Hello all, I seem to have lost my little puppy Lucy and gained a brat. She was doing so well!!! She would get complements at the petstore about how well trained such a young dog is, people would ask how I did it. She was potty trained and alerting me when she had to go even at night. She listened and was eager to learn. She was even walking well on a leash. Then suddenly she has stopped listening as well as she was, she rather bounce around and turn in circles like a spinner (almost as fast to). I went back to the basics for training and wth food motivation she was getting there....but now, now I want to cry!!! She is back to going potty in the house with zero warning of having to go. She has gone to the vet this week to finish her shots and to get a check up, she has a clean bill of health. Have I messed up? Is she defying me because of something I did? Or did the teen months start early? I should add, she’s just about to turn 5 months old. Is she to young to already be at her teen months? This is why I fear I messed up.
Oh goodness! I have no answers but ours is 4.5 months old and has improved so much in the last month. Are you telling me, in a couple weeks, she's going to turn into a little terror again?
She’s not defying you. Dogs don’t think like that. It’s unlikely to be adolescence at this age. It’s more likely just that you rushed on too fast; she’s still a tiny baby that needs patience and consistent training. You can’t expect her to have learnt everything in such a short amount of time; no way will any five-month old be perfectly trained, you simply haven’t had the time to do it. Go back to basics and start again. You will have to do this a lot. Whenever behaviours break down, it’s becsuse your dog either doesn’t understand, or hasn’t been given a good enough motivation; this doesn’t mean bribing, it means building up a history of reinforcement so that the behaviour you want is super strong. Again, in the three months you’ve had her, you simply haven’t had time to get there yet. You’ll also find that your puppy is losing her complete dependence on you and so her environment is holding more interest. That means you have to proof your training against these new levels of distraction. Go back to step one and start again. You’ll have to do this a lot over the coming months, as distractions become more distracting and as adolescence kicks in. Every time a behaviour breaks down in a certain situation it’s because you’re asking or expecting too much; go back to basics and you’ll work through it - and a lot faster each time. Now I know your pup is so young, I implore you to ditch your “trainer” and the prong collar. It’s unnecessary for any dog to wear one, but to advocate the use of one on such a young puppy is sickening. I appreciate they’re more common and culturally acceptable in the United States than in the UK, Germany, Scandinavia and many other countries, but they are completely unnecessary and barbaric. Anyone that tells you they’re kind, gentle or anything else similar is just lying to make themselves feel better about using lazy, punitive methods to get their dogs to behave how they want.
Hi Britt, As @snowbunny has said 5 months is very young, so try not to be hard on yourself, but go back to basics and keep building on what you've done. With the pee-ing though, it might be worth considering urine infection, or whether something has frightened or disturbed her outside. When Cassie, now 20 months, was around 5/6 months she began to pee in house, near the door, and would only poo on the doorstep, she'd go no further out. I just had to go back to treating her as if 8 weeks again, and eventually I realisecd what had frightened her and the situation resolved. It's all a distant memory now
Thank you for the information. As for the collar she doesn’t wear the pronged collar. She wears a cloth collar with a chain. The training company she’s with trains dogs ranging from defensive measures like a police dog, comforting support dogs and or just basic obedience. They are not bad, very good actually. It is just that here the collars are acceptable and some are designed to not hurt because the prongs are rounded vs machine cut which has sharper edges. It was just this particular trainers advice however I decided against it.
Hey Britt, For what it's worth, I bought a few months back some bells you can hang on the back door. River, who's about the same age as your girl (4,5), just touches the bells with her nose if she needs to go. One word of advice with it though; River now realises that ringing the bell doesn't only mean 'busy' but also gives access to the garden, so if you're not too fussed about having bells ringing several times a day for no other reason then access to the garden, it's a handy tool to get the potty training back on track.
I’ve been thinking of getting the bells. Thank you. Only thing I fear is my cats might want to play with them lol.
Don't take this the wrong way, I'm not judging you personally. But I'm just surprised that an advanced nation such as the US is still using pain as a tool in dog training. Isn't a dog meant to be "a good mate"? PS If a collar is "designed not to hurt", how exactly does it coerce the dog anyway? It must be causing some level of pain or discomfort, otherwise why have the prongs there at all?
Because it’s like mothers bite. Doesn’t hurt, just serves as a warning. It is like pinching a little piece of your skin vs pinching a handful. One hurts and the other is just pressure. The collar with prongs is designed to pinch more skin, so the dog feels some pressure but not the annoying painful pinch. There is a lot of things that differ between the countries when it comes to pets. For example, in the UK it is largely considered cruel to keep cats inside only. In the USA keeping cats outside or even letting them roam is considered irresponsible because of predators, rival cats, poisons and cars so it is encouraged to make them inside only and have a catio (patio for cats) built if you want them to have access to the outside. Looks like it’s the same for dog training. The collars that tighten or have prongs are socially accepted for training. I personally don’t get shock collars, but people use them as well.
Prong collars are solely designed to apply multiple pressure points around the neck as the collar tightens, to cause pain as it tightens and to punish the dog for pulling. The only reason they are now rounded is to prevent them breaking the skin. Mum does not 'bite' her pups - the argument normally given by prong collar supporters. If mum was to bite a pup it would be a quick localised nip not around the entire neck. I know lots of American trainers who subscribe to using positive reward based, force free, ethical humane training - they, needless to say, do not use prong collars or countenance their use.
I think the term "mothers bite" is worth a mention . Firstly, it doesn't work us, humans, using an approximation of "dog" communication by that I mean trying to communicate in dog language with our canines. It just doesn't work. Our dogs are competent to work alongside us as humans, and have been doing for centuries. Secondly using the phrase "mothers bite" is just a way to soften the description of the fact that you are placing aversive pressure through a prong collar. Comparing how a bitch manages a young litter is miles away from training a dog to walk on a loose leash.
Not to mention the huge array of body language that is displayed before a dog would ever bite. The cat thing is different; you have those predators that just don't exist in the UK. I do know people who keep their cats inside because they live in built-up areas and it's too dangerous to have them roaming near the roads. That's just common sense, keeping your beloved pet away from danger. And some people believe that their cats shouldn't be allowed to defecate on other people's property, too. I have no strong feelings either way. This is about science and ethics, not opinion. The irrefutable science says that in training positive reinforcement is superior to positive punishment for a variety of reasons. Ethically, punishing your dog for doing something that he doesn't understand is "bad" is indefensible. I'm not going to say it doesn't work, because it certainly can do. It can work well. But, when there is an option to train your dog without punishing him, why wouldn't you choose it? That's what I don't understand; people that know there's another way, but choose not to use it. I do understand that there's a huge variety of conflicting information online and still given by trainers and they can be very persuasive. You trust the people you have carefully chosen to give your money to. They probably get good results and have a vast number of years of experience. They may poo-poo force-free methods as being permissive and bribery (quick hint: it's not, and if that's what they think, they are displaying a lack of understanding that is unforgivable for someone in the business). But modern trainers who are up-to-date with behavioural science, which is, after all, what all training is based on, would only ever choose to use methods that are as minimally aversive as possible. Which means throwing all those tools away and actually training the dog. Let's not forget, we're talking about a puppy here! Not that it's any more acceptable to use positive punishment for an older dog, but this is a puppy who hasn't been given the chance to learn through positive methods. With a five month old puppy (that wasn't brought home until 11 weeks), there's no saying "I tried it, it didn't work", there hasn't been the time to try! Nope, straight to the tools that make the behaviour easy to achieve, through punishment. You know what, at that age, my puppy was walking beautifully by my side, off leash because I'd spent the time and energy making sure that's where she wanted to be. Being next to me was frickin' amazing, and so that's where she stayed. No martingale, choke, slip, prong, shock.... not one aversive. Just from making it an amazing place to be. And you know something else? We both loved the learning process. I felt good about it because I wasn't having to "correct" my puppy. Does anyone really enjoy doing that? Do you? She felt good about it because it was fun. Staying at heel was - still is - a great game. Who wouldn't want that sort of connection?
