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Dog Owner Thread

Elephant

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Just wanted to share some images of my pups! And see what you guys have if you have dogs.

These guys are best of friends
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First day home with the new pup and they are in harmony!
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This guy is about 10 months old here.
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This was his first day home.
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Exactly one year later and 120 pounds heavier.
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I've got two black labs, myself. This taken a few days ago while they were snoozing. One is almost 2 and the other 12.
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I don't know why...he just strikes me as trouble.

Can I ask you dog owners a dog-lovers' question ?
I frequently witness my neighbor severely abusing his dogs when he takes them for a walk.
He takes out his anger on his dogs, when they don't act how he expects.
When he's got them on a leash on a walk, if a dog goes a direction the owner disagrees with, he violently jerks the leash, which is like a neck collar, not a shoulder/body harness, so it practically chokes the dog as he yanks the whole dog full-force.

He also appears to try to train them to sit down every 15 or 20 feet of walking, and if one dog does not sit, he literally takes a tight fist and punches the dog's butt, again with full force, as a way of forcing him down in the sitting position.
He lives with his girlfriend, and I think the dogs belong to the girl, and I don't know if she's aware he does this.
When she walks them, she also disciplines them, but in a different way, using one of those electric-like buzzers to scold them.
The dogs are always walking with their tails between their legs like they're terrified.
I find this whole thing disgusting and disturbing and I want to report them. But I assume you need some kind of evidence, which I don't have.
I don't think the dogs have any visible injuries from the abuse. And I don't have a smart phone, so I don't have a way to video-record them.
Is there anything else that can be done, through whichever agency, like humane society or animal control. I just don't know how to deal with this, but it's sickening to see this repeated.
 
I can tell you that we trained our big dog with a pincher collar, and an occasional yank was necessary but his neck hair is so thick, and he's so big...we had to control him. We rarely, like almost never have to yank anymore, when we walk him he is at our side. Didn't have to do that with the beagle, he was leash trained a lot easier. I cannot tell you much about punching a dog...other than it sounds horrible and completely unnecessary.

Electric collars are a much more widely used tool than you'd think, but can be abused. We used one on my wife's trouble dog years past and it helped a bit. We only needed to hit her a handful of times with a shock, and she stopped the incessant barking. We had trouble with her barking and a neighbor that ended up in court so we had to do something, and cutting the vocal chords was not an option.

I say all that because we've used some of the tactics you describe, but never to the point of abuse. I have a good friend who trains K-9's and has taught me a lot. The methods we use, are her suggestions. And, our dogs are happy, playful, yet obedient.

However, if you truly feel those dogs are being abused, and tail between the legs can be a sign, call animal control. Don't be afraid if you're really concerned. Animal control or aspca will do something. In today's world it seems animals get better protections at times.
 
Meet Vixen.
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She was a rescue dog who had been abused before we got her.
She was terrified of people and would nip as a defence mechanism.

Took us a while to find a training technique that worked with her, but eventually she provided the answer herself.

The dog trainer we saw said that if you want to curb bad behaviour you need to provide an alternative that the dog prefers. For most dogs it's treats, but Vix is not food orientated. For her it's tennis balls.

Once we found that out training her has child's play.

One day, unprompted, she found a ball in the park and brought it to us. This started a game of fetch. We noticed that when the ball is in play she is totally focused on us. Ignores everything else.

We graduated from that to a frisbee, and whenever that was in our hands she would do anything you asked. Sit, stay, heel (although for that she started recognising the phrase “with me”), fetch, quiet etc. Now she'll obey those commands even without the promise of the ball or frisbee.

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It took time and perseverance, but we never stooped to abusing her ever.

The kind of treatment your describing Fear, feels like abuse. I'd report it if it was me. We did something similar here. My wife and I were walking Vix and came across a guy with a dog. Vixen was given the “With me” command and dutifully trotted along next to me past the other dog.

The other dog went nuts and it's owner literally started hitting it. My wife confronted him and he was rude and abusive to her and continued to physically hit the dog. So we reported him.

We never heard of anything happened but we couldn't do nothing.



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Oh and We have two cats too who Vix has a love hate relationship with lol

The one cat hates her, but the other comes on walks and joins in games of fetch [emoji2]

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Fear- my first thought is I wonder how he treats the girlfriend.

I initially recruited the help of a retired police dog trainer. All of the initial training was strictly treat-based and loaded with positive reinforcement. The treats were quickly replaced entirely with verbal and physical rewards of affection. Physical abuse of a dog is clearly a sign of a weak human. Dogs desperately want to please and be loved.

As to the reporting- without visual evidence I don't know how any investigating body could really do anything.

Knightingale- to whom did you report it to?
 
Fear- my first thought is I wonder how he treats the girlfriend.

I initially recruited the help of a retired police dog trainer. All of the initial training was strictly treat-based and loaded with positive reinforcement. The treats were quickly replaced entirely with verbal and physical rewards of affection. Physical abuse of a dog is clearly a sign of a weak human. Dogs desperately want to please and be loved.

As to the reporting- without visual evidence I don't know how any investigating body could really do anything.

Knightingale- to whom did you report it to?

We're in the UK, I think wife called the RSPCA (in the UK that's the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) and I think to the Police (I'd have to check that with her though, certainly the former.) Poor dog looked terrified, I'm not prone to violence at all, but I really wanted to punch him the same way that day.

Where we live we're surrounded by fields and there are a LOT of dog owners around here who we often meet on walks. Vix is a friendly dog with other dogs, she can sometimes still be skittish around people (we muzzle her in public just to be safe), but she loves to socialise. Most owners are really nice, but there's a few...

I don't know if you have a similar thing in the US, but here we have people that are like societies dregs. The kind that sponge of the welfare system and then spend their money on drink, cigs and drugs. They often have dogs as some kind of status symbol, usually Staffordshire Bull Terriers and maybe I'm stereotyping but this guy looked like one of those (His dog was definitely a Staffy). Didn't look like he cared about the dog at all.

It's tough because we don't know where this guy lives, we just see him in the fields behind our house sometimes, so he must be local. Haven't seen him in a while though.

When we got Vixen from the Dogs Home, the place was full of Staffy's that were either unwanted or had been taken away from irresponsible owners. We almost had one of those, but I have a soft spot for Collies and fell in love with Vixen the minute we saw her. She was so scared and timid, we just knew that she was the dog we needed to save.
 
I don't know if you have a similar thing in the US, but here we have people that are like societies dregs. The kind that sponge of the welfare system and then spend their money on drink, cigs and drugs. They often have dogs as some kind of status symbol, usually Staffordshire Bull Terriers and maybe I'm stereotyping but this guy looked like one of those (His dog was definitely a Staffy). Didn't look like he cared about the dog at all.

Boy, do we. Too many to count with a calculator. Most seem to have a predilection for some form of the pit bull.
 
How big is your dog now El?

At slightly over 2 years, he weighs in at a slim 148. Standing on his hind legs he is every bit of 6ft.

The thing I am most impressed with this breed is that he is so agile.

Here's a pic with my soon to one 7 yr old son.

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Wow, biggun. He's ready for a spiked collar to watch over the homestead now!

Wife has already agreed that our next dogs will be kangals and or alabai's. Absolutely love my nards but damn 8 years isn't long enough with a pet.
 
Wow, biggun. He's ready for a spiked collar to watch over the homestead now!

Wife has already agreed that our next dogs will be kangals and or alabai's. Absolutely love my nards but damn 8 years isn't long enough with a pet.

Yeah, Anatolians have a life expectancy of 12 years...one of the longest among big breeds.
 
Cute pup Chris, is it a barker? My wifes Yorkie is and a royal pain in the ass, like owning a barking weasel
 
Knight your dog looks like it has fun a lot, little ham.
 

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