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So is it ok to go ahead and start building association with the clicker the day we bring our puppy home? She'll be 7-8 weeks old, and while we won't be working on specific commands for a while, I assume she's "smart" enough at that age to understand that click = treat. I just don't want to start trying to build association with the clicker if she's not developed enough to remember that or something.
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Apr 6, 2011 19:30
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Schleep posted:So is it ok to go ahead and start building association with the clicker the day we bring our puppy home? She'll be 7-8 weeks old, and while we won't be working on specific commands for a while, I assume she's "smart" enough at that age to understand that click = treat. I just don't want to start trying to build association with the clicker if she's not developed enough to remember that or something. We taught Sadie to sit on like day 4 or 5, and although we didn't use a clicker, I can't imagine any reason you couldn't. Go for it.
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Apr 6, 2011 19:35
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I guess I just don't know what to expect as far as a time table. I don't want to expect too much too soon, but at the same time, I know I'm ready for this dog and I expect her to be quite intelligent so there's going to be a lot of training from the get-go. I'll probably get overwhelmed by her cuteness and end up letting her do whatever she wants 
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Apr 6, 2011 20:24
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Schleep posted:I guess I just don't know what to expect as far as a time table. I don't want to expect too much too soon, but at the same time, I know I'm ready for this dog and I expect her to be quite intelligent so there's going to be a lot of training from the get-go. I'll probably get overwhelmed by her cuteness and end up letting her do whatever she wants In my experience you should expect more, as opposed to expecting less. In the first month or two you should easily be able to teach focus, touch, sit, down and maybe stuff like speak, plus the beginnings of come and stay. You can start working on the clicker right away.
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Apr 6, 2011 20:32
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Great news. I will expect excellence from the both of us.
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Apr 7, 2011 02:46
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Oh boy. So the corner of Kaidan's crate tray broke some time back, no big deal, until the other day. He had to stay home for a couple hours with not much exercise before hand and dug a nice hole in our carpet  He used to be okay with that on occasion at the old house but even though we've been here about 5 months now we never went through the entire crate training process with him again as we probably should have and yeahhh, completely our fault. That said it's time to get in gear on crate games and other such crate training things. And get him a new crate. 
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Apr 8, 2011 03:02
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We've been working with a trainer to overcome my dog's fear based aggression to other large dogs. Tomorrow he has another training session, this time at a very large off-leash park with tons of dogs. He used to go there all the time, but we stopped taking him ~half a year ago when we started the training. I trust the trainer...but I am still very worried. Anyway, my question is if it would help to give him some calming supplements I saw at the store before taking him tomorrow.
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Apr 8, 2011 03:34
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Emasculatrix posted:We've been working with a trainer to overcome my dog's fear based aggression to other large dogs. Tomorrow he has another training session, this time at a very large off-leash park with tons of dogs. He used to go there all the time, but we stopped taking him ~half a year ago when we started the training. I trust the trainer...but I am still very worried. Anyway, my question is if it would help to give him some calming supplements I saw at the store before taking him tomorrow. Probably not. Most herbal supplements don't do a whole lot for dogs and at worst it could make him feel funny which could influence how he reacts to the other dogs. I would wear him out a bit beforehand and just try to not let your nervousness travel down the leash to your dog.
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Apr 8, 2011 03:41
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Instant Jellyfish posted:Probably not. Most herbal supplements don't do a whole lot for dogs and at worst it could make him feel funny which could influence how he reacts to the other dogs. I would wear him out a bit beforehand and just try to not let your nervousness travel down the leash to your dog. Hmmmm. Maybe I should take some supplements.
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Apr 8, 2011 04:25
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Emasculatrix posted:Hmmmm. Maybe I should take some supplements. That seems like a strange training session. Has your dog gotten pretty good about being around one or two other dogs? Have you worked with smallish group of 3-4 or more? I can't imagine going to a dog park until you were VERY confident that your dog was over most of his issues. The dog park dogs will be running and playing and barking, all of which are higher triggers for my dog than just standing or laying around. It's a very out of control situation.
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Apr 8, 2011 13:36
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Kiri koli posted:That seems like a strange training session. Has your dog gotten pretty good about being around one or two other dogs? Have you worked with smallish group of 3-4 or more? I can't imagine going to a dog park until you were VERY confident that your dog was over most of his issues. The dog park dogs will be running and playing and barking, all of which are higher triggers for my dog than just standing or laying around. It's a very out of control situation. Yeah, the trainer uses a bunch of her dogs during the sessions (dogs she's boarding, showing, or her own) and rotates them out so he has ~5 around to work with. Last week he went on a hike with 4 other dogs, including 2 large male unneutered german shepards, which are his #1 triggers, and he only had 1 altercation when he was playing far away and the shepard started chasing him. Since he was able to be called off and continue behaving, the trainer suggested we move on to Pt. Isabel. I'm just a helicopter dog-owner, and I worry about the dogs he'll run into. I have another question, actually. There's a nosework class starting in just under 3 weeks, but "Dogs in this class must be able to stay in a crate or on a tie down out of sight of their owners for short periods of time." Is 3 weeks enough time to teach this to my dog? Does a "tie down" just mean tying his leash to something and telling him to stay? Emasculatrix fucked around with this message at 19:18 on Apr 8, 2011 |
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Apr 8, 2011 15:30
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Emasculatrix posted:We've been working with a trainer to overcome my dog's fear based aggression to other large dogs. Tomorrow he has another training session, this time at a very large off-leash park with tons of dogs. He used to go there all the time, but we stopped taking him ~half a year ago when we started the training. I trust the trainer...but I am still very worried. Anyway, my question is if it would help to give him some calming supplements I saw at the store before taking him tomorrow. Valerian root works good with horses and I see that it's okay to give to dogs. You can always try it, but you want to use it a few times at home before using in a stressful environment to see how she does. You don't want to add "I don't feel right" to a situation if the calming feeling bothers her.
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Apr 8, 2011 20:27
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New dog, Biscuit is doing very well with the cats but as soon as they move faster than a walk she targets on them. I can call her off, but how are you supposed to teach "leave it" properly? I've been saying leave it, then rewarding her when she comes over and focuses on me.
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Apr 8, 2011 21:09
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Silver Nitrate posted:New dog, Biscuit is doing very well with the cats but as soon as they move faster than a walk she targets on them. I can call her off, but how are you supposed to teach "leave it" properly? There are a few ways. The way we teach it at my school is to have a visible piece of low value food on the floor and have your dog on a short leash. The moment she disengages from the food you say "leave it" and reward with a higher value treat. I don't particularly like this method, but it works. Alternately you can work on Its Yer Choice, which I've brought up a bajillion times in this thread. The idea behind Its Yer Choice is that the dog makes the proper decision without needing a cue from you, which is the ideal situation. However you can also teach Leave It mixed up into the context if Its Yer Choice since, on top of having a dog with solid self control, having a leave it command is important for emergency situations. Here's how you get started. You can add the cue the moment the dog disengages if you want, as I mentioned in the first tactic. Its Yer Choice is really a fantastic game, and is the cornerstone of all future impulse control work -- I adore it. So don't neglect doing this "properly" and not using words. I'm at the point where I'm getting Cohen to nose touch or pick up objects right on top of a pile of treats, recall over top of them, or I can tell her she can have this piece laying on the floor but not any others. Neat stuff. Note regarding the method you're using: You're giving a verbal cue too quickly. For all she knows at this point "leave it" can mean chase the cat, watch the cat, saunter over to you when she feels like it, etc. For all dog training, you only add the cue once you have the behaviour you want.
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Apr 8, 2011 21:32
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a life less posted:There are a few ways. The way we teach it at my school is to have a visible piece of low value food on the floor and have your dog on a short leash. The moment she disengages from the food you say "leave it" and reward with a higher value treat. I don't particularly like this method, but it works. Thank you so much! We will do this.
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Apr 8, 2011 21:58
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My dog and I did really well at the park today. There were a few times when he started to get nervous around big dogs, but with the trainer's help I was able to call him away for some pets way before the situation escalated. I think we'll be okay.
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Apr 9, 2011 04:59
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Had a pretty good first day with Milo today. He's just shy of 8 weeks and did awesome. 6/7 for housetraining. I'm not sure how I messed it up, I gave him lots of treats for the first 5 pees and a poop. For the last one, he was whining at the door so I took him for a little walk in the yard for about 10 minutes and nothing. Then he came in and took a tiny pee outside his crate, I really think he was just excited to be outside and forgot. It was good practice for me to not freak out though and easy enough to clean. I fed him about half his dinner trying to charge the clicker but I'm not sure he's getting it. I did manage to get him sitting pretty well, he already knows that command so it was fun to teach him that's what he's supposed to do before he gets food and we got some success. I think the problem with the clicker was he was distracted by all the new people and he's not used to being fed so much by hand. At home, they were just all being fed from a pizza tray so he's pretty aggressive at food time. The greatest part of today was how smooth the introduction was to our older husky/shep. She was very bad with other dogs when we got her (she once reached into a box walking past a garage sale and started shaking a stuffed dog by the neck). Over 4 years, we've socialized her pretty well and she is great with other dogs now. With the puppy, I just let the husky sniff him in his crate for a minute while giving her lots of treats. When I opened it, more treats and petting. The puppy is already very social with other dogs so I wasn't concentrating on him too much. I forgot about the cat though, she came face to face with him on her way out the door. She had an escape though and I haven't seen her punch him yet. The puppy grew up with a cat so he doesn't have much interest in her which is great because she likes to come on walks with us. The only problem is that he's a total lapdog. The thing he wants more than anything, inside or out, is to jump on your lap and chill out there. Not the worst problem in the world but I'm going to try to cut it down before he's 80 pounds.   
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Apr 13, 2011 01:39
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Adorable little puppy there. Our 4 month old husky/chow is the opposite. She wants nothing to do with sitting on our laps and tolerates it for a minute or two then squirms to get down. I'm trying to make her more cuddly with treat rewards. Here's a picture from when we first brought her home at 2 months old.
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Apr 13, 2011 02:22
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Hdip posted:Adorable little puppy there. Our 4 month old husky/chow is the opposite. She wants nothing to do with sitting on our laps and tolerates it for a minute or two then squirms to get down. I'm trying to make her more cuddly with treat rewards. holymoly that's a cute puppy she sounds like a spitz dog already you're gonna have a smart doggy on your hands, look into buying the books recommended in the OP if you haven't already
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Apr 13, 2011 02:25
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Ikantski posted:
I would expect the clicker charge to take a few days. If he were more mature then maybe a few sessions throughout a day, but the cause-effect is tough for a puppy to see in a world full of distractions. My bet is by the end of the week he'll have figured out click = treat. Also, gently caress, puppies are cute.
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Apr 13, 2011 02:49
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a life less posted:I would expect the clicker charge to take a few days. If he were more mature then maybe a few sessions throughout a day, but the cause-effect is tough for a puppy to see in a world full of distractions. My bet is by the end of the week he'll have figured out click = treat. Some anecdotal info which may help. When I rescued my first dog he was 7 1/2 months old and had pretty much no training of any description. Was kept in a crate essentially 24/7. I was able to charge the clicker in about 5 minutes flat. Contrast that with my next rescue, at 11 weeks of age. It took me close to a week for her to make the click = treat connection that my first dog made in 5 minutes. I think age made all the difference.
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Apr 13, 2011 04:52
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That does help, thanks. My 13 year old husky picked it up really quickly too, I did it a bit more with the puppy this morning and I think he's starting to get it. He had an better than expected first night, he whined about 10 minutes when we went to bed and then another 10 minutes after we put him back in after taking him and the older dog out for a piddle at 3 am. My heart just melted when I got up and could just hear his tail thumping and there he was quietly sitting. The bully stick is really helping, he's put hours into that thing already.
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Apr 13, 2011 14:08
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a life less posted:I would expect the clicker charge to take a few days. If he were more mature then maybe a few sessions throughout a day, but the cause-effect is tough for a puppy to see in a world full of distractions. My bet is by the end of the week he'll have figured out click = treat. Man I love herding breeds so much for how quick they catch onto things. Greta figured the clicker out in like 5 minutes at 11 weeks old (well maybe not that quickly, I don't quite remember, but I don't think it was more than a day before she knew a click meant a treat)
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Apr 13, 2011 14:29
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Milo being awesome and getting some laptime, he's 8 weeks tomorrow. I think he's associated sitting with getting food more than hearing the click but we'll do another session tonight. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6q4Tv1HWHA
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Apr 13, 2011 17:31
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What do you guys recommend for a dog who is not really motivated by anything? My Shiba Inu is fairly good at "Sit" and "Back" but only indoors. Treats don't motivate her once she's received two or three. She'll become bored and go do her own thing. Her prey drive seems to be fairly high, especially when we're out for walks and she sees a squirrel or cat. I've tried to use this to my advantage by using flirt poles and various cat toys, but the result is the same. She gets bored VERY quickly so it's hard for me to get her worked up and motivated for any sort of training. I know that Shibas are one of the more aloof breeds out there and I'm not expecting her to magically jump through hoops at the sound of a command. My hopes are just to find a way to really get her attention and keep her interested so that I can use that motivation for future training/fun. Any suggestions?
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Apr 15, 2011 17:43
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nolen posted:What do you guys recommend for a dog who is not really motivated by anything? What kind of treats have you tried? Sometimes it's just a matter of finding a food she looooooves. Cheese, hot dogs, boiled chicken, peanut butter, pizza, etc. You're only giving little itsy bitsy pieces so pick whatever she'll go nuts for (that isn't toxic or anything of course). Also try withholding a meal or two. A healthy dog won't be hurt by missing a meal and she might be a lot more interested in food if she isn't getting it in her bowl. For doing tricks outside, I feel your pain. Moxie really couldn't give a drat about me if we are out and about. We're working on it though and the trick is to take it slowly. If she'll do the tricks inside great, do them near the door. If she'll do them near the door try them in the threshold, then in the backyard just on the other side of the door, then a foot away from the door, etc, etc. Wait to move farther away until she will do the trick with 90% reliability at the current spot.
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Apr 15, 2011 18:44
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Cassiope posted:What kind of treats have you tried? Sometimes it's just a matter of finding a food she looooooves. Cheese, hot dogs, boiled chicken, peanut butter, pizza, etc. You're only giving little itsy bitsy pieces so pick whatever she'll go nuts for (that isn't toxic or anything of course). Thanks for the tips. She won't touch dry treats, so I started using the Zukes Mini Naturals, which she is "meh" about but will sometimes do a sit for one. I upped the ante to boiled chicken for a while and she doesn't get bored of it as quickly as the other treats but it's still not something that holds her interest after 3 or 4 pieces. I'll try hot dogs and maybe small pieces of cheese, but I'm not sure if food will be the best motivator for her still.
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Apr 15, 2011 19:08
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nolen posted:Thanks for the tips. What are her other motivators? I know you mentioned play, so you might be able to capitalize on that. Or, looking at the environment, what about sniffing a lamppost? Or greeting another dog? Or chasing a squirrel? All of these things can be adapted to become rewards for compliance and attention. It's based on the Premack principle, which, in sciencey talk says that a high probability behaviour can reinforce a low probability behaviour. In dog terms, rewarding items in the environment can be used as a reward for listening to you, and the next time you ask for the dog to listen she'll be more likely to pay attention because of the strong reinforcement she got the last time she did. I think it's similar to the NILIF philosophy where, for the dog to get something she wants, she has to give you something you want. Also you can start increasing the value of toys and games with you if you play them more often, start them when she's already jazzed about your return home, and stop them before she loses interest (this last part is particularly important). With a dog like a Shiba I would always keep training sessions very short -- like 30 seconds, 2 mins at the absolute max. Act happy and goofy to try to keep the dog more amped to work with you, and again always quit while you're ahead. Gradually the attention span should increase, but it'll probably take some time.
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Apr 15, 2011 19:25
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^^ My advice would be to try out different treats, which you are already doing. I've recently discovered dried chicken liver, which seems to be to die for in my house, so you'll want to look into a bunch of different options. After a bigger training session and all competitions my dogs get to eat a small can of cat food as the big, final reward. You might try a flirt pole or something similar with actual animal fur. And even with a shiba remember to be excited about, not only her success, but also about her rewards. So praise the food or toy, too. I've managed to teach my Lapponian Herder to value tug of war as a reward, when her natural tendency is toward chasing balls and earning food rewards.
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Apr 15, 2011 19:30
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Cassiope posted:Also try withholding a meal or two. A healthy dog won't be hurt by missing a meal and she might be a lot more interested in food if she isn't getting it in her bowl. To expand on this, try not feeding in a bowl at all. My dog recently just pretty much stopped listening to everything we said and started turning up her nose at her favorite treats. Besides the fact that she's a terrible teenager, my trainer suggested that maybe she was getting inundated with food (my dog's a bad bad girl, so we were doing a lot of reinforcing when she was being good). The trainer suggested that we save the best treats only for the things we really, really need to work on and to make her work for meals. If we don't have time to give all her daily food during training sessions, then we give her her food in a food-dispensing toy. It's already made some difference, Psyche is more excited about food and is listening a bit better. In other news, Psyche, for the first time since we got her, saw a dog at our apartment complex and didn't freak out! She watched the dog and I stuffed her face with treats, and she let the dog walk away without even a tiny growl! I was so proud. She's been doing great around people this week (only freaking out when a guy ran right in front of her and startled her) and apparently it's extending to dogs a bit too. We've been adapting our training a bit and only carrying the really good treats with us outside. She also might be responding more to the prozac increase we started a few weeks ago. Whatever the reason, I hope this continues! I'm excited to see how she does in class tonight.
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Apr 15, 2011 19:55
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a life less posted:Also you can start increasing the value of toys and games with you if you play them more often, start them when she's already jazzed about your return home, and stop them before she loses interest (this last part is particularly important). Thanks for all your advice but this particular snippet seems like a fantastic idea. The most excited I see her is when I come home from work in the evenings. I will start using that to my advantage and see if we make any progress!
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Apr 15, 2011 22:00
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In November we brought home the newest addition to our family, Milo. He's a first generation Goldendoodle whom we adopted from a local breeder. He was a quick learner right from the get go and was house trained and learned the basics within the first week. We've taught him sit, lay, paw, high-five and stay all over about 30 minutes each. He's an amazing fetcher and never begs for food (unlike our older Lab). Here is our issue right now, he's a biter. At first it was just a "Oh, he's teething" type thing and we provided a wide variety of chewies and toys to satisfy his urge to chew. Well it's too the point now where he usually won't let people pet him without trying to nip at their hands. Now he's almost 7 months old and approximately 65lbs of nipping, biting and chewing puppy. My main worry is that this will carryover into adulthood and we won't be able to let him near strangers without him ruining pants and leaving war wounds on hands. He is still very young and his teeth shouldn't be in fully till about 8-9 months according to our vet but his biting people has me a little freaked out. One thing I should add is that when he's biting it's not really an aggressive bite. He never bears his teeth or growls at anything unless he's being told not to do something and even then there's no teeth to be seen just little "AahhhROOOOO" noises in protest. He just doesn't seem to be responding to any verbal corrections with the using people (and our other dog) as chew toys and I am not sure what to do! Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Obligatory pictures of the goof:  They day we brought him home. I still laugh at this picture because he is so small.  Taken in early February sometime.  and as of this month! Bonus, pictured with our old man Dopey. It's a good size comparison from the first picture to this one. Milo is a big boy now with paws the size of baseballs.
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Apr 15, 2011 23:03
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Ikantski posted:For the last one, he was whining at the door so I took him for a little walk in the yard for about 10 minutes and nothing.
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Apr 15, 2011 23:35
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So, Dan's smart when it comes to tricks. He picks things up ridiculously easily, and once he's learned how to do something it's very easy to teach him to modify that behaviour for another cue (for example, we have different commands for 'bark' and 'whine'). Here's a list of what he knows; Sit Lie down Stand Stay Leave it Come here Heel (he actually taught himself this, and it's cued to the words 'walk on' which I would say to him at the beginning of each walk when he's walking on a short leash along the roads) Wave (he actually waves rather than just giving a paw) Bang (flings himself down to the ground dramatically then starts whining) Spin Bow Get it (goes to find a toy so we can play) Kisses (licks your hand instead of mouthing it) Bubbles (blows bubbles in his water dish; something else he taught himself) Where's the bunnies? (gets very excited/runs to the garden door and/or the hutches) Speak Aroooo (this is the whine command) Up (sit up and beg command) Off (GET DOWN OFF THE TABLE YOU ARE NOT A CAT  )Over Hup Teeth (holds his head still while you check his teeth) Any ideas on what I should teach him next? He honestly picked all this stuff from a pretty half-arsed effort on my part, I don't usually need to do more than one formal training session before he 'gets' it. There are a couple of tricks Meg used to know like 'Crawl' which I've yet to teach him, but I'd like some other ideas . He's so bright and eager to please that I'm pretty sure he'd be good at more complex stuff (like spinning backwards, 'limping', sneezing on command etc), but I'm sure there's a lot of more outside-the-box stuff I'm not thinking of.Tldr, I'm looking for suggestions on cool tricks to teach my ridiculously trainable dog 
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Apr 16, 2011 16:08
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http://silvia.trkman.net/ then choose videos from the left and go to Tricks. Edit. Youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/yolle555
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Apr 16, 2011 16:47
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notsoape posted:Tldr, I'm looking for suggestions on cool tricks to teach my ridiculously trainable dog Dan is awesome. I love that guy. PFox asked something similar recently in this thread, and I posted a response here. When I'm out of ideas for tricks I'll either tidy up old behaviours (straighter sits, faster downs) or watch videos of awesome trick dogs and steal some ideas from there. Odds are you'll not really be able to impress friends with how fast your dog can lay down (which is a shame, really). I really like this video for its tricks. I really like the trainer and she puts up some really neat videos. In the conditioning thread I was talking about how I'd heard that a dog going from a beg to a stand on rear legs back to a beg is awesome for core conditioning and can help delay some of the aging process brought about by a weak hind end. Plus it's pretty damned .I also LOOOOOOOOVE tricks that involve rear-end awareness. Anything from back up to reverse weaving to handstand stems from basic rear end awareness exercises. This is the video I used to teach Cohen she could indeed move her back legs separately from her front. Go hog wild! And post videos.
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Apr 16, 2011 17:38
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GLITTER AND GREASE posted:Here is our issue right now, he's a biter. At first it was just a "Oh, he's teething" type thing and we provided a wide variety of chewies and toys to satisfy his urge to chew. Well it's too the point now where he usually won't let people pet him without trying to nip at their hands. Now he's almost 7 months old and approximately 65lbs of nipping, biting and chewing puppy. My main worry is that this will carryover into adulthood and we won't be able to let him near strangers without him ruining pants and leaving war wounds on hands. He is still very young and his teeth shouldn't be in fully till about 8-9 months according to our vet but his biting people has me a little freaked out. One thing I should add is that when he's biting it's not really an aggressive bite. He never bears his teeth or growls at anything unless he's being told not to do something and even then there's no teeth to be seen just little "AahhhROOOOO" noises in protest. My dog Jazz was one of the most determined biters I've ever encountered. I rescued her at 11 weeks, and once we got her well, she was very playful, very hyper, and VERY bitey...not aggressive at all, just playful and would not pay attention to any substitution, or verbal correction. Finally, in desperation I resorted to a physical correction that solved the problem completely. When Jazz tried to bite my hand, I'd put my thumb in her mouth and press against the roof of her mouth, curling my fingers around her upper muzzle for extra pressure. It didn't hurt her, but was cumbersome and uncomfortable. I sneakily encouraged the hand biting, looking for opportunities so that I could do this very often. It took about a week, but she stopped biting, very occasionally forgetting but a quick bit of pressure with my thumb again was enough of a reminder to have her backing off completely. It helped I think that Jazz is small, a chihuahua, so my hand in her mouth made it impossible for her to maybe reactively bite down and do any damage. If your puppy is really big it may not work, but I thought it was worth a mention because it worked so well for me and my dog.
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Apr 16, 2011 18:46
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a life less posted:Go hog wild! He now knows "Back-up!"This took two sessions of maybe 20 minutes each (yesterday evening and this morning) At the beginning of session one, I'd put the treat in front of his nose and 'push' against him very gently. He'd fall into a sit 9 times out of 10. The couple of times he took steps backwards I praised him like hell and treated (I don't use clickers; my old dog was phobic of them and I guess I fell out of the habit). By the end of session one, Dan had kind of realised that when I pushed gently against his nose I wanted him to keep his butt in the air and walk backwards a couple of steps. I was cueing the command 'Back-up' at this point, and as an experiment I gave the command without pushing against his nose. He just stood there, wagging his tail. We finished on lots of positive nose-pushy 'backups' and went to do the bunnies. At the beginning of session two, he sat a couple of times at first, then remembered the stuff he'd learned last night. I 'asked' him to work a little harder for treat and praise this time, and you could really see his little doggy brain gears whirring to try and figure this thing out. Maybe seven minutes into this session he GOT it - that he was supposed to walk backwards on his own, with no movement from me, on the 'Back-up' command - and he has been merrily backing up on cue ever since .At this point he stops responding to the command when he gets a couple of feet away - but that's something we can work on in time. We had playtime with a tug toy after the session, and I had him 'leave-it' and 'back up' a couple of times while we wrassled. He did it perfectly. I'm looking forward to eventually working on a backwards spin with him I swear there's a video camera somewhere in this house - once I find it, I'll post video!
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Apr 17, 2011 07:50
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Bailey's worrying me with his dislike of moving/loud cars. He actually attacked the tires of an idling, quiet car that we had to walk by a few days ago. I've started just shoveling high value treat in his mouth, but is that really going to solve the problem? He just seems agitated and uncomfortable.
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Apr 17, 2011 17:49
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wtftastic posted:Bailey's worrying me with his dislike of moving/loud cars. He actually attacked the tires of an idling, quiet car that we had to walk by a few days ago. I've started just shoveling high value treat in his mouth, but is that really going to solve the problem? He just seems agitated and uncomfortable. Do your best to keep your distance so his agitation is at a minimum. Once you get past the point of mindlessly reacting you can up your criteria and require him to act calmly before you treat. Incorporate the Look At That game into your walks when you notice him getting nervous. The beauty of the game is that it allows the dog to take a brief glimpse and what's freaking him out, and then back to you for a reward. It's a more operant way to deal with reactivity. I've mentioned the game a few times in the thread, and how to teach it. Briefly, you want to capture it. See if you can set up a mildly distracting situation and when Bailey looks at it you click (or mark with your marker word) and then treat when he looks back at you. You can start adding a cue once the dog starts to understand the game. Here's an article with a bit more information on what it is and how to teach it. Start teaching it indoors in low-distraction environments, and gradually add more difficulty as he figures the game out. The game is explained thoroughly in McDevitt's Control Unleashed, which is a great book and might be a good reference for you if you're experiencing some difficulty with impulse control and reactivity. notsoape posted:
That's great! And very . It sounds like Dan picks these things up incredibly quickly. I bet he'd give Cohen a run for her money.
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Apr 17, 2011 20:35
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