Hello! Me again - another newbie dog owner question, so I thought I would start a new thread. I have a question about using a training line. We have had a few frights with our lab-pointer Indie where she has caught a scent of something and run across fields to get to it, only coming back when it suits her. She also struggles with focussing on us on walks. So, (thanks to great advice from this forum) we are using a training line to train her to remain in the 'zone of control', and we are also using it as we proof her recall in various settings. However I think I might be using it wrong. For the purpose of teaching her to keep close on walks (within ten metres, which is the length of the line), I am treating her for coming or remaining close to me. When she is about to reach the end of the line, I say 'ah-ah' (the no-reward marker, I guess) and then 'c'mon!' and she changes direction before the lead goes tight and comes towards me again, which she is clicked and treated for. But frequently she ignores the 'ah-ah' and gets to the end of the line, making it tight, and then strains against it to get to the sniff she is following. In the Total Recall book it says to avoid the line being tight too many times to prevent learned awareness. But what can I do if she is getting out of that acceptable distance very frequently? I don't want to allow her extra distance away from me just to avoid activating the training line, as that defeats the purpose. It also frequently gets caught between her back legs which annoys her and I've had to untangle her. And she peed on it today So treating the lead as 'background noise' seems really tricky! I'm a bit stuck, and I am worried I am ruining the training line method for her by doing it wrong. If it is just a case of persisting and she will learn, I can put up with the faff, but wanted to check I am not messing it up. Any advice? Lara and Indie Pindie
Hi Lara, Before you think Indie is going to get to the end of the line you could introduce "this way or lets go" turn, treat and forget the ah-ah. I would also take some high value treats to train this, cheese, sausage etc. The other thing I thought of today, is I was advised by @heidrun to handfeed Charlie all of his daily meal allowance for everything, so he essentially worked for every piece of kibble so hardly anything went into his bowl. I found this very useful and it helped strenghten our bond too. Yes peeing on the lead is something we got used to The tangling can be an issue and not a lot can be done to avoid this, you just have to be aware and careful of this. It takes some getting used to but every day you will get better with the line.
I have my new puppy on a line a lot - it's a right old pain, I find. It works best when I'm doing a specific exercise, and on shortish grass. Right now the exercise is 'don't chase birds', or rather, a whip lash turn away from birds. Like you, sometimes my whip lash turn fails, and using the line to get the behaviour you want (in my case the whip lash turn) is not going to help when the line isn't there. On the other hand, what the line does do, is stop her getting the reward of chasing the birds if my turn fails and there is no way that I can achieve that and not have the line go tight. Sympathies in terms of using it though - I find it a complete bother, and to be honest in between training exercises I just put her on her normal lead until there are no birds around! I think if the line is tight a lot, then you are having a lot of failures, so you need to work somewhere less distracting.
thanks Helen I was kind of thinking the 'ah-ah' as a sort of warning signal to give her a chance to correct herself before the lead got tight. I was worried that if I just did the 'c'mon!' as she was about to get to the end of the lead, she would begin to associate that word with a slightly negative experience (getting to the end of the lead) rather than turning towards me. I wanted to keep the 'you're going to be thwarted in your sniffy endevours' cue and the 'turn towards me and chicken and excellent things!' cue separate - but perhaps I am overcomplicating things good idea with hand feeding - I worry that indie might be getting a little chubby with all the high-value rewards we are using at the moment for important things like recall, and I have been trying to take some of her meal allowance for training already but perhaps I can do it more.
Thanks Julie. I think some of the times the lead gets tight, it is just she forgets where she is in relation to me - its not that she lunges for something or tries to run away, its just her trajectory of trotting along slightly deviates from mine and at some point she gets too far. I suppose that is just a case of practice, and she will get a better idea of how long the lead is and to learn to keep a bit more aware of me. And if she is lunging for sniffs too much, take her somewhere less sniffy (but this is probably the most boring field we have access to - only one bunny colony...). Just out of curiosity, how are you training whiplash turns away from birds? Are you using your recall cue, or something else? ooh and one more question, what do you think is the best way to deal with the situation when another dog comes into the field when I am training 'keep close to me'? Should I run to stand on the end of the training line, then get to her to put her on the short lead? I kind of don't want to deprive her of a play if the other dog is friendly, so I was wondering if I could use the other dog as a reward - i.e. if Indie comes towards me or sits for me when she has seen the other dog, I could release her to go to the other dog as a reward. Or do you think that is a bit muddling, given that she would have to run out of the 'zone of control' to get to the other dog? And also playing with another dog with a training line attached probably isn't too safe? argh this training malarkey ain't easy!
If Lottie's trotting ahead on the long line and the line's about to go tight, I hold still so she feels a bit of pressure on the line. She then usually turns her head towards me, at which point I click so she comes running back for the treat. I'm hoping this will make her realise that whenever she reaches the end of the line, she needs to come back. That's my theory anyway... but as you say, this training malarkey certainly ain't easy .
If you are always holding the line, then you are really using it as a lead. That might be necessary for you, but there isn't much chance of her not being aware of the line if it's used as a lead. I train a whiplash turn on both my recall and my 'change direction' whistle. My change direction means just that, change direction 180 degrees. It doesn't mean come to me and stop, so it stays a bit 'cleaner' than my recall, which with the best will in the world gets a bit of negative baggage associated with it because I do use it on walks. Because I have to do so. I train it using 'ping pong' recall and slowly move closer to the birds. I find it a bit odd that you think your dog might be 'deprived' of a play. Unless your dog needs extra socialisation, why do you want her to play with other dogs? There is no point to that, whereas there is lots and lots of point in your dog choosing to play with you instead of playing with other dogs. I don't mean to suggest that your dog should never, ever be allowed to play with another dog, dogs do need the chance to be dogs and that involves contact with other dogs, but if you walk in even moderately busy places that is very unlikely to happen. Even then, I'd prefer my dogs to be sniffing out stuff, settling, just hanging out with other dogs rather than playing with them. If I'm training, I'm training and my dogs do not get to play with others dogs. If I'm bumbling about, walking to and from my training spots and so on, then my dogs can say hello to other dogs, play for a while, but I walk on and expect them to come away. Personally, with the show line dogs I have, I would never use access to another dog as a reward. It is too reinforcing ft. or them, and what it is reinforcing is being outside and not paying attention to me. I don't want to do that, I work too hard to get them to pay attention to me to let them learn that it is still fun not to do that.
Thanks Julie this is very helpful. Yes, at the start I was holding the training line because it was getting tangled so much, but I let it drag for the last two walks and it was much better despite the tangling. I was also a bit worried about letting it drag to begin with as our morning and evening walks are now both in the dark but I am getting better at hurdling the line at short notice if I need to. What you say about other dogs makes a lot of sense. I thought, because it is such a strong reward for Indie, that there might be some way of using it in training, but I can see that it is probably too exciting and not 'me-centred' enough. We had a good walk last night (we drove to a very boring playing field) where she followed us around the whole way, did some sits and stays, chased her frisbee in the dark (not sure how she does that) and played the recall game between two people. So it's early days but it is certainly getting better in very non-sniffy places. I just need to work out a way of increasing the sniffyness of the walks very gradually - it's hard as we either drive to a playing field which is quite easy for her, or go to any other areas near our house which are super difficult and full of wildlife. But thanks so much for your advice, I think it's paying off
Thanks Allie. That's good that she turns towards you - Indie has strained at the end a few times, desperate to get to some bush or other, and ignored me squeaking and bouncing at the other end! But I think she is getting better
Do you have the book 'control unleashed'? It's very good. In that book, the author does allow access to other dogs as a reward - she doesn't have the same kind of dogs as me though! You might not either of course.
Yes I do! But we bought it just after getting Indie, and I quickly realised my focus should be stopping her from jumping and snapping at us in the house rather than anything more advanced. Walks were a welcome relief at that stage. So it has remained partially unread. I'll dust it off, seems like the time for it!
She doesn't always look straightaway so I stand still until she does and then I click. She's getting much faster at looking back, though today she saw a squirrel and there were a few tense seconds during which I prepared myself to fly after her as she lunged for the squirrel. However, she turned back to me instead, which is a major step forward for us .
