Hi everyone. I'm an inexperienced Labrador owner & would really appreciate some of your wisdom. My black bitch Coco is 2 1/2. She is very bright & well trained(ish) having done puppy classes & had some work put in by me. She is a lovely, cute girl with an exuberant spirit. I have 2 problems: 1 of long standing & 1 new. The first is that she cannot resist carrion & as soon as she smells it I've had it. We live next to woods & when she finds anything dead she's off & won't let me near her until she's eaten it. The second problem is very recent & I have no idea what's going on. Lately she has become a bit aggressive with some dogs. She barks at them & acts as though she would have a go if I let her. She is a dominant type & loves to wrestle & mouth but only ever in play before. She always used to love all dogs & people. She is also frequently humping furniture at home which is new. She was spayed in her first year. She gets 2 hours exercise every day & has dog friends. Any advice/information would be so welcome. I adore her but she's doing my head in! Thank you.
I can tell you what I did with Molly and dead birds (we live near a beach and in winter there are daily dead gulls). Although I'd taught a leave it with other things, including food, it just didn't work with dead birds. So I started to sound really pleased and excited when she picked one up, got her to come to me and walk at heel carrying it (at first I put her on lead) and walked back to the car. I sat so she could comfortably hold it in a sit, but with the lead too short for her to go into a down (so she couldn't eat it). The first time it took ages but she did eventually drop it. I praised her hugely and then picked up the bird and gave it back to her. We walked again with her carrying it, next time she was quicker to drop it and then repeated. I did this every time she found a dead bird and eventually she was handing them over immediately. Last couple of times she's even been willing to leave them. I've also done it with dead rabbits, but she's never been so fixated on them as on birds. It took a long time and it was sometimes hard to summon up the pleased &excited voice - but it did work in the end.
Hi Joy. Thanks so much for replying. I am going to give your methods a try. I might struggle responding on time because sometimes the first I know of it she has disappeared, woodland being more covered than beaches. I will also have to muster an enthusiastic tone I never feel on this subject! It needs to be dealt with though. Let's see how tomorrow goes.
