Wednesday, April 15, 2009

New Routine for Oak

Oak is inclined to be a wee bit dominating with both dogs and people and the older he gets the worse it is getting instead of better. He'll be playing with another male dog, they'll be having a great time and suddenly the other dog will be winning the play fight, so Oak will play harder and it turns into a real fight. We end up having to pull him off the other dog and put him down in a submissive posture. I think there may be a couple of problems that need to be resolved to help with him.
First, I think he needs more exercise so starting tomorrow we're are going to up training and up his exercise. We will go to the off leash park first thing in the morning(8am) to run off some energy, then do some training in the nearby park. I'm going to go through all his exercises 3x each.

Then at 11am, while I go walk Komo and Kyan, Oak will go to daycare for about 45min. to play with the other dogs.

On monday, wednesday and thursday we walk Ranger next for an hour. We either walk through a park on lead, or go to the tennis courts and I let them play off lead. Unfortunately, tennis players are starting to use the tennis courts! :)

Then in the early evening, we will walk onlead and practise heeling and go through the commands again. He will also have to sit before going outside and before coming in and I may make him down stay more often in the house ie: while eating supper, loading the dishwasher, making food etc. We have to focus on his stay. He is really bad at that. So we are going to keep this up for a week and I will let you know how it goes.
If I don't see a massive improvment in a month or so, I may have to talk to his breeder about an early neuter. It is in her contract not to neuter him until 18 mos, which I totally agree with( hormones are needed for proper growth ). I'll talk to my vet, trainer and check out the info on the net to see what I can find. Hopefully, upping the training will work and I won't have to resort to drastic measures.

1 comment:

Kirkland Acres Rabbitry And Farm said...

Sounds ilke you have alot of woork ahead of you both. I appluad you for not ignoring the problem, most people would. Good luck!