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I bought my troubled boy from a friend, that got him from a breeder. She sells the pups locally. I asked too many questions and is no longer talking to me. I've contacted another person that also got a pup from her, and she also has not received papers as promised(and the dog is almost 2). My neighbor has another dog from her, but the dog is listed that its owned by her rather than my neighbor that actually owns him. Is there anyway the association could look up the dog by the owner so I could try to find out more information? 

Trainers are asking where he came from, what were his parents like..and I have no idea. I only bought him because she was my friend and I didn't think she would buy puppies from a puppymill, but I feel like that may be the case

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27 minutes ago, Journey said:

Is the neighbors dog related? If so, the owner and/or breeder of the dam should be your dogs breeder. Of you have that info could be someone here can tell you info..

I only have the dogs names and their owners. The two owners I contacted, all the dogs share a father. I have one picture of mom that's not that great..and I was told the breeder is in NY. That's all I know

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I'm just thinking out loud here and it's entirely possible there may be nothing you can do about this . . . other than perhaps contacting local authorities about the fraud that this person is perpetrating on unsuspecting buyers.

But I wonder if you might be able to contact ABCA and give them all the details you know -- name of person who sold you the pup, names of others who've gotten pups from her and any pedigree information you can glean from anyone at all. I don't know that they'd be able to do anything about it, but at the very least they may be able to block registrations from this "breeder." Dunno if they do that or not, but if I were in this situation I'd at least be looking into alerting whomever I could about it.

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10 hours ago, GentleLake said:

I'm just thinking out loud here and it's entirely possible there may be nothing you can do about this . . . other than perhaps contacting local authorities about the fraud that this person is perpetrating on unsuspecting buyers.

But I wonder if you might be able to contact ABCA and give them all the details you know -- name of person who sold you the pup, names of others who've gotten pups from her and any pedigree information you can glean from anyone at all. I don't know that they'd be able to do anything about it, but at the very least they may be able to block registrations from this "breeder." Dunno if they do that or not, but if I were in this situation I'd at least be looking into alerting whomever I could about it.

When looking up things on the abca, it doesnt really seem they regulate anything. They can put you on a list that's a "high volume" breeder, as genetics, temperament and health issues may not be considered as high priority at time of breeding.

The breeder is supposed to check on the pups for any issues as they grow that may deter them from breeding the parents in the future, and take the pup back at any point in its life for any reason.

It also mentions the breeder is required to sell the puppies themselves,and are not to use a "broker"(which in my case happened)

I just wanted to learn more about where he came from and shed some light on why he may be the way he is. It honestly may not even matter all that much in the grand scheme of things, just that he gets the help and training he requires in hope he wont always be this way. If he is, I'll just sum it up to a poor decision on my husband's part for wanting him and live with the consequences of not finding a legit breeder

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Just my two cents and perhaps not applicable however my ex was adopted and it was very important to her to find out who her biological parents were along with accompanying medical conditions, personalities, general understanding of where she came from.  What I learned from the time we were together is that in reality it kind of doesn't matter because none of those factors would change what is. 

Let me explain.  Even if your dog's parent's were wacky or calm or had all the health problems in the world or none, treatment of the dog and training of the dog is based on what is present in that particular dog, not on what the dog's lineage might have told.  Any good vet will check the dog based on the facts presented based on their testing and analyzing.  If those tests present the need for further investigation those steps will be taken.  The same goes for training:  It is not useful in training to know how the parent's behaved.  Training is individual and a good trainer will adapt and change their techniques based on the results gained or loss.  I've never seen or experienced myself in training the need to halt training until a background check could be conducted.  :huh:  Dogs live in the present and we should be living in the present. 

An example would be if the sire was a nipper.  If your dog nips, it won't be productive to know the father nipped.  We deal with what the dog is displaying and modify techniques accordingly.  I don't know what could be done with the knowledge that dad nipped.  Interesting to know but not helpful.  The same could be said for health.  That same sire could have bad hips.  So what?  If your dog has bad hips we treat that dog for the bad hips.  Treatment wouldn't be changed based on dad's bad hips.  Again, interesting but not helpful. 

I think it's easy to put more weight on a dog's history than is reasonably necessary. 

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8 hours ago, DSG said:

Just my two cents and perhaps not applicable however my ex was adopted and it was very important to her to find out who her biological parents were along with accompanying medical conditions, personalities, general understanding of where she came from.  What I learned from the time we were together is that in reality it kind of doesn't matter because none of those factors would change what is. 

Let me explain.  Even if your dog's parent's were wacky or calm or had all the health problems in the world or none, treatment of the dog and training of the dog is based on what is present in that particular dog, not on what the dog's lineage might have told.  Any good vet will check the dog based on the facts presented based on their testing and analyzing.  If those tests present the need for further investigation those steps will be taken.  The same goes for training:  It is not useful in training to know how the parent's behaved.  Training is individual and a good trainer will adapt and change their techniques based on the results gained or loss.  I've never seen or experienced myself in training the need to halt training until a background check could be conducted.  :huh:  Dogs live in the present and we should be living in the present. 

An example would be if the sire was a nipper.  If your dog nips, it won't be productive to know the father nipped.  We deal with what the dog is displaying and modify techniques accordingly.  I don't know what could be done with the knowledge that dad nipped.  Interesting to know but not helpful.  The same could be said for health.  That same sire could have bad hips.  So what?  If your dog has bad hips we treat that dog for the bad hips.  Treatment wouldn't be changed based on dad's bad hips.  Again, interesting but not helpful. 

I think it's easy to put more weight on a dog's history than is reasonably necessary. 

I guess it was more a question by the one trainer if the pup will be trainable. He said if the parents were crazy, than it's probably genetic and there isnt much that can be done. He said he may be able to get a 40% good response..and 60% he'll just always react the way he does. If this is the case, I'm not going to try to fix it and waste the money on a trainer.  

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15 hours ago, reploidphoenix said:

I guess it was more a question by the one trainer if the pup will be trainable. He said if the parents were crazy, than it's probably genetic and there isnt much that can be done. He said he may be able to get a 40% good response..and 60% he'll just always react the way he does. If this is the case, I'm not going to try to fix it and waste the money on a trainer.

To me, the point is not why the dog behaves the way it does. The only pertinent thing is whether or not the behavior is good, healthy, desirable, or not. If it is not, train the dog to behave differently. Period.

Any trainer who says "there's not much that can be done" is not, in my opinion, a trainer worth paying or listening to for a minute. That is a cop-out on the part of the trainer, who is saying that because she/he doesn't know what do do.

Just train the dog. Virtually anything can be trained into or out of virtually any dog with sufficient time, patience, 100% consistency and commitment. I just keep at it, no matter how long it takes, and eventually the training takes.

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16 hours ago, reploidphoenix said:

I guess it was more a question by the one trainer if the pup will be trainable. He said if the parents were crazy, than it's probably genetic and there isnt much that can be done. He said he may be able to get a 40% good response..and 60% he'll just always react the way he does. If this is the case, I'm not going to try to fix it and waste the money on a trainer.  

My very amateur behaviorist-leaning mind thinks that ANYTHING with a nervous system is trainable. Training techniques need to be adapted to fit the individual. Did the trainer who made the statement about 'if it's genetic he'll always be crazy' offer any specific behavior he saw in your dog that made him make that statement? What do YOU see that makes you believe this behavior is genetic in origin?

I can only echo what Gentle Lake & DSG said: You work with what's in front of you. I got a semi-feral bc who had been in rescue for over a year. She was beautiful, had been treated very, very badly in her first home, and was pretty nuts. The rescue had given her good food, good shelter, vetted her, and she had companionship in the form of another dog who had been in the very, very bad situation with her. His personality was pretty stable. Hers, as I said, was nuts.

The first trainer I took her to told me the same thing when I trotted out her sad story. "Work with her where she is and quit focusing on her past." It's the best advice I could have ever gotten about training her.

Get started. Get some basic dog training books, read them, apply/adapt them as needed. Yes, your dog will need some accommodation as to specifics. ALL training situations call for some accommodation. Talk to another trainer or 3. Take him to classes and work off to the side if that's suitable for this dog. There are a couple threads going now that talk about that very thing.

If his genetics gave him enough brain to learn anything, then harness that. He'll probably surprise you in his capacities. We ALL have limitations, we learn to work around them.

Ruth & Gibbs

 

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On 10/9/2018 at 11:23 AM, DSG said:

An example would be if the sire was a nipper.  If your dog nips, it won't be productive to know the father nipped.  We deal with what the dog is displaying and modify techniques accordingly.  I don't know what could be done with the knowledge that dad nipped.  Interesting to know but not helpful. [Snip]

I think it's easy to put more weight on a dog's history than is reasonably necessary. 

Just a bit of a quibble with this. I train stock dogs, and although I train the dog in front of me and adjust my methods to the individual, I also use my knowledge of an individual dog's bloodlines to inform myself of behaviors to be aware of, to not exacerbate, to be prepared to mitigate. For example, the first border collie I raised from puppyhood and trained to work was a naturally wide running dog. I was a novice handler/trainer when I started her and I made mistakes as all newbies do. I probably could have mitigated the wide running through training so that although she had the tendency I would have had the means to correct it on the fly, so to speak, as needed. As it was I had to live with my mistake and work around the tendency (which became habit) to run wide. Later I started two of her pups. The joke was that they started as "bowling balls with alligator teeth"--straight up the middle, no wide outrun in sight. But I knew their mother well and over time had seen lots of close relatives, so I knew what the genetics created, and that was a tendency to run wide (along with a bunch of other things, but I'll leave those off for simplicity). Many trainers would automatically push out/widen a too-tight youngster, but knowing what I knew about the genetics, the family tendencies, I chose to let it go and as the youngsters gained experience the bowling ball stopped and the normal outruns developed. Then, right at age 3, BOTH of those youngsters started to kick really wide when leaving my feet to go gather stock. Having more experience than I had with their mother, I was ready to train a call in so that I could manage the tendency. I realize that this discussion is about pet dogs, but just wanted to point out that at least when training for the purpose for which a breed was created one absolutely wants to consider the genetic heritage that comes along with the pup or dog you're training because knowing what the dog might be inclined to do in various situations can save a lot of headaches and training mistakes....

J.

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Dogs are experts at picking up on intention, emotion of others - other dogs, and People.  What I know for sure is that YOU have to decide IF YOU, not a trainer, can help this dog figure out life it is not a black hole full of wicked, scary stuff.  YOU have to be confident, you have take charge.  You have to walk through every day and show him there is NO reason to act like some monster is around every corner going to eat him.  You have to let him know that lunging and growling and biting to scare things away before they come close and eat him is not going to fly.  If you can not he needs to go to a place where they can help him.

Will it be easy - NO. Is it rocket science NO Will you make mistakes YES. are you going to scar him for life??? Only if you believe this scared, timid pup will always be like this and can't be helped.

He doesn't want to be afraid of everything.  Show him it is no big deal.  Start inside the house, yard.  Show him what behavior you want.  Take him for a walk, let him sit and think and understand.  Take him to the park, sit on a bench out of the way a bit and tie him to that bench so he has a very little place to go.  Let him watch people, see bikes and kids and balls...correct with a Hey enough of that if he is doing something wrong.  Reassure, encourage if he is sitting nice.  Do it 5 min then 10, then longer...take small steps forward.

Contact border colllie rescue close to you and see if they have someone you could join for walks that has some experience with fearful dogs.  Just walk, don't ask for much.  Let him get used to other person and dog.  Another confident dog in his life will add confidence for him.

It really doesn't matter why or what or if something happened.  Take baby steps.  Believe in yourself and your dog.  You would not shut a scared child away from everything and believe they couldn't change.  You would expose them slowly, slow them you are confident...be very matter of fact and just do it. 

That is what he needs  YOU have to change before his behavior will.

 

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I took him to a 4th trainer today that seemed very knowledgeable. While i was reluctant because they primarily use e-collar training, they had alot of good insight. 
His past experience with the breeder, whether it be genetic or not didn't help. Then this broker picked him up and took him from his mother. He absolutely LOVED her. Then she sold him to me about a week or two later. When i bought him, it just added to the insecurity and instability in his life. From what they could tell at the training facility, they said i have to show him that i can be the leader he needs and nothing bad will happen in my presence..that i have to take charge.

They use e-collars to get his attention when he goes over threshold to have him refocus on me and look to me in situations that scare him, and reward his attention to me. They said he's honestly just insecure and needs his confidence lifted. Since he's showing no signs of aggression, they have every bit of faith it can be fixed easily by showing him better ways to cope with what scares him by looking to me. The trainer even put the e-collar on my wrist to give an example what it feels like. They said they also usually pad the collar since border collies are very sensitive, and they use 4 prongs instead of 2 to disperse the stimulation.
 

I'm glad there's hope. He's such a sweet tempered dog. Was kissing the ladies to death 

Thank you everyone for your responses and help!

wellington.jpg

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1 hour ago, reploidphoenix said:

...While i was reluctant because they primarily use e-collar training, they had alot of good insight. 

IMO you're right to be reluctant, and even more. I know there are people here who use shock collars and think they're fine. I'm not one of them and I would never, ever use one on a fearful or anxious dog. You're more likely to make the fear worse and there are studies showing their use can increase aggression. If you want me to, I can post some links.

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I would never, ever use a shock collar, no matter how "mild" it is, on a fearful or reactive dog. Never.

It is not, in my opinion, the right approach and is not going to help the dog to understand there is nothing to fear when he is with you. How does a shock (however "mild") help him to understand that nothing will hurt him? :blink:

In my opinion, e-collars are only to be used in extreme situations, when all else has failed, and the problem has reached or come close to a life-or-death situation for the dog. Any use short of that is overkill. And it should never be used on a fearful dog.

Your dog, you will do what you like. But I think that trainer is on the wrong path entirely. 

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I've never used an e-collar so not experienced with it, but I do know a bit about dogs and training and my instinct is to not use it on a fearfull dog as it can make things much worse by scaring him even worse. There are many thechniques for building confidence that don't include something that may backfire.

On the other hand, I do know some trainers use it on very low settings, not as a correction but as an attettion getter, and that sounds as what your training is proposing. It can work if it is well done, the risk is if it isn't. If you decide to go with it, just be very aware of your boy's reactions and attitude. Remember he may seem calm and compliant but in fact be just shut down. Best of luck.

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2 hours ago, teresaserrano said:

I've never used an e-collar so not experienced with it, but I do know a bit about dogs and training and my instinct is to not use it on a fearfull dog as it can make things much worse by scaring him even worse. There are many thechniques for building confidence that don't include something that may backfire.

On the other hand, I do know some trainers use it on very low settings, not as a correction but as an attettion getter, and that sounds as what your training is proposing. It can work if it is well done, the risk is if it isn't. If you decide to go with it, just be very aware of your boy's reactions and attitude. Remember he may seem calm and compliant but in fact be just shut down. Best of luck.

They were saying it is to be used on lower settings to grab attention only. Not to punish. I cant keep him below threshold because hes triggered by diff things on diff days. They said by the time I'm trying to get his attention,  hes alreast off the deep end and too focused on what is scaring him.

It's not ment to break him down as some trainers would do(the state of helplessness). I asked lots of questions and brought up my own concerns about their training. They have a high success rate with aggressive and reactive dogs. I will be doing the training myself under their guidance. I will not be leaving him there as a board and train

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1 hour ago, reploidphoenix said:

They have a high success rate with aggressive and reactive dogs.

According to whom?

If they can't provide anything but their own word and some testimonials, who's to say if they're being truthful or just blowing their own horn?

Just stopped writing to look at the video. I was completely turned off in the first 34 seconds! 

Sit, Sit, Sit, Sit, Sit, Sit, Down. down, down, down, sit . . .  is not training. But it is a good way to teach the dog that it doesn't have to do anything in response to those words because they're just background noise. They don't show what they do when they actually are training, so you don't know what settings they're using on the ecollar at all. And imagine after hearing what the pup has come to think of as nonsense sounds, she gets zapped for not knowing how to respond properly to them.

If their training's so great and low impact, why aren't they showing any of the training itself? That's what I'd want to see.

The 9 year old dog -- after it's been trained, no video of training -- do you notice how much she's panting? That's stress. She's not happily working with that kid; she's worried. If she had a tail it would be even more apparent. And the Doberman providing part of the distraction is nipping at the handler's hand -- also a sign of stress.

Same with the puppy when they show it again with  the collar on and "distractions." She's afraid of getting zapped if she does the wrong thing so she does what she's told and looks around anxiously. It's even more apparent during the "Off Leash Heeling Through Shopping Center" when she's repeatedly licking her lips. That's a classic stress response. Even with the owner on the long distance down you can see Mina turning away slightly, averting her gaze, signalling that shes' trying to avoid conflict. She's not even calm at the end when she's on the table while her owner's telling us how great she's doing.

I'd also like to know more about this pup's personality to begin with. Was she anxious and fearful? Or was she an exuberant pup whose owners never bothered to train her? IOW, seeing the results and how stressed she is throughout the video, if she was just an untrained happy go lucky pup at the start, you're really not seeing the end result of what they get when they start with an anxious, fearful pup.

And you're in PA watching a video from a franchise in VA? Are you going to travel that far or go to one of their franchises more local to you? How can you be sure the trainers are all equally "competent" (I use that word loosely here).

There's no quick fix to the issues you're experiencing. No substitute for real behavior modification. Have you watched any videos of people like Dr. Sophia Yin working with dogs to modify behavior? Or searched Youtube for positive behavior modification? You might be surprised to see the difference in the dogs themselves.

No way I'd let these people get near a dog of mine.

 

 

 

 

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I have the same reaction to the video that Gentle Lake and Journey have. In fact, it was very painful to watch and I was quite disturbed by it. For one thing, it showed absolutely no actual training of the dogs at all, which is what I was expecting to see. No trainer worth paying would ever, even for demonstration purposes, say "sit sit sit sit sit down down sit sit" to a dog, because that is, as Gentle Lake said, just teaching the dog that those sounds are meaningless. The dogs in the "after" videos were clearly very stressed out and giving off avoidance signals like crazy. This is what dogs do when they are trained using something that frightens them or causes them pain or discomfort such as e-collar or leash-jerks. The dog doesn't learn to be a happy and willing partner with the human being, but rather to do what it is told because it is afraid of the painful consequences if it does not.  It makes the dog into a sort of slave rather than a partner. This is not remotely the relationship I want to have with my dog and I don't understand why anyone would want that.

I would not allow those people within ten feet of any dog of mine.

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Yeah, those videos really upset me.  Like, it's uncomfortable for me to see the dogs' discomfort. 


I have a fear aggressive dog.  I won't pretend I wasn't occasionally tempted to employ the 'quick fix' that e-collars and other pain/fear based methods can APPEAR to give.  I understand how people with less dog experience and training experience can go for them.  Fortunately (for my dog) I know that most of those methods only really shut down behavior and often create a ticking time bomb, rather than resolve the issue - and certainly a dog who's 'bad' behavior is fear driven doesn't need more fear. 


So, I got my very fearful dog on meds, took a year off,  worked on teaching fluency in obedience behavior and building trust in me and slowly working our way back into the world with the help of controlled exposure. 


It wasn't fast, no.  But it was worth it.   This is my dog today (well, a couple of months ago) - a dog who would lunge, growl, bark at everything from dogs and people to plastic bags and misplaced cake within the house. 
 

Compare her body language and general demeanor to what's in the 'demonstration'  video above.  Even if you don't have a great understanding of dogs, this should be pretty danged obvious.  (Stay with the video - the first part is just a really long stay.  While arriving at an agility lesson which is her favorite place in the world).

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Also, this is a dog who narrowly finished group classes - next to last class she went after a dog.  It was bad.

Today she's an actively competing agility dog. 

Trial (her first real one).

 

Molly at an agility practice, being a normal dog.

 

Look in the background of both of these videos.  Ignore/mute the music. I just can't handle the sounds the camera makes. 


(Sorry for all the videos, but if you want video proof of success -  I've got it.  Also GVCBorder could tell you a thing or two based on real life meetings with this one, too.)

 

 

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