Dog People - Help us before we go mad!

[the Jester]

I knew a Jack Russell once that ran under a diving board just as his hu-man went off it... naturally it smacked the poor guy on the head, giving him a nasty concussion and temporarily blinding him.

Twenty minutes later he was tearing around the yard like nothing had happened.

Crazy dog- couldn't keep him down if you tried.

 

[monkeygrrl]

I have two things to add to what has already been said...

1. Your dog needs way more exercise than he's getting. It doesn't need to be outdoors, but he needs a lot of it. That breed, at that age, is like a preschooler hopped up on twinkies and grape soda, and it's gonna come out somehow. A tired dog is a happy dog.

2. Your dog needs a job. This is a smart, energetic breed. Unfortunately, sometimes too smart for your own good. Once you go through obedience training, try to get involved (if you have the time and money) in one of the dog sports like agility or flyball. JRTs love them and are great at them.

(At the moment I am somewhat spoiled by my big, old dogs. Someday when I have a puppy again, I will be in for a rude, rude awakening)

 

[Angcuru]

Exercise, eh? How about you get one of those mechanical hamster balls with the little robot hamster on the inside? I had one of those for a while (forget why) and it would just roll around the house for hours on end. Might be enough to keep Monte occupied. but then again, it might result in some very broken furniture.

 

[AuroraGyps]

I have a couple ideas that come from dog & cat training.
When my cat does something wrong, I say. "Bad, bad girl", in a strong voice and tap/touch her on the bridge of the nose. It doesn't hurt her, gets her attention, and makes her know I mean business. I'll sometimes also ignore her for a while, after I scold her. She's very needy & clingy, so she doesn't like this at all. Sometimes I'll even say, "no, I'm mad at you, you were a bad girl." Whether she totally understands everything I'm saying, I don't know. She is very smart and she knows sit, stay, come, off, down, no, & a few other things.

As for dogs, I had to help my parents train their pitbull to bark, "speak", to go out. We think his old owners might have lived in an apt., so he was probably taught to stay quiet. I just used possitive reenforcement and love to train him. He'd speak when I said to and I'd tell him over & over that he was a good boy, and give him hugs, kisses, and lots of petting....totally gushing over him. He's a needy mush like my cat, so this worked like a charm.

For cats and dogs, I think the best thing you can you is give lots and lots of praise. Pet them, kiss them, even call them a special name (the opposite of using some one's full name when they're in trouble ). I do with my cat... it's Zeal or a nick name usually, but when she's bad it's LADY ZEAL in the "Mom's not happy" voice. I have almost a dozen pet nicknames for my cat and I always joke that it's because I love her so much... if I didn't I'd just call her "cat".

Good luck.

 

[Djeta Thernadier]

I knew a Jack Russell once that ran under a diving board just as his hu-man went off it... naturally it smacked the poor guy on the head, giving him a nasty concussion and temporarily blinding him.

Twenty minutes later he was tearing around the yard like nothing had happened.

Crazy dog- couldn't keep him down if you tried.

Monty was like that after he was "altered". They said he'd be tired and mopy for about a week.

Yeah right.

Monty was running around like a spaz within 10 minutes of coming home.

 

[Djeta Thernadier]

I have two things to add to what has already been said...

1. Your dog needs way more exercise than he's getting. It doesn't need to be outdoors, but he needs a lot of it. That breed, at that age, is like a preschooler hopped up on twinkies and grape soda, and it's gonna come out somehow. A tired dog is a happy dog.

2. Your dog needs a job. This is a smart, energetic breed. Unfortunately, sometimes too smart for your own good. Once you go through obedience training, try to get involved (if you have the time and money) in one of the dog sports like agility or flyball. JRTs love them and are great at them.

(At the moment I am somewhat spoiled by my big, old dogs. Someday when I have a puppy again, I will be in for a rude, rude awakening)

Flyball is definately something we want to look into. We also want to put him in puppy daycare during the day when we're at work. The only problem we have thus far, is that he just does not come when he's called (we're working on it). He is amazingly good at catching things.

 

[KidCthulhu]

I knew a Jack Russell once that ran under a diving board just as his hu-man went off it... naturally it smacked the poor guy on the head, giving him a nasty concussion and temporarily blinding him.

Twenty minutes later he was tearing around the yard like nothing had happened.

Argo once got clocked in the head with an aluminum baseball bat. She was trying to catch the ball that had just been pitched to my cousin, and she jumped as he was swinging. Gave herself a concussion and spent the rest of the day under the bed.

Still desperately wants to catch the baseball as it's being pitched. I think she may have lost all memory of the event. That or she's just just too driven to get the ball.

 

[Scotley]

I'm am no expert, but I can share some positive experiences. We have a wonderfully well adjusted 4-year old Boxer named Rolex (good watchdog...heh). Time and more room to roam will make a big difference. Having a "friend" will help too. We got our Boxer a cat. Sounds like a cat wont work for you, but having a buddy in the house makes a huge difference. Of course Rolex was having seperation anxiety pretty bad. Boxers are high energy dogs too, but they really want to be with their people and hate to be alone. We found the leaving the tv or radio on was good for him too. They are considerably larger than a Jack Russell (btw, whats this Parson Russell stuff?) and capable of epic destruction if not properly trained. You might consider another dog. We felt Rolex would be too jelous of another dog and that's why we chose a cat. 70 pound Rolex does sleep in our queen sized bed with us. He's pretty spoiled and expects to be the center of attention.

As a side note, a co-worker of mine recently lost the older of her pair of Jack Russells and now the remaining one has started to be destructive, so far Murphy is only tearing up pet toys, but she worries he will get worse.

When Rolex was 8-12 months old there was much destruction at our house. He tore thru a door and chewed up some door frames, a couple of large window seat cusions, a couple of cell phones and even a stair at the bottom of the landing. We did put a little hot sauce on the corner of the stair and that stopped his chewing there. Worst of all he tore into a backpack of my gaming books and destroyed my brand new 3.0 dungeon masters guide. We also went thru about five remote controls as well. We have kids at home and keeping everything Rolex might chew up put away was beyond them, so he had to learn. He learns better than they do.

Anyway, we gradually got away from the crate at about 6 months because we felt he was so much wilder after a few hours in there (we were able to let him out at lunch). I really feel 11-12 hours in the crate plus nights is asking too much of your dog. It sounds like you live in an apartment, is there anyone who could come visit during the day? Anyway, we started with some gates and a closed door in the kitchen. We moved out anything he could tear up and gave him some room during the day. He did destroy a door and we found a gate he could see through was a much better solution. It was tough and the damage he caused was upsetting, but we only used positive methods and a stern voice (and a couple drops of hot sauce once). We would also make short trips so we could return and "catch him being good" before he got started destoying something and then reward him.

Now we only have to keep the remote controls out of reach and he has the run of most of the house during the day. He is much happier with more freedom and his cat. He hasn't had an "accident" or chewed anything up in years. We do keep a gate at the hallway to the kids rooms because we worry about him getting choked on a small toy, but really I doubt he would even bother them. We do have dog toys and raw hide chews all over the house and he has a bay window seat where he can sit and see what is happening in the neighborhood. I think that ability to see out and have some room to roam were the most important components in turning Rolex into a well adjusted dog. His pet toys do eventually start to come apart with play (he's very strong and no cloth in the world can stand up to his jaws and paws for long) and we discard them, but he leaves shoes, footballs, pillows, cordless phones, books, backpacks and all the other stuff that gets left out at our house when he is alone alone. I wish you the best of luck and hope you'll give us an update.

Scotley

 

[Djeta Thernadier]

We do live in an apartment, but because of the layout, he has more running room than he would in a lot of peoples houses.

We hope to get him to where we can leave him out of the crate during the day, gated in a puppy proof room. However, right now, he still chews furniture, and rips up tile and rugs and once chewed a hole through a wall (we were leaving him out for several month, but stopped after he ruined the wall...something we still need to come up with the money to pay for )

Another dog is not possible for us, however, he does have a "friend" we are planning to set up play dates with soon. It was cute. They met on valentines dAy at the pet supply store. We talked to this dogs owners for about two hours in the store and exchanged info with them. I'm hoping as soon as the weather gets a bit better that they can spend more time together.

 

[Umbran]

Spoke with my fiancee about trainers and such...

Unfortunately, as a professional she can't go about reccommending trainers. There's to large a liability issue associated with it. Plus, there are enough of them around that keeping track of them would take too much time from actually helping sick animals.

She has heard some good things about classes available at our local Petsmart and Petco stores, but cannot vouch for them. But you might include your local stores in your search.

She definitely thinks that a trainer is called for before you go to a behavioral specialist. Which is good, because the trainer would be cheaper and more fun, as well.

A few tips:

Avoid trainers that use pinch collars or other pain stimulus as a training tool(you've already decided against that, so no new there).

Avoid trainers who take your dog for a month, and give it back to you trained. Sure, they train the dog, but only to obey them. And they don't teach you. And a large part of training a dog is training the owner to maintain the discipline.

Avoid trainers that only come to your home. They can teach you and train your dog, but your dog needs to learn to deal with social situations and other dogs outside your home.

Any trainer worth the effort will allow you to sit in on a session (without your dog) to watch, see the dogs they help train, and talk with the other owners. If the trainer acts in a harsh manner, find someone else.

In general, shop around. Don't jump at the first decent seeming trainer you come across.

Try not to delay. Monty's training probably should have started when he was about 4 months old. The longeryou wait, the more his bad habits will get ingrained, and the harder he will be to change.

Stick to the discipline. A good trainer will probably give you many instructions about how to behave, and how not to behave around your dog. Listen to them. Every time you slack off on the discipline at home, away from the trainer, you weaken what's already been done. Having a trained dog is not a "I went to the school, and now it's done" thing. It's a commitment for the lifetime of the dog.

And, perhaps most importantly, be patient. Perhaps Monty is as smart as a whip, and will change completely overnight with a good trainer, but don't bet on it. Expect only slow change over time.