Alaskan Malamute Help

Discussion of useful training and pet care tools.

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cheryl341
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Joined: Mon Jun 25, 2012 5:32 pm
Location: San Francisco, CA
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Alaskan Malamute Help

Post by cheryl341 »

:( I have just taken in a beautiful 5yr old Alaskan Malamute (from a friend of mine) who has serious confidence issues. She is very gentle and needy, she rolls over and presents her belly to all she encounters and paws at you to rub her. But she is also very insecure. She has been relegated to living in a "transitional living" facility (house) with rotating "roomies" where she never gets to become attached to any one single human, not to mention she would spend 85-90% of her time in the yard chained to a 15ft chain so she could not escape the yard. I have now removed/taken her from this ugly existence and have her in my home in San Francisco with my Corgi, Ford. She responds when given a command but her response is one of submission, her head & tail drop and she scurries off to quickly lay down. I forgot to mention her original owner (not my friend) abused her somehow, we don't know exactly what was done, but yelling or screaming at her sends her into hiding. I am working with her with a clicker but she is not really food motivated, so I hold out on her morning meal when we train. My problem is when she is on her leash, I can not get her attention, she is very strong and pulls horribly, she does not jump, or run around, she just pulls me forward down the street. I just got Victoria's book and can't wait for it to get here in 2 days. Any Alaskan Malamute owners out there with some advice? She is a very good mellow dog, I just need to get the leash thing under control so I can socialize her more out of doors. She is very cautious when greeting other dogs, she drops her head and makes little warning sounds, but does not strike out, she wants to meet & greet but does not know how to do it and so is very cautious and guarded. :?:
Erica
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Joined: Fri Aug 05, 2011 9:35 pm
Location: North Carolina

Re: Alaskan Malamute Help

Post by Erica »

Welcome to the boards, and how wonderful that your new dog has found herself in an obviously caring home. :)

I walk a 90 pound Alaskan Malamute and boy can they pull when they want to! (Though ever since loose-leash training him, he only pulls when given the cue "Allons-Y!", since I use that to get past yards with dogs in them that he would otherwise fixate on...anyways!) What really helped training him was using this method here and what really helped me be able to hang on to him and not get dragged along was using a front-clipping harness. The front-clipping harness doesn't choke the dog when he pull, and doesn't give them leverage like back-clipping harnesses do (though after looseleash training I've started having him on a back-clipping harness for our jogs). It's really quite simple and works quickly, though you may want to start off with a time limit, not a distance goal - 2-3 minutes would be a good starting point.

As far as greeting other dogs and humans - for now, don't make her. She's still very unused to you, so probably isn't sure she can trust you. You want to show her that you'll take care of anything she finds worrisome, like other dogs, so when you see another dog, get away from them. Put yourself between your dog and the other dog and go sideways to them, or turn around - do whatever you can to keep her from getting to the point where she feels like she has to defend herself. Once she trusts you and is more confident in herself, you can work on her comfort level around other dogs.

If she gets nervous from using cues like "sit," try retraining them from scratch with a new word. If you have trouble coming up with an alternate, try looking at other languages for a new word that doesn't sound like the old one (for example, German probably wouldn't be a good idea - "sitz" is a lot like "sit" - but the Hungarian word "Ül" would be different) (here's a website with lots of different languages and basic dog cues). You may find that simply retraining the trick from scratch will ease her apprehension with it - one of our members had a dog who, when cued to lay down, would flip on his back and pee, but once she retraining him positively, he had no problem with the old cue. :)

I'm sure others will be along to address anything that I missed or omitted!
Delta, standard poodle, born 6/30/14
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