Over Excitement During Training - How To Handle It

[penstar1000]

Hi all

My 11 month old BC looooves training, sometimes a little too much. I know I can only expect a milisecond of attention from him at this stage, we are working on building on that, but he quickly gets to a point of excitement where he just isn't concentrating. His stress relief behaviour at this point is to hump my leg....sigh, or to mouth me or bark. When he does this I say 'no, that's it' or something like that and stop the session. I give him a minute or two to reengage his brain and then we try again. Is that the right strategy do you think? Any other ideas?

I am about to start teaching him some agility foundation things, and I literally thought he was going to break my tunnel the other night he just kept smashing into it. I would prefer he didn't break all my newly purchased agility equipment! My other girl understands 'steady' and 'careful' - she just picked that up, I'm not sure it was anything I did!

My other problem with his excitement is that it makes it hard to train them both together. I need to get to the point where I can leave one of them in a stay and work with the other and then swap, rather than having to lock him inside and listen to him barking to get out, doesn't make for a peaceful session with my poor girl. If I leave him on a tie- out he'd probably strangle himself or something. Can any of you with multiple dogs tell me how you shuffle them for training? And how you've got them to understand that they need to wait for their turn?

Thanks!

[Kavik]

I am dealing with this with my young dog too :)

What seems to be helping is to stop when he gets barky and reset and try again. If he is being particularly obnoxious with the barking I will hold his collar until he settles then try again. Once he understands the exercise he is good, it is just while he is working it out that he tends to do the barking.

With training together - I have one crated while I work the other one. Need to do more work on having the crated one be quiet

[huski]

When it comes to over excitement or over arousal, the most common reason can be lack of a clear communication system. Do you use markers in your training? Does your dog understand what is required of him to earn reward?

Another common reason can be that you aren't getting the reward element right. Maybe if you post a video, we can give you some tips :)

[BC Crazy]

I'll be watching this thread very closely as I have always had the exact same problems owning 2 dogs & trying to train them.

Sonny barks constantly at me when I trying to teach him something. Gets very frustrated and if I'm training Stella he hates waiting his turn & barks some more.

Penstar you saved me typing. Sorry am of no help but hopefully we will both learn how to overcome this :)

Edited December 5, 2014 by BC Crazy

[Mrs Rusty Bucket]

Do some flat work and body awareness without the agility equipment. You don't want him associating the too excited to listen with agility equipment.

I second what Kavik says - teach him collar grab, if he goes over the top - grab his collar and wait for him to calm down.

Maybe work on lots and lots of impulse control games. Like "its yer choice" and "start line stays" (don't need any equipment). Does he retrieve a toy back to you? Work on random sits and downs on the way to the toy and the way back (more impulse control)...

Use pool noodles or sulo bins for practicing your handling signals, and stay away from anything that looks like a bit of agility equipment until he's listening to you better.

[penstar1000]

Yes huski I use a clicker, he gets excited even just seeing the clicker come out. The way I understand it though is that I'm supposed to wait for him to offer behaviours (which he does), it's just that his behaviours are pretty full on, I need him to take it down a notch! I suspect I do have a communication problem though, I'm learning too :)Maybe I just need to break it down a bit more so the rate of reward is increased, but then do I risk rewarding him for being silly? And how do I switch him from full on to calm so I can train the other dog?

[Cosmolo]

Do you clearly start and finish your free shaping sessions? While i adore free shaping, you do have to be quite careful with the faster thinking dogs. I deliberately put off free shaping with my very high drive, easily aroused ACD until just recently (she is 14 months old) to ensure i had good control in all other aspects, could communicate clearly with her and could switch her on and off.

She is amazing to shape so far and I've only done three or four sessions but i am very glad i waited until i had things like go to your bed and a nice drop stay cemented and she understood the rules of working/ training WITHOUT having to offer behaviours on her own.

[Cosmolo]

In addition, i have 4 dogs and they all learn to hold a drop stay or bed stay while i work the other dogs. This is started using either a second person or a tether and starting very close to them so i can throw food rewards to them for waiting their turn. Once their on/ off switch is well established i don't need to food reward but this does take a little time.

[Mrs Rusty Bucket]

penstar1000

Have you tried working without a clicker? Unless you're going for something really precise like holding one back leg in the air - you can often get a bunch of stuff using just a short marker word like "yes". And it's less exciting than a clicker for some dogs.

And maybe tone down the reward - tho with BC they just love the reward of more work... so make sure he's being reasonably calm before he gets any "more work".

[corvus]

Sorry, bit late on this one, as officially I don't post here anymore. I was browsing through. I have successfully dealt with this with one of my dogs, who would bark at me incessantly during training sessions, and currently teaching the other, whose motivation has recently gone through the roof and he had never been taught the self control to handle it in the past because it wasn't a problem! I have a client with a similar problem.

1. Don't train barking dogs. That's the rule. If you're game, turn your back on them. But only if you're 100% sure they won't bite you.

2. The instant you get a quiet sit or down, whichever is preferred, face the dog and give them a treat. If they want to be trained, they need to know how to 'ask' for it. I use default sits and downs. Down is better IMO. If they don't already know to offer a behaviour when they want something, you will have to prompt them with a cue. The sooner you can stop giving the cue, the better. They should do it automatically.

3. Work in very short bouts at first. 3 or 4 reps, then release them. They won't want to leave you and will pester you to keep training them. They will probably start barking. Ignore them until they offer their default behaviour, or until you can't take it anymore and then prompt them with a cue.

4. Slowly increase the time you train, and start rewarding for staying in the default position so you can increase quiet downtime as well.

5. Look after your dog's arousal. If he starts throwing behaviours left right and center, stop. Sit on the ground with him and get him to lie down. Work on some quiet things he can do from a down. Finding which hand has the treat, paw targets, nose/chin/forehead targets. Go from quiet behaviours to slightly more active behaviours until you are back to doing exciting things, then trade back down again, trading for less active behaviours.

6. Read Control Unleashed.

7. If training two dogs, the trick is to make waiting a job. So, pay them for waiting quietly as often or near to as you are paying your other dog for working. My training fiend now folds into a down when my attention shifts from him to the other dog, so I don't even have to tell him. It's the coolest thing ever, particularly considering how badly he loves to train and how much he was yelling at me during training sessions before I did this. He waits quietly until I call him over. As far as he's concerned, he's still working while he's waiting in a quiet down.

Here's a video of a trick training session with my guys early last year. A few times you can see me treat the non-working dog for holding the position they are in quietly. But you can see that Erik in particular waits with his tail up and attention on me. He's still working. I didn't cue any of his downs, though. He takes his cue from where my eyes are, and sometimes how he feels. He uses the quiet down to ask for direction.

[Vickie]

Yes huski I use a clicker, he gets excited even just seeing the clicker come out. The way I understand it though is that I'm supposed to wait for him to offer behaviours (which he does), it's just that his behaviours are pretty full on, I need him to take it down a notch! I suspect I do have a communication problem though, I'm learning too :)Maybe I just need to break it down a bit more so the rate of reward is increased, but then do I risk rewarding him for being silly? And how do I switch him from full on to calm so I can train the other dog?

Which behaviours are you shaping?

My terrier is brilliant at shaping, she totally gets the game and thinks & acts very deliberately.

Of the 8 BCs I've had:

2 were a nightmare to shape

2 were brilliant to shape

And the other 4 can do it with varying levels of frustration, but it's not the best training tool for them.

I very rarely shape behaviours that are important to me. We do muck around shaping silly tricks, but anything that I need to be perfect, I prefer to lure & reward. I find it quicker & it allows me to present the exact picture I want, right from the beginning.

A typical Border Collie's (and kelpie's) worst nightmare is for their owner to be standing staring at them & waiting for something. Lots, but not all will resort to manic behaviours and/or barking. Obviously if you are a very experienced trainer, your observations & timing & constant communication will reduce frustration, but it takes a while to get to that point for most. If you start with shaping & get barking or overexcitement right from the beginning, you are setting a precedent for future training.

Most of mine (haven't taught the pup yet) are able to watch me do agility with my other dogs if they are in a Lie Down stay. Because they're in a trained behaviour, they are doing a job and they have been taught to wait for a release. They are more likely to bark in a closed crate.

Edited December 26, 2014 by Vickie

[alpha bet]

I also believe that you can't teach a dog who is barking... When the mouth is going the brain is off..... (think of a dog barking, whinging, chewing.... they are off in la la land...)

so the first thing you need to do is get the mouth to stop.....

We create lots of short easy tricks to get a dog to focus... to build the dogs curiosity.... this stops the barking.... as the dog starts to pay attention and attempt small things they get reward and then a break... we continue this pattern by working on loads of 30 second objectives.... this then builds the dogs curiosity even more....

We don't use traditional obedience exercises SIT, DROP, STAY... these require the dog to stop moving which for active dogs can be very boring....instead we guide the dog into an activity say over a little jump... click... reward and to another activity.... say to jump onto a low platform... click and reward.... walk onto a small ramp.... click and reward.... around the witches hat... click and reward. If the dog starts barking we stop and ignore... however some dogs need to be told off for barking... It is still okay to say NO....

As the dog becomes more curious and interested in our games we can broaden the activities.... then we introduce the quieter and concentrated activity....

I do find the working fanatical type border collies more difficult however we do achieve good success...We work with many different breeds and we work mainly off lead in a group class and the dogs really develop more quickly in this type of environment....

Our latest trick we are adding is to get dogs on the skateboard... this was easy... however still working on getting the dogs to push themselves along...

Let your imagination run wild and think outside the square....