Any tips?

DP has a huge doggie - Dogue de Bordeaux crossed English mastiff - and while she's absolutely and utterly gorgeous in nature, she is big and boofie and can clear rooms of humans just by bouncing around a bit, lol. She's now 6 months old, and DP refuses to do proper obedience training (that's another issue) but I'm just after tips on how to make sure she treats my kids as above her in the pack sort of thing.

She is in no way aggressive or vicious, let me say again, but she will certainly only sit on command for adults, and I just want to make sure the pecking order is all sorted out before she gets any bigger or stronger!

Thanks!

ETA - DP and I don't live together but he is OS and I've been looking after her at my place for 3 weeks now with another week to go. She's already established a certain amount of dominance over my 2 dogs, but only where food is concerned. They can do anything else to her (playwise) and she goes all submissive and rolls over on her back, but food is a different story! I've taken to feeding my old dude doggie (Jack Russell) inside to ensure that he gets his fair share!

I'm quite cross with him that he won't consider formal obedience training (we've had huge fights about it in fact) considering that my 5 year old spends a lot of time at his place, so I've been doing as much training as I can while he's away, lol, but it's hard with 2 other doggies around to distract!

Hi aine,

Besides all the normal things (like kids feeding the dog, dog walking in the door after everyone else, dog getting fed after the rest of the family) the best thing we did with our gorgeous staffy was to hold him in a submissive hold untill he stopped struggling (ie hold his back against your tummy with your arms/ hands around his belly) we started this at a much younger age but I would think it would still work at 6mths of age.

I would suggest that you and your Dh do it first and then supervise while the kids do it, our dd was 5 when we got our pup, and he definatly knows where he is in our family pack, he is a totally adored member but at the bottom of the pack.

We also tought him the gentle command, started with hand feeding him and we would say be gentle, if he wasnt he wouldnt get the food. Now he is usually gentle or a simple OW will make him act gently.

He is so funny though, if he accidently hurts the kids with rough playing he will run into his crate, as he knows he will be told to go there if he is playing rough!

Good luck, and just wanted to add that we dont go to obedience classes either, tried once and just did not like them and our boy has lovely manners.

Thanks for the suggestions, Jaxxie. I must admit it didn't occur to me to have DD feed her I will try that.

She is very gentle with being hand-fed treats, even from DD, and will sit for her as well (automatic I think) when treats are involved (but not without treats).

This may sound weird, but despite her gentle nature I do get the impression that she thinks she is above DD in the pecking order. I don't have any specific examples, it's just a feeling of seeing her with me vs. seeing her with DD. I've had dogs all my life and have worked with dogs, so don't know if it's experience or paranoia, lol! It just terrifies me knowing that this dog has the potential to actually kill my child if she decided that's what she wants to do...

Not that she's ever showed a hint of aggression, but still... she is a baby yet, so I'm just hoping this gentle, wanting to please everyone nature continues!

I totally agree with PP's suggestions of feeding her after yourselves, going before her through doors, and kids feeding her. We trained our dog to sit and wait for a command before she could eat, and now the kids give that command. Even so, the size difference means they are not going to be equal pack members in her mind for a while yet. She is very gentle with them and tolerates their cuddles and (sometimes) leading her around, but I would be careful if she was hyped up (such as during thunder).

Training wise, you can train a dog at home. I can recommend a book I borrowed from the library when our dog was also six months old - The Gentle Modern School of Dog Training. It uses reward training. Later we took her to formal lessons, but come, sit, stay, gentle, drop (lie down) etc were all learned from this book. In lessons we learned heeling mostly, very useful when walking with a pram. I also borrowed the Dog Whisperer, which was helpful for understanding her body language.

Hi Aine,

I'm a professional dog trainer. Under NO CIRCUMSTANCES should you do this kind of thing to your dog. Its completely unnecessary, its a physical punishment - not a negative or positive reinforcement - and a really bad thing to show a dog or child.

I'm actually familiar with the Dogues, some friends have them. Lovely dogs, large and goofy as puppies. They're very food oriented, and of course the only way you are going to get any control over this large galumphing doggy is through training. Term two will be starting shortly for most dog schools - you have a window of opportunity for dummy spitting etc. If you don't have any success, I'd suggest you try a do-it-yourself version, and I'd recommend the basic training guides from Karen Prior (she does clicker training, and Dogues do very well at it). She's been training animals (not just dogs) for years, and is extremely well regarded worldwide in the industry. I use clicker training with most of my clients, and have done for about 10 years. Its kind and gentle and works on all dogs - and other animals (need to train a rabbit? Clickers..)

Here's the link to the product in Amazon...

KP Beginners Kit

I should also mention that my two (also largish dogs) sit on command for my 4yo, and they don't bowl her over during their play. Once you've got treat based training underway, and have the first command happening, you can teach the dog to respond to the command from anyone - including your son - and kids get a real kick from a dog doing its 'thing' when they say.

Let me know when you're ready and I'll post some suggestions on how to get that happening for a child (bit different to an adult).

I was told by a trainer to put the dog bowl on the kitchen bench and pretend to eat some of the food making sure the dog can see you, you are reinforcing your position in the pack, i would get your children to do this.

Thanks again for more suggestions.

Liah, I'm going to go and read up on that clicker thing now.

I think the reason that she won't sit on command for DD is that DD says "sit" like it's a question rather than a command, IYKWIM. I'm working on that! She'll do it for the older kids though.

Damn, she really is the most gorgeous dog! If she wasn't destroying my garden (chewing every single thing that isn't nailed down and a few that are) I'd have serious trouble handing her back to DP when he gets back from his trip!

We had a positive paws trainer come to us and one thing she did say was to get the kids to drop their food sometimes so the dog learns that they eat scraps IYKWIM. We are very strict with food around our house. The dog gets fed after us and she never ever eats from the kitchen bench or in the kitchen. If we want to give her a treat it must be taken out the kitchen.

Also DH did teach the kids to take food off our dog when she was a pup. Now she is 2 and you can take her bowl of food or bone off her and she will just sit and wait until you give it to her back. Of course we don't get the kids to do it anymore but every now and then we do it just to make sure.

We have a German Shepherd who is just beautiful, DD use her as a pillow and if the dog is sleeping DD will get a cushion off the lounge and put it under her head.

DH does 'play rough' with the dog as a game but the kids don't (they don't play rough ever anyway).

We haven't done a huge amount of training with our dog - we got a trainer to come out, joined the GS league but we have to travel too far too early in the morning to want to go back. Nearly all training is just common sense and researching how to treat dogs.

We firmly believe in positive training and rewards. It has worked really well - as well GS are well known for being intelligent! One thing we did have to do it use a choker when walking, it upset me to resort to that. We did try all different collars and methods (the reason we actually got he positive paws trainer out - cost us $200!!!). They just didn't work our GS was just too powerful and never 'got' the lead. Once we switched to the choker she was a different dog when walking - I could manager her and she didn't pull my arm sockets out. Still took a little while to teach her to walk next to me at my pace but it worked

Anyway I digress...

You can teach a dog without formal lessons - sure in an ideal world every dog would go to lessons but don't discount lessons at home.

Just reread this post and wanted to say to Liah that it is not doen at all in a punishing way, and when we started as a puppy, it had he added bonus of also running our hands (ie in a pleasurable way) all over him, tummy, legs, feet ears everywhere. And I can assure you that now he requires regular vet care and injections that they are very very glad that we trained him this way.

This style of training is very very productive (and not at all like an alpha roll etc) we followed our training book to the letter and have a very well trained very very happy indoor crate trained well behaved 11 mth old staffy

Jaxxie,

I've been training dogs for 10 years. I'm a member of all of the NSW and Australian professional training bodies. I'm an expert at what I do with dogs. I am not about to take you seriously as you didn't actually do obedience training - its crystal clear from your comments you have no idea about appropriate training methods for dogs. I don't mind what you do to your own dog, but please - stop offering advice that is potentially dangerous to people, or try to contradict a professional in the field.

Just because you don't view what you do as 'punishment', doesn't mean that it isn't punishment from the perspective of an animal. You've described manhandling an animal into a submissive position - although you've done so 'gently'. That doesn't make it right, or any better in my view. Its still a form of punishment and it can lead to anxiety and fear biting responses in some dogs. Its why all reputable and ethical trainers emphatically stress that you shouldn't do this kind of thing to a dog. Should not. Never ever. We'd be dumped from the APDT if we recommended your chosen methods, and rightly so.

You can easily teach a dog to stand for an examination by the vet without manhandling it or forcing it into submission. My dogs - and most of my class - can do a simple stand stay, and they are rock solid no matter where the vet shoves the thermometer. What's more, they're bloody confident with the vet - I don't have to rely on them 'submitting' to anyone to be assured these dogs can be handled appropriately. There is zero chance my dogs will fear bite in this circumstance, but I wouldn't say the same about a dog 'trained' using a punishment method.

I would suggest that you toss any book that recommends such methods as you've used, and do some research on "positive behaviour reinforcement" and "operant conditioning methods". This is the method consistently used by professionals in the animal training business - including those that deal with non-domestics. Get a clicker, a Karen Prior book, and do your dog a favour.

I've trained my pup using treat based training. I highy recommend using this method. Instead of using a clicker though I use the word 'YES'. As well as basic obedience commands she has learnt lots of fun stuff to using this method i.e. roll over, crawl, speak e.t.c.

deleted as I dont wish to be rude to Liah