u/KombuchaFeliz

Trains a Caucasian Ovcharka mix on the bite sleeve?? I just saw a video from a very popular European trainer I follow on Instagram. He rehabs dangerous dogs. This dog had gone through several trainers before him, including one who had tried to train him on a bite sleeve. Yeah because training a naturally fierce, independent, fearless breed that humans can be bitten, sometimes, is such a good idea!

To no one’s surprise, the trainer who was rehabbing him said the dog clearly “enjoyed attacking and was not doing it out of fear but pleasure.” He doesn’t show much of his actual work (he mentions setting boundaries and stuff with the dogs but idk exactly how since a lot of aversive tools are banned here), but after a single session he apparently had this dog walking in public unmuzzled. I wouldn’t trust that dog as far as I could throw him, just because of how vicious he clearly is by nature.

Are all dogs salvageable with balanced training? What does the community think?

Four months ago we fostered a dog, Enzo. We’ve now foster failed him as he’s such a great dog and a perfect fit for our lifestyle.

Enzo lived in an outdoor kennel his whole life before we fostered him (he’s 3-4 yrs old). The first few days, he was quite anxious being indoors and couldn’t seem to settle. That slowly went away and we were pleased to see him become quite a lazy dog, who slept most of the day.

After having him for a few weeks, we discovered Enzo’s great joy in life is playing with other dogs. We have a large field across the street from our apartment building. He’s made many doggy friends and loves having romps there with them. He doesn’t seem to have a lot of drive: he won’t chase or stalk animals (except other dogs), he won’t play with traditional dog toys (he likes to shred cardboard though), and he’s decently food motivated but not obsessed. I’ve tried training him with a clicker and taught him two commands, plus a pretty decent recall, but progress has stalled after (he wanders off in the middle of a session, doesn’t engage, etc).

His typical routine is:
2 30 min walks a day that usually include around 10 mins of off leash time at the field, and lots of sniffing the other 20 mins.

One 1.5 hour walk a day with a decent amount of off leash time, depending on how many other dogs are in the field (he’ll stick close if he’s playing with another dog but will wander off following his nose otherwise and his recall’s at about 80% so don’t want to risk it) and lots of sniffy time as well.

One 15-20 min pee break before bed.

We try to vary the location of the walks to keep it interesting.
At home he gets cardboard box “piñatas” to shred and play with 2-4x a week, interactive food toys, lickimats or snuffle mats a few times a month and has natural chews at his disposal.

However in the last month, he’s become very anxious in the evenings. After we come in from our long walk, he’s unable to settle and will whine, paw at us, etc. it looks like he wants to play (he’s wagging his tail), but he doesn’t really know how to play with humans, or toys such as balls, etc, even though I’ve tried to engage him. We usually end up doing a “sit on the dog” exercise to calm him down and it usually works. But it’s annoying having to do this every evening, especially when he used to be able to settle so well the first few months.

Our theory is that he’s become obsessed with going outside and checking the field to see if other dogs are available to play, and he always makes a beeline for it every time we go outside. However we don’t want to have to take this away from him as he really enjoys it and gets a ton of exercise in while we chat with the other owners.

If it matters, we think he’s a border collie/hound mix.

Anyone have any advice or gone through a similar situation?