Distracted Disobedient Puppy

[Runry]

Hi everyone,

I am after some advice on my gorgeous 19 moth old girl Scout. She is a pet, I have a couple of cows and will buy some chook's soon so she does get a bit of the farm life but no flock of sheep unfortunately. Where I live in Tasmania there aren't any places I can take her for good training such as flyball so I am taking her to intermediate puppy school for an hour a week but she is not very treat motivated so she doesn't respond like the other dogs. I take her to the beach or for walks off leash around my property at least twice a day for an hour or so, just gentle strolls mostly. The beaches here mostly deserted in winter and she stays close by and the quiet area I live in means I can walk her along the road and without danger from people of traffic. The problem is that she is good most of the time and stays with me or close by but when she sees somebody she will run to them and no matter how much I call her back she doesn't listen. She is an extremely friendly dog that loves people which is possibly due to the fact that it's just her and I most of the time and generally the people love her because she is cute and loving. The other problem I have is the creek on my properly is full of rabbits and wallabies and I can not get her to come when she decides to chase one. I can't really blame her for this, she's a puppy and they are pretty tempting even for a well trained dog. She just chases for a few minutes and comes back happy, she never takes off or wanders away when we are at home and she has every opportunity to. So I feel as though she doesn't' see me as the boss, I do love her to bits and baby her so that possibly doesn't help. I don't want to have her on the lead all of the time, she's a super smart dog and I should be able to teach her to come and heal and the lead will be hardly used. What are the best ways to train her to do what I say always and not just when she wants to. She can sit and drop and shake hands and all of those things they teach at puppy school but I would prefer it if she would just come to me.

And one other problem… sorry I know this is really long

My husband works at sea 5 weeks on and 5 weeks off. Scout loves him, she gets the whole body tail wagging puppy love going every time he walks into the room, not so much for me but maybe thats because I am always around. He left for sea the first time a few weeks ago she really misses him, she looks for him and sulks. Everyday she runs inside and jumps at his side of the bed to see if he is there and gets really upset when she can't find him. I thought this would only last a couple of days but almost 3 weeks on it almost seems worse. It breaks my heart and I'm not sure what to do to make her feel better, any advice would be great.

 

Thanks everyone for reading this long post

[teresaserrano]

Hi

She's not being disobedient, she's just not well enough trained to be able to respond under big distractions. Try putting her on a long light line, 30 or 40 feet long. She drags it around and can run free, and if you need to call her it's easy to catch the line first and then call her. If she doesn't come, reel her in. Don't call her if you can see she probably won't come and you can't make her do it, as it will just teach her the come command is irrelevant. Always praise and reward when she comes, even if you had to reel her in. Make coming to you really interesting.

 

Never scold for comming, even if she did it late and reluctant. Practice a lot with litlle distractions and add bigger distractions slowly. Sometimes we think because the dog comes without big distractions, we only have to practice in the situations she fails, but it really helps to practice when we know she won't fail, it builds the memory of doing the command. Eventually the come command will be instinctual to her, she hears it and comes right away even with distractions, but that takes time and a lot of practice.

[Runry]

Thanks Teresa,

 

That's great advice, I will purchase a long line straight away. I love giving her the freedom of her own space so this will work well And don't worry I am well aware it's the training and not the dog, she's a smart girl and I soon discovered I needed training more than she did! I tend to watch her allot and try to figure out what is going on in that head of hers instead of just barking commands at her because generally I end up just repeating myself and like you say it makes the command irrelevant. Do you think I am expecting too much from her at this age or should she already be following these basic commands?

Thanks Again

[teresaserrano]

At a year and a half I expect a dog to have dificulty with comands when there are distractions. My Tess is aproaching 2 yo and finally being calm enough with big distractions. But keep practicing, we can't just sit and wait for maturity to kick in. A bit like with kids, you spend years making sure they brush their teeth, then sudenly you don't have to anymore, it just became part of life

[Riika]

You will get lots of great advice on here,(you already have received some) but if you want to pay for more advice and more than just a recall, here is a link. http://www.brilliantrecalls.com/fe/68894-recallers-60

 

Susan Garrett is opening her recallers 6.0 soon. Don't know how much it costs but it might be something to look into if you want a positive only approach.

[chene]

I would also suggest seeing if some of your friends could help you out and practice her not going over to other people. Still with a long line just in case, but start when she is under threshold and as soon as a person shows up call her to you and give her something really good, and then release her to go see the person (this is the most important). Even if there are times in real life she won't be able to go see the person, if she understands that 99% of the time going to you isn't mutually exclusive with seeing a person (and gets her a good reward, to boot) then she'll be way more likely to want to come to you. Ideally, after a while she'll start offering it on her own, seeing a person and coming to you first.

P.S. If she's not motivated by even the best things (give bits of cheap raw meat a shot, you might be surprised), try a really exciting, crazy game of tug, or a huge amount of praise, get really excited. There's got to be something she really likes.

[ourwully]

My Juno is now 20 months and the behaviours you are describing are exactly the same. Juno has always been a super friendly dog and reliable most of the time. When I walk in the woods with Juno I put her on a 15 foot lead that is about as thin as a strong shoelace. I cut the loop off at the end so it won't catch. I got it at the dollar store for $1.50. She runs free in the woods and comes except for the big distractions. I wouldn't even bother with the long lead except that I worry she will jump on an old person or fly at a mountain biker. The long lead allows me to have her off the leash and still feel confident that she won't hurt someone, or herself, by accident. I have done a lot of training with Juno, I have incorporated many suggestions from this forum, and I have used the Really Reliable Recall video but at the end of the day I think a great deal has to do with maturity. I was on vacation for 3 weeks so my 80 year old mum looked after Juno. She got short walks, a little training, and lots of being spoiled so I was wondering how she (Juno, my mum is another story) would be. To my surprise, she is better than ever. As the maturity kicks in the training seems to get easier. All that said and done I am still working on loose lead walking with distractions. I am following a training protocol (see another thread on this forum) and I am stuck on level four because I am stuck on the task of walking her loose lead for 80 feet through milling dogs or other distractions.

 

By the way, I was in Tasmania in 1982. What a beautiful place!!

[Cass C]

I've found the most important thing to remember with recall training is there is no such thing as a bad come. It doesn't matter if the dog didn't immediately bolt to you as long as they get there make it into a party the second they get to you. Also give lots of super savory treats for successful recall that you will only use for recall (boiled chicken and hot dogs are a big hit with my dogs).

 

Like someone else said don't even bother calling your dog if you know they aren't going to come. For my dogs it was while greeting another dog or person I would physically go get them. They are better than they used to be, but they are also both under 2 years old.

[ourwully]

The age of two seems to come up a lot in this and other threads on this forum. Considering the fact that the majority of the people on this forum are committed dog owners I think it is probably safe to say that quite a few Border Collies are likely to take at least to two to mature, regardless of the training. I have been on this forum for over a year now and often I felt frustrated with my results given the amount of effort I was putting in. I also think every dog is different. There is another Border Collie in town that was regularly attending the farmer's market at the age of 6 months yet my Juno would have gone wild with all the action around her. I think she will be okay now but it won't be perfect. There will be a lot of the Look at That game going on to keep her calm.

 

It would be interesting to have a survey from a large number of Border Collie owners that asked the question, " At what point did you think your Border Collie matured." This might be useful information for all the prospective Border Collie owners that frequent this forum.

[mbc1963]

I went to the local shelter today (just browsing!), and they have a beautiful, soft, blue merle 8-month old Aussie or BC mix. He's long and lanky. (Maybe Aussie/hound?)

 

I took him to the little "meet and greet" pen, and once inside, it became obvious that he was the dog equivalent of Noah, a student I have this year. Noah is a delightful and incredibly smart student. But I have him every day after lunch, and he simply CANNOT get himself to focus on any academic pursuit. He just wants to run and wrestle and talk really loudly. Super ADHD.

 

I realized that it would be best for both of us if I didn't bring home a canine eighth grader.

 

Good luck!

[GentleLake]

Keep in mind that dogs in shelters often don't act "normally". They're so starved for attention and so frustrated at being cooped up that they'll often go crazy when they do get out of their pens and get some attention. So this may not be who he'll really be in more normal circumstances.

 

Some shelters will allow people to take a dog home for a trial period. If you want to see how he'd settle in, it night be worth asking about the possibility and trying to negotiate the longest trial they'll allow.

[GentleLake]

Hmmm . . . this just came into my inbox. Maybe it'll help you. I'm going to try it on my very food motivated but recall challenged lurcher (though I'll have to use a different whistle -- I can't use a shepherds' whistle to save my life ).

 

http://moderndogmagazine.com/articles/5-steps-speedy-recall-even-distance/78044