Training Of The To Smart For Own Good Jack Russell, Help Please.

[_Karmah_]

I'm having some trouble with my female Jack Russell, i have taught her since a puppy to fetch, sit, drop, beg, she even does a little "dance" for me.

Today i went outside with some treats and thought I'd go over a few tricks with her, she gets really really excited and tries to do all her tricks at once. I tried to calm her down and just make her sit for a moment, but she begged and tried to shake all at the same time.

It's rather frustrating, i think she's got it in her head that the treats will run away, unless she quickly does tricks :D

Any idea's to get her to pay attention and do one trick at a time?

;)

[sas]

Have you tried ignoring her until she settles and does the command that you ask?

It sounds like she has a good amount of food drive and is trying to do every command she knows to get the treat quickly.

If she does have good food drive, then some research into Drive training might be a good thing.

Edited June 28, 2007 by sas

[Ms James]

I was told that anticipation can be a form of dominance & attention seeking. Just like sas says, ignore her & don't treat until she settles down & performs the command asked :D

[bloss344]

My Bob was like this. If I had a treat and I was trying to teach a new behaviour he'd offter me all his known behaviours in an effort to get the treat. He also would try to grab the treat, as if he was worried it would just disappear. It is frustrating but as you know it's also the sign of a very clever dog, who is using his mind to work out how to gain a treat from you.

I found with Bob ignoring the behaviours he was offering, and there were plenty of them he'd shake, beg, spin, speak, drop, touch, sit, you get the gist, until he calmed a bit and I was able to get his attention, so we could calmly start again. Maturity helped him a bit, you haven't said how old your dog is. It was also helpful not to teach too many things at once, and to only work on one trick in a session, until your dog focuses better. Make sure your hand signals for the action you are asking for is consitent too.

[sas]

I was told that anticipation can be a form of dominance & attention seeking. Just like sas says, ignore her & don't treat until she settles down & performs the command asked

Dominance is such an over used term. Who told you that?

[Erny]

I was told that anticipation can be a form of dominance & attention seeking. Just like sas says, ignore her & don't treat until she settles down & performs the command asked ;)

I believe that what MsJames intended to mean actually relates to the NILIF program (ie asking the dog for a behaviour rather than giving it something good for free). If the dog begins and continues to offer the behaviour without being asked because it knows it will be rewarded for it, then the dog can be beginning to dictate a behaviour from the human on ITS terms, rather than the other way around. Consequently it is better to not reward the offered (but unrequested) behaviour and instead request a different behaviour.

This being said on the basis that the dog is past the teaching phase of the original behaviour offered.

Edited June 29, 2007 by Erny

[Ms James]

I was told that anticipation can be a form of dominance & attention seeking. Just like sas says, ignore her & don't treat until she settles down & performs the command asked ;)

Dominance is such an over used term. Who told you that?

I think Erny put it better & more succinctly than I could have ;) I'll try to explain, sas, in relation to what I'm experiencing with my dog, but I do want to stress that I probably over-analyse and interpret behaviour as dominance because that's what we've been focussing with our guys so much. With our guy, Roggie, we've been implementing the NILIF and the TOT with him to curb his wicked ways (he's dog aggressive, used to have a tendency to get over excited, jump up, rush through doorways etc etc). One of the things Roggie used to do a lot was come up to us while we were sitting (eating, reading, on computer, breathing) & either whack his head on our laps or jump up, paws on our lap & basically would nose our faces. As you'd imagine, this grew rather tiresome! I did some research, got him into some private training, & finally understood that this behaviour was a no-no, later implemented the NILIF programme and started to see much improvement in his attention seeking ways.

Now, one of the things we use with Roggie to implement NILIF is for him to perform a trick (his best one is "paw", he can "paw" for Australia now! Does high fives, and we're currently working on "roll over"). In the initial phases, we'd ignore his initial attempt at getting a pat, recall him a minute later, ask for "paw" and he'd get mucho loving.

Now, this is where my (mis)interpretation of "dominance" might come in: lately, what I've noticed is that he'll happily trot up to me, sit, then offer his paw to me, leaving it hanging in the air as if to say (and yes, I know I'm anthropomorphising here!) "ok, I've done what you want, now PAT!".

Now, for a training noob such as myself, I'd interpret that as him testing me to see if I'll be consistent in my giving affection on my terms, or reverting to past behaviours that showed him that he got attention when he put his head on the lap only now he's proferring a paw, knowing that he gets attention when he does that behaviour. The difference being that I haven't asked for the behaviour - so he gets ignored until I'm ready to give him attention on my own terms.

I have to stress, though, that this is in the day-to-day interactions, and not during any training and learning phases. He's usually pretty good when we're training & will only do as asked. Except for rolling over, he's in the "I like rolling over when I'm dropped" phase. Sheesh!

Hmm... I'm probably being clear as mud here, and more than likely my experience has absolutely nothing to do with the OP's experience. Sorry guys!

[Kavik]

Zoe went through a phase of doing this, it was really funny to watch ;)

She used to do it when I would swap which position I wanted her to do for her dinner. One night sit, one night drop etc. Sometimes she would sit, then drop etc and continually change!

I found the most effective way to deal with this is go back to basics. I think it is a case of overexcitement and a bit of confusion thrown in. I would wait till she calms down, and ask for one command (I used to ask for a chain of things too which confused her). Get her attention and practice one thing until she will do that without offering the other behaviours. Then practice a different one. Maybe all she needs to do is to separate the commands in her mind.