I imagine this is a scenario lots of us have been through...so apologies for the long explanation. During George’s training of the word ‘off’ as in, off that or this or in this case cow pats. He understands the word and we have worked on it since he was very young (he’s 3 in December) One of our walks along the river includes plenty of regular juicy cow pats, as they are currently living along there. Now over many months George has been getting treat for ‘OFF’ he moves away and gets a treat. Every few times, i just praise him no treat and off we go. However, the cheeky fella now will just move his head/nose towards the pat and then look/come straight to me for the treat! He has no intention of eating the juicy cow meal he is just after the treat. I know i’ve gone wrong somewhere here as its win win for George, if i don’t say ‘off’ he will eat the pat and if i do he will just come for the treat, whether he was planning on or not. Now he is technically doing what we want from him, he doesn’t eat it but he’s just doing it for the treat. Which is okay, but when its every single cow pat on the walk then we don’t actually get anywhere, if i ignore the odd one it will be the one where he munches it down! They are very good at basically training us to feed him treats! Posted on another forum as well, but after as many opinions as possible
Re: Question Them training you...? Isn't this what they call L.A.T? A 'look at that' ignore and come for a treat. I think he has been well trained rather than he is training you
Re: Question Them training you...? I agree - he's doing exactly as trained - consciously avoiding the cow pat. I'd just keep paying up with the treats until the cows move on
Re: Question Them training you...? Hi, I had a really similar situation with Molly. I did a scent work workshop and came to the startling realisation I had inadvertently trained the perfect poo detector dog! Our walks were becoming a bit miserable to be honest as I felt like I was having to constantly watch her to see if she was planning on eating any poo and then calling her back to me with a reward. It was constant! So, I stopped rewarding her and if she went to sniff or eat some poo I ignored her and kept walking. This was about a month ago now. We've had a few walks where I know she's eaten something as she has had a bit of an upset tummy afterwards. But after a month of this she now mostly ignores the poo as she gets no attention from me (good or bad) as to whether she eats it or not. I've been trying to convey the message to her that poo is of no interest or importance to me in the hope she'll think the same- it seems to be working so far and my walks are now a lot more enjoyable as I'm not having to watch her all the time and stress about whether she is intending to sniff or eat something. Well that is what has worked for us- although she does have the occasional munch she leaves 98% which is good enough for me! Vikki and Molly
Re: Question Them training you...? Shouldn’t we be limiting the treats, as in 1 in 5 he doesn’t get one though? He is also sometimes ignoring us, as in will have a little lick or bite of it then come off it, treat or not? We’ve been doing not as he’s technically ignored us. Been hard recently, seems completely random whether he will listen to off or not. We’re starting from scratch with total recall as well, not because he runs off but just so we can have some control over him with a whistle, specifically away from certain dog poo’s he’s taken a fancy too.
Re: Question Them training you...? [quote author=Molly the dolly link=topic=8605.msg121540#msg121540 date=1415119890] So, I stopped rewarding her and if she went to sniff or eat some poo I ignored her and kept walking. This was about a month ago now. We've had a few walks where I know she's eaten something as she has had a bit of an upset tummy afterwards. But after a month of this she now mostly ignores the poo as she gets no attention from me (good or bad) as to whether she eats it or not. I've been trying to convey the message to her that poo is of no interest or importance to me in the hope she'll think the same- it seems to be working so far and my walks are now a lot more enjoyable as I'm not having to watch her all the time and stress about whether she is intending to sniff or eat something. [/quote] Oh wow really? That would be heaven. As the soul purpose of us upping the ‘off’ training and starting total recall again is to get him away from dog poo, cow pats and horse ones don’t bother me as much but certain type of fresh sloppy dog poos are increasing. Just concerned that he never used to do it, now is once he sniffs a fresh dog poo he’ll have it down (not his own), ones that have been there a while he actively turns his nose up at. I don’t know if i could just ignore it all, as George couldn’t be anymore of a cliche labrador, food is his life! ;D I would be very worried that if we ignored it that it would increase I think he is just doing it with cow pats for the treat, as he will literally move from one cow pat to another to get a treat from us.
Re: Question Them training you...? Re. withholding treats - don't just do this randomly (i.e with no logic). If he ignores you, that's the time to not give a treat. Give a treat for all good responses though Once behaviours are very well learned and are reliably and consistently good then you can start being less frequent with your treats - but be generous until you reach the point where the behaviour is pretty solid. Ignoring food (which poo is to him) is a hard one. To be honest, the best way to prevent it is to keep him on lead, but I totally understand why you might not want to do that. If only people picked up their dog poo, this wouldn't be so much of a problem....
Re: Question Them training you...? How do we go about making our ‘OFF’ rock solid so he does it every time from anything, including dead fish/rabbits poo etc? Is this even possible? Currently he will happily leave most things to ‘off', come trotting over for his treat. However, other more valuable things to him he will completely ignore it until he is finished or i grab him. Is it a case of combining new and amazing treats with the default ones he gets, so coming away from that super tasty dog poo is worth it?
Re: Question Them training you...? The reason I tried ignoring it with Molly is that she used to eat the full range of poo- sheep, cow, rabbit, deer etc. But I felt pretty relaxed about that really- it's basically just regurgitated grass and I made sure her worming was up to date. So I didn't really react to it and she grew out of it. The only poo which she had continued to eat was dog poo and that was the only type of poo where I had been actively intervening and stoping her eating it using the'leave it' command. So the only difference seemed to be my reaction to the behaviour- unless of course Molly views dog poo as a particularly tasty treat! As I said, it had all become a bit of a major stress out on walks and I was constantly having to watch her and give her the 'leave it' command when half the time she was just sniffing random things. It was a bit of a nightmare! So, I mostly now leave her to it. Having said that if there is something really horrible which she looks like she is about to tuck into and she is right next to me then I will tell her to leave it and tempt her away with a tasty treat but I try to limit this to when I really need to. I compared myself to an annoying parent who was constantly nagging and most of the time I think Molly was just hearing it as noise. So, a few targeted interventions with extra tasty treats seemed to be the way to go for me! The other thing I have started doing again is the about turn walk and playing hide and seek. Molly is very clingy with me so this encourages her to keep her eyes on me rather than on the ground looking for opportunities for off menu munching! ;D
