I have a 95 lb dominant intact male Bouvier trained positively who is a snuggle bunny with me or my husband. I had a 90-lb extremely alpha Bouvier female (sadly lost this spring at age 10) who was uber-protective, and who was deeply bonded to me and would do absolutely anything I said. As a puppy, she would fight with everything she had to avoid being manhandled into a sit or down, but threw herself into position with positive training. My best training with her was done with a tug fight as a reward, and during the fight with me, as soon as I said "down," or "sit," she let got of the tug and threw herself on the ground. I could take anything out of her mouth, including the best bone. I called her off a full-mouth hold on a squirrel.
Positive training gets a happy, confident, cooperative dog.
Carol
Jim wrote:
Often the hardest time is puberty, when they really start pushing their boundaries to see what they can get away with. But we can end up with a 90-pound "alpha" male who's perfectly happy to go limp on his back in your lap, as long as your lap can tolerate it. <grin>
We also do bite inhibition -- when the 6-week-old bites on a hand, we slip their lips over their sharp little baby teeth, and they quickly figure out that somehow biting *people* hurts their mouth, while biting anything *else* doesn't.
Sent from my iPad 3
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