And here is my que
He sounds very similar to Ralph at that age. Ralph was totally out of control, some think this is an exadgeration but trust me..the house was destroyed, the garden no more, my cats never appeared, we never got visitors, he escaped, he urinated everywhere, he'd bite and growl whenever challenged to do something, he'd bark in a tantrum to the point we nearly got evicted and no longer speak to our neighbours, he nipped me numerous times, he nearly got us both killed when on a winter walk he bombed into a very high and strong flowing river and got out of his depths..i had to dive in to save him and snagged myself on a tree, luckily someone was walking past and could hear my shouts. He put me in hospital with a fracture to my wrist from pulling so much, gave my friend concussion from repeatedly jumping all over them..they put their head down and he did damage, erm..the list is endless. He nailed a neighbours cat to the point it was pts, and i really had enough..thought I couldn't handle him anymore. Really felt this was it.
The key is NO FEAR. And to not worry about breaking the rules as it were. You HAVE to be on top, constantly. It's not easy but if he's this way inclined you simply can't leave him to have a minute of..unstructured life. Every second of life has to be structured and organised, even play. There must be a clear outline for eating, sleeping, playing, training, discipline, love etc, Woody must be aware of this routine and how it lies..and most importantly, he must be made aware of HOW and WHEN to switch off.
His aggression does have, and I will not be subtle, stand a chance of spiralling. An ESS with a bad temper is a nightmare, they are a strong dog, with a high drive, and a lot of ability to jump ver high and have a lot of speed-that mixed with anger is a recipe for a serious amount of damage in a minimal amount of time. There must be a "mutual respect", not a you dominating him thing but he must learn it's simply not acceptable to act in such a way. The NILF way worked with Ralph, it was hard hard hard work but he's come..fairly well now.
ESS are difficult, Ralph was my first..and truly it's difficult to find this balance when their pups of what's acceptable to let them get away with, they may look soppy but they are INCREDIBLY calculated and given an inch will take a mile!

Enjoyed reading that Luke and I can relate to so much of it. Fingal's early years were long before I joined Dogsey so my nightmares have only been mentioned in passing.

I remember 'little' Ralph' and actually thought of you when I first read Pidges post.

I hope he starts 2 improve for you soon as my mum had a dog with these problems and it was so upsetting for her but unfortunatly because of the grandchildren she had 2 make the hardest choice and give him up.
GOOD LUCK x

No more advice to add, Em, but just wanted to say you are not alone........

We are all here for you, honey..... chin up xxx

Have to agree with both Luke and phill, i always remeber what one of my first dog trainers said to me

"springers are like collies with brains (please don't take offence collie peeps none intended) a well trained collie will do what you tell it because you tell it , a springer you can tell to do something, it will think about it and if it can see a point in it, then it will do it"

I agree with some of the others Woody is just being a normal springer pup, pushing you to your limits because he can, and the more frustrated you get the more he does it to wind you up.

To be fair most of mine will warn me off if i try to take a bone of them, but they won't bite,, i just leave em alone when they have bones after all i'd cryy off if someone tried to take a cream doughnut of me.

I just have a couple of questions before i go.

1.You mentioned diet what is he fed on?? springers don't do well on anything that has any colours or additives in and from what you describe he seems to display some of the characteristics of some of the rescues that come in on dodgy food, the not settling and the panting, does he drink a lot as well??

2. If the food is a decent one whats the protein level?? a friend of mine feeds Dr johns Silver, one particular time she couldn't get it and fed gold and it sent her springer of the scale in terms of hyperness, she quickly found some silver and all returned to normal.

Sorry to hear this . When my whippet Hula was about 8 months old things were so bad my husband wanted to take her to the local dog and cat home as her behaviour was so bad . He was totally serious about this and so was I she was not going anywhere ! Thats why I always say to people 8 - 18 months is the worst stage . After about 18 months suddenly she began to improve and in the end she was the best dog of my whole life . I lost her at Christmas aged 15 .
Things will get better , just don't give up

*Hugs* Pidge - because I think you need them.

The problems you listed with Woody, we actually had too when we adopted Missy. Yes, little seal faced happy Missy
We had the behaviour advice from Battersea and from the behaviourist who ran our dog training classes. I've been bitten whilst we were enforcing the training but I shrug that off. Now she knows the rules, Missy wouldn't bite again. I second what Luke say in that you must show no fear.
I'll add one piece of advice, but not to do with training. All the time we were retraining Missy to what we wanted, we had a couple of DAP diffusers running in the house to help calm her down. ( a couple because it needed two to cover the sq footage)
If you're not trying those, they might be worth a shot.
And FWIW Missy adores children

Good luck hon, persevere, be consistent and I am sure it'll get better xx

Sending you huge hugs Pidge - you must be out of your mind.

I know you are trying your very hardest for woody and hopefully the posts here will help you a bit, especially Luke and Phils.

I have no advice to give at all and I am siure at this point your head is spinning from it, but if you exhaust all the advice your behaviourist can offer there are plenty of really experienced folk here who I am sure would help you. I know you are doing everything you poissibly can for Woody.

Can I make an observation , it is not in any way a criticism and it'll prob come across as unhelpful because I don't have an answer BUT maybe someone else can help you with the answer.

Woody sounds like at least 50% of the time he is aa nightmare to live with just now, your little angel who loved cuddles etc now demands things, becomes destructive because he is hyper, has no off switch so like an over tired child becomes petulant, has started to challenge by showing aggression - you must be at your wits end and on edge pretty much all the time which is understandable (especially because someone mentioned pts to you, I know how I felt when that was mentioned to me in different circumstances, it consumed every thought I had) So, what Ian trying to say is no matter how hard you try to do calm you will be giving off mega stressed vibes which woody can pick up. So that will be making Woody worse.

Sorry I don't know whatto do to get round that, I had a similar situation where my behaviour (despite the fact I didn't think I had a "behaviour" was adversley effecting Ben, don't get me wrong Ben had a problem which was there, but my behaviour was sensed by him and he acted accordingly. Now I know Woodys probs are driving you to despair so your actions are bound to be influenced by him.

Huge hugs to you x

Pidge, I think this is a good idea. One of the things that actually really upset me today upon reading this thread was the sheer amount of advice, much of it very different - it's impossible to be consistent with so advice on almost every post. My own head was spinning so goodness knows how yours must be. Some of it may be useful to you but much of it will be experiences others have had which may not be at all applicable to your situation with Woody, as you are both unique.

Training and behaviour work is not prescriptive unfortunately, for that very reason.

If things go wrong again or do not improve, I'd suggest contacting Gwen Bailey. She is in Oxfordshire and of course is not only a behaviourist but does specialise in puppies. As you may know, she used to be the behaviourist for the Blue Cross at one stage and I believe she also does working trials training (but for fun, not to compete).

Wys
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Time outs are OK and can be really good if certain rules about how they are done are followed. There is a knack to using them successfully.

I'd recommend not scooping him up physically, I'd totally avoid that. I'd use the house line for that.

Reason being that he may start to associate handling in that context or others as confrontational due to previous punishment/experience and it may make him aggressive there. Anything like that - collar grabbing etc in similar situations - can escalate this. There are ways around this but dont want to be too confusing ...

Re timeouts

The dog must understand why he's got one. This is imperative. So, a marker word should be said calmly - use a particular word such as "wrong" said very calmly.

Then straight away with no eye contact, remove the dog using a houseline. Be calm all the time.

The time out must not be for more than a few minutes, ideally about 2-3 to start with. Then dog should be let back in again very calmly and with no excitement.

Undoubtedly, may need to repeat but after a few reps the dog usually gets the message for that particular behaviour. If they don't everything needs to be looked at a lot more closely.

However, what you and hubby must not do, now, is to ever allow him to just chew the coffee table in your presence, even the tiniest bit, as if you do he will get confusing messages. He may then show aggression when told off for it (just using this as an example of how aggression can start) as he will be confused with the mixed messages. Consistency is the key always

If the owner cannot be consistent then they should either not do the time outs and just use distracting, management etc or else literally not bother about it, but decisions need to be made as to what is acceptable and what is not, and consistency always - but you realise this anyway

Give reward and attention for dog choosing to do the right thing, calmly if you can - but if the dog gets a bit excited it doesn't matter as there must be a difference between doing something "wrong" and the correct behaviour. Using praise and "punishment" ie time out will do this.

(If there is a lot of exasperation you can do "3 and you're out" which is where on the 3rd timeout the dog can be left out for longer, say half an hour. But this is more to avoid frustration on the owner's part and is more for say, strongly mouthing dogs than what Woody does).

It is a very trying time but don't lose heart.

Wys
x