Hi John,
I have a year old Victorian bull dog named Barney.
I adopted Barney from a stranger who was just going to drop him off at the humane society. Bentley was 10 months when I got him. He seemed to be abused. Barney is overall a wonderful dog but lacks in training. I have been able to get him to sit and stay for a period of time but he is very stubborn. Barney is always trying to get food off the counters, out of the garbage. I find myself consistently telling him to get out of the kitchen. Barney is also a runner, if he has the chance to get out the front door, he runs. Now he is trying to find ways to jump over fences or go through them. Thank god my neighbours backyards are fenced.he is become a hug handful and being at home with two young ones and having to dress them up to search for him when he finds a way to escape. Is becoming exhausting.I don’t want to have to get rid of him! He has already had 3 homes.:( I have no money to pay for training classes… Please help me
S.T.
Hi S.T.
Thanks for the email. I don’t know how much I can help you via email but I can tell you were I in your shoes I’d say your best friends for the next 3 months are going to be a good quality well fitting collar, a 6 foot leash, a 30 foot lunge line and a crate just big enough to stand up, turn around and lay down in. The dog should be dragging the 6 footer in doors and be supervised well enough so that you can get hold of the leash whenever you want and to keep the dog from wandering about out of range of supervision of the sort you’d provide a 2 year old human child. When in the yard, the dog still needs to be supervised but use the 30 foot line as the goal isn’t to wreck the dog’s freedom but is to wreck the dog’s freedom to make mistakes, ignore you etc. When you’re busy with the kids in the house or whatever that might prevent you from providing the dog with needed guidance use the crate. I use several crates for my dogs for the first 18 months of their lives and put them in there if I think I might otherwise miss an opportunity to provide them with guidance. You’ll find that you use the crate less every day because the leashes will be providing you with way more opportunities to provide guidance and consistency to boot. You will find a fair amount of free information on my website and you can also subscribe to my newsletter as well. My ebooks are an inexpensive alternative to hands on training as well. (You can opt-in for my newsletter here – https://www.askthedogguy.com/newsletter-brain-drain/ When you subscribe you’ll get a pdf you can download that has a bunch of “brain drain” ideas for keeping your dog stimulated when you are busy.)
