Me and my husband recently adopted a dog from the human society. She is already a year and has had some previous training. She has problems with getting distracted, chewing up things, not listening when we say no, down, or stay. For the most part she does listen its just when she gets distracted by other things that she does not listen. Have any suggestions?
sometimes you have to scold them, not necessarily hitting, just anything that gets the point through to dogs head that they did wrong. well, u say ur dog has had previous training, i would suggest going to the next level, they usually have multiple steps in that kinda thing, but sometimes its like a school/camp and they cant leave, had to do a week long one with my dog
I highly suggest the show “Its Me or the Dog” and the woman’s book on dog training…..can’t think of her name at the moment. Her methods are wonderful.
And when you are using verbal commands, make sure that your voice is stern, low, serious. But not scary and loud. NEVER yell (it does no good, only bad) and also watch your body language. Dogs respond to body language and hand motions Much more than voice commands.
always keep her focus ono you, hold a treat in your hand or a bone or even a favorite toy this way while training her she will see the toy and do what you taught her to get the toy/treat!! good luck, also you can train her in a quiet room that nothing or no one is in so she cant get distracted!! hope i helped!!!
Take it to obedience trails or go to http://www.dogtraining.com
Set aside a time for training. Before this time don’t feed the dog for some time that way when your ready to train with treats they will be more apt to listen. We took our Boston (an oober hyper puppy) to Petsmart for training and that was one of the things they required for us. Even through all that excitement, hyperness, and distraction it worked! We have the most obedient Boston I know now lol
Try and keep her focus… i am a guide dog raiser and we keep the dogs attention by making sure that they look at us when we say there names and ALWAYS make sure they listen to our comands. We use collar corections.. it may seem mean but it is not the don’t feel pain from it it just gets tehre attention from what they are doing and towards you. Make sure it is a positive xperience and praise them when they do it correctly. 🙂 Good luck
Are you using really good food treats to reward the dog? A dog that is at a shelter may not have ever had a good relationship with people. It probably doesn’t have a clue about what you’re talking about. Read some books, find a class. Dogs need to learn self control and focus and you don’t try to get them good at it when there are things distracting them. You practice the behavior where there are no distractions and they can practice and have success learning to focus on you. Dogs repeat behaviors they get rewarded for. Start rewarding behaviors you like and use super good treats and you’ll probably notice that the dog starts paying more attention to you. This site has a list of good books.
http://www.fearfuldogs.com/books.html
Every time she looks away when training, put a treat in front of her nose and walk in a small circle with her. Or another thing you can do is teach her to “watch me”. To do this, wave a tasty and smelly treat in front of her nose. Let her sniff it for a couple seconds, and then hold the treat between your eyes. She’ll look at the treat, while she’ll actually be looking at you. Start by having her hold the watch me for 3 seconds, then for 5, then for 7, then for 10, then for 15, and so on. After she has held it for the period of time you want her to, say “Ok!” and give her a treat. When she gets really super good, you can add in the verbal cue, “Watch me!”.
And as for the other commands and behavior issues, I think the best solution is for you to take a training class at Petsmart. It is $119 for one hour long class once a week for eight weeks. You can check out the site if you’re interested. http://www.training.petsmart.com/
Best of luck with your little knucklehead!!
I would look into training classes. Not just for her, but the training is sometimes geared to people. People often reinforce negative behaviors without meaning to. If nothing else, it promotes a relationship between the dog and its owner. Bitter apple can be applied to some things to discourage chewing.
We actually just adopted a dot about 3months ago from a shelter as well. His name is Lucky and he is 9months old. Very distracted by others and outside influences our trainer told us it is because he hasn’t had any practice at it keep taking her out on walks to see others practice training and reward big with treats when she does listen. When dogs like this aren’t exposed or haven’t had alot of experience it is easy for them to fold under the pressure keep it up though practice practice practice and I mean for you not the dog.
Good luck