Lanzarote Dog Trainer

He is still starting each session with the tug of war game. I’m sure he knows that this results in a treat as the second I say leave he sits down and looks at my hand. I am starting to fade out the treats for this as he is expecting them and creating a situation where I have to reward him, not the idea!

He has had his ‘little boy’ operation yesterday so hopefully this will help calm him down and help him be a little less aggressive towards other dogs. Unneutered males can often be dominant and frustrated and unless you plan to breed from a male it is always best to get him castrated.

Severo’s grasp of come and sit is superb, he is no fool and is well aware that he will be rewarded for responding. This is good though as he is very food orientated and I can keep his attention on me.

We had some really good progress with other dogs today, so much so that I decided to give him a chance to greet another dog up close. He was absolutely fine and was greeting other dogs in a very friendly manner until one of the larger podencos tried to mount him. He growled but was very good and allowed me to just walk him away without trying to go back and fight. So, quite successful.

This time I took Severo out, he started again trying to ‘play’ tug of war with the lead.

I relented and gave him a couple of treats to leave it and we carried on with the walk.

Today we practised walking to heel and with only a few corrections he was walking perfectly.

He has remembered the sit command from the first session and performs it at around 80% of the time.

I have started working him with other dogs to try and put him more at ease around them. Today I worked him at a distance of about 10 metres away from other dogs out on walks. He showed no aggression at this distance and quite happily focused on me and the commands I was teaching him. Over the next few sessions I will shorten the distance and build up his confidence around other dogs and try to create a positive association with other dogs.

Today I took Severo out for the first time. He is incredibly strong and I think he is used to getting his own way. When he realised that I wasn’t just going to let hem drag me along for a walk he changed tactics and started a game of tug and war with the lead. First task – teach him the ‘leave’ command!

His idea of play (I’ll call it play but I think it is more trying to dominate me) is to get the part of the lead closest to him and pull with all his strength, growling at me. He is, however, easily distracted and when I produced a treat and told him to leave he dropped the lead immediately to receive the treat and we could carry on with our walk.

He walks quite nicely on the lead when he realises he’s not going to control the walk further reinforcing my original opinion that he needs an owner who will be firm with the training.

Today we also started working on ‘sit’. He’s quite a quick dog and will work for food treats. A little too quick though as he soon learnt that by grabbing the lead I would ask him to leave and he would receive a treat. I had to adopt a different strategy with him and just stop still and completely ignore his attempts to play until he dropped the lead.

I will start working with his aggression towards other dogs in our next session.

Severo is a 1 ½ year old male Bardino mix and has been in the shelter since February 2010.  He is brindle coloured and a large dog.

The Bardino is an old Canarian breed originally used for livestock herding. Known for its fiery temper and high drive,

it is not a well known breed outside of the Canary Islands. It is the Bardino crossed with a mastiff type breed that created the Presa Canario.

Severo has been showing some aggression towards other dogs especially around food.

Ideally Severo would suit a home with fit owners willing to be firm with him. He would probably not be good for a family with young children as he is quite boisterous and could injure a young child accidently. Older children capable of understanding how to behave around dogs would be fine. I will test him for compatibility with cats and other dogs during the training.