Good Dog Training Books??? warning, I'm queen of run-on sentences.

[KristiKelly]

We have a 16 week old GoldenDoodle (yep, Golden X Std. Poodle), Annabelle, aka "the little demon". She can be sooo... sweet but then her mouth starts thrashing back and forth like a little alligator after a piece of raw meat, that raw meat however is me or DH or little lily white legs of DD & DS. She has improved over the last month, but gets really mad when reprimanded ( aggression is starting to become a worry of mine), I've called a couple of trainers in our area and they charge $500 + for basic puppy training, DH will NEVER go for that. A man in our area charges $75, but will not take them before 6 monthes, my kids may lose a finger or toe in that amount of time. I do want to say that she is not being aggressive, not until we start to reprimand. She will let us take her food, chew hoof, etc. away, we can stick our face next to her while eating, she does not mind. It's just when playing that the biting starts and when we tell her "stop" she looks at us as to say "how dare you!!" Does anyone know of any good books that touches on this subject or advice? Oh and by the way, right now she's sound asleep with the little halo just gleeming. She kind of reminds me of the Pluto cartoon w/ the kitten , the devil on one shoulder and the angel on the other.

 

[TigerBear]

"Good Owners, Great Dogs" is a good book.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...=lpr_g_1/103-4451688-4574213?v=glance&s=books

 

[Kallison]

Try bitter apple spray, I would put a bit right on her lip line. My dog hated that, got him at the pound at 11 mos. He nipped at the kids when playing too, actually broke skin on the neighbor. He will still play bit with me but nobody else. When I yell HEY, his ears go right back and he hangs his head. I did a lot of training with him establishing myself as the alpha dog. I never, ever let him get away with a bad behavior. He identifies with me. Hence the velcro dog tag! He follows me everywhere now. Good luck.

 

[roliepolieoliefan]

I teach obedience classes in my spare time. $500 for what? I hope you're not talking about giving your dog to someone to train and then returning it to you. I f so, I strongly suggest everyone in the family take the dog to class and do the training. So no one in your area does puppy classes? Any Petsmarts or Petco? As a last resort they do training classes. How about the local Humane Society? Our classes usually run 65.00 for 8 weeks. Not sure about books but I also suggest bitter apple. And you need to be CONSISTENT. If you don't want him to bite he can't bite EVER or any one. Anytime he does it he needs to be corrected by whomever he does it to. It takes alot of time and patience. Good Luck

 

[DoeWDW]

I second TigerBear's suggestion of "Good Owners, Great Dogs". I LOVE this book and reread it every now and then.

There are a ton of web sites with dog training info - a google search would be helpful.

 

[KristiKelly]

roliepolieoliefan, the $500 + are private, in our home sessions. Someone does do a 4 class session for $350. There is a man in our area that has bred, trained, shown,etc. German Shepards for over 50 years. He does classes in our area & is very reasonable, but will not allow them under 6 mo. I did call him at home, but he was out of town, he's to call me back. I started her @ PetSmart, what a disaster, she is a people lover and was more interested with what was going on outside the ring and I also had a problem with an extremely rude groomer there (while I was there for obed. classes, not for grooming, she started putting my dog down). I called & spoke w/ the manager & got $ back. PetSmart was much too distracting (for the dog & my 6y/o, I wanted him to watch & learn).

Anyway, yes, we use Bitter Apple, but it doesn't seem to phase her. We were told to use Tobasco, but I don't really want to put that on my hands, much less my 4 & 6 y/o hands. I'm not so much worried about the obedience (sit,heel,stay,etc.) end of it right now, I just want the biting to STOP.

I will look for "Good Owner's, Great Dogs" in our bookstore over the weekend. We had a 13 y/o Dalmatian that we had to have put to sleep almost 2 years ago, it's hard to deal with this wild, rambunctious pup when the memory of the "good ol' dog" is still so fresh in our memory. Thanks for all the helpful info.

 

[Tiger Lily 03]

Originally posted by KristiKelly
Anyway, yes, we use Bitter Apple, but it doesn't seem to phase her. We were told to use Tobasco, but I don't really want to put that on my hands, much less my 4 & 6 y/o hands. I'm not so much worried about the obedience (sit,heel,stay,etc.) end of it right now, I just want the biting to STOP.

"Obedience" is the key right from the start. Start out with small steps right off in order to socialize the pup to your environment. Remember although it is a larger dog that it is a baby, "obedience" training comes in the "package" of redirecting the behavior.

I know that you want immediate results, but as stated it takes pateince. And, by now having had a dog earlier, I know you are remembering it takes patience. Consistent "language" with command among all family members is required for quicker results so as not to confuse. As I took our min pin to puppy class, I learned that the "biting" that most puppies go through while playing is natural. As we observed, when one puppy was hurting another, the puppy naturally would yelp as an "ow." The offending pup would stop. So, we were taught to yell "ow" and for us it worked.

I don't know how your family plays with new puppy so I only mention that your family may not want to encourage the "pulling, tearing" play with the puppy toys just yet and look to encourage another type of play.

We were also taught via positive training to reinforce behavior we wanted and not to try to overpower with negative commands. Some handlers disagree with this approach, yet it did work for us. We used food reward for behavior when it was positive as in not biting or when obeying the "off" command.

Whew! Sorry it is such a long reply.
Enjoy you new addition; it sounds as if you will be a great family for your new dog. Have fun with her. Good luck!