First of all, I know I currently have another topic on this board, so hopefully it isn't against the rules to make another different one :c If so feel free to delete this... Anyways, here's my issue;

So, I dog sit for my neighbor and her son. They have an older dog, not sure of the exact age, but if I had to guess I'd say she's 8 or 9, and she's what I guess to be a mix between a bichon frisé and a poodle.

She has a little bit of an attitude and some problems I've been working with her to correct, such as her nervous barking and separation anxiety since, no offense to my neighbor, she's one of those types who lets her get away with /everything/. Now, I realize that when I eventually start a career in animal care, I'm going to run into a lot of people who I don't necessarily like or agree with their training methods, if they have any at all, but that's not the entire problem.

My neighbor works two jobs far away (bless her heart, I know that can't be easy), and her son (who hates the dog in the first place) works long hours and travels a lot, so this dog is at my home with me from 6 in the morning to around 8 or 9 o' clock at night for five days a week, sometimes more. People are starting to ask me if I got another dog because they always see her with me at my apartment complex.

Originally, I only went over to her apartment once a day in the afternoon to walk her and sometimes I would bring her over for a play date, but she kept having accidents in the floor that turned out to be from separation anxiety. She has such anxiety that I worry sometimes about leaving her alone long enough for me to go and shower or go to the store for something, because I always feel like I'm going to come home to a mess (happened once so far).

Like I said, I'm working with her on it and other basic training, like not tearing up my mail and such. I'm just starting to feel like my neighbor doesn't really have time for her anymore with as much as she and her son are gone. I'd honestly just keep her for myself if it weren't probably both against the law and the complex policies, as we're not supposed to have two dogs...

I don't see this situation changing anytime soon, and it's sort of become sort of a constant worry in my mind. What should I do, or am I just being crazy? If I weren't here this dog would be alone for 14 to 15 hours a day...

- Hm, usually older dogs can stay alone for longer hours then younger dogs. How long does she work?

Are you in the position to say something like, "I've really developed a strong bond with your dog and want you to know that I'd take her in if you ever consider letting her go," without offending the owners? Best case scenario, if they do give her to you one day I'm sure they'd cover for you with the complex management.

She leaves for work at 5:30 a.m. and doesn't get home until around from 7 to 9 p.m, and she's going to be flying out to a different state for work this weekend. Been working with her for separation anxiety because she freaks out, potties on the floor, and tears things up, and I'm not really a qualified dog trainer by any means, so I basically have no idea what I'm doing... Just imitating stuff I've seen on Cesar Milan's show and some methods my parents used to do, i.e. leaving her in a room by herself for increasingly longer periods of time.

I said something to the effect of, if she ever needed me to hold on to her dog because she couldn't for whatever reason then I could, but I mostly just got a frown and a thanks... She loves her dog like a second child, but she's never home except for night time, I think as soon as she gets home she goes to bed.. I'd feel horrible for stealing her dog away from her though, but at the same time... :c

@ illuminary opinion - I've spoken to quite a few people who have invested quite a bit of their lives and time into training dogs (my aunts & uncles in particular since they can't have kids) about cesar, and none of them recommend him. I've been reluctant to watch it for myself, but they all like to talk about how poorly he treats dogs and how unhappy his "fixed" dogs look when he's through with them. I'm no dog trainer myself, but my personal guess would be that maybe using someone who makes dogs unhappy isn't the best thing to do for making a dog feel comfortable by herself.

now here's something I actually know - poodles are high-energy and maintenance. they don't do well alone for long periods of time. here's something else I know - the aspca and police won't get involved if the dog has shelter and adequate food & water. so not only is that dog very unhappy, if you want to make sure they ever are, it'll have to be between you and the owner. since the owner said no (and apparently believes there's nothing wrong with treating an animal this way), there's nothing you can do.

at least the dog is happy when you come to visit.

I've heard some people saying they don't agree with his methods either. I'd love to take her to a professional trainer; like I said, I don't really have any "professional" experience, but I don't have the money for it myself... I know a lot of people have a lot of different methods... See, what I study is more on the medical spectrum of it; I know enough of their body language to keep myself from being bitten by an injured or frightened animal and how to restrain them if it's necessary, but if I had to be honest I have no experience on dog training outside of potty training and basic commands and simple tricks :c I did think about taking a class on behavior and training next though...

She's definitely high energy and she hates being alone for any amount of time. I also did see somewhere that, like you said, if the animal has food shelter and water then they can't really legally do anything unless there's evidence of abuse (could be wrong here too...). You do have a good points though... It's just frustrating sometimes knowing I can't really do anything without consent :c

True, she and my dog love playing together c:

- DO NOT TRAIN YOUR DOGS LIKE CESAR DOES. IT IS WRONG. He uses dominance methods which have been proved to be WRONG. He trains dogs out of FEAR. Positive Reinforcment.

I'd really love to give you some tricks, but I only know how to work with cats, and they're very different animals... :( Maybe you can find something on YouTube? Try googling "how to train dog anxiety." Sounds unprofessional, but sometimes well-learned or actual dog trainers put things up on youtube because they care more about helping animals than making a buck.

Yikes, never knew that D: I do try to train using positive enforcement, but admittedly I do use a spray bottle with water when they get too out of hand... I know, kind of an ancient method, but like when the mailman comes by, the dog I sit for has taught my dog to shred the mail to the point of where I have to put a gate up in front of the mail slot so they don't shred important things like bills or rented DVDs. I normally don't have to use it, but I do show it to them to show I mean business, but I do give them treats when they're good and listen to my, "no speak" command...

No worries there, I seem to work better with cats myself as I grew up with them more than I did with dogs; I tamed feral cats all the time as a kid, haha! That's a great idea though, I know a lot of people who genuinely care about animals care more about teaching owners so pets can be happy than they do about making profit.

- If you lived by me , I'd love to train them ^-^

I wish you did, I'd love to work with you and them c:

- Do they run to the door & bark when the mail comes?

Yep, every single day. You know the "Ani-mail" from one of the Funniest Videos tv shows? That's what they do when I don't have the pet gate up :x They really want to attack the poor mail guy! My girl, Zoey, before I started watching the neighbor's dog, she was pretty much the perfect angel... She would bark occasionally, but she wouldn't lose her mind like that. She'd wait until the mailman left and then she'd get up and go sniff the mail, hackles up and huffy, and then she'd go lay back down and doze off again, which is acceptable. When I started watching Happy, the neighbor's dog, Zoey got paranoid really bad and started tearing up the mail as well and losing her mind when he comes by. It doesn't help that we have a sliding glass door not too far from our front door of our apartment, so they get that reward of seeing the mailman leave after their crazy behavior and they keep doing it. We have vertical blinds that we can pull closed so they can't see out, but they've ended up ripping three blinds off of it now trying to jump up on the glass.

- If you'd like, I can give you a few different options you can do with them and see if they work? (:

That would be amazing~ I'm honestly not sure what to do to get them to chill out around the mail man, so any advice would be very much appreciated c:

- Alright, first off like I stated above, DO NOT do anything Cesar Millan does. The dominance theory has been proven false and all it does is make you a bully and it makes your dog fear you. I also remember hearing about never spray your dog with a water spritzer, but I don't remember why. Anyways, let's put it like this, I bark and bark= mailman walks away That's dog logic for you. :x There are a few things you can do and see if it works. You also have to keep up persistently with these examples and now do it every few days, the dog just wont learn anything. It must be reinforced, on average, maybe 30 or so minutes a day so the dog wont get bored, puppies it's usually 15 minutes of training.

1. Have a mat or a designated area the dog(s) can sit. Make sure you train them to go to the spot on cue. Use an easy word (spot) and reward them each time they go to it and sit. After your dog is a master at that, that is when you get someone to pretend to be a mailman (not someone the dog knows). Direct the dog to his "spot". Now, here you can do two options.

As soon as the dog gets up, go and block the part of the door that the mail is by, no matter how hard the dog tries to go around, block with your legs (I don't mean push the dog or kick the dog) I mean block him so he can't get through at all. The other option requires negative punishment in which each time the dog goes for the door, you take him away (like a time out). The thing is with these two ways, you must be PRECISE. As soon as the dog gets up , barks, whatever, you need to take action. Dogs must be rewarded or punished within a 5-7 second time frame or they wont know what they did. This can get annoying, tiring, you name it. But your dog , if you're doing it right, WILL eventually learn and realize his behavior is not wanted.

Lastly, if your dog has a great passion for treats, toys, or praise, all you may need to do is have the dog associate the mail with something positive. mailman comes=treat. However, make sure you're not praising the unwanted behavoir. (:

Woah, that's awesome and totally do-able c: My dog already knows a command to go lay on her blanket in the living room because we have done time outs with her on occasion, and when she gets a treat she is to take it and lay down on the blanket to enjoy it so she isn't making a mess on the floor, so it shouldn't be too hard to teach Happy to go to the blanket on command also. I've found that it's easy to teach other dogs when they can see other dogs responding to a command and being rewarded (took me an hour+ to train my dog how to shake hands and a couple days of reinforcement, now her favorite trick; took less than 30 minutes and a couple of days reinforcement to teach the neighbors dog by watching mine).

Smallish question though, I watch her just about every day, but I generally don't see the neighbors dog on the weekend most of the time. My neighbor hates correcting her bad behavior, so I can't monitor or correct if I'm not there. Will this affect training poorly? I can tell my neighbor about this plan, but I can't guarantee she'll follow suit with it... I'm thinking one of two things might happen, either it'll slow down progress or reset it all together each week, or she'll only behave when she's over at my apartment and not the neighbors. I mean, I guess it isn't my fault if she tears up my neighbors mail, but I'd like the behavior to stop altogether, no matter my apartment or my neighbors.

To add to Dalmatian's, maybe have the mailman give the dog a treat when he comes.