gypsy84 Posted April 1, 2007 Report Share Posted April 1, 2007 I've been working with Gypsy since I first got her, and she's learned so much it's amazing. She is now just over 5 months old and 99.99% housetrained (she had the first accident yesterday in over a month because I was cleaning my room and not watching her... but it was on the mat at the back door anyways ). She pretty well socialized, we try and take her to the dog park as often as we can and she's really good with other dogs, although she is a bit wary of intimidating looking people (scarves and sunglasses really can be scary!). She knows a lot of commands: sit, down, stay, come, stand, wait, back up, roll over (both ways), spin(both ways), hi five (both), paw (both), dead, crawl, get around (to heel position), heel (on and off leash, although she still gets distracted easily and likes walking ahead ), over, go through (for tunnels, and also weaving through my legs as I walk), touch (any toy or treat with her paw without taking it), and target (usually my hand, she'll touch it with her nose and follow it). I haven't registered for obedience lessons yet, she doesn't need them, but I still want to take her to get used to concentrating a bit better around distractions. I just want to wait until after she's spayed (gonna get it done around 6 months) so that we don't have to miss a couple of classes. Then when shes about a year old, I'm gonna register her for agility classes. Right now I'm trying to work on her listening 100% of the time whether I have a treat or not, as right now she'll listen 100% of the time when she knows I've got a treat, and choose when she wants to listen when she knows I haven't got one. Maybe part of the problem is that I do the majority of her training at her dinner time, so she knows it's a routine and she'll get a whole bunch of kibbles if she listens. I still give her random commands and rewards thoughout the day though. I guess what I'm trying to ask is, what is the best way to get her respect and attention just a bit more so she'll want to listen all the time no matter what? Also, what kinds of things should I work on with her next? I live in the city and theres no way I'd be able to access sheep so herding is out of the question (although I think it would be really neat to learn for both of us) and she's much too young to start agility or flyball or anything like that. Any feedback would be appreciated. Lisa Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dobro_21 Posted April 1, 2007 Report Share Posted April 1, 2007 That is awesome, im not sure what else u could train. I cant wait tell i get my BC trained :-) he is 2 months old and we are starting training, im doing it the clicker way. how did you train your Border COllie? or did i miss it in the post lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WyoBC Posted April 1, 2007 Report Share Posted April 1, 2007 That's great! You really have worked with her a lot. My Jack doesn't know half that yet but I'm working on it. I would just keep working on what she already knows, but change it up sometimes to keep it different. Obedience classes would be great even if she knows everything already. I would say enjoy doing that stuff with her now, and look forward to the obedience and agility. I have been asking Jack to sit before I throw his toy outside, and throw in some commands through out the day to work on his attention span. It seems to be working. Now if I leave his toy in the house he looks to me to see what he's supposed to do, and most of the time he'll pay attention to me when I'm talking to him. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClickMeBC Posted April 1, 2007 Report Share Posted April 1, 2007 She sounds like quite the trickster! It seems you guys have been having fun. As far as getting her to focus and "respect you" when you don't have treats on hand, why don't you try varying your training sessions? Instead of rewarding her with food for every trick she does, reward her every other trick, or perhaps use a quick, wild game of tug or a ball-toss as a reward. Keep her guessing - she'll never know what will come next and so her interest is held, even if you don't have a treat in hand at all times. Slowly reduce the amount of food she recieves and replace it with toys, praise, games and playing with just the occasional food reward(again, to keep it interesting). Obedience classes are one of the best ways to practice in the midst of the greatest distraction - other dogs. Training around other dogs I find is the true test of my dogs' ability to focus and I advise bringing lots of yummy cookies for her that first class! Keep up the good work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Root Beer Posted April 1, 2007 Report Share Posted April 1, 2007 One technique that I've heard about is this: Start off your training session using a lot of treats, but gradually start to vary the rewards. Then, toward the end of the training session, reward every single time. Continue this until you get to the point where you have quite a bit of training in the middle with less rewards, but always reward everything at the end. What the dog learns through this is that the big rewards are coming later. You make yourself rewarding by rewarding big at the end of the training sessions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gypsy84 Posted April 2, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 2, 2007 That is awesome, im not sure what else u could train. I cant wait tell i get my BC trained :-) he is 2 months old and we are starting training, im doing it the clicker way. how did you train your Border COllie? or did i miss it in the post lol I didn't use a clicker (I've never really looked into clicker training) but I trained my family's old dog and my sister's dog, as well as a couple freinds' dogs. I've been around dogs my whole life. I just mostly used her dinner to train her by giving her each piece individually, as well as other soft treats and biscuits. And LOTS of repetition Lately me and my bf have been taking her into our front yard for her evening training sessions, and at first she was hardly able to concentrate, but she's consistently getting better. And we take her to the dog park and let her play with the dogs and randomly work on her recall - which is 100% at the dog park, but about 85% near home - it seems like she's more distracted when we're around home. She's such a smart little doggy and I'm so proud of her Thanks for all the suggestions! Lisa Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hoku's mum Posted April 2, 2007 Report Share Posted April 2, 2007 Sounds like you and Gypsy are doing great. At her age I would start 'taking it on the road', take her different places and practice all the stuff she knows at home, at different times of day. Start with low distraction places, and work up to more distracting spots. My experience with Hoku is that his attention has gotten better with him growing up, but getting him out to lots of different places has really helped. Mix it all up, as others suggested, and think up some new stuff (one of our latest thing is walking up stairs backward ) Start using random reinforcement, only treat for the quickest down, the longest crawl, etc (always always always big party for recall!) Have fun! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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