Pent up energy, teenage angst or training lapse?

[BG and Gavin]

Gavin is 14.5 months old.  His behaviour in the house is near perfect (knows and performs all of his commands, impecible manners at the door and with house guests, free reign of the house when home alone and does not touch a thing, super-responsive).  However, recently I have noticed a decline in positive behaviour outdoors (more pully on the leash, jumping up on people, becoming over-excited and jumping up on ME and biting my hands, inattentive - less eye-contact).

Some facts:

- we have been out of formal training since April

- he gets two 30-45 minute walks every day

- he gets lots of play time in the back yard including tons of tennis ball catching/fetch

What do people think?

[Camilla and Darwin]

How recent was it? Could it be the new season? Smells, temperature, leaves, etc? Darwin is a lot more distracted when it's windy...

Maybe it's just a teenage stage?

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

I'm sure no expert on this, but I do think they can "forget" their training from time to time. I know this is the case with Guinness. We trained regularly (several times a week) along with formal classes prior to his TDI certification. Once we got that, I pretty much stopped the training. Now from time to time he does seem to "lose" it and test the waters, particularly on his walks. When this happens we go back into "training mode" for a couple of weeks, and things are fine again. For him, training is not a "one and done" thing. He seems to need the regular reinforcement to keep up his skills. It may be the same with Gavin, and he may just need for you to give him a "refresher" course.

[Adina P]

Use it or lose it! No matter how well trained a dog is if it is not asked to do the things it was trained to do and/or those things are not enforced....

[Adina P]

Are you saying on walks he's ignoring your commands (disobedience vs. Obedience) or that without any commands he is acting this way? If he's ignoring commands then it is an obedience/training issue. If he's not on command then maybe he needs to be. Then it becomes an obedience/training issue. That is my amateur assessment.

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

Actually that's a really good distinction. As I think about it, I think I"M the one that gets complacent with Guinness. I'm sure that I'm not even giving him the commands much of the time, so it's no wonder he thinks that he can do whatever he feels like. We'll be on a walk, and I'll notice that he's pulling and "doing his own thing". That's when I put him back into a heel. I should have had him in the heel right from the beginning of the walk. Always learning....

[Adina P]

I'm mixed on this. And I may be totally wrong but I think as long as you DO use a dog's commands regularly, it's okay to give them casual walks too once they are really solid in obedience. Rosco walks in a loose heel (off command, casual walk) and then I call him to heel if I think I need him near me (distraction up ahead or something like that). Clark disagrees and thinks I should nearly always walk Rosco in heel.

I think if a dog truly can't handle himself making his own choices, then it's helpful to just decide for him by giving him something to do (heel, sit, stay, etc) and if he's NOT at the point where he CAN obey those easily...then that dog needs more obedience work and very little in the way of 'casual' walks.

[BG and Gavin]

So on walks, we do casual loose-leash with periods of heel during the walk. He also always is made to sit at every corner, every time. Recent problems during the walk include: lunging at a squirrel, pulling both on heel and loose leash, not responding (looking at me) when I say his name, needed two or three leash corrections to sit at each corner, head on a swivel.

[Adina P]

Do you use corrections during for breaking heel? If so describe when/how you do it. Are they different than a correction for not loose leash walking? What is your criteria for 'loose - leash' and how diff is it from 'heel'? If you don't use corrections for heel breaks or non-loose leash walking describe briefly how you would work him around a new distraction with reward to help him succeed and reduce breaks from heel in the future (because he might need more of THIS kind of work in squirrel rich places or with planned surprise distractions). Essentially he just may need some focused work around similar distractions to what has been messing hin up lately.

[BG and Gavin]

During loose leash if he gets close to the end - before he pulls, I say "wait" and he will usually slow up. If he doesn't I give his leash a tug. If he again draws it tight, I will stop, put him "by me" and heel a bit. On loose leash I give him about 4 ft of leash and he is expected not to draw it tight, so he has about 3.5 feet of "play."

During the heel if he pulls he gets "hey" and a leash tug. I use a prong collar with him, but it is on the dead ring so doesn't tighten. Hmmm maybe I should put it on the tightening ring for a bit to better get his attention. What do you think?

I give plenty of verbal praise when he is doing things right (he is not very food motivated) and occasionally a treat. Doing things right means staying at heel, keeping a loose leash and a jackpot is when he looks at me.

[Adina P]

During the heel if he pulls he gets "hey" and a leash tug
Since heel is pretty tightly defined, he may need a correction before he pulls...sounds like you're letting him get too far out of position prior to the correction. I would drop the warning 'hey' entirely for something as strict as heel. With loose leash the boundaries aren't as tight and it's sort of depends on each person, but heel is pretty strictly defined.

[Adina P]

Oh also what is the average length of time/distance (approximate) you heel him during a casual walk? In other words do you intersperse 5-6 steps of heeling every so often or do you break out in 5 min of heeling or...?

Also.... You mentioned he sits at corners...does he do an auto sit when you stop walking while heeling? Is he good with turns (left, right, about turn) while heeling? Can you heel toward and by distractions (including other dogs) in heel with pretty good results normally?

[BG and Gavin]

I make him heel for about a block at a time and I put him in heel near distractions. The ratio of time spent loose leash versus heeling is about 9:1 (likely less when hubby walks him). He does not autosit. This puzzles me because he has to sit at least 15 times a day at 15 different corners, 7 days a week for the past 365 days. But I have to ask for it every time. Either he is thick or stubborn or I am :)

Distractions tend to dismantle the heel, even though we face plenty of them each day. At the cottage there are few (people and dog) distractions on our quiet lane and I can just lay the leash around my neck (no hands) and he does great.