I'm not a trainer, but my chow/pointer mix is an extremely hyper dog. In fact it's why her previous owners got rid of her! She pulled on the leash, had absolutely no manners, just looked at you when you told her sit or stay then continued what she was doing. She even took out our screen once when she saw something in the yard. She's also not toy or dog treat motivated. Anyway it took awhile and a lot of patience. I started slowly, training only a couple of minutes initially (she had absolutely no attention span). I found she liked cooked chicken so I picked up some and at random I'd tell her to sit, throughout the day when I was home (this is where you aunt has to help). Alex gets training but it doesn't seem like a chore, more like periodic treat time. Running out the door we stopped by training her to "wait" different than stay because wait meant she could still move around just couldn't go past the point I told her to wait. Initially I knew she'd still bolt, so I was always ready, this way I could grab her and correct her w/o having to chase her down. I'd take her back to the spot she was when I told her wait and tell her no very firmly, and repeated what I did initially. I started initially by just opening the door slightly and for very short periods of time, eventually working my way up to the point where I can leave it open and she won't budge if I tell her to wait. Stay worked the same way. Never give a command twice, if you tell her to stay and she doesn't firmly tell her no and put her back in the same spot. On the other side if she does it well lots of praise and treats. Jumping was dealt with in a couple of ways...if I saw her start to jump I'd tell her no, if she didn't then she got praise and treats. If she jumped I'd tell her no and walk toward her which forced her down. I've even grabbed her front paws and held them for a couple of seconds as I told her no. It didn't hurt her, but she didn't like the restraint in that position. Leash training was harder for her. I could get her to stop everthing except pulling, finally I gave up and took her to a good trainer. We tried everything, halties, chokes, even treats while you walk, but ended up finding out that the pinch collar was the only thing that would work on her. When used correctly it doesn't hurt her and she won't take my arm off anymore. Truthfully I know they look horrible, and they are definately not for all dogs, but Nikka caused more damage to herself when I tried a choke collar than with a pinch. She'd pull so hard she'd choke herself. I kept having to switch back to her normal collar so she wouldn't hurt herself, which meant she pulled. She has no problem with other dogs or people, but has an EXTREMLY HIGH prey drive and we live in an area with lots of bunnies and gophers. It's the one thing I'm still working on with her, but instead of bolting to try to get it and therefore yanking me she now just whines and stomps her feet a lot. So that was my longwinded way of agreeing with some of the others. I wouldn't take her to the park until you have full control, there's just to much going on and if she can slip her collar definately not a good idea. Training dogs like Nikka and it sounds like Alex needs to be done when there are as few distractions around as possible intially. Once she's doing really well without distractions, then you can slowly start moving her into different areas with more distractions, but be prepared that even though she was doing everything perfectly w/o distractions, you'll probably have to do a few reminders once you start adding those in. I was lucky in that as hyper as Nikka is she also loves to be praised and be told she's a good girl. I think that worked better than the treats for her. So I'd recommend finding what Alex absolutely loves whether it's toys, treats or praise and use that as your primary training tool, with the others as just nice reinforcers.
Bookmarks