Hi, we're new :)

[Ecclissi]

Okay,

Hi! I think I posted this in the wrong section earlier, and there aren't any replies, so I figured I'd move it over

So we have inherited a young Dutch Shepherd or Dutch Shepherd mix named Russell ("Russ"). He's under a year old. He has learned some things and missed out on learning other things. Life happened. He is a smart dog though because he seems to pick things up pretty quickly.

We're working on potty training and walking on a leash, but he *does* know his name and some commands like "sit". He has good bite inhibition, but he is also all legs and only used to one other dog who was young and big.. so his idea of saying hello to a dog is just spearing right over at top speed. "Yay, let's play!"

We are trying to introduce him to our 13 year old Boston Terrier, Rosie. She finds a huge young dog galloping her way to come sniff and play pretty scary. Her eyesight is also not fantastic anymore. So yeah.. It's a little challenging.

She doesn't really want him near her just yet and tries to basically avoid him. She is fixed btw. Russ will be but isn't yet.

That said, the walk today with both of them together went pretty well. He just *really* didn't like wearing a collar, and it took a bit for him to stop trying to reach Rosie to sniff.

That said, there was a cat on the street and he completely ignored it. He was very interested in Rosie though so maybe he would have reacted to it had he not been preoccupied.

He's very good driven, so it helped us distract him.

We intend to do more walks tomorrow (and every day) but we're keeping them separate for tonight when we're asleep just to be on the safe side..

Again, he is a rather sudden surprise addition to the family.

Rosie got pretty shaky when he got closer, and I don't want to blow things due to potential fear aggression. (From her, not him)

He calms down pretty good once he's had the chance to explore to his heart's content.. and he is a huge cuddle-bug (!!!).

I'm sure over time he will be a relatively calm dog, since he was pretty calm when the newness of being with us cooled a little..

He hasn't shown any signs of aggression whatsoever, but Rosie finds him scary so we're taking things slow.

She growled at him when he got too close too quickly.
He doesn't really seem to get the hint though.

Since he doesn't know commands like "leave it" yet either, well.. puppy classes.. ASAP.

I think in the long run they will get along really well, he is clearly a very gentle natured dog, right now she just finds him a little scary. It's just more challenging because of age and size mismatches, and issues with socialization.

So meanwhile any suggestions to hold us over until classes start would be very, very welcome..

Thanks!

Rosie, Russ, and Fam.

Russ

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Rosie

IMG_20210804_184100_703~3.jpg (2.61 MiB) Viewed 136 times

[Ecclissi]

P.s. wow he loves fetch *sooooooo* much lol!! He literally could do that all day

[TheVII]

Welcome!

Inheriting a Dutch Shepherd...I can't say it's going to be easy. But, with dedication it can be the most rewarding experience.

Mox is had/has same issue...she gets excited. But, you are lucky, I think you said he's food driven.

Carry a pouch of food with you. He sees a dog, you feed feed feed feed! Make it a party. About a week of that, Mox saw other dogs and immediately focused on us and ignored the dogs. That will be at least a start. And you reward him for that if he does it in his own, keep at it.

We got to the point where we can either ignore, be restrained but whimper, or 100% fly in your face 40lb torpedo/dumbell paw slaps...so we are working on dialing it back a notch. Still with method above we were able to get her to be restrained.

She's also exposed to "good" predictable dogs during out training sessions, mostly mals, who remain in down, while Mox bounces around like baby goat, until she gets bored of them non reacting.

We are almost a year old, and we aren't allowed to freely interact with other dogs yet.

[Ecclissi]

Hi,

Thanks for answering! Yeah, he is *very* food driven, lol.
So far, he's doing pretty well. I'm hoping the puppy classes will also help a little with socialization.

We're also taking him out to the loudest busiest places around here, trying to get him used to stuff so he gets acclimated to anything I can think of .. so far he seems to love it.

He is excited to see people, and kids, but he doesn't seem to be afraid of much so that's pretty good. (I was trying to prevent fear by showing him as much as possible on walks etc.

Leash walking is clearly still new to him, but he is starting to get it (a little.. he still gets excited and wraps people in the leash lol)

Right now we are still keeping introductions slow.
Rosie is starting to calm down around him. She doesn't shake anymore when she sees him though she still doesn't want him right in her face.

Russ has met a cat now too. (Friends house) The cat is used to seeing Rosie and gets along with her, and he was on stairs, and came down a bit. Once Russ wanted to go up though, the kitty bolted back away. Later on he came to look again from a different spot, and Russ ignored the cat that time. (Yep, we rewarded that big time!!)

Russ just seems confused by all the animals that won't just let him bolt over, sniff, and play lol.. he doesn't seem to flinch at barking dogs in yards though. He'll barely even look at them when we walk, and if he does, he doesn't bark back. We can distract his attention away from them and keep walking.

I'm trying to teach him to let animals come *to him*. To stay calm. *Then* let him carefully sniff lol. He is getting some of it, but once they get close he still gets excited, he'll let them get close, then jumps up and starts waggy tailing wildly wanting to sniff butts (normal, but scary to small animals who feel like it was all a trap!).
He has gotten a few "sniff" moments with Rosie now.

Distracting with food works really well so far. (Yay!!)

Thing is, I worry about him associating small animals with "feeding time"?

Anyway, I'm hoping puppy classes will help with socialization as well.. seeing more dogs who he can't bulldoze but are less afraid of big puppies..

Mox sounds just adorable.. and just as "all legs" as Russ is lol!! At what point do we know they are getting closer to being able to "interact freely"?

Russ isn't showing any signs of aggression so far, just excitement.. walks help burn off some of his excitement, but he isn't really tiring at all. We get home, he's ready to play.. Rosie crawls under the nearest blanket. XD

[TheVII]

No problem.

I'm far from the expert, as you can tell. We have been going to our trainer consistently every weekend (with very few breaks) in order to learn ourselves as much as to teach our pup. We aren't really taught how to teach someone else. I guess taking just talking one tool out of the box and not explaining the whole system is the first thing that would separate us from someone who is qualified to teach this, heh.

With that disclaimer out of the way, our training begun with focus and reward markers. Being food driven Mox would go into 'work mode fairly easily from a very early age, even before we were allowed outside due to needing more vaccines.

Mox, is only free fed small amount of food when we need to give her meds or supplements. Rest is kibble (bloody expensive one) fed as a reward during training sessions through out the day. She used to eat about 3 cups worth of it during the day across her training sessions.

I'm mentioning this to address you taking Russ everywhere. I think it's a good idea, and you're lucky that your dog is stable. However, best practices in my opinion is to train your dogs in these new places. The training will provide familiarity to your dog, and will make Russ more comfortable in an unfamiliar environment. Otherwise, you run the risk of something scaring him, and he will start making wrong associations.

Beginning, it'll probably focus and rough heel. So the reward will come for focus. Hence you should not create association that your dog is eating when it sees small animals, but rather reward comes for Russ when he focuses on you. He'll hopefully learn, if you are consistent, that seeing something that excites him means he needs to focus on you, that gets him rewarded. Down the line you will build up on that.

Early on Mox was on double leash which made things awkward in terms of coordination, but we had a harness to let her pull, and longer leash connect to the collar to start on leash pressure. If we left just the leash on she'd choke herself pulling with a regular leash. A pup will want to explore new environments so having some time to adopt to the leash is to be expected. Now, we moved on to a prong collar from that set up. I think leash pressure and prong collar are a skills that require an entire discussion, and lessons on it's own. It's something best discussed specifically with a trainer or as I said in its own topic. I'm just mentioning it, because as I said, it became part of our overall toolbox, and you saying you guys are still learning how to walk on the leash.

When we got Mox she had a bulbous scratch in her muzzle, because she liked "playing" with a cat and cat did not approve of the attention. So yeah be mindful.

My parents have a smaller American Eskimo that is about the same age as Rossie, named Cassandra. And Cassandra is overwhelmed by the intensity. Cassandra is curious, but Mox would just go 100% and scare Cassandra away. Mox is always on a leash, so we really minimize the assault. And after a bit, Mox figures out that Cassandra is off limits and proceeds to do Dutch Shepherd things onto someone or something else...not say that Mox forgets about Cassandra if Cassandra gets close...there will be a paw smack.

I'm already putting up a wall of text and just getting to your question, sorry about that.

I feel like in a lot of respects Mox is very similar to Russ. She doesn't get angry at people, loves children. Ever since she was a puppy she'd actually changer intensity when interacting with kids or elderly. And she would pee herewith excitement when people offered her attention. She wants to play with every dog. She is very easily excited.

Now where I'm not sure if our dogs are the same is our frustration thresholds. Mox has a low frustration threshold. Makes her good for protection, but she will go from excited to play to beast mode at a drop of a dime. You have to frustrate her by restraining her, but sometimes she even gets frustrated when the dog she trying to play with doesn't react to her enough.

Last dog we played with at the trainers was a Mal who had similar traits but a whole lot more trained. I asked if he can be freed to play with Mox because they really liked each other, and had sane levels of intensity. I was told that that would be a bad idea, because those 2 would very quickly go in excitement overdrive and might accident start a fight. We were told that interaction should be with a lower intensity dog in order to avoid a potential mess. This took place last weekend, and Moxie is turning 1 year on the 19th.

One of our first questions when we started training back in November was, when can we interact with other dogs. All our friends have dogs and family have dogs. Our trainer then told us that she let's her dogs interact with other dogs, when her dogs are like a year and a half. Biggest problem initially is the unpredictability of how other duhs will react. And it can lead to your dog picking up bad habits. We were exposed to "good" dogs every weekend. We would train with bunch of dogs relaxing on the perimeter and have 0 reaction to Mox. And Mox would soon forget about the dogs and concentrate on the training.

As far as when we will know Mox is "ready," when she behaves like those dogs at our trainer. When we have a reliable "off" switch. And it's probably at the rate we are going should be a few more months. Biggest thing I'd say, is unpredictability of other dogs you interact with. Until we are sure Mox is 100% stable we don't want take a chance ruining her future interactions.

As for the unlimited energy...congratulations you got a Dutch Shepherd. But from the sound of it you got one with loads of potential.

[TheVII]

I'm not sure where you are at but

Here is a link to the people who train us https://advancedcaninesystems.com/ none of that tactical stuff, their reputation carries them. They do online one on one evaluation and classes. If you are interested. It isn't cheap, but even in your initial evaluation session you'll learn more than I can possibly teach.