Ugh.. Going Nowhere!

[:ange:]

Could I get some advice PLEASE!!! I have a 7.5 month old Weimaraner who I had walking perfectly on the halti. I have decided that I don't want to use this training tool anymore because I don't want to rely on it forever. I have been taking her to a big field and putting her on a flat collar where I will put her in the heel position. She knows where this position is.

The next bit I'm not sure if I'm doing the right thing.

I will start walking and she will calmly walk beside me for approx 10 paces then nose to the ground and she surges ahead. I will turn and walk in the opposite direction. She catches up and I praise her for walking next to me and treat. Then gets ahead of me again, I repeat turn in the opposite direction and she catches up. Praise. I just can't seem to get more than the 10 paces from her. We've been doing this daily for almost 2 weeks.

What am I doing wrong???

Worst part of today was that I trusted her recall (which has been EXCELLENT, I've called her off numerous birds, people etc) let her off lead and released her with an OK and she took off out of sight. Never done that before EVER, wouldn't come back. I was so cross. Seems like we've taken HUGE steps back in our training.

I won't trust her to let her off the check cord ever again..

[shoemonster]

I would treat her when she catches you and also treat her every 8th or 9th step (if she surges at 10) ideally treating her just before she would normally surge, therefore making her want to stay with you for longer

[Erny]

When pups are pups, they are naturally dependant upon us hence recalls tend to be somewhat reliable .... and we get lulled into a false sense of security. As they enter adolescence, they gain confidence/independence - they explore further and further and begin to find other novel things, as well as their freedom, as so much fun that it is sufficiently rewarding to them to ignore the recall you thought you had trained down pat. Your pup is at that age and I expect this is what has occurred.

You need to make your recalls really worthwhile, building up your dog's expectations that something great and worthwhile recalling to will occur when she is called. It would also be worthwhile checking your leadership status and building on pack drive.

When you recall your dog, avoid doing so when she is too far away. And when she comes back to you, reward big time! And then send her back out again to explore. IE Avoid always finishing on a note that says "You recalled. Good. Play is finished now as we're going home." You can see here that this result would not be perceived as particularly rewarding.

Personally I wouldn't be focusing on "heel" so much at this age. I like to establish loose lead walking first, which requires the dog to only learn one rule .... that is, don't pull on the lead. IMO it is pretty hard for a dog (especially a young one as yours is) to maintain a heel (which requires loose lead walking skill, as well as focus on position to your left leg) when there is so much in the world to check out (smells, sights, sounds, etc.). If that is all your young dog gets to do when out on a walk, I would expect she'd find the exercise somewhat boring compared to other things that are around her. By all means practice the "heel", but if it were me I wouldn't be trying for long stretches at a time. You can keep "heel" a bit more interesting by doing (rather than mere paces in one direction) turns after just a few paces, and then a good fun release and back to simple loose lead walking which gives her an opportunity to check out what's been going on in her environment. Then throw in a bit more on "heel", and randomise with other commands such as "sit" etc. Not forgetting the fun releases in between.

This should help to keep training a bit more interesting for her and motivated to work for you.

Edited August 21, 2008 by Erny

[Sam&Saki]

Isn't 7 months of age ish generally the second rebellious period? My pup's been through two very obvious 'terrible twos' type bratty phases and come good again after each, heh x

[:ange:]

Thanks for the the replies.. I feel like this is the rebellious stage we're going through as well. Where she's testing her independence. I was just so worried that I was going to lose her seeing as it was going on dusk (damn grey ghosts so hard to see.. ) The walk was definately over once she came back to me as I was too cross to keep going. She would definately associate walk over with recall now huh.. I was very mindful of that point, recalling her and treating then releasing so she DOESN'T associate recall with walk over. But I guess when your mad sometimes you expect the dog to know what your mad about.

Erny: I practice focused heeling at home. Like you said, I'm only specifically trying to teach her to walk loosely on a lead. The halti was great because it meant my arm wasn't being ripped off when we walked. She's a bad puller (my fault I know) and this is what I'm trying to break her away from. She pulls, I turn in the opposite direction! I will try turning before the ten paces when she surges ahead to make her stay with me.

Also how do I check my leadership.. We never have problems with her at home re: food (I give permission to eat, can take it away without growling etc), bedding and furniture (she sleeps on floor on her bed). I would have confidently said I was definately pack leader. I will look for some postings on this. It just seems that once we're outside with distractions, there are alot of other things more exciting than me, as you said!

Some days you get so frustrated.. :p