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Originally Posted by mandiedandie
We've already started training them by not allowing them to sleep in the bed, but they sleep in our room...is that not a good idea? I don't know where else I'd put them, our house is kind of small, and the only other bedroom is the nursery.
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I know I'm the one who said the thing about not sleeping in the room with you (what our trainer told us), but we still let our sleep in the bed, on our pillows! We tried most of what the trainer told us, but that one was just too hard to break!
I think with the fearful one, just use lots of rewards with training and try not to be overly forceful. Don't use loud voices, etc.
So is the other dog the one with pack leader problems? Are you afraid when working with the dog? I think if you're afraid that the dog could bite you, not a good thing with baby around KWIM? Not to tell you what to do, but we trained ours with a special collar - not a choke collar - oh what was it called??? Maybe a pinch collar or something? It has "points" that face the neck, but they are NOT pointy at all - couldn't peirce the skin. The points don't cause pain, but when the collar is pulled, it can pinch the skin. (You don't pull hard - and we tested it on our own skin to make sure!). We used it with the direction of the trainer - a specialist who worked with police dogs and retrained fight dogs for pets. Maybe if you had something that you knew could stop the dog if you had to, you wouldn't be afraid.
I LOVE the Dog Whisperer! Oh, the one thing we found was a kennel that socialized the dogs during the day. We leave our dog there when we're out of town, but they have day programs as well, like doggy day care. He is always so well behaved after a visit and much better with other dogs and kids. You could look into something in your area, though they do require a temperament test before they'll put a dog in with other dogs, so that might not work... Out of ideas.