Having problems with this one. Big ones. It's been established that my Sora has the attention span of a lemming. If he's not being treated continuously he looses interest in any training instantly. We were at one of his puppy classes. The instructor used him as an example to calm a puppy by holding it between your knees when your kneeling (sort off type thing). Problem is even the instructor was unable to calm him down. He lunges hes teeth at any part of your clothing or skin he can reach. He does not like to be held in any manner. I keep trying to hold him for any sort of time, but my bloodied arm and hands are discouraging. Any advice? PS: 80+% of his daily food rations are now used exclusively for training.
How old is Sora? Let me see if I can say this in a way that you can relate to. How would you have reacted if someone had held you down as a small child? A word about "instructors". Anyone can be one. They can be very good to very wrong. Some dogs do not like to be "held". Murphy was that way for a long, long time. He liked to be near, but not held. Bloodied arms and hands are pretty much standard with young dogs. I did not hold Murphy down but my arms and hands had plenty of bite marks. I would play with him and next thing you know, yup, he just got my arm. Stop playing immediately and ignore him for a bit. Start playing again. Never really said a word to him. If'n it were me, I would back off on this training thing quite a bit. Puppies want to explore the world. Edit: I want to add a comment here. I have been around dogs pretty much my whole life but most of those guys arrived way past puppyhood. Murphy is the exception. What we did worked great with him, he has become the dog we always wanted. That does not make me an expert in how to train or raise a dog by any means. What I know is that they are like us, all different. Each one responds differently, there is no "magic" formula.
Thanks for the reply. He's now 4 months old. He free roams in the deep bush in the AM, and I attempt to lead walk him in the city in the PM. He's been fully socialized. Two car trips and positive experiences since day 3. He's not fearful of anything or anyone. (including vehicle tires he chases in the bush if someone is coming down a trail)
I agree with @T Reischl, it is not natural for a dog to enjoy being "held" they are canids, not primates. It is natural to want to explore the world as a puppy with your mouth, which is kind of unfortunate for us fragile humans who are not quite as robust as their peers! I am wondering why the trainer thought this was a good method? Certainly sounds like quite an aversive training method to me. Something I wouldn't want to see in a puppy training class either
Our Sammy owning neighbor wanted Cooper to sit on her lap when she was a puppy. That worked OK for about a month, and then Cooper said enough. Neighbor wanted to restrain Coop and I said NO. If she doesn't want to sit in you lap she doesn't have too. Now Cooper often sits on the couch next to us and cuddles. Sometimes she likes being held, and sometimes she says no, jumps up and leaves. Tilly has never been a very cuddly dog. She wants to be in the same room, but usually does not want to be right next to us. Our first Lab, Ginger, was much more like Cooper. I could use her for a pillow when lying on the floor.
Thanks for getting back to us! So, what are you trying to train him to do? Around here, training can mean anything from simple sit, stand, lay down to doing all sorts of tricks. You betchya he has the attention span of a lemming at 4 months! That is why most everyone recommends keeping training periods short and fun. Oh, and btw, I could have "established" that your Sora had a short attention span at 4 months without ever having met him! LOL.
Being held like that does sometimes help sooth and calm an anxious puppy. It's the principle behind thunder shirts which help many or methods used with autistic children. It doesn't always help, like most things don't work on everybody. Yikes!! Don't let him do that. Leash him if you have to. He'll get hurt. Someone on an ATV could get hurt trying to avoid him. Some people will not even try to avoid him. My pup was not on leashed walks at all till he was 4.5 months old. We free walked in the bush too, staring at 9 weeks old, but he never got so far from me that I could not hear a snowmobile coming (it was winter) and call him to me. I worked up your way years ago, near the base and up to Mattawa. Lots of bush, still some nice remote country with few people.
Ya, that's where I take him alright. The problem is unless he's being fed, zero recall. He used to be close always, now he allows me to stray further along the trails before running back to me (which I reward) Still most other people out there are with their dogs so the kind of understand and stop. Not gona save him though if he gets away near a city or roads. The usual early stuff like recall, sit, stay. He does have a sit but not proofed in the slightest. In fact anything not related to food and he just don't give two hoots I exist. I'm glad that his non existent attention span is 'normal'ish' I say that because the other labs in class his age are faring far better. I agree there's more then one way to train. Sometimes that's what makes it harder and confusing. I'm relying on Pippa's books for my training. Just feels like tires spinning on ice as far as progress.
Do you mean he only performs when you visibly have food in your hand? Often when dogs do this it’s because we’ve allowed ourselves to fall into this trap: - human gives dog cue (eg sit) - dog doesn’t sit - human gets a bit of food in their hand - human gives dog cue (sit) - dog sits Result: - Human has trained dog to only sit when food is visible - Dog has trained human to produce (guarantee) food before asking for a behaviour. Does that kinda fit what’s going on?
It has some resemblance, it's possible he trained me instead of the other way. If so whats the remedy?
Do you have the book Total Recall? It shows you how to train a conditioned response and how to gradually proof it against distractions. The other things I found useful ( though Molly was older than yours when she started to sometimes not respond) were: The about-turn walk. So forget about getting anywhere, but with your pup off lead as soon as they get a few yards ahead turn and walk in another direction. I used to give one call and then go quickly. When she caught up with me I praised and fed and then repeated. I was in an English wood so able to zig-zag in all directions -maybe you have trails you have to stick to? Secondly, playing while out off lead. Tug has become Molly’s favourite game. I play it with very short tug time, say 30 seconds, and then release and restart. Really it’s all about building engagement with your puppy so they see you as the best place to be. Initially it’s because you have food and are fun but gradually they just seem to like being with you.
Hi @Lt.Kippo , good advice you've had already, most of which has been given to me during my time on the forum with Cassie. Consistency is key and in time they start looking to you more and more. I think the thing is what we are doing with treats is using them to reward the behaviour we desire, not really just to keep their attention. So I believe the puppy needs to know that something is required of him in order to get his reward. If that makes sense.
Heck no!, as long as I say out of the military firing range clearly marked. There's hundreds of square kilometers to go in any direction! Nope, that's the one I did not get yet as I thought Sora too young. I have the other two. You can bet it's on they way now though. In lies the problem. No attention unless food is likely to be received. That's really I guess my problem. Ore one of them. Treats to mark the good behavior makes sense, but getting the behavior in the first place... Chicken and the egg. I will definitely remain consistent in my training none the less. Glad for all your well and reason thought responses, and knowing so many before me have been here.
It's about rewarding that attention, which can be very quick and fleeting. There are lots of things you can do, which I've learned over the last 12 months from here, a force-free training class I did and eclasses via Absolute Dogs Training Academy. A simple one is throw a treat away from him and when he then turns to you for another one, when he gives you eye contact use a "marker" word, I say "yes", he gets his reward from your hand. That way the behaviour, which is looking at you, is what you are rewarding. So he learns to give the behaviour you want for his treat. I hope this makes sense, there are many people on here more experienced than me to explain and give you ideas, and do links etc, hopefully they'll be back along soon.
Step back a bit. Do your training in a much, much less stimulating environment. Work in a boring room in your house - rewarding attention. The game @selina27 outlines is a great one.
If you find that your dog has learned to ignore a cue unless food is presented first then it's best to abandon that cue and retrain the behaviour from the start using a new cue. For example, say your dog only sits if he can see that you have food in your hand. And say you have taught this using your right hand as a visual cue, and the word 'sit' as a verbal cue. You can re-teach this using your left hand as the visual cue and a different word as your verbal cue (e.g. 'stop'). This is how you do it: - start in a non-distracting environment, like your lounge room. - have food in your left hand, enclosed in a fist. It's ok that he sees that you have it. Put your fist right in front of his nose and move your hand up and a bit towards the back of his head, so he has to look up to keep your hand in sight. He should sit to this. The second his butt hits the ground mark the behaviour (with a marker word like 'yes' or a click from a clicker) and give him the treat from your left hand - repeat this two more times in exactly the same way - then, put the food in your right hand as well as in your left hand. Repeat the above movement with your left hand, marking when he sits, and giving him the food from your right hand. Do not give him the food from your left hand. Do this step once more. - then, put the food in your right hand only. Make the same movement that you have before with your left hand (this is now your visual cue or hand signal), mark, then give him the food from your right hand. Do this twice more. - then, put the food in your pocket, or a treat pouch, or in a bowl on a table. Anywhere except in your hand. Now, make the same movement that you have before with your left hand, mark, then give him the food from your pocket, pouch or bowl. From now on, for the sit, you will never ever ever ever again have the food in your hand before you ask him to sit. Never, ever again. You must be disciplined about this. Only make a move for the food after he has actually sat. Until you get a sit, make no hand movement whatsoever towards the food! That is the new deal. I see even experienced handlers being really sloppy with this and it is a really bad habit. I am guilty of it too! When he is responding very consistently to the hand signal you can add a verbal cue (a new one, not the one you used before). To do this, say your new verbal cue then give the hand signal. He won't sit to the verbal cue because it means nothing to him at first but he should sit to the hand signal. Keep doing this and he will work out that the word means the same thing, and he will begin to sit to the word. You can keep using the word and the hand signal together or use one or the other (I do all of the above...I want my dog to sit to either a hand signal (no word) or a word (no hand signal)). Once he's learned this behaviour well in your lounge room you can start to practise it in more distracting places. Start with another room, then your yard, then a bit further down the street. Remember, the deal is, no sit = no movement towards the food. Never ever have food in your hand before you ask for the sit. That is basically the approach you use to teach anything using luring (which is the technique of getting a dog to adopt a position initially using food in your hand). Troubleshooting: If he does not sit immediately just wait..give him a bit of time. Wait! Do not repeat your hand signal. If he absolutely will not sit to your hand signal but he was doing it just fine in the previous steps then walk away. Remove the opportunity to earn treats. Try again in a couple of minutes. Hope all that makes sense!
This was covered exactly in one of his classes. I guess trainers can't always be wrong, heh heh. Working on that one every day though he tends to look low, and not up at my eyes as much as I would like.(or at all) I'm not sure if all my cues are poisoned yet. He will sit when asked with no food *IF* there are absolutely NO distractions of any kind, and he's not in the middle of a zoomie (which is often). I will keep Oberon's advice to heart. If I find any cues ruined I will do her steps outlined in the last post. As always thanks for your continued responses. Your all of great service to me!
We learned this one too. You can up the ante on this by throwing a low value treat, a piece of cereal maybe, and rewarding with a high value treat, a piece of real roast beef was what I used. Fading treats is one we learned as well. Didn't matter if we didn't reward till we got compliance, the dogs knew the treat bag was in our pocket or fanny pack. So we clearly put them on a counter or bench or table beside us. Then we moved away from the place the treats were and had to take a step to get one. This helped fade the treat AND built in time before the treat was delivered. Then we moved to a different room and had to go back to the room with the treats, more fading, more time. Then we'd back up a bit and ask for two behaviours, maybe a sit and a down, before the reward was given, then back again to counter then to different room. This tended to take place about at the speed it took me to type this, for most of our dogs. OK, maybe a bit longer. I like a clicker for this.
