Hi all, I am hoping some of you can give me advice on training my Chihuahua cross.
I'll start by giving you a bit of background. I love with my elderly parents and we have 3 dogs, a Collie cross, who is 14, a Westie who is almost 10, and two years ago, we adopted a little Chihuahua Papillon cross, who is called Buddy and is 5. He had come from an abusive home, and has displayed some fearful behaviour, and was very defensive at first, but slowly, we got him calm and for the most part he is well behaved. He is very loving, mostly obedient and very cute.
The problems happen when someone comes to the door. He becomes out of control, snarling and spitting but he usually calms down when the visitor enters the house and sits on the sofa. We ensure that everyone ignores him so he knows they aren't threatening, and that helps him a lot.
He despises my brother, and when he comes to visit we have to put Buddy into another room because he has bitten him before. He is a very stressed out little dog when visitors come, and nothing we do seems to calm him. It's like the red mist comes down and he can't see or think straight. More recently, he has tried to bite my parents when the door goes, if they block his way to the front door. This is a new thing that he has never done before. He isn't spoilt, he doesn't get to do whatever he wants, and he is aware that we are his leaders. We are great believers in reward based, positivity training. The last thing we want to do is have him stressed out anymore, but we are worried that this is going to get worse. We would never give him up, we are fully committed to seeing through any problem that arises. That's what adoption means to us, he is ours and we will do whatever it takes to make him better.
The girls (the older dogs) do a bit of barking when the doorbell goes but that's all. All three of them have had the snip.
Any useful suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I know it's his past experiences that are causing his behaviour, I'm just at a loss as to how to fix it. We've tried everything, even muzzling him to try to get him used to my brother, but he was so upset wearing the muzzle that we felt it was becoming cruelty to force him to wear it, although he did allow us to put it on.
On walks, he used to lunge and bark at every person who passed, but this has become a rarity, he is much more relaxed when he's out now.
I'm sorry this turned out to be a long post. I thank you for reading.
Ali
I'll start by giving you a bit of background. I love with my elderly parents and we have 3 dogs, a Collie cross, who is 14, a Westie who is almost 10, and two years ago, we adopted a little Chihuahua Papillon cross, who is called Buddy and is 5. He had come from an abusive home, and has displayed some fearful behaviour, and was very defensive at first, but slowly, we got him calm and for the most part he is well behaved. He is very loving, mostly obedient and very cute.
The problems happen when someone comes to the door. He becomes out of control, snarling and spitting but he usually calms down when the visitor enters the house and sits on the sofa. We ensure that everyone ignores him so he knows they aren't threatening, and that helps him a lot.
He despises my brother, and when he comes to visit we have to put Buddy into another room because he has bitten him before. He is a very stressed out little dog when visitors come, and nothing we do seems to calm him. It's like the red mist comes down and he can't see or think straight. More recently, he has tried to bite my parents when the door goes, if they block his way to the front door. This is a new thing that he has never done before. He isn't spoilt, he doesn't get to do whatever he wants, and he is aware that we are his leaders. We are great believers in reward based, positivity training. The last thing we want to do is have him stressed out anymore, but we are worried that this is going to get worse. We would never give him up, we are fully committed to seeing through any problem that arises. That's what adoption means to us, he is ours and we will do whatever it takes to make him better.
The girls (the older dogs) do a bit of barking when the doorbell goes but that's all. All three of them have had the snip.
Any useful suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I know it's his past experiences that are causing his behaviour, I'm just at a loss as to how to fix it. We've tried everything, even muzzling him to try to get him used to my brother, but he was so upset wearing the muzzle that we felt it was becoming cruelty to force him to wear it, although he did allow us to put it on.
On walks, he used to lunge and bark at every person who passed, but this has become a rarity, he is much more relaxed when he's out now.
I'm sorry this turned out to be a long post. I thank you for reading.
Ali
