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I am so glad that I have recently found Ceasar's television series on Nat Geo Wild. It is very new in Germany that you can watch the programme on Pay TV and I have instantly come to love it.
Until a couple of weeks ago, we kept 3 Danes and an old Mastino girl, 3 of them rescued dogs. Life was not always easy with this mixed pack, but I have learned so much from the TV programmes that I can handle them all so much better now.
Alas, on 26th October, Lisa, our black Dane girl, has passed away with only 6 years and due to severe back injuries somebody had inflicted on her , before we rescued her. When medication could not take the pain away anylonger, we had to let her go. :-((
Still, the 2 remaining Danes outweight me by 90kg and I used to be so afraid to meet little dogs on our daily walks, because they always went nuts. Thanks to Ceasar's way, I can now handle them much easier. I am so gratful to have been able to see his programmes, I cannot thank him enough for it. It is amazing to see what real differnece a changed attitude makes.
Sorry, but my English is not good enough to describe properly and in detail, how I chaged my behaviour towards the dogs, but I can say, that it works for me, and it works for my dogs.
Some people smile at me, when I say things like: No! my door, my fence, my whatever, just to make sure to be in the right state of mind to control my 'giants'. But I don't care, because everthing is much more relaxed now and I will not miss this again.
best wishes Susi
Howdy Susi
Thanks so much for sharing how Cesar methods has helped you over in Germany with your giants. We love Cesar here!
You did a great job explaining the importance of claiming our space with our dogs, and the success you have had doing it with your dogs. I hope to see more posts from you here in the Community Forum.
Michele & Super Corgi Cody in Nevada, USA
Dear Michele!
I thank you so much for your answer!! :-) Which is very nice, really!
and by the way: Happy New Year to everybody who reads this!!
I can report another great progress, I've made with Ceasar's way.
My Great Dane girl Nelly is so afraid of shiny floors, that I have put carpets even in the kitchen.
Come X-Mas my youngest son Dustin gave me the 1st series of The Dogwhisperer as a present (I had told him so much abut the programmes I had seen on TV) and now I could see the programme with the great dane, who could not manage floors until it met Ceasar. I had not seen this before on TV and when I started to see my DVDs , I had this problem addressed in the 1st programme. :-)) So, I took my Nelly on her leash and she had to follow me over every tiled floor in our house. She has a bad back ( spondylose and cauda equina /sorry don't know the words in English), but these handicaps count for avoiding steps only. She can manage floors just fine!! I admit that I felt a bit like a fool dragging my dog through the kitchen 20times. But the result is perfekt!!
No more carpets in the kitchen and Nelly ist just walking through it after avoiding the kitchen floor for 3 years!! I am so grateful for this episode with the Grate Dane, I cannot tell you how much!! :-))
I can see Nelly's point in not walking steps for her bad back (we got it x-rayed) clearly shows, she should not do steps. But tiled floors she can manage just fine. It was just panic. With Ceasar's advice we have just manged this problem!!!!!!
The next step must be little, agressive dogs. Since hardly any hotel in Europe accepts you with two Great Danes in tow, we now have bought a huge caravan to be able to go on holidays together with our dogs. But when I imagine our Danes in the caravan and a relatively tiny but barking Jack Russel coming near to our caravan: what could a normal caravan door set against the brute force of a raging Great Dane??? My cute male Zoltan weights about 90kg. No door can withstand his power!! I hope to find a Ceasar programme, which might address this problem!!
Our Danes are very civilized, really. But when they feel provoked, especially in their car, they go nuts!! Zoltan has dismanteled the door of our van (VW T5) 3 times already, and we cannot risk to go to a camping site until we found a solution for this problem: How do I get them to be calm and submissive, when they are attacked by a little maniac dog???
with best wishes for the New Year 2010
Susi and her pack of gentle giants
www.notdogge.de
Hello Again Susi
WOW! What great news! I am so proud of you and I know Cesar would be too. I wish other people here in the community forum would read your posts because you are an inspiration.
I will ask another member here to stop by and say hello. Her user name is eaglestare (Patricia) She has a Dog Whisper episode guide and may be able to let you know if there are any episode in the DW season 1 that could help you with the car issue and caravan door. There are several episodes, but they may be in other seasons.
I will try to help you here, I hope you will be able to understand what I am explaining. If not, I know someone that lives here in my town who is from Germany. Perhaps I could dictate to him to write it in German for me?
I know from your previous post that you understand about claiming space with calm and assertive energy with your dogs. With the caravan door you are going to claim the space before the door. It will be helpful if you could get someone with a small dog to walk past the caravan door outside. If possible start with a lower energy small dog first, and then work up to a HIGHLY excited small dog like a JR.
I would suggest using a leash first for better control so you don't loose your caravan door :) Your job using your calm and assertive energy is to correct your dog while they are at a level 1 first. What I mean by that is the minute your dog see's the other dog look for body lanuage in your dane initially. (eyes start to focus, ears go forward, neck becomes stiff) Correct using the leash with the collar up behind the ears and pull the leash towards you with a quick jerk. Other corrections you can do is touch the neck or with your foot touch the side of dog like Cesar does. (Not a push)
The purpose is to disrupt the state of mind of your dog. Just make sure after the correction to breathe and relax. It is a lot easier to correct a dog when they are in a level 1 than a level 5 which would be your dane attempting to plow through the door . Like Cesar says your energy should be at the same level or higher in correcting then your dog. (Do you understand?) Look at it like steps of energy your dog will react in, from low to extremely high. (Level 1, level 2, level 3, level 4, level 5) Level 1 is the easiest and less stressful level to get your dog's attention in.
Most people will try to correct a dog when it is already in a level 5 (extreme) by using a lower level of energy which the dog is not going to pay attention to. Then they get frustrated and start to yell and pull at the dog. The dog views this as weak energy and dogs don't follow weak energy. Try not to use sound during the correction except like a word or sound like Cesar uses. You want the dog to respond to your energy. If it helps puit the dog in a sit position. You want your dane to understand you "own" the space before the door and outside the door.
Another method you can use as support with the above is food or treats. You would put the food infront of your dogs nose during the correction to redirect the brain from looking at the little demon dog outside. A juicy piece of cooked bacon or strong cheese is good. Make sure your dane is calm and submissive before actually giving the treat. Like Cesar said tonight on the program, correct and make sure to follow through (getting your dog in a calm and submissive state before the release.
I can make suggestions for the dog's behavior in the car, but I will do that in the next post. I don't want to overload you with too much info in this post.
One other thing, as a calm and assertive packleader you can also address the crazy little dog too. That is part of being a packleader to our dogs is to address the energy of the other dog when they are in our packs space. (trying to get in your danes face) I will give you an example; Today when I was walking Cody, we incounted two small dogs that were "walking their owners" When Cody and I got close they attempted to charge at Cody on their leashes. The owners kept trying to pull the dogs away and yelled at them. I then told the humans to relax, and I put my hand infront of the dogs faces so they could sense my calm and assertive energy. Once they calm down I let them meet Cody which they did as dogs are suppose to do. I made Cody stand there first so they could smell him. Then they wanted to play with him.
One of the dogs was a "white" Daschund, never seen that before.
Please let me know if this helps, and we can tackle the car issue next time. OK German dog whisper, like we say out in the west here "Get - R - Done"
Michele
Hi, Susi! Michele gave you lots of helpful information to guide you using Cesar's way. She is also very good at applying Cesar's way helping people with their dog problems, and very experienced using calm-assertive energy and body language to communicate intention.
I will look through my episode guide regarding the car and attacking dog thing. I don't recall a specific episode, but will let you know what I find out. I can tell you that from my own experience with our GSD Rook who is very territorial in the car, I have kept him on a leash (prong collar) and give a quick and firm tug and release whenever he got fixated on a dog or person outside the car. I had to use the leash because I couldn't reach him to give a touch correction while driving. You can also redirect behavior, but if the dog is already fixated and showing aggression, you may have to set up scenarios to practice and repeat over and over, using touch (leash or hand) with an intensity that is the same or higher than the dogs', and very little sound or words. Michele is right that if you catch tension early, you won't have to repeat a correction or increase your intensity.
Good job working on your leadership skills with your dogs! Bravo! And woof-woof a-rooooo! (That's from the dogs.)
Patricia (Rook and Cirrus's pack leader)
Thank you so much for your advice !!:-)))
It is very nice of you and I do understand every word of your answer. Thanks for offering translations, but I used to speak and write English quite fluently, it only got a bit rusty recently. It's a good exercise and a great pleasure for me, to have written English conversations again, and about my favourite topic: Dogs !!
It sounds very practical what you suggest. So I should go and find some 'victims' :-) to walk pass our
van. My Zoltan is a very peaceful dog, but gets quite excited, when another dog comes near 'his' bus. Once we were attacked by two very aggressive French Bulldogs, a breed which has recently become very popular in Germany . Their oweners think it cute, when their dogs kill pigeons and rabbits :-((, and they take them out on a very long leash. Though I had both dogs with me holding them on their collar, these little monsters came right up and attacked. That was the moment I panicked and Zoltan took over. I had no chance whatsoever to hold my danes , and while I was thrown into the ditch (since we live right at the NorthSea there are ditches everywhere here!! )but still klinging to Nelly's collar, Zoltan showed the bulldogs that size does matter!! He made himself really big and released a remarkable growling. No teeth, no violence, just sound, size and a mountain of tense muscles cleared the situation. The bulldog people were truely scared and went to the police to complain about us, I was kneedeep in mud with a strained wrist and thumb, Nelly was barking and annoyed for she had not been part of it and Zoltan had got the totally wrong message that he must control situations like this. From then on, he has never waited until he gets attacked again, but makes himself big and tense, whenever a little barking dog is coming towards us.
Having practised Ceasar's way, I can lead him pass every little dog now, whithout getting in trouble. I mumble words like 'my street, my space, my medow' :-)) to convince my worrying brain, but I do manage now to lead my two giants through 'little dog' situations having their collars right behind their ears. My knees might shake a tiny bit afterwards, but we manage!! And YES!! , I do this Ceasar sound : Scht :-))) and it works miracles, because I mean it, even with other peoples dogs. It's amazing, really!!
And just to make you smile: Our big tomcat Otti now reacts to 'Scht' and the pointed indexfinger. :-)) He tried to steel bits of our X-Mas dinner, but that sound was all it took to make him return to his share of it in the kitchen. :-)) Usually I use a plastic- waterbottle to discipline our cats by spraying water in their face, when they are misbehaving. But now we only need 'Scht' and the job is done without getting a wet table.
And you are perfectly right in saying that we must interrupt our dogs tension at level 1. Because once two danes are at Level 5, there is hardly nothing a normal human being can do. They weight 150kg together, which means they work with a force 4times their weight and I weight just 68kg!!! In our rescued dog job for www.Notdogge.de we have met with Great Danes which dismantled a normal frontdoor in less than 3 minutes including the frame, the lock and everthing around it, just to get out.
I will watch now the entire series 1 of Cears's programme and prctise on with my giants. I love every advice you will give me and I will try it. It is just not easy to find little dogs as sparring partners here in our very rural area. Most of them are owned by tourist, who are seldom cooperative .
Is there any way to post photos in here. Because if there is, I could show you the lovely 'monsters' I writing about. :-))
with best wishes
Susi and her gentle giants
Susi, when you click "reply", you can then choose the 11th icon "media" to add a photo! Try it! Congratulations on your little successes! Each day is a new day, and it can only get better!
Patricia
Hello Patricia!
Thanks so much for your answer! :-)
Since we live in a tourist area, the beach is ours (the people who live here) only when there are hardly any tourists, meaning when the weather is bad or it is winter times. My next aim is to take my dogs to the beach on my own to see the sea, to enjoy the huge space of the beach. Until now I have only been on the beach when my husband could come along, for I was so afraid to loose control when a 'dogsituation' would come up. I am still gathering up courage, but that is my aim!!
It is a shame that I cannot get an Illusion collar for my dogs. There are just not big enough for my danes. :-(( So, I must manage with my own courage and the collars I can get here. I don't know nothing about the rules and rights of dogowners in US, but here in Germany the rules are very strict. And when a big dog hurts a little one, we and especially the dog could get into real trouble. So, I must be a strong packleader, who does not make a single mistake, when I take my pack to the beach ( which I would really love to do on my own since my husband is away for work most of the week and I love the sea so much and there is so much space for the dogs to run free!! ) But the walk to the beach includes a wooden and narrow path. If we'd encountered a little dog there now, I would still loose both courage and confidence, and in consequence could not be a strong packleader. The dogs would sense my weakness immediadtely.
Caravan door, van door and walk to the beach: we must work on these things and we really appreciate all the advice, anyone in this forum can give to us.
Thanks a lot for your sharing thoughts with me despite my rusty English.
best wishes
Susi and here gently giants
Thanks for the hint of how to post pictures. Now you can see our current pack . :-))
And how our little granddaughter Sam (1,5 ) feeds Zoltan with a treat.
And do not worry about Sam, because she is newer alone with the dogs, not for a single second!!
Zoltan is extremley relaxed with her, Mary , the mastino ,just tolerates the baby and Nelly is happy to be left alone (which we ensure all the time!! ).
withe best wishes
Susi
Your dogs are BEAUTIFUL! Thanks for sharing them!
Don't apologize for your English. Never noticed a problem!
Sidenote: I started out with a choke chain like the ones in your picture. Then I switched to prong collar for our German shepherd Rook when he was an adolescent and quite challenging, and it made a huge difference. Do they sell those where you are? Some call it the pinch collar, I think. Just make sure you remove or add links as necessary so that the prongs do touch skin when not pulled. I learned from two trainers I went to that the collar was too loose on Rook, preventing the right timing of the quick yank to the side. Also, found out I needed to do a more intense (harder) yank. Those two suggestions really helped. I also find that if Rook doesn't respond to it, I will vary the correction to the touch with my heel to his side like Cesar does sometimes. Quickly gets his attention without hurting him.
Be sure to begin your outings calmly and confidently. Make yourself smile! Hum if you have to, and feel good inside. Then watch your dogs relax, too! It works for me everytime! I've been also smiling and saying hello as we walk by people and dogs, too.
Stay relaxed, confident, calm, and assertive. Be balanced to create balance for those around you! Happy new year, too!
Hi! Susi
Great pictures of your gentle giants. I am glad their ears are natural and not like majority of Danes ears here in the US cropped.
On the DW show Cesar will often ask people with problems being calm and assertive, who there hero is or someone they respect. He does that with the purpose of them pretending to be that person so they can feel more calm and assertive. I can honestly say that if Zoltan was a human, he would be a great example of someone who is calm and assertive in stressful situations. Everything you discribed that Zoltan did with those Frenchies is exactly the type of energy you need to copy. In this kind of situation you are extremely lucky to have a dog like Zoltan that reacts the way he does even when his owner starts to panic, he remains calm. So, basicly when you incounter a situation like that pretend you are "Zoltan" :-)
Of course in your van it's a different situation. Patricia offered some great advice about how to correct him with a leash in the van. Or else if you have a friend close by you can have them drive and you can get in the back of the van with your dogs to do the correction. This would only be in the beginning and then you would have to rely on the leash when you are driving with them alone. There is one episode (Not sure which season) Cesar helps a woman with two Shelties that one of them went balistic in her car much like your dog. I will ask Patricia to see if she can locate which season of DW that episode is in.
I can understand because of some of the situations you have been involved in with your dog that became a bad experience. Plus your fear of possible legal problems that could arise if one of your dog hurts a human or other dog. However, sometimes we can let those fears become a driving factor in our difficulty to move on. I heard Cesar often tell people that strength is not in the body, it's in the mind. Instead of thinking that physically you can't control your two giants when you are alone with them on a walk, try to invision in your mind that you can and allow that energy to travel down the leash.
Physically you can't control two strong Danes, but mentally you can. That is what dogs respond to, the mental energy that dictates what you expect from them. Now saying all that, I know you have been working on gaining better control of your dogs using Cesar methods. I believe you will be able to overcome your fears and be the kind of packleader you want to be for your dogs.
If it would be easier, work with your dogs one at a time around small dogs. That way you can also work on addressing any small dominant dog that approaches your pack aggressively. When you get a chance check out a response I posted in "Facing Dogs in you Neighborhood when more than 1 and predatory" on 11/30/09 I share how I handled a pack of loose dogs that charge at myself and Cody on a walk using Cesar method.
Another situation that I dealt with a loose dog was a very large Pitbull. I was walking Cody in this field and I thought I heard someone yelling. When I turned around I seen this huge Pitbull (It turned out he was an intact male) charging towards use. His owner was running behind him yelling at the dog to stop. Instread of addressing the dog, I address the owner first by telling him to stop running and to relaxed. It was then I address the dog by bring up my calm and assertive energy putting out my hand in front of me and saying to the dog "Hey" The Pitbull immediately stopped 5 feet from where me and Cody were standing. When I deal with loose or stray dogs I mentally create a 4 to 5 foot "force field" bubble around my pack.
When I bring up that force field whenever I encounter a loose or stray dog, they automatically sense that energy and stop. There are times I don't even have to say anything. I am sharing this with you Susi to tell you "anyone" including yourself can have the same effect on a stray or loose dog. It's all about mental energy. Dogs do understand and respect when a human using calm and assertive claims their space.
If you are interested in discussing this subject some more, please let me know. I can provide to you a step by step method on how to handle small aggressive dogs that you and your Danes encounter.
It's wonderful talking to Cesar minded dog owners in different countries!
I am going to attach a picture of my Corgi Cody below.
Keep up the great work and your very encouraging posts.
This is my Welsh Cardigan Corgi Cody