Dennis is 16 months old and has lost the plot completely were training is concerned. First he started to run away while on our walk across the fields.Recall before this was getting pretty good. I thought we would go back to basics . Starting again with lead work. We did really well in fact our trainer though I had bought a different dog as we always had trouble with Dennis and his nose being permanently on the ground or club house carpet.He was brilliant watching me and walking to heel. Wow !!!! That lasted all of a week. This week we are back to pulling his figure of 8 lead to make him lift his head even lots of encouragement and treats only last a few minutes then his nose glues it's self back to the ground. I just don't know what to do with him . We are meant to be doing bronze next week.. Think I'll cancel. All suggestions gratefully received. Thanks.
Probably not going to be of any help at all but I have a lab of exactly the same age. Every day is an adventure to see how he is going to behave , but if I think back to the shocker he was at one year then I know there have been improvements. I gave up on bronze a couple of months ago as Ripple cannot manage a stay with other dogs about. The only tips I can give is to persevere with training at every opportunity, every walk I do presents some challenge which I try to change into a training opportunity. I have upped the value of my treats, and this, plus a great deal of perseverance, have meant we can achieve walking to heel in a lot of different situations. Ripple would also walk along with his nose stuck to the ground in the hope of finding something disgusting to eat but I have also worked hard on 'leave it'. Pippa's Total Recall book has a good section on the 'About turn walk' , this has proved invaluable for getting Ripple to focus on me when he is off lead. I know how easy it is to get stuck in a rut and feel things will never improve, but I expect there will be lots of advice from everyone here, and soon you will be able to turn things around .
Oban got through the dreaded 9 month old phase by passing his CGN and then fell apart at 18 months. My only problem was his idea that "with me" off leash was umpteem million times further away than it used to be or I wanted. Long story short I discovered North/South fetch on a British gundog site (we were doing field work) it worked for the fetch and I morphed it into a whistle recall with great success. At the same time we did continue with our competitive obedience and while in a building or ring or on leash that did not seem to be affected, only recall plummeted.
Maybe try some scent training? That way you could be working with his desire to sniff, not against it. It's something I would like to try myself and have done a little preliminary work on.
@Chrissiejean do you think he's sniffing for all the treats that were dropped by other people during class? At one school we went to, there were so many classes on the field that by the time it was our class there must've been a million treats lost in the grass. Of course Snowie wanted to find them all, which made training there very difficult. I know we're meant to train through distractions, but treats on the ground is really difficult for a young pup to ignore. And even if the treats have been eaten up by another dog, the scent is still there.
Thanks all for your replies. Yes I do think we forget what we have already been through while trying to train our dogs. Dennis wasn't too bad at 1year but before that he was a walking nightmare. I used to come back from classes tearing my hair out because I knew he could do these things at home perfectly but just wasn't interested at training. We got through most of the early problems but now seem to be going backwards again.l feel like the little boy with his finger in the dyke . I plug one hole only to have another appear. Oh well onwards and upwards, hopefully. Dennis has his bronze test on Wednesday. Don't hold out much hope , depends which Dennis turns up on the night. Our trainer is going to start scent training classes as well soon so I have already asked her to put our name down. Will let you know how we get on with bronze exam on Wednesday. Thanks again.
