no money is not the problem but i dont know how his insurance would work for another family,i pay £35 a month to kennel club and his heart op is going to cost £4,000 and thge stay in edinburgh for four days even longer if he needs pace maker.

It doesn't matter how his insurance works out for another family, that won't be your problem once you rehome him. If he is homed with someone who knows his history & is prepared to deal with his health problem then cost is not going to be an issue for them and it shouldn't be an excuse for you to keep a dog you can't find time for.

Now that you have revealed you have other serious issues within the family i am even more certain you need to rehome him because you just can't give this dog the time and attention he needs & it is already having a detrimental effect on him. I don't know if you are clinging on out of guilt or stubborn-ness but i think you need to start being realistic about this. You know you cannot give this dog the training he needs & it seems that you are not prepared to try to find the time this dog needs yet you still want to carry on flogging a proverbial dead horse. As much as i sympathise with your domestic problems surely you can find 45 minutes out of your day for a traing class?

You seem to be making constant excuses of why you can't take him to traing classes and why you can't rehome him and that to me does not show a willingness on your part to give this dog what he needs. If your domestic situation makes it that impossible to give Dougal the time and effort he needs then i am afraid you are not being very fair to him.

I think it's time to stop making excuses and either give him the time he so desperately needs or give him to someone else who has got the time & money to help him. The whole point of getting a dog is that you have spare time in your life to accomodate them, you don't seem to even have a few minutes of your time to offer a dog and it is because of this that you are having all these problems with him. You get out of a dog what you put into it & you can't even put in one training class a week for this dog.

If you think it's bad now then just wait til he hits adolescence & gets 1000 times worse,then you'll wish you did something sooner.

whatever who are you to judge what i can and cant do ,i dont make excuses for nothing now im leaving champdogs so you will have to get up early to critise someone else tomorrow after all you only have one star bye

Ali - I'm not judging you - I think you have a lot on your plate at the moment and maybe it isn't the best time for you to be trying to raise this puppy together with everything else you have on your plate - please either get in touch with Lucy or Kay - they are both very experienced lab people.

Obviously the first call on your time at the moment has to be your daughter - you will be doing the best thing for all of your family - including Dougal - if you let him go to experienced people who can get the best out of what is obviously a very strong-willed puppy.   There is absolutely nothing to feel bad about in handing him on - you have done your best as far as you can.   Maybe, once your daughter has stabilised you can think about getting another puppy.   Obviously it will go very hard with her - I do understand that.

You've asked for advice and help and the advice your are getting from all of us is the same - and there are people here who can help you.

By alimacwicks   Date 19.07.09 18:58 GMT  whatever who are you to judge what i can and cant do ,i dont make excuses for nothing now im leaving champdogs so you will have to get up early to critise someone else tomorrow after all you only have one star bye

Excuse me? How many times have i already said i am not judging you? I only have 1 star?? Remind me, how old are you? You haven't stopped making excuses from the start & we can only go by the information you give us, which frankly makes you sound totally incompetant anyway.

You clearly haven't got a clue about dogs, you didn't research the breeder or the bloodlines you were buying into, you didn't even think about how you were going to cope with a puppy when you already had enough problems & you can't even be bothered to train it. Instead we get excuse after excuse from you and it doesn't seem to matter how much people try to help you find a way to resolve this you just make even more excuses about why you CAN'T train him or CAN'T rehome him.There are not really many other conclusions one can draw if your performance with this poor dog so far is anything to go by.

Maybe you should take him back to the breeder and buy a Budgerigar instead. Good luck with the poor dog anyway. 

Deleted.....

Hi Alimackwicks,

Clearly you are struggling and having a really difficult time at the moment I hope you come back to at least read through some of the relies again as inbetween the more blunt replies are some really helpful suggestions.  There has been some good advice with regards to a plan of action and if you can't give him the time he needs which is going to be significant then the suggestion to rehome him may be the best bet for both you and him.  He reall need to go to training classes and if he can do quite a lot of exercise on the advise of the specialists then he is definitely capable of going to classes, If he wasn't  able to go on the odd week I'm sure the instructor would understand if you explained his health problems.

I know you love him but there are times when you obviously feel very stressed with him and don't like him/his behaviour and this will undoubtedly affect the way he responds to you.  Sometimes really loving a dog means putting them before yourself and that may mean admitting that he could have a better life with someone who has more time and less stress already in their life, hard as it would be to let him go it would be a selfless thing to do.

You could discuss the insurance side of things with the insurance company as it's completely understandable that you would want to know a new home would have the financial side of his health covered.  If you do decide to go the rehoming route then many rescue will happily rehome the dog from home so you would be able to meet prospective new owners and know he was home with you in the meantime rather than in kennels.

I don't understand why threads like this always end up this way, the majority of us all know that positive teaching/handling/training works much better with dogs than being punishing, it's the same with people.  So often people on here dissapear, at the expense of the dog because they feel judged or criticised.  I just can't understand after it was explained that personal circumstances are difficult at home why people would continue to make personal comments that really weren't going to help.

Alimackwick, maybe consider at least pming/calling the lady on here who offered help just to discuss the options with regards to rehoming so you can have all the info you need to make a decision about where to go from here

>If you do decide to go the rehoming route then many rescue will happily rehome the dog from home so you would be able to meet prospective new owners and know he was home with you in the meantime rather than in kennels.

Just pointing out that it's very unlikely that a reputable rescue society would allow propective adopters to meet the relinquishing owner. Even when the dog remains in its current home until a new owner is found, all interviews and assessments will be carried out by neutral people on behalf of the rescue. When a suitable new home is found a rescue representative will collect the dog and deliver him to his new family, with all evidence of his previous home (name tag, papers etc) remaining with the rescue society and all owner details erased or obscured on his vet record card.

> he comes into living room growls grabs your hands in his mouth and grips firmly,we try to tell him off but he gets worse,

You've had a lot of replies, but I'd like to go back to your original post. This alone is enough for Dougal to not learn what you want from him. Reward based training is the most effective training. To help make reward based training possible, you need to set the dog up for success in the first place, so you re-direct the dog into doing somthing you can praise them for (ie, show them what you do want), rather than tell them off for somthing you don't want them to do.
In the case of play-biting, if you re-direct them onto a toy, they can then learn what they can do with thier natural urges to bite & mouth, and please you at the same time. If you are simply telling pup off for the bad behaviour, they don't know what they can do with thier bite & mouthing urges, they still have the urges and need to play, so telling them off is pretty futile, as unless you are prepared to be cruel & illegal in order to supress the urges, you will not be likey to come up with an aversive that is strong enough against the exited urges to play-bite/mouth you. So, in short - telling them off does NOT work.

When re-directing him onto a toy, play with him, don't just give him a toy to play with by himself.
Sometimes he will be too exited to learn anything when he's play-biting, so a time out will allow him to calm down while teaching him that being 'silly' does not get him a good game.

This is pretty much what has been said to you in many posts, but I hoped that by trying to word it a little different you may get the idea.
In order to keep Dougal and help him grow into a lovely adult dog that you have dreamed of, you have to understand him and understand that every thing you do will effect his behaviour. If you have had a bad day, you can't expect him to give you some space, you still need to put a lot of effort into him, into staying patient. Lead by exampe, if you want a calm, gentle understanding dog, be a calm, gentle understanding owner.
You really have to be 100% commited to trainig Dougal (even when you are worn out and are busy with other things) without using anything as an excuse.
If you really can't take him to training classes, invest in some good books that will give you a better understanding of canine behaviour and reward-based training (hopefully somebody can recomend some good books?). Getting in a good behvaiourist to help you should also be given a lot of serious thought.

You have allready seen a behaviourist what have they suggested you do to manage/re-direct/change this beheviour?

I don't own a dog with serious heart conditions, but I see some at work, and I know what their owners are able to do with them.

My Rufus has such a bad heart no vet can understand how he is even alive. When he was first diagnosed I stopped training him at classes, but he was bored out of his mind at home (and a bored dog is impossible to live with!), so I started again. He passed his Good Citizen GOLD test with his heart really bad. He's now 14 ½ and has been very, very ill indeed a few times, latest just a couple of weeks ago, but I still insist on him doing as told (as so much is pure SAFETY and being able to live with a dog in harmony -I don't want him stealing food off the table for instance and he still tries) and if anything being given commands clears his head and he's more likely to be unwell when he's just resting I've noticed.

THis is a little bit harsh

What's harsh in pointing out that quality of life always takes precedence over quantity? Even very sick dogs are happier with structure in their lives, and deserve to receive the training they need to enable them to interact harmoniously with us.

This poor lady sounds at her wit's end with stress, which she doesn't deserve, and neither does anyone or anything else.

No i agree with you that the poster has a hell of a lot on her plate, and she should seriously consider rehoming if she cannot give the dog the input he seriously needs.
But just thought one posters post was a little harsh.

Yes, so did I .... there are ways of putting things....

To alimacwicks

I hope you do come back, although I also think some comments directed at you were downright rude and inexcuseable.  For what its worth when I had my last dog from a puppy I had a hell of time with her behaviour when she was young (not quite the same problems your having but pretty bad and expensive!) 

I think the last post from Mastifflover was very good and you should definately pay attention to the HELPFUL advice you get here.  For me taking my Rosie to training classes did make a big difference to my relationship with her even though I had trained all my other dogs myself at home previously.  I would highly recomend clicker training because as Mastifflover says its about showing the dog what to do, not punishing it when it does the wrong thing.  What I found with Rosie that made her harder than any other dog I trained was that she would just shutdown and go stupid if I told her off, she just never listened so corrections rarely had any good effect.  Rewarding good behaviour was the best way and she really took to clicker training, she is much happier because she is using her brain and because I can communicate with her in a way she is able to understand.  I know there are a lot of websites covering clicker training so perhaps you could look into them if can't get to training classes, I think the name of the woman behind popularising clicker training is Karen Pryor.

>But just thought one posters post was a little harsh.

Sorry, it wasn't clear which post you were replying to. I thought you were responding to Marianne's post about her own dog with a very bad heart. My mistake!

Yes I still don't understand what post it was in reference to. I hoped it wasn't saying I was harsh on Rufus! He'd disagree a lot LOL. 

> Sorry, it wasn't clear which post you were replying to. I thought you were responding to Marianne's post about her own dog with a very bad heart

I should have quoted

No sorry Marianne, not you oops Sorry Rufus!! LOL

To alimacwicks

I hope you do come back, although I also think some comments directed at you were downright rude and inexcuseable.

You'll have to excuse me for having more pity for the dog than it's owner in this situation but personally i find what the dog has been subjected to for the last 6 months inexcusable. I think a lot of you are having your valuable time wasted by the OP who has made it crystal clear that she just isn't going to take this dog to training classes full stop no matter how many times you tell her she needs to, although she can find the time to go trecking for 7 miles with the dog when it suits her and that is the problem in my opinion, it just doesn't suit her.
If someone wanted that badly do do something they would have done it long before now. I don't see even a flicker of committment on the part of the OP to try and do the right thing by this dog and if being honest about how i feel about the poor dog stuck in the middle of this is so unpalatable for you then that's just too bad. I am more concerned about the completly unnecessary mental suffering of this dog who is being deprived of the one thing he needs more than anything because every solotion given to ihis owner has been met by a brick wall of resistance & refusal to make any compromise whatsoever. You are entitled to find my comments unfair just as I am entitled to find what the OP is doing to this dog unfair.

On that note i wont say any more.

Just to put the record straight regarding the claim made by the behaviourist that Dougal's behaviour was down to 'bad breeding'. A couple of breed experts have looked at his pedigree and in fact he's from excellent lines, with very good health results.

Just pointing out that it's very unlikely that a reputable rescue society would allow propective adopters to meet the relinquishing owner. Even when the dog remains in its current home until a new owner is found, all interviews and assessments will be carried out by neutral people on behalf of the rescue. When a suitable new home is found a rescue representative will collect the dog and deliver him to his new family, with all evidence of his previous home (name tag, papers etc) remaining with the rescue society and all owner details erased or obscured on his vet record card.

If you mean by reputable, nationally recognised then maybe so.  I like some of the smaller rescues presicely because they don't have blanket rules.  I can see why some would choose not to allow potential adopters to meet at the original owners home, however there are times when it can be beneficial. Like I say I don't know about the larger rescues as I haven't been involved with them but a lot of smaller rescues do work this way and are reputable in that they home and vet check, neuter, microchip and offer full rescue back up for the life of the animal.  I've worked with several small rescues some of which do allow potential adopters to meet the dog with the family in a neutral place (and a couple where circumstances have dictated in the home).

Just to put the record straight regarding the claim made by the behaviourist that Dougal's behaviour was down to 'bad breeding'. A couple of breed experts have looked at his pedigree and in fact he's from excellent lines, with very good health results.

Can I ask why this has been put on here - did the op mention the breeder by name?  I can understand whuy the record would need to be put straight if that was the case.  Other wise it seems a sure fire way of ensuring the op doesn't come back to get the support she and Dougal clearly need.

> Can I ask why this has been put on here - did the op mention the breeder by name?  I can understand whuy the record would need to be put straight if that was the case.  Other wise it seems a sure fire way of ensuring the op doesn't come back to get the support she and Dougal clearly need.

For a behaviourist to state that Dougals behaviour is down to bad breeding (& I do believe this was said over the 'phone when the OP rang for advice), without even having any blood tests (to rule out medical causes such as thyroid problems), says a lot about the behaviourist. JG's statement gives a little more credence to the thought that the behaviourist is probably not such a good behaviourist afterall.
I'm not sure if the breeder has been mentioned on another thread.

It would be very interesting if the OP would tell us what measures the behaviourist has suggested for Dougals behaviour. I do wonder wheather the advice from said behaviorist may have actually worsened Dougals behvaiour, or at the least, left the OP thinking that there is nothing anybody can do about Dougals behavior

hi yes i agree he is from excellent lines,that was reason we bought him,after i had gone on their websites,we are going to contact a trainer to sort classes,we have done a lot of training with dougal this wkd based on what a lot of posts have said(not the harsh ones i cant see past them),the whole family have been going to the fields to help with his recall and playing chase.he has been in living room for last three nights i have sat on floor with him to keep him calm and he has been brilliant ,i really cant part with him,i have sent a message to lady from lab rescue to say we are going to get him trained and if there was not improvement then i would contact her i have given her my email address,i wasnt going to come back on here as flyball was a bit to harsh and i dont come on here for that but been nosy thought i would see if anyone had commented to my post to flyball.you are so helpful and i know ive made you all a bit irate but sometimes its hard to put your self across on message i.e by saying i hate him has put everyone up in arms but trust me i dont,he is like one of the children maybe thats where ive gone wrong the behaviourist said ive let him off with too much.we will take your advise.

For a behaviourist to state that Dougals behaviour is down to bad breeding (& I do believe this was said over the 'phone when the OP rang for advice), without even having any blood tests (to rule out medical causes such as thyroid problems), says a lot about the behaviourist

Thank for explaining - I hadn't realised a behaviourist had said that much less over the phone.

Glad you've had a good few days - Sounds like you've been having fun with him while training which is the best way to get results.  Keep up the work and I'm sure you'll all benefit immensely.

i have not mentioned the breeder in my posts as im not that harsh i have given it to a couple of experts who wanted to check his lines and the heart surgeons in edinburgh haveall his  papers as his condition according to them is genetic.there has been times when i could have put her name on here as she makes me mad as she doesnt want to know and hasnt from week after we got him.

>" hi yes i agree he is from excellent lines"

That is good - shows that the problem is not, as your behavourist has suggested, genetic.   But you do go on to say "she doesnt want to know and hasnt from week after we got him" - and here I would say - shame on her!   I don't want to know her name - that's not necessary - but it does show that sadly dogs from good lines can find themselves in what can only be described as "Backyard breeders" - those who "only want her to have one litter".

Ali, I do hope that you and the family can work together to turn Dougal into the dog that he deserves to be - and if after trying your best, you find you cannot do it, then that you will contact Kay or Lucy.

Good luck!

thanks lokis mum,she does breed her dogs once a year and yes the heart specialist in edinburgh say his heart      condition is genetic,the behaviourist is the one that says his behaviour could be down to his breeding which can causeexcessive boysteriousness and health problems.

>the heart specialist in edinburgh say his heart condition is genetic

Did he say congenital or hereditary?

>If you mean by reputable, nationally recognised then maybe so.

I'm talking about a small breed-specific rescue.

>i have sent a message to lady from lab rescue to say we are going to get him trained and if there was not improvement then i would contact her

That's excellent. We all want the best for both your family and Dougal. It won't be quick or easy, but it'll be so very, very worth it.

> the whole family have been going to the fields to help with his recall and playing chase.he has been in living room for last three nights i have sat on floor with him to keep him calm and he has been brilliant

FANTASTIC

It sounded like you had no more patience left for Dougal, well done for digging deep & putting the effort in It's brilliant to hear of so much progress so soon, I am soooooo happy for you and Dougal
Don't be put off if he suddenly gets bad again, just keep at it.
Please keep us all updated, I'm looking forward to hearing some happy tales of how proud you are of him in the future

Good luck with Dougal, you sound loads more positive, it will be hard work but so worth it in the end.

Best wishes

hi in beginning the vet said it was congenital but edinburgh who are the heart surgeons well human heart surgeons are doing op they said genetic was a bit shocked when he said waiting to hear of them with date dougal due in as they only do a dog a month as the human surgeons are only ones able to do it and they have to all be off at same time they normally do it on tuesday evening, so will double check when speak to the vet up there.

we are going to phone tomorrow to dig it dogs training near us to go and see them and get him started in doggy training,he is still doing good ,well he had mad moment half hr ago so he has gone to his crate for quiet moment.lol.will keep you all informed of how its going especially with training,would put happy face on but dont know how you do it lol

> get him started in doggy training

great stuff (you can do a smiley face by typing : ) but without the space between them)

I'm so pleased at how positive you sound now.
Keep up the good work