Has anyone ever sent their dog away for general training?  This Lab pup is driving me crazy.  I've had three other Labs plus other breeds over the years, so I'm not a novice.  Three and a half months old and not house trained yet.  Play turns aggressive and I end up bleeding.  He has no fear of us at all.  I was looking at one of these outfits that train dogs that stay at their premises. It is expensive, but the alternative is giving him away.

Only hunting dogs.
At the very least sign up for a Pet Smart or Petco class and invest some time. It's now or never.

I do this for a living, shoot me a PM

I have been attending a class at Pet Smart.

Start hand feeding him.

Thats what they told me to do with my 8 week old Maligator.

As a former trainer at Petco, their classes are shit.

I can't imagine Petsmart is any better. If you are serious about training with your dog, find a trainer you like in your area that is strictly a trainer.

Yes, did it with our current 1-year old Great Pyrenees.  There's a place that we've kenneled our dogs at occasionally and they also do training classes.  We did training with our Shelties there and they earned their Canine Good Citizenship tags.

Anyway, we were having a real tough time crate training our Pyr.  She just did not like being in there and would bark and cry if we put her in.  The place mentioned above has an in-house training program that is ~4 weeks long so we sent her there.  They worked on the crate training as well as on-leash work, etc.  When we got her back she was crate trained.  I don't think she likes it like our Sheltie does (he will go in his on his own just to chill) but she does sleep in it at night and is quiet so it was worth it for us.

It all comes down to the trainer.  I've seen a good Petsmart trainer.  And I've seen a number of bad ones.

Of course, the good one did leave petsmart pretty quickly.

Send all of the hunting dogs away, but most of it is for force fetching and collar conditioning, trainer also touches up on obedience/finishes it on the younger dogs.  Not sure how much a pro is going to do for house breaking.  Good luck.

You got yourself an alpha male.

And as you know it is seldom an issue with the dog learning and more about the owner learning to manage the dog.

If you have more than one dog in the house this pup could be playing off that. And also if there is more than one master and the two of you don't handle him the same way that is also an issue.

I don't prescribe to sending them away because the dog only learns to obey the trainer there and when you get him back and YOU do the same thing he will fall right back into whatever mischief he participated in to begin with.



You need to take him to training there. Also that dog needs a leash and training collar. Your body language and tone of voice is everything with these dogs.

Make sure to have him neutered when old enough.



My daughter cannot handle alpha animals and she rescued a male alpha... who is now my dog.





 

Great post!!  Every word. GREAT post.

Yep, he has a dominant dog.

OP, STOP playing rough with the dog…… right now.

Dogs don't think like we do.  You may not realize it, but playing rough with this dog is doing a lot of harm to your relationship and is completely unproductive to attaining your goal of controlling your dog. This dog sounds like he will do whatever is necessary to "win". When you let a dog like this "win", you are screwing up and engaging in this type behavior will only do damage. As the dog grows older, it will only get worse and the aggression will increase if you keep playing rough with him. The dog will will never respect you.  Tug of war and such games are out too.

Your situation  is what happens when someone who has owned other dogs gets one that is truly dominant and has some hardness to him.

It is best if YOU handle the dog while being coached by a GOOD trainer. You and the dog BOTH need work.

Dogs of this type need a certain type owner, strict consistent  training, a calm confident handler, etc.

I don't know you, you may or may not be up for owning such a dog.

The dog pictured in my Avatar is a dominant extremely hard dog that loves to work …….. he is a handful.

The real truth is…… dogs like this take work and commitment.

You might want to find a good Shutzhund trainer in your area and ask him/her to just train you and the dog in the obedience  part of Shutzhund.  He/She will have worked with such dogs and owners/handlers.

You can find dominant dogs in all breeds and sizes.

My kids all the time are telling me to make the dogs listen to them.  I tell them I can't do that and they have to teach the dog to listen on their own.  THEY have to teach it who is boss.