A friend and I are looking at starting a dog walking/minding business. The location etc is worked out, a few referals have come in, and I was enthused because it was something I could get my dogs involved in with me. The fact is I spend lots of time with them anyway, and it could kill a couple of birds with one stone.

We have done a couple of dry runs. The first customers were two 6 month old dogs, a boxer and a lab.

So off we all go-me and my mate, the two pups, and my two. My two normally just rollick around in the open spaces, love to run, chase balls etc. The only issue I've ever had is sometimes they will charge full pelt at another dog in tandem, but they always do a uturn and it never ends in tears, its more just excitement and showing off. The other issue which I've managed so far is that Alby (4 and a 1/2) can get a bit of the ugly face on if he thinks another dog is going to get his ball-but again, it's never ended in a fight, just a bit of display and hoo ha, and it's easily managed by keeping him moving. They run into heeps of other dogs all the time-they're not overly sociable, but not anti social-they just like to be doing stuff instead of mooching around sniffing bums. I've always been grateful because some overly social dogs can be a pest and cause trouble because they don't know boundaries.

Well, bugger me-Alby bloody went for the little boxer on the first day, out of the blue. No major damage thank God, but it was weird. We couldn't work out why. We put it down to a one off unfamiliarity thing, with a new park, and new situation. But the next day he went for the submissive little lab pup the same way! I was flabbergasted. The best we can come up with for a trigger is that he was jelous of me giving pats and attention to the other unfamiliar dogs (I don't do this normally as my focus is normally on the bloody Koolies-but I have been known too, but not pups).

Alby can be a pushy little shit and will push jacksy out of the way if Jacksy comes over for a pat, but he is not food aggressive or anything like that.Jaksy is patient so it never gets dramatic.If we go up to my sisters he will pee in poor macky the lab's food bowl-but on the other hand, if we go to my other sisters-he wouldn't dare try that stuff on with Yoti the beagle bitch, and is good as gold.

Anyway-if he keeps it up it could be a real problem for the dog business idea. My dogs were basically auditioning on the day-and Alby buggered it. The last thing I want is to have to tell an owner that the chomp in their dogs bum was from one of MINE!

Any ideas guys? Particularly those of you with a few dogs, who know dog/pup dynamics? A dominance issue maybe? What should I do to correct it? Royalla, Tjukurpa? The jelously theory is just a theory? What the hell is up with him all of a sudden? Any help would be gratefully accepted. How can I knock this on the head fast guys.

My opinion is that it is jealousy, Frazzle being my pampered, spoilt brat does not like to share my attention!! and would quite often bark at unfamilier dogs that were seeking my attention. He has out thankfuly outgrown this brattish behaviour.

So, he just outgrew it? Did you put any traing in place? Alby is bloody nearly 5???? Any training suggestions?

jealousy it is i have a couple hear that would like to be jealous but i have 1 command that covers every bad behaviour, leave it. If you have not trained your dogs with the leave it command well nows the time to start it's simple to teach it to them all you need is food start by using treats put one on the ground (best to be sitting on the ground to do this)and when Alby go's to take it block him just put your hand in between his nose and the treat and say leave it as you block when he backs off remove your hand and leave it open for him to try again repeat the block but on the 3rd time give him a command that tells him it's now ok to have the treat it's just a way to teach the dog not to touch something it stops a lot of dog fights before they even happen and watch your dog learn his body language so you can read him and stop him before he has a go at another dog

OK royalla-will try this leave it command with the treats. The thing is though-this came so fast and out of the blue. I have them pretty well trained for most situations, and they are both pretty obedient-and actually, Alby is more biddable probably than Jacksy normally-but jeez-this was sudden-and two days in a row! As I said, they do the usual gnarley-go nowhere but show stuff-but he followed through and just layed the poor little dogs out. I was actually watching for it on the 2nd day bu,t it happened so fast-but his heckles were up-so I guess I have to watch for that-I normally do but this was out of the blue and quick. There were heeps of other dogs milling around that day and there were no dramas with them.I think the lab and boxer were both very submissive and pups too (which made me feel really bad actualy-i will confess when I caught him I whacked him down on his back real quick and HARD-but the bugger had no shame anyway). Early on the second day the little lab was hiding behind my legs, and I gave her a pat etc.Very sweet dog. But of course muggins was lurking about and a few minutes later while she was wandering around-he just went her. That's why I thought jelousy. I'm thinking I may have to not love on these minded dogs too much and just get on and walk them while Alby is around-either that or he bloody cant come. Normally the both of them are pretty good with NO, but I didn't train them with treats, just general obedience-Alby unfortunately is not a big food freak, so it's not a major motivator for him. Unfortunately his big treat in life is being first in the queue for anything lol-even a kick up the bum-just so long as no one is ahead of him.

Don't get me wrong, these are great dogs with people, kids etc-just these two bloody pups! The upside I guess is that I caught him, then he got away and started it again. Jacksy has been trained from early on with the command "get Alby" (because Alby was an escapologist when youg)-that's what I did I called him to do that on instict and sure enough he charged over and Alby pulled himself up. So good for Big Jacksy-but I can't rely on that to not have it start in the first place. So you reckon the general "leave it" with treats works all round?

yes i think royalla is right..im currently working on leave it with raz so i can leave him off leash with other dogs, atm he would run up to and say hi to everyone, i want to be able to say leave it and have him stay with me. also when teaching leave it what im doing is im teaching him to look at me, dunno if u want to do that too. Just to break the focus he has on whatever i want him to leave. so i reward him for looking at me when i say leave it.

I think jealousy is you're issue, just watch though that the pups arent starting something, in their body language. Im not sure exactly but they could be staring at Alby directly in the eye...this is a direct challenge from them to him. so maybe u should be correcting the pup (if that is the case) it can be as simple as a puppy staring another dog down that will send them off, i've seen it happen, the dog goes nuts, and every one thinks it the dog going nuts with the issue, when in fact the little sweet puppy on the other side just issued a challenge without anyone noticing...maybe you should look up dog body language :/ thats what i did and its taught me some things :)

It sounds like Alby is a dominant dog, and is putting the pups in their place in that situation is probably what is going through Alby's mind, dog's do get protective of their owners. How dominant is Alby over Jacksy? Who do you feed first at dinner time or treat time? Maybe mix it up when feeding every now and again, try and reinforce that you are the alpha member in the pack at home. Go through doors first etc. Have him on his leash whilst walking with other dogs to start off with, do you use check chains at all, so you can correct him when he does not behave? Don't tense up though whilst he is on leash, otherwise he will back you up. Leave it is an excellent command to do.

Does Alby solicit attention from you, as in come up and asking for pats, scratching? Pushing in a lot?
Is he normally excited, anxious when walking him?
Does he jump up on you a lot or visitors?
His hackles were up indicating an aroused state, this could be fear, excitement, anxiety. By walking him with strange dogs, either puppies or adults, you are putting him in a situation that is out of his norm which could increase his stress levels (cortisol and adrenalin). This increase in stress could cause him to act out and you see the behaviour you got the other day. He may have lashed out because he was unable to move away from the stressful situation. But that is only one possible scenario. As others have mentioned it could be a jealousy type thing too.

A solid leave it is a one place to start but could I suggest that you don't allow him to have the treat on the ground at the end of the exercise but rather you give him a treat from your hand and pick up and pocket the treat on the ground. Establishing the rule: everything is mine and I give YOU the treats, they don't come off the ground until I say "get it".

Have you ever done NILIF with him?? It's a great way of establishing yourself as higher in the pecking order.
http://k9deb.com/nilif.htm

There are a number of things that could have been happening. Guesswork by internet is probably not the best way to figure out what was happening. If you are truly concerned I would suggest not walking him with the other dogs unless you have found a dog that he truly gets on with or have had a trainer/behaviourist assess him. Word of mouth is a great way for business to get off the ground and the quickest way to destroy it too unfortunately. The last thing you need is for someone to have seen an incident while you're walking dogs and report it back to the owners whether factual or not. Good luck with the dog walking business!!!

Yep, it's jelousy. I am one of those peeps who belive dogs have personality and emoyions and looks like science backs me up now http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s1723133.htm says here they have jelousy and pride. Well Alby has both-he is jelous and pushy for attention and a bloody little skite too lol. This is the dog who I cant put pet shows on the telly in case he gets argumentative.

I have no dramas at all between jacksy and Alby-they are great together. Jacksy gets fed first, and that's fine with Alby. I suspect the bottom line is Jacksy is the dominant dog but honestly-he is such a good boy he never carrys on and his behaviour out and about is impecable. They are very much a tandem team. Alby gets away with a lot of pushiness because Jacksy is calm with him because at least he knows his place. Don't get me wrong-Alby is a brilliant dog, and a ton of fun.

I guess this walking/boarding thing is new for him and he is going to have to adjust. The thing about my dogs is that normally they have my total focus and a regular routine, and I can see most nonsense coming-but this was a new situation of me giving attention to the pups in a new place. The thing is-he's so bloody quick. That was the thing-happened in a blink of an eye-the minute he worked out that pup was in the open. In a way I can laugh (because there was no major damage done) how ingenious Alby was, biding his time.

Anyway, I'm going to start reinforcing "leave it", but I really want to get into the jelousy psychology and get Alby a bit more confident in his place.

Here he is attacking poor jacksy when he was just 10 weeks old-he's never changed much, except for a bit of the fear of me lol.


I guess I am going to have to stop smooching the pups, because I am the pack leader and I shouldn't be doing that anyway-shame, they're so cute-but ce la vie.

Thanks for the suggestions. Any more ideas would be appreciated.

I do agree that dogs have emotions!!!!! I think being a social creature like us humans we must acknowledge that they are capable of emotions. But jealousy is usually stems from a presumption of some type of ownership and control over the other party. Sooooo when he pushes in and asks for a pat ask him to sit or drop first then pat him. He has to work for his cuddles! He's got to learn self control!

Blue Dog-he has to sit and shake hands before he gets a cuddle, he's always done this, but have to continue reinforcing it. The problem is the aggro and jelousy to these pups. This is new behaviour to follow through the way he did. Can't afford the vet bills, yanno.

I've sent you a pm Shaunagh!

OK, some improvement today. Firstly, I took A&J over to the new park (Queens Park in Sydney) by them selves-that was their third visit. I just let them run around and familiarise themselves, wee on every tree etc ha ha. They were pretty relaxed overall. Note, I had no other dogs with me then. Anyway, today we went with the Lab Pup. I made a point of simply keeping moving, and doing what we normally do. There was no stops to smooch the pup. Just walking and running around, focusing on the dogs. As usual there were other dogs milling around, and the little lab would get straight on her back if any came up to her. Alby pretty well ignored her. So that went well today. I think a bit more familiarity with the territory helped. As for Alby, I reckon he is quite a possesive dog, so I'm going to have to indroduce him to the fact there may be other dogs getting attention quick smart. I've been doing "leave it" with them, and have used it a couple of times on some other things like joining the neighborhood chorus of dogs up the back lane in the arvo ha ha-so far so, so good.

if my pup (raz) gets very excited and runs up and down the fence and barks when the neighbours dog goes outside...do you think i should try and tell him to leave it...what if he doesnt? do i put him in a timeout and continue till he figures it out?
Does anyone think this will work? im sick of how focused he is on the neighbour dog and kids :/

Great to hear of you're improvment Shaunagh sounds like a very positive go :)

Good on you Shaunagh! Sounds like it went really well! Just remember the "leave it" like any command can take a while to become a significant command like "sit". 3000 repetitions to hardwire!!!

Dandybrush fence running can be a tricky one. So much excitement! Haven't got time at the moment but will come back to it. If I forget remind me!

I picked the neighborhood chorus for "leave it" because it's something that is predicatble to happen about 3.30pm everyday. I don't know what triggers it-it starts with some dog way down the street-and every dog in the street then follows suit like dominos-including mine. I don't really mind it because the whole street goes off about the same time-but it was a behaviour that I could target with "leave it", and it wont hurt them to show a bit of restraint anyway ha ha.

You have to get in before the excitement starts, so when Raz's ears prick up or when he starts for the fence do a quick attention getter like "a ha" then 'leave it', Raz will pick it up quite quickly. If you are too late then you have to go over to Raz to get his attention and bring him back. It will take a bit of time but well worth the effort.

I have good dogs, when the neighbourhood dogs start up they don't even respond with barking, they listen and watch but that is about it. I use "shush" in a low voice when they bark which isn't too often, not a loud or excited voice it sounds like barking when they do bark. Though Izzy does a short howl when strange dogs come visiting, it is so funny as though it is a lamentation that she is not out there with them. Which is a lot better than what she used to do, attack through the fence!

Ok thanks...I'll give that a go, get his attention and tell him to leave it...but what if he leaves it for a second then goes to show interest again? do i just keep telling him to leave it?

The "leave it" command is one of the few commands that I use as a repeat command. So, yes, you can keep saying it! But remember the dog has to know what you mean by it for it to comply with the command.

To some extent it depends also what you do on the way your dogs signals, whether his body language indicates fear or aggression or just excitement when they are barking. Generally speaking if you can pick up on the trigger, like a door opening before the dog does, you can interrupt his behaviour by asking for another behaviour like a sit. The idea being that you are replacing the barking behaviour with quiet calm behaviour. The "leave it" can also work. But you have to get any command in as Ceejay said before the dog gets into that state that they can't listen, so when you see the head move, ears prick, but before full body movement! You can use a punisher like squirting with water but again you have to do this as soon as the dog starts barking, not after 20 secs of barking.

ok ill give it a go :/ thanks guys