Blue booked in for training

First topic message reminder :

Just phoned up the dog school and Blue has his first 1 to 1 lesson this Friday at 10am.
Can't wait. Hopefully if it goes well and we can get him to start to get along with other dogs I can book him in for obedience classes and then other things like agility. But it all depends on him starting to get along with dogs.

How did you get to the point where they just layed down? I have tried other techniques like starting from a distance (No matter how far they are, if he see's a dog he wants to drag me there ) He knows watch me and leave commands (Go out the window when he see's a dog due to selective hearing syndrome) Treats are no interest as soon as he see's a dog. Can't get the halti to fit him right. Choke chains just enable him to choke himself but the prong at the moment is working. At most a short light correction works.

Blue starts obidence classes today. Something I never thought I would be able to say. So he will be put to the test today. I need to go so the trained staff can assist me in the correct timing of removing the prong collar and going back to my prefared flat collar. Remove the prong collar too soon and they are more likely to return to old ways.
Wish me luck.

Just nipped on to let you all know how class went today.
Blue was amazing. He had a couple of growls at other dogs but all in all he was brilliant and there were probably over 40 dogs on the compound so plenty of positive meets.
There was 6 in total in our class and we had 2 trainers. We had blue on the flat collar for most of it but left the prong collar on with no lead attached and he seemed to be fooled for now
But we had a great time and his obidence was awesome. He stayed 95% of the time and for sometimes over 2 mins while the dog next to him was faffing about. So proud of him.
Well off to do the food shop. Catch you all later

Thats great news, you can ignore my other post now!! Pleased to hear its working and that Blue is catching on!!

I'v said this so many times your all probabilly sick of it i know but that is why I LOVE THE HEAD HALTI they physically can NOT pull with it on, you pull back and up and walk into him when he lunges and it puts him into a sitting position and you keep him there until the dog has passed, treat and calmly giving him correction and praise. Over time he will learn and if your only going to give the prong collar a temp then i would serious try to the halti.
As i also said before the Prong collar has been known to make the dog even more aggressive because the prongs act like dogs teeth in their neck and they think being attack and need to stay tense and even more worked up and with Staffy being a highly adrenalined dogs when confronted with attack its not a good idea.
Also with the halti you can have them on a long lead around other dogs and when you see the wrong body language pull on the lead and keeps his muzzle shut so he can not attack and he will know that and adventually learn the muzzle gotta stay shut while around other dogs on or off the halti.
I know many of you say a head halti won't fit a staffy but making a few alteration and your done.

Well it basically took about a year of sitting down and just holding him. To start with a distance away from other dogs then gradually edging closer. He was funny though, it was fear based dog aggression but it was like he was never really sure what he was doing. I dont know if he really wanted to hurt the other dogs or not. He would become fixated there was nothing you could do with food, toys, praise, force (eg. trying to push his bum down and make him sit). The only thing I could do in the end was tire him out with a really long walk first and then sit there. To start with moving him even a step closer to the other dogs would result in screaming and lunging but then I would just turn him round and take him back to the starting point. It was maddening and sometimes all you would get from an hours training was possibly one sit and him paying attention to you for all of 5 -6 seconds.

I moved away from the area and never did find out what happened to him though he did improve somewhat and after 6 - 8 months of doing the above 2/3 times a week he would only scream and lunge for a little while before he could be worked about 15 metres from the other dogs without too much incidence. He would also lie down and relax a little. It was really just with teeth-grinding patience that I got him to that stage. And some very understanding friends with their dogs!

And I agree with you missrogue sometimes if you have a dog that is so physically strong that it could pull you off your feet, or a dog which bites so you can control the head, a halti can be useful and save lots of injury! I just dont like it when people havn't even tried to teach the dog to walk properly and they whack one on for convenience

It's coming up to nearly a year now and I did the same with Blue. Distance but made no difference with him. I also did the shopping centre and sitting outside Tesco's to get him more used to people whic did work.
These classes should help work wonderers as the dogs at them are under training and seem to be more balanced than random dogs out and about on the streets.
Long periods of training in the classes I had him clipped to the flat collar but with the prong collar still on which seemed to fool him.
Only time I put him back on the prong at the class was when we had to do an exercise where we had to walk towards another dog and sit in front of it.
It will take time but hopefully we are heading into the right direction and I can have him on a flat collar and lead soon all the time.
Cheers for giving another side of the coin to the prong collar it gives a better read for any memeber looking into them

I love this forum, imagine if the rest of the world could debate, put their opinion across, and agree to disagree!

Well it would improve dramatically. Maybe we should both go n tour to the middle east to start us off on our world tour on how to scrap peacefully

Nosipho wrote:I love this forum, imagine if the rest of the world could debate, put their opinion across, and agree to disagree!

BlueStaffBlue wrote:Well it would improve dramatically. Maybe we should both go n tour to the middle east to start us off on our world tour on how to scrap peacefully

Could you imagine the world leaders sitting around a table with a few bottles and saying "We'll agree to disagree on that!" and then clinking glasses and going home again! NO MORE WARS!!!!!

If only....

Seriously though some of the forums I'm on for staffs and reptiles the people are just downright rude to each other. Making assumptions based on their opinion and not even considering other people's feelings. Some threads just turn into slanging matches!