Happy New Year

[Barbour]

I agree the cuts look good and the eyes are so expressive.

We are so thankful to Teri and Michael for our special Christmas puppy.  Wrigley, our goldendoodle from Delta and Cherokee's October, 2008 litter, is a joy!  Our hope is for him to become a therapy dog for children with learning and cognitive disabilities.  We have already been working on basic commands and he is a very quick learner.  We are waiting to do a lot of the socializing with kids in the therapy centers until the "mouthing" time is over.  Wrigley hasn't yet learned the bite inhibition but we are seeing improvements.  Does anyone have any suggestions for this besides "yelping" as if he has hurt us and walking out of the room (if he isn't locked onto a pant leg)?  He loves kids and people and is very confident and social.  He is a great addition to our family.  Thanks Teri and Michael!

Richard and Kristin and Wrigley

[Lorre Leon Mendelson]

First, your dog is beautiful. Biting- yelping is good but still gives them attention. When your puppy bites, ignore the pup- that would mean all of the people in the home. It will teach them without being negative. Puppies that misbehave are ignored by the other pups and mom when they do things that are dog-inappropriate. It will drive your puppy to behave! It is the worst thing I can do for my social dood. Pat McConnel I believe recommends a week. I lasted  1 ½ days at her most mouthy. At that point she was crawling in her crate and looking desolate. I didn’t want to break her, just give her consequences. It is rarely after that we need to ignore her since then and that was at about 1-2 years old I think. Every once in a long while we need to ignore her but not for more than an hour. Hope this helps. You are getting the benefit of hundreds of dollars of great dog trainers we used in training her who were all great, but do remember, advice is what you pay for it, smile.

Best, Lorre Mendelson and Sunshine

 

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[Harli Can Inc]

hello

I Wrigley is adorable..but then all of Teri's pups are :)

I 100% agree with what Lorre said as well. We also use positive reinforcement with Obsidian. He is almost 2yrs old now, and am sure Teri would remind me here how 'defective' he was, as he learned things sooooo quickly! and truly has had NO behavioral issues (he's never even chewed up anything when left home alone) but...I must owe it all to positive reinforcement.

Obi is my daughters Service Dog (she has Angelman Syndrome) and thus we had to be very careful in how we trained him, 'discipline' just wasn't an option....if I found him with something he shouldn't have I couldn't tell him NO, nor could I 'punish' him. Overly submissive is not a quality you want in a service dog, nor is confusion. Telling him NO meant the blanket I found him with could never become an object I then later wanted him to bring me.....see the prob? :)

When Obi would put our hands in his mouth, whether playing, wanting to chew ...didnt matter. this was NOT a behaviour he could ever do, no matter what.... We would simply remove our hand by pulling back and stating 'my hand', then would cross our arms and ignore him.

A puppy or dog literally WANTS to do what you want them to, they just need you to show them, NOT tell them. Example, when a pup does something inappropriate like 'chew' on your hand, if he is then tapped on the nose and told NO, all he knows is you touched him!! whoohoooo that is what he wanted, PHYSICAL attention is what dogs thrive on. They don't distinguish readily between negative or positive physical touch, as they play so rough with each other. So NO physical touching is actually what teaches them HOW to get it....and that is by doing the things you like.

Another example is we never play tug of war with Obi, as this teaches him to tug on things with his mouth while I am holding the other end...this can be transferred into 'oh let's tug on your hand too wth my mouth'.... not to mention it teaches him to NOT let go of things...and that would defeat our purpose of bring and drop items.

I hope I haven't rambled too much and I do hope this helps. Obi is simply amazing but I am pretty sure some of it is due to the type of training we have given him.

Good luck and congrats on ur new little dood

Tami

mom to Harli & trainer to Obsidian (Blue & Tucker 1/31/2007)

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Barbour

To: goldens-...@googlegroups.com

Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2009 3:15 PM

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