🙂 You’re welcome. Kaos pees on my neighbors dog.  He would run up to the fance, stop and hike his leg right on the pamapoos head. I know what it’s like to have a young pit.  They’re rambunctious and it is obnoxious, especially when they want to play.  It can also be difficult because people don’t understand that they aren’t being agressive.  We call Kaos our ankle biter because he likes to go after our toes.  There was one time my daughter sat down and he pulled her around on her butt by her shoe.  She thought it was hillarious.  I didn’t think it was quite so funny while trying to get the grass stains out of her pants.  As far as the kennel training goes, as with all training, start when it’s quiet.  If she already has some idea what the command means, then give her the command and wait for her to go INTO her kennel, then give her a treat.  When she consistantly goes to her kennel when you give the command, then start making her stay before you give her the treat.  Once she gets good at waiting for you, you can start giving her the command when people are around. A lot of times Kaos will try and ignore us.  We just point to his kennel and give him the command sternly while stepping into his space.  We don’t smack him or anything, just assert our authority with a strong voice and ominous presence.  You can also try flipping her over on her back and kneeling over her like a dominant dog would.  Some people think this can help assert you as an authority figure.  Whether you try this method, or just assert yourself as her “pack leader” through discipline, she will respond better in all situations if she knows you’re boss.  Not to say you have to be abusive, just firm and authoritative.  This type of authority could help when she starts going after your feet too. 🙂  As far as excersize goes, we don’t have a whole lot of time, so we go out to a quiet road, kick Kaos out of the car, then drive.  Fast enough that he can’t get infront of the car.  He LOVES to chase us!  This is probably not the most conventional form of excersize, but the sprints burn energy FAST.  We can get one heck of a work out in 30 min.  If you’re working on a tight schedule, running sprints can burn off energy in a shorter amount of time than walks.  Kaos won’t play fetch, othewise that would be a good activity.  Focus training and kennel training both take time and patience.  Just keep at it and be consistant, and someday your dog will be old and arthritic and not able to run and jump and be obnoxious. 😉 Jk. It really does work, but only if used consistantly.  Kaos is about a year and a half and is still full of puppy.  Just keep workin’ hard and she’ll get it.  They’re very smart, just stuborn.

Try focus training. Start small.  Start in a quiet area.  The idea is to keep her in a situation long enough to sort of get bored.  Have somebody walking behind or beside you, but not too close.  She’ll probably be pretty intense at first, but just keep walking.  Don’t sit still because then she is already bored and will focus more on this other person.  Keep walking around the area, keeping the same distance between you and your training parter.  As you sense her attention start to break make her sit.  Hold the treet up and wait for her to look at you, even if just for a split second.  Reward her every time she focuses her attention on you.  As she starts to build her focus you can start pushing for her to focus for longer periods of time.  When she starts to get that down move to an area where you can be around or encounter other people.  As you walk practice getting her attention when people or other dogs walk by or as your walking by the soccer field with kids playing.  Once you can get her to focus on you and sit and lay down, even with other people around, up the ante and take the training back into your back yard.  Start with her on the leash.  Walk around the yard, up and down the fence etc. It may be a challenge to your training at first, but just remember to reward her for even the slightest shift in attention from the dog to you.  This type of training desensatizes dogs.  They will be more relaxed and happier if they learn to focus on you rather than the dog across the fence or the bike rider in the park.  The important part to remember is that it is a lifestyle.  You can’t let your dog’s focus wander wherever on walks then expect her to pay attention to you at home, just because you want her to.  Teaching her tricks is a great way to get her attention.  As for the play, try time outs.  Our dog Kaos is the same way.  He is very energetic and has an issue with self control.  We taught him the command, “Kennel Up.”  When the command is given he goes into his kennel and waits for us to tell him to come out.  The kennel doesn’t have a door, so this excercise needs to be trained for.  It took a little while for Kaos to understand that he got sent to his kennel when he wasn’t socializing appropriately, but this training has worked FABULOUSLY!

This breed presents a number of challenges.  They are very intelligent.  You can show them a trick a couple times and they will catch on extremely quickly.  However, they can be very stubborn.  Kaos knew several tricks before he was potty trained, not because he didn’t know to go to the bathroom outside, but because it was cold out and he didn’t like it.  Have faith in the fact that you are in for an interesting experience!  You’ll find that their exhuberant personalities more than make up for the “comming to God” discussions we have all had with out pits.  My best advice is, take time to enjoy your dog!  Laugh at him when he smacks himself in the face with his tail, let him tuck his poor little cold nose under your elbow and love him when you can’t turn around without tripping over him.  The rest is pretty basic training, but with MUCH more patience.  Watch out for fixation though.  Start early with attention excercises.  Teach your new puppy to ignore other dogs, other people etc.  Pits have a tendency to be very intense and this fixation can often cause problems.  SOCIALIZE, SOCIALIZE, SOCIALIZE!!  I used to tuck Kaos into the front of my jacket and take him to the store, just so LOADS of people would want to pet him, hold him, etc.

Lol.  We tried to get Kaos to play with a ball.  Apparently, he doesn’t have ANY retriever blood in him, because he just looked at us like, “K, you threw it, now you can go get it!”    Also, sometimes he’ll have a rawhide or dental bone gone on the way home from Petco, other times, he just gently moves it out of his way.  Of all the toys we’ve gotten for him, his alltime favorite has to be his old leash.  It’s torn to shreds, but he grabs one end and shakes his head and swings it around, the clasp has cracked him, me, the kids and my husband several times, but if it whacks him on the head, he just blinks and swings it harder.  If I remember right you’re the one that rescued her not that long ago and posted, “She’s just not that into it?”  Shelters have funny effects on dogs, it creates depression, just like in us.  A lot of dogs get a little stir crazy.  I would say that she’s probably just enjoying the peace and quiet and absorbing her new environment.  Who knows, maybe being in puppy jail made her feel the need to cleans?! 😉 However, a lot of pits are great couch potatoes!  Kaos will sneek up on our bed at night if he gets cold and he’ll stay there till about 1:30 in the afternoon, then he’ll stretch, come downstairs, and flop down on the lawn in the sunshine.  If it’s cold out he’ll curl up on the floor in the sunshine coming through the sliding glass door.  He loves to go out and run and if he’s in a mood, he’s OBNOXIOUS till he gets to go out and play, but they make great snuggle bugs, especially if you like full body pillows.  Just be careful if you sleep with a partner.  I wake up because I’m freezing and my husband and dog have all the blankets and my hubby’s snuggled up, drooling on the dog!

That’s very good news! I love it when things can be solved peacefully.  And I love happy pits! We have a dog next door that terrorizes my pit.  This dog is an inside dog and EVERY time his owners bring him out for a walk he comes out swingin.  They use a harness and he comes out barking and standing straight up on his hind two legs.  We finally nicknamed him Superman because he thinks he’s invinceable.  His name is Coco and he is ready and willing to go toe to toe with Kaos every day.  Kaos usually just watches him for a minute, then comes back inside. It would be very irritating that they allow their dog to chase my poor pit back inside his own home, except that this dog is a toy poodle.  His owners have apologized several times for his behavior and they love that Kaos is so well behaved.  We just sit and laugh, only I think it’s started a neighborhood uprising, the teacup chiwhawha across the street and the minpin cross behind us have both gotten a little big for their britches.  Every time Kaos sees them he hides behind my legs.  It’s getting embarrassing. 😉

We use a pinch collar, or pronged collar.  They look a bit harsh, but they are realistically very practical.  They are designed to gently pinch the prongs together when a dog pulls. For heavier, higher energy breeds they are safer TRAINING TOOL than choke collars because they only tighten a small amount and the type of pressure is more accute so as to discourage pulling to begin with (they are not designed to cause pain, as the prongs are dull.)  My husband flat refused to buy one when he first saw it because he thought it looked meen.  Finally it got to the point where I couldn’t walk Kaos because he’s just too strong.  We have been working very hard on walking side by side, but I couldn’t do it if he hadn’t run off some energy first.  If he’s off leash he has excelent recall skills, it’s just on the leash that we were having issues.  My husband went and got a prong collar for me so that I could continue my training.  Now my husband is a believer!!!!  My dog is almost 19 mos old and is very good, just full of energy.  I say that the prong collar is a TRAINING TOOL because it should be used to get the attention of a high energy dog for training purposes.  I know not everybody agrees with the pronged collars, but my shoulder sockets LOVE them.  Kaos is now learning that, no matter who is walking by or what he wants to sniff, he is to stay beside me.  I pair the collar with consistant training and I look forward to the day when we can walk without the collar.

I would just like to say that I think that this thread is ludicrous.  For those of us who attempted to educate the poor sod who made the initial post, we were fighting a rigged battle.  The voice of “Reason” is that of somebody who is willing to ignore good sense and simply wanted to argue.  Nothing we said would have had any effect.  I would, however, like to say thank you to all the people who jumped to the defense of our breed.  For all the discussions and disagreements that are haggled out on this web site, the protection of our breed is something we all agree on.  As for you, Reason, if you have even been back to this web site to see the arguments that have been presented, shame on you.  I truly pitty you becuase you are obviously so close minded that you are willing to miss out on the best things in life.  Also, thank you, because you reminded me of what we are up against in this battle to protect what we love so much.

I agree with the advice given here. Consistency is very important. However, it’s also important to find what works for your dog. If a spray bottle works for you, that’s great, if the knee thing works, cool, if ignoring the behavior works, more power to you (it  sure didn’t for me.)  But, if you are still struggling, you could try the technique that works for us.  We tried the spray bottle, Kaos drank the water, we tried the knee or stepping into him, he just used our knees to hold himself up.  We tried ignoring him, but it’s very difficult to get other people to ignore him, plus he’s much too big to ignore.  He will knock you over if you don’t take control.  We trained Kaos to “Kennel Up” on command.  You can do the same thing with a bed, carpet or other type of designated area.  We worked very hard on this command daily while nobody was at our house.  At first we started by giving the command, then throwing a treat into the kennel. If you use something other than a kennel, just make sure you use it consistently.  Don’t give the command for a small rug one time, then the corner the next.  Once Kaos learned to associate the command with going into the kennel we then would give the command and make him stay in his kennel (it has no door) for a moment before rewarding him.  Once he was very solid with the command we put it into action.  When somebody comes into the house we allow Kaos to greet them.  When he gets too excited and jumps, or dispays any other type of nuisance behaviors, we give him the command.  He’s never happy about it because he doesn’t like being sent away.  That part is the same theory as ignoring him.  We then reward him while he is in the kennel, not being a nuisance.  This is positive reward for good behavior and works sooo much better than constantly yelling!  The other nice thing is that it can be used repeatedly.  At first Kaos would come out of his kennel and dive bomb our guests.  We would send him right back to his kennel. The idea is similar to time out for children. It allows us to regain command, gives the dog a moment to chill, and is a reward for positive behavior.  We had guests over last night and Kaos was amazingly well behaved!  He even fell asleep on the back porch while we were barbecueing.  This method takes a little bit of dedication and practice, but can be used in so many ways.  Things like problem barking etc. can be solved by sending the dog to his or her spot, then rewarding them for the correct behavior.