Please excuse this slightly self indulgent post, but I’m feeling utterly deflated this evening and could do with a friendly pick-me-up from some fellow labrador owners. Just tried a new obedience class with Luna tonight. I’d been to meet with them before and they’re a great bunch - really positive re-enforcement, lots of chews and enrichment toys to help the dogs calm down if they need it. They work with a lot of rescue dogs so have oodles of patience. But I’ve honestly never seen her so over threshold as she was tonight. We were being asked to do really basic stuff that she’s been able to do for ages in all sorts of environments indoors and outdoors (touch, sit, down, place) but I couldn’t even get her to look at me. Whenever anyone walked within 2 metres of her, she was trying to get to them (over friendly, not aggressive). I know I shouldn’t compare myself or her to other trainers and their dogs, but it’s so hard to see all the other dogs in class calmly doing everything that’s asked of them while our incredibly smart girl is just losing her mind! In the end, I took her out of the class for 5 minutes for a sniff outside and a walk around, then I came back into the room, abandoned the clicker, used a soft voice and just spent the last 15 minutes of class rewarding her for “settle” and doing some LAT from a corner of the room whenever her attention was grabbed by a person or a another dog. Clearly the environment was too much for her. We’ve been having many successes lately so I know it’s not all doom and gloom - she’s learning to settle in busier town environments, she’s really calm at home, responding well to LAT training, she’s taken to some of Jo Lauren’s courses really well and after months of a LOT of hard work and consistency she’s so much easier to live with now than she was as a small puppy. I can see that all the hard work is paying off, but on days like today it just feels so relentless and exhausting. She’s a really smart dog, but I just feel like a total failure after experiences like this because I’m clearly not experienced enough to let her shine
Sounds to me that you're a doing a good job. Don't expect dog training to be a continuous progression upwards. It's a series of valleys, plateaus and hills of performance. When you plateau or dip into a valley one has to work out whether there is an alternative way of letting the dog succeed. That's what you did. So good training is my view.
It feels like for those of us who have not trained a dog from a puppy before, these first months with them are a massive learning curve. But the most important thing is that you are working hard to give Luna so many opportunities to learn and experience new things! You also did the best thing possible and changed your expectations so it was easier for Luna to succeed. I have taken @Michael A Brooks's words to heart about the hills and valleys of training and whenever we get in a rough patch with Yalom, as we are at the moment, I just remember we're all still learning and we happen to be in another valley, but it won't stay that way forever. Luna is 10/11 months old now, right? And she's settling in busy environments and learning lots of new things. You should be proud of yourself!
It happens to all of us. You are doing great (and you are certainly not a failure!) and I'm sure you will have a better day soon. As my OH always tells me, "If you were a bad dog parent, you wouldn't care so much."
Ah bless you,i really understand how you are feeling. You are not alone,we all go through times like this. One day Isla is the perfect pup but just a day later she seems to have "forgotten" everything she's learnt! I know it feels like we've failed sometimes but you are not a failure just look back at how far Luna has come.
You and Luna are doing great! The thing you have to remember is - she can do it all, all the Sits and Downs and Heelwork - she has the actual behaviours. She just needs to be able to concentrate and focus and engage with you - before she can do them in that place. Once you have focus from her, you will be able to ask for any of that other stuff she knows, and she will do it - you've done that part of the work. So next you just need to address focus and engagement with her. I think you did totally the right thing to abandon whatever the class was doing and just do LAT from the side of the hall. Remember that this was a new class, so it's the first time she has been there and it's all new to her. Habituation (which takes time) is really important... There is a new Fenzi Academy term starting at the beginning of April and you might want to take this course - Get Focused - Bronze level is not that expensive: https://www.fenzidogsportsacademy.com/index.php/courses/926 You might also want to check out Control Unleashed material - probably the Control Unleashed Puppy Book (which is not just about puppies but so much more and really an updated version of the first book) and also the 'Games Demos' DVD with the red stripe at the top (not the other DVD - Foundation Seminar or something which is not so good, I found).
Willow and I have just started adult obedience classes. Willow is just under 6 months and was over excited in class. She did do most of the exercises when she wasn't jumping around trying to get to and barking at the other dogs as she wasn't allowed to go up to them. The trainers said she is an excitable breed and they look into that a little later in the course.
Thanks everyone for your supportive responses. We went back to this training class yesterday and although it was still hard work, it was definitely an improvement. They had very kindly set us up with a quiet area of the hall with some screens up to reduce the amount of stimulus for Luna, and with easy access to the door so we could pop out for a walk when she needed a break. There were less dogs there this time, which made the environment a lot less intense. It probably took Luna about 10 minutes to settle down so we were able to actually participate in the exercises which we were unable to do last week. It wasn't nice having to be separated off from the rest of the group, but I do think it allowed us to feel some progress. Her tail never stopped wagging for the whole 45 minutes - I know that doesn't mean she was happy necessarily, but I definitely didn't sense any fear in her. Just enthusiasm and overexcitement. Thanks for these Jo - I'll treat myself to the Fenzi course today I think. I actually bought the Control Unleashed book after seeing you mention it in one of your courses. I got the Puppy version by accident, but it's actually brilliant. She's responding really well to LAT which we use daily. I used it a lot at training last night. Thanks for the encouraging words too.
Sounds as though you are doing a great job. Just think how boring it would be if they were perfect all the time x
Yes, I think you're doing great. You just have really high expectations. Which is good! We will always achieve a bit less than what we set out to achieve, so we should aim for perfection - we won't get there, but we will get a lot closer to it if our standards are high!
Third time unlucky for us at this particular obedience class. Luna was more over threshold this time than even the first lesson we went to. It just didn't seem right for her to be behind a partial screen unable to settle while all the other dogs were calmly doing the exercises. She was barking at high pitch, whining and constantly pulling whenever the teacher came near. Rightly or wrongly I decided to take her home after 20 minutes. It felt like the right thing to do for Luna - she wasn't going to learn anything in that mindset. I've arranged to do a 121 lesson at the same facility to habituate her to the environment without all the other dogs and people. I'll let you know if that goes any better. Owning a dog for the first time really is a rollercoaster of emotion and progress!
Your resiliency is remarkable. I find it inspirational that you seem to always have a positive attitude about not-so-positive behaviors. Captain and I are experiencing some training difficulties, too. Also, it's remarkable that every time a challenge is in front of you, you quickly have a solution that you follow through with.
Ah, thanks Anthony. I can confirm however that I am a whinging whinny most of the time But I am quite bloody minded, so maybe those two things are complementary. Keep going with Captain (brilliant name by the way) - it will be worth it
Hi, I think you've totally done the right thing with the 121. We went back to training tonight after a week's break from the end of the last class finishing and new class beginning. Isla was so excited as there were new dogs and didn't do anything but bark for the first half hour and be a pickle for the rest! So your not alone. Good luck with the 121 training
So, it seems we may have finally made some progress.... The 121 session today went really well. So pleased I made that decision. I took Luna off the lead in the barn to have a good sniff around the area and explore while I had a coffee and chat with the trainer. Luna was very over friendly with the trainer but by the end of the session her manners were impeccable. We did lots of practice of switching on and switching off, which was great for her - it gave her chance to chill out and learn to be calm, and then we were off playing games again for 5 minutes. She was so focused and it gave me a great boost to my confidence as a novice trainer. She did the weave poles for the first time, showed off "middle" and "nose touch", and I even shaped her getting all 4 feet into a box. We played fetch as a reward instead of treats which I've never really used before and she had a whale of a time. Her bum never stopped wagging. She's fast asleep with her legs in the air now - absolutely shattered
Ah well done to you both! Sounds really encouraging and that Luna enjoyed it. I'm thinking maybe 121 might do Isla good. Today she's taken 20 steps back, she destroyed our mail, tooth marked a new pair of shoes and stolen my husband's new shirt,! This was after digging a hole in the middle of our lawn. All of these things she had stopped doing some months ago and so we'd let our guard down in leaving baby gates open, back to the basics.
Oh Isla you little pickle!!! I keep finding that - we'll relax a bit of our "management" to make the house look less like Fort Knox, and then we'll have to revert to it. We put chicken wire up half way across the garden in July to restrict her access to the bark in the flower beds and to restrict her access to "Giardia alley" as we used to call it - where she used to squit when she was poorly - gave us the best part of a year to get rid of the parasites in the scorching heat of summer. A small meadow was starting to grow behind the wire, so I took it down last week, mowed the lawn and then just put it up infront of a few of the beds, thinking I could trust her with bark, twigs and grass clumps. Turns out, no, she can't be trusted. It's like a bark & twig buffet out there. She'll be outside crunching for ages with no intention of weeing or coming inside. Fun times
This sounds excellent for Luna and you, well done @LoopyLuna By the way, here are some tips: Whenever you have a dog training problem, try to take many steps back and think about the CONCEPT you are having problems with. Why? Because it will give you new ideas to fixing it. For example: It sounds like a lot of your problems are to do with Luna's experience of frustration - when she can't reach something she wants to get to. Whether that's because she's restrained on leash or behind a barrier. She finds it hard to manage her big feelings in these situations. So: To work on this, you need to find ways to replicate it other than just at class once a week. Because at class once a week, it is like Frustration Factor 10+, and you only have a limited amount of time - and you need/want to work on other things besides her frustration when you're at class. I would be thinking about things like - putting some food in a bowl on the floor and working around it with a leash on. Alternating between releasing her to the food as a reinforcer versus using your treats. Go out into the world and find things which she experiences as 'appealing' (people? other dogs?) and then work at a distance from those which you know you will be successful with, on focus-on-you and heelwork and... generally anything you can do on leash. And lastly, if she barks or makes noise as a part of her behaviour, I'd work on 'Close Your Mouth' as a behaviour - because it will result in zero noise and it will also have a calming effect on her. It is similar to Leslie McDevitt's 'Take a Breath' but it's an easier (bigger) behaviour to mark. And you can train at home to start with, if you do a higher energy exercise to get her panting to begin with. Then take a treat and waft it in the air a few feet away from her - you are trying to captivate her attention with the treat. If she leaps at it, you've been too close or too exciting with it... When the treat gets her attention, her mouth will close slightly - click that moment, and give her the treat. Repeat, lots. This is really teaching the dog to calm herself down...
