Jumping, Lead Pulling And Excitement Issues

[sheena]

And teach him not to sniff. It's all very easy. Again clicker training makes this & so many other shaping behaviours so much easier. If your dog is being good & then suddenly not being good & ignoring you, then you have gone too far, too quick & made the whole "you must do as I say" thing too hard for him. You have set him up to fail. How many times do you call your dog when he doesn't respond to you? You should only call ONCE, then if he doesn't react, go get him & put him on the leash. If you got yourself a clicker & learnt how to use it, & how to shape behaviours (it's not rocket science) you might surprise yourself how quickly your dog catches on & how much fun it becomes. ;)

[tanstaff]

That is very interesting stuff, i took him to a gated park today to let him off the lead and try some training techniques however i had a lot of trouble with distraction. It was loose lead walking the entire way to the park without any pulling or sniffing. Arrived at the gate, sit-stay proceeding to walk in about 20 meters before calling him in. He ran straight in after his ball which i had thrown but he did not stop, ignoring the ball and sniffing/eating grass. At this stage it was very hard to call him back as he would ignore me until i was right beside him. Why does he ignore me in this setting? He will not stop sniffing and eating the grass... odd.

Justice and I started obedience classes a few weeks ago for the first time and one that was made really clear right from the start is that the class is to show us what to do, ensure we have our timing right with using the bridging word or clicker and allow us to ask questions if we're unclear on anything. Then the following week we get our dog to demonstrate that they've learnt the new behaviour which can really only be done if we've put the time in to proofing it with different levels of distraction. It is unreasonable to expect most dogs to learn anything new in that sort of environment with lots of dogs and people and awesome things to sniff and pee on so our first step is to go home and teach the new behaviour in a place free from distractions, such as the lounge room with no other dogs or people present. Once your dog is doing it correctly 5 out of 5 times then you increase the distraction level. It might be changing rooms, bringing another person in etc.. and once they can continue to do the new behaviour consistently with that level of distraction you increase the distraction level again. This might be where you take them out to the back yard where there's cool toys and interesting things to do. Once you've proofed it there then you might try the local park when there are no other dogs around or with other dogs at a reasonable distance. Once that's proofed then work on it with other dogs closer to you until you are getting the behaviour reliably regardless of how much distraction there is.

Dogs don't generalise like we do so if you teach your dog to sit in the lounge room your dog understands that "sit" means "sit in front of the coffee table" and needs you to teach him that "sit" also means "sit in the kitchen, sit in the back yard, sit on the footpath, sit at the dog park" etc.. Trying to move straight from a few repetitions with no distractions to an environment that is super exciting for a dog is just setting your dog up for failure. It doesn't take as long to teach all of this as it sounds either. Justice and I do 3 to 5 sessions a day of no more than one or two minutes each. If we're going off to the park or on a walk I use that as an opportunity to reinforce things he's already learnt at home but I don't ask him to do things I know he doesn't have down solidly in a low distraction environment yet, as it's frustrating for him if I'm asking him to do something and he doesn't understand what I want and then training is no longer fun for him where as right now, if I ask him if he wants to do training he gets really excited and enjoys the sessions.

I am almost jealous hearing about your school. I wish mine was like that! Right from the start i am seeing terminology and advice/direction that i have not before and certainly did not hear whilst training. It may be hard to understand for those who did not experience it personally but my school definitely lacked this sort of depth; especially demonstrations and review. This is why we fell behind.

That aside though you are definitely correct and i will take your advice.

[huski]

Ok awesome, ive read a bit about positive reinforcement and i do see its benefits however i fail to understand how one can link the desired behaviour with the negative behaviour. Ok so my main problem is jumping when called over. Now if he was to jump on someone instead of telling him no and showing him im serious with my tone, which works at the time but it does not stop him from doing it the next time, what should i do? Call him over to play? How does he make the connection between the bad behaviour and the playing will he not just think of it as more fun?

It might help to think of it this way - dogs jump up because they find the behavior rewarding. They find it gets them attention (for some dogs even negative attention can be rewarding) and that reward process is how the habit is established.

If you want to break the habit he needs to learn what behaviour will earn him a reward. Teaching him he will only get attention when he sits for example will help him learn a new more desirable way to greet people and get attention. When a habit like jumping up is that ingrained in a dog, they need to learn that it won't work and they can't get success with it but they also need to learn what behaviour will work to get what they want.

[Red Fox]

I am almost jealous hearing about your school. I wish mine was like that! Right from the start i am seeing terminology and advice/direction that i have not before and certainly did not hear whilst training. It may be hard to understand for those who did not experience it personally but my school definitely lacked this sort of depth; especially demonstrations and review. This is why we fell behind.

That aside though you are definitely correct and i will take your advice.

I agree! Sounds like an excellent place to train.