how horrible am I?

[D.Schäferhund]

Ok,
time for self supervision, again....

Want your oppinions on some things, maybe we can discuss some things together. I need some views to set mine straight.

Well this time it is about Kessy and me, and a little about the pups.

Well we progressed a lot in the last month, in the protectionwork and obedience.
i haven't changed my ways, and some of her behaviours got stronger, not that they appeared not at all before...
It is nothing ,ajor but i still am not too happy with it.
Well just let e start.
we do our sit in motion as usuall, and i walk off and she stays put, appearantly wtaching me all tyhe time, untill i turn arround she turnes her head and looks a different way, you all know you have to approach the dog directly. i go arround her and get into heel position, as soon as i am "turning" to go next to her i have full attention.
I know it is something some would call calming signal or stress symptom. but I never forced her to focus on me, i always encouraged her friendly to look at me, trained that with a clicker.
the other thing is, sometimes when she comes up to me she streches, wich could be a regular streching but i don't think so, it happens to often.
she comes happyly and with no distress when I call her she follows me arround and is alert where i am going.
But for some reason it bugs me that she does it.

On the other and, did i finnaly become her true leader, does she finnally not question my actions anymore?
I can't say that she doesn't obey me at regular times, i mean she accepts other dogs now pretty god, put in a possible fight position(where she might have been grumpy years ago) she is stoppable. obeys!
I know i got realxter whith her trust her more than i was able to, am relaxter in certain situations. we come a long way.

Is that the cause for that submissive behaviour, are these "calming signals" or stress signals how ever you want to call it the result of my complete leadership now, do i have to worry?

[Novel]

To me it sounds like a bit of avoidance. If I am understanding you correctly, she is a very alpha bitch, and this is probably her way of showing you that she is holding on to that bit of independence.

I personally would not worry about it, however, I may not be training to the levels that you are.

A calming signal may be yawning, sniffing, licking lips, etc... but stretching, looking away, and most yawning, etc.. usually end up being avoidance in my book. If the dog is interrupting what you are asking, to do a behavior, it is avoidance, and I suppose, disobedience.

I have never tried to specifically train away the avoidance. I've found it usually continues to dissapate as our training continues in a positive direction.

[Raised By Wolves]

Novel makes some very good points.

I think you're doing fine and Kessy does sound like she has a "top dog" personality. So does my dog, and she always lets me know when I need to work harder on ME.

If you are noticing behaviors which your instincts indicate you need to work on, you might come up with some new working type exercises that require Kessy works a little harder to meet the challenge of the exercise and follow direction.

I do use backpacks and long hikes with some cookie hunting thrown in along the way. I'm sure you have a lot more of an understanding of tracking and searching than I do, and could really make things interesting for her.

Do you and Kessy have many activities where it's just the two of you?

[D.Schäferhund]

thank you you are right, it is avoidance!!!

today we got to talking at training about that issue, and bill came up with a possible different explaniation.
we backtracked it when it started to get more and more, and it is since we started bitework.
as you know she is excelling in it, and does not back down if someone aproaches herthere can be a full frontal attack and she keeps her ground-goes forweard.

so in the sit stay , wehh i turn arround to her walking back i towards her, i actally mimic a frontal attack! she is used to fight in these situations, as we all know dogs just approch frontal if they are in for a fight.
the theory would be now that she chooses to go in avoidance, because she usually would attack if approached that way. so it might be struggle in her where she goes in avoidance because she knows this is mommy and I don't want to attack her, i am not doing this.
my trask will be now that i take some tension out of my body, when i approach her, lower my shoulders and get softer, see if she picks up that way.
probably first time try will be tonight, now she is very tired.
all that biting...

we do a lot still together, we track and go to the horses spend time in the yard.

a nother thing in biytework now is that she keeps checking back if that is what she is doing is that what I want, too.

I used to redirect her aggression and surpress it to be abkle to communicate with her, now she is asked to be agressive, wich the bite itself is not the problem at all the thing where she askes me is at the bark and hold, she checkes back with me and watches if i tell her it is correct or not.but we let her figure it out herself right now, she has to learn that she controls, when she get's the bite.
wich is not easy, becuase she tries too much sometimes.
so this is her major task, and mine too, to give her more responsibility. responsibility of her actions.
actually give her back her independence and trusting her she does what she is supposed to.
some body said, take the pampers of her and make her responsible for her own actions, wich would mean not to tell her what the right thing to do is, but let her find it out herself.

I don't know if that makes all sense.
but you know how it is it is hard to say something about yourself in a team, when you can't look from the outside.
where i looked upclose, someoneelse looks from a distance, and sees the whole pic.