My dog is a nightmare, tearing my hair out and feel we have tried everything.

[marne2]

It's actually making me depressed, it's effecting my other dog and effecting my relationship with dh ( oh and probably my social life ).

We have had him for almost 2 years, he is a lab x ( possibly collie ). He Cries all day, I get up, he cries for food, I feed him and he cries until he gets walked, I walk him for an hour, he sleeps for 5 minutes and then he cries, a hour before his dinner he cries and then the crying for his 2nd walk, he finally sleeps at 10pm and then awake by 6am. If anyone visits the house he barks constantly and jumps up ( not aggressive, just wants attention ), I remove him from the room and he barks louder and destroys the door/gate. No one will visit us or bring children in the house. My other dog is a wreck because when I raise my voice at the lab x is scares her, the only thing he listens to is me shouting ( and that's hit and miss ), we have tried clicker training, rewarding the good behaviour, ignoring the crying, shutting him outside ( removing him from the room ) but he gets worse.

My husband has had enough, the kids have had enough ( dd2 has ASD and the barking really hurts her ears ), the only thing that would keep him quite was to be walked all day. I know he is a working breed and needs to have a job to do but when I got him from the rescue I was told he would be a small dog ( he is not huge ) and I thought 2 walks a day would be enough ( plus we play ball ), he has puzzle toys, balls, bones and my other dog to keep him entertained but he will not play without me, won't go in the garden to play ( we have a large garden ).

No one will visit us for Christmas because of the dog. He has a crate which we no longer use as this seemed to make him worse. I feel so sorry for my other dog, she is so laid back and I can tell she is really annoyed with the other dog leaping around all the time and crying.

I can't afford to get a behaviour specialist in.

I have posted here so many times and I feel I have tried everything people have suggested.

He does have a few good points, he is very loving, he is great with other dogs, great off the lead ( good recall ), in a way he would be much happier living on a farm or being worked.

I have just paid for a behavioural specialist for my Collie who is 1 year old. I could have written your original post and was on the verge of re homing. The advice was to crate for large parts of the day - totally black it out covering it with blankets. Collies find it hard to lower their adrenaline levels and need this black out time. We did this for about 2 hours a day although the advice was for about 15 hours! The impact was incredible. My hyper annoying and stressed Collie has transformed within a few weeks. Now she is chilled out, lying calmly by my feet and snoozing when we watch TV. I feel I have my life back. We also lowered the protein content of food/snacks just by looking at brands etc. Feel free to pm me x

Thank you dogsandkids, we have a crate but havn't used it for a while,I'm might have to get it out again and give it a go, he was crate trained as a pup but as he got older he worked out how to get out , it has been a while since we have used it so he might have forgot how to get out of it.

He's now led next to me on the sofa, it's as if he knows I'm on mn slagging him off so he's trying to make a point by lying still .
I will take him out sometime today but at the moment the weather is quite awful and I'm coughing so much I don't want to go out in wind and rain, hopefully it will clear off a bit by lunch time.

Perhaps clicker then? As soon as there's a fraction of a let up in the barking, mark that behaviour? It would take time and patience and good timing, but consistency would probably produce results.

I do understand. Sometimes if DH has worked the dogs hard, they settle less for me for a few days.

We use Millie's Wolfheart, which is completely grain free, including rice, no eggs, no grain, no beet pulp or any additives, hypoallergenic. Very high quality kibble, all sourced in GB. They have a brilliant Facebook page and the owners of the company will answer questions very quickly, even on the telephone too. They also send samples. Delivery is next day and free.

I also like kikopup - although I think the difficulty can be that you need to start with a calm dog - an overexcited dog can just find training more stimulating - and when your over excited dog is calm it's really difficult not to just 'let them lie'.

I think you need support from somebody in RL who can coach you and see that you are making progress. Nobody is going to be able to wave a magic wand and make things better, and in the end the hard work is down to you. However I think the current situation is completely overwhelming - you have gone as far as you can go without non-virtual support.

Good grief don't touch Barkbusters!!

You might be lucky and get a decent trainer (although tbh BB has such an awful reputation that I can't see why anyone who knows anything about dogs would want to work for them) but more than likely you'll get a clueless individual who's never trained a dog, done a short BB course and been issued with the BB kit which includes such delights as noise discs to throw at the dog

So today he has pulled me over whilst out walking, someone was walking a dog across the road, he pulled me across the road, totally ignored the other dog and jumped up and licked the owners face, I had my other dog with me who was trying to sniff the dogs bum and I then slipped on a drain cover luckily the lady walking her dog was lovely but I was so and angry. This was after he had been around the field twice, played with another dog nicely off lead and was supposedly tired out.

I now need to find him a good harness as he slips out of his halti and I just can't control him when I have my other dog with me. He's now asleep and acting as though nothing had happened.

Oh haltis are rubbish IMO...they're designed to be too loose when they're not pulling, which means they're easy to get out of.

If you find a headcollar works for you then something fitted like a dogmatic is much much better, I use a kumfi dogalter as it fits under a muzzle as well. So that's two brands to look at.

If you want a harness, ones where the lead fastens to the chest are best. Mekuti and perfect fit are well recommended, I like the xtra dog walking harness.

Canny Collars are the best of the 'headcollar ' type things and because they are a proper collar they are very difficult to escape from .

Thank you, I'm going try a harness that's 'front leading' ( clip on the chest ) vi have tried harnesses with the clip on the back and I couldn't hold him at all.

One good thing has happened today.....he didn't bark when the postman knocked the door , I stayed calm, stroked him as I walked past him to get to the door, I opened the front door, usually by this point he is barking his head off, he looked at the postman, jumped up at the stair gate but was still quiet so I patted him on the head and said 'good boy', took parcel off the postman and shut the door. Was so pleased so I gave him a bit of fuss and rewarded him with some kibble.

With haltis, make sure you use the link between the halti and collar so that if it comes off, you still are attached to his collar via the link.

We do neither. The old style halti which we used to have didn't have the clip to clip it onto the collar but the newer ones do, it's saved me a few times from him getting it completely off. I really want something that gives me more control of his body as he seems to flip his body around with the halti on and goes backwards. I have ordered the halti harness to try for now and a the halti lead which looks stronger.

I don't use the link but use a double ended lead and attach one catch to his collar.

I get it OP.

If he plays up while on lead, turn round and put some distance between him and the other dog to help him calm down. You need to be consistent with this so that he gets to understand that calm behaviour is what's required when approaching other dogs/people or whatever.

Have you tried raw feeding him? I know you said it took a while to find a food that didn't unsettle him, but that could be another good reason to switch to totally raw. I've seen it work almost miracles on hyper dogs, and alth can sometimes be initial dodgy tum on first few days, if you are careful and start on bland like chicken for while before introducing other meats, then it can be fine for their tummies. Really is worth giving it a very good try, good few months, without any other type of food, all raw (you can dehydrate liver in oven for treats that bit quite raw but not as tough on stomachs as fully cooked after first couple weeks or so just on chicken) If you really have tried everythig else but not this, surely it's worth a number of months trying it to possibly sort some of his issues out?!

I don't like head collars
I use a double ended lead attached to collar and harness though, so if one is slipped it keeps the other. Have done this with all my collies/sighthounds

You sound seriously upset though :(
: Have you been in touch with nutty off board? Not that she would have upset you I just mean for advice

Thank you Owl, I think it's the fact that's there are several big issues that need working on that's stressing me out .

Today I had unexpected visitors which included a toddler, my dog went crazy and I couldn't let the visitors into my living room with the dog ( he would have knocked the little girl over ) so the dog cried and barked the whole time they were here ( an hour and a half ), he scratched the hell out of the door and frame I managed to feed him during the madness in attempt to keep him quiet for 5 minutes, my other dog was perfectly behaved and let the little girl feed her ( how can I have one perfectly behaved do and one so out of control? ). I would love to be able to have people come over, sit down and not be licked to death or barked at by the crazy dog.

Marne - I think that you really need to get in a behaviourist at this stage. We can give you lots of advice and support, but a qualified person, in your own home, will be able to assess the situation and come up with a plan to address the issues that you are facing.

We have some friends who have a Springer. They got a Springer on our advice. She is much harder work than either our Springer or Cocker have ever been. I am not there all the time, so I don't really know why, but I suspect a combination of a lack of consistency, knowledge of training, and possibly being left too long (lack of attention) at times. And they walk the same walk every day, so possibly no variety/stimulation.

We gave our friends the number of our trainer, who actually isn't APDT accredited, but only uses positive training methods. They say the difference in her is remarkable, even in a short period. The trainer could point out specific training methods for that individual dog.

Definitely on your side Marne, but gently suggesting you need to get in professional help

Can I echo the above advice from needa - I know you said you can't afford it but it's going to be a worthwhile investment if you can possibly stretch to it. I have had many behaviour cases (which owners were struggling to resolve alone) make huge improvements quickly once the owner as a proper consistent plan in place.

It is worth approaching a behaviourist and explaining the situation. Explain your budget, and aspirations. What's your alternative?

Thank you, I'm going to talk to our vet when I take him for his vaccinations after Christmas, I think they have a list of behaviourists near by and hopefully they will recommend someone who can help.

I have just walked him on his own ( left my other dog at home ) and he walked perfectly on a lose lead, totally different than when I have both dogs with me. He's now sleeping .

What are you feeding your dog? I have a 15mo old Collie, we struggled with behaviour for a bit & the person who runs the dog training class I go to suggested Genesis dog food www.harrisonpet.com/index.php?p=view_products.Browse&bid=1&cid=1&mode=2 The difference has been amazing.

He's on wainwrights ( pets at homes equivalent to James welbeloved ), we have tried so many different foods but he has a rice intolerance so can only tolerate a small amount of rice. He has the fish and potato.

I can't afford a more expensive food, I have 2 dogs and a greedy cat to feed and I don't have the space for a freezer for raw feeding ( plus I don't want raw food about as my dd licks everything due to her ASD ), I know raw feeding would probably help but it's not something I could do . The food he is on is the only thing that has produced solid poo so the vet had advised us not to change it.

Wainwrights grain free range( which I think the fish and potato one is part of?) is a pretty decent food btw...nothing obvious in it that would cause behavioural issues.

Food intolerances absolutely can cause behavioural issues according to the behavioural specialist I see, an intolerance to something apparently can alter brain chemistry (completely paraphrasing btw, lol) so it's not always as simple as upset stomach bad, stomach fine good and the behaviour following on because of stomach issues.

But, with him already being on a food that doesn't have dodgy ingredients - it'd be a case of doing a proper exclusion diet, not just trying him on random foods.

So Marne. My suggestion would be, while you wait for the vets recommendations re behaviourists to pick one of the behaviours that is most problematic for you and work on that. Being positive and consistent and persevering with it. Using Kikopup or the Facebook site 'positive dog training and advice' page, which is run by Sally Bradbury. Realistically, it will be another month before you get seen in real life so you can make a great start

With sincere apologies to any vets reading. Those that post are clearly very interested and up to date with the behaviour aspect of canine care. My own vet, who is young and fantastic and I would recommend to anyone, would be the first to admit that he knows very little indeed re behaviour and this aspect was very minimally covered in his training (he's early 30's, not at all 'old').

Just be prepared for your vet not to be the font of knowledge you might think

As in - ideally you'd want to consult a vet about it and it's a lot of effort to go to before trying more conventional things.

needa that's a fair and valid point. Behaviour is barely covered in the curriculum of most vet schools and the majority of vets are clueless about it (although that doesn't stop them dishing out advice anyway :( ) - it's a problem which some of us within the profession are trying hard to change but it is taking a long time. Try checking the APBC and APDT websites to identify someone good locally. Behaviourists are unregulated and as such many of them are giving dreadful and dangerous advice. It's imperative that you get really knowledgeable help here and at the moment vets can't always be relied upon to identify sources of that :(