Trouble

[agilityk9trainer]

Dreamer,

I'm not sure how old you are, but I've had many kids take their dogs through my obedience classes. They've done very well with them, too. Maybe if you talked to your dad about taking responsibility for training the dog, your dad would agree to let you take Max to an obedience class before getting rid of him. A trainer could help you with all of Max's problems, and a trainer could also help your dad learn better ways of working with Max. It's worth a try. Act as grown up as possible when you talk to your dad about obedience class. He may see that it would be good for you to take responsibilty of the dogs training, and give it a shot.

If you go to obedience school with Max, you'll have to be serious about training Max every day. If you do exactly what your trainer tells you, you should see Max's behavior begin to improve. Just make sure to train every day, and follow your trainer's advice exactly. And, have fun, too!

[angelchampy]

I think the obedience school would be the answer too. But frankly, I'm very concerned about the fact that your dad "beats" the dog. I would not allow a dog to be in a home where he is is beaten because he chews or has accidents. If people cannot learn to be tolerant of a dog and his misbehaving at times, they should not have the dog. Period. Dogs do not learn from being hit, they only develope behavioral problems. Hitting does not teach them to be good dogs. I don't like the idea of any dog being beaten for punishment and I honestly think you may want to consider finding another home for this dog if you don't get him some training ASAP.

On another note, please remember that putting a dog in a crate for punishment is not good. Crates are supposed to be their home, their "safety zone" and a place of comfort for when you are not home. It should not be used for punishment. It gives the dog the wrong idea of what it's for and if he's in it one time for being bad, he won't want to go in it when you're leaving the house. He will feel he's done something wrong and he hasn't.