A fight and a half

[TinaK]

So, I did a full ear inspection on my dog  and grooming.
Jack put up a fight! Bite, bite, run away, come back, bite, etc.
He hates it when I spray-wash him, and dry him (i use a spray-on shampoo), and ears- he hates it when i brush them. I had to keep his muzzle shut, Jack was laying on a side, squirting, then giving up for a sec., then squirting again. what a job! I am sweating now, and my hands are shaking 
How do you do it?!

ps.  I used a lot of candy to keep him somewhat happy. He didn't mind eating it of course.

[happydog]

This is how I worked through it with Fern when she was Jacks age.
Don't try to rush it because you know he hates it. Wait until you have plenty of time to spare and be prepared to just stay still where you are when he breaks away, let him run it off and come back to you before carrying on. Turn it in to a positive experience for him where he knows it will be a time when he will get lots of quiet love and attention from you. He's at a bitey stage at the moment but that will improve as he grows up if you persevere. Praise him gently and calmly all the time he is being still. Praise him when he returns to you. Praise him when he has let you do a little bit more without struggling. A little bit at a time, followed by 'good boy' and a treat occasionally and then carry on, once he has done a mad circuit and come back to you. Each time leave it a little longer before you praise and treat but always do it before you think he is going to squirm away whilst he is going through a calm(ish)phase. If you are unstressed about it so will they be -eventually! Keep the stress out of your voice or he will pick up on it and get stressed too.  I trust you mean dog candy and not human candy? Tiny pieces of liver cake works wonders for my working cocker. it's not the quantity of cake she notices but the frequency of treats  .

[TinaK]

I meant doggy candy.

It's hard to keep the stressed down. He is pretty srtong, I can't hold him easily, and it's SO hard for me not to be p#####d and stay calm. He bites me and not my husband! He likes to attack me once in a while when I say 'leave it' or something. it doesn't hurt, but it's so fast that it scares me! Often i think if i did the ritgh thing getting him  I HOPE it's just the stage he is going through... but why then my housband gets respect!!!!!! 

[silkstocking]

He'll find it harder to struggle if he is on a high surface. I have my own grooming table, but I know lots of people use their ironing boards and find them a fab way to keep their pooches still for a groom.

I agree with everything happydog says!

Grooming should be a relaxing time for you and your pooch   and once he gets used to the routone of it I'm sure it will be, you might find he even asks to get onto the table ironing board!

As soon as I get a brush out my own dogs sit directly under the table waiting to see whose turn it is! They love it!

[Helen]

hi tina,
i do worry about your comments about your pup - your references to him as a 'bustard' and now the fact you wonder if you've done the right thing by getting him.

jack sounds like a normal 5 month old working cocker pup from the behaviour you comment on - i can't help wondering why you chose a working cocker pup?  i know they are super cute but they really need consistent (positive) training, stimulation, company and your time at this stage of their lives, and you can't take a day off training (i know, i tried too when mine was a pup!)

it does get easier but if you don't put in the work now I doubt whether you'll have the adult dog you dreamt of....

we get a lot of working cockers in rescue over here because people under-estimate the amount of time and stimulation they need...

[happydog]

I but why then my housband gets respect!!!!!! 

Who feeds him Tina? Who walks him? Does Jack see you as the one who shouts angrily, grabs him and wrestles him down for 'nasty things' like combing with scratchy things, pulling him about and poking and prodding his ears? Was he accidentally hurt during one of these sessions and he associates it with pain?
  I'm not suggesting you are actually like that, so please dont misunderstand me. I'm just trying to see things through Jacks eyes and perhaps get to the bottom of why your husband gets respect and yet he misbehaves and bites you? (As choccydrop says though he sounds a  perfectly normal 5 month working cocker pup and biting is normal for a while, but not snapping).
Does he see your husband as the goodie and you as the baddie? Is he actually scared of you a little? How does your husband relate/respond both verbally/physically to Jack as compared to you?
working cockers are very sensitive to mood, body language and tone of voice.
Look at any differences above  and if they are so, consider whether  you could do some of the 'good' things, and your husband some of the 'bad' things (as Jack may see them?). Grooming should definately be turned into a positive experience though one way or the other. Get things right now and you will have a dog to die for    believe me.

[Saffie]

I will be trying many of this tips. As Saffie gets older (now 5 months) it is getting more and more difficult to get her to stay still while brushing her. I tried the ironing board thing when she was much younger and she wasnt bothered if she jumped from that height (I didnt let her jump, but she was in the process when I stopped her). She had an ear infection a few weeks ago and I had to put drops in every day for 4 days and now she wriggles like a squirrel in a sock (I have never tried putting a squirrel in a sock before you call the RSPCA).

Any tips for holding a very reluctant puppy still while putting in ear drops. Someone told me to wrap her in a towel but this starts her off and she wriggles free and walks backwards. The vet can do it no problem!

[Helen]

I will be trying many of this tips. As Saffie gets older (now 5 months) it is getting more and more difficult to get her to stay still while brushing her. I tried the ironing board thing when she was much younger and she wasnt bothered if she jumped from that height (I didnt let her jump, but she was in the process when I stopped her). She had an ear infection a few weeks ago and I had to put drops in every day for 4 days and now she wriggles like a squirrel in a sock (I have never tried putting a squirrel in a sock before you call the RSPCA).

Any tips for holding a very reluctant puppy still while putting in ear drops. Someone told me to wrap her in a towel but this starts her off and she wriggles free and walks backwards. The vet can do it no problem!

2 people job i reckon - one to hold, distract, and offer treats, and the other to do the ears (well, that's how we've always tackled wriggly issues )

[suki1964]

Any tips for holding a very reluctant puppy still while putting in ear drops. Someone told me to wrap her in a towel but this starts her off and she wriggles free and walks backwards. The vet can do it no problem!

Try a body wrap
http://www.crvetcenter.com/bodywrap.htm

Penel pointed me to it for Alfie and once wrapped and left for a while he allowed me to not only do his ears but paws as well - totally chilled out

[lyn]

i found with my boy paddy that although it looked like he was being mean after his bath he was actually just messing about and having some fun. now when he has a bath he is let into the garden for a half hour to run riots and work off the excitement.he will then come to me for his brush and beauty treatment.he still hates his ears being brushed but we are just taking that slowly.the last thing i want is for him to hate being bathed and groomed.he is a working cocker and they are excitable but in a fun kind of was.at five months he was a little monster but i found giving him some say in the grooming and letting him get it done on his terms was much less stressful for both of us.he loves the bath now and will hang over the side when the water is being run into it,even when the bath is for someone else.
ellie is my baby worker.she is 14 weeks and is just starting to want to not be groomed.i am taking the same steps with her as i did paddy.
if you make something unpleasant or a battle with them now, then you will struggle the whole of your dogs life.honestly your pup sounds like paddy was and they truly get better with time patience and most of all love

[TinaK]

Well, I feed him - 95% of the time. I take him to obedience classes, and I have been for months since he was 10 weeks old (puppy school) - that's 100% me. I take him for walks - 100%... I put out ticks from when we go camping... I come home every lunch hour to play fetch and pee. I've taught him all the silly commands, like Play dead  - just to keep him occupied, he does very well in school so I have to think of something else to teach him. When we let him out of the crate, we sleep next to each other - he licks my feet and then he crushes at the bottom... He doesn't sleep on my husbands side... my OH gets annoyed with him and just puts hi on the floor. And as I said on a different post, he tries to wake *me* up not my husband in the mornings.

It was my idea getting a dog, so I told my husband that I take all the responsibility, etc. Funny, but my OH says that he is VERY happy that we got a dog, and that he loves Jack. Jack acts very submissively toward him - ears pulled back, looking in his eyes for a sign that something that he's doing is OK. He hardly ever snaps at him, loves to play ball, and pays attention.

To be honest, I am positive that Jack sees me as his servant of sorts. He thinks that he is a vice president of the house , after my OH.

What does my husband do that is different? He doesn't believe in positive training - he is not 100% convinced. When Jack was a pup and would try to bite him, he'd take his muzzle and hold it shut and say 'No bite!'. I told him that it's bad, he said - he's just a dog. I, on the other hand, tried 'OUCH!' which made Jack even more crazy and hyper. I tried leaving and ignoring him, trading for a bone, etc.

Is he actually scared of you a little?

No way! No and no.

Was he accidentally hurt during one of these sessions and he associates it with pain?

God no!
 

I'm just trying to see things through Jacks eyes and perhaps get to the bottom of why your husband gets respect and yet he misbehaves and bites you?

Me too! I bought and read all the books you're recommended me in the forum in the topic about lose leash walking. I am going crazy in trying to understand him. I even got reports on wolf studies in Minnesota (we and Canada have a lot of them), and I am reading those too, trying to figure it out for myself, without a trainer. Some think dogs came from scavenging dogs, not hunting wolfs, so we can't apply theories of pack/ dominance on them, so who the hack knows! I don't . But you can see that I have a lot of free time on my hands...

I grew up with GermanSRDS - my dad was a dog trainer - trained them for border patrol in Russia. He was very old fashioned trainer - you would take him to pieces in this forum. The dogs I've lived with were super good... they wouldn't take a nice juicy steak out of stranger's hand, until my dad would give them a command.

I am realistic in my expectations, and I am not comparing GermanSheps to Cockers or Greyhounds - they are all different, breed for different purposes, and are cool on their own right! And I don't want a German Shep, I want to figure out why Jacks snaps at me.

At this point, I am just trying to figure out how to communicate with dogs.

Ah. thanks for your suggestions about grooming. I'll need some whisky to calm down next time.

i do worry about your comments about your pup - your references to him as a 'bustard' and now the fact you wonder if you've done the right thing by getting him.

PS. "Bustard" - Sorry, I have to say that I call that my OH lovingly. And Jack too. I don't mean it in a nasty way. I would never give Jack away - but still, I like to complain about him in this forum   

[happydog]

OK Tina. I get the picture. I hope I didn't offend with my questioning     . what you have just posted is very helpful and has straightened out some potential misunderstandings with some of your posts(with me anyway  ). It is obvious you want to do right by Jack

I dont have time to post everything I want to say right now but I will add some things later. Meanwhile I am sure you will gets some more useful suggestions now.

At this point, I am just trying to figure out how to communicate with dogs.
.

That's good. I'm sure you will get there in the end  .

What does my husband do that is different? He doesn't believe in positive training - he is not 100% convinced. When Jack was a pup and would try to bite him, he'd take his muzzle and hold it shut and say 'No bite!'. I told him that it's bad, he said - he's just a dog. I, on the other hand, tried 'OUCH!' which made Jack even more crazy and hyper. I tried leaving and ignoring him, trading for a bone, etc.

I personally don't have a problem with that. We have used exactly that method on all our past dogs as pups (5 of them spaniels). 'No bite' is a command they all learned early on. It was always followed by ignoring them for a few minutes before returning to what we were doing. Perhaps you both need to compromise a little on your beliefs so Jack gets a consistent reaction froma specific behaviour you need to modify? I'll probably get shot down in flames for saying this, but I will confess to actually biting them back if things got really rough on the leg. Not hard or in order to to cause real pain I hasten to add, but just hard enough for them to feel and know what it's like. It didn't need to be done many times for it to sink in, which is just as well because a mouthful of dog hair is not my idea of a great meal  It worked for us that's all I can say..

[Rhona W]

On the grooming issue - my pups are slightly younger than Jack and I have never bathed them. If they get muddy, I leave them to dry and then brush them clean. I have brushed them since they were 8 weeks old so they are used to it now - in fact it is very difficult to brush one without the other one butting in! 
I just wondered if it was the spray shampoo that Jack did not like.    (I know people advise squirting with a water pistol to deter bad behaviour so just wondered if the squirting frightened Jack.)
Perhaps you could just try brushing Jack without the shampoo to get him used to being groomed. Even if you only did a few strokes with a brush to start with and gradually increased the amount each day until he got used to it. Mine used to try to bite the brush to begin with, but now they will happily lie down and let me roll them over to brush underneath! 

[TinaK]

I'll probably get shot down in flames for saying this, but I will confess to actually biting them back if things got really rough Roll Eyes on the leg.

  i'd like to see that

[Penel]

I'll probably get shot down in flames for saying this, but I will confess to actually biting them back if things got really rough on the leg. Not hard or in order to to cause real pain I hasten to add, but just hard enough for them to feel and know what it's like. It didn't need to be done many times for it to sink in, which is just as well because a mouthful of dog hair is not my idea of a great meal  It worked for us that's all I can say..

come on now you can't be serious..... do you really think that they think you are a dog ?