[BarryMcD]

Diana:

I agree with others that continued training is a must, but there are some quick fixes that may help.

1) First, no punching, hitting, or even screaming! These are not negative reinforcement, these are cruelty to animals. You must train the dog humanely, and this means no pain, no humiliation, no meanness. So first, get hold of yourself. You can't calm this dog down if you can't calm yourself first.

2) Roxy is a teenager. Ever raise a human teenager?
Enough said! This is the time in this dog's development when it will challenge you and question your authority. Like someone earlier said, Alpha dogs don't fight and argue: they don't have to. Don't let yourself be pulled into struggles or confrontations. Avoid them, or cut them short. Here are some ways how:

3) You mentioned Roxy pulling things out of the trash. This is a classical case of "It's your fault, not the dogs!" If you know she is going to pull things out of the trash, why is the trash where she can get at it? If, God forbid, you had a toddler who found Clorox in the laundry room and drank some, would you blame the 1 year old? Work on dog-proofing your home. Whatever things you know Roxy is going to get in trouble with, put these objects up high, in a closed room, etc. Limit her access to avoid the trouble starting in the first place.

4) To avoid confrontations, but still stay in charge, try time-outs. Keep a collar on the dog at all times. Some people even attach a short leash and let it dangle all day long. (But careful: don't do that if you go out. The dog could get caught in a dangerous situation if the leash gets caught!) Now if she starts up, grab her quickly but calmly, without comment or reaction. Don't yell "No!" Don't say a word. Lead her quickly into a neutral dog-safe room where she can't get in trouble. If you have no such room, get a circular chain mount and screw it to a baseboard somewhere safe and tie her to it. Shut the door, leave the room, and don't have anything to do with her for about five minutes. Give her no toys or entertainment.

Then let her loose as though nothing had happened. Start from scratch, as friends. If she repeats the behavior, back into the time-out room. 5 minutes. All is forgotten. Start again. You may need to repeat this twenty times the first time if the dog is really out of hand, but make sure you win! Each time you need to do it in the future, it will work better.

5) Most misbehavior is caused by a lack of exercise and play. Do you walk the dog regularly? Spend more good time with her and you will have less bad behavior. That's the biggest advantage of going to a training class: it's not the training, it's the fact that you are spending time out with your dog, one on one! Don't let her bad behavior drive you into a cycle of ignoring her or being mad at her all the time. You need to create and spend good fun quality time with her.

6) More important than anything else, reward her when she is NOT in the garbage. Praise her when she's calm and not challenging you. Positive reinforcement works far better than negative! Say "Yes, good girl!" every chance you get. If she is next to the trash and is not in it, give her a treat and praise her. When she's bad, say nothing or as little as possible--and go to the time out, or just remove the problem. (Put the trash up on the counter and you're done.)

7) I personally have fallen in love with a type of training called Clicker Training. Look on the Internet for some good articles on this if you'd like to try it. Try keywords Karen Pryor to find the site of the women who brought this technique to dog training. You might want to try it. It's cheap, fun, and can be very effective in focusing on particular behaviors. A conventional training class will teach you how to use commands like Come, Sit, Heel, Stay, to get your dog out of the garbage, and these may or may not work.

With Clicker Training, you can specifically work on "Stay out of the garbage," or whatever positive behavior you require, and you can train it in a relatively short time. The principle behind clicker training is rewarding proper behavior and ignoring unwanted behavior. Notice I said "unwanted," not "bad." To the dog, nothing she does is bad or wrong or incorrect. She is just being a dog. With Clicker Training, you reinforce her when she is doing what you prefer, and when she's not, you pretend she does not exist. In the end you always win because the dog wants and needs to be accepted and acknowledged. Again, like a human teenager, the dog is pressing the limits to see how far she can bend your rules. As a teacher and psychology major for 28 years, I can tell you that when a teenager challenges authority or breaks a rule, he or she is always trying to in fact get you to set limits. They are looking for guidance and clear rules to follow. Your dog is probing you now, seeing how far she can go. You need to show her how far that is, unequivically, but humanely.

8) FINALLY, if you actually know any of those dog owners who say slap the dog or punch it, please send them to me. It's been a while since I've punched anyone (used to study martial arts), but I'd be glad to demonstrate to these owners what it feels like to the dog to be hit!