dagwood_roxy

Your GSD is very beautiful. Good for you for adopting a rescue and working through some difficult times with your pup. I hope that they will raise the funds and be able to help many furkids find great homes such as yours. Joanna

Hey there max_boy and max!! I am also fairly new here and have enjoyed this board a great deal. I am owned by Dagwood (8 year old lab/gsd) and Roxy (11 month old GSD). [img]http://www.mypetpages.net/artists/878/0/6516476b74f114063f203fba76624a91.jpg[/img] Welcome to the board!!! Joanna PS: My parents were never animal lovers either and I had to wait until I went to college to get my first furfriend.

I have a 8 year old labx and a young gsd, so that is my maximum that we can handle. We do a lot of activities with our dogs, so the two that we have keep us extremely busy. Because we love flyball and agility we think we could handle taking on a BC in the future, but that will be years from now. I would love to get involved with a GSD rescue and perhaps foster in the near future, unfortunately I have been unable to find any GSD groups in Quebec, Canada. Good question!!! Joanna

that was me, I suck at signing in :oops: Joanna

My 8 year old lab still does it from time to time. I have noticed that in Dagwood's case it happens after he is restrained for a short period of time and it is his way to express how happy he is to be free at last. As an example, he always does it after taking a bath in the backyard. The second I tell him that he is free, he does these happy laps around the yard. When he was younger, he used to do it more often, now I only see him do it a few times a year, and just after bath time. When he was younger, I would never let him off leash in an area I did not deem safe. I see it as one of those happy and cute lab things ... and tough to stop ...

Carolk9s, thanks for pointing that out to me. The school had reassured me that flyball would be fine for her age. It is an excellent school and with 175 agility dogs as clients, I doubt very much that they would put my puppy at risk. The class is one hour each week and she has been hitting the box for 2 weeks now. I will ask them again about safety for her age. I might ask them to just hand the ball out for the remaining two sessions, her health is the most important thing by far!!! Thanks for your input, Joanna

I also signed it!! How horrific :( I also cannot imagine anyone standing by and not rescuing the dog ... what is wrong with these people?????? :madgo:

I did sign up, I guess I must have forgotten to log in yesterday ... and I would absolutely love to join you guys!!! We no longer treat her at the box, we only did it that one day she was showing fear of the noise. She absolutely adores flyball, we are pretty depressed over the fact that there will be no more flyball until the fall and we haven't joined a team, therefore we will have nobody to practice with. I found another club that has the flyball equipment and might be forming teams this summer, so there may be some hope later on, once the ground dries up. You are right on the money on Ms. Roxy, she is a little manipulator at times, generally though she is just a wonderful high strung pup. She has done wonders for Dagwood, for sure. People can't believe that he is 8 years old, he is looking younger and fitter than he has in years, thanks to his sister. She has ways to make him play even when he initially blatantly refused her. I took Roxy for another walk last night. Two teenagers walked right past us, she did not bark, growl, she did break her heel and showed interest, but I was thrilled with that response. We passed by several people, with some she showed interest, some she ignored, none made her afraid. I am now convinced that I am totally to blame for the situation. In the last few months we did agility (with short jumps due to her age) and flyball but we let go some of the obedience work. I wanted to play catch up because we are taking the advanced obedience class starting April 10th. The school we go to is very tough on us, I think because a)they see a great deal of potential in Roxy b)they specialize in GSDs and I always felt that they pay extra attention to GSD owners. Because of that I was being totally stupid and stressing Roxy out with one hour heels, I think that the stress affected her reaction to people. I am now taking a much more relaxed approach, giving her a great deal of praise, alternating exercises with loose leash walks and making the whole walking thing fun, fun, fun. She is heeling better, doing her off leash heels better (with a thin cord, just in case), she sits nicely each time I stop, comes to heel nicely, etc... I don't know what was wrong with me!!! Roxy does not give a damn about how well she will or will not do in obedience class, and Roxy is the important one here, not my stresses or the demanding trainer (who we actually like, because we like challenges). I could just slap myself .... Thanks again for the advice, Joanna

I am getting concerned about my 10 month old GSD. She has always been a curious and courageous puppy. We have taken obedience classes with her since she was 10 weeks old. She is a very good dog and she has so far done very well in beginning and intermediate obedience. We are presently taking the second agility class as well as a flyball class. She has never shown any signs that she is nervous around dogs or other people. When people come to our house she barks at the door, but that is about it. Unlike my lab, who acts like he is just thrilled to see people, she hangs with me mostly without showing that she is nervous about anyone or anything, she seems quite relaxed actually. I believe that this is a typical GSD reaction. During the cold months of January and February, we did not go outside for many walks, but she continued her interaction with people and other dogs through the training classes. The weather is finally above freezing and we started taking regular morning and evening walks. I am taking her out on her own (as opposed to taking her with my husband and my other dog) because I also need to work on some of the obedience exercises as we will be taking advanced obedience in a couple of weeks and I needed to especially work on the heeling with distractions. The heeling is going wonderfully. I put the leash over my shoulder and she stays in heel position perfectly, so much so that at times she seems connected to my heel. Unfortunately she is showing severe signs of fear. At first I thought that she was going through the teenage flakies and ignored the behavior. Now I am getting very concerned. Today a dog barked behind a house and she jumped up. Now, I know she is not scared of dogs, she sees and plays with them all the time. I thought that the bark took her by surprise. Later she got spooked by a father and child in the driveway. She actually backed up into the street in order to avoid them, which could have been dangerous if I didn’t have a firm hold of the leash. I don’t know what to do. With my older dog we lived in the city, so we saw hundreds of people each day on our walks. Now we moved to the suburbs and on a beautiful day we may see 5 or 6 people. Does she think people without dogs may be a threat, because she never gets scared at people with dogs or any of the people in classes? Do I just ignore her fear, or should I try to create a positive association, like giving her a treat the second she sees someone before she shows any sign of fear. My trainer told me that GSDs are easily spooked at this age, but I am afraid that if I let it go, it might be permanent. Has anyone else had similar experiences and how did you handle it? Do you think that I should ignore her behavior or try to do something about it? Could this escalate into something much worse? This entire behavior started a few weeks ago, as I mentioned prior she has always been very curious and outgoing. She did not have any negative experiences and she is constantly under our supervision, even when in the backyard. I would appreciate any help/advice you could give me. Very worried, Joanna