>>>>As for Cesar Milan, he is very controversial in dog training circles just because of that, he is too one sided.
To him, all dogs and problems are one sided into the no compromise, come down hard on one and so helps less than he makes some problems worse with some dogs or owners.<<<<
yes, i know. i am a very flexible dog trainer. i assess what the individual dog needs. in this case, my husband combined with this dog is a good fit for cesar milan. with our previous dog, that would have been a disaster.
i got “cesar’s way” to help us deal with a very high drive, hard-headed, working mastiff who needed a very firm hand. it was perfect for THAT dog. i would never use those methods with a softer dog.
edited to add: and after nearly 11 years with that mastiff, i do not want or need another hard-headed dog that needs constant vigilance.
I’m sorry to read that your new dog is a real challenge. I’ve had ACDs for 27 years. While some of those dogs have been soft and biddable, as your old one was, they can also be very difficult dogs that require careful vigilance and management. I think this is the type you have currently. There are rewards to having a hard dog…but it can be stressful.
Honestly, he sounds like a wonderful dog - who should go live somewhere else. There are a bazillion ACDs and crosses out there in shelters and breed rescues. Go find one that is everything good and send this fellow to a differently-suited home. And don’t feel bad. You have to do what is right for your situation.
If you take him back ( and sounds like you will), at least the rescue place now will have feedback from your experience about what kind of situation not to re home him to. So sorry this happened.
[QUOTE=rockymouse;8447389]
I’m sorry to read that your new dog is a real challenge. I’ve had ACDs for 27 years. While some of those dogs have been soft and biddable, as your old one was, they can also be very difficult dogs that require careful vigilance and management. I think this is the type you have currently. There are rewards to having a hard dog…but it can be stressful.
Honestly, he sounds like a wonderful dog - who should go live somewhere else. There are a bazillion ACDs and crosses out there in shelters and breed rescues. Go find one that is everything good and send this fellow to a differently-suited home. And don’t feel bad. You have to do what is right for your situation.[/QUOTE]
i’m so glad to hear from someone with your long experience with the breed. a helpful perspective, as there are lots of heelers available for adoption around here and we’d hate to hear that we have to swear off the breed in future.
i think he’d be great with someone who wants to compete in dog sports, and who doesn’t have horses. i’ll recommend this to the owner.
You are one week into your ownership. One week. You have put little to no training on this dog, which is where you need to start.
the dog is amazingly smart, super obedient, and has decided, from the moment he met me, that i am his person, and he mostly ignores my husband. he’s totally trustworthy off leash–great recall–and actually is very relaxed and quiet around the house, though we haven’t yet seen if we can trust him outside a crate when i’m out of the house.
and right here tells me, if you want good behavior badly enough, he will absorb the training and issue the self control needed around horses. “super obedient”. “amazingly smart”. You simply need some tool to communicate effectively with him.
he’s also very intense and quite feral, almost seems like a wild animal in some ways. i find this a bit unnerving.
this is a trait of ACDs.
the day we brought him home, we swung by the barn. he growled at my horse, but we chalked it up to him being in a new situation.
a couple of days later, i brought him back to the barn. while i was filling the hay nets, he lunged at the BO’s gelding (who was safely in his stall). a bit later, when the BO was there chipping ice out of the gelding’s hooves, he growled at the gelding.
he was showing you he isn’t ready yet, don’t bring him to the barn again, until you are ready to work with HIM, and not the horses.
today, when he was within about five feet of my horse, she started snorting at him. she grew up with a pack of dogs, and has no fear of them. he started snarling at her. the BO held him while i did some round pen work with her, then tied him up in the barn.
when i went into the barn with my horse, the dog flew right past me, through the air, and landed on my horse’s thigh. there was a leash attached, and i got him off the mare fast. the mare is not bleeding and pretty much just ignored the dog.
too much, too soon. You have basically no history on this dog. You don’t know what his experience(s) with horses were, or confined spaces (barn) + horses AND you have done no formal work with him. You had a self training dog in your other heeler, this one is far more typical of what my experiences have been.
i put the dog back in my car and attended to my horse; i was pretty shaken. the dog looked to me like it was in full attack mode. i can’t be sure but it looked like the dog either hates horses, or did not like it that the horse had my attention (our other heeler also got jealous of the horse, but expressed it by nudging me for attention, not by attacking the horse!)
it sounds like aggression to me as well, and with intent to do harm. This will require some desensitization and incompatible behavior training. There is not a doubt in my mind that the dog can learn what he needs, the question is, do you have the ability and desire to do the work necessary for as long as necessary?
so, with all that background, my question is–can the dog be made reliable around horses? if so, how would you go about doing it?
positiive reinforcement. Just this morning I watch a video from the Omaha Zoo, training American Alligators. They showed how they call the gators up out of the water, how they do restraint free handling, safely, and a few of the behaviors they trained. Certainly, if they can train a bazillion year old reptile species to be picked up and handled without danger to either party, you can train your new dog who has both an innate desire to please and has already exhibited self control behaviors to be calm around your horses. But again, the question is, do you want to and how badly do you want to? You don’t know how well laid and how deep this previous behavior is, so it could take a long time, or it could be gone in 5 training sessions. No way to tell.
it’s not feasible to keep the dog away from the horse, if we’re going to keep him, because my husband and i want to spend our little free time together, and that means including our dog and our horse. we go hiking/riding into the mountains and also saddlepacking as a family. it’s impractical to own a dog that has to be excluded from activities with the horse.
you will have to exclude the dog for at least a short period of time while you firmly establish self control behaviors away from this strong stim. It could be as little as a few days OR it could be longer. Again, it will depend on your skill as a trainer and how deep his conditioning is.
what do you advise? especially would like to hear from experienced heeler owners.
many thanks in advance.
my advice is to NOT go the CM or e collar route. He is not a good model, especially for aggression. Just as a horse trained through fear is not reliable, there will always be something he fears more than the punishment you mete out, dogs trained through +P are not reliable either. You do not change the underlying issue with +P, you simply train them not to show it until that pot is boiling over. As you have seen, this is a fast, strong dog. Do not teach him to be faster, and hide what he is going to do.
threedogpack, i appreciate what you are saying, and i agree with it in substance.
you are basically telling me that i have to commit to the dog to solve this problem, without knowing how long it will take or how reliable he will be in the end.
all of which should seem obvious, but is so not when emotions are involved. thanks for the clarifying words.
i have a call in to the cowboy who bought him as a pup, exactly to find out what his history is with this issue. however, i would not be surprised if i never get a call back.
I am not a dog trainer, but imo a dog has a certain proclivity toward aggression, or not inate to character.
I do agree it was too much too soon and they might want to be more careful about how they introduce next dog to the horses. But even with that, traits come out if we pay close attention.
Dogs are honest and display how they feel. This dog first growled early in the meet and greet. That would be enough to show this dog has aggression/fear (which often co exist) and should not have been pushed further that day. Good thing to keep in mind for the next dog. Little "tells " would alert us to what might come if we keep a dog in a situation they are over faced with.
Sometimes we get lucky and have a "perfect " dog which sounds like the OP had (I had one like that too), and turns out nearly every other dog, while still wonderful, will have some issues to deal with. But some issues are at a lower level of harm or stress than others.
you do not have to commit, but if you do not, you will not resolve this. That is the pivot point. Do you want to keep the dog? If so, you will have to commit to the training. HE will not change w/o your help.
all of which should seem obvious, but is so not when emotions are involved. thanks for the clarifying words.
It is very very difficult to get past the emotions. You have my sympathy for where you are.
i have a call in to the cowboy who bought him as a pup, exactly to find out what his history is with this issue. however, i would not be surprised if i never get a call back.
will this make a difference? What if he tells you the dog was aggressive to other ranch dogs? You don’t have that problem. What if he lies (he was fine around the horses), or the dog was not exposed to anything other than a ranch remuda and that a group of horses was not an issue? It does not mean the dog cannot be trained to a different response, it just means maybe he has a history.
maybe. This is a breed, who was bred to be bold in the face of aggressive livestock. Is that a problem? Again, maybe, but if the breed, as a whole, was overly aggressive, they would have been useless to the ranchers who bred them. So I think this dog is likely a combination of poor or no training, and a heightened aggressive response.
But the point is that if the dog attacks horses who are already prey animals, the horses may panic and break down fences to get away. That is a recipe for horse disaster.
Other livestock have been bred to reduce their flight drives; horses haven’t that I know of.
I have a horse who is nervous around dogs; she’ll break and run if the dog is yappy and a nipper. A dog who attacked her at haunch level would definitely send her through fences–wooden, wire or electric.
You have a two week trial to return dog, then, the dog is your problem. Imo, return it sorry to say. Even under stress and with no training , the extreme aggression shows the character of this dog, at least around horses. Which happens to be an important part of your life. With a non horse person it would not be an issue.
Sure you can get trainers out and de sensitize it etc but at great cost and investment in time and even then you may never be able to really relax having this dog around horses, which is the whole point of having one.
one of the reasons we are adopting an adult dog, and not a puppy or adolescent, is because WYSIWYG.
i already have a horse training project–my mare is a young, green horse. i don’t want a dog training project. i don’t have enough time for that right now. this dog is already stellar at basic commands, and if he weren’t, i can easily train those. and my husband doesn’t have the skill or experience necessary for either basic commands or reconditioning the aggression response to horses.
if i had time and wanted a dog training project, i would get a puppy.
the good news is this dog easily bonded with me, so he should do the same with the next person.
my main question here seems answered well enough–what i saw is a serious problem, and not one that can be easily overcome.
i’m heartened to know there are ACDs that aren’t like this. besides, we aren’t set on a particular breed.
i’ve learned a lot here. thank you.
and if anyone else has more to add, i would appreciate hearing your thoughts.
just remember all dogs will need training. But I think you have answered your question.
my main question here seems answered well enough–what i saw is a serious problem, and not one that can be easily overcome.
I did not say that. What I said was that you don’t know how easily it would be to overcome. If you do not want to do the training…it is unfair to keep the dog.
i’m heartened to know there are ACDs that aren’t like this. besides, we aren’t set on a particular breed.
that is good news. I would choose a dog from a primary breed (if you go with a mixed breed) or a purebred with less likelihood of this type of response. Probably NOT a herding breed unless you go with something like a smooth Collie. Not a BC, as they can be all over the map in their response to livestock.
oh and just to clarify, in the initial contact with the horse, the dog was in a crate in the car, with the car door open, and the horse was about six feet away, ignoring the dog.
the dog growled.
i’m sure i could have done more to set the dog up better for success, but my intent was not to train the dog, but to find out what its attitude to horses is early in the process, so we would not be blindsided by this problem too late in the game.
plenty of dogs would not have displayed this behavior, even in these circumstances.
>>>I did not say that. What I said was that you don’t know how easily it would be to overcome. If you do not want to do the training…it is unfair to keep the dog. <<<
but i would have to commit to the dog to find out. this is exactly the predicament i don’t want to be in.
and of course i would not keep the dog and not do the training!
[QUOTE=Countrywood;8447440]
You have a two week trial to return dog, then, the dog is your problem. Imo, return it sorry to say. Even under stress and with no training , the extreme aggression shows the character of this dog, at least around horses. Which happens to be an important part of your life. With a non horse person it would not be an issue.
Sure you can get trainers out and de sensitize it etc but at great cost and investment in time and even then you may never be able to really relax having this dog around horses, which is the whole point of having one.[/QUOTE]
>>>>that is good news. I would choose a dog from a primary breed (if you go with a mixed breed) or a purebred with less likelihood of this type of response. Probably NOT a herding breed unless you go with something like a smooth Collie. Not a BC, as they can be all over the map in their response to livestock. <<<<<
any other suggestions as to a good primary breed? i actually am less interested in a purebred than in a good mixed breed.
i don’t want a hound, a retriever, or a pitbull. though dogs with those breeds in the mix would be ok.
and, i firmly believe that dogs are individuals and many times do not fit the breed profile.
crates often make aggressive behavior worse. I knew a field bred Golden once, that would lunge/snarl/act like a totally batshit crazy dog in a crate or behind a door. I would not have classified that dog as generally aggressive but in those circumstances, she presented that way. That is why I pointed out that the confines of a barn/tether + strong stim could have been the issue for him flying at your mare.
i’m sure i could have done more to set the dog up better for success, but my intent was not to train the dog, but to find out what its attitude to horses is early in the process, so we would not be blindsided by this problem too late in the game.
I don’t know that you could have set this up differently. You would have had to know this behavior would occur first and you were told he was fine. This is not your fault.
plenty of dogs would not have displayed this behavior, even in these circumstances.
I agree, my ACD, has more training and is a different personality so she would have held a down stay for me.
[QUOTE=aliceo;8447465]
>>>>that is good news. I would choose a dog from a primary breed (if you go with a mixed breed) or a purebred with less likelihood of this type of response. Probably NOT a herding breed unless you go with something like a smooth Collie. Not a BC, as they can be all over the map in their response to livestock. <<<<<
any other suggestions as to a good primary breed? i actually am less interested in a purebred than in a good mixed breed.
i don’t want a hound, a retriever, or a pitbull. though dogs with those breeds in the mix would be ok.
and, i firmly believe that dogs are individuals and many times do not fit the breed profile.[/QUOTE]
Smooth Collie or Standard Poodle or a cross of either breed springs to mind immediately. If you don’t mind training a smaller breed to ride in a saddle bag or in front of your saddle, perhaps a moderate sized dog that could be lifted up for crossing water or if it gets tired. One of the spaniels perhaps or a poodle cross. I know a few Jacks that are good trail and riding buddies. When tired they are tucked into a pack behind the saddle. Again, that will take some training tho.
