Pet pics (Come here to see the Mastiff!)
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That running in the snow pic is too cute !
Awwwwww, he his beautiful - and cute!How old is he?
Thank you. He is 6 years old and 165lbs.
Molly is great too - cool mix, she looks adorable. The chase pic is great.
I love that pic. They play so well together.
It reminds me when I had three dogs - it was such fun! My favorite story was when my Golden and my current GSD, Myst, were both still pups, Dart the Golden was 5 months, and Myst was only 10 weeks at the time. Well, Dart got "fixed", and had that silly cone on him, and he would chase Myst, scoop her up with the cone, and carry her around like that while she ecstatically chewed on his ears. It was hysterical!
Oh how funny. We had 4 a few years ago besides Dozer and Molly we had a beagle and a Boston terrier. The Boston died last year of old age and the beagle we sent to a good home because he wouldn't stop barking and the neighbors were complaining alot. But they all had a blast together. Dozer still thinks he is a lap dog. I could watch them all day long and laugh at the things they do.
All these pics and stories of your furry babies past and present are KILLING me
I started reading the thread to see pics of mikes mastiff, because I too used to have a English mastiff, Jupiter. 160 lbs of slobbering brindle, he lived to be 14 yrs. I still remember when I went to the breeders house when he was 4 wks old. I picked him out of the litter of 13, he was so adorable and tiny, I counted down the days til I could go back and get him when he was 8 weeks old. When I went back to get him the lady let the litter out in the yard and here come all these huge pups, and I was like "wait a minute, where is the lil puppy I saw?" lol The lady was like "u sure u know what ur getting into?" Then she said "come with me" she took me outside to another kennel to show me jupiters dad, Hoosier. He came out of his dog house and up to the front of the kennel and jumped up on his back legs and put his big ol feet on the gate, he was lookin me straight in the eye. He was 2 and weighed in at almost 200 lbs!! I said "yep I know what I am getting into, I am ready, now let's go see my pup" I loved that dog, he was the best man at my wedding, my protector, my friend, my kids playmate, my confidant. He is also the only dog I had/have ever paid money for. I still miss him.....
Then I see those pics of whiskeys bull mastiff pup and it looks just like my joop, and then I am reading all the other stories of loved furr babies that have gone home....
I have also been involved in rescue, I have 6 rescue dogs now, 5 all American mutts and 3 lb yorkie, and I worked as a canine massage therapist and trainer for 5 yrs. I hope to go back to it someday.
Next to my human family, animals are and have always been the most important part of my life. I have great respect for ppl who open their homes and rescue and animal or provide a foster family. Mostly because the overpopulation of cats and dogs is largely caused by HUMANS!!
My motto is "Don't breed or buy while shelter animals die". I have seen the overpopulated kill shelters, the horrors of puppy mills, the abandanded, and abused, and on the flip side I have seen dogs who get treated far better than most children, have better beds, better clothes, better food, and are treated like royalty. I would love to see that gap get smaller.
Sorry for the trip down memory lane, but I am passionate about animals, Now I send u back to all the funny pics and cuteness... thanks for starting this mike!!
I started reading the thread to see pics of mikes mastiff, because I too used to have a English mastiff, Jupiter. 160 lbs of slobbering brindle, he lived to be 14 yrs. I still remember when I went to the breeders house when he was 4 wks old. I picked him out of the litter of 13, he was so adorable and tiny, I counted down the days til I could go back and get him when he was 8 weeks old. When I went back to get him the lady let the litter out in the yard and here come all these huge pups, and I was like "wait a minute, where is the lil puppy I saw?" lol
The lady was like "u sure u know what ur getting into?" Then she said "come with me" she took me outside to another kennel to show me jupiters dad, Hoosier. He came out of his dog house and up to the front of the kennel and jumped up on his back legs and put his big ol feet on the gate, he was lookin me straight in the eye. He was 2 and weighed in at almost 200 lbs!! I said "yep I know what I am getting into, I am ready, now let's go see my pup" I loved that dog, he was the best man at my wedding, my protector, my friend, my kids playmate, my confidant. He is also the only dog I had/have ever paid money for. I still miss him.....Then I see those pics of whiskeys bull mastiff pup and it looks just like my joop, and then I am reading all the other stories of loved furr babies that have gone home....
I have also been involved in rescue, I have 6 rescue dogs now, 5 all American mutts and 3 lb yorkie, and I worked as a canine massage therapist and trainer for 5 yrs. I hope to go back to it someday.
Next to my human family, animals are and have always been the most important part of my life. I have great respect for ppl who open their homes and rescue and animal or provide a foster family. Mostly because the overpopulation of cats and dogs is largely caused by HUMANS!!
My motto is "Don't breed or buy while shelter animals die". I have seen the overpopulated kill shelters, the horrors of puppy mills, the abandanded, and abused, and on the flip side I have seen dogs who get treated far better than most children, have better beds, better clothes, better food, and are treated like royalty. I would love to see that gap get smaller.
Sorry for the trip down memory lane, but I am passionate about animals, Now I send u back to all the funny pics and cuteness...
thanks for starting this mike!!
I would love to be a dog trainer. If it wasn't for my physical limitations, I would be one, I swear. It's so fascinating. My Myst had some fear-aggression issues for a while, and I learned a lot while we were working through it. I love clicker training, and would have loved to be involved in it on a deeper level.
I can't seem to train my mastiff. He is great around my son,wife and me. But anyone else he gets very protective, almost aggressive. When he was young I took him place to mingle with other animals and people. He did great. Then one time at the vets (a male vet which he has never seen tried to pet him and he snipped at him,well he wanted him muzzled and Dozer did not like that. Stressed him out so bad. Well we don't use that male vet, always a female and he is better. Not great, it takes 4 people including myself to hold him down for shots. But no muzzle. I hate those things. Anyway since then he doesn't like anyone. I think that incident caused his fear of new people. He is a loving dog and very good with my 4 year old son. My question is. Can he still be trained at 6 years old,or is he set in his ways? I can't even walk him without him pulling me down the road lol. Any info or help is very appreciated.
My Lox got hit by a car when he was like a year old. He wouldn't come when I called him he thought it was a game. He didn't get hurt except a concusion. But went in search of a trainer for him and actually found a dog whisper in binghamton ny (go figure). She was awesome it only took her two visits to get him not pull when he walked to sit to lay down and be quite. He is even comes when I call him most of the time. She was awesome. I can give you her info if ya want it
My Lox got hit by a car when he was like a year old. He wouldn't come when I called him he thought it was a game. He didn't get hurt except a concusion. But went in search of a trainer for him and actually found a dog whisper in binghamton ny (go figure). She was awesome it only took her two visits to get him not pull when he walked to sit to lay down and be quite. He is even comes when I call him most of the time. She was awesome. I can give you her info if ya want it
That would be great. Thank you very much.
Thank you again. Its only 2 hours from me. I will have to give her a call.
She came to my house. She took us to the dog park for like 1hr free of charge to get to know Lox. It was pretty cheap as far as I am concerned. It was only like $150 for both visits and they both lasted a couple of hours plus the dog park. Glad I could help
That's great that u have someone to call, it's sort of hard to try to tell someone how to train in text, or even on the phone. So that a good deal for u to have access to someone who can get hands on so to speak for u. Please let us know how it turns out for u.
But to answer your question dogs are never set in their ways, and can be trained at any age
But to answer your question dogs are never set in their ways, and can be trained at any age
Yes, he absolutely can be trained, at any age.
It sounds to me though, that you need more than obedience training. If he is sensitive to strangers, or feaful, or "triggered" by particular stimuli, you'd be wise to look into things like desensetization and classical conditioning. When you do obedience training, you are working from the dog's intellectual perspective - this is "operant conditioning", and it only works when the dog is "under threshold", emotionally stable enough to respond in conditioned ways he has been trained to respond in. If the dog is "over threshold", meaning in a very aroused/excited/scared/agressive emotional state, he is not necessarily able to respond as his training dictates. This is where classical conditioning comes in - it reconditions the dog's underlying emotional responses.
For instance, we start with a dog who has some kind of a strong negative emotional response to men. The purpose of classical conditioning work in this case would be to show the dog that men are good and worthy of a positive emotional response. It works exactly as with Pavlov's dogs: we expose the dog to the particular stimulus in very small doses and very carefully, keeping him under threshold, and at the same time try our best to make him happy - usually with food. Eventually the dog comes to associate men with food, and stops reacting negatively. This is called "counterconditioning".
A word of warning from personal bitter experience: I would not, under any circumstances, expose a dog with any kind of oversensitivity issues, be it fear or agression, to any kind of negative training methods: no choke chains, or shock collars, or newspapers, or yelling and screaming, or any punishment whatsoever other than depriving the dog of attention or specific rewards that he has to "earn" by appropriate behavior when training in "operant" rather than "classical" mode.
So please choose your trainer very carefully, because a trainer who is not familiar with the above methods, scientifically and experimentally proven to work best for this sort of thing, can very, very easily make the situation much worse, and cause the dog significant psychological damage.
A dog who simply pulls because he is excited to go for a walk can be trained in any number of ways and do well (though I still prefer almost exclusively positive methods - I trained Myst on a flat collar, and the greatest "punishment" she ever got was either not getting her treat, or a particular "oink"-type sound of disapproval). A dog who is really having even a hint of agression/fear issues can very quickly go from an iffy temperament to a potential serious biter when strong negative methods are applied.
Especially if you have a sensitive and loving dog, don't get into confrontations with him, maintain his trust at all costs, protect him from what he fears, and teach him not to be afraid gently, don't fall into the "alpha-roll" and "dominance" nonesense - all that will do is damage your dog and your relationship with him.
So - just be aware. I've gone through all of that. Myst actually bit someone when she was 7 - after what's called "traditional trainer" - that is a trainer who employs negative reinforcement/punishment/dominance theory - had spent some time with us teaching me how to use prong collars and alpha roll my dog. That taught me a lesson I never forgot: if something doesn't feel right, don't do it, and you can't lose by keeping your dog happy, while you lose a lot by making her miserable...
Off my soap-box now - there is years of work, thought, learning and listening behind what I'm saying here. I *so* feel for people who have dogs with this kind of issues...
And, btw, the first thing you probably need to do is work on his reactions to the vet - you shouldn't have to fight with him for his shots, that's really damaging.
Another note is that a muzzle is actually not a bad thing - it diffuses a lot of tension in both the dog and the owner often enough. But if you need to use it, the dog can be very, very easily habituated to it, and just take it as another leash - no big deal.
It sounds to me though, that you need more than obedience training. If he is sensitive to strangers, or feaful, or "triggered" by particular stimuli, you'd be wise to look into things like desensetization and classical conditioning. When you do obedience training, you are working from the dog's intellectual perspective - this is "operant conditioning", and it only works when the dog is "under threshold", emotionally stable enough to respond in conditioned ways he has been trained to respond in. If the dog is "over threshold", meaning in a very aroused/excited/scared/agressive emotional state, he is not necessarily able to respond as his training dictates. This is where classical conditioning comes in - it reconditions the dog's underlying emotional responses.
For instance, we start with a dog who has some kind of a strong negative emotional response to men. The purpose of classical conditioning work in this case would be to show the dog that men are good and worthy of a positive emotional response. It works exactly as with Pavlov's dogs: we expose the dog to the particular stimulus in very small doses and very carefully, keeping him under threshold, and at the same time try our best to make him happy - usually with food. Eventually the dog comes to associate men with food, and stops reacting negatively. This is called "counterconditioning".
A word of warning from personal bitter experience: I would not, under any circumstances, expose a dog with any kind of oversensitivity issues, be it fear or agression, to any kind of negative training methods: no choke chains, or shock collars, or newspapers, or yelling and screaming, or any punishment whatsoever other than depriving the dog of attention or specific rewards that he has to "earn" by appropriate behavior when training in "operant" rather than "classical" mode.
So please choose your trainer very carefully, because a trainer who is not familiar with the above methods, scientifically and experimentally proven to work best for this sort of thing, can very, very easily make the situation much worse, and cause the dog significant psychological damage.
A dog who simply pulls because he is excited to go for a walk can be trained in any number of ways and do well (though I still prefer almost exclusively positive methods - I trained Myst on a flat collar, and the greatest "punishment" she ever got was either not getting her treat, or a particular "oink"-type sound of disapproval). A dog who is really having even a hint of agression/fear issues can very quickly go from an iffy temperament to a potential serious biter when strong negative methods are applied.
Especially if you have a sensitive and loving dog, don't get into confrontations with him, maintain his trust at all costs, protect him from what he fears, and teach him not to be afraid gently, don't fall into the "alpha-roll" and "dominance" nonesense - all that will do is damage your dog and your relationship with him.
So - just be aware. I've gone through all of that. Myst actually bit someone when she was 7 - after what's called "traditional trainer" - that is a trainer who employs negative reinforcement/punishment/dominance theory - had spent some time with us teaching me how to use prong collars and alpha roll my dog. That taught me a lesson I never forgot: if something doesn't feel right, don't do it, and you can't lose by keeping your dog happy, while you lose a lot by making her miserable...
Off my soap-box now - there is years of work, thought, learning and listening behind what I'm saying here. I *so* feel for people who have dogs with this kind of issues...
And, btw, the first thing you probably need to do is work on his reactions to the vet - you shouldn't have to fight with him for his shots, that's really damaging.
Another note is that a muzzle is actually not a bad thing - it diffuses a lot of tension in both the dog and the owner often enough. But if you need to use it, the dog can be very, very easily habituated to it, and just take it as another leash - no big deal.
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