I am absolutely convinced that the devil has taken residence on my porch and is possessing Ella the second we step outside the front door! The last two days she has been a complete lunatic as soon as we go outside. She has decided that 'sit' (at heel) now means 'bounce up and down on the spot' and 'heel' means 'run off as fast and hard as possible and try to walk on your back legs with you front legs in the air'. After a couple of minutes she will settle down and concentrate but as soon as I try to just walk normally (loose lead but sniffing out in front is fine) she becomes a complete loony again and I can't walk anywhere. I feel like she's taken a massive backwards step and I'm hoping she'll snap out of it soon. Is this normal or am I doing something wrong? I'm so disheartened after how well we were doing
They can be so very troublesome, boisterous and excitable when young.....it does get better, promise. How much exercise does she get off lead? I know that you might be limited in your options, but one option if it's at all available to you is to let her have an off lead run, and then try to do your lead walking training. This can't always be your solution of course, but it can be a temporary help to get you restarted again. If not, then what I did over one Christmas holiday was I just walked up and down outside my house, giving him treats if he didn't pull and turning 180 degrees if he did pull (following the method set out in Turid Rugass' "help! my dog pulls"). I didn't get very far, and after about 10 minutes had enough so went back inside. 30 minutes later I tried again, and got maybe 5m further down the street before he pulled. Then I tried again, and again. Eventually I could walk about 20m down the street, cross over the road and walk back. I walked round and round that 20m circle, slowly extending it to 50m, 60m and so on. In the end I could walk down the street and back. So I tried 10m into the next street. And so on. They don't "snap out of it", no - although they get better as they get a bit older, you do have to crack the training. Just keep at it, it'll come good. And massively up the value of your treats. Think warm home roasted chicken dripping in juice, or messy sardines, that kind of thing.
Thanks Julie We give her quite a lot of exercise off lead and she's really good, generally comes back when I call (we're still working on the recall when there are distractions) , sits for me to put her lead on and then used to walk nicely. She's just gone crazy in the last couple of days. I did stop the off lead play a little early today as I saw the mean border Collie responsible for the scar on Ella's head so maybe that had something to do with it (now I'm thinking about it, maybe my nerves when I saw the dog had something to do with it). Ok, put it behind me, get some super yummy treats and start fresh tomorrow ☺ Must focus on the positives like being able to bring my rug out of storage and not remembering the last time I had teeth marks on my hands and arms ☺
That's it; focus on the good things! My mum always said about children: 'When they are being horrible, tell yourself it's a phase and it will pass. When they are being good, convince yourself it's their real nature and that it's here to stay'. Great advice, and very applicable to puppies too!
You're not alone. Jura is 2 days younger than Ella and also appears to be possessed by the devil today! Our 5 minutes of loose lead walking (with a 15 minute off lead run in the middle) was a disaster today. I keep on telling myself at least her recall was good off lead and we will get there eventually!
There is a theory I learned when studying for my certificate in teaching adults. Humans, LOL. Imagine my surprise when the dog trainer we had when Oban was five months old espoused the exact same theory. It is that, anything we/puppies learn goes into short term memory when first learned. It takes some time, repetition, practice before a thing is truly understood/known/learned and then it moves into long term memory. BUT, while it's moving from short term to long term it's temporarily unavailable for use, ie appears to be forgotten. Most perplexing to the dog owner of course is that it seemed to well leaned and now, poof, gone. Both my human and dog trainers said this typically happens after about five weeks of working on a thing. Of course that varies by individual. The remedy is to be patient, back up a couple of steps in training to a thing that is better known or don't ask for as long a duration (say a sit or down) the memory will come back. There's nothing really new in the remedy but for me, I find it's nice to know why things happen, even if it is only a theory. ....... I also find a vacation works wonders. It probably fits into the theory above, the being patient part. I find a couple of days to a week of no training (other than behaviour needed for control and safety) worked wonders on Oban. A week when, yes, I do demand he behave on his way to the bush before he goes for his off leash run, but then I let him loose and we do no other formal training, we just have fun. Lo and behold, when we returned to training I always found the devil had been exorcised
Must be something in the air! I've had two horrendous walks with Ripple this week, one on lead where he suddenly went berserk - growling, jumping in the air, snapping at my sleeve, this culminated in my sleeve torn and a bleeding bite on my arm. Today he was off lead but rushed back at me and did exactly the same, again tearing my sleeve and making my arm bleed. Both times I only stopped it by grabbing him and holding him under my arm until he calmed down. I don't think I dealt with it at all well but as it comes out of nowhere I'm not getting a chance to think. Also my (grown up) daughter was terrified today as Ripple sounded really aggressive.
I once emptied 4 tins of sardines into a freezer bag to get Charlie to walk by a kennel of barking dogs (to get to a training class). Drastic, but worth it....
HaHa! It's true, the smell of sardines in my Landrover used to pick up some visitors from the station one day was the prompt to invent the LFSG (Labrador Forum Sardine Gun).
