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Post by Roo on Apr 21, 2015 12:21:47 GMT
I'm not saying anything about Einstein's then, alfiemummy! I don't want to jinx it!
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Post by orpheous87 on Apr 21, 2015 20:08:44 GMT
What I've always and continue to do with Rosa, is firstly calling her back now and then on walks when she wasn't distracted and I knew she would, then giving her a treat and loads of excited praise, then over time doing it when there was huge distractions (like she was playing with a dog in the dog park), giving her a reward and excited praise. Always after recall (except at the end of a walk) she gets very quickly told to go off and play again so she doesn't associate it with going on the lead or anything. I still recall her for absolutely no reason on most walks we do so she has it down well. The only thing that distracts her from me is if she sees someone throwing a ball around or another dog she hasn't yet met is coming up (although we are getting better at that). Those are simply because we haven't had much opportunity for practice with people throwing balls (although no I think about it, I will orchestrate some situations), and with new dogs, ever since she was a puppy she has been rewarded for ignoring me on this as dogs always seem to be off lead here and despite her being on lead, the dogs come up and meet her so she gets rewarded for ignoring my request for her to stop trying to get to them and at least look at me and wait for allowance to go over first. We are planning on joining a few training classes soon though so hopefully we can improve that one, although she is amazing at training class recall haha. In a situation where she is running towards a dog she hasn't met yet, I have found that running away and waving my arms around (which seems to catch her eye more) usually works to catch her haha. Makes me look like a complete psychopath but it gets me my dog back. I absolutely never shout after her angrily, what dog would want to go back to that? I shout with a high pitched voice as she seems to respond better to that and finds it more exciting. Even with new dogs, she now usually checks with me first but not 100% of the time yet, but with people throwing balls she seems to go into "ballballballballball" mode, urgh haha. I'll need to work on that one. Also I have been training her absolutely not to set foot on a road without the "cross" command. The way I had been training this before hadn't worked at all so now what I do is turn and block her from stepping onto the road simply by being in her way, and stand and gawp around to see if cars are coming, not letting her off the kerb. Surprisingly this seems to be working and she is now waiting at kerbs more often. I do this at every kerb and hopefully one day she will get it. She is never on the pavement off lead but I hope that if something ever happened where she was (for example a ball going onto the road) then she will know not to go off the pavement for it. Obviously as she gets better at the pavement thing I will add distractions, most likely including a ball at a super quiet road to try and reinforce this. I will admit that I don't call Pepper back to me as often as I should on walks, just for the fun of it, and that's often because Cody is with us and I have to spend a lot more time calling him back as we pass people, bikes, children and other dogs to make sure that he doesn't jump up/snap/chase. He's getting better, but I still wouldn't trust him to let a bike pass without chasing it and trying to grab the cyclist's foot. But Pepper doesn't do any of that, so she often gets neglected in that respect which is completely my fault. I will try and put this right from now on though. She does occasionally get put on the lead for a short period of our walk though, mostly when we meet her nemesis - Monty the Miniature Schnauzer - because if I don't put her on the lead, she will try to start a fight with him. He is the only dog she's ever shown a dislike to and I think it's because he's quite reactive and barks if he meets other dogs, plus, I'm positive that one day I let him say hello to them only for him to jump all over them, barking. Ever since that, Pepper has shown dislike for him (but is fine with other miniature Schnauzers). And she sometimes gets put on the lead if she's dawdling behind too otherwise it could take us forever to get to wherever we're going. But she's always let off the lead again while we're still on our way to the field so there's no bad association with the lead. The only time I shout angrily is if I know that whatever she's doing could be dangerous, but it's not a conscious thing because I know that's counter productive. Even on Saturday, I'd shouted her in what was probably an angry tone, but was meant to be urgent, and then I immediately changed it to try and sound happier while I was holding a treat out to her. The smell of the takeaway was much stronger/more appealing than my bit of dehydrated venison though, which is why she still went through the fence I think. None of the dogs I have at the minute have been trained around roads as we rarely walk anywhere near them. Perhaps it's something I should work on, I don't know. The underpass is usually as close as we get to a road and normally none of the dogs show an interest in going up that bank. I know that's not an excuse though as I should expect the unexpected!
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Post by smilesbetter on Apr 21, 2015 21:29:47 GMT
It is hard to fight a takeaway for attention haha. If I were you, I'd start doing recall just for fun on your walks and giving nice treats with absolutely huge, very excited praise each time. I know it's hard to call excitedly when your dog is heading towards danger (and believe me, I've don't the switch to excited mid call so it's a really panicked "RO-" and then a super high pitched excited "SAAAA!!!" Hahaha).
Also I tend to use a specific commend for her coming back, I say "Here" but in a certain way "He-ya" with the "he" really long. Anyway the word just sounds exciting anyway haha, and she knows she always gets a great reward for that one, whereas her name is used a lot so it's not as exciting if you know what I mean, I mean I use her name all the time, but the "here" command only gets used when I'm calling her over, and she seems to think of it as almost a game it's so exciting, as she always gets a great reward. I don't only use that command for recall but that is my fail safe command that seems to always work. I often just call her name, but for really fun practice ones and in a situation where she absolutely has to come over to me, that one works best.
I'm also about to start training her to come back to a whistle, as ha never know when you might need to call your dog back at a big distance (if she's tearing off after something for example). I have a dog whistle and will make a point of making the whistle return reward really awesome, probably a treat, loads of excited praise and a game of tug or fetch. She won't be able to ignore that whistle once she learns that's what it results in!
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Post by alfiemummy on Apr 21, 2015 21:41:12 GMT
I'm also about to start training her to come back to a whistle, as ha never know when you might need to call your dog back at a big distance (if she's tearing off after something for example). I have a dog whistle and will make a point of making the whistle return reward really awesome, probably a treat, loads of excited praise and a game of tug or fetch. She won't be able to ignore that whistle once she learns that's what it results in! I've been training that with Alfie and the results have been brilliant (shame I didn't have my whistle this morning haha!) I have been using roast chicken for treats and it's like all his dreams have come true lol, as soon as he hears it he comes bombing over to me at a hundred miles an hour no matter what he's doing We are still proofing it outdoors though so haven't used it properly on walks yet.
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Post by orpheous87 on Apr 21, 2015 21:51:46 GMT
It is hard to fight a takeaway for attention haha. If I were you, I'd start doing recall just for fun on your walks and giving nice treats with absolutely huge, very excited praise each time. I know it's hard to call excitedly when your dog is heading towards danger (and believe me, I've don't the switch to excited mid call so it's a really panicked "RO-" and then a super high pitched excited "SAAAA!!!" Hahaha). Also I tend to use a specific commend for her coming back, I say "Here" but in a certain way "He-ya" with the "he" really long. Anyway the word just sounds exciting anyway haha, and she knows she always gets a great reward for that one, whereas her name is used a lot so it's not as exciting if you know what I mean, I mean I use her name all the time, but the "here" command only gets used when I'm calling her over, and she seems to think of it as almost a game it's so exciting, as she always gets a great reward. I don't only use that command for recall but that is my fail safe command that seems to always work. I often just call her name, but for really fun practice ones and in a situation where she absolutely has to come over to me, that one works best. I'm also about to start training her to come back to a whistle, as ha never know when you might need to call your dog back at a big distance (if she's tearing off after something for example). I have a dog whistle and will make a point of making the whistle return reward really awesome, probably a treat, loads of excited praise and a game of tug or fetch. She won't be able to ignore that whistle once she learns that's what it results in! Haha, your recall command sounds like mine. I haven't trained any of mine to 'heel' so 'here' is my recall command, with the first bit extended lol. I am going to start calling her back randomly during the walk I think, just to get her in to practice. I don't have a dog whistle, but I can wolf whistle really well and I have been known to use that to get her attention and then call her immediately afterwards. That usually works. Cody has been trained with a whistle, but then my brother lost the whistle, so it doesn't get used as often as it did.
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