Reptile & Amphibian Forums

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Not to bad. The last 10 days have been very hectic. The girls had their track finals, now school finals, Susan graduated last Sunday, her parents were here for the entire week and this past weekend was the 3 day air show. This week is clean-up, then her friends come in from MI. We have had little time for Bruno. Some days we would put his bowl on the floor and let him eat while we did what we had to do. He growled less if at all. Now that we have time we're going back to handfuls at a time. He still challenges Susan though. Mainly when he growls at her while he's laying down and she moves. She tells him to move or go away and he no longer listens to her. He'll get up and come closer to her. The other day he was approaching her growling and I suggested she whack him. She did and he came back and she did again. He backed off and did what she said. 1 week until our appointment with the behaviorist. Our paperwork is in and we have many videos to show them.

On a good note Susan went to obedience training with us last night. We missed the prior week due to track finals and he took awhile to stop getting distracted. Once he did he was great. Our next lesson is to teach the dog a trick. The trainer used another student as an example. Her dogs trick was she lead him through a hula hoop with a piece of food. No-one was really impressed so one of the trainers used her dog to show how he would ring a bell. He wouldn't do it so I said "Susan taught Bruno to roll over." So she went out there, he rolled over, he gave up his paw to shake and gave up his belly on command. It was pretty cool. Gotta go for now, work to be done.

Eric
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DZ

"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." -- George Orwell

What a show off!
I don't know what to tell you about the growling...Cookie's stopped when we started squirting her with a squirt gun. She didn't growl, just barked but she would come closer to me when I told her to stop too.
I am sure the behaviorist will be a big help and why don't you have your wife come with you to training from now on? Sounds like they could use the socializing together more than you and him need it. Cookie starts classes on Tuesday. Well she doesn't, but we do. The first class you don't bring the dog. Man I hope they don't tell us to teach her a trick, I'm stumped, she already knows how to do everything I can think of to teach her! lol. Well we're still working on target training, maybe we can do something with that.
Just remember, its going to take time, stay consistent and positive and I'm sure he will be a great dog.