Hello everyone! I have some quick questions, I have 2 labs right now. A 6 year old purebred and a 3 year old Border Collie x Lab. They are very obedient and a pleasure to have. But I want to take their training to that 'next' level. So first off: I just charged my clicker for the first time. And man is that thing super loud! It was a $1. And I saw a variable sound one for $5. If I start training with this loud clicker and go to a quieter one down the road, will it affect my training? Next, do I train my two dogs separately? If so, when I start recall training with a whistle, will training one dog outside effect the inside dogs recall because the inside dog will still be hearing the whistle outside? Hopefully that made sense. And finally, my dogs are 80% all the time in the home/public when sit,stay,lay. 100% COME in the home. But will drop to almost 0% COME in public. Should I abandon all my current ques and start totally fresh? My one lab blew me off all last night at the dog park when told to come.
Hi and welcome to the forum. I can't help with clicker training, but am sure someone will be along soon to help with that. I would train the dogs separately to start with and maybe do some walks with just one at a time to get them you listen to you as if one goes to come back and sees the other not coming, they could decide to follow the other one. I would abandon all current cues and start afresh. I personally use a whistle. I find the whistle easier as the tone is consistent whereas your voice can change dependant on how how or frustrated you are.
Hi there and welcome ,your dogs are beautiful.My dog is an 'only' dog but quite a lot of our members are 'multi' owners and will be able to give you more suggestions.From what I read of the posts ,training them separately at first is the thing to do,I've then seen photos and videos of that evolving to where you have both of them and have one waiting whilst the other performs the request,both dogs get rewarded ,one for waiting,one for performing the cue.What effect the whistle has on the 'off duty' dog I'm don't know....I've wondered myself what Dexter would do if he was around an owner using my signal on the same whistle.... Definately change your cue if you've been using it and getting 0 response....they
Have learned they can ignore you...if you are using a clicker and are wanting to get your dogs to recall to a whistle.Pippa's Total Recall book will really help you...she addresses training older dogs and starting again when your recall has been poisoned...good luck and let's us know how you do x
Beautiful dogs, what are their names? Clickers - I started with a variable sound one - very loud on it's loud setting. I have many of the cheap clickers in all pockets/bags which I mainly use, but from time to time the original clicker comes to hand - it makes no difference to Coco. I'd say that if your dogs are 100% in the home with COME, then you can still take it outside and use the same word, but try and follow a structured program like Total Recall. And if it is poisoned..it's simple - switch words. I heartily recommend training a whistle recall in parallel - very useful to have both, and as @Naya says, the whistle is consistent when you're not. Coco came to us at 16 months old, I have no idea what his recall was prior to that. I used C'm-ere (because OH was using HERE and he is hopeless at training - it was more like here, here, here, HERE - ). We have now switched to COME - that's what we use at training class. I still struggle to get him (OH) to use it only once, but he's a lot better. He doesn't get near my whistles!
Sorry,Sues's right I didn't take in what you'd written properly ...you got a solid start there,you just need to proof it by adding distractions .....Total Recall helps you do this gradually and methoically to establish a really strong cue,my apologies,I don't want to muddy the waters at all x
So it seems my border collie lab isn't so keen on the treats or the sound of the clicker while my pure lab is all about it. I think the clicker sound might be too loud inside for him. He shys away when I C&T. This is Remi And this is Lilly!
You can just use a specific word instead of a clicker if you want. I use a high pitched "yes!" in the same way as I use my clicker, they're interchangeable for my dogs
Since these two dogs are in separable, do I go: Yes + Treat one, than Click + Treat the other. Maybe I should just Yes both of them. And I just realized how expensive it's going to be burning through all these bags of treats lol
If I'm training in the house I park one dog on a mat or behind a gate and focus on the one I'm training. I occasionally reward the parked dog for staying where they are and being calm but I only use my "click" for the one training. They seem to understand when it's their go. If I'm training outside I sometimes leave one inside, my spaniel used to bark but he got used to it.
Sometimes you can take the button off the clicker and then just click by pressing down on the metal surface. That reduces the loudness of the click. Definitely find some way of reducing the sound of your dog is shying away. It's hard on their sensitive ears to have that loud click beside their head. And you don't have to use food for treats, you could use a toy. Your Border CollieX might be more otivates to get a chance to run after a ball instead of getting a treat as a reward.
Just an idea for cheap food treats - I use a roast topside or silverside of beef, cut into little treat size pieces and frozen. I just defrost what I need. And I know there's no nasties in it.
So my purebred loves baby carrots and apples so far. Makes me very excited because now I don't have to worry about going broke buying healthy dog treats! Now when I hit the clicker she's coming up to me ready for a treat. Learned real fast But my border collie lab is not liking the treats or the clicker lol. So I tried to start him on YES, as an event marker. Tried giving him his toy, didn't care. Maybe just affection?
Lily sounds sooo much like our old lab 'max' and also a strong resemblance, now sadly passed. He behaved fantastically in the house but soon as the front door opened selective deafness kicked in lots and he would NOT listen! Sorry I can't add any advice to your thread, it just brought back a few memories of max, such a character!
