Need some help with this
Phoebe is the first OES I have owned. I have always had Collies and St Bernards. When my last Saint died at a great old age of 14 my girl friend who is a vet gave me this wonderful puppy. Phoebe just turned one in December and listens to me but no one else. She does not want anyone near me, not even my 17 yr old son. She does not do anything really bad but will mouth him. If my other dog comes by me she pushes her out of the way, she does not go away she will actually become nasty and bite her. Yesterday she drew blood. The collie is very very mellow. I love Phoebe dearly but I have to break this problem. Can you help? |
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| a loud ANGRY "No" should help you remind both dogs (not that your collie needs it) that you are the head of the pack, additionally, it may help for her to see you with the collie from a distance, so that if she believes the collie means to hurt you, she will see the collie is no threat...
as with all training, consistancy, and fairness will make it stick. |
| What Phoebe is doing is people guarding. This not "guarding" as in protecting, but guarding as is "ownership", like some dogs do with bones, food, toys the bed etc.
If she is disciplined for doing this it will make things worse, as she will associate the discipline with the collie, or your son or whatever. She will not be able to relate it to her own behavior, as dogs don't think like that. What I do when my girl does that is I just stop all the attention she is getting. For example, if I am patting my possessive girl, and another dog comes around and she growl to send it away, I stop patting her and walk away, if I can. On the other hand, if I am not patting her and another dog is close, then I will pat her. As long as she does not react she gets attention. Any negative reaction the patting and attention stops. So it is more that she can begin to WANY the collie or you son or whatever around, so she gets attention. This type of behavior takes a long time to change, and you must be consistent so she does not get mixed messages. But overall you want her to be comfortable when other dogs or people are around, so you need to make her enjoy it when they are there. |
| That sounds like a great idea. Let me make sure I have this right. If I am not giving her attention and having the collie get the attention when she walks up growling just walk away from her. Right?
If I am petting her and the collie walks up and she growls stop petting her instead of petting them both at the same time? How do I stop her from head butting the collie or my grandson to push her/him away? Should I just put her in another room when she does that? |
| Nicole,
I read your posting about this and it does make sense. However, I wonder why you couldn't use the word "No". Annie always responds to No and almost usually stops what she's doing whether it be annoying my husband for pets, begging for food, nipping dogs, nipping children, eating grass, etc...the list goes on and on. This always worked with my family's dogs except with the Tibetan who never responded to the word "No." |
| She does respond to no unless it involves me with someone else or another animal. The only way I know how to describe it is she does not want anyone except her getting attention from me.
She is really bad about this she usually goes to bed with my son because the Collie sleeps in my room we have to get her in there with him first or else she goes nuts head butting the door etc. If I let her in with me she jumps all over the Collie until she gets off the bed. Thank God the dog is so mellow or I am sure I would have fights all the time. When my grandson slept over I put him in bed with me and laid down with him so he would go to sleep she pushed and pushed him because she just did not want him there, I had to lock Phoebe out of the room. Then she did the silly bark howl of hers until I was forced to let her outside until I got back downstairs. About a week ago I was not home and she and Collie got into a fight when my son was home. He said she did the same thing with him as she does with me. He was sitting on the sofa with one dog on each side. The Collie rolled on her back nosing him Phoebe got mad I guess and went after the Collie |
| I don't use the word "no" at all. Dogs don't automatically know what it measn, and that word is used so often that the meaning for them could be somethign entirely different from what you want it to mean. Most of the time "no" is more of a sound that gets their attention. If they stop what they are doing or look at you it gives you the opportinute to give some direction. That is why Phobe does not always respond to it.
Now if she is told "no" for pushing or growling or "guarding" what exactly is she being asked to do? And will it stop her from feeling the possiveness or need to guard? Probably not, It may interupt the behavior, and supress the action, but the feeling and desires are still there...and instead of growling or pushing she may esalate to biting. What is needed is to change her whole state of mind, so to speak. You want her to be happy and comfortable and relaxed when people/dogs etc are around. You don't want her to feel supressed, or upset or on edge, because those or very unpredictable states. |
I am going to bring up something different here  It sounds like you have a dominant dog. Okay, there is one thing I have never allowed my dogs to do, and that is to share my bed. None of them have even been on my bed at anytime. By doing so you are telling your dog that it is equal in statis as you in the pack. You are the leader of the pack and your dogs have to understand that - especially a dominant dog. This is very important otherwise the problem could escalate. Set a bed somewhere else in the house but not in your bedroom for your oes. He will soon get to know that, that is his special place.
I know that many dog owners allow their dogs on their beds and that is their choice but in the case of a dominant dog I believe that is not a good idea. |
| Taking all the great suggestions everyone gave me yesterday. What I did last night actually worked. Once we arrived home from Soccer, Phoebe always goes with, (Collie gets car sick) it was rest time. Where the family gets together sits down and watches TV. Usually Phoebe gets to sit on the sofa next to me and the Collie on my other side.
I let this happen until she started getting nasty with the small growls. The first time she did this I stated a sharp NO made her get down and put her in the foyer with a gate stopping her from being with us. This worked until she jumped the gate so off to a separate room she went for about five minutes. Then I let her back with all of us. I had to do this same thing about 7 times before she realized both of them could sit by me. This morning when I sat to have my morning Coffee both of them sat next to me with their heads on my lap and there was no growling. Don't know if this will be the end of it but it sure seems to work. I am just going to keep up on it until the next time. Actually right now they are sitting butt to butt on the sofa together with no problems. I am so excited I hope this works |
| Sounds like you made some progress. Just don't think that this is now
corrected though. It may take many many tries and it may be something you will always have to watch for. Be very careful about favorites too! If one dog always gets to do something the other does not it may be reinforcing the dogs dominance. Something to consider. Good luck, and be consistent and persistent. Shellie |
You might also want to try to have your 17 year old more involved in her care. This will establish him as a member of the pack, especially if he takes over feeding her. Tasker was around long before my honey and when Doug came along there was a serious problem with jealousy. Tasker would growl whenever Doug tried to sit near me much less hug or.... well you get the idea  . The vet sugggested that Doug start feeding and walking Tasker to establish his place in the "pack". Well it didn't take long before Tasker was looking to Doug as the leader and all jealousy was gone.
Your girl thinks that she's the boss and she is acting "alpha". I recommend the book The Dog Whisperer. It has some wonderful ideas for how to establish pack order in your house. I believe in using a calm, firm tone of voice, not yelling or angry and I also very rarely use "no". Positive reinforcement is a MUCH better motivator. |
| A whole two days and not one problem. Phoebe is being so good last night there was absolutely no growling. They were playing together something that very seldom happens. When someone takes one of Phoebe's toys there is usually an issue but they were playing tug together and nothing happened other than the Collie getting knocked down from being run into. Today both are going to the groomer together. |
| Great progress. Keep it going! |
WooHoo Phoebe  Keep up the good work! |
| How is it going? |
| Phoebe has been great. Hopefully she has learned the rules. My neighbors brother trains police dogs. I spoke with him and we agreed that she was getting absolutely too possesive of me.
Jim took her to his home for three days. I missed her so much but since I hae gotten her back she is wonderful. She let's Annie sit on my lap, she does not bite her anymore and she does not run into her to knock her down by running into her. She still follows me everywhere, never leaves the room when I am but there is no more biting or fighting. Now I am the grooming quest. I was told to cut the hair around her eyes and not to let it hang in front of her eyes Thanks for asking Dianne |
| I don't know what it is with k9 trainers but it seems like they are fascinated with sheepdogs! Whenever one of them comes to where I work they can't get enough of hearing about OES. We had one dog trainer take one of my dogs out to see what he could do. There's a new running joke at work about the OES drug dog! Cops are so weird.
You can certainly cut the hair over the eyes. He probably told you to do that because if dogs can't make eye contact they can become aggressive. They view the dog without eyes as weird and they won't like them. If you don't want to cut the hair, you could also just do ponytails |
Maxmm wrote: Cops are so weird.
You can certainly cut the hair over the eyes. He probably told you to do that because if dogs can't make eye contact they can become aggressive. They view the dog without eyes as weird and they won't like them. If you don't want to cut the hair, you could also just do ponytails HAHAHAHAHA, I second that!!!!!!! Cutting a sheepies bangs is/has/will be a source of continued debate here and elsewhere. There are those that feel quite strongly that the hair should be left "as is". I'm in the trim 'em camp and keep Taskers bangs out of his eyes. |
| We do "doggy ears" for our girls. They love it when we ask if they "want your eyes fixed." They will almost fight to be first. |
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