Husky/Shep mix, around 9 years old (guesstimate based on her dental wear and tear). She is lazy, we go for 1-2+ hour walks every day, but unless I interact with her she does absolutely nothing, although more and more she is showing signs of restlessness, even with the walks. Feel like I need to tell her story before I continue my questions.
She was a hoarding dog for a while, no idea how long, before we found each other. She is rather lazy and was heart-worm positive. While on the treatment she went from 20lb's underweight to 17lb's over weight. Lowest 55lbs, highest 87lbs. At last weight-in she was down to 79lbs with another 9-10lbs to lose. My fault, as I didn't think about cutting her food back from what the bag said to feed her while on her heart-worm treatment and I also didn't know how slow her metabolism actually was at the time. For the last year and a half she has been eating 550-600 calories from her food, with another 100-200 from treats/bones/games/etc.
Keep in mind with the below statements, in the last couple of months she has been changing a lot. Be it because of the weight loss or the fact I have her at the dog park/around other dogs more often, or both I don't care. She is trying to play with other dogs, even going so far as to try and run with them but she can't keep up so she gives up fast. That and she doesn't like going more than a few feet away from me unless she is so preoccupied she doesn't realize how far she is.
She doesn't play with toys, I have tried associating them with food. She has this aversion to putting anything not food in her mouth. I have been working on this a bit with frozen kongs and had my first break through here the other day with a food ball where she finally picked it up to take it to her bed. She has never put a ball in her mouth, usually sniffs and walks away, this included food balls in the past. So I plan to encourage this new behavior.
We play sniffing games every day but even these I think she is growing bored of. I have run out of ways to keep this challenging for her. I used to double up treats so she had to backtrack to find everything, she has caught on. I fold into blankets, crevices she has to open, window sills, etc. She knows all the hiding spots and really doesn't sniff them out anymore, unless its in a blanket. Even then she doesn't really seem like she is having to try anymore.
I have tried playing the pick which hand and/or hiding in a cup. She doesn't seem to enjoy either of these, getting bored after only a round or two.
My question is as follows. What other games can we play? She won't do anything that makes her have to work to hard for something. Example treat puzzles or those wobbly things. She understands she has to move the toy to get a treat to fall out but won't put the effort in to get it to work.
Trick training is really nice, she has come a long ways there as well but kinda run out of tricks to try and teach her. She knows your basics, sit, lay, rollover, shake, other shake, backup, look left, look right, bang (play deadish, still learning), come, go here, look at me, climb/jump (taught her to help work on her back hips, do a couple a day), ring bell (although she won't do this from far away, only if I am close.) The main hurdle I am running into, is she won't do anything short of stay/wait that requires her to look away/move away from the treat or the person with the treat. I use wait/stay out at the park as a way to get her to run. Ill have her sit, wait, then walk a good distance from her, then tell her to come. She does her lumbering run all the while with this great big smile on her face. I can usually do this 2 maybe 3 times until she doesn't run anymore and instead walks fast, either because she doesn't want to or can't because of her hips and/or weight. I try not to push it to far but she definitely isn't out of breath.
My question is as follows. What other games can we play? Need something fun but not to workload heavy as she just walks away. Not afraid to try something new or revisit old activities with her recent changes. Just drawing a blank on what to do. I am looking into seeing how she will do at camp bow wow soon. If they accept her I think it would be great for her socializing experiences. She has come a long ways since I started working with her but I can't get her to the park/around other dogs often/long enough for her to really push herself in this regard. On the flip side I don't know if they will accept her or not as she does whine a lot when I am not around if she is at someone elses house and as I said doesn't like to be more than a few feet from me when at parks/walking since she knows ill cut other dogs off for her when she gets overwhelmed.
Check out Onion's video! #TikTok > http://vm.tiktok.com/JKVNAG/
My dog, Abraham, does not bark unless something extremely serious is happening, or we are playing. Got a foster dog recently, Grapes. Grapes barks whenever he sees anybody out the window.
However, Abraham will now chime in when Grapes starts barking, because Abraham just assumes something awful is happening.
Example: Mailman comes. Grapes loses mind and charges to window and is barking at mailman. Abraham rushes over to back him up, barking, and is desperately looking around for the fucking dragon, not realizing Grapes is just barking at the mailman.
Now I have to deal with two dogs barking! Abraham get's very riled up too. Full hackles up, guard mode, which he never used to do at all. He thinks something dire is happening when barks happen, because that's how he treats barks. He can't seem to comprehend not to take Grapes' word for the seriousness of the situation!
Same thing happens outside, which worries me. I have chains for them in the front yard, because it's not fenced. Abraham used to just chill out there for hours at a time just laying in the sun and observing passers by, occasionally getting his majestic picture taken by tourists. Now, I only let them out to potty and then bring them back in because if somebody walks past on the sidewalk Grapes charges and barks at them. Abraham follows him and will bark at people too, quite ferociously. I feel bad for people, despite the fact that the chains are very secure and cannot reach the sidewalk, because Abraham in particular is a scary looking dog.
I don't have any problem with Grapes when not on our property. I walk them to the off-leash trails every day and he has great recall and plays nicely with the other dogs and humans.
Any advice? I know how to raise a dog to not be territorial, but I have no idea how to reverse the behavior once it has set in. I also don't know how to stop my dog from picking up bad habits he never used to have!
10 month rescue (idk breed is mix- lab, border collie, shepherd has been suggested). We are working with trainer but I am concerned and looking for suggestions as IMO having a dog that bites is a significant problem. On 3 occasions, he has lunges at and bites visitors. These people (3 friends, 1 non- resident family member) had been here for some time and our dog was appearing to calm, allowing them to pet him etc. On 2 of 3 occasions, the person moved toward his known family, handing member a piece of paper and play wrestling with my oldest son. On 1 of the occasions, he was being patted by the person and the dog jumped at them and grabbed the sleeve of their shirt, ripping it. Otherwise, he's a pretty good dog- responds most of the time to down, out (of a room), crate, beg, does well on leash. We just got a muzzle and are getting him used to it so he can wear it situations when we have visitors. We send him to his crate when visitors arrive but this is short term solution as he barks incessantly and this sucks for long term. I don't want, never intended to have a guard dog. Please advise kindly. This is my first dog and spouses first large breed dog. EDIT- to clarify the dog was adopted by us when he was 4 months. He is 10 months now. We do not have history of past prior to adoption place.
Hello all, for the past 2-3 weeks my 8yo German longhaired pointer has been getting into absolutely everything. He has never been destructive in the past and I cannot figure out why this has started. Thankfully he doesn't generally tear things up unless they are somewhat food related but lately that has been changing. It has gotten to the point that when he is left alone all doors have to be barricaded and locked and even still he somehow manages to be one step ahead. It's very frustrating and while he has the stomach of a goat I'm terrified that one of these days he's going to get into something that will make him sick. Initially, I thought he was acting out because he was getting less attention now that my roommate and I are back in school so I have been making sure to spend as much time with him as possible. When this didn't work I thought it must be that he wasn't getting enough exercise so I have been taking him on longer and longer walks to try and tire him out, still to no avail. I know that sometimes destructive habits can be a sign of illness or distress but he doesn't seem to be acting sick or upset in anyway that I can tell. He's never really been interested in chew toys but I ordered him one of those dog toothbrush toys hoping it might help. If anyone has any advice or experience with this issue I would appreciate any info you can give! Thanks in advance :)
