Has anyone else had problems with their dogs running away with stuff? this has been a long term problem but for a while she stopped doing it with the introduction of drop it. lately, she has stopped dropping the things she gets. i dont chase her if it is something that cant her or that i dont need, but if it is something she cant have i have to spend 30 min chasing her before i catch her. does any one know how to stop this? thanks in advance!
Hi @John424242 When you chase the dog for 30 minutes and sometimes let the dog have it, you are practising intermittent positive reinforcement. In doing such training you are training the dog to run off with things and not come back. You are providing incredibly strong reinforcement of undesirable behaviour. You have to go back to basics. 1. Prevent the dog from getting to things you don't want her to have. Out of sight out of mind. Put the stuff away or high up on cupboards. 2. Start rewarding drop it with high value treats. Use a another cue if the old one is poisoned. 3. Have the dog on a long-line, so that you can encourage her to come when called,or at least prevent her from running off.. Give her valued treats always for a successful recall. 4. Completely stop chasing the dog.
Have you trained her to retrieve? EVERYTHING she pick up should be brought straight to you. However manky, or precious the item is, you should praise her massively and treat. Chasing and grabbing her will only teach her to keep away.
Another thing to do is to give back the item you don’t want her have then take it again. Then give it back etc. This diminishes its value and prevents her from running away. Comes in handy when it’s something dangerous you want to take away. Chasing will also teach her to swallow certain high value items so you can’t have them.
Hi @Johnny Walker I endorse your training advice. But I think you arrive there by a claim that misplaces the motivation of the relevant rational creatures.. You claim that giving the object back diminishes the value of the object. Let me examine that claim pretending I am a dog. I possess a copy of Korngold's violin concerto. I adore the recording. You want to borrow it from me. If I trust you to give it back shortly i l hand over my CD. The fact that I lend you my copy does not mean that I sustain a decrease in the value to me of the CD. I still love the piece. What is operative in the account is that I trust your word to give it back. Why does it matter that we get the narrative correct? The details point to how we need to conduct our training. Giving the object back to the dog is one clear of being deemed to be trustworthy by the dog.
What difference does that make to modelling the interaction between dog and handler as a trust dilemma?
Michael's first reply above has it. Stop chasing the dog. The chase is highly reinforcing. If you have a dog prone to picking things up and running off with them, then 1) stop leaving things around for the dog to pick up and 2) have a puppy house line on the dog every moment the dog is free in the house - so you can grab that and avoid chasing the dog, should the dog find something. The more you chase the dog, the worse the keep-away will get because the more you are consolidating the dog's idea of you as the opposition, coming to take the valued item away. (And this, by the way, is how resource-guarding also starts - so it is a serious subject.) Then you need to have dedicated training sessions working on the Drop cue which you set up. You need to choose lower value items to start with, until you have a solid drop on those and progress upwards from there.
