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Meet Hunter

BJohnson

BJohnson

Well-Known Member
After weeks of looking around, my family finally took the plunge and rescued a dog from a local animal shelter. Meet Hunter. He is a 45 lb., six-month old male lab (I assume mix). After initially being rather hyped, he is adjusting well and demonstrating a lot more patience and relaxing pretty well. This is our first family pet and we have a couple months to develop a routine before everyone will be gone during the day at school, work, college, etc. Hopefully we can figure this out without tramatizing Hunter too much in the process. Any advice will be appreciated and we wouldn't turn down a few prayers either ! :D

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congrats! No better feeling than rescuing a dog from the animal shelter..thats where I got my dog from, and he has been the best dog my family has ever had. Just simply amazing..With my dog, a few treats went along ways with training. He has never gone to the bathroom in the house, does not jump on furniture, and doesnt beg for food at all. Its great..good choice, and good luck:way:
 
Love seeing folks adopting dogs from shelter, they are wonderful pets and need homes, that's awesome! I'll be in your shoes in maybe a year SO no advice yet. Congrats though!
 
i've been thinking about a rescue dog myself. i've been browsing great pointer rescue and a couple brittney rescue websites. the nice thing about a dog froma rescue site, as opposed to pound, is the recue site dogs live in foster homes, that take care of socialization, house training, and sometimes some obediance
 
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For a first day at home, his at home behavior has been very satisfactory. For the most part he has obeyed our commands to stay in the basement family room. Relaxes with the three kids very well. Social behavior is decent with one-on-one new people. No accidents in the house and urinates within 1-2 minutes each time we have taken him out for potty time and BM's have all been outside also. No mid-night potty break the first night either. :way:

However, I did take him to a park today that was having a town social event. Lots of people, kids and noises. Well, his youth and hyper side came out in full force and he was a hand full. It will be some time before I do that again but I was probably naive to expect him to perform well in that environment so lesson learned for me this time around. Last night I sleep next to his crate but tonight he is going to sleep in the basement in the crate alone so hopefully it is not too long a night for the family. My brother told me to not re-enforce the expectation of a crate-side companion each night unless I wanted to permanently change my sleeping arrangements :(. We did a test run during supper and he got settled in the crate after whining and barking for 15 minutes. When I got down to him after supper he was laying down in the crate quietly. :drink1: Hopefully that is a start to the development of a comfort zone in his crate.

Again, any and all input is appreciated. Thanks for listening.
 
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I'm dog sitting this week.

The nice little doggie ate my '10 turkey beard.:mad:

Sorry, don't have any good advice right now besides a hammer.:(:D
 
JNRBRONC said:
I'm dog sitting this week.

The nice little doggie ate my '10 turkey beard.:mad:

Sorry, don't have any good advice right now besides a hammer.:(:D
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Sorry, I laughed at that. I have a couple spare 10 in beards if you need a replacement! ;)

Thomas has a bunch of 3.5 inch jake beards you could glue together though. :way:
 
yup, i lost a decoy fan to the lab i had last winter. try giving him a special treat or toy that he only gets in his crate. make his crate a "happy place" and he won't resist the crate time as much
 
Last night actually went very well. Once in the crate, he only took about 10 minutes to settle down and we never heard him again. Up and out with him for a walk at 5:30 am and no accidents in the crate!! Pottied again within 1-2 minutes outside in the in the yard so he has definately got some form of blatter control already.

Today will be spent with the crate doors open and he has already been looking at the toys inside it this morning. So far, things are moving in the right direction. Thanks for the support.
 
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Great looking dog! The good luck you are having with your 6 month old makes me question my sanity for getting a 7 week old pup to morrow.:confused: I'm sure our first few nights won't e as smooth as yours. We will see!
 
Good luck with the pup Wayne. He looks adorable.

As I have read, I expect some setbacks to follow at some time in the future but so far this experience has been very gratifying. It was funny watching Hunter play with one of his chew toys tonight. Just happens to be one of the sheds I found this winter that the tree rats had already gotten to. He really has fun rolling around playing with it and throwing it in the air. :way:

My family and I feel very lucky with him so far.
 
Good looking pup, sounds like you are having good luck so far. Keep us posted on his progress. Be careful with the sheds as chem toys, I give my pups the little sheds or chewed up sheds also but every now and then I catch them carrying around one of the big display sheds. Luckily they haven't really went to town on one yet :)
 
He's a great looking pup. When our female German shepherd was a 1.5 yo pup, she destroyed our hot tub cover (it was sunk to just above ground level when we bought the house). I was furious, but she was so happy to see me come home from work, I couldn't punish her for fear of her thinking she was getting punished for being happy to see me. However, she knew what was going on as soon as I pointed at the hot tub. 2 years later, her and our male pup (also 1.5 at the time), destroyed the replacement hot tub cover! I'd take a lost turkey beard over 2 hot tub covers any day!

As far as socializing him in public, I'd say keep after it so that he does, in fact, become socialized and used to it. But you should consider getting a "gentle leader" or "halti collar". They work like a horse bridle and one quick tug from under their heads and the dogs respond to your "alphaness" really well. We did that with our female GS at 4 months old and it worked amazingly. We slacked with taking our male out in public and we had some social issues, mainly with other dogs and kids. I didn't really care if he didn't like other men (loves women), but I wanted him to be good with kids in public places. He's always been great with our own kids, but it took him a while to be ok in public. And with the gentle leaders, my 6 year old daughter and 2.5 year old son can control either dog easily on walks.
 
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Great looking dog. I had a black lab too (passed away 4 years ago) and I know they can be a handfull on the leash. Best thing I ever did was buy a pinch collar, walks went from being dragging wrestling matches to nice leisurely strolls. They don't harm the dog and don't gag them like choke collars (which I found inneffective anyway).

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I personally do not like pinch collars. There really isn't much difference between a pinch and choker other than the pinch does what it's called. Any collar that will stay high on the neck; just under the chin will give you all of the control you need. He will walk like a show dog for you. A good electric training collar; such as a Tri-Tronics is probably the best money you can spend to have an obediant dog.
 
cedar creek said:
I personally do not like pinch collars. There really isn't much difference between a pinch and choker other than the pinch does what it's called. Any collar that will stay high on the neck; just under the chin will give you all of the control you need. He will walk like a show dog for you. A good electric training collar; such as a Tri-Tronics is probably the best money you can spend to have an obediant dog.
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I have to disagree. I've tried choke collars and they are ineffective. The pinch collar worked amazingly, almost instant dramatic improvement.

Shock collars are effective but you really have to know what you're doing with them to use them effectively.
 
Monsterbuck said:
I have to disagree. I've tried choke collars and they are ineffective. The pinch collar worked amazingly, almost instant dramatic improvement.

Shock collars are effective but you really have to know what you're doing with them to use them effectively.
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The reason you got instant results with the pinch collar is that you are adding the little steel fingers that dig into the hide that chokers don't have. While not excessively cruel; they can harm an over exuberant dog. Especially a larger young dog. I certainly wouldn't recommend a pinch collar to anybody.
 
cedar creek said:
The reason you got instant results with the pinch collar is that you are adding the little steel fingers that dig into the hide that chokers don't have. While not excessively cruel; they can harm an over exuberant dog. Especially a larger young dog. I certainly wouldn't recommend a pinch collar to anybody.
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Let me get this straight, a pinch of the skin is worse than an electrical shock?

I've had great results and recommend them, Cedar Creek apparently is opposed to them, to each their own.
 
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