Current thought on dog training is never to tell your dog NO.
If he’s savaging a small child, you have to WAIT TIL HE ISN’T and then reward the STOPPING – not scold or discipline the ATTACKING – because that would negatively impact his stress level and his self-esteem.
Peeing on the floor? Settle in and discuss his actions, help him understand how that impacts others – DO NOT TELL HIM “NO” – What you do according to some current thoughts and studies is REWARD the “not doing the bad thing”.
Never, EVER tell your dog “No”
It’s better for a dog’s self esteem and future relationships.
When he’s donepooping or peeing on your floor, or tearing up the cushions on your sofa WAIT UNTIL HE STOPS AND REWARD THE STOPPING. Otherwise he could develop ‘daddy issues’.
Our ancestors did not understand the fragility of a dog’s self esteem and would sometimes protect their children from attacking dogs with towels and umbrellas – further aggravating a dog’s maladjustment.
Bark Collars Seem Barbaric (So is dropping a dog off at the pound because your apartment is evicting you, or surgically ‘debarking’ a dog)
Every year, there are improvements in the bark collars for dogs. Recently, PetSafe lost their monopoly on their stupid ‘proprietary’ ecological catastrophe “battery” that everyone had to buy for their landmark bark collar. It was a collar that led the market and required a special battery you couldn’t buy over the counter, it had to be from them. I imagine they did VERY well with that corner. But now, they can ‘suck it‘ because new collars have RECHARGEABILITY!
It’s crucial to note that this advice isn’t intended to replace the prevailing idea that dogs that bark excessively are just expressing their emotions and should be encouraged to ‘let it all out’ and then be placed in weekly counseling where behaviorists can rationalize their behavior, anthropomorphize their feelings, and help them give up the habit without establishing dominance or making the dogs feel like second-class citizens or jeopardize their self esteem.
MOST people discover that after the actual shock, most dogs are quieted by a tonal (sound) “warning” so it’s not like you’re shocking the crap out of the dog all the time. And at MY house, we put the collar on Izzy for a week or ten days and she simply gets “out of the habit” of barking her head off – – and she can go without the collar for months. I’d say Izzy wears her collar one, possibly two months out of the year. I suppose if she ever goes deaf, having a collar that vibrates a warning will become a “thing”.
What you want in a “good” bark collar.
Adjustable sensitivity
Adjustable correction strength
Warning vibration and sound
Rechargeable
Strong or replaceable collar
Water proof is legitimate, not ‘wishful thinking’
This is Ajax’s Bark Collar:
This is Izzy and Luna’s Bark Collar. (Luna never needs it)
My brother bought an invisible fence which required that he bury a wire around the perimeter of his property. He even had to cut a groove in his driveway. Worse than the installation, he bought a mid-range product and ended up having to upgrade to something stronger. Fortunately, Home Depot was very accommodating and allowed him to trade in everything but the wire he buried.
*Why not Petsafe? Because they use a proprietary battery which is very expensive over time.
The Wireless Invisible Fence unit I list below is:
Half the price of the Petsafe units,
Better reviewed, (more five-stars) and
It’s waterproof,
It’s rechargeable.
The Petsafe units use a proprietary battery as I mentioned above.
Back to my story:
After my brother buries wire all around his yard, they come out with the following ‘fence’ which simply has a ‘perimeter’ that is monitored by the center unit. Basically a ‘radar’ or ‘field’ that emanates from the central unit and creates a 360 degree ‘circular range’ and as long as the dog stays within that range, it’s comfortable.
OKPET collar unit is rechargeable, and you can add a backup collar to the $110 kit for an additional $35
When the dog starts to go out of range, the collar beeps, then finally begins a series of corrective pops. And continues to pop the dog until he returns to the radius. They’re simple to install and they’ve been around for a few years. Most of the bugs have been worked out.
Best part about them is, according to my clients, is that they can take them to the beach and set the central unit up, adjust the range to 90 feet, and it keeps the dog in a circular area on the beach. (The radius is adjustable.)
OKPET Wireless Dog Fence Electric Pet Containment System, 100% Safe & Easy to Install Pet Fence, Beep/Shock Dog Fence, Adjustable Control Range, Rechargeable & Waterproof Collar
★WIRELESS DOG FENCE SYSTEM:Wireless electric dog fence will customize a cordless radial shaped boundary with adjustable levels from 10 to 1000 feet in radius, forming an invisible circular fenceless perimeter to limit your dog. Beep and electric static shock dog training mode will automatically start when the dog exceed the set activity range.
★SIGNAL STABILITY & ACCURATENESS:The dog collar receiver is safe & effective and easy to use,stable signal,fast synchronization. It is anti-over shocking design which is harmless to your dog. No need to worry about the dog suddenly get shocked if the transmitter shutdown or power cut.
★COLLAR WATER RESISTANT IPX7:Our water resistant collar receiver is rated IPX7, which means that your dog can get wet in the grass, mess with the sprinkler or play in the rain.
★RECHARGEABLE & DURABLE BATTERY:The advanced collar receiver with high capacity built-in battery is rechargeable,package included 2 universal power adapter.Durable battery,low power consumption,and low battery alert.
★PRACTICAL & UNMATCHED PERFORMANCE:Dogs can be added indefinitely to the system as long as they wear the collar receiver of this product. Works on all types of dogs – small, medium, large, and even extra large dogs-recommended for dogs over 10 lbs.
Notes from Doc Johnson
For the above unit: I highly recommend you spend the extra $30 and get the “two collar” option so that you have another collar available in the event of a collar-failure on unit #1.
Looking at the Wireless Invisible Fence reviews, I see three common themes.
German Shepherds keep showing up 25-40% of product ‘fail’ reviews, as too dumb, or too terrified to benefit from this system. Since GSD are easily terrified*, sometimes when they get a correction they run back to the house and cower. That’s no good, because then they don’t wander around in the perimeter, they just cringe on the porch.
Even though the above collar is tough, and has a metal buckle, I’d recommend backing yourself up with a rubber band to make sure the collar doesn’t fall off. “My dogs actually stayed in the yard! Unfortunately, within the first week, one of the collars went missing while they were outside. I was confused on how that could happen. Then within another week, another collar came up missing while they were outside. Again, i was confused, until i took the 3rd collar off my dog and realized that the clasp was broke.” (This review was for a PetSafe brand collar)
And finally, the remaining fails are legitimate tech failures like sender and receiver failure which are reported for almost all invisible fences. And my advice on that is to note the last possible return date / replacement date / warranty date and then if ANYTHING is subpar for you, RETURN IT instead of putting up with inferior performance. Folks seemed to tough it out with spotty performance til it was months past the return date.
SOME APPLICATIONS don’t lend themselves to certain yards with lots of trees, a huge house on a hill, and other terrain that causes a review about ‘spotty range’ see “Flat Yards” discussion below*
Select Wireless Invisible Fence Reviews That Are Helpful
From the manufacturer:“The way this Wireless Invisible Fence system works is that the collar unit is always receiving a signal from the transmitter and it knows to activate when the dog gets to the edge of the boundary because there is no signal there. “
If anything happens to the signal from the hub, the collar activates. Many homes (but still less than 20%) have interference with the signals, including steel propane tanks, cars in the driveway, slopes and hills, even other electronic devices. Test the unit a LOT at first so that you can trust it.
Also, if you’re on a busy road where you can’t afford a single escape, I’d recommend an actual fence. And while people are banging on the wireless electronic fence so hard for a 15-20% failure rate, the underground wire kind are ALSO dependent on the collar to work – and their failure rate is a “thing” because of collar malfunction (they get wet, chewed on, dead battery, concussive force, age) and the wire breaks a lot.
Wireless Invisible Fence not for German Shepherds or other fearful, German-vigilance (guard) breeds*.
“Today was the last straw. I was outside with our German Shepherd when someone walked by with his dog. The other dog was safely ou…..”
“Went through the process to train my GSD with the containment system. When I walked outside the boundaries to talk to some people walking near my property my dog couldn’t resist and attempted to leave the yard. When she stayed too far from the boundary the shock kicked in and my dog started crying in pain trying to escape the shocking. Afterwards, I couldn’t get her to leave the porch”
“He got so scared that he wouldn’t even come to me. He ran to the porch and sat there. I have a Rottie so it must have scared him pretty good. I read the dire….”
Send Wireless Invisible Fence back at the first sign of trouble. Don’t Wait Three Months.
“I ordered this for my parents to keep there dogs in the yard. And they didn’t open the box til it was past return date! So the worse part we can’t even get our money back.”
“Decided to finally call it quits after 2 separate attempts of setting it up and return it, turns out it’s too late. Worst 270$ I’ve thrown away.”
“DON’T waste your money and now that its past 30 days they won’t give me my money back. BAD customer service……”
“VERY unhappy to discover that this cannot be replaced or returned after less than 3 months!!”
“…we hung in there trying different locations and settings and alas, it is past the return date.”
“Finally i gave up on it but of course by the time you come to this conclusion the return time has expired already, then you are stuck with a product that cost more then $200 dollars and doesn’t work properly .”
*Flat Yards For Wireless Invisible Fence
“This is a good idea but the controlled field is a circle with a 180 foot diameter. As the unit has to be mounted inside and our house is quite large and on a hill. There was not a suitable location anywhere on the property to allow our dogs to exit the house and roam the year. This item was returned without being used.”
“Doesn’t work for sloped yard. My front yard is flat; back yard has a very slight slope. System works great in the front yard, but in the back it beeps in totally random places. From reading other comments, I think this product just doesn’t work well for yards that aren’t flat. Returning it.”
“I unfortunately had to send this back. I have used this system before with my stubborn lab girl, but our new yard is oddly shaped and no matter how I adjusted it, it did not contain her. Either I cut off most of the back yard from her use, or the adjustment would give her the freedom to run in the street in the front yard. This is a great solution if you don’t have an odd shaped lot.”
Without a doubt the first thing you have to do, is add 15 to your current age. Take that number and put it at the end of the following sentence:
“I am prepared to accommodate the needs both emotional and physical of this dog until I am ___________ years old.“
It’s just so that you are extremely careful about adopting a dog with a problem with its disposition. People think they are going to “Fix“ the various insecurities and idiosyncrasies with a dogs personality. When in fact, if it’s what they would call a “abused“ or difficult dog, you will probably end up walking on egg shells around it, and protecting your guests, from spontaneously petting it until you are ___________ years old.
Go see the critter, and leave her behind if she seems at all skittish, if they say “she’s been abused” or if they say “don’t worry about it she warms up to strangers after a little bit” or “ she’s just scared“
Just know that you will be saying all of the same things every time you have a visitor to your home. Or worse. Once they develop some confidence that kind of dog can be a real liability.
However, if she runs right up to you, if she sniffs your face upon pick up, those are good signs. Look at her teeth and see if they agree with the age they say she is. Look at the lenses of her eyes and notice if she has cataracts at all.
“What if she won’t let me look at her teeth?“ That is by no means a dealbreaker, but if she’ll let you look at her teeth, take the dog home with you. She has passed the ultimate sweetness test. Letting you look at her teeth on the first meeting with her, she is a regular canine Mahatma Gandhi.
I would like to take a moment to discuss the adoptive term “she’s been abused or “we think she was abused“. That is an excellent reason to leave a dog behind.
It’s not hard to find a dog that has been abused for real, but it is three times rarer than finding a dog that was never socialized. There is a huge difference. Most of the time, a dog that has been actually abused would not bite at flea. They have had all defiance beaten out of them. They sometimes make the best dogs you could get. The other 75% of the time, the dogs that they think were “abused“ simply spent the first three months of their life in a cage with no socialization so that they are almost feral, and everything scares them. Less common among rescue dogs is the one that was never socialized because it was always up under mothers petticoats. It is imprinted on one person, and everyone else is simply terrifying.
This is especially true with the “vigilance breeds“ from Germany who were carefully hand selected from generations of puppies to imprint on one person and be terrified of everyone else, and to engage only the fight response when scared instead of the flight response so normal among other dogs.
If the dog is big enough to do damage, never let anyone try to explain away “he’s just scared“ about an animal you think you will introduce to your home.
If you are a Googler, take a minute and look up “reactive attachment disorder“ and that is 75% of those dogs that The rescue organization would call “probably abused.“
Real abused dogs, are submissive, and very likely to roll over and pee when approached by just about anyone. The last thing a beaten dog would think about is curling a lip.
There are hundreds of heartwarming stories where a dog has been adopted, wild eyed and tearing up peoples hands every time they reach out, blood stained bandages and people moving through Med first like a revolving door…. with the “after“ picture of the dog curled up on some owners lap. Go ahead and scroll up to the top of the page where you put your future age Into that sentence and figure out if you want that only *potentially* heartwarming experience, until you are ___________ years old
You could have no idea whether you are, or are not, the Jane Goodall of dogs.
Ask them for a 48 hour approval phase where you’re going to take her to the house to meet everybody and arrange to let me look at her for a minute so you don’t get someone that is going to plague you with dermatology cardiac or orthopedic bills for the next 15 years.
Angels among us is my favorite pet adoption group I consider them top-notch and I have seen hundreds of excellent puppies from there, and I’ve never seen an instance where they would lie about anything.
The key thing to keep in mind, is that with any luck you will be with this dog for 12 to 15 years and if it has a “stone in its shoe” about anything… that is a long time to cope with it and depending on the adopter, it may or may not be the last dog they get. My next dog will be coming along and when I am 64 years old, if the dog lived 15 years I would be 80. I refuse to put up with a difficult dog for 15 years.
“I’m going to go see a dog today that I am thinking about adopting. It’s a rescue, is there anything I should be looking for?“
Without a doubt the first thing you have to do, is add 15 to your current age. Take that number and put it at the end of the following sentence:
“I am prepared to accommodate the needs both emotional and physical of this dog until I am ___________ years old.“
It’s just so that you are extremely careful about adopting a dog with a problem with its disposition. People think they are going to “fix“ the various insecurities and idiosyncrasies with a dogs personality. When in fact, if it’s what they would call an “abused“ or “difficult” dog, you will probably end up walking on egg shells around it, and protecting your guests from spontaneously petting it until you are ___________ years old.
Go see the critter, and leave her behind if she seems at all skittish, if they say “She’s been abused” or if they say “Don’t worry about it she warms up to strangers after a little bit” or “ She’s just scared“
Just know that you will be saying all of the same things every time you have a visitor to your home. Or worse. Once they develop some confidence that kind of dog can be a real liability.
How To Adopt A Rescue Dog
However, if she runs right up to you, if she sniffs your face upon pick up, those are good signs.
Look at her teeth and see if they agree with the age they say she is.
Look at the lenses of her eyes and notice if she has cataracts at all.
“What if she won’t let me look at her teeth?“
That is by no means a dealbreaker, but if she’ll let you look at her teeth, take the dog home with you. She has passed the ultimate sweetness test. Letting you look at her teeth on the first meeting with her, she is a regular canine Mahatma Gandhi.
I would like to take a moment to discuss the adoptive term “she’s been abused” or “we think she was abused“. Use of that phrase may be an excellent reason to leave a dog behind. Here’s why:
It’s not hard to find a dog that has been abused for real, but it is three times rarer than finding a dog that was never socialized. There is a huge difference.
Most of the time, a dog that has been actually abused would not bite a flea. They have had all defiance beaten out of them. They sometimes make the best dogs you could get.
The other 75% of the time, the dogs that organizations think were “abused“ simply spent the first three months of their life neglected in a cage with no socialization so that they are almost feral, and everything scares them.
If you are a Googler, take a minute and look up “reactive attachment disorder“ and that is 75% of those dogs that the rescue organization would call “probably abused.“
Less common among rescue dogs is the one that was never socialized because it was always up under mothers petticoats. It is imprinted on one person, and everyone else is simply terrifying.
This is especially true with the “vigilance breeds“ from Germany who were carefully hand selected from generations of puppies to imprint on (pretty much) one person and be terrified of everyone and everything else, and to engage only the FIGHT response when scared instead of the flightresponse so normal among other dogs.
If the dog is big enough to do damage, never let anyone try to explain away “he’s just scared“ about an animal you think you will introduce to your home.
Real abused dogs, are submissive, and very likely to roll over and pee when approached by just about anyone. The last thing a beaten dog would think about is curling a lip.
Are All Skittish Dogs a Loss?
How (Not) To Adopt A Rescue Dog
There are hundreds of heartwarming stories where a dog has been adopted, wild eyed and tearing up peoples hands every time they reach out, blood stained bandages and people moving through MedFirst like a revolving door…. with the “after“ picture of the dog curled up on some owners lap. Go ahead and scroll up to the top of the page where you put your future age into that sentence and figure out if you want that only *potentially* heartwarming experience, until you are ___________ years old. Because it may never happen.
You have no idea whether you are, or are not, the Jane Goodall of dogs.
Ask them for a 48 hour approval phase where you’re going to take her to the house to meet everybody and arrange to let me look at her for a minute so you don’t get someone that is going to plague you with dermatology cardiac or orthopedic bills for the next 15 years.
Angels Among Us is my favorite pet adoption group I consider them top-notch and I have seen hundreds of excellent puppies from there, and I’ve never seen an instance where they would lie about anything.
The key thing to keep in mind, is that with any luck you will be with this dog for 12 to 15 years and if it has a “stone in its shoe” about anything… that is a long time to cope with it and, depending on the age of the adopter, it may be the last dog they get.
My next dog will be coming along and when I am 64 years old, if the dog lived 15 years I would be 80. I refuse to put up with a difficult dog for 15 years.
If they are concerned about a 48 hour approval, or you need me to say something, I will be happy to take their call and I will tell them that this dog they are about to adopt has “really hit the jackpot“ and that it is worth whatever little extra step it takes to get a dog into the Rowland home.
Your biggest liability is that he pops off the leash and ends up in traffic. I would say by itself, that is a good reason to reign in this behavior.
First order of business is to get a gentle leader. That will solve nine out of 10 of the problems. However, there are dogs who have short noses and the gentle leader will not stay there muzzle.
The three major pushbacks to the gentle leader seem to be is that it makes the dog look mean which actually going nuts on the end of the leash also does. But the single greatest pushback is that the dog doesn’t like it. I guess you have to think about that one for a minute. When you go for a walk do youwant to like it or do you want himto like it. You know, they eventually get used to it.
There are also some dogs that claw at the gentle leader and try to get it off, you have to be persistent and apply discipline. It’s worth it, because once they figure out what’s going on, you can walk them on their leash and have an enjoyable time.
Dogs that freak out on their leash and DON’T work on the Gentle Leader should be put into a vest type harness. Strappy harnesses can be slipped out of more easily and they put the pulling pressure through straps which are not as comfortable as a vest. The purpose of a harness or vest is that it is much less likely to fail and allow the dog into traffic or on to whatever little dog it might be freaking out to get.
Thinking outside the box, many people have successfully put “bark collars“ on dogs that freak out on the leash, most recently I spoke to someone who said they did not even have to set the collar on the shock setting, just the beeping noise that it made was enough to disconcerting the dog to stop barking and cooling.
See, the dogs don’t know whether they are getting disciplined to barking, or the combination of barking, and jumping and pulling. Most of them stop within relatively short order, upon getting a small static snap.
It is a very rare dog that associates the static correction with the stimulus it is barking at. Correctional training bark collars are effective against dogs that noisily freak out on the leash.
However: Contemporary training, holds that you should never discipline a dog. You simply withhold praise until they do the right thing, and then you give them a treat. So if you have a week or more to do it, you can take your dog on a walk and while he is freaking out you just bear it. When he stops, you give him a treat. That way you never have to discipline him or tell him no, which seems to be what a lot of trainers are turning to these days. I wonder if that method is so stupid and slow that it’s just to keep you in cla$$ longer? You may think I’m being salty or sarcastic but I am not, if you look around you will see some trainers to believe that the word “no” is unnecessary in training. It might hurt the dogs feelings. If Ajax was going crazy on the leash, I would get him a gentle leader and that would be that. He would haveto get over it. If I couldn’t get him used to it, I would pay a trainer to get him used to it.
If they had not invented gentle leaders, I would get Ajax a harness and a bark collar.
If they did not have harnesses and bark collars, I would smack him with a flyswatter. And I’m not kidding about that, flyswatters are an effective, old-fashioned training tool because they do not teach your dog to fear the hand, and they definitely don’t hurt.
If I had to wait until my dog behaved correctly and I was prohibited from telling him “no” or correcting him in some way, I would pass on even having a dog.
Two reasons I think everyone should have a training whistle
First let me talk about training whistles, there are three kinds,
The first kind has moving parts that allow you to make the noise higher or lower, it’s kind of complicated and bulky and unnecessary. They are made of metal and the two I bought tended to fall apart and go out of adjustment.
The second kind I bought had no moving parts and was made of metal, it was awesome, it was shaped like a bullet and I really liked it but I wear my training whistle around my neck, and the metal started to mess with my skin.
The third kind has no moving parts and is made out of some kind of special plastic and it has a nice high pitch. Made in England and I’ve been wearing mine for years.
I use my training whistle as a means to call my dog but here are the reasons that anyone with a dog should probably have it.
If you have an old dog that is hard of hearing or going deaf or seems to be, you can train them to come to the sound of the whistle because they can hear it even as they go deaf. Until they are completely deaf they should be able to hear a peep from the training whistle all you have to do is train them with a food treat the same as you would a puppy.
To whit: A training whistle is audible from a great distance and even though it is a very loud noise, it’s not that offensive like standing out in your backyard calling the dogs name over and over. So what you do while the dog is very young or perhaps most preferably as a puppy: every time you blow the training with so you give them a delicious food treat. Much better than the normal treat.
Whenever I blow the whistle, I would give Ajax a little nibble of whatever I was eating. I kept treats by the door that were exceptionally soft and meaty, and when I would blow the whistle he would get a treat like that. It’s very different from name training where he supposed to come when you call his name, quite often that is a hit or miss. And that’s OK. The training whistle is your “last resort“ “drop what you’re doing and get over here“ stimulus.
When I first started working with Ajax on the training whistle, I would keep it 5 to 10 times a day indoors and outdoors in the kitchen and anytime I was eating something. After a week or two, there is nothing he wouldn’t do to get to me when I peeped the whistle.
Because every single time I blew his whistle he got something truly delicious, a Ajax will stop midstep chasing a bird and come running. You’re not gonna get that from scratch behind the ears.
This has kept a Ajax out of so many problems with the neighbors and the neighbors dogs.
To recap, a one piece noncorrosive training whistle which can be on your keychain or around your neck, can provide you a way of summoning a nearly deaf dog to you, or can be conditioned to be an indelible signal to turn around and come back to you.
“OK so [My Fur Baby] has been on CBD for 3 weeks now. I think we can call this experiment a success! It has taken the edge off for sure. I can walk her in the neighborhood without any strong signs of leash aggression. She has completely stopped barking and freaking out over human neighbors. If she sees another dog, she might pull a little but it’s nothing like it was before. One morning she just nodded her head at the neighborhood husky as if to say “What’s up?” but that was it. A month ago she’d have lost her mind when the husky walked by.
So, she’s not totally chill but wayyyyyy better than she was. I’ve ordered another bottle. I don’t know if the longer we do it, the more chill she gets? But I do think she is benefiting from it. Lord knows, she is loving taking it. I give it to her mixed into a tablespoon of yogurt twice a day. “
Ultra-Simplified, to avoid Separation anxiety in adult dogs, provide them with separation when they’re babies. Put them aside even when you’re home, while they’re young for a couple hours at a time and “let ’em deal with it” because they can.
Barking Dogs Can Be Controlled Quickly – Don’t Keep Suffering With That
I’ve had two dogs in all my 25 years of dog-owning that needed a shock collar, but MAN when they need one, they NEED one.
I’m not talking about the usual dog that barks alot but stops when you TELL IT TO. Or dogs that bark for a minute when someone goes by or knocks on the door but stop pretty soon. I’m talking about dogs that bark constantly while you’re gone until the neighbors and the complex and the city have all sent you letters.
When it comes right down to it, a bark collar works but this document describes the why, how and why you might not. BUT – this collar (Click) is better than the one recommended in the article. It’s rechargeable and has many more customizable settings than the old one in the article.
Well, how to raise a REALLYgood puppy. I learned a mess of stuff about caring for puppies over the years, because I saw what people did right and did wrong, and so I made this two page document. I think what’s happening these days is that people are coddling the dogs too much. That’s NOT to say you need to be mean, in the slightest. The only time I’m ‘mean’ to Ajax is when he does something that could jeopardize his security. He was NEVER allowed to growl at anyone. He could never curl a lip at anyone. He was trained with a training whistle to come when called regardless of what he was doing. And he’s 100% amazing. Here’s how:
Probably bears clarifying because it was totally missed: That’s puppy advice. I’ll put that in the title. Wait…crap it IS in the title. 😯 No bearing on adult dogs. Feed adults wherever you want. They have already habituated going outside for their ‘business’. And it says *feed* outside, not live outside. And probably could stand clarification that if California wildfires have consumed the back porch, and are starting on the house, or it’s ten-below-zero: Don’t feed your puppy out there. People are working on housebreaking and often lament: “He knows not to go in the house, but doesn’t seem to know to go to the door.” If you give them EVERY reason to go to the door and go out; INCLUDING a bowl of food, then depositing wastes out there goes from ‘happenstance’ to ‘habit’ in just days, not weeks. I think the whole thing needs a re-write to put the bumpers-up-on-the-bowling-alley. 😆😆😆
It’s not hard to find a dog that has been abused for real, but it is three times rarer than finding a dog that was never socialized. There is a huge difference. Most of the time, a dog that has been actually abused would not bite at flea. They have had all defiance beaten out of them. They sometimes make the best dogs you could get. The other 75% of the time, the dogs that they think were “abused“ simply spent the first three months of their life in a cage with no socialization so that they are almost feral, and everything scares them. Less common among 
The three major pushbacks to the gentle leader seem to be is that it makes the dog look mean which actually going nuts on the end of the leash also does. But the single greatest pushback is that the dog doesn’t like it. I guess you have to think about that one for a minute. When you go for a walk do you want to like it or do you want him to like it. You know, they eventually get used to it.
However: Contemporary training, holds that you should never discipline a dog. You simply withhold praise until they do the right thing, and then you give them a treat. So if you have a week or more to do it, you can take your dog on a walk and while he is freaking out you just bear it. When he stops, you give him a treat. That way you never have to discipline him or tell him no, which seems to be what a lot of trainers are turning to these days. I wonder if that method is so stupid and slow that it’s just to keep you in cla$$ longer?
The first kind has moving parts that allow you to make the noise higher or lower, it’s kind of complicated and bulky and unnecessary. They are made of metal and the two I bought tended to fall apart and go out of adjustment.
Whenever I blow the whistle, I would give Ajax a little nibble of whatever I was eating. I kept treats by the door that were exceptionally soft and meaty, and when I would blow the whistle he would get a treat like that. It’s very different from name training where he supposed to come when you call his name, quite often that is a hit or miss. And that’s OK. The training whistle is your “last resort“ “drop what you’re doing and get over here“ stimulus.
“OK so [My Fur Baby] has been on CBD for 3 weeks now. I think we can call this experiment a success! It has taken the edge off for sure. I can walk her in the neighborhood without any strong signs of leash aggression. She has completely stopped barking and freaking out over human neighbors. If she sees another dog, she might pull a little but it’s nothing like it was before. One morning she just nodded her head at the neighborhood husky as if to say “What’s up?” but that was it. A month ago she’d have lost her mind when the husky walked by.
How To Raise a Pretty Good Puppy