Hi from South Africa

[Hane]

I'm Hanè and I'm owned by a supper friendly bull terrier named Falcor.

Thanks to Neil's blog I learned that I was right and that the aggression that everyone saw in my bullie was just over excitement that he didnt know how to deal with.

Because of his over excitement when he sees other people but especially other dogs, food is useless. The fact that he is raw fed doesnt help. Treats that other dogs would die for is just plain food to him.

I bought Neil's DVD's but have been having trouble with pushing and redirection because of the disinterest in food. Unfortunately we dont really have a big enough garden to do pushing so I have to do it outside our yard where people and other dogs leave lots of messages.

I have been pondering what will be more satisfying then playing with other dogs. Falcor loves to play tug but that doesnt beat other dogs. Fortunately I stumbled on something this week. I have a hand puppet that squeaks and gets his attention from new people coming into the house. Usually I get ignored because of the new people.

Because of the hand puppet I bought two Kong tennis balls the one is used to squeaks and the other to destroy. It works wonders, instead of pushing for treat we push for the ball. Hopefully this will be our way of making pushing really rewarding.

The hand puppet is the "super rewarding treat" and the Kong's the "kibble". So far it is working, I just have to go and buy some more balls.

Our target with our training is to be able to go back to obedience classes by Falcor's birthday in March. I dont like the training methods they use, its positive but I have to do too much jerking to my liking, but we want to go for socialisation. After 3 month of obedience we want to go back to agility. Will see if we'll still go to obedience for play or if we will get everything from agility.

[neilsattin]

Hi Hane,

How are things going? I see that your March deadline is approaching...how is it going? Or have your goals/thoughts changed?

Hope all's well...

[Hane]

Hi Neil

I think I don't want to go back to the obedience. After much though I have discovered that the obedience classes did more damage the last time then good. They do use positive methods but my bullie gets very excited when he sees other dogs and he makes a throaty noise that sound very aggressive but isn't, the trainer said that after three sessions I told her that from the start, Any how I was told to spray him with a mixture water and citronella oil every time that he does that. He is a very sensitive soul and that didn't do him very good and I feel terrible for doing that to him.

Other wise the training is coming along. I can go past other dogs while they are in their yard, most of the time without Falcor going crazy. He ignores humans most of the time

We will get there slowly but I think it will take a bit longer then I wanted but I'm working at Falcors pace. I forced him once to do things he didn't feel comfortable with and I don't intend to do it again

[neilsattin]

Hi Hane,

I'm encouraged to hear that. I had a feeling that your goals might have changed a little bit.

It sounds like you're taking a very sane, measured approach. Keep it up!

[BrownieNJoyce]

Originally Posted by Hane

We will get there slowly but I think it will take a bit longer then I wanted but I'm working at Falcors pace.

I have realized also that this process will take longer than I had thought but I'm really fine with that because the changes that are taking place are so encouraging AND the other training methods no longer have any appeal to me now that I understand more about dogs through NDT. I hope you keep posting. It'll be helpful for me to hear how it's going for you. My dog, Brownie has recently become quite responsive to my bids for pushing when passing other dogs even when they are barking, but squirrels and cats are the learning edge and it may take awhile.

[BrownieNJoyce]

Originally Posted by Hane

Because of his over excitement when he sees other people but especially other dogs, food is useless. The fact that he is raw fed doesnt help. Treats that other dogs would die for is just plain food to him.

I raw feed also. Have you tried using his meal food for training? I add rice flour to the raw food so it holds together enough that I can use it for training. I wear a vinyl glove on my food hand over a glove on most mornings when it's coldest (I live in Massachusetts.) And it made a difference to train in the yard without distractions for a while before using the food on our walks. Just a few thoughts in case it helps.

[BrownieNJoyce]

forgot to mention that my dog also has ZERO interest in regular dog treats and would barely eat kibble which gave him diarrhea. We adopted him a couple months ago. So we went raw which I wanted to do anyway. He does go for chicken jerky type treats but the beef raw is his preferred.

[Sang]

I feed my dogs raw chicken, so I just cut it up, put it in a plastic bag, then put it in my pouch. I also use a plastic glove. Works great