New member needs help with his bully!

[Vicaroo1000]

As always, fantastic advice here. EBN members rule!

I might also suggest the "Nothing in Life is Free" program - it will be much harder on you than the dog, I can assure you. Those puppy faces can really manipulate their human care-givers....but if you feel you are already having dominance issues, you might consider this. I can tell you that it's worked to rehabilitate many ill-gotten behaviors. Here's just one link to MANY articles on the topic: http://k9deb.com/nilif.htm

I also am a big fan of Cesar Millan.

 

[Sabrina]

Hi there! I told you that I was going to keep you posted and I didn't forget!
Let me tell you that I'm very very happy because Boris has made great progress!
I've been taking him to the park every morning for about 45 mins everyday and trying to introduce him to other dogs. At first, he was a little bit reluctant and used to growl to different types of dogs (I couldn't detect any pattern, except for larger dogs, which he didn't like). Although he doesn't feel comfortable with every larger dog that we find, he gets along with most of them and if he gets off to a bad start, I wait until he calms down and try again. He usually takes some time to relax and then everything is fine. He doesn't have any problem with small dogs and he loves poodles!
Last Monday was our first experience with him off-leash and surrounded by 4 larger dogs!! He did it very well! I'm so proud!
Thank you all for your advice and for those of you who have the same problem, keep trying. I'm sure that Boris will get even better!

Sabrina

 

[Vicaroo1000]

Your story reminds me of something that happened yesterday at the off leash area.

Rarely, there are two huge Rotties on the other side of the fence at the house next door to the off leash area. All four dogs were calmly sniffing each other's noses thru the cracks in the fence UNTIL the moment that Bea got all territorial. INSTANTLY the mood changed. I grabbed Bea and shooed her away from the fence (removing her negative energy from the interaction) and the Rotties and Bo went back to sniffing calmly. Mhmmm. Just like Cesar says.