Dog lovers

[Pyre]

Personally, I would only use the e-collar as a last resort. If you can raise your voice to them to the point that they lower their head and droop their tail, that should be enough.

And for my funny dog story... our female lab loves stuffed animals. But for some reason, she will chew the face off of them and then pull all the stuffing out. Its amazing with all the different little shapes and sizes of stuffed things we have gotten her, she knows what the face is and chews it off. So we set them all up along our fireplace, a little row of cute little faceless stuffed animals.

And she loves to cut things in half (with my help). I can take an old pair of denim jeans, hold them up to her and she'll cut completely through them in just a couple of minutes. She has trouble doing it by herself, since she can't hold the edges tight.

 

[Allofus123]

We do have her cage trained, except we use the downstairs bathroom so she has a bit more room.

Last night she snapped at the little one. He was messing with her food so I can't blame her, but it did give me the opportunity to set the pecking order a bit better. When she does something out of place my wife holds her head the floor and growls at her.

A couple of things to add.....

Putting the dog in the bathroom is not the same as crate training. You see it as "giving the dog more room" but the reality is that you are closing the dog in a room which will heighten seperation anxiety. If crate trained properly the crate becomes its "safe place". Big difference.

Not sure what you mean by the little one was "messing" with her food but regardless of what was happening, food or not, there is never ever ever a reason to allow a dog to snap at anyone. Instead of observing the pecking order you should have immeadiately inforced the pecking order. No hesitation. By allowing the dog to snap at the child the dog has established itself as the alpha to the child.

I have another way that your wife can enforce pecking order that won't require her to get on the floor and growl. (If only I could get my wife to lay on the floor and growl ) Take the dog and "pin" him/her on his/her back. This does not mean rub its bellie and have it roll over. Take the dog and force it to its back. You need to be firm and deliberate. Now the dog will do one of two things.... lay there or fight like hell trying to get on its feet. Keep a firm hold and allow the dog to struggle if it wants but under no circumstance allow the dog to get off its back until it stops fighting for 10 to 15 seconds. You are making the dog submit to you or whoever is doing the pinning. If you need to incorporate small kids into establishing pecking order allow one of the grown ups to actually do the pinning and once the dog has submitted allow the child to hold the pin. Only you can decide if a child is capable of doing this because if the dog fights his way to his feet when the child "takes over" the dog will be learning the child is not an alpha.