Getting Dog's Attention For Training.

[Iffanwys]

Hi Everyone,

I have a 4yo Kelpie x who I've had since I adopted him from the local RSPCA at 9 weeks of age. He's had basic obedience from a young age but work/study issues stopped me from pursuing anything with him as a puppy.

We've now been doing obedience classes for 5 weeks and I'd like to eventually get into agility with him. He has graduated from 'beginners' and is about to do his second week of Grade 1.

My problem is getting his attention during training. ANYTHING will distract him, even a bird who calls out 1km down the road! Just getting him to listen to me is a major obstacle. He is fantastic off leash, comes to the first call etc it is only during 'training' that I'm having this problem.

When I do the exercises in the house, he's perfect - no distractions there, but the minute I take him beyond the walls it's a nightmare, even in the backyard.

He has moments, maybe a second or two where he suddenly goes 'oh there you are' and he's brilliant, but he seems to be getting worse rather than better.

He's not food orientated at all (although he will eat them, but it's not enough to distract him from the distractions), doesn't give two hoots about toys, and he loves praise, but again it's not enough.

I've tried all sorts of fancy smelly foods, even the treat the dog club says the dogs go 'ga ga' over he's 'meh'.

I've trained 4 other dogs (2 Dalmatians,a Rhodesian Ridgeback & GSDx) before, so I'm not a complete novice, but I'm pulling my hair out with him. I've heard that inattention can be a problem with Kelpies, I'm more than willing to work through it, I just don't know what to do!

I'm willing to try just about anything at this stage! Any help is very much appreciated!!

Edited October 8, 2015 by Iffanwys

[The Spotted Devil]

Will he tug? Tug = 100% focus. Put simply you need to build toy and food drive at home and in low distraction environments and then slowly build in the distractions. Today was only the 2nd time my working ESS baby had seen the beach. She was OVER THE TOP beside herself...it took me about 10 mins and continued distance from the water before she would tug but my goodness it was worth the effort. It will be interesting to see her response tomorrow.

I also run her Mama in agility and retrieving and my Dally is an agility champion so I've been there, got the t-shirt :laugh:

ETA: Also! Find out what your dog loves in his environment and use that as part of your reward system. My Dally loves to pee on everything so when we finish training or trialling (whether it be agility, obedience, ET) he gets a food jackpot and/or plays tug and gets to have a pee fest. At the end of the trialling day I let him flirt with all the girly dogs :D My baby ESS has just discovered swimming so when she recalls beautifully I treat her then send her back to swim. Her Mum is great now - loves retrieving game, dummies, food and tug in that order so I can use any of them as rewards. Very powerful stuff.

Edited October 8, 2015 by The Spotted Devil

[Willem]

that reminds me of the challenges with my own dog "How to get her focus..." ...I guess with this gap to the earlier training you just have to start from scratch, and 5 weeks training is a very, very short time - you just need to be persistent...the advise other forum members made in the linked thread seem to work for my dog; while it might be a bigger challenge with an older dog that is distracted by everything, the suggested approaches should still work. Good luck ... just keep on going....

[huski]

Take away distraction, what does he go "gaga" for at home?

[Mrs Rusty Bucket]

My problem is getting his attention during training. ANYTHING will distract him, even a bird who calls out 1km down the road! Just getting him to listen to me is a major obstacle. He is fantastic off leash, comes to the first call etc it is only during 'training' that I'm having this problem.

I was there once. Now I just have to remember what I did. Oh, I joined Susan Garrett's online recallers program and learned to play games that keep the dog's focus.

But also how to interpret what's going on with the distraction - eg he'd rather think about a bird than pay attention to you.

What do you do when this happens?

what do you do when he stuffs up something in training. What does he do when you stuff something up? My dog would get the go-sniffs because she found that frustrating - didn't matter which one of us stuffed up.

At the moment when either of us stuffs up - she barks a lot. She barks a lot if I'm a bit too slow. She likes it much better when I'm running and she can chase me - does your dog like the chase the boss game? Cos you can use that to get his attention back.

One of the first games we got right was "start line stays" - these are fun to train - because you don't need any equipment and it's all about staying in the face of distraction...

So you start where there is no distraction and teach the stay... then in the same place - you add some distractions... like you sitting down or standing up or lying down or running around... especially fast movement from behind dog up past dog... you're trying to fake him out...

If he holds his stay - reward with something he loves (chasing you, roast chicken, dinner) if he doesn't like food - there's a small possiblity (or huge one in my dog's case) he's getting too much food. No more leaving food out all the time for him to eat when ever he wants (maybe google NILIF).

If he breaks his stay, don't say anything - you can laugh at him for stuffing up, and just gently move him back to where he was. Ideally you don't say your "stay" word (mine is "wait") again but I tend to repeat it. Or signal it... And then you try to fake him out again...

Keep your sessions really short and fast. I count out five rewards and stop after they're all gone. If you're not using food or toys, maybe keep a counter somewhere - bit of paper and when you get to five - end the game.

Pay attention to when he likes to please you... eg when you get home, or while you're preparing dinner... use those times to do your training sessions.

When he's got a good handle on a stay with quite a few distractions - inside the house - try outside the house. If he gets hard to catch to put back when he forgets what the game is - put a lead on him to make him easier to catch (but don't tie him up - it needs to be his choice to stay).

repeat with increasing distractions.

pretend to be the bird calling (find a recording of the noise) - tho I get a good response from my dog calling "puss puss puss" or "olly olly olly" (name of neighbour's cat)... ie that's a massive distraction for her. So are crows. Crows are not allowed. Neither are magpies... So if she loses it - I go catch her and hold her until she calms down, and then I might end the game or we can try again if I think she has a reasonable chance of success.

eventually your dog will stay no matter what kind of fake out you try... and the reward my dog always wanted most was to be told "Go" so she could chase me... (an agility thing). She would quit her stay if I went back and gave her food treat cos she thought that meant "exercise complete".

[Iffanwys]

Thanks so much for the info, tips and tricks! It's a lot to digest, but will reread a few times and try some of it out this weekend and see how we go.

At home he loves to work for praise - big praise, hugs and kisses, fussing etc. Since reading your posts I've also realised that he loves to run with me and also to chase me. Never really thought of it that way before, it's always just been a game, but I guess it's all about looking at things from a different perspective!

I feel so much better having a few things to try out. Will let you know how we go!

Thanks again!!!

[The Spotted Devil]

Yes! Chase is very important! Chase and TUG or TREATS. Tug is awesome because you can sustain it and achieve a high level of arousal = FOCUS!!! I mentioned in my first post that I had a big battle with my pup yesterday to get her to tug at the beach. Today there was very little hesitation. The swimming lake was a whole other story but definitely not as hard going as yesterday. Praise alone might be fine for easy behaviours in a low distraction environment but it will never cut it for agility where you need high arousal, focus and reward value.

Edited October 9, 2015 by The Spotted Devil

[Mrs Rusty Bucket]

when I'm playing chase the boss, it's important for me to have some toy she can grab hold of, old floppy hat, sock toy (socks stuffed one inside the other) some of the ball toys with ropes, or old tshirts plaited up...

so when she catches me I can give her the toy to grab instead of me.

Which brings me to rule number one - never play this game in the dusk/dark... cos my dog routinely misses the toy when it's getting dark. OUCH. And definitely game over when this happens.

So how does this work to get her attention... I can put my arm up for a direction signal (Greg Derrett handling systems - actually his level 1 dvd is great for training the start line stay with distractions, I found out about him from Susan Garrett and her fans...)

Putting my arm up, facing away from my dog and crouching just a little bit like I'm about to take off, frequently gets her focus back... you can also pair your training with some verbal cues or just chat that you say every time you play the game... and say that and your dog thinks "game on" - for me it's often "are you ready?" and "where is it" and "who dat dere?" (which prefaces "go say hello")... And suddenly we have dog's attention... then I run away waving the hat... And when she catches up to me I toss the hat up and get my fingers out the way.

[corvus]

Sounds like a dog that is very stimulated by the environment to me. Dogs can be like that for a few reasons, but the one I see most often is that they are on the vigilant side. They are checking everything out in case it's important - i.e. it's a threat, something to engage with, something that means something else... There's a game from Control Unleashed called Give Me A Break that is designed for dogs that are over-stimulated and/or over-aroused by their environment. You start in a small area, engage the dog with some training, then dismiss them to do what they want. They sniff around the area and check everything out until they get tired of it and come back to you. You are waiting for them to sit to tell you they are ready to engage again. You reward, do a few things with them, then dismiss them again and again wait for them to choose to re-engage. It's kind of counter-intuitive, but this is essentially how I got my very easily aroused dog to work in dog parks even when other dogs would come up to us and get in the way. Of course, his tolerance for that is low and diminishing as he gets older, so we don't train in dog parks anymore. But, it totally worked, and then I got him training at the beach, and then in the bush, and then around dogs playing fetch, which is seriously challenging for him. I focused less on trying to find what he loves and more on patterns of engagement and strategic releases. Sometimes the problem is not motivation so much as they need to learn to split their attention between you and the rest of the world, and to default to coming back to you regularly and waiting for a release before running off. That last one was super important for us.