What a great little(LOL) guy!

[Caelum]

We recently got our Caelum after loosing our Newfoundland to old age (13) We love large breed dogs and in the twenty years we have lived on our five acres in northern California, we have had Shilo (newfy) miya (rhodesian ridge back) and still have Scooter an 8-year-old male heeler mix. Caelum is 5 ½ months old, his father was pure Great pry and his mother is pure Akbash. At 5 ½ he is almost 80lb. He sits, speaks, lays down, and i guess he comes most of the time when called.He seems to be a very easy dog to train! We feed him two cups of Science diet large breed puppy food three times a day. He spends a good part of the day with me at work (socializing) with people. He is best of friends with Scooter but does tend to play a bit rough. He spends most of his time at home in the house and when outside he is under our watchful eyes. Now the problem. If he spots a deer or rabbit, he is gone! Our property is fenced but he will go over it or under it or right through it ( how that dog gets that large body through 6”x 6” wire I will never know LOL! We can’t afford to re-fence the property and are not sure about shock or invisible fence! Also our nearest neighbor breeds Golden retrievers and is not the nicest guy, we were going to have him neutered but have heard that you should not neuter a Great pry until two years old! So any help with, diet, when to neuter, and keeping him on our property would be great. My wife, daughter and myself love this little guy so much! (Did I say little) LOL! Oh yeah, how can i post a piture of our Caelum!

[nick's spirit]

Chasing...that 's a tough one. there has been posts on invisable fences, but it sounds like you have a sizable piece of property. Shock collar may work, I've not used one on my Pyrs, but maybe someone else has.
Seems there are new studies coming out every year at what is the best time to spay/neuter. Our little male pup came to us at 9 weeks old having already been neutered. The breeder & her vet thought that it was less traumatic for a pup..and instead of stitches they used super glue...fasinating!! Didn't really effect his "social" life. He loved people & if he saw someone, he was off to be their best friend.When I caught him chasing moose, the best thing I could do was get him to chase me!! Then he forgot all about the moose..but I guess you have to be in seeing distance for your guy to come back!! If he is food motivated, maybe a piece of chicken or hot dog would influence him.

[Jewel]

Hey Caelum,

I think what you have is an impulse control issue. I am working on that same issue with my 11 month-old, though as we live in the city, the targets aren't rabbits or deer :).

I agree with nick's spirit about using distraction, that is one of the ways. Caelum will have to be taught to control his impulse to chase when he sees wildlife. It will take a lot of work on your part as you have to particularly vigilent and catch him as soon as he catchs sight or scent of wildlife. Then you can use really yummy treats or other things to distract his attention. Then he associates treats or other fun things when wildlife appears and looks to you rather than chase.

Another thing is to work on his recall. That is something pretty difficult with pyrs in general. I am working on that with my pup too. If he is able to turn is attention to you, even for a split second, when you call his name, it can make the difference between whether he takes off or not.

My 4 yr-old pyr mix is crazy about chasing squirrels, and of course my biggest fear is that he'll chase a squirrel across a street and get hit by a car. So, we spent a lot of time working on stopping at every street crossing with me using the command "street". One day in the park it happened, he was off leash and caught sight of a squirrel running across a street and started taking off after it, I yelled "street" and he responded, I think automatically becuase he's been taught to, and stopped before he stepped into the street. That was enough for me to redirect his attention to me to stop the chase.

[2ndPyr]

Wow! what a great testimony to teach your dog commands!
Our word at each street is "WAIT!"
He's only 16 mts old though, so has a ways to go.

[Jewel]

Hey 2ndPyr, the pyr mix is much easier to train - he's part retriever so he's far more willing to please than our pure pyrs. I've been teaching my 11 month-old pyr pup the same "street" command for months, and she still won't stop right away, she keeps trying to creep forward. I love my pyrs but they are difficult to train!

[risestar]

Something that works for people that have large properties is to fence off a smaller section that you can have the dog call his or her own when unattended.

As for the chasing thing, there's a instinct thing there that you are working against. Possibly one way to improve it is to start taking regular walks on least in the woods where you will see deer and rabbits. Bring some treats with you and when the dog spots one, he will start towards it. Correct him, with a firm NO, a pull on the leash and then give him a treat when he turns his attention back towards you and give him some praise. Its important that you do not stop walking while this happens, just continue on like nothing happened.

What this does is creates an environment that tells the dog, that this is just a normal part of the way things are. By not stopping when your dog starts towards it, you are sending a message that there's nothing to see here, move on.

With some work this way, you dog will start to lose interest in those things a little at a time.

With Pyrs, its a lot like when you are conditioning them to work with the flock, at first they will be very interested in the animals and try to play or bother them and then over time, the animals are a part of the normal for them and then they are more interested in whats going on around them



We recently got our Caelum after loosing our Newfoundland to old age (13) We love large breed dogs and in the twenty years we have lived on our five acres in northern California, we have had Shilo (newfy) miya (rhodesian ridge back) and still have Scooter an 8-year-old male heeler mix. Caelum is 5 ½ months old, his father was pure Great pry and his mother is pure Akbash. At 5 ½ he is almost 80lb. He sits, speaks, lays down, and i guess he comes most of the time when called.He seems to be a very easy dog to train! We feed him two cups of Science diet large breed puppy food three times a day. He spends a good part of the day with me at work (socializing) with people. He is best of friends with Scooter but does tend to play a bit rough. He spends most of his time at home in the house and when outside he is under our watchful eyes. Now the problem. If he spots a deer or rabbit, he is gone! Our property is fenced but he will go over it or under it or right through it ( how that dog gets that large body through 6”x 6” wire I will never know LOL! We can’t afford to re-fence the property and are not sure about shock or invisible fence! Also our nearest neighbor breeds Golden retrievers and is not the nicest guy, we were going to have him neutered but have heard that you should not neuter a Great pry until two years old! So any help with, diet, when to neuter, and keeping him on our property would be great. My wife, daughter and myself love this little guy so much! (Did I say little) LOL! Oh yeah, how can i post a piture of our Caelum!

[2ndPyr]

Whew! I feel better Jewel! ;)

I hadn't heard not to neuter a Pyr until they're two. Kind of scaring me b/c we had Sebastian done thinking this time we'd do it right (we didn't do our female for many years and almost lost her because of it....dumb mistake!)

Any other word on this though?

The Pyr is a very intelligent dog, so much so in my opinion that I've been told and have seen it in mine that if a command seems trivial to them....they tend to ignore it.
I guess this is why I think that a Pyr owner takes a special kind of person/people to own.

[2ndPyr]

Caelum's family, I forgot to say I'm sorry for the loss of your 13 yo Newfie. That is very very hard, I know. I hope you made a visit over to petloss.com. I LOVE that website. It really helped me after losing my 1st Pyr, Belle and then our 18 year old mixed Samoyed, Psalty.

I don't know how to do the picture on here, or I'd help with that.

Kris