Quote:
Originally Posted by goodvic2
Hi. Sorry to hear that you are so frustrated. With 2 problem rescue's I've had my share of issues. My husband was a bit lax and un cooperative when I wanted to instill discipline or new ideas, it took my dad getting attacked for him to pull his finger out and take more of a leadership role. Just wondering, whose dog is it, your's or mum's? Can you not walk her all the time and tell your mum that if she won't do what's best for the dog not to walk her, or keep it to a minimum? It is possible that she is anxious being on a lead, but please don;t think this will answer all your problems. What's the recall like? ARe you confident that he will come back to you if you call and not charge at other dogs? I understand people's concern that a dog can't protect itself wearing a muzzle, but I would rather my dog got bit than attacked another dog. If you want to gauge his reaction, introduce a muzzle and use it at first when you walk past another dog. Try to walk past as many dogs as possible with the muzzle on and him off the lead and see what happens. If he starts charging at other dogs or acting aggressively whilst off the lead, then having him off the lead is not the answer.
What I found with my dog was when I started off lead walking with him on the muzzle, I went into a very relaxed state. This in turn filtered through to Max and after a week or so, I could remove the muzzle. Max, is however a very nervous dog (hense the aggression issues) and does not go very far from me and his recall is superb. This gives me the peace of mind to be able to recall him if I don;t want him to go near a particular dog - usually small dogs.
If you don't already, watch the Dog Whisperer, you'll get some great tips on successful lead walks.
Good luck x
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He's my mum and dad's dog, although I do live with them, so he's all of ours really. But the problem is, i'm out of the house at college from 6am-6pm, then stuck doing college work from 6pm-11pm nearly every night of the week, so I just don't have the time to walk him myself. So, I can't tell my mum not to walk him, because then he'd never get walked, because my dad doesn't bother to do it.
And my dog is absoloutely round the bend in the house, so I haven't dared yet to let him off the lead to test his recall! But, he's extremely toy orientated, so if I was to bring a squeaky toy out on a walk with him, I think he'd come back straight away, so that's possibly something I could use to train him with recall. As for the muzzle thing, because I don't get the time to walk him, it's pointless even considering it, because I know for a fact that my mum wouldn't use one, she wouldn't even try a damn halti because she thought it was cruel!
if I had the time to walk him and train him, i'd be trying every trick in the book, but until college holidays come, i'm never going to be able to help him.
We did buy a halti, but my mum sold it over eBay because the dog didn't like it....she only tried it on him once! She doesn't seem to realise that it can take time for a dog to get used to something like that, as they don't know what it is or why they have to wear it. But, I get 12 weeks off college over summer, so i'm going to buy another one and get him used to it myself, then she has no excuse not to use it. I know it won't be quite the same as a muzzle, but it gives you so much more control over them than a chest harness (which is what we currently use for him and I find absoloutely useless!)