Newbie need some advice!

Hello! I'm new to staffy ownership and have not yet picked up my new member of the family and wanting to get ahead! I have been looking for the right staffy for a while. We wanted a bitch, Neutered of course, full breed with a good temprement with children and other dogs as I plan on taking her to my parents who have a pack of dogs. The most important thing to us was making sure she was the right dog for us and we knew we didn't want a pup. We eventually after may let downs and trawling rescue sites found a lovely red staffy bitch. She's had some issues in her life but has very little history known. Is tested with cats, other dogs, being left alone and with children including a newborn. She was even tested with pregnant women! She sounds perfect and we are going to check her out tomorrow after we passed our home check last week.

I want her to settle well but we don't want her to think she leads the house. I've been looking at sites that praise Cesar Millan. While I've heard of him I didn't know his methods. Some sites worship him as being the only one to listen to. I'm no so sure...

My main question are is methods legit, safe and humane?

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You won't find many good words for him on here !! Love and attention are the best training methods you can use

Hi and welcome to the forum from Rocky and me.

Personally I do not like Mr Milans methods, but thats only my view, others I'm sure will add thier own.

Hi & welcome.

Cesar Milan? Avoid his methods like the plague!

If you take this bitch on, then give her space to settle in with you. Forget all this 'pack leader' stuff - concentrate on setting rules & sticking by them.

Hiya and welcome from me and Moo, good luck tomorrow

Hi and welcome form us and Suki.

If you use Cesar Milan methods on your dog you won't have the dog you want, he uses aggression to solve aggression which never works. The best way to explain what his methods do is the story about Cotton, he was a under exercised dog and like all under exercised dogs he was boistrous, this is the clip of him with Cotton who was kept in a crate in the garage because of his boistrousness.

First what the clip with the sound down and make your own mind up what Cotton is saying, the with the sound up. I can't watch this clip now, I find what CM does is too upsetting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXPkSZ7gBTk

This is the same dog some time later,

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/home_blog/2009/07/the-disarming-of-a-cute-but-vicious-dog-named-cotton.html

Your children have boundaries and will push them, so will a dog, by using positive methods and setting your dog up to do what you want she will always be a well behaved, loving dog.

Hmm fight fire with fire methods.... Never good. Seems to be too much fear instilled into him. Last thing I want is for this lovely dog to fear me! While I want her to obey me I want it to be become she wants to not because she fears the consequences. The lady who is fostering her at the moment says her biggest problem is a fear of people passing things over her head or raising their hands directly over her. She doesn't react with aggression but cowers, I have a feeling CM's methods may have been tried on her. While I can see it works in theory and on paper, is it really the right way? Hmm.. Think I will be rethinking my research! (if you were a member of my fish group you'd see I over think, over do and over research everything!)

And what is a "naturally aggressive dog"?

99% of aggression is fear, take the fear away and the aggression goes, pity it isn't that simple to do. Many dogs that haven't been hit don't like being patted on the head, have a look at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2cC6LBD_Ug&feature=related

I don't agree with everything Victoria Stillwell does but she does understand positive reinforcement.

Other sites to look at:

http://www.clickertraining.com/

http://www.thebark.com/content/reducing-fear-your-dog

Caroline Monteith made 25 clips on dog training for The Dogs Trust that are on Youtube, this is the first one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eC3HjW91U_c all of them are very good. I know Caroline she is a really good trainer/behaviourist.

Absolutely.

If you tackle aggression with aggression you will get fear. And fear has a habit of resolving itself.......by that I mean that sooner or later a dog that is scared of you will overcome that fear and attack - harder & fiercer than ever before.

If you work with your dog so that it wants to do what you say you will have a happy dog and a peaceful household!

Cyril baby wrote:99% of aggression is fear, take the fear away and the aggression goes, pity it isn't that simple to do. Many dogs that haven't been hit don't like being patted on the head, have a look at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2cC6LBD_Ug&feature=related

I don't agree with everything Victoria Stillwell does but she does understand positive reinforcement.

Other sites to look at:

http://www.clickertraining.com/

http://www.thebark.com/content/reducing-fear-your-dog

Caroline Monteith made 25 clips on dog training for The Dogs Trust that are on Youtube, this is the first one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eC3HjW91U_c all of them are very good. I know Caroline she is a really good trainer/behaviourist.

Oh thank you. That's great

Don't forget to put loads of pictures here once you pick her up!

I'm sure I will flood the place with em lol.

Simple answer: no. And I say this as someone who used to believe in having to be the pack leader and your dog having to act submissive with you 24/7 in order for it to behave. After getting Loki, coming across this site and seeing videos of Cesar Millan...no, his methods are not safe (for the dog and also for you). Even if the theory of having to be the leader is right, I'm as sure as it's possible to be that you can have a happy and obedient dog without having to use harsh and confrontational methods.

I did some extensive research through youtube, articles for and against and I'm pretty sure these methods stand as abusive imho. Molly arrived yesterday, and I am pleased to say she is as perfect as they said. Some work to do with the cat as she just wants to play and Benny isn't overly pleased with that notion. The cowering is none existent so far. She is very well trained, we've had her sit, stay, walk close on a lead, lie down and even a very cute, shake a paw. She does need some work on the lead though, she does pull when she smells something interesting and is a little impatient. We walked past a very hostile cat with no problem, a springer dashed past us off a lead with his owner and had a quick sniff but Molly happily let him sniff and calmly sat there until the Springer bolted off and a group of people at a bus stop. Sadly, she sniffed the wrong gate along the road where someone keeps some pretty deffensive dogs, I think they are staffy and rotweiler (spelling?) who startled her a bit but we moved on.

One thing though, she hasn't had a proper toilet yet. She had a quick wee while we were out but she'd gone all night in with no accidents so she's had one wee since she got here.

She sounds a lovely girl!

Don't forget the pics!

LeaKyGDan wrote:One thing though, she hasn't had a proper toilet yet. She had a quick wee while we were out but she'd gone all night in with no accidents so she's had one wee since she got here.

I wouldn't worry too much about that, her system is probably all out of sorts with the change of home for her. If you have some salmon oil, or even some olive oil, you can drizzle some over her food & it might help her to go!

I wasn't sure if it was just a settling in thing. When should I be worried? She's currently sleeping on my feet after her morning walk. She's nibbling but not eating but the previous owners apparently had food down 24/7 so she just picked when she felt like it.

LeaKyGDan wrote:I wasn't sure if it was just a settling in thing. When should I be worried? She's currently sleeping on my feet after her morning walk. She's nibbling but not eating but the previous owners apparently had food down 24/7 so she just picked when she felt like it.

Probably just settling in, it's a lot to take in, quite big changes. If she had food down 24/7 then she's probably used to never being hungry or waiting for food, just eating a bit whenever she feels a bit hungry. I reckon, once she's more settled in, give her her food and leave it down for a certain amount of time (like 15 minutes or something) and if she doesn't eat it all, then just take it away and put it down again next meal time. She won't starve herself, she'll eat if she's hungry, and it'll get her used to having meal times. Obviously this might be just cos she's settling in, so you might not even need to do this, just a thought.

Training classes are good, but theres loads of good advise here

She's a dream for behaviour I can't see much needing doing except she jumps on coffee tables and the dining table and window cills. We tested her last night by nipping out for an hour. She had jumped up on the sides and knocked some things off but no major damage.