please tell me it gets easier (long, please help)

one more thing i'd like to discuss and then i'll tape my typing hands to the chair, i promise!!![]
 
4)  how to handle other reactive dogs while training.  not mine.  everyone else's.
 
living with a public park in my front yard, i see that those of us interested in training our dogs are sadly in the smallest minority.  how do i deal with these "my dog's fine, he doesn't need training" people while i'm trying to train, and what can i *reasonably* expect from MY dogs, who are a breed with reactive tendencies???

It's nearly midnight here so I am going to bed!  But I'll check back and reply in the morning!  Hang in there, someone will be along to answer your Qs soon.....

Hey, don't get so down. A clicker isn't a magic wand. You are introducing a new cue and it is going to take a few trys for them to understand the new language. Is it possible to walk them seperately while you are training? I don't use a clicker so I can't give you any practical advice, but from the threads I've read, it seems like a no brainer. Just keep at it. Patience and Consistancy - the golden rule to any training method.

I know others may disagree, but I don't think you're going to ruin the dog, the training, or anything of that sort if you use a prong when you need to. If you cannot take the dogs out to exercise because they cannot walk on loose leashes otherwise, that's no good either. They be nuts and it'll drive you nuts. I think if you use the prong when you do not have time to wait for loose leashes, and use the regular collars otherwise, you'll be ok. Maybe it'll take you longer to get loose leash walking with the regular collar all the time, but I think you can do it.
I don't have anything really about the peeing on the bed, but, is this the first bed she's had? If she has had a bed before, did she do this to it? Is it in a crate? I'm just trying to see if there is maybe something about this particular bed that is causing it.
Since you said she had done it other times that you found out about, I am assuming she has access to the bed when you are not watching, which you might need to change. I'm thinking maybe you could reinforce an incompatible behavior, like laying on the bed. Seeing as you didn't catch her the other times, it would not seem like she is continuing it for attention, however, we do tend to pay attention when the dog is doing something wrong, and not as much so when they are doing something right. Maybe rewarding for appropriate, and incompatible behaviors while on the bed would help, but at least it can't hurt.

more info on the bed pee-er....

she used to pee on OUR bed, back before we had a house without a bedroom door.  after ruling out health, we decided to crate her when we weren't home.  we thought that solved the problem, but one day i discovered she had done it while i was home but not watching... we now have a bedroom door that we keep shut and the dogs aren't allowed in there at all, which is kind of sad because i rather like sleping with them... (sometimes i'll sleep on the couch instead of in bed because i miss them[])

this dog gets PLENTY of bathroom opportunities; this is definitely marking.  when i'm home, which is often as i don't have traditional work schedule, we're outside every 2 hours or so, just to be sure.  she does have access to a crate, but i'd rather not lock her up when i'm not home anymore if i can modify the behavior instead.  to be truthful, she might have peed on her crate bedding without me knowing it because those blankets got really smelly sometimes..... the author DOES address this, saying that some dogs who were raised in really filthy conditions lack the den instinct... since we don't know her history, i have to believe this is possible.

and while i would like to get away from the prong, i stand by my decision to use it initially.  i know that's not popular, but i remain firm that the improvement was *immediate*- i went from an army crawl puller to a loose leash walker in ONE session.  having said that, it's been a while, and i always intended to use it as a training aid and never a permanent solution.

(thanks for not chewing me up on the prong thing[])

I found that training Juneau for loose-leash walking with the clicker worked SO MUCH BETTER when we used stinky, high-value treats. At first I was doing everything with her kibble - which she likes a lot and is very receptive to training with at home. But outside, on the leash - forget it. She would barely register that I had treats for her and was more interested in just pulling and sniffing. As soon as I switched to the Nature's Balance roll (great stinky stuff!) cut into tiny bits, she was totally with me on the walks.

Now, it is not 100%. More like 75% - and it depends a lot on the day, how much exercise she's had, etc. Some days our walks are great and she's staying with me nearly the whole time. Other days it is just downright frustrating. I think the key is patience and consistency.

One thing I would suggest is to really focus the clicker training on a few easy things at home FIRST before expecting real progress on outdoor walks. At first we did all of our clicker training on easy stuff (sit, stay, etc.) at home and only after she was getting that pretty well (and understood exactly what the clicker meant) did we start using it on the walks. Another thing you can try is loose-leash indoors, so get the dog "in the pattern" of walking with you while using the treats and clicker. This is all about establishing patterns and a routine so locking in good behaviors in less distracting environments is a good way to get started.

Hey Badrap ... CONGRATS on those 15 good minutes off the prong!!! [] Yay!!! Have a party [] Whooopieeeeee!
<at on the back> good job!

1) the book doesn't really discuss "re-training". it sort of assumes you are starting from scratch. any advice from those who have "re-trained" would really be appreciated.

I agree with patience, and using the prong to ease in. I also don't think you are re-training, the dog learned to walk well on a prong. The dog has never learned to walk well off-prong. If dogs don't generalize ...

Why not walk nice with the leash on a regular collar till the pooch has reached his limit, then switch to the prong for the duration? I bet each day, or week, the no prong sessions will last longer and longer!

First of all, I admire your enthusiasm to cross over to clicker training.  You are simply going way too fast LOL.  First of all, work on one behavior at a time (each behavior needs to be "proofed" in different locations, and with gradually increasing levels of distraction).
Turid Rugaas has an interesting little book called "My Dog Pulls - What Do I Do?"  Pulling is a hard behavior to re-train, but it can be done.  Her book is an interesting read.
As to reactivity to dogs on leash, "Click to Calm" by Emma Parsons, can help you a lot.  One easy behavior to work on with the clicker is a "watch" command.  That might help.  But, you need to realize that desensitizing a dog to the presence of other dogs means that you need to work within the dog's ability to remain calm (and watch you and take treats), so if that means that the comfort zone is, say, fifty feet from an approaching dog, at first, then you must manage her environment so that any approaching dog is that far away.  Then, you gradually work on decreasing that distance.  She is not going to learn a few clicked behaviors and suddenly be ok in a crowd LOL - that takes a lot of time. 

thanks for the help, all!  and thanks for the congrats on my "15 minutes" because you helped to put in perspective the idea of "lowering the standard". ... which makes 15 minutes sound really good[].

i saw the discussion on clicking to calm, and thanks for the "my dog pulls" book.  i've included a pic of the very first day we got tek just to put in perspective why i went with a prong to begin with.  this is no pomeranian pulling, it's not ever akin to an 85 lb. lab. .... good thing he's cute cuz this is a nightmare
 

Mudpuppy has some great suggestions for pulling and one of them is to stay close to the house and to keep the sessions short. So, no walking on leashes for exercise (fenced yard if possible). You know what I mean? Nothing worse than being about 1.5 miles away from home and encountering A Disaster like your "army crawl" incident.
 
Yeah, baby steps. It is hard to train a dog and it takes years. Really.
 
Kudos to you. I loved Pat Miller's book and I like, especially, how calm it makes me! Murphy (aka Buddy) just learned to shut drawers. Now he is shutting them left and right (sigh).
 
[]

Everyone's given great advice. All you need is patience. You have the rest of your life to train. From that perspective, it won't take long.
 
Shadow is a cross-over dog. I've trained him with lure/reward and I've used some physical correction. I haven't used correctional collars for a few reasons. First, he was bred to pull hard and I don't see what's wrong with a dog doing his best. Plus, I had trained him in mushing commands. Second, he has a great voice and I don't want to diminish it with throat damage.
 
Now, I am working on a heel with clicker. It started out with "touch", the easiest one. With a treat in your closed hand, the dog will approach and touch your hand. Click and treat. After she's got that idea down pat, start walking around with a treat in your hand and you will be shaping a heel. Since dogs don't generalize, you will eventually be practicing this outside on leash. Each new level of distraction is a new world.
 
As for marking, I could quote others and point out that dogs do what is rewarding to them. The trick is to make it rewarding for them to do something else, even if that something else is to not mark in the house.

Good idea, Ron! I'd forgotten that I used the "touch" command to get my dog back into position!
 
Thanks for a reminder, too! I say to mine, "Get on my good side," which means "let's heel now" and he zips right over. I used the clicker and treats for that and I never ever treated for a position that wasn't right.
 
Well, I did when I was shaping the behavior. But after that, of course.
 
You'll get there Badrap--you will. Just don't get too far away from the house--that's a killer, you know! []
 
(Been there, done that)

keep in mind that clicker-training is mentally exhausting for dogs. Twenty and fifteen minute sessions are too long. You really can't expect your dog to focus continuously for that long. So get your prong collar back out, and on your walks do very short little sessions of click n treat and rely on your prong in between sessions. And at home, it's better to do five one-minute sessions per day than a single long session.

First of all, congrats to opening your mind to other training opportunities! You are on the right track and doing well thus far, and of course there will be a lot of learning curves as you find your way through this new method. []
 
A few observations:
 
On your walk you referred to "they". Were you walking both dogs at once and attempting to click and treat them on the walk? If so, I'm not surprised it didn't work out. When doing clicker work, at least at first, work only one dog at a time. Working both dogs at a time will set them up to get confused and perhaps frustrated.
 
When discussing the idea of "re-training", you have to take a step outside of the box and look at it from another angle. You say your dogs already know how to LLW - right, they know how to do it, when on a prong collar. They have learned that when the prong collar is on, they have to walk nicely or else they will get a pinch (ouchie!) when they forge ahead. So they walk beside you. However dogs are clever beasts, and will learn the difference between when a prong is on and when a flat collar is on, and they will behave very differently as a result. Your dogs do not know "walk on a loose leash regardless of collar", they know "don't pull while wearing the prong collar because it'll hurt if it do!". So basically they really don't "know" loose leash walking at all, which is why you're seeing what you're seeing happen on a flat collar!
 
So it's not a matter of re-training at all, but TRAINING your dogs that walking beside you brings GOOD things to them. [] It brings walks to occur at all, it brings treats, it brings opportunities to sniff the environment (if the dog is pulling - walk stops and dog has no fun...dog will learn to walk to get what it wants), to meet other people, etc. So to train it, do it just as though the dog didn't know anything to begin with, as if the dog had never walked on a leash before, and forget how the prong collar made them behave.
 
On the same note, I realize you can't train all the time, and when dogs need to get out, they need to get out. Now, you could use the prong collar in between training sessions for management (management is a big part of the clicker ideology - preventing unwanted behaviours from happening between training so your dog can't build a reinforcement history). Or, since you are delving into the world of a new way of thinking, perhaps you might look into a front-clip harness for your dog. It's a non-painful way to control pulling in dogs, and it can be used as management when you can't train and need to get from point A to point B. Or you might look into a GL, but I'm not sure how well they fit bully breeds (I've never fit one to a bully breed). But it's a consideration you might look into.
 
And really listen to Mudpuppy's advice on training sessions. While you can stick a prong collar on a dog and use it right away for 2 hours at a time, the clicker is not that way. Because it requires dogs to actively think, to engage those little brains of theirs, it can be very exhausting for them (in some cases more exhausting than that 2 hour walk!), so especially for dogs new to clicker training, stick with short sessions. Even with my clicker-savvy pups I don't work more than 7-8 minutes at a time, and for puppies it's much less time than that. So in effect, do a LOT of training during the day if you wish, but break it up into little sessions. I think you'll find it easier to train that way.
 
And if you are one of those people who live in the real world, and your dogs need their walks, for now separate walks and training time. Train for the walking behaviour you eventually want to see, but don't totally deny them their walk or make their walk INTO a training session if you go for a long walk, because dogs do still need their exercise and if you're trying to get a walk in while training it can end up being frustrated. So walk your dogs during walking time (using management for now), and train for what you EVENTUALLY want for walking time, during training time. And eventually you can put the two together and get them to become one. At the same time during walking time, bring your clicker and treats if you like and reward when the dog DECIDES to walk next you. It can be an informal training session and the dog will learn a lot from it as well, and it's usually more relaxing to do that way than a formal training session.
 
Kim