Dog Community

I really need some help....

Posted : 6/23/2006 12:16:36 PM

The more I think about it, the more Sally and my training issues come down to one thing-focus--her lack of it and my inability to get it on ME. She is VERY easily distracted, especially on walks. She is also rather stubborn. She is very intelligent, and I believe can learn to be more focused, I'm just not sure on how to go about teaching her that.

We are starting to do more strict NILIF, and it seems to be helping. When I walk her I make her down stay if a person passes by, and she is doing much better with not getting overly excited when other dogs pass--the last few times I have gotten her into a down stay and she has held it until the dog passes (a major improvement) but for the life of me I can't get her to "watch me" until after the dog has passed.

I walk her on a prong (she is a hard core puller, something else we have been working on-she even has learned to pull on a Halti), and I was taught at obedience class to reinforce commands such as "leave it" with the prong, but I do not want to have to do that, especially when people or dogs are passing as I don't want her to associate bad things with them. Wow-that was quite the run on sentence, wasn't it?

She has been improving overall, but I think that if I could figure out how to pull her out of la-la land it would help things considerably.

So yes, advice would be greatly appreciated....[

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Debbie R

Posted : 6/23/2006 1:05:34 PM

Christina, I can't help you but I am so glad you bought this up, I am going through the same thing w/ Trixie. She's like do-da-do-da-loo.
I can't wait till you get some answers. I've been training the watch by putting a treat near my chin and when she looks I treat her, and that's working in a training enviorment but out side its pure LALA land w/Trixalina

agilebcs

Posted : 6/23/2006 1:20:08 PM

Have you already taught "watch me" away from any distractions? Does she reliably do it?

Do you feed her kibble? Maybe you can work on distractions by making her work for her food? Take it on a walk with you or go to a busy park, etc. When she's hungry and you've got food she's more likely to pay attention to you. This isn't a long term thing but it will help her learn to focus on you and eventually (hopefully) you'll end up being much more exciting than whatever else is happening.

What sort of treats are you using? It should be something very high value and something she only gets on walks or in this sort of situation.

Instead of keeping her in a down-stay and giving her time to focus on something else go right into doing "puppy push-ups" or running thru tricks like shake, high five, etc.

I've got a dog that will get very easily distracted at agility trials and I work hard to keep his focus on me thru constantly having him tug, catch a toy, do tricks for treats, things like that. He'd like to be in the face of every dog that passes by or sniffing the ground and if I let him do that by the time I get into the ring I've totally lost him.

marynh

Posted : 6/23/2006 1:31:27 PM

I don't know if your dog is anything like Molly, but I had to seek the advice of a behaviorist due to Molly's behavior when we are walking her. Primarily past people and dogs.
The behaviorist spent 2 hours w/Molly and myself and he is of the opinion that I have let Molly be in a place that is not comfortable with - in charge of protecting me.
Anyway....when we walk past people and/or dogs when Molly is on leash she acts rather aggressively. We normally made her sit and wait for the passerby to go past us...difficult at best.
He says, for Molly, it would be better for us to simply turn her around and move in a direction AWAY from the people and/or dogs as it shows her we have control to get her away from the situation that is causing her anxiety.
Eventually she'll be able to walk past people w/out feeling she must go into "protect Mommy" mode as she'll feel we have full control of the situation and remove her if necessary.
Anyway that's how he suggests handling a dog who isn't very good about walking past people or dogs - find another direction to go so the dog thinks you are controlling the environment.

sillysally

Posted : 6/23/2006 7:59:29 PM

ORIGINAL: marynh

I don't know if your dog is anything like Molly, but I had to seek the advice of a behaviorist due to Molly's behavior when we are walking her. Primarily past people and dogs.
The behaviorist spent 2 hours w/Molly and myself and he is of the opinion that I have let Molly be in a place that is not comfortable with - in charge of protecting me.
Anyway....when we walk past people and/or dogs when Molly is on leash she acts rather aggressively. We normally made her sit and wait for the passerby to go past us...difficult at best.
He says, for Molly, it would be better for us to simply turn her around and move in a direction AWAY from the people and/or dogs as it shows her we have control to get her away from the situation that is causing her anxiety.
Eventually she'll be able to walk past people w/out feeling she must go into "protect Mommy" mode as she'll feel we have full control of the situation and remove her if necessary.
Anyway that's how he suggests handling a dog who isn't very good about walking past people or dogs - find another direction to go so the dog thinks you are controlling the environment.

I don't think it's aggression with Sally. She can be timid with strangers (NOT fear aggressive), but is slowly improving. It seems that she now wants to investigate everyone that passes--lately she has been really into smelling passerbys' feet, which tends to make people unconfortable. Since I don't want to have to pull her away from people I have taught her to down stay when someone passes.

As far as other dogs go, I think it's more of an over-excitment issue than aggression. She doesn't longe or snarl or anything, just gets all excited and whiny trying to go up to the dog. She seems to feed off the other dog's energy level--if the dog is chill, so is she, but it's bouncing and excited, it's a challenge to even keep her in one spot much less in a down.

The food thing is a good idea--she is very food motivated. She is allergic to wheat, so we are limited in our store bought training treat options--maybe she's getting bored with them?

In another thread someone mentioned the use of baby food hotdogs, and I'm considering that. The puppy pushups are a good idea though--might keep her more with me....

agilebcs

Posted : 6/23/2006 8:51:14 PM

Some treat ideas you can buy at the grocery store:
hot dogs (you can microwave them too so they are cooked and not greasy)
deli meat: roast beef, turkey (get them to slice it thick and then cut it up into little pieces), liverwurst
string cheese
liver (cooked)
cooked and cut up into small pieces: steak,chicken, turkey (I like to take boneless chicken breasts and coat them in garlic powder then grill them or bake them and cut them up into small pieces)

There are also tons of great treats you can buy that don't have wheat in them. Have you ever tried Liver Biscotti? They make it wheat free and dogs love it.

Definitely up the value of the treats she gets for watching you. I think it'll make a huge difference.

willowchow

Posted : 6/23/2006 10:42:41 PM

Willow is very hard to get to focus also so I'm hearing ya, just don't have any suggestions. But, as for treats to train with, I've had a really good response from her with these Zukes treats. They are very small, soft and no wheat for Sallly. We've got the peanut butter flavor.

[linkroducts_id=34]http://www.zukes.com/shop/product_info.php?cPath=2_10&

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roducts_id=34]http://www.zukes.com/shop/product_info.php?cPath=2_10&

roducts_id=34[/link]

sillysally

Posted : 6/27/2006 9:22:29 PM

Well, I bought some baby food hot dogs, and WOW! I used them when we walked today. Towards the beginning of the walk we passed by a woman with a hound, and she even stopped to talk to us. Between the hot dog and the puppy pushups, she didn't even LOOK at the other dog--it was AWESOME!!!

jensw

Posted : 6/27/2006 10:57:19 PM

Roscoe generally won't focus on me when there are ducks nearby. I can distract him with these treats: dried beef heart and dried garlic hotdog. Both are just thinly sliced and microwaved 'til rubbery and gross; the hot dog is sprinkled with garlic powder before microwaving. Yum. [8D]

fuzzy_dogs_mom

Posted : 6/28/2006 11:03:05 AM

I'll have to try some of those super yummy treats. What gets Max *unfocused* is squirrels, and their population seems to have tripled in the last couple of years.

Joyce

sillysally

Posted : 6/28/2006 1:05:45 PM

Well, the little hot dogs met their match today--chipmunks playing in the middle of the trail--they were practically calling "chase us--we're fuzzy!" [sm=smack.gif]

We did manage to get into a downstay though (although not without a mournful whine) and even got a couple of "Watch mes." Yay for the hot dogs!