Training yourself

Elocin87

So, I think that part of training your puppy to be a good citizen is training yourself. I've gotten a lot of advice on how to train Charlie but I think I need advice on how to be a better trainer/ owner.

One of my problems is that I run out of patience sometimes especially when I'm asking charlie to do something I know he knows how to do and he won't. Yesterday I asked him "look" and "lie down" and he ignored me.

I also cannot stand leash training. yesterday I took Charlie for a nighttime walk (to wear him out; he returned home more energized than ever) and he will not cease pulling. I've been trying this for 3 weeks, have a trainer and a no-pull harness that works sometimes. He also ran around in circles, practically tripped me every two seconds because he kept running back and forth in front of me, picked up every rock and piece of trash, and would not pay attention to me.

My vet said it might help to spend less time with Charlie (I spend every waking moment when I'm not working with him). I've also heard that it's bad to play on the floor with your puppy. Is that true?

Any advice on training myself? I know that it's easy to say Charlie is a stupid or bad dog but I know he's not and it would also be easy to say I'm a bad owner/ trainer but I know I'm not. I'm easily stressed out and frustrated (I'm freaking out about leash training because I don't want Charlie to get hit by a car *especially at night since he's black* or pull us into traffic). I just need to learn more about communicating with Charlie but it's a frustrating wait

Cali

#1 rule: if you're in a bad mood, don't train. It's going to get you more frustrated and it's not good for you or your dog.

Don't assume because he knows look or lie down in one circumstance that he can do it in other one- added distractions, different place, even you wearing something you normally don't. Dogs don't generalize. If he doesn't do it when you ask, lure him into the position and throw him a party when he does it. Help him. He's an animal- and a young one. He's not always going to be perfect.

Dogs will also avoid you when you ask them to do something if they're feeling stressed. Look for calming signals- avoiding eye contact, licking lips, yawning, sniffing the ground, etc. If you're upset he probably is too!

Don't be so hard on yourself or Charlie. The two of you are learning together. You have a long life in front of him- you have plenty of time to teach him things. It soundslike you're having a hard time enjoying him. Spend time with him and do easy things like games, disguise training as fun. I have a lot of students who get frustrated, and they are always the ones that try to make training seperate from life.
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AdoJrts

First of all, your trainer should be teaching you how to train your dog and providing you with the tools to be successful. They should also be explaining HOW dogs learn and what your expectations should be.

Lets address, how dogs learn, one of the main things is that dogs/puppy generally don't generalize very well. What that means is you can teach them and get desired behaviours in one place (i.e home/class) but you'll have to teach them to do all those behaviours in other places until they learn that they must do that behaviour in all places. Very common to hear people say 'But he/she does it at home!" and this is why.

As for the leash pulling, my first rule of leash pulling is that to pull a dog NEEDS something to pull against. And it is often very common to see people 'hanging' onto their dog with a tight leash, therefore teaching the dog to pull. I teach all students 'Ultra Leash Awareness' without their dog/pup. We role play with them being the dog and I the handler and then switch. The goal is to have the dog 'pull' and the handler bring them back into place and WHEN to reward. But more importantly when the leash is slack and when to take it up BEFORE the dog gets out of position. Novice handlers are often far to late in giving information to their dogs but the nice thing is it is easy to learn!
Ever seen a trainer start to work with a pulling dog and watch as that dog quickly doens't pull, remain in heel and on a loose leash and wonder how/why? It is simple really because the trainer KNOWS without thinking about it when to 'fix' and stop the dog from getting to far out of position and they quickly go to a loose leash as a reward, therefore you don't see a lot of leash movement and it 'looks' easy.

Teaching an 'off/leave it' is critical, teach within your home/yard and when you take it on the road don't go to far. If you have to walk for long distances until you have him trained use a head halter. That is much better than undoing all the work you have invested and being unsuccessful, therefore undoing all that work.

Rule of thumb: Don't label a behaviour until it is at least 80% successful. You don't want to teach your dog to ignore a command.
Don't repeat commands, hand signals or verbal.
Don't chain behaviours together until they are at least 90% successful.
Don't train with food/toys in your hand, if you have to lure, fade them quickly (after the first time or two).

seebrown

Hi, Elocin! I know you're trying to walk and wear your puppy out, but one of the biggest challenges I had in teaching loose leash was going anywhere without pulling. I had to stop thinking about walks as "going places" and think of them as 30 minutes to an hour of walking up and down my cul-de-sac and making sure I either stopped completely if the dog ever pulled (literally one step) or turned the other way (it got really dizzying at times always going the other way!).

Your dog WANTS to move forward. You only reward him by moving forward if the leash is loose. Training like this still tired my dog out; we just didn't go farther than about 5–10 feet away from the house for the first week of learning. Once he got loose leash there, we started going to the next cul-de-sac and the field beside my house. Once he got loose leash there, we went farther.

A really great video of how to train loose leash is at YouTube - How to train your dog not to pull- Loose Leash Walking. That's basically how I trained it. Our dog walked excellently in our neighborhood after about 3 weeks of consistent training, and it became more fun to walk.

Mikey

Your totally on target-training a dog is easy. Learning to train a dog is HARD


Two really important things here -for you to know so you can progress
1) If your dog isn't doing it-he doesn't understand or he is not being reinforced to do it. Basically-your doing something wrong. So you have to change that mindset. When your dog isn't listening or is doing something wrong-instead of saying 'darn that dog not listening to me' think 'what am I doing wrong? How have I mixed him up'. Dogs were bred for 1000's and 1000's of years to obey-they are not messing with our heads or being stubborn teenagers. You are doing something to mix up the training or the cue or the reinforcement -and we ALL do it. Being a good trainer-is identifiying what you are doing wrong.

As proof all trainers do it-check this out-done by Karen Pryor-great trainer-and she messes up and her FISH has a fit. (scroll down to fainting fish)
Reaching The Animal Mind


2) Don't ever get frustrated. We've seen those mom's, dragging their tantrum throwing kids around, they are upset themselves-and things are getting worse. If you get frustrated-this upsets the dog and ruins what your trying to do. If you get frustrated-give your dog a cookie, a pet and walk away-session is over. Do not push through-you will get more frustrated and the dog will get more upset.


It sounds like he's just not getting enough exercise. You can add a weight backpack to your walks, step it up on a bicycle or rollerblades, teach him a treadmill or take him somewhere off leash so he can run. But he's keyed up and needs more exercise-and that's definitely a lab thing -more exercise.

You should be practicing loose leash walking or heeling when your talk is TIRED. Not when he needs to get his energy out. Think of kids-they can't do homework when they are bouncing off the walls right? He can concentrate and work when he's not boucing off the walls.


I think that's along the lines of 'do not eat after your dog eats; do not let your dog on the furniture'-you can and should play with your dog. And on the floor makes absolutely no difference imho


I sympathize totally. I had to completely change the way I train for Mikey. I've been teaching dogs things, our family dogs, since I was little. I've worked with tons in a shelter-and taught them obedience and agility-but Mikey is sooo different from anything I've done. We got him in May-and I'm just learning how to teach him and we are now making great progress. But it took a while for ME to change MY expectations of how I thought he should learn-and pay attention and figure out how he does learn.

Also-the night thing-there are TONS of products out there to make you and your dog more visible. Get him a light up collar and get reflective stipping on the harness/collar and your jacket There are also lights you can attach to the collar too. I've seen people tie a flashlight to their dogs collar.
In December here it gets dark at four-and you still have to take 'em to the dog park so we've tried and used, and seen used many darkness solutions

All in all-your doing great and so is Charlie

Criosphynx

you've gotten great advice so far. Loose leash is hard for alot of dogs/handlers to learn. And it can be a frustrating thing to teach, since both parties don't like to stop lol.

The biggest revelation I had personally is that the dog is not trying to defy me, ignore me, etc. They just don't understand what you are looking for in that place/moment whatever. Its very hard when you first begin not to take the dogs non compliance "personally". But once you realize hes simply confused or being a normal dog, it helps with frustration a bit.


Yup, the corner and back it how we would do it...

Criosphynx

omg I love it...and yup...thats a stressed oscar...wow I have never seen that one before.

seebrown

Oh, since Mikey mentioned night-time, the other thing to keep in mind is that walking at night can be so much different than walking in the day-time. My dog was never good at night-time walking on the few ocassions we did it because we had trained all during the day. If we went out when it was dark, he went back to pulling really badly and becoming super aroused at people walking by us. As others have mentioned, dogs don't generalize, and they won't get a behavior everywhere until you have done with hundreds of scenarios. Even then sometimes, if something is scary/motivating/exciting enough, they will revert.

Criosphynx

good point. Chili has great leash skills and then I decided to walk him at night. It fell apart. He paniced. He also paniced the first time he saw balloons on a walk.

So its just another thing to train for if your dog reverts, don't be surprised if novel things change everything in the begining.

fawkese1

lol... i totally feel you on this... i used to train with a lot of corrections, that is how i learned to do it, since i've changed my methods, i have struggled with learning a new protocol for myself. my biggest struggle was loose leash walking also, it is sooo incredibly frustrating to walk a dog that is yanking you all over the place! i posted a response to you in the "loose leash" thread, i hope that it helps you.

anyway, don't be hard on yourself, you most likely just need to slow down and lower your expectations a little, keep all sessions short and really positive, and focus on trying to find things to reward that helps me not to get frustrated....

also, take some more time to really feel all of your successes, and think about what was working for you in those situations... then see if you can apply that same idea to the stuff you are struggling with...

i think you'll do a great job...