[Buddyfalloon]

Hi everyone!

I am new to the forum. My name is Raina and I own a beautiful puppy named Buddy, he is a cattle/kelpie (mother is suspected to also have bull Arab in her) X Irish wolfhound.
Buddy is an extremely friendly and pleasant dog but we are having some issues. He is 5 months old and currently weighing in at 18.4 kgs.

So I'll start
1) He can get a bit rough when playing with smaller and more submissive dogs and doesn't seem to take no for an answer. It's more a puppy playful kind of act but the other day while at the dog park he was chasing our friends cavalier and at one point latched on and my partner had to pull him off, it wasn't a hard to get off sort of situation but like he was biting. We put him on the leash and from then on he had to sit with us.

With bigger dogs it doesn't seem to be an issue they seem to put him in his place.


2) He can be face shy, we handled him from when we got him at 2 1/2 and never had an issue with touching ears or checking teeth until recently. He will try to get away and will struggle or even turn his head to sort of bite. This is a behaviour I am concerned about as currently he has an ear infection and I need to touch his ears. He whined terribly when the vet tried to show me how to apply the ear drops and the vet only poked them.

3) This is a training issue. Buddy knows how to sit but has a poor attention span and won't always do as asked. We would really like him to know how to sit, stay, come, lay down and leave it reliably! I was teaching him the lay down cue but he doesn't seem to want to do it if he doesn't get a treat. We are enrolling him in puppy preschool but is there anything we can do at home to help ?

 

[Chas]

1) I'm not too sure about I'll leave it for others.

2) he's probably in pain, dogs have no concept of veterinary care so all he knows is you're approaching his vulnerable spot. I'd use some special treats like boiled chicken and take it slow. Maybe one person treating one person applying medication for now, then once it's resolved work on handling training.

3) a positive trainer is a great idea! They should be able to help you with all of these and more, like handling. Kikopup on YouTube is also a really great resource. Also, one of the best trainers I've come across made a good point: if you consistently treat for cues then you build a system where the dog always get something out of it, this means when they really want something and you have to call them back they'll have a reason to do it. I'm not planning to wean off treats, I'll end up reducing them because I won't have to treat for every stage of a desired behavior, 5 months is a bit early anyway.

 

[icemaiden]

What's a bull Arab?

 

[Buddyfalloon]

What's a bull Arab?

Bull Arab is a type of Australian dog

 

[Kiba]

maybe the first is predatory instincts kicking in? my guess is as hes maturing the instincts come in and are triggered while chasing the smaller dogs and they just kind of took control. i would prevent it by supervising when he plays with smaller dogs and stopping them when they get too rough, or muzzle Buddy when playing.
(someone please correct me if im wrong!)

 

[MrsCunningham]

Well he's cattle x kelpie 2 working dogs, both bred to herd livestock , I would say he is herding your friends dog, and working dogs do nip the heels of livestock so this may be part of it also.
You need to work on re directing his attention and maybe instead of going to dog parks go for longer walks instead