angelobutter
Member
we have a male fila about a year and a half old. Looking to get info on training. he has some things we need to work on- we got him second hand at a little over a year old, he has since become seriously devoted to us though it took some work at first. most of our issues are little things, like what to do when he plays too rough, pushing him away makes him think we are playing and yelling makes him cower haha.. we would like something inbetween. and general obedience, he has gotten into a routine of when it is bedtime he plays "monkey in the middle" between me and my husband and won't let us bring him up to bed without a game of tag every night. gets old quick. same issue as above- if we just try to grab his collar we are playing his game and if we yell or squirt him with a mister bottle he turns to jelly. we have been luring him to bed with a treat recently - which seems to be working, but i would like to not have to rely on bribery to get obedience. plus we don't want him to think he gets away with that so what else can he get away with? consistency i guess. also we think it might not actually be an issue but part of why we got him was obviously to keep us safe, and i know filas do that without training, but we have worked with personal protection dogs before and were constantly working on good bite grips and practicing and such and are wondering if we should be doing any "conditioning" with him? He will bite a jute tug but wont hold on like our malinois or bulldog does. I guess we just know if you want to be a good ...weightlifter for example, you lift weights- we want him to be a good protector so what should we be working on with him? thanks for any advice. i will post pics eventually. he is beautiful brindle with no white at all.