Gracie is pushing her luck! Advice needed.

[cubby31682]

She does have a prong collar. It works great on her. So great in fact that she will do nothing wrong. As soon as you take it off she becomes her self. I can't let her wear it in the yard because of the trees and plants that she plays in. They are dog friendly, I checked on that before I got her.

Like I have said before, this is MY first real dog. I am doing all the training most of the feeding praising and such. She and I had 'alpha' issues. So I have taken over all of the responsibilty.

The problem with the food thing, is she trusts us now and doesn't eat right when you give her food. She works her way there. Slowly. Which is good but also bad. It isn't a good thing for me to show her, her food she just keeps playing. She does play fetch but only inside. I try to play fetch with her outside but she wont return anything except a snow ball. I will really try to give her lots of praise for comming inside with me from now on.

Yes I did get her from a Doberman rescue, which they have given me all sorts of advice. I will start bringing toys outside with me. Also a lot of treats. I hope she can learn quick. Tomorrow when I get home from work I might take her outside off leash with a pocket full of treats and a good toy. I will try to teach her 'come' a little bit better.

Thanks everyone for all the great advice. I really appreciate it so much.

[shais_mom]

when will I learn to read the ENTIRE thread before I post or PM?
*sigh*
oh well!
I just sent you a PM but seriously let me know if you want the gentle leader I would be happy to send it to you!

[bckrazy]

I also highly recomend NILIF training at home and at least 8 weeks of obedience classes. 16-week classes sound like the best for her. Search for the nearest postitive-reinforcement-based obedience classes near you, I do not recomend Petsmart training as their trainers are only required to go through a 2-day training seminar, and most of them have no idea what they're doing

I don't think you should just cover this up with a prong collar or a gentle leader or a shock collar or any other man-made training device. There are still obviously huge alpha and behavioral issues going on. You might even want to try to find an affordable animal behaviorist to talk to.

[Dixieland Dancer]

Your problem is very fixable. It will take patience and dedication on your part to retrain the dogs behavior into a positive response when she is called. The success of this depends more on you and your dedication to the retraining process than it does on the dogs part.

First realize that obedience classes are a must for the two of you. It will help to strengthen the bond between the two of you and will establish you as the alpha in the pack. When looking for a class to enroll in, I strongly recommend finding a trainer who either clicker trains or does positive training and teaches competitive obedience. A teacher who teaches competitive obedience is one who is current with most of the latest training techniques and on what works and what doesn't work. Most use the NILIF theory.

Second, begin consistent and several times a day recall training. This is sometimes referred to as the "come" command. This training process should start in the house where the problem is not associated with in any way. Make sure you have lots of very enticing treats on you before you start your training session.

Take a 10 to 15 foot leash (not a retractable one) and from about 2 feet away from the dog give a "Gracie, Come" command. Don't run the command together but pause ever so slightly after the name. By saying the name, you are asking her to pay attention to you as you are about to tell her what you expect of her. Then very clearly give the "come". Say it in a happy upbeat manner. If she comes, immediately (you can not hesitate on the reward) give her a treat and praise her. Let her know she did right! If she doesn't come immediately, give her a gentle tug with the leash and coax her to you. The key here is gentle. Don't drag her to you. It has to be her decision to come to you. It is your job to make her want too! That's why the treats have to be very rewarding. After the gentle tug, if she comes you want to again immediately (no hesitation) give her the treat and praise.

If she doesn't come with the gentle tug then forget the exercise for this time period. However, she does not get any treats or even her kibble. Some people think this is cruel but it won't hurt the dog to go without for awhile. It may take a day or so but eventually when you go back to the exercise you will have a compliant dog ready to learn. Of course it won't realize it is being taught since it will only be worried about the food.

Remember, this exercise is only done in the house for now. After you get a consistent response every three times, cut back on the treat to every other response but never give up on the praise. You can gradually begin to increase the length of the leash out too. Then once you get 5 consistent responses from at least 10 feet, you can lessen the treat to every third time but again never give up on the praise. Your goal is 20 consistent successful recalls in a row. If she messes up on number 10 or 15, start over again. You must have a consistent recall of 20 times in the house. If you achieve that goal in the house, you can try it off leash. If you have problems then she isn't ready and you must go back to using the leash. After she is doing off leash in the house, you are ready to move outside.

When you are ready to move the exercises outside, realize you are basically starting the whole process over again but it is happening outside now. There will be more distractions and more desire to not listen but if you follow the steps you did inside, you will succeed.

I hope this helps you. Please check on the obedience classes in addition to the above recall training exercises. If your trainer teaches the "come command" differently, follow their instructions but make sure you don't progress without making sure the dog fully understands what behavior is expected. Some trainers progress through exercises too fast before the dog has "caught on" completely.

[cubby31682]

Wow Dixieland Dancer, thanks for the great step by step training. I think that is what I needed. I will be trying that. I really appreciate it so much.

We do want to get her into obedience classes the only problem is the trainers we have found what their class to be a certain size and if it isn't they cancel the class. We were also going to go with private lessons with my brothers friend (he has been training dobermans and rotts for years.) but he hasn't gotten ahold of my brother about it. I also will be working on the NILIF program as well. I made my husband read up on it when he got home so we both know what to do. That way it wont just be me working with her.

Katie

[clara4457]

[i]
Second, begin consistent and several times a day recall training. This is sometimes referred to as the "come" command. This training process should start in the house where the problem is not associated with in any way. Make sure you have lots of very enticing treats on you before you start your training session.[/B]

Excellent advice all around. I would just like to offer one possiblity. If she has learned to associate the word "come" with less that desirable consequences you might want to use a different word when you are training the recall command. It doesn't really matter what it is - as long as the dog learns what it means. Think of it from the dog's perspective. She is having a blast playing in the back yard. She is a high energy dog that needs to burn off some steam. You call her in and all the fun stops. Do you really blame her for not wanting to come in? How would you feel if you were having fun playing baseball or dancing or something like that and someone made you go home and sit in a corner. Would you then try to avoid the person the next time you were out having fun?

Also if the normal treats aren't working - up the ante. Get better treats - pieces of hot dog, chicken, roast beef, etc.

As far as a Gentle Leader - I think it is a great tool, but it is only a tool. It will never solve the underlying problem.

[ramanth]

I have nothing else to add. You've received some great advice cubby.

Kia was very headstrong when I first got her, but an obedience class and a lot of patience (boy was that ever hard!) on my part really paid off.