Hiya everyone, Doug is a chocolate lab who is nearly 9 weeks old and beautiful like all baby labs. I have taught him to sit, using click and treat.. I need help with what if any other training I should start, or is he too young to learn lots of training? I think sometimes he just jumps on the sofa cos I tell him down and he has a treat!! Seems like he's not really understanding down.. Also how much training and treats do I give him a day cos Doug loves treats and will eat them all day.. I'm do sorry for all the questions but I want to get it right and help Doug grow up a well trained Boy.. Thank you xx
I would be looking to include with sit, in no particular order of importance, down, stay/wait, come, leave, give/drop, a walk close/heel, off (for jumping off furniture etc.), stand and being touched all over (ready for vet visits, grooming) go to bed to name just a few. A puppy is never to young to start training, and some would say the earlier training starts the better. I never used treats when Juno was little, just her ordinary kibble having removed a portion from her daily allowance just for training. I only treated either during training or when I got a response to a cue to reinforce. Don't be surprised if he doesn't understand what you mean by down, learning a new cue requires time and sometimes a lot of repetitions and often the only way you know they have a cue is by mixing up the training and not training things in the same order or the same day etc. I'm sure others will be along soon with other ideas
@MaccieD - do you have any tips for training 'off' with the furniture? I'm struggling with this too - Nugget puts his paws up on the tables/counters etc and I'm trying to teach him not to! But how? I don't like to give him a treat because - as @Dougs mummy said - he'll do it all the more just to get one!
Hi, I use 'off' from getting off of things or if jumping up or counter surfing etc and 'down' for laying down. Use food from daily kibble allowance whilst young. Short training sessions learning the things @MaccieD has mentioned and plenty of patience and consistency. When Doug does get off the sofa ask for a few behaviours that he knows and treat for them not the getting off.
One thing is to keep table tops and counters free of everything possible so that self rewarding is not possible.
It's hard to teach a dog to 'not' do something. It's far easier to teach them what you want. If you don't want them on the sofa reward all four feet on the floor or have a mat they go to. Mat training is great when you're cooking and don't want them underfoot. With teaching new cues you want the behaviour before you put a word to it. For a sit or lie down this is relatively easy and you can lure the action and reward several times before you pair a word with the action. Also dogs are visual learners so will take cues from things they can see such as hand gestures but also things we don't anticipate such as where they are, other physical cues likes leads and bowls. Little and often is great for puppies, wearing their brains out is a good thing
@Calbury I've just been having a look to try and find a good link for you for teaching 'off' but they all documented whatI cll 'leave'. It gets so confusing sometimes. For the table tops/counters I would go with @Newbie Lab Owner , keep everything clear so there is no chance of grabbing something and self rewarding. Self rewarding is the enemy. If there is nothing there puppies/dogs lose interest quite quickly. You can also use distraction to bring them away with quick recall and sit followed by a reward. For jumping on the furniture some people ignore this behaviour and allow them to sit on the sofa, but for me (I don't allow on sofas, chairs, beds) it should be by invitation only. When Juno tried to jump on the furniture I used to gently put her front paws back on the ground and say 'off', if she jumped on the sofa I used to lift her off and place her on the floor again with an 'off'. It doesn't often take many repetitions over a few days to get the basic idea over and then I started to say 'off' and indicate with my hand to the floor - if she dropped back to the floor she got a treat. I'm sure others have got other ways of encouraging the off. Main things to remember are consistency and perseverance
If you want to train 'off' to mean 'get off the sofa' (without physically manipulating the dog) then you train it like you train anything else. You associate the action of getting off the sofa with the cue. Which means they have to be on the sofa (or chair, whatever) to train it. So encourage them up on the sofa, lure them down, once you have the action of getting down fluid, add a cue. It's easier to use a different cue, I think, such as 'mat' which has the advantage of a duration (eg stay on the mat until I tell you to move). So if your dog is on the sofa, tell him/her to go to a mat. I don't have a cue that means 'get off' something. I can tell my dog where to sit though. So if he is on the sofa and I want him to move, I'll say 'armchair' or if he's on the armchair and I want him on the sofa I'll say 'sofa'. These cues were train exactly as any other cue, I said 'armchair' as he jumped on the armchair. If I ever wanted him to move off the furniture (although I can't ever remember wanting or needing to do that) I would just say 'here' or 'touch' and he'd get down to follow the cue.
I did the same as didn't want Dexter on the furniture either. Only remember lifting him off twice whilst saying off and he's never tried to get on the sofa since.
Thank you for all your advice. I have been lifting him down and saying 'off' - he's very persistent though. The worst times are if any of us are sitting at the kitchen or dining room tables. He keeps jumping up - the children don't acknowledge him at all, and I remove him and say 'off'. He definitely isn't rewarded in any way - he's never been able to get food and he jumps whether we are eating or not. But he does it over and over again - and by the third or fourth time, when I go to remove him, he starts jumping up at me and biting. He's 17 weeks now and those bites are becoming very damaging, to our skin and clothing (he's ripped 2 pairs of my trousers this week!).
Lifting a dog and saying a word won't train him what that word means - he is not doing anything, he is just being moved. He might think 'off' means he gets picked up by you, I suppose. But that's not something you are training him to do himself. I really would go with training an incompatible behaviour here - lie on a mat would be a really good one. Or at the very least, drop treats quietly on the floor when he is not jumping up.
Yes, I do have the handbook and have found it wonderful for many things, but this is probably my biggest problem that I have yet to resolve. He has a big cushion in his crate so I will try putting it next to the table and encouraging him to sit on it. Thanks again
Here is a video that might help. Don't expect too much from a very young dog at first. You can always try a good old kong to encourage quiet, calm behaviour on a mat from a young puppy - just about the best thing you can do with a young dog, to be honest. With a kong, his bum is on the floor, he is quiet, and is being rewarded for that behaviour by the kong. It really helps, it's simple and it builds a good routine.
I can only second Julies comments. Attention of any kind can be rewarding. Lifting your boy off is unlikely to help you need to pair the action with something he does. If you stand up does he jump on the floor? If so you could add the cue to him jumping down. The most straightforward approach is incompatible behaviour. A dog with a strong go to mat behaviour is fab though. You can use it if visitors aren't dog fans, while you're eating, to settle in pubs or cafes......etc etc
