[QUOTE=Bastianboy]His owner was holding the leash at the time and popped him up. Bastian has a reasonable amount of obedience on him...If his brain grows up I soon we might be trying for his CD next summer. He knows everything, but still has a shorter attention span than I would like.[/QUOTE]
Sorry if I'm going off topic here....
Sometimes it's good to go back in training and make baby steps again to reinforce that you mean what you say.
I've done a lot of this with Deiter in the past year or so, and it's paid off LARGE. We started from scratch at the beginning of this year, and I've used a lot of positive reinforcement with negative punishment. He's really becoming an extremely reliable boy.
Don't be afraid to examine what you truly can achieve with Bastian... sometimes having a training notebook, or diary can do wonders. This way, you can really train with a plan. Set a goal for your training session... make note of successes, problems, etc... then take time to think about how you'll deal with him during the next session.. what you'll work on.. what you need to bring out, or extinguish, etc....
In addition, by not accepting less than he gave you the last training session, and making sure you end a training session at the right time (sometimes I'll quit training after ONE perfect behavior execution)... The better you can deal with Bastian, the easier it will be for you to deal with a 2nd dog in the household.
Back to the aussie dilemma... could be the aussie has a temperamental or behavioral issue that's been left unchecked. Remember, aussies are a herding breed, so Roper might simply have been behaving on instinct...I've met a few that were a little fearful... but you're right, the teeth on skin was unacceptable. I really don't know enough about aussies, nor have i met more than 10 or so in my life, so others are probably more qualified to disect his behavior than I.
Did your husband attempt to feed him treats to make ammends?
Again, we've never had issues like that with a new pup in the house.