Is This Dog Dangerous Or Just Had A Hard Life

Hey guys, we've just been at the rescue centre filming with the most beautiful dog, Barney. Unfortunately, our audio is not great. We had a bit of a technical issue and I'm really, really sorry about that. But we really wanted to show you the work we've been doing with Barney because we think there's loads of things you'll be able to take away from it. So I'm going to hand over to Will and show you what we're doing with Barney. And welcome back to Fenway guys, and today we're having a really fun case. We're back at one of the rescue centres that I volunteer at and we have got an absolutely beautiful dog. Now when I was asked to work with this dog, I was under the impression that it was a German Shepherd. Now I don't think it is a German Shepherd. I'm going to speak to some of my colleagues and friends. I think there might be maybe some kind of Tibetan Mastiffy, a Strela Mountain dog, a few different bits in there. You'll see obviously when he turns around that I don't think he's full Shepherd, whether he's cross or we don't know. But really sad story about this boy. He was tied up, abandoned and the police have called out to him to pick him up and he's ended and found himself here at the shelter. So we're just going to do kind of a basic temperament assessment today and we're going to try and find out exactly where his head's at, if we've got any issues, anything that we need to work through and then if there's anything I can do to really tune him up to give him the best chance of getting rehomed as quickly as possible. But most importantly to keep him off the euthanasia table, which is why we do what we do here. So we managed to get him leaded up quite quickly and effectively. One of the first things often is whether we can go in and actually get the dog in. Obviously sometimes you can't even get into the kennel because they're so reactive, so aggressive, so dangerous. The fact that we were able to go in, we were able to get a lead on him straight away, that's good, positive signs. There's not overly any kind of human aggression straight off the bat I need to be aware of. Definitely pulling is a significant problem that we're going to address. No engagement whatsoever, this kind of whole time I've been stood here even if I can get him moving with me. He'll kind of follow a little bit of lead pressure but he's not necessarily engaging with me and wanting to look up to me for guidance and direction, which is understandable. We have no idea what happened to him before he got tied up to that fence and I need to kind of earn that relationship with him by coming in and instilling some leadership. We walked him down to this little kind of training paddock that we've got access to here at this shelter and you'll see that when we walked past some of the dogs there wasn't really any dog-to-dog reactivity which was lovely. So all I want to do really is I want to get him working, I want to build some engagement, I want to test his drives, see whether he's food motivated, whether he's toy motivated, how can I get that engagement on to me as quickly and as efficiently as possible. Whilst I'm doing that I'm going to be constantly assessing the situation, assessing his temperament and assessing what he needs to work on. I think what would be really nice for a dog of this size to help him get rehomed as quickly as possible would be for him to walk nicely, so we're going to tune that up as quickly as possible, but also if we could teach him a really good place commands. Now we're probably not going to get that done in this session today but just from his general demeanour and his temperament this isn't a death row case in terms of him potentially being put down today, so we should be able to have time to get a couple of sessions in before he gets actively pursued to be rehomed. So I've got a feeling this is going to be a fun one so we'll dive into it. So as always and you'll be noticing a trend, one of the first things I do with any dog is what I call my tune up and I want to get that engagement. This drill, I think based on his general demeanour and the fact that I've not got any significant concerns, he hasn't been jumping up me, his pulling is bad and he's very strong but I think that we're going to only really need to be able to use a slip lead. We have got other tools if we need them and for more severe cases we might dip our hand into the bag. I'm hoping that we can do everything we need to do with a big boy here with just a slip lead, isn't that right? And again you can see he's friendly, I've not got any concerns about having to correct any aggression. So what I want to do from this session now and obviously I need to give him some of my own divided attention though is we're going to move to the slip lead, I'm going to do my engagement tune up and now I'm going to see what drives him. I've got some food in one pocket, I've got a toy in another pocket and we're just going to see if we can kind of get him having a bit of fun, see what really gets his kind of motor going, if at all because some dogs don't kind of have any drive whatsoever, especially the fact that I think he's got some livestock guardian in him as opposed to pure German Shepherd would suggest that he's quite independent, confident, probably not overly driven to kind of work with a handler. I just want to get that engagement on to me and see what the crack is. So then we'll start with toy, let's see if we can kind of get his attention with a toy drive. Again we're not doing anything special here, yes good, good. What I'd like to do is if I can get him toy driven, yes, then I can also test any resource guarding type behaviours as to whether, how he will now guard that toy if I try and take that off him. Clearly not overly bothered, again I'm always cautious in these situations, you might see some of the old episodes of the Rescue Diaries, how quickly a dog can turn and redirect with a bite and you'll see me doing lots of this because I'm getting ready, always loose lead, but I'm getting ready to control the variable, should he ever redirect and try and attack me, which does happen more often than you'd think. So again I want to see him seeing that I'm standing over the toy, how's he responding to me claiming this toy, good happy demeanour, ears look good, tail looks good, he seems quite happy for me to claim this, he's not trying to guard it at all. Again give him the option, now let's see if he'll let me claim this, yes good, brilliant. So that's a real good tick in his box in terms of resource guarding, we'll do some similar tests with food a little bit later on, what we've learned there though is you can get his attention with a toy but he's not really bothered by it. So let's see if we can get any kind of drive in terms of food, so I'm just going to get his attention and let's see if he's interested. Little bit of beef there, he's completely ignored me, so that does really lean and suggest to me we might have some kind of livestock guarding dog in here, the fact that he's not overly toy driven, which if it was pure German Shepherd I would be shocked for it not being toy driven, not overly food driven, just looking at him the more I'm looking at him I'm thinking it's German Shepherd cross with some kind of livestock guardian breed which would make a lot of sense to me. Right then, so very very quickly I'm able to come in and just through assessing his body language for I don't think we have any overly things to cause us any concern, he's allowing me to touch him, there's no grumbling when I'm touching him anywhere, again there's a lot of dogs that won't like this but he seems to quite like a bit of physical praise, he's not toy driven, he's not food driven, he seems to quite like a rustle behind the ear though, so you'll see me as we're working now a lot of the praise will probably be vocal inflection and physical interaction with him, we'll be praising any desired behaviours, as always it's one of them situations, a dog that's food driven is really easy, well easier to work with, a dog that's toy driven is easier to work with, a dog that's neither toy nor food driven is a bit more difficult and then what do you do? Well as always you fall back to leadership, engagement and that's what we're going to do now, so I'm going to start working on my kind of engagement tune-up drill that you've seen me do lots but you'll see how I do it with a real big powerful breed like this and try and get that engagement, that focus and most importantly as I always preach about him starting to look up to me for guidance and direction, so what will probably happen there'll be some minor bits of lead pressure and then how he responds to that lead pressure will be a real eye-opener as well as to kind of what kind of home and owner would be suitable for him to go to in the future, so I'll try and comment as I do it, let's go, let's go, good, let's go, good, let's go, we're not getting any kind of let's go, yes, better, yes no praise there, let's go and this is, oh look at this, already loads better, let's go, so giving him a little correction, you've got to listen to me when I'm telling you you're going better, focus on me, look at the difference now, just from coming in and instilling a little bit of leadership, guidance and direction, now this is where you're pressing, let's go, look up at me, now even though he's out in front of me, we'll tidy this up, the fact that he gave me that little glance, that little check up is exactly what I'm looking for and even though it's not perfect here, we've been doing this for 20-30 seconds and like I say what I want is for you to look up to me for guidance and direction, so you're going to see me do a real obvious one here, I'm going to give him the opportunity to listen to me vocally, if he doesn't a little bit of pressure is going to come on, just to bring it back and as soon as that attention comes to me, the pressure shuts off, so this will be a lovely, let's go, yes, good, yes, good, beautiful, yes, beautiful, good, good boy, yes, good boy, yes, now engaging with me, yes, good, good boy, yes, good, engage with me and everything in the world is what you can have, every positive thing you've ever wanted, if he was food driven, that's where I'd be paying it, if he was toy driven, that's where I'd be paying it, he's not, so I'm going to use more vocal inflection and physical praise, I'm just going to reward, yes, good boy, good boy, anytime you look up to me, engage with me, yes, you're going to get praise and this very, very smart German shepherd brain, see he's working it out, now you'll notice that a right hand turn gives him more of an opportunity to go, which is good in some circumstances because it allows me to correct it easily, to let him know, quick pay attention, left hand turns allow me to cut him off and let him know that he really needs to like constantly be watching me to let him know where it is, now again this is, we talk about this a lot with guard dog breeds, we've now come to a nice stop and I've planted my flag, I'm in control, calm, consistent leadership and I plant my flag here to let him know I'm in charge, now it's always interesting with a guard dog breed, especially these very natural, what I think is some inherent livestock guardian type behaviours as opposed to purely German shepherd, purely German shepherd, I'd really start to pull this into a heel and I'd start to want eye contact and I'd build it from more of a engagement and obedience perspective for a breed like this or for a mastiff, I'm quite happy for you doing this, do your thing, you keep an eye out for me but let me know if there's any issues but I'm still in charge and control, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to talk you through some of those different directional changes and it's one of those things now, a pure German shepherd would find a right hand directional turn much easier because you can make a game out of it, you can pay it with food and toys, a natural guardian breed that's more independent, more confident, that isn't inclined to work with a handler is going to be scouting off and they'll find it more difficult, which is why we then very quickly started to add in left hand and right hand turns, so this would be a classic example, let's go, so this would be a right hand, so he's responding really nicely to it, I'm going to pull him in, will we do a right hand, let's go, so he's now starting to respond nicely, that's a right hand turn but now as we start adding in the left hand, you see I'm cutting across it, beautiful, so this is what's really helping us with our kind of loose lead to my left hand side because he's understanding when I can't go past because he might take a turn at any second and he has to be in tune with this, once you start layering on that engagement, everything else is easy, so that is going to pretty much conclude session number one, so what we've done there is we've just done a few very basic drills, we've tested drive, we've worked out we haven't really got any toy drive, we haven't got any overall food drive but he does like a nice bit of physical praise, don't you big boy, yes, yeah you enjoy that, so whenever I want to let him know he's done something good, I'm going to give him a bit of physical praise, I'm going to let him know that he needs to kind of focus on me and when we come to a stop, I'm starting to guide him into this position, then I'm planting my flag just to really ooze that kind of positive, assertive leadership, we've tested some resource guarding and I'm really happy that there isn't as much resource guarding if any, so that's a massive positive for us for his rehoming plans, he seems like a beautiful boy with a lovely temperament, why someone would tie him up for offence and leave him, I've got no idea but as is the world unfortunately and I would like to, we've got another 10-15 minutes in but as you can see it's red hot, I would want to be wearing this coat in this weather so I want to make sure he can go and have some water, I'm not sure obviously if someone would tie him up to a fence, I can't imagine they were the kind of people that probably worked him and exercised him loads, this was probably quite a lot for him but it's told me everything I need to know, I can go and report back and be like look we've got a really solid dog to work with here, now what I want to carry on doing is we've achieved massive success with heel walking, so as you saw when we first put his lead on he was dragging me everywhere and now if we wrap this up just with a nice little walk straight away, again we can shoe this up and make it nicer but the difference straight away and a potential owner of someone that would want to rehome this to be able to walk him like this as opposed to walking him how he was being walked could be a difference between him being rehomed and him not being rehomed, we've had a single finger walking but we've made massive progress with that in a really short session and as you can see he's definitely getting tired so I want to go and let him have a rest, give him some water, next session that we'll film with you I would like to get that heel walking really sharp, really nice and I'd like to teach him a place command, just a dog this big, this strong, this powerful to when you have guests coming to your home he will be reactive, he will sound an alarm, he's a guardian breed that's absolutely fine but to give a potential owner this dog who has got a lovely temperament, ain't you big boy, you are a good lad, yeah he's a lovely dog but to give them this dog with the ability to walk it nicely and to be able to send it to a place when somebody comes it'll be a dog place stay, if we can give them that with heel walking I don't think we're going to have any issue whatsoever rehoming this boy, isn't that right mate, you a good lad, yes, you a big softy, what did those people do to you eh, we'll make sure we find you a good home though, good lads, so that's that and we'll see you on the next episode of Fenro Canine Training.