Hi me again!
Small update: Vinnie's anxiety is getting better I think. He was actually alone for about an hour last week and I came home to a perfectly clean house! He still gets anxious when he thinks I'm leaving. I've tried getting my wallet, putting on a sweatshirt, doing things like I'm leaving several times a day and not leaving but it doesn't seem to be desensitizing him. lol I keep trying though. He does pretty well unless I take the kids still. When my mom is home he paws at her room and cries until she opens her door. Generally he'll go lay in the living room then and leave her alone. He also pees on the floor sometimes too when we leave. I've noticed he'll seem to "target" something of ours, like a coat hanging on the kitchen chair or a basket of clothing left in the living room. Almost like he's angry and "getting back" at me. It's always something that belongs to me or smells like me (my coat or the basket with my pjs on the top). I try not to chastise him for it anyway though. I've only disciplined him for tearing up the trash once and now we lock in the bathroom when we leave. His tail is healed. He's still very dog aggressive so I don't think the dog park will be an option, probably ever. I try to take him for walks in the evenings now that it's lighter longer.
Ok my issue:
My husband says he thinks Vinnie believes I "belong" to him. He gets very jealous when I take care of the kids or hug my husband and attempts to push his way in between me and the person. He'll sometimes even bark at the person. His tail is always wagging and he doesn't seem aggressive but I admit that he gets jealous very easily. If I tell him to go lay down or sit he just looks at me and wags his tail, when my husband does it he runs right over and lays down. It could be I'm just not very assertive (I try to be!) or maybe he just responds better to men because he's never really had a woman owner? My husband says I'm wrong to pet him when he comes to me. He says I need to establish his place in the "pack" and ignore his efforts at attention and call him over later so he understands that I decide when I pay attention to him. He also says I should put up a gate if he gets pushy when I'm with the kids so he understands that he's not allowed to get in between me and other people. I hate to punish him because he wants attention, I know he was neglected most of his 4 years so I think maybe he's just so happy that someone is nice to him? I do tell him he's a "naughty dog" and I lead him to his Vinnie blanket when he gets pushy. Am I sending mixed messages though if I chastise him for pushing in between me and the kids and then subsequently pet him when he comes over at other times for attention.
On smaller notes (might as well throw it into one topic) he chews up a lot of the kids toys, plastic and wooden. I've bought him every toy imaginable, cloth, plastic, rubber, Nylabones, Buddabones, etc. He shuns them all. What toys can I get him so he won't seek out the Lincoln Logs and expensive Thomas the tank engine tracks. I try to keep them picked up but he sometimes hides pieces until I'm not looking and then chews them up. :( He likes these pig ear things that my mom buys but they're super expensive and don't last long. I've heard bad things about rawhide. Ack!! I can't take him to Petco to pick out his own because he gets really aggressive towards other big dogs. :sick: He seeks out and chews up sticks outside (and then throws up). He seems to be obsessed with wood. It can't be good for him though can it?
Finally, I have to leave for 4 days next weekend. What should I do/get to prepare for leaving? My mom will be around most of the weekend, I just want to make sure I make it as easy as possible. I called the vet and they gave me tranquilizers in case he gets really anxious. I hate to medicate him but I don't want my mom calling me in Plymouth and freaking out on the phone. I considered a kennel but decided that would be super frightening to him being he's been ditched by so many previous owners. At least if he's home he might be relatively reassured that we'll be back KWIM?
TIA everyone (I do appreciate it!)
Mary
PS I'm really not as stupid as I might seem in these posts. lol I've had dogs, I've just never encountered such a complicated guy!

I kind of dislike that phrase "getting dominance". What you want is leadership. I suppose they actually are the same thing in the dog world, but "dominance" to most humans brings connotations of hard-lined discipline and aggressive firmness and that couldn't be farther from what you want. You want to be a calm leader that your dog respects.

I agree very much with all the things you husband's said in the second paragraph.

Some ways to establish that you're the leader:

- Use the NILIF method. That is Nothing In Life Is Free. Instead of letting your dog set the rules, demanding attention, or telling you when he wants something, you start asking something of him first. If he wants you to pet him, don't pet him. A minute later when he walks away you can then call him to you, tell him to sit and then pet him. If he wants to go outside to go potty, have him lay down by the door and then reward him by taking him outside. What he wanted in the first place becomes the reward for what you've asked him to do.

- Set some food rules. The leader eats first. He can't beg, and never gets table scraps. After you're done eating, then you can go feed him. When he's done eating, the food is taken away.

- Ignore him whenever you come home or return from doing something. These are the times he'll be demanding your attention the most. A leader can come and go when they want without causing a scene.

- Set up some off limits areas and some limited-access areas. IE, your bed. Maybe you'll decide you don't want him on the bed; or, if you're like me, maybe you'll decide he can only get on the bed after you're in bed and you've called him up. If he jumps up on the bed without being invited up, he has to get back down. An off limits area might be a 5 feet perimiter around the kids toybox, or it might be an entire room. In my house it's the cats bedroom. The dogs are not allowed in that room even if the door is wide open. The cat knows this so she'll sit in the doorway and taunt them. Leaders get to define the boundaries.

- Continue teaching obedience commands. If he knows all the basics, you can teach him tricks. No matter what you're teaching, it has the same effect because the dog is the student and he's listening to the leader. Positive training methods yield the best results.

- Take him for walks and you lead the walk. Walking is a bonding experience for dogs, and the leader of the walk is often the leader of the household. Anytime your dog starts to go ahead of you, switch directions, or lure him with treats, or whatever method you use for getting him to heel beside or behind you.

I gotta get going, but hopefully some of that's helpful.

Definitely helpful!
I think I'm just a huge pushover. The walks were something I forgot to mention in my previous post, another thing my husband said I was doing wrong. lol Vinnie has a tendency to pull me and my husband said I should make him stop and sit when he does that because he's not supposed to pull ahead that way. Maybe I should have my husband train him. lol The place that runs the obedience class doesn't really want me to bring him in for the classes because he's somewhat dog aggressive (he's great with little dogs but horrible with big ones). They said I would have to pay for private lessons but that's WAY too expensive. I'm trying to sort through my options. My husband thinks I can train him myself I just have to learn to be more assertive. (I'm a pushover for my kids too lol)
Maybe I can bring a few treats along to reward him for walking beside me. I never thought of that, I just sort of tried to reign him in when he got ahead.
I just feel so mean not petting him. He's got the big brown puppy eyes and he looks so wounded. I'll have to not look at him. :-/
How do you set up an off limits room? Especially if I was letting him there before? I could probably keep him out of the kids playroom(that's probably how he sneaks away so many of their wooden and plastic toys). Do I just tell him no everytime he goes in there now? Won't that be confusing?
(I'm confusing myself)
Thanks for the help (again)! Luckily things seem to be working themselves out with Vinnie. Thankfully he's getting calmer now!
Mary

I have a pretty dominant dog who really thrives with strong leadership. Although we have our moments where he tests us, he's overall a very happy and well-adjusted dog.

Another vote for NILF. Making him work for everything might sound a bit overboard, but you have to realize that "work" doesn't always mean much. It just means that you get to set the rules and he has to abide by the rules to get what he wants. My dog has to sit, shake a paw, down, speak, etc before he gets to eat his meal, go outside, go for a walk, get some loving, or whatever else it is that he wants. I don't deprive him of love and affection! I lay on the floor with him, pet and scratch him, snuggle and baby-talk with him. I just make sure that it's on my terms. So don't feel mean if you don't pet him when he demands it. You can still give him unlimited love and attention, so long as you're the one initiating it.

When he was younger he used to bark and jump and try to get between my boyfriend and me. He quickly learned that that behaviour earned him a few minutes behind a baby gate while bf and I hugged each other. Now he only gets between us when we invite him for a "puppy sandwich".

In order to maintain leadership, we walk our boy every day on leash, in addition to his off-leash walks. I found that when he was only playing off-leash, he started getting a bit pushy. Leash-walking emphasizes leadership, so long as you're the one leading. To keep him from pulling, you can use different hardware (I know that lots of people use haltis. Personally, I like the easy walk harness), the "tree" method (simply stop moving when he pulls and only resume walking - in a different direction - when he stops pulling and looks to you for info), lots and lots of treats, the happy silly puppy voice (kind of embarassing, but can help keep your dog's attention on you).

What else do we do? Hmmmm... LOTS of socialization. We walk him in different places and make sure to expose him to lots of different things. Furniture is off-limits to the dog in our house. Any noisy pushy behaviour (barking, whining, pawing, etc) results in us immediately turning away from him and ignoring him.

As for the chewing, my dog is very mouthy. He loooooves to chew. We keep him busy and happy with lots of chews, but none of them are vegan/vegetarian. We use kongs (I freeze them with kibble and yogourt inside, but this could easily be filled with veg*n fare), bully sticks (actually kind of gross...they're dried bull penis...but they last a long time and the dog LOVES them) and raw frozen soup bones.

The fact is that most dogs - whether they're dominant or submissive - are MUCH happier with a strong leader. It's pretty stressful to be the leader of a pack, and so long as you're kind and consistent, your dog will probably be very happy to follow your lead!

It sounds like your husband is pretty dog savvy. Maybe you two could work with him together in obedience lessons. You don't have to go to an actual class, it takes just 15 minutes a day training at home. Work with whatever he knows first and then build up. There's lots of resources on the net for training obedience commands.

My preferred method of teaching a dog to heel is to switch directions. To do this you need to go to a big open area, like a park or an empty parking lot or a school field. Take some really tasty treats with you. When Vinnie is by your side say "good Heel" and give him a treat. Keep the leash lax, there's no need to ever pull him in. As soon as you feel him getting ahead of you, just stop and turn around and soon he'll realize that you're going the other way and have to turn around and catch up with you. Just keep repeating that. You'll end up turning and walking in different directions all the time at first, but the dogs catch on fast and it doesn't take long before they're walking beside you and looking up at you for another treat. Eventually you decrease the amount of treats you give and they've learned to heel.

... I don't know what the best way to teach a dog a certain room is off-limits. What worked for me was a squirt bottle, sitting in the room and squirting them if they crossed the line. But you could use a more positive training method and reward him for staying out of the room, give treats when he's sitting outside and not trying to get in--using that method if he went into the room you'd tell him "No" and lure him out of the room using treats, and then reward him when he's outside the room. ... And it's perfectly fine to change the rules every once in a while, but once you set them you need to be consistent. It's only when you're always inconsistent about things that they get confused.

the book "How to Be Your Dog's Best Friend: The Classic Training Manual for Dog Owners (Revised & Updated Edition) by The Monks of New Skete" is great, teaches you how to be the "pack leader"...

Excellent and easy-to-understand points Kipickell... I use the same methods (NILIF) for our dog and it's worked great. I'd heard Boston Terriers were terribly stubborn dogs and so I was a little worried when we ended up getting ours... but it's worked out great!!

She still pulls a bit on her leash if my 6-year-old walks her but is super-obedient with the rest of us... (I'd also been told that leash-training Boston Terriers is tough since they're so high-energy, so I'm glad we all survived that!!)

Or maybe the dog breed "experts" don't know what they're talking about...

Anyway, yes, you can teach them to stay out of other rooms and areas and such - we used a spray bottle... She also has other boundaries that she knows and respects, i.e. she is not allowed near the cat's food dish (and yes - they taunt her sometimes...) or MY bed.

We get compliments frequently on how well mannered she is, so evidently we're doing something right...

Thanks everyone!
I'm going to try to work on the basics with him myself. Sit, down/lay?, stay and heel. I'm a little disappointed the obedience classes didn't work out but he seems genuinely frightened of big dogs. Very threatened. He knew a little of sit when we got him and he's gotten really good about it since because I was pretty consistent with using it once I realized he knew what I was saying.
I'm going to have to get a little tougher too.
Mary
Oh and leash training him was the least fun thing I've ever done (and he's still not fully trained but at least he walks on it). He has a training harness, it's sort of like a choke collar but it's a body harness instead, and that helped me immensily. Otherwise he just pulls me like I weigh 10 pounds!

I agree with everything you guys said!
I also think that this dog CAN be taught to be OK around other dogs. YOU are the boss. If the dog starts pulling or being agressive make him sit immediately and then have your husband hold him while you pet the other dog and tell the other dog its a "good dog"

After a few days of this the dog is going to figure out pretty quickly that he'd better behave himself around other dogs if he wants your attention.

Oh also if he is gentle with another dog praise him LAVISHLY. After a few times he might start to understand. I'd start with friendly smaller dogs first and work up in size and DO NOT ACT AFRAID. Dogs smell fear or anxiety more than they understand visual clues. When you leave your house tell him to sit , go through his obedience with him set him down in his favortie area with a special treat he only gets when you are gone and leave.
Then when you come home take the toy away put away all your things ant THEN greet him.

Hope everything goes well!