Hello All,

Its been 5 days since the arrival of Lady, a 4 year old ESS bitch we have adopted from a rescue charity. We are trying the Jan Fennell 30 day course with her, but as she had been spoilt to death by her previous owners, she is really strong willed so I expect it to take alot longer!

She has a serious superiority complex, previously she was allowed to sleep in the bedroom, her claws are really long and she's a bit tubby so we got the impression she was left in the house alot and was probably given up on as she's a bit of a Tasmainan Devil if you give her even a bit of attention:) she soon calms down when we leave her to it though. She is responding well to Amerchien Bonding and is far from the explosion of fur and claws we were first introduced to!

Lady is not about to give up her leader of the pack status easily, I expect it to be a bit of a hard slog to turn round 4 years of "misguided", or lack of, training. As she is overweight we have decided not to use food rewards, I tried to improve her recall with food rewards at first but she is too clever and knows when I havn't got any in my hand, I ask her to come without food and it's her cue to prance around the garden with her nose in the air and that "look at me" pride in her step, it's really funny to watch, but doesn't get me anywhere:)

I won't use any confrontational techniques, I was horrified to hear some advice from an ESS show dog owner with "30 years experiance" who's advice for enforcing leadership was to take hold of the dog by it's jowles and wressle it to the floor on it's back!!! IMHO she shouldn't be allowed to own a dog if thats her technique.

I was wondering if anybody has had a similar situation, how long can it take rescue dogs to accept a new leader? (suppose that depends on the leader) any tips for training without food rewards would come in really handy in the fisrt few weeks with her;)

Regards
Pete

Hi Pete,
Congratulations on your new arrival. :D You get to 'restart' her into your household and methods. I take it you're putting her on a diet, eh. Potty little thing.

Don't rule out treats as reward for job well done, if that ends up being the best way to get her attention. Just make them tiny and hard earned. I use the Pupperoni because they easily break into tiny & manageable pieces. If she's dieting, it could be the fastest way to her heart :D

There's also toy reward, but my dogs have absolutely no desire for toys/balls/usual interests. Food [$ praise, that's about it for my limited menu. But they work well, despite my terrier's lack of concentration ]) She too, easily has a little weight problem, but exercise and watching the amount of treats keeps her down.

Here's something that I learned way back when from AKC basic training in the US as a first step prior to the beginning of training --- called Dominance-Down. It's worked on mine and other 'rescued' dogs to kind of relax them and acknowledge who is in charge. This will likely help for her to accept you as leader. If you're talking about dealing with other dogs, that's another tactic..this just deals with humans. No pain, no stress...well, not for long on the stress bit, at least ;-)

Figure out about a half hour of free time on a daily basis. This is at first, as things start to get better, you can ease up to every other day..and so on. Don't schedule it around feedings or walks. You and Lady go into a room away from others. Be relaxed about it. Put tv or music on. Take a book/magazine with you. If you think you need her lead, use it, but make no issue out of it. Have her sit and then lie down.

Don't talk to her other than to give the stay command just one time. Then slowly rest yourself so that you are lying with her neck under your right or left arm. It's easy to lean on her. Whatever works so that you're comfortable and your body is slightly lying over hers, kind of as if she's an armrest. This has to be comfortable to be here for about 15-20 minutes for you. At least, that's your goal to work up to. She might lie quietly for 5 minutes and then decide to get up. Don't let her, but don't say anything. Just pull her back down by the underneath of her collar or where the leash is hooked in.
Lady is there at your convenience, not hers. She could go to sleep. Doubtful at first, but let her, if that's what she chooses. Use the time to read and relax. If she does struggle at first, make her do what you want until she physically relaxes. Then just give her about five minutes to let herself get used to the idea. Then sit up. Work up to the longer time.

Don't let this end on a negative and stressful fight. Thats why you work up to the longer time period. Make it positive for both of you--that's why you adjust her start time for this.

When you end this time alone with her, just sit up, but continue to ignore her. When you leave the room, don't say anything to Lady. Let her think about this new change of status for a bit. If you have any other problems with her not understanding that she is lower than the family members, have everyone do this on a regular basis. Just keep things as calm and low key as you can.

This has basically worked for everyone that I've known who has had problems with their dogs and placement in the pecking order-- all sizes, ages, and genders. (around 40+ in about 6 years since I've known of it). I hope it works for you, also.

good luck & enjoy your new addition :D
toodles

Hi Toodles,

Thanks for the reply. We've just returned from an adventure down by the river, well I was by the river, Lady was straight in it :) she's happy as larry in there and she managed to bring a couple of sticks back which is a bit of a breakthrough. We met a couple of horses today, Lady wasn't too happy, not barking but low growling; I made a point of going up to them, patting their necks, her face was a picture:) I had Lady on one of those reel type leads but instead of running away she cowered behind me, some leader! I think we made some headway there and I'm going to make a point of doing it again, I'll protect her;)

Toys have been a waste of money, she only wants to play by her rules which means hanging onto them and running away when you come close, so not wanting to get into a power struggle, they've all gone into the cupboard until we're a bit further down the line as she uses them as trophys, prancing about with them held high....a 4 year old puppy!

I'm keeping her on the same diet the kennels had her on, 200ml of Ardent Grange, I think she's a bit chubby because of a lack of exercise but I will ask the vet when we visit next week. I thought I could use 25ml of her normal feed as treats, then only give her 175ml for her main feed but she seems un-interested in it when we're doing any sort of training. I'm sure she thinks "I'm the boss so I'll do what I want whether you've got food or not"!

I like the sound of the Dominance-Down technique, Jan Fennell mentions placing your hand on the neck of dogs with car/traveling troubles to keep them calm. She also mentioned how, in the wild, when a wolf pack was short of an Alpha male, after 6 hours of posturing from the pack to the prospective new Alpha on the scene, the outsider Alpha male was finally accepted by the Alpha female when he placed his right paw over her neck, only for a few seconds, but that was the final acceptance, so there must be something to it. I'll let you know how we get on, thanks for the tip:D

Kind regards
Pete & Lady

Hi Pete,
Just my humble opinion again... but until you get Lady sorted out on obediance skills & consistency on returns, I would not advise you to use the extend-leashes. A six-12 foot leather lead is much easier to maintain your control. I watch people use them to try to return their dogs back in a hurry and it always looks like they're pulling taffy. You just are not able to choke up on the extend-leads up to the dog's collar, if you have to.

Really, though, you shouldn't laugh at Lady's reaction to the horses. She was very intelligent about the situation. Discretion is the better part of valor.... She knew that a 12-1500 pound horse could beat her any day of the week. :D She probably thought you were off your rocker for facing the huge beastie :D No useless fighting from her direction, you were all on your own :D

Seriously, with horses, if you can just get Lady to do a nice sit/stay on the side of the path while they go past you, it would be greatly appreciated by their riders. My mom is a horse person and she will be the first to admit how unpredictable horses' sight & thinking can be. Their eyes are not set in the front like dogs are and they shy at unknowns. As a prey animal, they look at your dog as "wolf." It only takes a second for their hooves to whip out and nail a dog on its side or head. She's told me about these things happening, usually to the detriment of the dog. Mules will sometimes aggressively go after dogs if they have been previously chased.

Instilling politeness and a healthy respect for horses in Lady will be the best thing for her health. :D

Just for the record and to stop any future flaming...... I'm not saying that horses are brutal and mean...just that like with any strange animal, there should be healthy respect for space and temperament. It would be great if everyone thought this way.. Personally, I would love it, if joggers would give me a little more room to breathe when they're running full speed at me. My dogs see it as a definite threat and I make them sit on the side of the path & wait for the runner to pass.

Have a great Monday
toodles

Hi,

Just realised Toodles probably isn't your name :) like toodle pip?

I didn't explain the horse experience very well, there was a fence between us:D later on the same walk we met some with riders, she sat in the undergrowth at the side of the bridalway with me, quite happy - no grumbles anyway - until they'd passed. I see what you mean, I wasn't really doing my leadership credentials any good there, I was looking at it from a human perspective, I should have been thinking canine;) we're still learning too.

We tried the Dominance-down technique, after 10 mins she got a bit squirmy, I think her collar was still a bit wet from her swim as she managed to wriggle out of it. I though discretion was the better part of valour and got up to make a cup of tea, I didn't want to push it. Lady seemed to have a good think about what had happened and promptly fell asleep in the middle of our lounge and didn't move until her feed. I'm not sure whether it was because of the excercise, it had been her longest walk so far, or the dominance-down, but she seems more relaxed.

She now sits & stays (10 seconds so far but thats a miracle) at the back door whilst I go out, we've been trying to make sure we go out first and up to now it's been about 50/50 who made it:)

We're really pleased with Ladys progress, the Amerchien bonding is going really well now we have settled into a routine. I've done a collage of photographs from the first couple of days; I've sent a copy to the Springer Charity where we met lady, they should be on their website soon

http://www.englishspringerrescue.org.uk/main-index.html

it may take a few days, the guys there are very busy at the moment as Crufts has just finished. I'll keep you updated with our progress.

Regards
Pete

Hi Pete,
Yes, you're right, toodles is just my way of saying "bye now." My real name is Sara --it's under my profile, but from what I've been able to see there at least three other Saras posting on Champdogs. Gets a little confusing, so I don't mind the nickname. It makes me sound a little fluffy & airheaded, though :D Different experience for me :D

It sounds as if Lady & you are actually settling in quite nicely. Remember she's been there less than a week, so you both are doing marvelously in the short time that you've had together. She was with her last family for quite a while, so it will take time to adjust and don't worry if you have little setbacks on occasion. They do happen and rather unexpectedly too :D It took a full year for Samma to get settled in completely and she was only about 10 months old when we got her. It seems to be different stages, just like in puppyhood, except easier. :D

The hardest thing to do, though is to try to look at a situation through the dog's viewpoint. The fact that you even mentioned it, is absolutely wonderful. I really think that you and Lady will work out very well together. Of course, expanding her world by regularly exercising her helps out the endorphines encourages her sense of well being :D

I am glad that you realized that just because someone had 30 years of experience, that wrestling a dog into submission is not the only way to deal with ranking/dominance issues. I've had to mix old & new style methods of thinking & training over the years to figure out the best way to encourage the "well mannered dog". Some of the new ways are a little too fruity/anthropomorphic, and the old ways are a little too brutal/dumb beast concepts....if you get my drift.

Anyway, good luck to you and Lady and may all of your walks be wonderful and interesting :D

toodles

Hi Sara,

Thanks for the kind words, Lady is presently off on an adventure with my wife June, I'm missing her already!(June too:))

Learning to speak/act canine is a new concept for us. I see it as the way forward and I'll be doing some more research to see how far we can take it, we're on the right track as I've read both of Jan's books and managed to take the basics on board. I'm sure Lady will play a large part in expanding my canine vocabulary ;)

Thanks for pointing out the profiles, I've now filled it in. I wondered whether you are with our armed forces over in Germany, I'm not normally nosey, I'm ex Navy and thought your posting name looked like a typical MOD acronym that no-one else could work out;)

kind regards
Pete

Hi Pete,
I'm ex-AF, but my husband is still AD-AF. He's TDY at the moment. Don't know if he'll be back in June or July yet. Honestly, I make a much better military spouse than I ever did AD. :D
My posting name: Eoghania is Welsh and basically means "young warrior woman." It's pronounced "Evanya" (simple, eh?). I adopted it years ago when I was still AD & tired of all of the names that I could think up already being taken online. So far... no eoghania1 or 2's yet :D
I did look up what the Amichien program entails. I did think it was cute stealing the name from the French to make "Frend/ly dog." From my view, the author does take a lot of previous ideas and claims them as her own invention. If they work, use them. But some of them are rather odd... not touching your dog to make it sit for fear of encroaching on personal space. Hmmm, a little too much of a wacked out view for me. Take the good, leave behind the spacey ;)

Must go give dinner to the 'girls.' Samma is rroooorring for hers and I'm very late today. Bad human, bad, bad ;-)

toodles

Egohania

Slightly off thread I know, but was interested to read your name is Welsh. I have never heard it before, which is not to say it doesn't exist obviously :), however our language is phonetic and we certainly wouldn't pronounce it the way you describe. :)

Hi Jude,
I don't speak any Welsh. I'm just going off of the phonetic pronounciation in the world baby names book that I used for it, which listed as: eh-VAN-yah. Since I only use it for computer correspondance, I don't really worry about if I can pronounce it correctly ;-) I claim absolutely no responsiblity for it at all :D
toodles

Hi Eoghania

The correct Welsh pronounciation would be:
E as in Egg
og as in dOG
han as in HANd
ia as in EAr

I think its fair to say your version has a better ring to it !!!!! :D

Hi Pete. 220g of Arden grange is what my lot get as a maintenance diet for fairly active 20kg Elkhounds. If she is podgy I would cut her down to 150g without a qualm of guilt, and if she is very stout to 100g and add some carrot i it to bulk it out if she is scavenging!

You could always use her measured out food s rewards. Measure out her portion in a bowl, and any time you need to do training take some outand use it, and at her meal time she gets what is left. You could use carrot to bulk up her meal, or as treats if she likes it.

I have found the littlle plastic like moist morsels (called Hilife), which is that semi moist complete food (dogs love it as it has corn syrup as a major ingriendient). It is not good for the teeth, but the tiny mince size pieces are easy to handle and small enough to use as frequent rewards, or for a fat dog because of the small size!

Hi Barbara,

Thanks for the tip! I hope it will come in handy soon. We've decided not to concentrate on training too much for the time being, Lady is just too smart, I think she knows what she's supposed to do but just point blank refuses to do it because she isn't ready to take orders from someone lower down in the rankings of our little pack;) This demonstrates itself well during our attempts at training, I'll give an example:

In the Garden I put her on a rope slip lead and get her to sit (eventually-3 or 4 times) then step back a foot (still holding the lead) one hand out & Stay at the same time, working up to the recall. Using food, I can work up to about 5 feet before she remembers she's the boss and promptly prances off round the perimeter of the fence with her nose held high(always has a sneaky eye on me too), what I've started calling Leader mode:). Once she's in "Leader mode" she will only do what she wants, which means ignoring me, the food, toys, everything.

This gets a bit frustrating, she gets banished to the kitchen for 2 hours, then on return we completely ignor her, no eye contact and palm her away if she comes near us(this was really hard at first she'd always catch one of us looking at her), until she has calmed right down and streached out and I see her breathing has slowed. The first time we did this took nearly 4 hours for her to calm down, we're now down to 5 mins but we have to be carful not to fall for one of her sucker punches, where she's just pretending to be calm, I test her by moving chairs, if she stays put I know shes relaxed if she jumps up we give her more time and try again, finally calling her to come, where she gets lots of praise. It's working well and we've not had her a week yet. At these times I think she is thinking about the potential shift in hierarchy because she licks her lips alot and starts grooming the carpet, anything to avoid dealing with the issue:)

Her actions lead me to beleive we have to address her status before we will make any headway with training. Once she has accepted us as the Alpha's of the pack I'm sure we'll have more success. I know we're not supposed to be taking her out during this bonding process, but I think it may take a bit of time for her to adjust to her new home, she's already a bit chubby so we figured it best to plod on with some excercise. This is why I'm using a reel type lead, it gives her a bit of space without the confrontation we get with the rope lead, nothing more off putting than being taken out for a drag by your dog:) and there's no disapointment because there's no goal set. If I try heel work at this point I think I'm just setting us up for failure.

I tried the about turn trick to stop her pulling, it's an easy way of excercising her, she runs the full length of the reel (8m) I turn round and she runs the full length the other way, we did this for 20 mins before I thought she'd had enough and would do too much, I don't think she's use to excercise and didn't want her to over do it.

I've just re-read this thread and thought I came across a bit impatient, I'm not really. We've all made a tremendous effort and I'm proud of us all:D

I guess I want Lady to respond to training [$ play because she wants to, because she is looking to us for Alpha leadership, I want her to feel part of the pack, responding because it's her job in the pack and she wants to do it, not because she's following programming or conditioning. A willing student will be much more fun for all involved]) time will tell and we've got plenty of it:D

Kind Regards
Pete

Pete I can understand the frustration, Elkhounds can be very independant, and even when pretty well trained will do that superior i will come when I want to bit, you will get that look and pause before they deign to go along with (not obey) what you want, LOL! I don't mind as long as I don't get the I'll clear off for half an hour while you twiddle your thumbs, which can happen, then yopu have to go back to the drawing board. Training acrually teaches co-operation and respect, but you always have to be in a position to enforce the command before letting them choose to comply or not!

With my dogs when I have had the odd case of selective deafness over recall, I have gone back to recall training on a flexi. I have been told a long line is better!