# Please help a New Rescue Owner



## cmf527 (Nov 29, 2012)

HI Everyone and thank you for reading my post!

I rescued Jorge about 3 weeks ago he is a miniature poodle but some also seem to think that he is a mix with Bijion. He has been GREAT with the exception of these few things.

1. When I take him on walks, I have been training him to walk next to me using a short leash, When he sees another dog he goes CRAAAZZY barking and pulling the leash. At first I would get close to him and tell him no but that has not been working. I have started to pick him up when he does this and he stops... any suggestions on how to train him on this one.....

2. We found out that he was house trained after the first day that we got him, which was a blessing! BUT when he is in a new place he ALWAYS goes in the house once! Why is he doing this?!?! I have been walking him on a leash when I get him to a new place to let him smell and to watch him.

This forum has been extremely helpful! Do not know what I would have done without it  I look forward to your responses!


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## Carley's Mom (Oct 30, 2011)

My rescue was the same way. I think they just need to be walked alot. I walk her in a park everyday. We go at least 3 miles, but most of the time 4-5. When we see another dog, I pull her close and tell her to be easy. I try to keep her focus on me. I also put a pinch collar on her and that really helped. If she started to act up I gave her a jerk and told her, " No"! I only had to do that twice... I have had her 8 weeks . She is perfect now. I don't know if I even need the collar, but it does nothing if she is walking as she should. So I guess we will keep it on a few more months. Good Luck!


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## Carley's Mom (Oct 30, 2011)

Oh and the peeing in a new place is a "male" thing. I had a shih tuz that did that for 16 years...I put a belly band on him when taking him anywhere new.


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## MaryLynn (Sep 8, 2012)

I would work on desensitizing him to new dogs. 

I am in a bit of a pinch for time at this very second, but if you google search desensitizing dogs to other dogs, or desensitizing a fearful/shy dog you should find something that makes sense!


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## fjm (Jun 4, 2010)

Welcome to you, and to Jorge. Firstly, three weeks is a very short time - he is still getting to know you, just as you are getting to know him. I would get hold of Dr Patricia McConnell's booklet "Love has no age limit" for advice on working with a newly rescued dog (Patricia McConnell | Dog Training Book | Love Has No Age Limit: Welcoming an Adopted Dog into Your Home - free webcast based on the book here: Webinar: Increasing the Odds of a Successful Adoption : Webinar: Increasing the Odds of a Successful Adoption : ASPCA Professional).

Is his reaction to other dogs fearful ("Go away! Go away! I don't want you near me! You will hurt me, or my human will hurt me and scold me! Go awa-a-a-ay!!") or wanting to greet ("Hey, a DOG! Are you a dog? I'm a dog! Can I bounce all over you and smell you and lick you and play with you and generally show I don't really understand other dogs?!!"). How you deal with it will depend upon what the cause is. If it is fear based, then moving away from the other dog, even if it means turning around and going back the way you came, putting yourself between Jorge and the other dog, and generally ensuring that he has plenty of space and understands that you will always, no matter what, protect him from unwanted encounters, should help. I would avoid yanking on his collar, or doing anything else to reinforce his thinking that other dogs are a Bad Thing. If he wants to meet other dogs, then concentrate on teaching him polite greeting behaviours - calm, quiet greeting means he gets to meet the other dog; rude behaviour means you move away. It may take some time, but teaching him ways of coping is in the long term going to be easier than having to avoid encounters with other dogs through all the years to come!


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## MaryLynn (Sep 8, 2012)

Okay, I'm back. 

Here is a video that will demonstrate what I am going to attempt to articulate through text. I only watched the first little bit of it, I don't think you need to see the whole thing to get the idea.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw-3HkSL0ew

You have a dog that is reacting with an unwanted behavior to outside stimuli. Your new friend could be over-sensitive to stimuli, or perhaps fearful. It should help with both instances, but in the long run it will help you if you can assess why your dog is barking at other dogs.

I do this type of training with my boy, who is fairly shy and fearful of sounds, objects, dogs, and certain types of people.

Do an assessment walk, just walk and make mental notes of what makes your dog perform the unwanted behavior. Try and determine if there is a distance your dog feels safe from the stimulus, etc.

I would recommend using a high reward treat (for us we use a treat made out of rabbit meat).

If you can employ the help of another friend with a dog that Jorge doesn't know, that would be the easiest. (I didn't use a friend, I would just basically hang out in a park for a few hours, approaching different things like this with him, we probably looked nuts but hey, it worked).

Have a strange dog sit some distance away. 

Find the threshold mark where you can be safely from this strange dog with no reaction from Jorge, and treat. 

Move in, and treat. Do it slowly, don't be stingy on the treats. You can also have the stimulus move closer, but I think that it's generally more easy for a dog to manage their energy if they're approaching something on their own terms. 

If your dog reacts, then back up, you got too close. You want your dogs attention on you (for a reward) and not on the thing that's making them hyper or uneasy. Remember, this isn't about bribing. If you find yourself holding out a treat going "look here, no look here a treat" while your dog is focused on the stimuli or performing an unwanted behavior, then you're not treating effectively. As soon as your dog starts taking their attention from you, and giving it to the stimuli, then you're too close.

This could take a lot of training sessions, depending on what exactly the cause is. Once you can get your dog close to another dog without lunging or barking, then I would move onto the next step, which would be learning to appropriately greet another dog. 

It should be relatively the same as greeting a new person, so work on that in the meantime, then transition to meeting a person with a dog after you think Jorge is reasonably desensitized. 

Hopefully that makes sense. I would be very hesitant to tug or pull, since this may create leash reactivity-where the dog thinks the leash being yanked is a result of the object that is giving them anxiety being in eyesight.


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## msminnamouse (Nov 4, 2010)

I don't recommend corrective collars or leash pops. Dogs are associative learners. Leash reactivity is usually due to some kind of fear, the dog usually wanting to keep the other dog or strangers away. If a dog already associates these triggers (what upsets the dog) with bad things, jerking on the dog's neck or spikes digging into his skin is just going to add more negative associations to that trigger. This is avoidance training. The dog only complies, not because you've fixed the fear but because you've silenced the symptoms of it. The dog no longer lets you know that he's uncomfortable because he's trying to avoid the prong or the leash pops. And if the dog is so over stimulated that he's not conscious of the pain or discomfort, it doesn't even work and can even cause physical injury. I say this a lot but it's like slapping a bandaid on a infected wound and hoping for the best. Makes more sense to cure the infection, no?

I JUST finished working with a standard poodle who had some major leash reactivity because his ex-owner walked him on a prong and at other times, on a choke collar. He pulled slightly to check out other dogs and people and felt the choke or the prongs digging in and he attributed this to strangers. It developed into full blown leash reactivity. Want to know what worked the best? Walking him on a harness so there was no pressure at all on his neck helped a lot just in it's self and also counter conditioning to take away his negative associations to strangers. Walks became a pleasure again.

What you described sounds like marking. Making sure he (or she, because females also can do it) empties his bladder won't help because they can have a special reserved store for marking purposes. The best thing you can do is stay on top of it and supervise so you can interrupt him and get him outside so he has an opportunity to mark OUTSIDE. Not allowing it at all inside should lead to extinction of the marking inside. Look for body language that's predicting that he's about to mark. Sniffing intently at an area, lifting his leg (obviously), licking objects, etc. He should have tells.


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