both get a bit worked up and boisterous and Betty tends to play with her mouth open which worries me in case she catches Meg with her teeth. She's also excellent with other dogs.

Any suggestions on what I should do. We're getting desparate!

Tracey

HI Tracey

Sounds as if you have your hands full!!!

My first choice would be to suggest getting in touch with the behaviourist again and explaining the problem. Betty mayhave simply learnt to ignore your commands, this can often be the case in a busy household, and also if there have been many times when she has chosen not to obey, and you were in no position to enforce the command, or if you have occasionally "given in", a bright dog will work this out. So get the B. to show you exaclty how to behave and how to get her to respond to you. A good behaviourist will be able to help the dog work for you, not just show you how good the dog is with them, if you see what i mean!

Its possible that Betty has had lots of attention for stealing and so finds it exciting to do this. There are ways of dealing wiht this, but it does take time. For instance, either don't put her in a situation where she can steal, or if she does, either ignore her, and sacrifice the item, or else if it cannot be sacrificed, distract her (but the art is to not let her know yiou are distracting her because she has a stolen item ;) ) I also taught my dog to retrieve all "nicked" items to hand, and when she had a sock fetish, rewarded her handsomely for givng up the sock and also encouraged her to take socks. After a while, socks lost their importance. But it does all take time, consistency and sticking to the plan!!!

Is she left alone for very long? And does she get lots of things to really gnaw on, such as a stuffed Kong, and toys to play with?

Play with her, and involve her sitting, down, and so on for a thrown toy. Get her obeying you with the little things in life and in time obedience will become a habit.

Soem of the situations you may have to manage, for example why does she bark in the garden, and if you cant solve it ( it is possible to teach a "Quiet") or have tried a spray collar (which I know some on here have had success with in a similr situation) she will have to stay in, or be supervised in the garden :)

Hmm - Betty may be biting due to having played excitedly with your daughter all her life, with no boundaries, do you feel this is possible? I feel tuggie games and so on are fine as long as a dog will drop immediatley when asked, but physical rough housing and too much tumbling on the floor with no control may give Betty the wrong message.

Playing with mouth open is normal butsounds like an excited and wound up dog, possibly? It may be a good idea to play calm games. again the B. should be able to help with this.

Just a few ideas to get you started, anyway. Oh, do get GWen Baileys "The perfect Puppy" it is good on adolescents too :)

Lindsay

Dear Tracey,

Sounds as though you have got your hands full! We have an airedale rescue, he is 4 years old (castrated)
we have had a few problems with him, but he has settled down alot, he has selective hearing too! only hears when biscuits are involved (for some reason)! he used to to use his mouth alot, have you tried a halti for Betty? they are very good, especially when walking. It does sound as though she is getting over excited, they do tend to go a bit mad then! Our dog will always nick food etc if he gets the chance, slippers shoes etc, (they are like naughty schoolchildren)

We are looking for a female airedale to rehome, if you find you do want to rehome her we would be very interested, let me know how you get on. Jackie