not coming when called.

[Ronnie & Emma]

hi guys i just want some tips on what i can do ..or what i am doing incorrectly

so my emma is pretty good with the come command inside the house. but, when she is outside she gets sooo distracted. she loves eating grass and exploring the scents around te backyard. so this is what happens...i bring her out for potty in the morning she's usually good . she comes back in.
later on the day..you bring her out . she does not really play much ..she jsut sits or lies on teh grass and just eat the grass. when she's focused again, i 'll tell her to come and get the toy in my hand.. she does. by the time, it is time to go back inside.. she does not go back in with me. she just lies on the grass and chill. i tried exaggerating my actions to have her come inside. i tried to pick her up and bring her inside for her to know it is time to go inside. i tried using treats to lure her inside.
but i find these actions..are doing the job for her. she' snot actually coming when called.

thanks

[Sandra Griffith]

What you are describing is very, very normal. Do try to end your training sessions before she is totally out of gas. Don't forget that a reward can also be a toss of the ball, a game of tug, or anything else that she enjoys. I usually preceed any play with my version of "say please". By this I mean that I ask the dog to do at least one thing before I initiate play (if I'm feeling lazy this may be as simple as a sit).

You want to keep the training at a level where success is high and gradually work up. This will prevent the concept of not having to do something in high distraction areas. You might start with easier stuff like treating you for eye contact when she is highly distracted.

I just finished reading a study done on cats in which they were exposed to a noise. Their brains were monitered and a section of their brain lit up in response to the noise. The cats were then shown a live mouse (a huge distraction of course). They were concurrently exposed to the same noise as before. As expected, they did not respond to the noise. What they did not expect is that their brains did not even register that the noise was occuring. This is similar to our response when we are so immersed in something that we do not even hear the doorbell, phone, or other normally perceived event. What this shows me is that sometimes the distraction is so absorbing that our smart little doods are not necessarily just deliberately ignoring us, but that perhaps they are just so caught up in all the excitement of smells and things going on around them in this new situation that they actually might not register our requests. This is why I like to start with teaching them to focus on us with the "watch me" in these situations.

Having said this, it sounds as though she is doing really well as are you. What a great team!!

[Minga & Malu & Costa]

Training sessions work best when you do them about 5-7 minutes at a time throughout the day.

[Melissa]

Lots of good advice here. Just curious are you going to enroll your pup in a puppy class? We have Buddy in one and it is great. Not only do they learn the basic commands, they also get social and play time with the other puppies and the other puppy owners. We are about halfway through and just learned the come command. Buddy still is learning it but our trainer also gave us clickers and showed us how to load them. Basically you hold the clicker behind your back so the pup cannot see it. THen you get them in the sit position and give them a treat. Once the treat hits the mouth you click twice. Just keep giving treats and clicking. Do this for a couple of minutes for a few days and you will be amazed that when you click it to get them to come they come. We did this with buddy. He runs up the stairs and when we want him to come back we just click it and he runs down. He knows he will get a treat. We also started saying COME when he got to us so that he associated the clicker with come. A few times when he ran up the stairs the last couple of days we said come with no clicker and he came. But in the meantime, it might help with outside. Load the clicker and then when she won't come back to you, click twice and she should come to you for her treat.

As a side note, when we load the clicker, we just use some of his dog food since he loves it. In class I have used boiled chicken or hotgot, but at home we just use pieces of his food and he is quite happy.

[Sandra Griffith]

I just wanted to add a side note to Melissa's suggestion on using the clicker. What she is describing is using a clicker as a "cue". The puppies are being trained that clicker="come". There is absolutely nothing wrong with this and can most certainly be a terrific method to get a puppy to come. This is just not traditional clicker training. In traditional clicker training, the clicker serves as a "marker" to mark any behaviour that you would like your dog to do at the precise moment that it is occuring. It has no inherent meaning in and of itself which is its value. The clicker is given meaning by loading the clicker as Melissa describes above: click the clicker followed by a treat. Once the dog understands that clicker=a treat will follow, it is ready to be used in actual training.

For example, say you wish to teach the dog to sit. When the dog sits, you click at the moment the dog sits. Follow the sit with a treat. Once the dog is offering a sit frequently (followed by a click and treat) during a training session (i.e., 10-20 times per minute), a cue is added just before the dog is about to sit. In this case it will most likely be the word sit, but it may be a hand gesture. The dog continues to be clicked and treated as before. Once the dog is reliably sitting when given the cue, the clicker may be eliminated. This process is used with any new behaviour.

Clickers are wonderful tools as they are neutral (no hidden agenda, meaning, fluctuation tone of voice, emotion, etc.), have no prior meaning, and allow the dog to be given information at the precise moment that a behaviour is occuring. This allows the dog to understand what we are asking of him much faster than traditional methods. Having been a traditional trainer (I started training professionally 30 years ago) before switching over to clicker training I've had a chance to see and work with both methods. I am clearly biased to clicker training (I'll admit it).

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[Melissa]

Thanks for the insight. We don't use the clicker in the method that you described, just commands and hand signals. But we might use the clicker for more advanced training. I just love the fact that I can FINALLY get Buddy to come, because he always thought he was playing a game. :)

[Ronnie & Emma]

yes i am planning to take emma to kindergarten classes. once she's fully vaccinated. just need her third shot!
she has been doing a lot better with the come command. if she does nto come i'll reel her with the trainign lead. or i just pick her up to come in.

[Lona and Bogart]

My Bogart is exactly like this. He is 10 months old, and I think that he's trying to tell me that he just wants to stay outside a little longer. However, unless HE decides to come back to the door, he's not coming back. I had a bad experience tonight and blogged about it, my second blog ever so I also hope I get some help. I want to follow your blog but am not sure I know how. Mine was titled "My dog went for a run without my permission"

[Lona and Bogart]

.

Tonight my doodle and I were coming home from work and stopped at the mailbox. The voice teacher across the street sings in her soprano voice, "BO Gart" and he asks permission to get out. I let him out, holding his leash and then she sings his name again and he bolts, pulling the leash from my hand, runs across the street and then just as she reaches out to grab the leash, he bolts.


He played dodge in the vacant lot with the three of us (she had a friend wanting to meet him) trying to get him to come. At one point he runs in the street, so now I'm standing in the street slowing down traffic because I'm terrified, yes I would have taken a hit for him!!! A young man with a yorkie who lives close by comes over with the yorkie under his arm, and true to nature, the yorkie is yapping like crazy. Greg is hoping that the Yorkie will entice Bogart to come. It almost works and then---he bolts at the last minute. Out of the blue he squats to poop and I scream to Greg "TACKLE HIM"! And bless his heart, he does. So here's my question, these kinds of things are life and death, what do you do when something like this happens? My sheepdog friends used a shock collar (mildly) and Mr MaGoo minds WELL. I never considered that, but tonight, if I had one on him, I would have locked him down!!!


I'd love feed back with any ideas. I know that I don't have a lot of time for training, but in the past when I've kept a dog with me 24/7, they learned so well because life was so structured and they were told the same things over and over "that's training, isn't it?"


I'm helplessly in love, but need advice.
love my Doddle like crazy. I take him to work with me every day at my real estate office. He is 10 months old and he adores all the people that come in. A new thing I have started doing is taking him to "doggy day care" one day a week. It started when his best friend, an old english sheepdog (whose "parents" are my best friends) parents told me about his groomer, He goes once a week, but he goes for the whole day. All the dogs are loose in this wonderful little house that's been converted into a grooming studio. And, they give him a bath at the end of the day, so he comes home tired AND CLEAN. Once a month they do a face feet and fanny. So Bogart is socialized with strangers at the office all week and then socialized with other dogs once a week. Everybody loves him, just like everybody loves your doodle too! Maybe he's learning bad behavior there? NO, he was doing this before that. !!!