As you guys know I adopted a american bulldog last week and she is awesome …for the most part lol. At this point she is potty trained and sorta crate trained. she does tend to start whining in the crate but i think she is starting to get used to it. The thing i am having trouble with is getting her to heal properly and be more calm on the leash. THis dog is fawking strong and god forbid my moms, sis decides to visit and wants to walk the furball. Any advice or ideas would be awesome thanks.
time and patience, and i’m sure if you google it you will get 900 techniques, but it is not something that comes quick.
Hey man I just got an american bulldog too, he’s 14 weeks. Also being crate trained. It took 2 weeks and now he’s pretty good with it, 95% of the time. First week I kept the crate in whatever room i slept. Now he’s good in any room. I usually cover the crate with a blanket at night and he goes to sleep regardless of what’s going on.
Edit: I haven’t had any problems with the leash yet, but I have a leash with a second handle in the middle, which keeps him walking at my side, and he can’t get any momentum.
For getting the dog leash trained go to petsmart or petco and get a gentle leader. It goes over the snout of the dog and the leash hooks to a clasp underneath the snout of the dog. When the dog pulls you with it on it forces the dog to turn its head towards you. My wife and I had issues with both our dogs and this gentle leader worked great!
As for the rest, just remain consistent with what you want the dog to do and be patient. Good luck and congrats on the new dog!
Consistency is key Like JRubino said, the dog will never know what you want it to do if you tell it to do different things all the time. They are creatures of habit and learn from repetition.
Also as far as crate training making the crate as dark as possible tends to help because a dogs natural instinct is to have a den in a small dark space. Also if you have an old t-shirt or something that you don’t care about wear it for a couple days or sleep a few nights in it so it gets your scent on it and throw it in the crate with the dog. Also big Kong toys stuffed with frozen peanut butter takes the dogs mind off of being in the crate. And the fact that its frozen takes a little longer for them to work on it. Also it starts associating the cage with rewards which is a positive thing.
I have a dog with severe separation anxiety and this seemed to help the most with leaving her in the crate while noone was with her.
Getting to calm your dog down on a leash takes a bit of time, but the trick that usually works (was shown this for our dog when she did training) is when taking her for a walk everytime she pulls do a 180 and go the opposite way, but do it smoothly don’t stop. You will look like a fool walking back and forth every 10 feet but the dog will slowly pick up on it, also another trick is when going for a walk bring a treat that will really get the dogs attention, like a piece of hot dog in your hand that way you can use it to make the dog maintain eye contact with you. Biggest thing is don’t continue to let the dog pull because it will get into the habit of thinking its ok and then the only thing that generally helps is old age and the dog finally calms down.
We use one of the harnesses that goes around our shepherds chest and the helps quite a bit. When he starts to pull the way the harness fits it pulls his front legs off the ground. Took a few times, but he figured it out and walks easily now.
Thankyou everyone for the advice. It is going to be a lot of work but the furball is worth it. Today I tried using awards with the changing direction when she is distracted. I own the harness for her and it does seem to help her.
i let my german shepherd pull me for about 10 mile while i was on the bike and loaded him down with his own water/cargo…hes retarded. everyonce in a while if he feel like pulling, go ahead pup, pull away!
