Kingdom of Pets

Posted by jonyvoid
Jun 4, 2009

Hi All,
I am very new to this site, I have a 3 yr old Male Pekingese Maltese X who is my best pal in the entire world. He has been castrated about 2 yrs ago. I have a problem with him in that occasionally at home, he will bark at people going past, almost definately at dogs going past. If I am in another room and lazily call for him to stop, he ignores me. When I get up and come into the room that he is barking from, he stops and comes to me which I praise him for.
Q1: Can I stop his territorialism? If that is indeed what it is. After reading some material, I am guessing that he is confused about who is in fact Alpha Dog in our house and he feels that he is in charge of protection.

I found out that I do virtually none of what the alpha dog training says to do (but that is changing right away) but I have one problem with it. I love the fact that he sleeps with me in my bed and cuddles on our couch with us. (Actually our bed - my wife and I) Also, we eat around about 7 or 8 pm and his meal time is 6pm. Should we alter it till after we eat?

My second problem is when we are out walking on a lead (I dont believe he would behave this way off the lead as we used to walk often off the lead and now we live in a new country), some dogs, usually the bigger the dog, the worse the problem, he gets aggressive, mostly just barking when out of range of the other dog and if I let them meet, he stops, meets them and then comes after me again. After out of range he may offer a few extra barks on his way to me but he is not interested in going back for another meet. However: Last time out, instead of calming down when the other dog came close he actually snarled and tried to bite the other dog. This worries me as it has never happened before. The other dog was a fairly friendly looking Golden Retriever who was in my opinion displaying some dominant body language. Note: We didnt get to socialize him as much as I would have liked. People are fine, but dogs not so. At puppy preschool the trainers said we has frightened of other dogs as he barked a lot at them.

Will this behaviour improve with ALPHA Dog training?

In summary, can i still be percieved as Alpha dog and let him sleep on our bed? I truly hope so.

Any advice is appreciated.

Posted by LetsPlay
Jun 4, 2009

Hi there,
sounds as though your dog can be very lucky to have such a loving and caring home.
As you said yourself it all comes down to being the Alpha Dog.
You will see that if you remove the responsibility from your dog of having to be the Alpha Dog he will be much happier and relaxed, as he won't have to take care of you anymore.
Dogs are not capable of being the Alpha Dog when living with humans (even if they think they are), so it's best for everyone involved if you take on that role.

In regards to the feeding:

If you can you could change your dogs feeding time to after your dinner. Do so gradually. If you prefer him to eat at 6pm you could do some "pretend eating".
Prepare his food and at the same time make yourself a toast or a little snack. Make sure he watches you. Eat your snack in full view in front of him, but don't talk or look at him. When you are done give him his food.
You should also try that he is in a different room when you are having your "real dinner".

In regards to sleeping on the bed:

Yes, I know, it's lovely when your dog snuggles up to you. I totally understand that. However it's not the best thing to do. Sleeping high on a bed with the pack reinforces his Alpha status.
Perhaps he could sleep next to the bed, so he is still very close?
You could still allow him up on the sofa, but ONLY on your terms.
Ask him up and only allow him up when he has been asked to do so. If he just jumps up tell him to get off and make sure he does so.
When you asked him up, tell him to get off after 15 min or so, just to make sure it's you who is calling the shots.

Please let us know how you get on with the Alpha Dog training.
All the best
John

Posted by jonyvoid
Jun 6, 2009

Thanks a lot John. I will introduce these changes. I was amazed the first day at how much he hated that I would go through doors first. Now on day 2, he sat comfortably for me to go through, then waited till I called him. Also on our walk, a great irish wolfhound (off lead) was coming our way, Ellroy (my dog) was off lead so I attached him and distracted him as the other dog approached. When he noticed the other dog he sat calmly although was watching with great interest, I praised him enormously with some words, pats and treats. The other dog came for a sniff then left and not so much as a swallowed bark out of ellroy. Not sure yet if its progress as we could be expected to do this before at times and as the other dog was off leash I would normally expect no fuss from ellroy BUT, at least its moving in the right direction.

I've removed his many toys and give him access to one at a time now after some light obedience training, (previously he had them all scattered over the house to use at his leisure). I greet my wife first now and ignore him for a bit when coming home (I would roll around with him as soon as i came through the door before) THe list goes on, I did so many things wrong without knowing it.

Im ranting and will now stop. Thanks again for the reply/

Jim

Are there exceptions to Alpha Dog Training