Training Issues

[Denise]

I started obedience training Hannah when she was about 5 months old. She started out great, in fact she was exceptional, after puppy classes were over we moved on to the next stage. Hannah wound up being the only pup finishing two sets of classes using a flat collar, and than we started trying to train her for Rally O. All of a sudden she started acting disinterested and actually refusing to do what you asked her to do. These are all things like sit and stay, watch me, down, she has done before and with no probolems and loving it. Now its a big deal to keep her attention. She loose's interest in doing obedience training and than I get fustrated with her and just walk away. If I try and stay persistant about it, it only become worse. I also can not get this dog to stop nipping or nipping at people who she thinks has food or something for her. Now I feel I need to call in the dog whisper for her. I just dont know how to keep her interested in obedience training and have used food, that she has also bitten me while trying to train her using treats. Suggestions are greatly appericated.

[Denise]

Hannah was about 7 to 7 1/2 months when she started to change and act this way, yes we have worked with gentle taking of treats, but she now has her own means of getting them by doing this nipping and bitting. I will also revist training with her on this issue and practice holding food in my hand and making her take it easy and tiny bites. I do use treats to train Hannah with, hot dog bites, cheese, sometimes will use sausage bites or chicken cut up for her as a change. This is also how she started jumping up and nipping at people and myself thinking she is getting treats and it hurts when she bites or nips you. . I also use firm voice reflections with her and when she does wrong its always a firm "NO" and move on changing her from bad to good. I have gone from using a flat collar to a flat - semi chocker collar and she still acts this way at time. (Sorry forget the name of the collar) but it is not totally a choke collar. Sometimes she acts like she just wants to play all the time, and feels she does not have to do anything else but be good at home. I do see Hannah acting as though she is bored, and why she wants to play, play, play....but I also sometimes thinks she hates me or just does not want to be with me doing this. I have never seen a doodle with a standoffish type attitude, and yet is just the opposite for others. My friends who I pet sit for, when I go to visit is all over me when we get there, it takes him 5 minutes to calm down, I was away from Hannah for about a week and a half she stayed with my sister due to moving, and when I picked her up, she was happy to see me, but it like lasted 2 seconds. How do I get her love back and attention....she means everything to me, and this hurts me to see her act like this. I just don't know how else to describe her and how she acts...Thanks for all the tips...Denise and Hannah

[Adina P]

Some questions:
How old was she when things "turned" ? And now?
What type of treats are you using?
Have you worked specifically on gentle taking of treats?
Personally I prefer training that uses reward and correction so that there is a big black and white contrast between doing the right thing and the wrong thing (right/wrong defined by YOU).
However, there are a couple trainers on this site who do use treats...I'll message them to see if they would stop by and give you their thoughts.